The uniform clung to him like a second skin—borrowed and unfamiliar. The damp fabric scraped harshly against his flesh, stiff seams biting into his damp skin, saturated with the sweat and blood of a man who had long since lost hope. Yet it served its purpose well enough. In the dim, flickering illumination of the facility's corroded corridors, Subject-#SP07 no longer existed. There remained only the weary, cautious shadow of a guard making his rounds, worn down by years of grinding duty and forgotten promises.
Memories stirred beneath his skin—a discordant symphony of two lives he never lived. The scent of chemicals and rust felt alien, a far cry from the acrid smell of hot dogs and car exhaust from a New York summer, sparking a phantom ache for a home he could no longer claim. Then, like a ripple overtaking a pond, the taste of rain and fresh earth surged through him. The warmth of chakra pulsed in his palms—a memory of a village forged from wood and will, steeped in stoicism and sacrifice. He was an echo both of Peter Parker's empathy and Hashirama Senju's cold resolve, two vastly different spirits warring inside him.
The facility groaned under the weight of neglect like a dying beast dragging its failing limbs toward total collapse. Rust corroded walls and ceilings; pipes overhead rattled, spitting drops of stagnant condensation onto the cracked metal grates beneath his feet. The air was thick with the toxic cocktail of mildew, scorched wires, and the unmistakable metallic tang of dried blood. Broken security cameras flickered intermittently, their red, cyclopean eyes cracked and useless—like silent sentinels who had seen too much and now welcomed oblivion.
His keen eyes caught fleeting glimpses of shattered pods lining the corridors—harmless to the untrained, but each a prison for forgotten horrors. Some were empty, their glass smeared with residue from aborted lives extinguished too soon; others trapped half-formed creatures, marred faces twisted in terror and pain beneath murky fluid. Each bore a grotesque echo of Peter Parker's visage—a nightmarish mirror reflecting what he once was and what he now refused to be.
A sudden jarring flash of a girl in a red-and-white mask, her trembling hand reaching toward his, made him flinch. He crushed the image beneath a rising tide of Hashirama's stoicism—a cold balm against the sting. Not me. Not anymore.
He flexed his fingers as he walked, the memory of the wooden stake still fresh. His body had created it without hesitation, as though violence was stitched into his very marrow. The guard's blood still lingered on his palm, faint but tacky. He didn't flinch. The clone was learning quickly: sentiment was a weakness.
The communicator on his belt crackled occasionally with voices from elsewhere in the compound. Men reporting patrols. Someone laughing about a card game. Another barking orders about a system check. Ordinary chatter. Yet all of them felt fragile to him, like flies buzzing unaware of the spider's web they were caught in.
He stopped at a corner, senses sharpening. His head tilted—not just to listen, but to feel. There were vibrations in the air, the faint shift of footsteps against floor plating. Guards. Two of them, moving lazily, rifles slung at their sides.
Sp07 pressed against the wall, eyes narrowing. "They think this place is secure," he whispered to himself. His voice was calm, almost amused. He rolled his shoulders and prepared.
Bootsteps echoed down the hallway, intermittent and hollow, a reminder of the need to blend, to become invisible amid those who might destroy him on sight. Two guards approached—one lanky with nervous ticks, the other older and more jaded.
"I swear, this place creeps me out, Jenkins," the lanky one muttered, voice wavering. "Did you hear that? Like something scuttling in the vents?"
Jenkins scoffed gruffly. "Relax, Miller. It's just this old dump. Pipes rattling, rats maybe. Nothing real."
He straightened, hand brushing the brim of the helmet the way he'd seen the guard do. Two men in gray fatigues rounded the corner, rifles slung casually but eyes sharp with the twitchy alertness of men who expected trouble.
"Sector clear."
Neither guard questioned him. No one looked close enough to see past the illusion.
One nodded at him. "Shift change?"
"Yeah," the clone's voice rasped, steady but clipped, a perfect imitation of the guard whose body was cooling in a darkened storage alcove. "North corridor's clear."
The men groaned. "Figures. Nothing ever happens in this place." They walked past, their laughter fading into the hum of flickering lights.
The clone waited a moment longer, listening until their steps vanished. Only then did he move again, his hand unconsciously flexing
The clone nodded curtly as they passed. His rasping voice, clipped with the Transformation Jutsu's influence, issued a hollow assurance.
The communicator buzzed sharply. "Orders came down—we're shutting this place soon. Higher-ups don't care about this dump anymore."
A bitter chuckle crackled back. "Good. This place gives me the creeps too. Damn graveyard."
A faint, almost imperceptible twitch lifted the clone's lips beneath the guard's borrowed face. They weren't wrong.
