The air felt like molten glass, thick and trembling with unspent energy. The Ten-Tails, grotesque and colossal, writhed in agony as it had expelled Obito's body, a scream of rage and rejection splitting the heavens.

Its malicious chakra burst outward in concentric waves, flattening trees, displacing stone, and cracking the already scorched battlefield.

Below, unseen beneath the surface, Kakashi Hatake moved.

Through tunnels carved silently with Mayfly, his presence masked, he tunneled like a specter underfoot. The ground above buckled, shadows stretching in all directions.

His left palm glowed faintly red, the Genesis Seal pulsing like a living heart. The runes spiraled out across his forearm in jagged symmetry, each movement synchronizing with his breath.

He reached the convergence point: directly beneath the Ten-Tails' convulsing mass.

Kakashi knelt slowly, placing his hand on the earth. Chakra surged into the ground in pulses. The Genesis Seal spun.

"Sealing Art: Genesis Root Convergence."

A thunderous pulse traveled upward.

On the surface, black vines exploded from the soil beneath the Ten-Tails, massive chains of energy and rune-inked tendrils wrapping around its limbs, tail stalks, and underbelly. They pierced its flesh, feeding directly into the ground. The beast howled, its eyes widening in shock.

It had been ambushed.

Underground, Kakashi gritted his teeth as his body shuddered. The chakra flooding into him was malicious, corrosive, and divine. The Genesis Seal rotated faster, its red glow becoming blinding. It devoured the Ten-Tails' chakra in tidal waves, distilling it, refining it.

But there was too much. Even with his vast reserves and enhanced physiology, his body began to crackle under the pressure.

His bones creaked. Blood seeped from his nose.

But he didn't stop.

Above, the Ten-Tails' movements grew frantic. Sections of its mass visibly thinned as the roots sucked its chakra dry. It swung its tails wildly, slamming the earth in a desperate frenzy. But the seal held.

Elsewhere on the battlefield, Madara took notice. His single Rinnegan flared.

"Hatake Kakashi…" he muttered. "What are you doing?"

At that moment, the Ten-Tails roared, and surged forward, abandoning its position and tearing free from the weakened roots. The absorption wasn't complete, but the damage was done. A significant portion of its chakra was gone, ripped away.

Kakashi collapsed inside the tunnel, gasping, every breath heavy and unstable. The Genesis Seal had stopped spinning. The veins across his body were bulging, flooded with divine chakra. His vision blurred, and a terrible pressure thundered in his ears.

A whisper echoed in his mind, not in words, but sensation: You were not meant to hold this.

He coughed blood, then smiled weakly. "Too late."

The chakra inside him flared violently, his systems unable to handle the overload. Then something strange happened.

The world went quiet.

Kakashi blinked, and the walls of earth around him were gone.

He was standing.

Not on the battlefield.

Not in the tunnel.

But in a place made of light and silence.

The ground beneath his feet was pale stone, etched with flowing golden script that moved like living calligraphy. A white mist hung in the air, thick but not choking. It carried no scent. No wind.

This was not the world of the living.

Kakashi stood upright, instinctively checking his arms. The Genesis Seal was dim now, faintly pulsing like a heartbeat in stasis.

A presence approached.

From the mist emerged a figure, robed in white and adorned with the crescent symbols of his era. His hair was long, gray, and parted at the center with two small horns in his forehead. His eyes, unlike any Kakashi had seen before, carried the Rinnegan, but also something deeper, understanding, sadness, and hope.

"Kakashi Hatake," the man said.

Kakashi's hand twitched toward his side, but he didn't draw.

"Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki," he replied quietly.

The Sage of Six Paths inclined his head. "You are not dead. But you have crossed the veil nonetheless. Few have ever done so while alive."

Kakashi didn't speak. He observed and waited.

"I see now… your soul bears a fragment of Indra's chakra. Yet it is not him. It is something else. You are… converging." Hagoromo stepped closer, his gaze intense.

"I'm not your son," Kakashi said flatly.

