UK:GSW Chapter 324 – The God-Emperor's Chosen, Living Saint Kakashi
Kakashi was dead—slain by a group of Noise Marines, Chaos Astartes in the service of Slaanesh—and, according to the rules of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, his soul was cast directly into the Warp.
The so-called Warp—also called the Immaterium, the Sea of Souls, or the Empyrean—was a purely psychic, higher-dimensional realm. It was the afterlife for all sentient souls and the mirror of the material universe, infinite in size, utterly alien, and completely separate from realspace.
However, in the Warhammer 40,000 setting, the Warp had long since been corrupted, saturated with monsters, Chaos Gods, and daemons. For any unprotected soul, entering the Warp meant becoming food, tools, or playthings for these horrors—tormented for eternity, denied both life and release.
Thus, in the Imperium of Man, the greatest honor after death was for one's soul to be drawn to the Golden Throne—protected by the Emperor Himself, spared from the Warp's unimaginable agonies.
Of course, this was all part of the Warhammer 40k lore—something that certain British company had cooked up as a "COOOOOOOL" piece of worldbuilding to sell their products. Its sheer scale made it almost impossible to replicate fully in a game.
For example, in the Warhammer 40k world that Uchiha Naori had created, the Warp itself could not be rendered in its entirety. Kakashi, as a player-character, entering it upon death was mostly just a scripted story beat.
What Kakashi experienced was the sensation of his will stripped of its body—becoming incorporeal, unstable, and impossible to control.
An overwhelming helplessness washed over his spirit, filling him with terror, and making him realize he was already dead, standing in the afterlife.
The afterlife, however, was anything but peaceful.
He could "see" his surroundings: a dazzling, indescribably colorful expanse, in which countless malicious gazes turned toward him. These gazes pierced through his essence, as if to devour him whole, ensuring his soul would never find peace.
A chill colder than death's touch gripped him, sinking into the marrow of his being. Despair, deeper than any he had ever felt, closed in on him.
This was a despair without redemption, without aid, without hope—only an endless abyss stretching from the depths of his soul.
"Is this the end? Is my soul about to be torn apart and tortured by these creatures? Is this… my fate?"
"Hah… fitting, for a failure like me."
A bitter trace of resignation surfaced within Kakashi, and with it, a strange calm. Such an ending felt… appropriate.
After all, his life had been defined by loss. A mother dead in infancy. A father's suicide. A teammate killed by his own hand. His teacher and his wife slaughtered. Even his own student, lost beyond saving.
All of it marked him as a failure. A hopeless bastard. Perhaps this was the end he deserved.
And then—at that very moment—miracle broke through despair.
In the Warp's abyss, a cold golden sun appeared, shining with an incomparable brilliance that bathed the region where Kakashi's soul drifted.
The Warp-beasts—those that had hungrily stalked him—screamed in terror. Under the golden light, they either burned to ash or fled far, too terrified to approach.
Kakashi stared at the cold sun, unable to recover from the shock, because in that golden radiance he seemed to see… countless figures.
Old men. Children. Men. Women. The brave. The cowardly. The suffering. The joyous. The mad. The wise.
It was as if every kind of person who had ever lived appeared before him, filling his mind until his very thoughts froze.
Then came the voices—many, layered, contradictory. Calm yet mad. They poured directly into his mind, as if to drown him in infinite information.
Liar / Madman / Failure / Redeemer / Savior / Betrayer / Outsider / Blasphemer / Bringer of Hope / Bringer of Despair / Recluse / Lost One…
Too many, all at once, swelling his thoughts until it felt his skull would burst. He could only drift in a stunned haze.
Finally, the golden light bathed him completely, and he felt a great and terrible power washing through his soul—purifying, reshaping, remaking him.
And at last, he heard a single, complete sentence:
"Go forth and fight, child from another world. Take the power I grant you… and bring to this mad, despairing universe even the smallest spark of hope."
The voice was weary, pained, as if its owner endured torments beyond measure. It took everything the speaker had to utter those words.
In that instant, Kakashi knew who it was. Without thinking, he cried out:
"You… you're the Emperor!"
And then—light, motion, a spinning of space—and he opened his eyes.
