"What is that!?"
Far different from the previous azure form.
It was a special "Rasengan" with an even more terrifying aura!
At close range...
That chilling aura rushing toward his face...
Caused Kakashi's expression to turn grim as never before.
A premonition of danger surfaced in his heart—a threat named death that could be clearly felt.
But Kakashi had no path of retreat.
Buzz!
He could only unleash his chakra without limit. He couldn't, and shouldn't, hold anything back. It was no longer a matter of hesitating whether to use lethal force, but a moment where he had to preserve his own life.
His Sharingan spun wildly, locking firmly onto Menma who was rushing straight at him, while he controlled his chakra with near-perfect precision.
Frame by frame, he broke down and locked onto Menma's movements.
Zzzzzzz!
The lightning bloomed to its extreme.
A terrifying power filled the space between heaven and earth.
The surging waves of energy thoroughly converged together.
"Is that?"
"Kakashi-sensei?"
"Is that Menma's current strength!?"
In the distance.
The four who had been engaged in combat for a while and had temporarily separated...
Upon seeing the powerful strength displayed by both Kakashi and Menma, all revealed expressions of varying degrees.
Among them, Naruto's expression at this moment was the most shaken and pained.
This was a situation he absolutely did not want to see.
But currently, he was powerless to change the situation before him. Even Sasuke opposite him had adopted a stance of intent to kill.
This caused Naruto's heart to suffer massive trauma once again.
He truly couldn't accept why their Team 7 had come to this point.
But even so.
Naruto wouldn't give up on his way of thinking.
Just like the obsession he developed in the original story, in this life, he would still hold firm to his goal—whether it was Menma or Sasuke.
"I will definitely bring you both back, even if I have to break your arms and legs!!"
Naruto roared as he faced Sasuke, who was charging at him with a cold expression, head-on.
Meanwhile, in the center, Menma had absolutely no idea what his "cheap brother" was thinking.
At this moment, his eyes saw only Kakashi at close range.
That chakra compressed to the extreme.
Perfectly intersecting and then fusing with the Nine-Tails chakra.
That extreme color of darkness it produced.
"Kakashi, today, this place will be your grave!"
A cold aura spread out.
Menma's figure dove down.
On his single hand, contrasting with the dim, sharp colors that flashed into existence...
"Great Spiralling Ring (Rasenringu)!"
Pressing forward.
He slammed it down violently.
"Lightning Cutter (Raikiri)!!"
An unavoidable clash.
Reflected in Kakashi's pupils was Menma's face, full of murderous intent.
The power of thunder thrusting upward from below.
In plain sight.
The two collided with a boom.
Bang!!!!
The Rasenringu and Raikiri crashed together at the extreme. The light and shadow intertwined, bursting forth with intense colors.
"!?"
Rumble!
A vibration that seemed capable of shaking heaven and earth.
Airwaves exploded abruptly.
Spreading out layer by layer.
Directly beneath it...
The massive chakra that could be clearly sensed... after an initial stalemate, his own chakra was blatantly being swallowed back up—something he could both sense and see.
Kakashi's pupils contracted sharply.
"Haa!"
He struggled to squeeze out the last shred of power.
Trying his hardest to push the chakra back.
However.
"Foolish."
Menma merely moved his lips. The second after he softly spat out those two words...
Boom!
The jutsu detonated with full force.
Whoosh!
Boom!!
"Am I going to die here?"
Feeling the chilling fluctuation already right in front of him, only able to barely shift his body...
A look of gray despair surfaced in Kakashi's pupils.
The next second.
A sound of extreme booming.
Accompanied by one last violent tremor...
Swish!
The shadow of lightning that had been completely enveloped vanished entirely.
At the point of impact...
Kakashi's figure flew backward violently.
His body smashed fiercely onto the riverbank.
Swish!
Dragging out an incredibly deep gouge in the ground, his body was clearly battered and broken.
A terrifying depression was visible on his abdomen.
Blargh!
And a massive amount of blood spewed from his mouth.
A pale face, extremely weak chakra.
Even though the Raikiri had canceled out most of the power, the remaining destructive force had still easily inflicted heavy injuries on this "Mr. 50/50."
A trembling figure.
Trying to stand up, but finding it extremely difficult.
Tap, tap, tap, tap.
Hearing the clear sound of footsteps approaching his ear...
Kakashi barely lifted his eyelids, watching Menma approach step by step.
It was the same indifferent face as always, wrapped in a chilling killing intent from head to toe.
And not far away, there was already a scene of carnage.
The remaining few Root members had already been easily slaughtered by Menma's shadow clones.
His nerves were completely stimulated by this.
'Cough, cough... Perhaps this is the debt of sin I owe, and it is time for me to pay the price...'
Kakashi looked up with difficulty at Menma, who had already arrived in front of him. With an expression that seemed both miserable and relieved, he thought silently in his heart.
"Menma, perhaps everything is the village's fault, our fault... but Naruto is innocent. He knows nothing. And moreover, he is your biological brother. Cough, cough... Minato-sensei... and Kushina-san would definitely not want to see you brothers killing each other, Menma... Menma... at least, at least leave a final bit of room for you brothers..."
Kakashi looked at Menma and spoke in an incredibly weak tone, almost pleading.
Menma's expression, which had been like ten-thousand-year-old ice, finally showed some emotion upon hearing the names of his parents in this life.
Having been in this world for 12 years, even though Menma subconsciously still treated his parents and brother from his previous life as his true family—and had even genuinely considered the seemingly unrealistic idea of one day traversing the stars like the Otsutsuki clan to find his way back home...
Ultimately, his life in this world was given by his parents in this life.
Minato Namikaze, Kushina Uzumaki.
They were undoubtedly his parents as well.
Menma couldn't truly be so cold as to easily discard or trample upon that affection.
'Father, Mother...'
Two familiar figures surfaced in his mind.
A trace of faint complexity flowed through Menma's pupils.
But only a second later...
It was suppressed by Menma himself.
"You don't need to worry about that, Kakashi Hatake."