Konoha: Superman template, the spoiled brat becomes strong.

His left hand instinctively protected the back of Yukino's neck, while his right hand was already on his ninja tool pouch.

Before he could form the hand seal, he suddenly felt a chill on his neck—the moment he tore the cord of the bronze pendant, fine copper dust poured down like a torrential rain.

The hum of gears meshing came from the smoke, and the outline of the Third Kazekage Puppet broke through the ice from the mist!

"This is... Lord Kazekage's puppet?" Yukino's voice was choked with sobs, but it was torn apart by the shockwave of the explosion.

Deidara's laughter came from underground. His right hand, wrapped in clay, emerged from under the rubble, a fragment of a white mask between his fingers: "Art doesn't wait for the weak!" Before he finished speaking, the clay in his palm exploded into spiderweb-like cracks, tearing a hideous wound into the ground, revealing the escape route.

Chiyo's puppet group suddenly trembled collectively.

The Third Kazekage's torrent of chakra cleaved through the incantation like a sharp blade, and the ten old puppets fell simultaneously. Amidst the flying pottery shards, Ebizo's short sword was finally sheathed.

He stared at the bloodstains on Chiyo's collarbone, his Adam's apple bobbing but he didn't speak—at that moment, everyone's attention was drawn to the shard of the mask Deidara was clutching.

"Double the hiring fee!" Deidara leaped onto the gap using the broken bricks, and a blue-purple clay bird took shape at his feet.

He threw the mask fragments at Bai Ye, a mixture of madness and urgency in his eyes: "Obito said you guys would use this!"

Remember that, the next explosion will be even bigger—

"boom!"

The blast wave overturned the white night's hat.

As he caught the mask fragment with his backhand, his fingertips simultaneously touched another hard object—the bronze pendant that had just fallen to the ground had somehow returned to his palm, with a fresh engraving on its inside.

The runes twisted like a snake's tongue, gleaming with a bluish light under the moonlight, just like the tiny incantations inside the puppet's joints.

“Byakuya!” Yukino grabbed his wrist. “These runes…and the Ancient Puppet Manual in the Underground Library…”

“I know.” Bai Ye looked down at the pendant, his fingertips tracing the newly engraved patterns.

He could feel the residual chakra flowing beneath the runes, like a fine needle piercing his temple—this was an encryption technique that only the Sharingan could decipher.

A gust of wind suddenly lifted the corner of his clothes, and shouts from the Sand Village ninjas came from afar, but his gaze remained fixed on the pendant.

"Go to Konoha." He suddenly looked up and said to Ebizo, "Find Kakashi."

Ebizo's brow twitched, but he fell silent when he met Ebizo's gaze.

Moonlight streamed over the runes on the inside of the pendant, casting the twisted lines onto the ground like a net waiting to be unfurled.

In the shadows unseen by everyone, half a fragment of the white mask lay quietly in Bai Ye's palm, resonating with the incantation on the bronze pendant in a way that created a deadly connection.

Chapter 647 The Remnants of the Uchiha Clan

The moonlight carved cold, hard edges into the contours of the Konoha Hokage Rock, and the edge of Byakuya's hat was still covered with fine dust from Sunagakure.

He stood on the veranda outside the Hokage's office, his knuckles pressing against the wooden door. The moment he did, a crisp sound of papers folding came from inside—Kakashi's voice, tinged with the aroma of tea, drifted out: "Ebizo's letter says you brought something that requires the Sharingan to analyze."

When the door was pushed open, Byakuya saw Kakashi's face half-buried in the collar of his dark-patterned kimono, the three tomoe in his left eye slowly rotating within the crimson of his Sharingan.

He didn't say anything, but simply took out the bronze pendant and placed it on the table.

The runes on the inside of the pendant gleamed with a ghostly blue light under the moonlight, like a venomous snake poised to strike.

"This is..." Kakashi's fingertip hovered above the pendant, chakra seeping out from his skin, stirring up tiny particles of light on the surface of the runes.

The patterns on his Sharingan suddenly trembled violently, and his pupils shrank to pinpoints: "Chakra fluctuations from the Uchiha clan crest."

"Completely identical to the clan emblem?" Bai Ye's Adam's apple bobbed, and his right hand unconsciously clenched his sleeve.

He recalled Obito's white mask and Deidara's eagerness when he said, "Obito said you would use this"—it turned out that the clues had been entangled in the Uchiha bloodline from the very beginning.

“It’s not just the clan crest.” Kakashi’s fingers pressed against the edge of the pendant, chakra spreading like a spiderweb. “The structure of these runes… it looks like an encryption technique carved with the Sharingan.” When he looked up, the crimson of his Sharingan darkened his eyes. “Who gave it to you?”

“Deidara.” Bai Ye finished speaking briefly, then caught a glimpse of the shadow moving in the corner of the corridor.