He was back in the same trench where he had died moments ago. Only now it was littered with the corpses of his fellow soldiers, each one a horror: seven orifices bleeding, heads burst, faces locked in the agony of their last moments.
Even for a veteran of many wars, the sight was sickening.
Then came the noise—that same shrieking cacophony that had killed him and cast his soul into the Warp.
But this time… it was only unbearably unpleasant. Instead of helpless death, it stoked a fierce, rising anger—a burning desire to destroy the source.
Following the sound, Kakashi saw them—over two hundred meters away—the same Noise Marines that had slain him, still slaughtering Imperial Guardsmen.
And as his eyes fell on them, knowledge flooded his mind, unbidden:
Chaos Astartes, servants of the Dark Prince Slaanesh—Noise Marines. Degenerate warriors who used maddening sound to bring death and agony. In their delusion, they saw themselves as holding an eternal concert, sharing their "joy" with the galaxy—when in truth, they brought only torment, suffering, and death.
Kakashi froze. He should not have known this—but he did.
Then he understood.
"This must be… the Emperor's power!"
It was clear: upon his death, his soul had entered the Warp and was about to be devoured—but the Emperor had intervened. Recognizing Kakashi as an outsider to this insane universe, He had deemed him a tiny flicker of hope, bestowed upon him the God-Emperor's own blessing, and returned him to life, armed with new powers—and the knowledge of Chaos itself.
Kakashi looked at his right hand. Golden energy pulsed and roared through it, fusing with his chakra, letting him unleash his ninja arts to their fullest in this alien world.
While such power might be trivial on the scale of a galactic war, here—on this battlefield against the Noise Marines—it was more than enough.
Drawing on his new senses, Kakashi released the Emperor's gift. Golden wings spread from his back, radiant with holy light, and with a single beat he surged into the air—transformed into a golden comet hurtling toward the enemy.
The Noise Marines turned, surprised—but the light was already upon them.
A thunderous impact. Dust and fire erupted. When the glow faded, one Noise Marine was beneath Kakashi's heel—his 2.5-meter form and blasphemous armor crushed, the Emperor's power burning him in golden flame until only ash remained.
The battlefield froze. Both Noise Marines and the few surviving Guardsmen stared in stunned silence. Unbeknownst to Kakashi, his body had grown under the Emperor's blessing, now standing around 2.4 meters—comparable to an unarmored Astartes.
In his hand appeared a katana wreathed in golden fire—the weapon shaped instinctively by the Emperor's power, molded by the teachings of his father, Hatake Sakumo, and ready for the Hatake Sword Style.
A thought flitted through his mind—half-joking—that maybe he'd come to this world because his father had gotten so angry at him that he'd accidentally killed him. But he pushed it aside. This was no time for jokes.
Then came the cry from one of the Guardsmen:
"It's the God-Emperor's Chosen! The Living Saint! The God-Emperor watches over us—He watches this battlefield! The Emperor protects!!"
Fanatic devotion swept the ranks. Morale, on the brink of collapse, surged to a frenzy, the soldiers' eyes burning with holy zeal. To see a Living Saint on the battlefield meant one thing: the Emperor's direct blessing upon this place.
In such a theocratic Imperium, this was enough to make thousands die without hesitation.
As a transplanted outsider, Kakashi could not adapt to such fanaticism. To him, the Emperor was great—a savior—but he couldn't think like these zealots. All he could feel was: Are these people all crazy?
No time to dwell on it—the Noise Marines had recovered and, with furious, terrified howls, charged him.
Kakashi moved. Strengthened by the Emperor's gift, he blurred through their attacks, severed one's head in a blaze of golden fire, used Earth Style: Headhunter Jutsu to drag another underground before skewering him, and then slipped behind a third via a swift Substitution Jutsu before cutting him down.
In moments, all four Marines lay dead—including the one crushed at his landing. The ease of it made him almost feel like Chaos's power was… overrated.
But in Warhammer 40,000, arrogance never went unpunished.
For soon, another Chaos force arrived—over twenty Astartes, led by a towering Hellbrute, its desecrated frame covered in blasphemous runes and sigils.
Moments later, under the storm of coordinated Chaos firepower, Kakashi was cut down again—dying for the second time on Cadia.
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