Chapter 4: Zombies
( — 0.0.0.0.0 — )
Naruto stared at his food scattered across the ground for a moment, then looked at the zombies rapidly approaching him as tiny sparks began racing across his body.
At first, they were faint, barely crackling through the air. Then bolts of lightning began erupting from his skin.
His blond hair shifted slightly as electricity started surrounding him. The air vibrated with a sharp hum while lightning coursed down his arms and across his back.
Mjolnir hung securely from the strap around his wrist before, with a small movement, he gripped the hammer's handle.
The divine hammer responded instantly.
Lightning began bursting from the war hammer, leaping like serpents of energy across its metallic surface.
High above, the clouds began to move.
The blue sky slowly faded as dark clouds swirled over Manhattan. The wind picked up, and seconds later, a bolt of lightning split the heavens with a deafening roar.
Another struck in the distance.
Then another.
The infected kept coming, growling and sprinting forward.
Naruto barely looked at them.
He slowly extended the arm holding the hammer. At that exact moment, lightning descended. It wasn't an ordinary bolt. It was a brutal discharge that crashed down from the black clouds, striking Mjolnir directly in an explosion of light.
The energy surged through the hammer and spread throughout Naruto's entire body.
The pavement beneath his feet cracked.
Naruto's eyes widened slightly in surprise.
"Oh..."
A small but genuine smile appeared on his face. There was excitement in it.
It was exactly the same sensation he had experienced when he killed the TVA soldiers. That electrical pressure, that overwhelming force building inside his body, searching for an outlet.
The zombies were now only a few meters away.
Naruto looked at them.
Electricity roared around the hammer. Without thinking twice, he visualized the flow of energy. Then, with a single thought, he unleashed it.
All the power stored within Mjolnir erupted forward as a colossal bolt of lightning that tore down the street like a living storm, charging straight into the horde of infected rushing toward him.
The energy burst from Mjolnir like a blue torrent that swept across the street with a thunderous roar. The very air seemed to tear apart as the lightning slammed into the infected charging at Naruto.
The first ones simply vanished in the flash.
Their bodies arched violently as electricity surged through every muscle and bone. Their skin blackened within seconds, and the smell of burning flesh filled the air, frying their brains in mere milliseconds.
Others were hurled several meters backward, crashing into abandoned cars and streetlights with metallic clangs.
The windows of nearby buildings trembled.
The alarms of several cars began blaring all at once.
And for a brief moment, the entire street was illuminated by the storm. When the light finally faded, all that remained was smoke slowly rising from the pavement.
The bodies of the infected lay scattered everywhere. Some were completely charred, while others remained motionless, their bodies still releasing tiny sparks of electricity.
Naruto looked around as he lowered the hammer.
Small arcs of lightning continued running across the hammer's Uru metal before slowly fading into the air.
He blinked a couple of times, still looking around.
The wrecked cars, the pavement cracked by the lightning, the smoking bodies of the infected, and the brief silence that had settled after the blast.
His expression showed no horror.
Only curiosity.
He looked at the hammer hanging from his hand.
He slowly turned it, watching as tiny sparks still danced across its surface.
"That was interesting and..." he fell silent for a moment as unfamiliar words surfaced in his mind. "Cool?"
But then something caught his attention. He looked down.
His food was still there.
Only now it had been destroyed by the massive release of energy.
Naruto remained silent for several seconds.
His eyebrow twitched slightly.
"..."
Naruto slowly crouched down, picking up what remained of one of the packages.
He stared at it for a moment, as if still hoping it could somehow be saved.
It couldn't.
With a quiet sigh, he let it fall back to the ground.
"Stupid things..." he muttered. Then he opened his inventory and pulled out another bag, along with a fresh can of soda.
In the distance, screams continued echoing between the buildings. The chaos wasn't just continuing—it seemed to be growing.
Police sirens wailed from different directions, blending with the sounds of crashes, distant explosions, and the echoes of people running in desperation. Columns of black smoke rose from several streets throughout the city.
