Zeldris raised his fist.
The air didn't just chill—it stopped breathing.
A stillness washed over the desert like it was holding its breath, waiting.
Twelve ANBU warriors stared, instincts screaming like sirens in their skulls.
Something was wrong.
Deeply, fundamentally, cosmically wrong.
Still, the mission was the mission.
They charged anyway.
Blades out. Chakra flaring. Momentum carried them forward even as every fiber of their being screamed, Turn around.
But it was already too late.
The ANBU leader—an old warhound with the kind of survival instinct you don't teach—stopped dead mid-lunge. Eyes wide behind his mask.
He felt it.
Not chakra.
Not killing intent.
Death.
It was clinging to the light in Zeldris's hand like perfume. Thick, choking. Inevitable.
"—Fall back!" he barked on instinct, already leaping away.
The rest?
Not so lucky.
Zeldris's fist cracked downward—and the world shattered.
A sharp, glassy crack rang out. The ground beneath him gleamed—then fractured, white lines spidering across the desert like a mirror breaking under divine judgment.
The sand didn't ripple. It recoiled.
Even Sasori—who, by all known definitions, didn't do emotions—took a careful step back.
"…That's new," he muttered, watching the ground split like it owed Zeldris money.
He glanced at his companion.
"Am I… safe where I'm standing?"
Zeldris didn't look at him.
"Probably."
Sasori raised an eyebrow.
"…Probably?"
Zeldris finally turned his head, calm as a monk. "Just don't stray too far. Or explode. Your call."
Then he punched the ground.
BOOM.
Not a jutsu.
Not a technique.
Not a trick.
Just one punch—and the desert wept.
The earth split with a sound like thunder swallowing the sky. Sand screamed. Cracks tore through the ground, ripping it open in every direction like angry lightning.
From the epicenter, a shockwave erupted.
Not a ripple.
Not a blast.
A detonation.
It launched sand, rock, weapons, and people in every direction.
The sky turned brown with dust.
Someone yelled.
Someone else flew.
"WHAT THE HELL DID HE JUST DO?!" an ANBU screamed before vanishing into a wall of sand.
Blades were dropped. Strategies forgotten. The line between "enemy" and "natural disaster" had officially blurred.
It wasn't combat anymore.
It was survival.
Zeldris stood at the heart of it all, unmoved. Calm. Expression unreadable. Like a guy waiting in line for coffee.
The ANBU leader hit the sand, rolled, skidded to a halt. Dust filled his lungs. He coughed, eyes wide.
This wasn't the same Zeldris.
Not the one they trained with. Not the one they promoted.
This one?
This was something else entirely.
"FALL BACK!!" he roared. "GET AWAY FROM HIM—NOW!"
Too late.
One by one, they were picked up and discarded by the shockwave. Slamming into dunes. Crashing into each other. Limbs twisting in the air like tossed action figures.
The desert became a blender.
And they were dinner.
For thirty seconds, the world was chaos.
Thirty seconds of wind, screaming, sand, bones hitting stone.
Then—silence.
The dust settled like ash.
Weapons lay scattered like grave markers. Blood soaked into the sand. A few ANBU twitched, groaning. Most didn't move at all.
Twelve elite shinobi had entered the field.
Maybe four still drew breath.
And even they weren't sure they wanted to.
Then he emerged.
Zeldris.
No cuts.
No dust on his coat.
Not even winded.
He stepped forward like a man on a casual evening stroll through absolute devastation.
His eyes?
Cold.
Colder than the sand underfoot. Colder than death.
The kind of cold that didn't just freeze your blood—it froze your hope.
One surviving ANBU trembled, barely able to speak.
"W-what… is he?"
No one answered.
Because no one knew.
The Zeldris they remembered was gone.
Whatever stood before them now?
That wasn't a man.
It was the reason gods invented the word "Nope."
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