Naruto: I'm in Konoha, my name is Uzumaki Menma

Chapter 153 Joining the Land of Demons

The cold moonlight, like silver frost, spilled onto the knife-marked floor of the main shrine, while candlelight flickered before Miroku.

Ziyuan's small body was curled up in her mother's arms. Her big violet eyes were no longer filled with pure fear, but were replaced by a deeper confusion.

Although she was too young to understand her mother's words about "the evil in people's hearts" and "the fate of witches."

Maitreya held the pottery jar, but his gaze pierced through the flickering candlelight and landed on the silent, dark red figure a few steps away.

The white three-eyed fox mask blocked any possibility of prying eyes.

The air inside the hall was so thick it was suffocating, with only the howling wind outside and the faint, muffled sounds of clearing the battlefield coming from afar.

Just then, the figure moved.

Under the astonished gazes of Miroku, Shion, and Ashigi, Shura slowly raised his hand, his fingers landing on the cold edge of the mask.

"Click."

A slight click of a mechanism was unusually clear in the deathly silent hall.

The mask was gently removed.

The moonlight and candlelight intertwined, illuminating a face that surprised everyone.

Contrary to expectations of weathered or ferocious appearance, it was an extremely young, even handsome, face.

His short, black, spiky hair was slightly messy and fell across his forehead. His skin was a healthy light tan, and his features were clean and sharp.

However, what is most chilling are those eyes—the right eye is as deep as night, while the left eye is an even more eerie, pure blood-red color, as if burning with lava!
Calm, indifferent, with a sense of detachment beyond his years, as if looking down upon the world, he quietly looked back at the three people in the hall.

The kneeling figure on the side gasped sharply, instinctively leaning back, almost unable to believe his eyes.

The infamous "Shura," who is feared throughout the ninja world, is surprisingly young.
Maitreya's pupils contracted instantly. She had foreseen starlight and darkness, but she had never seen this face clearly in a prophetic dream.

Ziyuan's eyes widened, her mouth slightly agape, as she curiously looked at the mysterious boy not far away. She had thought he was an uncle, but he turned out to be an older brother.

Menma casually placed the white three-eyed fox mask, a symbol of fear and power, on the low table beside him, making a slight clinking sound.

His voice remained calm, but the absence of the mask added a touch of youthful crispness, yet the icy core within remained unchanged: "During the Warring States period, the Senju and Uchiha clans ended the inter-clan wars and established the ninja village system. However, the war was not eradicated; it simply shifted to a larger battlefield."

His gaze swept over the pottery jar in Maitreya's arms.

"The evil in people's hearts stems from the soil of chaos and injustice. As long as the ninja world remains divided, as long as daimyo and nobles fight each other for their own interests, and as long as ninja villages wage war against each other for their own benefit, oppression, war, and displacement will never end. The roots of evil will always have a breeding ground."

Menma took a step forward, the moonlight illuminating half of his face, his heterochromatic eyes like vortexes, carrying a powerful and mysterious sense of oppression.

"There is only one way to end this cycle." His voice was clear and firm.

"End the division and achieve the unification of the ninja world! Just like the various ninja clans marched towards the ninja villages to end the Warring States period and establish a unique nation!"

"All ninjas and all civilians live under a unified system and law."

"The privileges of daimyo and nobles must be eradicated, and resources must be distributed fairly so that oppression can disappear!"

"When wars disappear, when order replaces chaos, when the next generation and the generation after that are born without knowing what hunger and war are... after two or three generations, the hatred flowing in the blood will naturally dissipate."

"Human...war?" Miroku keenly caught the qualifier, and a look of surprise appeared on his pale face.

She stared intently at Mianma's heterochromatic eyes.

"Lord Shura, what do you mean? Besides the conflicts within humanity itself, are there other threats?"

Mianma's gaze shifted from Maitreya's face to the cold moon hanging in the deep night sky outside the high window.

The moonlight shone down, casting a silvery edge on his young profile and making the bloodshot color of his left eye appear even more eerie.

“Lord Maitreya,” his voice lowered.

"The enemies of the ninja world are far more numerous and ancient than you can imagine." His gaze turned to the vast, boundless, and unknown starry sky.

"A mastermind lurking in the shadows of history for millennia covets this world. And from the depths of the endless starry sky beyond the heavens, a greedy gaze is watching intently. To me, human wars are nothing but child's play."

