From the ashes of steel and fire, something unnatural stirred.
In the heart of the crumbled facility, the ground quivered—splintering as roots burst through the broken concrete. They twisted upward, weaving together in a grotesque dance until they formed the stem of an immense flower. Its petals, smooth yet armored, pushed outward, straining against the ruin until they split apart with a shuddering bloom.
At its center sat a spiral object of dark wood, pulsing faintly as though alive. The spiral groaned, then began to shift—panels peeling away in a fluid, deliberate motion.
From within the wooden structure, #SP07 emerged.
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Switch to #SP07's POV
The last thing he remembered was the roar of the explosion tearing through the underground chambers. Instinct had taken over—chakra flooding his system as he raised a dome of reinforced wood around his body. The barrier held, groaning under the pressure as flames and debris crashed against it.
But escape was necessary.
So he wove another construct from within—forcing the dome to unfurl into the stem of a flower. Its growth pushed him upward through the wreckage like a spear, piercing the ground and carrying him toward the surface. A blossom breaking through the grave.
Now, standing amid the devastation, the scent of smoke clinging to the air, he looked around.
The landscape was unrecognizable. Twisted metal jutted out of cracked earth. Flames licked the remains of shattered walls. The underground facility, once hidden and fortified, had become nothing more than a scar on the world.
And he was at the center of it.
Smoke still curled from the ruins behind him, but as #SP07 turned his gaze outward, he realized the devastation ended at the tree line.
A forest stretched before him.
Tall trunks rose like pillars, their canopies weaving together to filter shafts of golden light down to the mossy earth. The sharp tang of ash faded with every breath, replaced by something different—alive, untamed, clean.
He inhaled deeply.
The air here was different.
Rich with soil.
Damp with moss.
Tinged faintly with the perfume of wildflowers.
And beneath it all… the scent of freedom.
His lips did not move, but in the silence of his thoughts a strange stillness settled. For the first time since the chaos began, the world did not feel like a cage.
Then his ears twitched.
A sound—soft, steady, unmistakable.
Water. Flowing somewhere beyond the trees.
#SP07's body shifted instinctively, senses sharpening. He let his chakra coil subtly at the edges of his being, not to fight, but to feel. The murmur of the stream called to him, its rhythm grounding, promising something more than survival.
With careful steps, he began to walk toward it—each movement deliberate, each breath steady. Bark cracked underfoot, ferns brushed against his legs, and the forest seemed to breathe with him.
The stream wound through the forest like liquid glass, glinting beneath the filtered light. Its surface rippled softly, breaking the sky into fragments.
#SP07 crouched at the edge, leaning over.
For a moment, the face that stared back at him was not his own.
The same stern jaw, the same shaven head, the same uniformed figure—an echo of the guard whose skin he had worn to escape.
His hand twitched. A faint shimmer of chakra swept over his body.
The disguise melted away.
And the reflection changed.
Long, wild red hair spilled past his shoulders, cascading down to his waist like a burning banner left untended. His skin was pale—sickly, almost translucent, as though sunlight itself had forgotten him. Hollow cheeks and faint shadows beneath his eyes betrayed years of deprivation. His frame was tall but thin, stretched by hunger and neglect rather than nourished strength.
His face was sharper than he expected—cheekbones defined, jawline pronounced, lips narrow but expressive. There was something distinctly American in the broadness of his brow and the bridge of his nose, yet softened by finer Asian contours around his eyes and cheekbones. Those eyes, a deep, dark brown bordering on black, carried a strange intensity—alien in their sharpness, as though carved from something older, deeper, and more enduring.
He blinked,the figure in the water did the same.
A tall frame, yes, but marred by malnourishment. Broad shoulders that carried no weight of muscle, only the memory of struggle. Sharp lines beneath his skin spoke of hunger, confinement, deprivation.
And he was still clad in the shredded remnants of the guard's uniform. Fabric torn and burned, blood soaking through patches, holes punched where steel and claws had found him. The sight of it looked almost alien draped across this stranger's body.
He exhaled, a sound that trembled between wonder and disbelief.
This… was him.
Not the mask. Not the weapon they forged.
Him.
He stared at the stranger in the water and, for a heartbeat, wondered if this fragile, spectral figure was truly his own body.
For a long time, he didn't move. The water's surface shivered, distorting the stranger staring back at him, yet his own expression remained frozen—caught between shock, disbelief, and something darker he couldn't yet name.
A laugh threatened to slip from his throat, brittle and dry. This face… this body… this life.
He closed his eyes, trying to push back against the tide of memories, but they came anyway.
He wasn't supposed to be here. He had been… what? A normal guy. A nobody. He had lived an ordinary life, worked an ordinary job, dreamed ordinary dreams. He had died—though the how of it slipped through his grasp like smoke. And then the letter. The letter written in words that branded themselves into his mind. A god's apology. A mistake. A bargain.
