The rain had already begun to whisper its presence when Menma walked out of the cemetery, the cool breeze catching on his damp clothes. He paused for just a moment, the ghost of hesitation flickering across his face. Then he turned toward home—toward the Hatake mansion—hoping, maybe even praying, that someone had remembered.
He had asked them. Days ago. Just a simple dinner. Nothing grand. No gifts, no loud celebrations. Just a few people he loved, sharing a meal at the home that always seemed too large and too quiet. He'd even planned to cook something special. But life, as always, had thrown something else at him—the truth he never wanted to uncover. And now… he was late. Late to the party no one had confirmed.
The sky was dark now, choked with clouds that weighed heavily on the village. By this time, he should've been in the kitchen, apron on, food sizzling, plates clinking gently as he set them out in quiet anticipation. He had imagined it all so clearly. But now, standing at the threshold of the mansion, what greeted him was not warmth… but stillness.
The house was silent—so silent it felt hollow, like something had died inside it long ago. The air inside was unmoving, heavy. The dark corners seemed to creep toward him with every step. Still holding on to hope, he checked every room. Every seat. Every space. But there was nothing. No footprints. No note. No candle left behind. No warmth in the walls. Just shadows.
He lit a small candle, placing it in a shallow dish on the table as he sat down beside it. He stared at the flame as it danced slowly in the cold air, casting flickering patterns against the walls. The flame was the only thing moving in the house, and in its tiny reflection, he could see the red of his hair. Bright, alone. Flickering.
He watched it burn for a while, then stood up with steady but lifeless steps. He didn't rage. He didn't cry. He didn't even speak. Only a single resolve formed in his chest—he wouldn't wait for people who didn't come. The candle could keep watch for him. If they showed up late, it would greet them instead.
Outside the gates of the mansion, the rain thickened. Menma took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and let his senses spread across the village like a net. A map bloomed in his mind, glowing with chakra signatures. Most were peaceful, predictable. But two areas pulsed strangely—one with quiet chaos, one with celebration.
He turned toward the first—a clan district, if he wasn't wrong. It felt... wrong, off-beat. But before he could move, his attention snapped to the second.
There, gathered in great numbers, was everyone.
Every person he had prepared food for.
Every person he trusted.
Every person he had thought might still be thinking of him.
Even Biwako, who was supposed to be in surgery.
All of them, clustered in a single place, their chakra signatures buzzing with laughter and joy. It must've been the peace banquet—hosted on the same day as his own birthday. A joint celebration, maybe? One for the village… and for the child of the Fourth?
And yet... he had not been invited. Not once. Not even with a whisper.
He took a step forward. Just one. Then another. His heart beat harder, not with anger but with bitter anticipation. He wanted—needed—to see what he was missing. What had been kept from him.
He walked the streets slowly, wet hair sticking to his face, his body aching from the cold he was no longer even trying to resist. Along the way, he passed shops filled with warm light and laughter. Lovers stood close in alleyways, whispering into each other's ears. Friends shared meals under glowing lanterns. The village seemed to pulse with warmth.
And all of it—all of it—excluded him.
A sudden bolt of lightning illuminated the village for a single heartbeat. In that flash, Menma stood unmoving in the middle of the road, framed by shadows, soaked to the bone, red hair clinging to his skin.
He didn't flinch.
He couldn't.
He had come to see the truth.
He finally reached the end of the street—where the road widened into the edge of the Namikaze estate. There, beyond the curve of the stone wall, stood the gates—wide open, not in welcome, but in pride. The celebration was in full bloom, laughter and music spilling out like gold from a treasure chest cracked too wide.
Menma stood still in the shadow just outside, raindrops sliding down his cheeks, indistinguishable from the tears that clung stubbornly to the corner of his eyes.
Through the open gates, he could see the whole yard illuminated by warm yellow lanterns and chakra-lit globes floating gently in the air. Bright ribbons danced from the branches of trees, shimmering as if the stars themselves had come down to celebrate this perfect day. Tables were set with food he hadn't made, plates he hadn't touched, drinks he hadn't poured.
The guests wore clothes of silk and color, soft pastels and vibrant accents. Their faces were open, relaxed, happy in a way he couldn't remember being. Every laugh seemed to echo louder than the rain. Every light glared brighter than the night deserved.
And in the center of it all—Naruto Namikaze. Cradled in the arms of Lady Biwako, the child's face glowed under the soft light, cheeks flushed from laughter, arms flailing with excitement as guests surrounded him. The centerpiece cake towered nearly as high as the adults. It was frosted with white and blue swirls, tiny sugar birds and leaves decorating the edges. A candle shaped like the number two stood unlit but ready, as if waiting for someone to announce that the moment had arrived.