Gaara stood there wrapped in a dark yellow cloth, his hair still damp with sand, like a stubborn rock washed ashore by the tide.

“The Uchiha orphan who disappeared four years ago.” Gaara’s voice was like sandpaper rubbing against a stone surface, startling Byakuya into turning his head sharply.

He noticed that Gaara's hand was trembling slightly, with fine sand leaking between his fingers. "His pupil color... is exactly the same as Sasuke's."

Uchiha orphan?

Bai Ye's temples throbbed.

He suddenly remembered the half of Obito's face under the mask, and Sasuke's reddened eyes when he left Konoha—those fragments he had ignored suddenly came together: Why was Obito so obsessed with this pendant?

Why did Deidara say, "Obito said you guys can use this"?

"I need to confirm." Bai Ye grabbed the pendant and turned around, the knot of the straw hat leaving red marks around her neck.

Yukino gripped his wrist from behind, her fingertips as cold as ice: "Go to the ruins of the Daimyo's mansion. There are remnants of chakra in the runes left by Obito."

The broken walls of the ruins cast spiderweb-like shadows under the moonlight, and Yukino's chakra detector glowed with an eerie green light among the rubble.

She crouched down, her fingertips brushing across a charred mark on the ground—a rune left after Deidara's explosion, covered by Obito's secret technique.

"It's extracted." Yukino's voice trembled, and the detector's green light suddenly surged into a blinding purple.

She looked up abruptly, cold sweat beading on her forehead: "This isn't Sharingan chakra... it's the special fluctuations of the Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan!"

Eternal Kaleidoscope!

Bai Ye's breath hitched.

He had seen Obito's Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan, where the dark patterns flowing within the crimson were like an inextinguishable fire—but why did Obito leave his chakra in the runes?

Or is there... someone else who possesses the eternal kaleidoscope?

"White Night!" Yukino's exclamation pierced the night.

Chapter 648 You think he did it voluntarily

The moment he turned around, he saw Sasuke's figure appear behind Chiyo like a ghost.

The cold light of the poisoned dagger brushed against the back of Chiyo's neck, and Gaara's Sand Concealment Technique suddenly went out of control—the sand wall that was supposed to protect Chiyo's side twisted and contorted like a madman, wrapped in spikes and entangled towards Byakuya!

"Pfft!" The sand spikes grazed Yukino's shoulder and slammed into the wall, leaving a deep crater.

Byakuya pushed Yukino behind the broken wall, but felt a tightening around his ankle—more sand grains crawled in through his trouser leg, instantly solidifying into an iron band around his leg.

When he looked up, he was met with Sasuke's cold smile.

"You think Gaara chose to be a civilian?" Sasuke's blade flicked a strand of Chiyo's white hair. "A cursed seal has long been planted in his eyes." He flicked his wrist, and the short sword sliced ​​through Chiyo's collarbone, blood splattering onto the sand. "Now, this Sand Concealment Technique... will only obey me."

Gaara suddenly let out a muffled roar, black blood seeping from his eye sockets, his once clear golden eyes now ripped apart by eerie purple markings.

The sand layer enveloping the white night suddenly tightened, and he heard his ribs groan softly, a metallic taste rising in his throat.

"Kakashi!" Yukino's scream pierced through the sand.

Byakuya saw a flash of lightning in the distance—Kakashi's Lightning Blade had been drawn.

But the instant the lightning struck, he suddenly felt a clump of putrid black blood surging up inside him.

The blood, burning with a searing sensation, rushed to his throat. He clenched his teeth, but warm liquid still spilled from the corner of his mouth—as black as ink soaked in poison.

The lightning outside the sand layer grew brighter and brighter, while Byakuya stared at the bronze pendant in his palm and suddenly remembered Gaara's words about "the Uchiha orphan".

The runes shimmered with a ghostly blue in the black blood, as if mocking his sluggishness—it turned out that from the moment Deidara threw out the mask fragments, he had already fallen into a carefully woven net.

Amidst the roar of the Raiken, Bai Ye finally loosened his clenched teeth.

Black blood mixed with coughs sprayed onto the pendant, and the runes lit up suddenly upon contact with the blood, projecting a huge Uchiha clan emblem onto the ground.

In the center of the clan emblem, a darker purple line is slowly emerging—a mark of death that only the eternal kaleidoscope could etch.

As the blue light of the Lightning Blade tore through the night, Kakashi's chakra condensed into dazzling electric snakes at his fingertips.

He saw Bai Ye's neck, pale and bluish from being strangled by the sand layer, gritted his teeth, and shifted the angle of the Rai-Cut blade by three inches—the blade grazed the surface of the sand iron, and the resulting electric current instantly melted through the half-finger-thick sand wall.

"Pfft!" The moment the restraints were loosened, Bai Ye fell to the ground like a puppet whose spine had been removed.