"Beyond the heavens?!" Maitreya's body trembled slightly, and his breathing became rapid.

As a priestess, her senses far surpassed those of ordinary people. When the words "beyond the heavens" came out of Menma's mouth, an indescribable power made her soul tremble.

Maitreya's purple pupils shimmered with kaleidoscope-like patterns.

She "saw" as if countless eyes, in an unimaginably distant place, were coldly watching this tiny planet beneath her feet!
This sensation was fleeting, yet it instantly soaked her back in cold sweat and turned her face deathly pale.

Ziyuan seemed to sense her mother's sudden, intense fear; her small body trembled violently, and she clung tightly to Miroku.

Ashiya was even more pale. He couldn't understand those profound words, but Lord Miroku's unprecedented outburst shocked him.

The hall fell into an even deeper, deathly silence than before.

Mianma withdrew his gaze and returned it to Maitreya's face, which had lost all color due to shock.

He didn't explain further, but waited quietly. He knew that this witch, who could sense the evil in people's hearts and foresee parts of the future, had already touched the tip of the iceberg of the truth.

Time seemed to stand still, the candlelight flickering uneasily, casting swaying shadows on Maitreya's heaving chest and the pottery jar.

After a long while, Maitreya took a deep breath, as if he had used up all his strength.

She slowly raised her head, her gaze no longer lost, but replaced by an almost tragic resolve.

She gently straightened the Shion in her arms, and then, to the astonishment of Ashikagashi, the priestess of the Land of Demons, holding the pottery jar that sealed the demon, bowed deeply to the young Shura before her.

"Miroku, the priestess of the Land of Demons..." Her voice was slightly hoarse, yet exceptionally clear and firm: "I am willing to lead the entire Land of Demons to join the Land of Stars!"

The first rays of dawn struggled to pierce the gloom that shrouded the land of demons, casting their light upon the shattered rubble and dried bloodstains of the shrine.

The air still carried the smells of gunpowder, blood, and a faint stench of corpses.

But a new order is quietly emerging with the rising sun.

A team of about thirty ninjas appeared in the forest outside the shrine. They were dressed in uniform dark blue-black uniforms, wore Star Ninja headbands, moved swiftly and silently, had sharp eyes, and exuded a well-trained and elite aura.

Leading the pack was Whirlpool Vanilla.

She strode forward, nodded slightly to Uchiha Hikaru standing outside the temple gate, glanced at the exhausted Kimimaro and Haku, and quickly made arrangements.

"Medical team! Treat the wounded immediately!"

"Sealing Team! Establish multiple layers of security barriers!"

"Cleanup team! Clean up the battlefield, collect all remains, be careful as enemy corpses may contain secret techniques!"

"Guards! Take over the defense of the shrine and surrounding key roads, and eliminate any remaining enemies!"

The command was concise and powerful, and the Star Ninjas, like precise gears, instantly sprang into action.

Medical ninjas carrying medicine kits quickly entered the main hall; sealing ninjas began setting up a barrier around the shrine; cleanup crews silently and efficiently began collecting the scattered corpses; fully armed ninjas quickly dispersed and occupied the high ground around the shrine.

With the help of Zuan, Maitreya carried Ziyuan out of the main hall.

The cool morning air filled my lungs, dispelling some of the blood and oppressive atmosphere in the main hall.

She looked at everything before her: the well-trained and disciplined Star Ninja Army was a world apart from the arrogant and domineering private soldiers of the Demon Kingdom's nobles who only knew how to oppress the common people.

The focused gazes of those treating the wounded, and the silence and caution with which they collected the bodies, brought a long-lost warmth and hope to her heart, which had been cold and weary from the demons and her thousand-year-old destiny.

Menma put on the white three-eyed fox mask again and stood quietly on the high steps in front of the shrine.

The dark red imperial robes fluttered slightly in the morning breeze.

He looked down at the shrine below, which was beginning to be reborn, and also at Miroku, who was holding Shion and had a complex look in his eyes.

No one could tell what he was looking like behind the mask.

Uchiha Hikaru appeared silently a step behind him, like the most loyal shadow.

Her deep blue high-necked tribal dress looked particularly cool in the morning light, and her gaze calmly swept over the busy Xingren.

(End of this chapter)