Menma watched in silence. His breath caught in his throat, a jagged lump pressing at his chest. Somewhere in that scene, a space should have been carved out for him—a plate, a chair, a word spoken in his name. But there was nothing. No trace that he existed in that world at all.
The guests kept arriving, waving to each other, handing off gifts wrapped in gold and silver ribbons. A long table was stacked high with presents—dozens of them. Some big, some small, but each one placed with care and joy. And yet none of them were the ones he had packed himself with delicate thought.
Then his gaze drifted to the far left corner of the yard.
There, beneath the eaves, stacked beside a row of forgotten umbrellas and unused chairs, were his food boxes. The very boxes he had poured his heart into. Every one of them still sealed. Untouched. Set aside not out of malice, but something worse—irrelevance.
They hadn't even been handed out. They were just left there.
Forgotten. Overlooked. Like their maker.
He stared for what felt like an eternity.
The sound of rain began to grow louder in his ears, until it drowned out the music, the laughter, the voices calling out Naruto's name.
Yoruusagi stood near the platform, radiant in a deep midnight-blue dress that swirled like smoke around her ankles. Her hair was pinned elegantly, with soft silver pins that gleamed with every turn of her head. She was laughing beside Kakashi, who wore a sharp, ceremonial suit that shimmered with chakra-etched silver filigree. He looked peaceful. Content.
And Phantom and Raven—no longer masked—mingled nearby in formal black, their sharp gazes calm, even cheerful. Their expressions were unfamiliar now, as if the halves Menma had known had never really belonged to the whole.
He watched them all. The people he had made food for. The ones he had called family.
His hand twitched at his side.
He took one small step closer—but instantly, the presence of chakra stung at his skin. He felt it—a perimeter of guards. Sharp, alert. Surrounding the mansion like a dome of unseen teeth. They weren't just guarding the party. They were guarding it from him.
His body froze.
They wouldn't let him in. Even if he approached, even if he shouted, they would stop him. Because he didn't belong there. Not truly.
A soft crackle filled the air.
The barrier began to rise.
He watched in disbelief as the faint shimmer of a chakra shield unfolded above the entire mansion. Pale blue at the edges, glowing faintly like mist in moonlight—it sealed the party away. Not just from intruders, but from everything outside. From him.
As if on cue, a gust of wind caught the ends of his shirt, and the rain fell harder, heavier. The droplets turned cold like sleet, soaking through his clothes and seeping into his bones.
The chill in his chest wasn't from the rain.
It was from the weight of something he could no longer deny.
> "I never was part of it, was I?"
The whisper escaped his lips like a curse spoken to the wind.
His breath came in short bursts now, uneven. A quiet heat bloomed in his chest—not rage, not sorrow, but a fever. A familiar one. The same kind he'd had on his last birthday. How poetic. How cruel.
He looked down at his feet. The puddles mirrored the mansion behind him, blurry and distorted, just like his place in this world. Slowly, he turned and walked away, not looking back.
He didn't run. He didn't stumble.
But his feet were heavy.
Heavy with the knowledge that nothing he had given mattered. That the flame in the candle he left burning at the Hatake mansion was more present at this birthday than he ever would be.
And the food? Just like him, it sat in the shadows. Never chosen. Never unwrapped. Never remembered.
He kept walking.
Each step was slow, as if he were dragging the weight of unseen chains behind him—chains made of broken memories, missed meals, and laughter that had never belonged to him. The roads ahead were half-lit by flickering streetlamps, but Menma didn't see them. His eyes, wide but unfocused, were lost in a blur of rain and the shimmering echoes of voices that still rang in his ears.
Behind him, the Namikaze mansion faded into a haze of light and shadow, sealed behind its wall of joy. Before him, only darkness waited. Yet somehow, it felt more honest.
He passed familiar corners of the village, but they didn't feel like home anymore. First was the hospital—its windows glowing faintly with sterile light, its halls no doubt still echoing with the cries of newborns and the soft murmurs of healers. It was where life had started… twice. Once when he was born into the world, and again when he first woke in this timeline, reborn with the memories of another self.
Yet tonight, the hospital stood like a monument to everything that had been taken from him.
He turned away from it, barely registering the scent of antiseptic that wafted out from the main entrance.
Next came Ichiraku Ramen.
Once a haven of warmth, of chatter and smell, where bowls clinked and broth steamed against cold hands—it was dark now. Closed. A wooden sign hung on the door, swaying gently in the wind. "Closed for Private Event."
Even here? Even Teuchi hadn't been there? Even the place he thought would always welcome him in? The realization sent another pang through his chest, this one dull and deep, like a bruise forming beneath the ribs.
He passed the flower shop—the same one where he had bought the small pots and seeds with dreams of watching something grow. A symbol of beginnings. Of hope. He remembered how excited he had been, imagining Snow sniffing the petals, imagining giving one flower to each of the people who had guided him forward.
