The lab was still.
Kakashi pressed his hand against the clone's chest. His fingers were steady. The red glow of the Genesis Seal flared under his palm, rotating like a slow spiral fan. It spun once, twice, then faster, its hum rising.
A soft wind stirred the room.
The Madara clone didn't resist. Its eyes were closed, its voice quiet.
"It's time," The Orochimaru clone said. "Good luck… Kakashi-sama."
Then the center of the seal deepened, and a black chakra vortex opened under his palm.
The clone began to vanish as the black vortex engulfed him.
It wasn't sudden, it looked like he was peeled away gently, as if dust drifting into the wind. Chakra first. Then flesh. Then the bone. Piece by piece, it returned to energy. Returned to Kakashi.
He felt it all.
First came the Uchiha chakra, sharp like glass shards, but burning like fire. It pierced through his chest and spine, filled with pain, pride, grief, and rage. The weight of hundreds of years of false emotions pressed into his veins.
Then the Senju chakra came, cool, like a river flowing through dry roots. Healing. Steady. Deep. It moved like calm hands brushing against a fevered mind.
Kakashi's hands trembled. His breath caught.
His two Sharingan spun wildly in response. Not from him, but from the chakra demanding space.
The wind inside the lab roared. Loose scrolls lifted off the shelves. Lights flickered. Seals on the walls flashed in protest.
Sweat rolled down his brow, and veins under his skin lit up in faint chakra-blue, pulsing like tree roots beneath bark.
"It's working… I can feel it all." He gritted his teeth, eyes sharp, his voice low.
…
The absorption ended in one final pulse of shining red light.
The vortex closed.
The room fell still again, but something had changed.
Kakashi stood there, slightly hunched, breathing slowly. His body glowed faintly from within. Not blinding, just a soft, eerie hum. His chakra pulsed outward, not wild but immense. Like a silent ocean, calm but endless.
He opened his eyes.
They glowed crimson.
The tomoe spun into new forms.
The left eye twisted into a four-pointed star with a black square in the middle. The right showed a four-pointed shuriken with an hourglass in the middle.
He blinked once. The world shifted.
He saw the chakra threads from his seals inside the wall. Echoes of the clone's body still hover in the air. He could even see through the floor into the roots beneath the mansion.
"Mangekyō…" he whispered. "My own."
The power wasn't borrowed. It was part of him now.
A deeper presence stirred in his chest. It was the chakra he took from Sasuke long ago, the remnant chakra of Indra, sleeping inside him until now. Absorbing Uchiha and Senju blood had awakened it.
A dull pressure settled into his new Mangekyō. They felt heavier now. It felt Real. Alive.
"So this is the power of the Indra…" he whispered. "Even if it's just chakra."
He flexed his left hand.
It glowed green for a moment, then soft roots emerged from his palm. They curled, alive and warm, before pulling back under his skin.
His chakra shifted. It felt closer to nature. Not wild like Sage Mode, but balanced. Rooted.
"Wood Style…" he said. "Perfect harmony."
He stood still.
He didn't move, but he felt everything.
The walls of the lab pulsed faintly. The stones under his feet whispered back. Nature was listening. And even without entering Sage Mode, his body responded.
His bruises faded in seconds. His breath steadied. Cuts on his hand healed without scar marks.
He touched his ribs gently, surprised to find no tension. No pain.
He smiled faintly.
"I wonder," he murmured. "Could I even be killed now?"
His chakra had reached the Super Kage level long ago.
Now? It was something else. Something not yet labeled.
He stepped forward. The echo of his footfall felt louder than usual. The ground itself respected his presence.
Once I master Yin-Yang Release, he thought, I might reach the Sage' of the six paths.
…
The storm had passed.
The red and black light faded from the Genesis Seal. His palm still glowed faintly, but it was calm now, like a sleeping furnace.
He stood alone in the quiet lab. Then, from behind a control panel, the Orochimaru clone stepped forward.
Its eyes were wide. Its voice is almost reverent.
"That… was beautiful."
The clone stepped around the machines, watching Kakashi like a curious scholar.
"So this is what happens," it said slowly, "when you break all limits."
Kakashi didn't answer at first. He flexed his palm once. The room reacted. Dust lifted, then fell.
He looked down at the Genesis Seal with quiet intensity.
"Now I have the tools," he said softly. "It's time to shape the future."
The clone placed its hands behind its back, lips curling into a smirk.
"Kakashi-sama," it said, half-joking, "you really are a monster."
There was no insult in its voice. Just pure fascination, Kakashi had surprised him many times like this. It was also one of the things that made him even more determined to work with Kakashi.
"But what a monster to follow," the clone added. "Life with you… It's never going to be boring."
Kakashi didn't laugh, but the edge of his mouth twitched.
He walked over to the lab table, pulled out a scroll, and began writing. Notes on chakra changes. New seal pathways. The structure of his evolved Sharingan.
The clone watched in silence.
And outside, the world kept spinning, unaware that something new had just been born in the shadows.
Something the world wasn't ready for.
The lab was quiet again.
But nothing in the world would be the same anymore.