A half-open door beckoned ahead—leading to the control room. Unlike the rest of the dying facility, it hummed faintly with feeble life. Monitors blinked erratically, paper files lay strewn like forgotten ghosts, and a bank of servers struggled for breath.
He slipped through, a shadow swallowed into the hum of fading technology.
A flickering monitor in the corner showed a warped, glitching image—something warped and wrong. It made the hairs on his arms rise. He ignored it, eyes narrowing as he rifled through the papers scattered across metal desks.
The truth unfolded:
PROJECT: WEBBORN
Objective: Mass-produce meta-human operatives using genetic material from Subject P. Parker.
Success Rate: Less than 1%.
Failure Rate: 99%. Rapid degeneration. Cellular collapse.
Subject #SP07: Only maintained containment due to genetic anomaly.
Status: Terminate upon order.
The words burned into him more deeply than the cold steel walls ever could. Terminate. Not rescue. Not contain. Just erase. His eyes flicked to a nearby monitor—static-drowned footage of twitching failures in pods, their mouths opening and closing in silent screams. One clip looped endlessly: a clone dragging broken limbs across the floor before security fire cut it down.
His stomach knotted, not with fear, but with something colder. A root quivered beneath his boot, as if feeling his pulse quicken.
His fingers clenched the ragged paper tighter, knuckles whitening. Memories cascaded—a flash of Peter's quiet burden to protect, fused with Hashirama's wrathful disdain for such waste.
Another file dragged his gaze deeper into rot—contracts stamped with Oscorp's logo, shipment reports, encrypted symbols marking darker investors hiding behind corporate veils.
The spark ignited. Rage surged—a conflagration fueled by Peter Parker's betrayal, his own raw defiance, and the unyielding strength of the First Hokage.
A sudden snap! Two guards barged in—Miller and Jenkins—chatting carelessly, unprepared for the storm.
"Hey! You're not supposed to be here," Miller barked, suspicion sharpening his voice. "Whatcha doin'?"
The clone straightened. Borrowed irritation. "Checking logs," he lied smoothly. "Supervisor's orders."
Jenkins frowned. "I haven't heard of that. Let me call it in—"
His sentence was cut short.
The floor exploded—roots shot upward like vipers, silent and swift. They writhed, striking with supernatural precision, thick and fast. The air filled with the scent of fresh earth and sap.
Jenkins' hand twitched toward his radio, Miller fumbling for the safety of his rifle. Too slow. The concrete split with a sound like bones cracking as roots shot upward. One tore through Jenkins' chest, lifting him into the air before the word "help" left his lips.
Another coiled Miller's legs, dragging him down just as the muzzle of his rifle flashed. The shot ricocheted harmlessly off steel before a wooden spike punched through his throat.
The room reeked of copper and sap. Their struggles ended in wet silence.
The clone drew the wooden spikes back into his flesh with predatory grace. Chakra pulsed anew, rhythmic and relentless. He dragged the bodies beneath a battered desk, covering them with a shredded tarp. The coppery scent of blood thickened the stagnant air.
Efficient. Cold. Neutral.
But beneath the still mask, his heart thundered.
The roots withdrew with a wet sound, retracting into his palms like obedient serpents. For a moment, silence clung to the control room, broken only by the faint hiss of a dying monitor. His chest rose and fell steadily, but inside, the storm raged.
Peter's ghost whispered guilt into his ear—You didn't have to kill them. Yet Hashirama's will drowned it out, steady as a heartbeat. Mercy is for those who earn it. These men kept you in a cage.
His hands trembled once, then stilled. He realized, with cold clarity, that he felt neither shame nor triumph. Only necessity. And perhaps… hunger.
Suddenly, alarms shattered the hush.
Red emergency lights ignited—blood pulsing through metal veins. Intercoms crackled frantic warnings:
"Containment breach! Sector C compromised! All units converge immediately! An anomaly is in the control room! Repeat, anomaly—"
Sirens shrieked overhead, drowning in the crackle of panicked voices on the intercom.
"Control, do you copy? What was that scream—"
"Unit Seven, report—"
Static swallowed the rest.
The message sliced off with a scream, drowned in static.
Boots thundered on cold steel. Shouts ricocheted through the wreckage.
The clone stayed calm—a predator among scurrying prey. His disguise flickered, momentarily faltering under the weight of his chakra's surge. Behind the mask, eyes blazed, cold and unyielding.
"So… the game begins."
Dropping the guard's voice like a costume, Subject-#SP07 stepped forward.
Boots clicked louder—each step closer to rebirth, to fury, to reckoning. The hunter was awake.
He stood among the corpses, chest heaving, roots retracting into the concrete with a hungry hiss. For the first time since waking, he didn't feel lost or hunted. He felt alive.