Naruto: Shinobi Payday-Chapter 42: Aftermath

Sunagakure looked less like a village and more like a failed art project.

Once proud, once powerful—now just piles of scorched rubble and stunned silence.

Cracked streets gaped like open wounds. Smoldering craters smoked like they'd lost the will to burn properly.

The air itself felt heavy, like even the atmosphere needed a minute to process what just happened.

Two people.

Two.

That was all it took to dismantle an entire Hidden Village.

Not a war. Not an army. Not some ancient prophecy.

Just one annoyed puppet master...

...and Zeldris.

Chiyo stood in the heart of the wreckage, staring into the distance like maybe—just maybe—this was all a particularly vivid hallucination brought on by stress and too much dango.

It wasn't.

The tremors in her chest weren't stopping, and the more she thought about it, the more absurd everything sounded.

"There were two aces in this village," she muttered, voice barely above a whisper, "and we still got stomped like a rice cake."

That boy—Zeldris. No, not a boy.

Something else entirely.

He'd killed the Third Kazekage, made the Fourth disappear, and turned Shukaku into airborne regret. That wasn't skill. That wasn't strategy. That was...

Domination. With flair.

But Chiyo didn't have the luxury of sitting in existential crisis for long. Sunagakure was a mess, and someone had to pretend they knew what they were doing.

So she gritted her teeth and turned full commander mode.

"All records of this incident—lock them down. I don't want a single syllable escaping this village."

Nearby shinobi blinked. A few nodded. One looked like he was debating just walking into the desert and pretending none of this happened.

Chiyo didn't care.

"Find everything you can on Zeldris. I don't care if it's a scrap of gossip or a scribble on a ramen stand. Dig."

Then came the kicker. Her eyes hardened.

"Also... put out a bounty."

Pause.

"How much?" a nervous chunin asked.

Chiyo didn't blink.

"One hundred million. Dead or alive."

The chunin opened his mouth. Closed it. Then quietly updated his will.

They tried to contain the news. Really, they did.

But by day three, the entire ninja world was in full panic mode.

Scrolls moved like wildfire. Rumors turned into stories. Stories turned into horribly exaggerated rumors. And somewhere in the middle of it all, one name kept appearing:

Zeldris.

A hundred million ryo bounty.

No affiliation.

No clear origin.

And then—like a dramatic plot twist nobody asked for—an unknown group called Ninja World Mercenaries stepped forward and casually claimed responsibility.

Just... showed up like, "Yeah, that was us. Thanks for noticing."

Two men. One village leveled. One jinchūriki captured.

World: panicking.

Across the elemental nations, village leaders scrambled. Security doubled. Walls were reinforced. Someone somewhere probably bubble-wrapped their jinchūriki.

Because this wasn't about revenge anymore.

This was about balance.

And balance had just been kicked down a flight of stairs.

Konoha, Hokage Tower – Land of Fire

Sarutobi Hiruzen read the scroll in silence.

His face had aged ten years in five minutes. The hand holding the paper trembled slightly—not from fear, but from the weight of memory.

The name on the scroll felt like a ghost.

"Zeldris..." he murmured.

He read it again, hoping it'd somehow change into something less terrifying, like "Zebra" or "Zebra-san."

No luck.

"That boy... how did he get this strong?"

He remembered Zeldris.

Promising. Sharp. A little weird. Never really liked team missions, always brought his own snacks.

He'd disappeared a while ago. And now he was on every bingo book cover like some unholy celebrity.

Shimura Danzo stood nearby, his face as always locked somewhere between scowl and constipation.

"No doubt. It's him," Danzo said flatly. "Same chakra signature. Same fighting style. Same complete disregard for human infrastructure."

Then he added, as if the world needed more bad news, "But he's just the front. The real problem is the group behind him—Ninja World Mercenaries. We know nothing about them. Not their goals, not their numbers, not even their color scheme."

Sarutobi said nothing for a moment.

He just stared out the window, where the sky looked far too peaceful for how broken the world felt.

"If what we're seeing is true..." he finally said, voice quiet but firm, "they're targeting the tailed beasts. All nine."

Danzo's eye twitched.

"Konoha could be next."

He didn't say it dramatically. He said it like someone preparing to cancel all future vacation plans.

"If he could kill the Third Kazekage and erase Shukaku like that," Danzo muttered, "what else is he hiding?"

Sarutobi sighed.

A long, tired sigh of a man who'd been Hokage too long, seen too much, and just wanted one week without a new villain group cropping up.

"This isn't just a rogue ninja," he said. "This isn't even about nations anymore."

He turned away from the window, eyes sharp with something old and dangerous.

"This is the beginning of something far bigger."

The entire ninja world was about to change.

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