Naruto remained standing in the middle of the street for a few more seconds, watching the smoke slowly rise while casually opening the new bag of food as though nothing had happened.
The distant sounds of chaos didn't seem to affect him much.
He took a bite of his food. Chewed. Swallowed. Then, as though he had only just processed everything, he spoke quietly.
"Hey, Aetheria."
There was a brief pause. The voice inside his mind answered with the same calm as always.
[Yes, Naruto?]
Naruto glanced at one of the charred bodies on the ground. Then another. Then the now-empty street.
"What are those things?" he asked curiously, wondering about these creatures that looked human... but weren't.
Silence.
It wasn't an uncomfortable silence, just a brief one... as if Aetheria were organizing the answer in the simplest way possible.
[Zombies.]
Naruto blinked once.
"...Zom-bies?"
[Affirmative. They are zombies—or, to put it more simply, humans infected by a virus created by humanity itself, one that completely alters both their bodies and minds. Technically, they are still "alive"... but they are no longer people.]
Naruto took another bite, listening carefully to everything Aetheria had to say about these things.
[Their brains no longer function rationally. They lose their identity, memories, and complex emotions... well, except for aggression. The only things that remain are a basic instinct to feed and an increase in certain physical attributes.]
"What do they feed on?"
Naruto wondered what these so-called zombies ate, since they clearly didn't seem interested in the same food and drinks he enjoyed.
[Other humans.]
Naruto stopped chewing for a second, processing what Aetheria had just said. Then he slowly looked at another corpse.
"...Oh."
He continued eating as though the information wasn't particularly shocking.
[The virus, known as Necro-Rabies, is primarily transmitted through direct contact with bodily fluids. Bites, blood, open wounds... any exchange can be enough to turn you into one of them.]
Naruto slightly raised his gaze.
"So if they bite me...?" he asked slowly, looking toward the infected in the distance.
[You would become infected, indeed. And under the rules of this world... there is no guarantee of a cure.]
Naruto swallowed his bite.
"Hm."
He didn't sound worried.
[Although... your case is abnormal, Naruto.]
Naruto tilted his head slightly.
"Why?"
[Your biology, your energy, and all the external systems you possess... make it difficult to predict whether the virus would affect you the same way. But assuming you're immune would be a mistake.]
Naruto nodded faintly, as if committing the information to memory.
"So... don't let them bite me?" the blond proposed slowly as he lowered his snack, waiting for Aetheria's confirmation.
[Correct.]
"Anything else?"
Aetheria paused longer this time.
[Yes. There are several important points.]
Naruto took a sip of his drink as he listened.
[First: don't trust appearances. Some move slowly... others can run.]
"I already noticed."
Naruto looked down the street, remembering how they had rushed toward him. So yes... never let his guard down against these zombies... whatever that word actually meant.
[Second: noise attracts them. Large concentrations of sound can draw entire hordes.]
Naruto slowly lowered the can, looking around... the cars, the alarms still blaring in the distance. He even remembered when he was about to enter the store and the car alarm had gone off, attracting the zombies.
[Third: their bodies can continue moving even after sustaining severe injuries. They feel no pain, only rage and hunger. Destroying the brain is the most efficient way to neutralize them.]
Naruto looked at one of the charred bodies.
"Mjolnir's power worked."
[Yes. More than sufficiently.]
There was a brief silence.
The wind blew between the buildings, carrying ashes and loose papers through the street.
"And are there many of them?"
[Too many.]
Naruto set the empty bag aside. He looked toward the city skyline, where columns of smoke continued rising between the skyscrapers.
His blue eyes narrowed slightly. Not out of fear.
But out of interest.
"Then I guess things are about to get... noisy?"
Mjolnir released a tiny spark in his hand, almost as if responding to his thoughts.
With that, he popped another chip into his mouth, savoring the sweet and salty flavor of the snack.
"Mmm..."
He was clearly loving the taste.
