A dense swarm of black shadows.
As the barrage blotted out the sky, the icy chill of cold steel shrieked through the air.
"Sage Art: Great Breakthrough!"
With nowhere to dodge, Naruto didn't panic or hesitate. He slapped his hands together, blazing through hand signs. Utilizing the massive amount of Senjutsu Chakra refined within his body, he channeled it directly to his chest.
Fwoooosh!
A monstrous gale erupted in an instant.
The sheer force of it rivaled an S-rank forbidden jutsu.
Clatter!
Clang!
Clang!
Tink-tink-tink-tink!
The hurricane-force winds violently blew the incoming kunai away, clearing the sky in less than a second!
The terrifying power on display was far beyond the reach of ordinary shinobi. A single careless movement or misplaced jutsu in this clash could easily butcher a normal ninja. Even Jonin—the elite who stood at the absolute peak of the ninja hierarchy—were nothing more than slightly tougher ants in the presence of the Menma and Naruto right now.
And both of them were only thirteen years old.
Being a ninja was indeed a profession where hard work paid off.
However...
Talent and bloodline were the true, ultimate deciding factors.
It was an impassable chasm that no amount of hard work could ever cross.
Watching this version of Naruto, Menma's desire to crush him grew even stronger.
Clap!
Menma formed a single hand seal.
A subtle tremor rippled through space.
As a flash of crimson light bloomed—
What!?
In the blink of an eye, Menma vanished from his position directly in front of them.
As Naruto's pupils shrank to pinpricks, Fukasaku, perched on his left shoulder, reacted in less than a tenth of a second.
"Fall back! Naruto!!" the old toad screamed, his entire body shuddering with alarm.
Swish!
But even before Fukasaku could finish shouting, a crimson blur materialized in Naruto's forward right blind spot.
The Sword of the Thunder God was already raised high.
At point-blank range, it was aimed directly at Naruto's vitals.
Slash!
Menma thrust the blade downward with vicious force.
!?
A point-blank teleportation strike.
It was an attack that completely bypassed the concept of speed.
Under circumstances where even the fastest reflexes would struggle to respond, Naruto could only rely on the hyper-heightened perception of Sage Mode and sheer instinct to throw himself out of the way.
Swish!
He simultaneously swung a kunai up, desperately trying to parry Menma's attack mid-air. In a split second of flashing steel, it was an attack he simply couldn't block in time.
Clang!
The blade barely grazed the kunai.
More importantly, Naruto had only managed to shift his body a fraction of an inch.
Squelch!
The Sword of the Thunder God found its mark. Though Naruto had narrowly avoided a fatal blow to his organs, the glowing blade plunged straight into the left side of his abdomen.
Skin tore.
An icy, piercing coldness flooded his body.
Pain violently shuddered along his nervous system.
Bzzzzzzzt!
Menma intentionally surged Lightning Chakra through the blade. Though it wasn't his most devastating Lightning jutsu, channeled through the Sword of the Thunder God, it was agonizing.
"Gah!?"
The intensified agony tore a cry of pain from Naruto's lips.
His face contorted in absolute agony.
"Little Naruto!"
The ambush and the resulting injury had happened in less than a second.
Fukasaku and Shima both paled. In perfect synchronization, the two old toads slammed their palms together.
"Sage Art: Wind Release Dust Cloud!"
"Sage Art: Toad Oil Bullet!"
A perfectly combined jutsu unique to the Myōboku toads.
Facing the incoming blast...
Crash!
Menma manipulated his Nine-Tails Chakra, forming a massive, solid fox tail right in front of him.
Boom!
The tail blocked the attack.
However...
Ssssssss!!!
An ear-piercing sizzle erupted as a highly corrosive force rapidly ate into the chakra construct.
The barrier was pierced.
The combined attack shot straight toward Menma underneath.
Menma's eyes narrowed.
With no time to formulate a secondary defense, Menma yanked the Sword of the Thunder God free with a horizontal slash and threw himself backward.
Swish!
Squelch!
He dodged the attack, but the blade tore a secondary gash as it was ripped from Naruto's flesh.
"Gah!"