The veins on the back of his hand, which was bracing against the rubble, bulged, and black blood mixed with sand gushed from his throat onto the tips of Yukino's shoes.

Yukino knelt down, her trembling hand about to support the back of his neck, but she stopped abruptly when she touched his sleeve—the blood that had seeped out shone with a faint blue hue in the moonlight, like crushed glass grass soaking in ink.

"It's a side effect of the Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan!" Her nails dug into her palms, her voice trembling with tears. "Obito's pendant is forcibly converting his chakra... those runes are devouring his life force!"

Byakuya's eyelashes trembled violently, her gaze blurring in Yukino's terrified pupils.

He heard his own rapid breathing sound like a broken bellows, but the burning sensation in his throat was sharper than any kunai.

So when Deidara said "you will use this," he didn't mean to crack it, but rather to be backfired on by it?

Obito had set up a trap from the very beginning, using the Uchiha bloodline as bait to lure... his life?

"Ding—" The sound of metal scraping pierced the ears.

Bai Ye suddenly looked up and saw Chiyo's group of ten puppet machines turn around at the same time.

Chapter 649 Human Puppet, I Can Do That Too

The kunai tips, which were originally pointing towards the sky, were all aimed at Sasuke, and the gears at the puppet's joints made a soft, creaking sound that was particularly clear in the silent ruins.

Chiyo's hunched back suddenly straightened, her cloudy eyes gleamed with a cold, mechanical light, and fine cracks appeared on the skin of her neck, revealing a dark silver metal skeleton underneath.

"You think I would let Sunagakure repeat the mistakes of Konoha?" Her voice vibrated with a metallic tremor, each word like the buzzing of a puppet string before it snapped. "Thirty years ago, Danzo used the Root organization to control the Kazekage. Now you want to use the Cursed Seal as a puppeteer?"

Bai Ye then realized that what flowed in her pupils was not the cloudiness of an old woman, but fine gear patterns—that was the final stage of the puppeteer's forbidden technique "Puppetization," which integrates the consciousness of a living person into the core of a puppet, at the cost of completely losing one's flesh and blood.

Chiyo's fingers dug into the rubble, sparks flying from the exposed metal knuckles. "When Gaara was stripped of his tailed beast, it was he who protected the child's heart with his chakra." Her mechanical throat emitted a harsh, screeching sound. "I believe he saved Sunagakure's past."

Sasuke's cold smile finally cracked.

He spun around to avoid the nearest puppet kunai, his short sword drawing a defensive circle beside him, but as he turned, he stumbled into another crisis—Gaara's Sand Village suddenly split into two.

The iron sand that had been wrapped around Bai Ye's legs snapped open, while another sand spear condensed into a sharp point, aiming straight for his throat with a whooshing sound.

“Gaara?” Yukino blurted out.

The boy, corrupted by the curse mark, knelt on the ground, his golden eyes beneath his bangs completely covered by purple markings.

Black blood seeped from his nose and jaw, dripping down his chin onto the sand, only to be swept into the splitting sand the instant it touched the ground.

The sand spear stopped three inches from Sasuke's Adam's apple. Gaara's fingertips twitched slightly, and the spearhead made of sand began to tremble—as if two forces were vying for control of Sunagakure.

Look at the people you trust!

A sinister laugh came from all directions.

Obito's white mask phantom coalesced above the ruins, the burns on half his face appearing particularly gruesome under the moonlight.

His voice, laced with twisted chakra, pierced the ears like countless needles: "Kakashi's trusted Sharingan master, Chiyo's trusted savior, Yukino's trusted... Ha, she even had to learn the color of the blood he coughed up on the spot."

Bai Ye's fingers unconsciously tightened around the pendant.

The metal edge pierced my palm, but the pain was nothing compared to the dull ache in my heart.

He looked at the black blood on Gaara's face and recalled the scene he had seen in the hospital four years ago—the boy who had been tormented by the tailed beast was in the same state, crying and saying, "I don't need any comrades."

So the curse mark was planted back then?

Or

"puff!"

Chiyo's mechanical chest cavity suddenly exploded.

Sasuke's short sword emerged from behind her, the poison on the blade spreading along the metal frame.

The old man swayed, and his metal joints made a mournful cracking sound.

As she turned, the gears in her mechanical eyeballs slowed their rotation, yet she stubbornly remained fixed on Bai Ye: "Believe...believe he saved my past..."

"Grandma!" Yukino screamed and rushed over.

Byakuya also crawled toward Chiyo, but stopped when he touched the back of her hand.

It was no longer the old man's warm skin, but a cold, hard surface covered with metallic scales.

But in her palm, something warm was being clenched tightly—a rusted bronze ring with the distinctive spiral pattern of the Sand Village engraved on its edge.

Chapter 650 Guess Who's Next

Obito's phantom vanished amidst laughter, and the ruins fell silent once more.