One Week Later
The night air was cool against Seraph's skin as he stepped out onto the balcony. The city stretched before him, a restless ocean of steel and neon. Towers clawed upward, their windows glowing like fractured constellations. Far below, car horns bled into the faint rumble of trains, the hum of millions crammed into sleepless lives.
It had been a week since his last encounter with Liz. A week of silence, planning, and small victories.
The first was Marvin. Money exchanged for silence, forged papers passed from one hand to another. No questions. No delays. Seraph checked every detail himself—date of birth, social security, driver's license. Flawless. Another mask, another face to hide behind.
The second victory came the next day.
He bought a house.
It was practically given to him. The seller's eyes were hungry for escape, voice cracking with desperation as they explained the "circumstances." Cheap—laughably so. Fully furnished, too. The kind of deal no sane buyer would touch.
Because the house was cursed.
The story clung to it like rot.
Once it belonged to a woman—a recluse whose sanity frayed until she dragged others into her madness. They whispered she murdered them inside these walls, one by one, with knives and rope. The neighbors only called the police after weeks of unbearable stench. The officers found her dangling from the rafters, head tilted, eyes wide, lips twisted into a broken smile.
The blood had dried, but the house never shook free of her.
Tenants tried. One left after hearing weeping in the walls, swearing the floorboards shivered beneath him like something breathing. Another swore he woke at 3 a.m. to the sight of the woman's corpse swaying in the hallway, her neck bent at an impossible angle. Some reported cold hands brushing their skin as they slept. Others found objects moved, chairs turned to face them when they looked away.
Each left in terror.
Until it sat abandoned, rotting in silence.
For Seraph, it was perfect. Remote. Cheap. No neighbors. And to him, the past painted into these walls was little more than a whisper. With Peter's memories of villains tearing cities apart and Hashirama's scars of wars where forests drowned in blood, what was one angry ghost?
Still, the rumors weren't just rumors.
It came on the third night.
The temperature fell in an instant. The air thickened, cloying, carrying the stink of mildew and something sour—old blood soaked into wood. From the corner of his vision, shadows stretched too far, twisting like fingers.
Then he heard it.
A creak.
A dragging shuffle.
The faint sound of rope straining.
When he looked up, there it was—her.
The woman hung in the hallway, just as they had found her years ago. Her body swayed, though there was no draft, her head cocked unnaturally to one side. Her eyes were pits of shadow, yet they followed him, fixed on him. A wet whisper leaked from her lips.
"Get out…"
The temperature plummeted further. A mirror cracked. Lights sputtered and died. The floor groaned as if something heavy was crawling underneath.
Most would have fled screaming.
Seraph only sighed.
His hands came together, moving through seals faster than the flickering bulb overhead. From his palm, wood blossomed—a smooth bottle forming with grain like flowing water, alive and resonant with chakra. The ghost screamed, the sound sharp and layered with dozens of voices, but Seraph's expression never shifted.
"Compared to tailed beasts," he murmured, voice steady, "you're nothing."
The spirit clawed, shrieking, its form breaking apart into strands of darkness. The air stank of rot and smoke as it was pulled, dragged, and sealed into the vessel. With one final whisper, the hallway fell silent.
The cold lifted. The lights steadied. The only sound was his own breathing.
Seraph set the wooden bottle on a shelf. Sealed. Contained. No more than an afterthought.
Now the house was his.
Leaning against the balcony railing, he let his gaze wander over the lights of New York. It almost looked peaceful from here, glittering against the black. But he knew better. Beneath that glow were shadows, chaos, endless noise.
He didn't waste his time. The past week hadn't just been about settling in—he had tested himself, measured his limits.
The spider's gifts coursed through him, sharpened and honed, but different than Peter's ever were.
Spider-Man's abilities—enhanced leap, reflexes, spider-sense—were all fused into his genetic core, but each felt subtly sharper than Peter's ever were. Every jump seemed to push gravity harder. His perception narrowed to razor edges. That was Hashirama's influence: more chakra, stronger baseline, potential for scale.
Then came Hashirama's power.
That was where reality humbled him.
He could call wood from the ground, raise pillars, weave branches into crude structures. But compared to the First Hokage himself, it was little more than a pale shadow. At best, his wood style was Yamato's garden against a sprawling forest—useful, yes, but not legendary.
And yet…
There was something different.