"If those idiots bother me..." Naruto suddenly said as he opened his eyes. His pupils remained as thin vertical slits.
Tiny bolts of lightning began crackling around Mjolnir once again, dancing like living sparks across the hammer's metal.
"I'm going to destroy them."
With that said, Naruto calmly continued eating, thoroughly enjoying his new delicacy.
After a few moments, he decided to try the canned carbonated drink as well.
He opened it curiously, listening to the soft pssshh as the gas escaped.
Just one sip.
His eyes opened a little wider.
"Oh..."
It seemed he liked that too.
With the bag in one hand and the can in the other, Naruto began walking down the street again. This time, thanks to the information Aetheria had given him, he carefully avoided the strange creatures, moving from place to place whenever one got too close.
All with one simple and clear objective: never lose his food again... or get bitten by a zombie.
But as he made his way between abandoned cars and the wreckage left by the recent chaos, something caught his attention.
Something was coming.
Far away, he could make out a figure flying toward him at incredible speed between the city's buildings.
He watched it curiously.
His eyes, far sharper than those of any ordinary human, remained fixed on the moving silhouette.
Even from a distance, he could tell it was a human figure wearing a strange suit that covered its entire body: a deep crimson with golden accents and faint bluish tones.
Naruto didn't actually know the names of those colors.
But he could still see them.
His gaze followed the figure closely as it grew larger with every passing second.
"Hm..."
He barely had time to react.
A second later, the figure slammed directly into him.
The impact was brutal.
Naruto was struck head-on by something much larger than himself. A human body, larger than his own and encased in metal, grabbed him tightly as they both tore across the street at monstrous speed.
Cars were crushed in their path.
Their frames crumpled like paper as vehicles were hurled in every direction. The asphalt cracked beneath the force of their momentum.
Naruto barely had time to tense his body as they smashed through the side of one car and then another.
Then came the building.
The two of them burst through the concrete facade in an explosion of dust, glass, and twisted steel. Interior walls crumbled into rubble as they continued driving several more meters into the structure.
Then, suddenly, the figure stopped.
The change in speed was abrupt.
All the accumulated force was released in a single motion, throwing Naruto out of its grip like a projectile.
The blond Uzumaki was sent flying.
He tore through the air, smashing into several zombies and obliterating them before crashing into another building with a heavy thud, embedding himself in the concrete wall before falling to the ground amid the rubble.
"Kgh—!"
Naruto coughed violently, a mixture of blood and saliva spilling from his mouth as he slowly sat up.
A sharp pain shot through his back.
The impact had been brutal, especially after that man had rammed into him with his entire body during the drag.
The blond placed one hand against his back while the other gripped Mjolnir tightly, clenching his teeth for a moment.
Then he noticed something else.
He looked at his hand.
He looked around.
His food.
It was gone.
The impact had sent it flying away once again.
Naruto froze.
His expression became completely blank for several seconds.
Then his eyebrow twitched.
Lightning began leaking from his body. At first, tiny sparks. Then stronger bolts crackled through the air around him.
Mjolnir reacted instantly.
The hammer began releasing electrical discharges that slithered across its surface, responding directly to Naruto's growing irritation.
Naruto stepped out from the rubble left in the building's wall.
Chunks of concrete fell to the ground as he walked back into the street.
Then he saw it.
A few meters away stood the figure that had rammed into him.
It was a human completely covered in metallic armor. The metal gleamed with the same colors Naruto had noticed before: deep crimson mixed with gold, with faint bluish light emanating from the chest, the hands, and several other points across the armor.
The helmet completely concealed the face.
Then something strange happened.
The helmet began retracting.
The man's face was revealed.
And Naruto could see him clearly.
The man had pale skin with dark veins protruding across it, and completely white pupils. His brown hair was messy, accompanied by a short beard that looked like stubble.
A thin trail of blood slowly dripped from the corner of his mouth, which was completely stained red.
He was another one of those strange humans.
But this one was different.
Far more dangerous.
( — 0.0.0.0.0 — )