So here he was—no longer himself, yet burdened with too much of others. The DNA of Hashirama Senju burned in his veins, humming with life force that his pale body didn't yet know how to carry. Spider-Man's memories tangled with his own, bleeding into every corner of his thoughts. He could feel Peter's pain, his guilt, his relentless drive to protect. He could feel Hashirama's calm, his sorrow, his dream of peace. And somewhere in the midst of all that, his own fragmented humanity trembled, asking if there was still room for him.
His reflection did not answer.
He remembered the sound of tearing metal as he ripped free from the container. The sterile stench of the lab. The cold faces of the scientists—faces that turned to panic when he struck. Their screams, the fire, the collapse of everything they had built to contain him. He hadn't just escaped; he had annihilated them. Blood and ash had paved his path into this new existence.
And now… silence.
The forest whispered around him, indifferent, eternal. For the first time since his awakening, there were no alarms, no gunfire, no eyes watching him through glass. Just the weight of his own breathing, the burn of his heart against his ribs, and the reflection that would not let him look away.
He pressed a hand to the water's surface, watching ripples scatter his face into fragments again. His lips trembled, though no words came. Shock hollowed him out, yet beneath it a grim, gnawing awareness settled: this was no dream. There would be no return to what he had been.
This was him now.
And if this was him, then who—what—was he supposed to become?
The reflection in the water rippled as the stream carried leaves and light across its surface. He stared at it a long while, the pale skin, the wild crimson hair spilling down like a fire untamed, the strange sharp-yet-soft features that belonged to no single heritage. American angles softened by an Asian balance. A face that didn't belong to anyone he had ever been.
And maybe that was the point.
For the first time since tearing his way into existence, silence settled on him—not the silence of laboratories, or the muffled hum of containment tubes, but the silence of the world itself. Wind threading through branches. Water flowing over stone. A bird calling somewhere unseen.
A different kind of silence. One that gave him space to breathe.
He had been a man once. Normal. Average. His old life was nothing like this—until death, sudden and forgotten. He couldn't even recall the moment that had ended it. Just the cold awareness of waking up somewhere else. In a tube. With someone else's memories flooding him like acid poured over fragile glass.
Spider-Man's pain. Hashirama's warmth. Great power, greater weight. Two legacies so heavy they threatened to crush him before he could even stand.
But he wasn't them.
He wasn't Peter Parker with his endless cycle of guilt and sacrifice. He wasn't Hashirama Senju with his blinding optimism and burning "Will of Fire."
He was something forged in between. A mistake, maybe. An accident. A shadow of lives never meant to cross.
And yet—he was alive.
That thought settled into him like a root into soil. It steadied him. Gave him ground to stand on. For the first time since awakening, he let himself exhale, shoulders loosening. The reflection trembled with the motion, then stilled, staring back at him with dark, unyielding eyes.
No—he wasn't Spider-Man. He wasn't Hashirama. He was… himself.
He didn't need more than that.
His fingers clenched into fists, not in anger, but in a quiet promise. He had destroyed his cage. He had stepped into a world that didn't know him. That was enough of a beginning.
But beginnings needed names.
If he wanted to exist on his own terms, to sever himself from the ghosts that clung to his blood and bones, he couldn't just wander nameless.
His eyes narrowed on the reflection, lips curling slightly—not in a smile, but in something close to resolve.
"A name…" he murmured, voice rough with disuse. "Mine. Not theirs."
The forest around him felt like it waited, listening.
He spoke it aloud this time, letting the syllables roll off his tongue as though tasting the weight of it for the first time.
"Seraph Senju."
The name was his own. Not Peter. Not Hashirama. Not Subject-#SP07.
Seraph—rebirth, rising from the ashes of death and destruction, a promise of a life reclaimed. Senju—to honor the legacy of Hashirama, the First Hokage, whose will and strength flowed through his veins. Not Peter. Not Hashirama. Not Subject-#SP07. Just himself.
The forest seemed to whisper in response, the wind rustling leaves as if acknowledging his choice. He traced his jawline in the reflection, taking in the sharp features, the pale skin, the untamed cascade of red hair. This name was more than a label. It was a declaration: he was born anew, carrying pieces of legends—but now, he walked his own path.
It carried the elegance of wings, the fire of a spirit unbound, and the legacy of roots buried deep yet reaching higher. The forest seemed to acknowledge it, the wind rustling leaves in quiet approval.
He touched his reflection again, tracing the line of his jaw, the sharp curve of his cheek, the untamed cascade of red hair. Seraph Senju. A man born from blood, DNA, and memory—yet finally whole in his own skin.
There was no time to linger. The ruins of the facility still smoldered somewhere below. The world beyond these woods waited. And Seraph Senju would walk it on his own terms.
He pulled himself from the stream's edge, every step measured, deliberate. A new life awaited, and for the first time, he was ready to meet it—not as a shadow of legends, but as himself.