The sky was bleeding.
Where gods clashed, mortals could only watch. The battlefield had become a storm of violence, light, chakra, and will tearing at the very concept of space. Madara's monstrous form hovered like a demon ascendant, the chakra pulsing from his ten-tailed body. But before him floated Kakashi, radiant, silent, and inevitable.
His twin Rinnegan glowed, each orb laced with six slow-turning tomoe. The Genesis Seal spiraled beneath his skin, a living tattoo of law and hunger.
Madara roared, launching an array of gravity-laced rods and searing chakra blades. But Kakashi's right Rinnegan pulsed. In an instant, he vanished, not with flicker or speed, but with the graceful collapse of space itself. Shukujitsu had become divine. He reappeared behind Madara with no warning, his fingers glowing white.
"Space obeys me," Kakashi whispered.
A blinding flash erupted as Kakashi's palm struck Madara's spine. The jutsu tore not at flesh, but at presence.
A ripple pulsed outward. Madara turned, wide-eyed. Chakra peeled from him in streams, his fusion with the Ten-Tails beginning to unravel.
"No!" Madara's voice cracked, filled with disbelief. "The Tsuki-no-me!!"
Kakashi didn't answer. With a motion of his hand, six black rods formed behind him, spinning like a divine halo.
He whispered: "Genesis Seal: Spiral Extraction."
A black vortex opened behind Madara. The sky bent. The Ten-Tails howled within him, its voice carried on the wind and thunder. It resisted, but Kakashi had consumed Hagoromo's soul. He was not appealing. He was commanding.
The beast screamed as it was ripped from Madara's body. A geyser of malevolent chakra exploded into the heavens. Madara's form shriveled, collapsing from its divine perch. He plummeted to earth like a broken comet, crashing hard into the cratered battlefield.
The Ten-Tails writhed above, disembodied, enraged, and desperate.
Kakashi floated toward it and extended his hand.
The Genesis Seal opened fully.
A spiral of blood-red rings expanded from his palm. The Ten-Tails screeched and twisted, but it was helpless now. Its chakra surged forward, swallowed by the Devourer's Seal. The entire beast, its essence, its form, its truth, was devoured, siphoned into Kakashi's being like ink into silk.
Light exploded around him.
Then silence.
Kakashi hovered alone in the aftermath, the Genesis Seal dimming slightly, satiated, for now. His cloak billowed in the calming wind. His dual Rinnegan glowed with power, the Rinnegan's tomoe orbiting like stars.
The battlefield was dead quiet.
Then….cheering.
It began softly. A murmur among the Allied Shinobi forces. Then it rose, wave after wave. Thousands of shinobi, from every nation, stood together to witness the impossible.
Kakashi Hatake had defeated the legendary Madara Uchiha.
On a nearby ridge, Team 8 and Team 10 stood shoulder to shoulder.
"That… was Kakashi-sensei?" Kiba gawked.
"I've never seen chakra like that." Hinata nodded, her eyes still wide.
"We just watched the natural order shift." Shino calmly added.
"He saved all of us…" Ino wiped a tear.
"That man doesn't just win. He rewrites the ending." Shikamaru exhaled slowly.
Among the shinobi leaders, Gaara stood stunned. "So this is what happens when peace is no longer an ideal, but a force."
"Now I see why he is admired by everyone," Darui muttered.
"He has become something bigger than any of us." Ōnoki, with his voice hoarse, whispered.
In the center of the battlefield, Tsunade stared. Her lips parted, breath stolen. "He… he truly ascended."
Kakashi had told them his plan to devour the ten tails. They were worried at first, but looking at Kakashi now she breathed a sigh of relief.
"That smug handsome bastard actually did it." Anko's grin stretched ear to ear.
"I've never seen anyone make power look so… noble." Mei's voice came next, soft but admiring and full of love.
They watched as Kakashi lowered to the ground, his steps trailing soft golden spirals. Each footfall etched reverence into the ruined earth.
Tsunade stepped forward first, followed by Anko and Mei. They approached slowly, their eyes reflecting awe, love, and pride.
"You're back," Tsunade murmured.
"I always return," Kakashi replied gently.
"And you brought a new world with you." Mei gave a small smirk.
"Still hate how good you look doing it," Anko said as she leaned into him.
Kakashi gave the smallest smile.
Behind them, Team 7 approached. Naruto, wide-eyed. Sakura, hand over her mouth. Karin, openly blushing.
Sasuke, however, stepped forward, pride burning in his gaze. "Sensei…" His voice faltered, just for a moment. "You didn't just protect us. You actually became a god!"
"Kakashi-sensei became a god…" Sakura whispered.
"And we're the first to witness it." Karin stared like a disciple at a shrine.
"So uh… are we bowing now?" Naruto scratched the back of his head.
Kurama stirred within him.
"Don't joke," the Nine-Tails muttered. "That man devoured the Sage of the six paths. Then the Ten-Tails. I don't even know what he is anymore." Poor Kurama was scared out of its wits, worried if Kakashi was not satisfied with what he devoured, and set its sights on him.
"You're scared." Naruto blinked.
"I fear what doesn't belong in this world anymore," Kurama answered without pride.
"Good thing he's still Kakashi-sensei." Naruto smiled softly.
Kakashi's gaze swept over all of them, calm and firm. He turned to where Madara lay, alive but unconscious. Kakashi approached the fallen Uchiha and extended his hand.
"I could erase you," he said quietly. "But that would mean losing an important piece of what comes next. And I will not destroy what can be repurposed."
Madara stirred weakly, one eye cracked open. "You… still show mercy?"
"No," Kakashi answered. "I show utility."
From his palm, the Genesis Seal pulsed. A secondary binding mark formed, a spiraling sigil of subjugation and control. He pressed it gently against Madara's chest.
"You will sleep. When you wake… up I will explain it to you and you will join me."
Madara faded into stasis, sealed yet alive. His power, once feared by everyone, now held in perfect restraint.
Kakashi turned once more to his students and his women, keeping his voice low so as not to be heard by others.
"I have no intention of ruling as a tyrant," he called out, his voice calm. "But the world as it stood, corrupt, fractured, guided by cowards and clans clinging to the past, is over."
His women and students looked at him.
"The Daimyō have already been replaced," Kakashi said. "My spore clones now wear their faces and carry their signatures. The Five Nations will be led, not manipulated."
A pause.
He looked to the sky. "Peace is not a wish. It is a structure. And I am its architect."
Sasuke bowed his head.
"Damn, Kakashi-sensei…" Naruto grinned proudly.
"Lead us." Sakura smiled softly.
Karin said nothing, just nodded.
From behind, Tsunade, Anko, and Mei stepped beside him, hands brushing his arms.
"You built something no one else could," Tsunade said.
"And we'll make sure it lasts," Mei added.
Anko snorted. "Yeah. As long as I get the occasional mission."
"This isn't the end. It's the threshold." Kakashi lowered his head slightly.
As dawn broke in the east, light bathed the broken battlefield in golden hues. For the first time in decades, shinobi from every nation stood under a single leader. Not a kage. Not a weapon.
But a force of unity. A devourer of gods, creator of order.
A new era had begun.
And Hatake Kakashi stood at its center.