"I know." Hagoromo's tone was gentle. "But you carry pieces of both. The blood of Indra. The blood of Asura. You have defied fate itself."

"I don't believe in fate."Kakashi's lips curled slightly.

"Then perhaps," Hagoromo said, "that is why you have arrived."

He extended a hand, and the air shimmered. Images burst into view, memories not Kakashi's, but embedded in the chakra he had stolen. Visions of Kaguya's tyranny. The sealing of the Ten-Tails. The birth of ninshū. The cycle of reincarnation repeats endlessly. War. Suffering.

"You seek to end this, don't you?" Hagoromo asked, gesturing toward the illusions.

"If the world burns, let it burn clean. No more rot."Kakashi's expression remained unreadable.

The Sage paused. His voice dropped. "Even if you must consume everything to do it?"

"Yes."Kakashi took one step forward.

For the first time, Hagoromo's eyes narrowed.

"You would devour even me?"

Kakashi's silence was answer enough.

The red glow of the Genesis Seal began to stir again.

"You do not understand what you tamper with."Hagoromo sighed.

Kakashi looked around the Pure Land, the ethereal script flowing along the horizon like water.

"No," he said. "I understand better than anyone. You created peace through compromise. I will create peace through conclusion."

The air darkened.

The seal bloomed outward from Kakashi's hand, a rotating sigil of spiraling rings and sharp points. It cast a crimson light across the white landscape.

Hagoromo's eyes widened.

"You would-!"

Kakashi moved.

The moment froze, just as the seal surged forward, a hunger older than time itself reached toward the soul of the Sage.

The Pure Land quaked.

It was not a place meant for violence, yet Kakashi's Genesis Seal defied all laws, even spiritual ones. The crimson construct twisted into the form of a spinning diamond mandala, its edges lined with sharp chakra threads humming in resonance. Reality around them splintered like glass, each fracture reflecting a different age of shinobi history.

Hagoromo raised his palm.

Six glowing spheres of chakra formed behind him, Truth-Seeking Orbs, ancient and absolute. With one gesture, they expanded into a perfect barrier, shielding him as the Genesis Seal crashed forward.

The impact was silent.

But in the stillness, the world bled light.

Kakashi was forced back, his feet dragging across the stone floor. His breath hitched, the divine chakra inside him boiling. Hagoromo stood unmoving, robes untouched, though his eyes carried the weight of disappointment.

"I see now," he murmured. "You have walked beyond the teachings of peace. You do not seek harmony. You seek finality."

"I seek liberation," Kakashi hissed, his voice strained under pressure. "This world has been enslaved by your dream long enough."

"It was not a dream. It was hope." Hagoromo shook his head.

"And hope," Kakashi growled, "is the first lie children are told."

The Genesis Seal spiraled again, faster now, hungrily.

A second push.

This time, the seal expanded mid-flight, threads lashing outward. It bypassed the Truth-Seeking Barrier, slithering like snakes of pure code, wrapping around the edges of Hagoromo's spiritual form. They tightened.

The Sage winced, his spiritual body beginning to unravel slightly at the edges, as if the threads were rewriting his essence. His eyes flared. "Then I must stop you here."

He raised both hands. A grand seal manifested, spiraling rings layered with celestial kanji.

"Six Paths Seal: Heaven's Binding!"

The technique dropped like a hammer.

Chains of pure judgment descended from above, slamming toward Kakashi. But even as they fell, the Genesis Seal flared with new intensity. A second seal opened on his chest, one born from consuming Hagoromo's chakra earlier through the Ten-Tails. A mirrored script activated.

"Formula Reconstruction," Kakashi whispered, "Override: Consume."

The two forces collided.

Heaven's judgment met devouring hunger.

And at that moment, the Pure Land itself began to collapse, light twisting, time bending, the laws of life and death losing coherence.

Kakashi's final thought as the light overtook him: This… is the origin.

Then everything went white.

And across the battlefield… the earth trembled once more.