But tonight the shutters were drawn tight. The petals behind the window had closed like sleeping eyes, unaware that the boy who dreamed of color now walked alone in grey.
And then, the Hokage Monument loomed in the distance.
He turned toward the main road leading past the Hokage building—massive and immovable. The stone faces carved into the cliff seemed to stare down at him with indifferent expressions, eternal watchers of a village that had grown used to forgetting.
He didn't stop. He didn't glance upward.
He didn't want to see the face of the man whose blood ran in his veins.
His shoulders hunched against the weight of the wind. Rain pooled around the edges of his sandals. And when the path began to dip into the forests lining the edge of the village, he didn't hesitate.
The cemetery called him—not with words, but with silence. A place where voices didn't rise to celebrate, but fell into the earth to rest.
A place where everyone left behind finally found their name carved into stone.
The trail was slick now. Mud squelched underfoot. His breath came heavy and uneven, not from exhaustion but from a tightening in his chest that never seemed to ease. Snow wasn't with him. She had vanished sometime during the walk, perhaps unwilling to follow him deeper into this emotional abyss. Or perhaps she had gone ahead, knowing where he would eventually return.
One foot after another, dragging forward as if pulled by invisible threads, Menma wandered aimlessly, the weight of everything behind him growing heavier with every breath. The laughter he had heard from the party, the careless way his name was never called, the sight of his carefully prepared food boxes tossed in a corner like forgotten waste—all of it clung to him like soaked garments in a storm.
His sandals splashed through puddles forming in the cracks of stone paths. The further he went, the more muted the world became—houses turned to shadows, voices faded behind rain, and the lights of the village blurred like old memories he didn't want to recall.
He didn't even notice when the wind changed direction. When his legs grew numb. His mind was caught in a loop—turning back over and over to the vision of that celebration without him. The birthday party with no seat, no plate, no name for Menma.
It wasn't just rejection. It was erasure.
And it hurt more than he thought it would.
His pace slowed as the cold sank deeper into his muscles. Every breath fogged into the air like smoke from a dying fire. His chest burned—not from fever alone, but from the unbearable throb of something tearing at his ribs.
And so, as he moved forward, the only way to make it stop—even a little—was to lighten the load.
His hand reached for the first weight strapped at his waist. With a dull clink and a splash, it hit the ground behind him, sending mud flying as the earth groaned beneath its force. He didn't stop to look back.
Another weight fell. Then another. Then another. Shin guards, arm braces, chest wraps—one by one, the burdens he had trained with every day were cast aside into the rain. They hit the earth like discarded promises, like anchors finally let go after holding him down too long.
But no matter how much he removed, he still felt heavy. His steps didn't get lighter. His bones still ached under the pressure of something far deeper than steel.
Soon, he reached the clearing of Training Ground 7, a place that had become almost sacred to him—an altar of blood, sweat, and quiet strength. The towering stone pillar at the edge stood firm in the storm, unmoving, unfeeling.
Menma walked toward it as if drawn by instinct, stumbling more than stepping. When he reached it, he leaned forward and placed his forehead gently against its cold surface. His breath came out in shallow huffs, barely louder than the rainfall now pouring over him.
He stood like that for several moments, letting the rain trace down his spine like silent tears.
The earth beneath him turned soft, the mud pulling at his boots like it wanted to swallow him whole.
He didn't fight it.
His arms hung limp at his sides.
His hair, drenched and clinging to his skin, finally gave way to gravity—and fate.
Snap!
The soft twang of tension releasing cut through the air.
Something small dropped against the soaked earth: his hair tie.
The one Yoruusagi had gifted him last year—warmly, without condition, one of the first presents he ever truly received. It had held up through training, battle, and countless quiet days filled with laughter and dreams. And now, in the middle of the storm—it broke.
His long crimson hair spilled around his face like a curtain of grief, sticking to his cheeks, hiding his eyes, casting his world into dim red shadow.
He didn't catch it.
He didn't move.
He let it fall.
Just like he had.
His knees finally gave out, sinking into the mud with a wet squelch, and then, without resistance, his whole body followed—collapsing onto the cold, wet ground. Dirt mixed with his tears, his breath shuddered out in silence, and the faint warmth of fever flared through his skin.
But he didn't care.
He didn't fight it.
Not anymore.
All around him was darkness and rain. Cold and weightless. He let it wrap around him like a blanket too soaked to keep out the chill.
And then—he slipped inward.
Away from the world.
Away from the village.
Into himself.
Down to the one place that had never turned him away.
The one space that had never lied to him, or pretended to smile only to leave him forgotten in the corner.
The seal.
Dip.
Dip.
Dip.
The only sound that remained was the falling rain… and his slow, steady descent.
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