Yamato's gift had been stolen—implanted cells, an artificial inheritance. Seraph was no thief. His blood, his marrow, his spirit carried the legacy. When he called forth wood, it didn't feel like a trick—it felt alive. Breathing. Waiting to grow.
He could sense it. Potential. Latent, immense. A path stretching ahead, if he had the patience to walk it.
Seraph's wood style felt more alive because he inherited the legacy, not a lab-created implant. He could sense it growing—pulse with flattened grain and green surge beneath his skin. It was raw, unrefined—but real.
He knelt on the rooftop and quietly manifested a small garden of roots and vines, the greenery weaving around his palm like lunging serpents, reaching upward as if chasing the skyline. The wood was softer than Yamato's tough planks, but it writhed with life.
Ever wondered why Yamato's version always felt stunted? Because despite having Hashirama's cells, he lacked the legacy born of soul and destiny . Seraph didn't—he could feel the power alive within him, waiting for cultivation.
He let the tiny plant dissolve into pulsed green chakra. There would be time to nurture forests someday. For now, this simple test satisfied him.
A quiet sigh slipped from his lips as he straightened. As much as he wanted peace, chaos seemed to have a special liking for him. It found him, even when he didn't look for it.
Like yesterday.
He had only gone out for groceries, walking the streets with a bag under his arm, enjoying—if that was the right word—the simple rhythm of ordinary life. The hum of conversations, the smell of hot dogs from a cart, the idle chatter of the city at dusk.
And then, of course, the city had reminded him.
A group of four men spilled out from an alley, cheap leather jackets and equally cheap bravado. One had a rusted knife, another waved a pistol like it was a magic wand. The leader, face half-shadowed under a beanie, barked:
"Oi, pretty boy. Bag. Now."
Seraph sighed, shifting the grocery bag higher on his arm. Of course. Not even ten minutes of peace.
"I don't think you want this," he said simply. His tone wasn't threatening, but calm—too calm.
"Wrong answer," the one with the pistol sneered, stepping forward. "You think I'm bluffing? This city eats people like you alive."
Seraph tilted his head, studying them with mild curiosity rather than fear. "Funny. I was about to say the same thing."
They didn't wait. The first rushed him with the knife.
Seraph stepped aside, grabbed the man's wrist mid-swing, and twisted. A crack rang out as the thug screamed, dropping the blade.
The leader cursed. "Get him!"
The man with the pistol fired. Seraph was already moving. His body flowed with precision drilled into him by two lifetimes—Hashirama's battlefield instincts, Peter's urban agility. He closed the distance, slapped the gun aside, and drove his fist into the man's gut. The thug folded, gagging.
Another came swinging with a chain.
Seraph ducked under it, swept his legs, and the man hit the pavement hard. A kick to the ribs ended his part in the fight.
The leader staggered back, eyes wide. "What the hell are you?!"
Seraph dropped the grocery bag gently onto the sidewalk, then straightened. "Just someone who doesn't like being bothered."
The man lunged in desperation, knife flashing.
Seraph caught his arm, slammed an elbow into his face, and dropped him to the ground. The knife clattered uselessly beside him.
The fight—or whatever you could call it—was a one-sided slaughter. They lunged, shouted, cursed, and bled. He moved, struck, and ended it.
One thug coughed, spitting blood, his eyes blazing with fury. "You… you're supposed to be some kind of hero?!"
Seraph crouched, rifling through his pockets. "No," he said flatly, pulling out a wad of bills. "Heroes waste opportunities. I don't."
He moved from one to the next, stripping them of cash, watches, phones—anything worth taking. Their groans filled the alley as he worked with unhurried efficiency.
And then came the part Peter Parker would have never done.
He robbed them back.
Hashirama had grown up in the Warring States era, where resources meant survival. That instinct—never waste, never leave opportunity behind—was burned into Seraph now. Unlike Peter, he wouldn't walk away empty-handed out of misplaced morality. Power meant survival. Resources meant preparation.
If Peter had embraced that truth, how different might he have been?
Seraph stood, bag of groceries in one hand, a pocket heavy with stolen goods in the other. He spared the groaning men one last look.
"Next time," he said quietly, "try someone easier."
And then he walked away, leaving only broken bodies and silence behind.
Now, back on his balcony, he clipped a root vine to the railing. He let it twist upward into a small decorative trellis, green weaving into the steel. A reminder of progress. Small, but alive. Growing.
So much had happened since he woke in this world.
So much more waited ahead.
The path before him stretched long and endless.
And walking away was never an option.
This was his road.
The path of life.