Even though Naruto had dodged a fatal strike and the two toads had prevented Menma from following up with a killing blow, the damage was done.
Naruto used the momentary opening to distance himself again.
But the horrific wound on his abdomen, pouring out a massive amount of blood, caused his chakra signature to noticeably weaken.
That was Dad's Flying Thunder God...
Compared to the jutsu Menma had just used, everything else seemed utterly insignificant.
Staring at Menma, who stood a short distance away looking as cold and indifferent as ever, a look of pure disbelief filled Naruto's golden-ringed eyes.
"The Flying Thunder God!? The space-time jutsu invented by that little Tobirama kid, the one only little Minato managed to master?" Shima exclaimed from the right shoulder, her face a picture of shock.
"Yeah. I never expected that kid across from us to master it too. This is really bad. With that jutsu, he can attack from anywhere, at any time. Little Naruto, we need to retreat. We can't keep fighting a war of attrition here. If we stay, we won't be able to keep you alive," Fukasaku said, taking a deep breath, his expression incredibly grim.
Empowered by the Nine-Tails Chakra Mode, Menma's raw combat stats already suppressed Naruto's. Now, he also had a game-breaking ability like the Flying Thunder God. Even though Fukasaku could tell Menma's mastery of the jutsu wasn't perfect yet, the sheer utility of it was simply too overpowered.
Spatial teleportation.
It was truly impossible to defend against!
It was so fast that even the Fourth Raikage had nearly died to Minato. If Killer B hadn't been there to fight alongside his brother, covering each other's blind spots, Minato would have slaughtered him.
In a pure one-on-one fight, B could rely on the Eight-Tails' absurd durability to tank Minato's attacks, but A would have definitely died there.
The Lightning Release Chakra Mode was an incredible defense, but Minato's attacks would have eventually broken through it.
Naruto was now in the exact same position as the Fourth Raikage. Facing the Flying Thunder God, raw speed was utterly useless. Unless you reached the absolute physical limit—like Might Guy—relying purely on physical speed and reaction time to counter a space-time jutsu was impossible.
Otherwise, you were just a sitting duck.
Naruto realized this all too clearly.
Is it still not enough? With this much power, can I still not catch up to him!?
Naruto bit his lower lip hard, his golden eyes filled with overwhelming frustration.
Countless thoughts flashed through his mind in a single instant, causing him to hesitate.
"Little Naruto!!"
Seeing Naruto actually hesitating, Fukasaku panicked.
He shouted sharply.
Naruto jolted, instantly snapping out of it. Clarity returned to his eyes.
"I understand!" he replied, giving a heavy nod.
Clap!
He immediately formed hand signs.
"Sage Art: Divine Gale Jutsu!"
A massive surge of Senjutsu Chakra poured out.
Fwooosh!
A howling gale erupted, instantly kicking up a massive cloud of dust and debris, completely obscuring vision across the battlefield.
Fukasaku performed hand signs in perfect sync, amplifying the jutsu's power, whipping up a violent storm that physically separated the battlefield.
"Ma!" Fukasaku shouted, turning to Shima on the other shoulder.
"Yeah, I'm on it, Pa!" Shima nodded firmly.
She slapped her palms together.
Poof!
With a burst of white smoke, Shima vanished from Naruto's shoulder, reverse-summoning herself back to the toads' exclusive summoning realm—Mount Myōboku.
With Shima gone, the intake and conversion of Nature Energy immediately destabilized.
Fortunately, Naruto truly possessed an unparalleled talent for Senjutsu. With Fukasaku's support and preparation, he managed to barely maintain Sage Mode.
Stall!
They only needed to stall for two or three seconds.
Once back at Mount Myōboku, Shima could use the Reverse Summoning Jutsu to pull Naruto directly to the toad realm.
However, in that exact moment—
As the roaring winds fueled by Senjutsu Chakra swept across the field, Menma's eyes narrowed.
This didn't feel like an attack. It felt like a cover smoke.
A jolt of alarm flared in Menma's mind, and his aura instantly turned freezing cold.
Swish!
Still gripping the Sword of the Thunder God with one hand—
Boom!
Unleashing a terrifying wave of chakra, Menma completely ignored the incoming hurricane. He blurred forward, charging straight into the storm.
Mid-charge...
He clearly sensed a chakra signature completely vanish.
Menma froze for a fraction of a second, but within a tenth of a second, he realized exactly what had happened.
Reverse Summoning Jutsu!?
As the name of the jutsu flashed through his mind, Menma instantly deduced Naruto and the toads' plan. A mocking sneer curled his lips.
Hummm!
With a single thought—
Clatter!
Four massive, incredibly thick golden chains erupted violently from Menma's body, shooting straight toward the chakra signature he had firmly locked onto!
Boom!
The sheer force of the incoming chakra shattered the gale.
At the absolute limit of time...
Simultaneously, Shima, having arrived at Mount Myōboku, completed her hand signs.
Clap!
Slam!
"Reverse Summoning Jutsu!"
She slammed her frog palm down.
Intricate, pitch-black summoning formulas rapidly spread across the ground.
Just as the seal was about to form, and Naruto felt the initial tug of the spatial pull...
Clang!
A golden chain shot through the dust cloud.
The moment Naruto saw it, his face drained of color. He tried to leap back, but his rhythm was a beat too slow.
The next second...
The thick golden chain whipped around Naruto's right leg before he could even attempt to dodge.
"Crap!"
It coiled around him tightly, layer upon layer. More importantly, the unique energy it released instantly disrupted his chakra flow, violently severing Shima's Reverse Summoning Jutsu!
"Impossible!"
Both Naruto and Fukasaku wore expressions of pure horror.
Through the Adamantine Sealing Chains, Menma felt the disruption perfectly. The sinister smirk on his face grew wider.
The Reverse Summoning Jutsu.
It was one of the most overpowered space-time jutsu in the world. As the name implied, it was the exact opposite of the Summoning Jutsu. It allowed a contracted ninja animal to pull its summoner into its own dimension.
It was the ultimate, ridiculously convenient escape jutsu.
However...
The conditions required to use it were equally ridiculous.
First, very few ninja animals could actually use it. Strictly speaking, outside of the Three Great Sage Regions, no other summoning animals possessed this ability. Not even a single lizard in Menma's contracted Black-Rock Barren Lizard clan could do it.
The jutsu required the contracted animal to possess immense chakra reserves, terrifying chakra control, and a flawless mastery of the summoning contract itself.
Beyond that...
During the summoning process, the target could not be bound by a sealing jutsu, nor could their chakra flow be disrupted by external forces.
If those conditions weren't met, the Reverse Summoning Jutsu would automatically fail.
Jiraiya's infiltration of the Rain Village in the original story was the perfect example.
After ambushing and defeating the Animal Path, he had a window to reverse-summon himself out. But he chose to take a risk and confront the remaining five Paths of Pain to confirm his theory. Once he was engaged by all five simultaneously, the opportunity to use the jutsu was completely lost.
It wasn't an instant-cast space-time jutsu that bypassed all physical restrictions.
Because of that limitation, Jiraiya had died at Nagato's hands.
The Reverse Summoning Jutsu wasn't as utterly broken as people thought, and Menma knew this perfectly well. That was why he had instantly unleashed the Adamantine Sealing Chains.
The golden chains were specifically designed to suppress and disrupt chakra flow.
The moment it wrapped around Naruto's body, his escape route was permanently sealed.
If he had been a single second slower, Naruto would have vanished.
But now?
Swish!
The crimson blur reappeared.
Once again, the two brothers were face-to-face at point-blank range.
Gripping the Sword of the Thunder God, Menma swung the blade down in a vicious, brutal arc aimed directly at Naruto.
True, he wasn't going to kill him.
But Menma had already decided to completely cripple his foolish little brother right here, right now.
And that included the old Myōboku toad sitting on his left shoulder.
Fukasaku was fully within the strike zone of Menma's blade.
The Three Great Sage Regions!?
Sorry, but as far as Menma was concerned, they were massive threats that needed to be strictly controlled, or better yet, completely eradicated!
Especially the Mount Myōboku toads.
Prophecies?
What an absolute joke!!