Konoha: Superman template, the spoiled brat becomes strong.

Sasuke wiped the poisoned blood from his short sword, glanced at Gaara who was still struggling, then looked at Chiyo lying on the ground, and suddenly chuckled: "Guess who will be the next one to suffer the consequences of trust?"

As his figure disappeared behind the broken wall, the moonlight just shone over Chiyo's gradually cooling palms.

Bai Ye held his breath and slipped his fingertips between her tightly clenched fingers—the rust from the bronze ring brushed against his fingertips, carrying a familiar lingering chakra.

This feeling... is just like the puppet key he found in the ruins of Amegakure four years ago.

Yukino's sobs suddenly rose in pitch.

Byakuya looked up and saw that Gaara had finally broken free from the cursed seal.

The boy knelt before Chiyo's mechanical remains, the purple markings in his golden eyes fading, while the sand in his palm held the last piece of flesh that had fallen from Chiyo's body—the old man's heart, still beating weakly.

The night wind whipped up grains of sand, which wrapped around the bronze ring in Bai Ye's palm.

He stared at the spiral pattern on the ring and suddenly remembered what Yukino had said: "Every puppeteer's control ring hides a secret they are most unwilling to reveal to others."

And at this moment, this secret is seeping into his blood through the rusted lines.

As moonlight streamed over the cracks in Chiyo's mechanical chest, Byakuya's fingertips finally touched the bronze ring.

The rust on the metal surface felt like rough sandpaper, making his fingertips ache, but it was nothing compared to the burning pain of the wound on his palm from the pendant's cut. He remembered Obito's words earlier, "Yukino even has to learn the color of the blood he coughs up on the spot," and a metallic taste suddenly rose in his throat.

"Grandma..." Yukino's sobs, mixed with the hum of mechanical parts, echoed through the ruins.

Byakuya held his breath and gently pried open Chiyo's curled metal knuckles with his thumb.

The warmth in the old man's palm was fading, and the feel of the metal scales against his skin was just like that night in Amegakure—he was squatting in the scorched earth, picking up half a puppet key from under the ruins, and the cold, hard chakra residue was also condensed in the key's teeth marks.

The moment the bronze ring was removed, moonlight cleaved a thin slit through the rusted patterns.

The White Night Ring flips over, and a very shallow engraving on the inner wall gleams faintly in the moonlight—it is a six-petaled, gear-shaped flower with twisted three-comma jades intertwined between the petals.

“Puppet Master…” he murmured, and a note he had seen in the Amegakure records four years ago suddenly came to mind: “On the night of the Uchiha Clan Massacre, the last puppet master disappeared in the Sand Sea with his puppetry secrets.”

"boom!"

The sandstorm suddenly exploded overhead.

Byakuya suddenly looked up and saw Gaara kneeling in front of Chiyo's remains. The sand that had been supporting the old man's heart was now condensing into sharp spikes, pointing directly at the broken wall on the left.

Although the purple markings in his golden eyes had faded, the corners of his eyes were still stained with undried black blood, like butterfly wings stained with ink.

"Hyuga Ryusuke," Gaara's voice was colder than the night wind, "you're hiding inside the Anbu barrier, waiting for Granny Chiyo to finally breathe her last?"

The sound of fabric rubbing came from behind the broken wall.

The white-haired old man stumbled and fell into the moonlight, the jade pendant of the Sand Village elder at his waist striking the gravel with a crisp cracking sound.

His cloudy eyes swept over Gaara, then landed on the bronze ring in Byakuya's palm. His Adam's apple bobbed. "Lord Gaara, what is this...?"

“Yukino.” Gaara didn’t reply, and the sand spikes closed another half inch. “Check his chakra circuits.”

Yukino wiped away her tears and pressed her fingertips against the back of Ryusuke's neck.

The moment the pale blue medical chakra seeped into her skin, her pupils contracted sharply: "Seven...seven puppet mechanisms!" Her voice trembled, "There are resonant runes in the lungs, kidneys, spine—and heart, exactly the same as the summoning circle Obito just used!"

Chapter 651 The Traitor

Ryusuke's face turned deathly pale instantly.

He tried to retreat, but was pinned to the spot by Gaara's Sand Stream.

Bai Ye stepped forward, his thumb precisely pressing on Ryusuke's Tian Tu acupoint: "Twenty years ago, under the pretense of organizing the classics, you stole three volumes of 'The Secrets of Mechanisms' from the Puppet House." His fingertip pressed against Ryusuke's throbbing veins. "Granny Chiyo said that those three volumes contained the blood pact between the puppeteer and the Uchiha."

Ryusuke's cold sweat dripped down his chin and onto the ground: "You...how did you know?"

"Because of this ring." Bai Ye shook the bronze ring in his palm. "Four years ago, I found the other half of it in the ruins of Amegakure." He increased the pressure on his fingers. "Why was Obito able to control you?"

Is the puppeteer's secret technique hidden within you?

The alarm suddenly pierced the night sky.

The sound was like countless steel needles piercing his eardrums, and Bai Ye instinctively covered his ears.

A violent tremor came from the ground. He saw the rubble at Ryusuke's feet suddenly cave in, and hundreds of bronze puppets emerged from the ground—each puppet had Sharingan eyes embedded in its joints, and its dark red pupils slowly rotated as the alarm sounded.

“I see.” Ryusuke suddenly laughed, the patterns of gears and Sharingan merging in his pupils. “Granny Chiyo said before she died, ‘Beware of the parasites of Sunagakure’… So you were the traitors!” His voice turned sharp, mixed with the grating sound of metal scraping together. “The puppeteer’s legacy is to purify this filthy land, and you…”

"Shut up!" Gaara's sandstorm instantly enveloped Ryusuke.

But the bronze puppets moved. The three in the front row raised their arms at the same time, and the chakra threads shot from their fingertips precisely wrapped around Gaara's Sand Stream.

Byakuya saw panic flash in the boy's golden eyes—this was the first time he had seen Gaara show such an expression, just like the child who cried and said "I don't need companions" in the hospital four years ago.

"Watch out!" Yukino's scream mingled with the clicking sound of the puppet's joints.

Byakuya dodged an attack from a puppet, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gaara's Sand Stream splitting apart.

The sand grains that had formed a barrier suddenly split into two streams. One stream, carrying Chiyo's heart, rapidly burrowed into the ground, while the other strangely twisted its direction and wrapped around his ankle.

The moment the moonlight was obscured by dark clouds, Byakuya heard Ryusuke's laughter pierce through the alarm: "The puppeteer's bloodline... it's time to awaken."

The moment the sand wrapped around his ankle, Bai Ye clenched his back teeth until they ached.

He could clearly sense the tearing sensation within that chakra—the sand grains that should have been under Gaara's control were turning a dark purple, as if some corrosive force was gnawing away at their original pure golden light.

"Get back!" Gaara's shout cracked, and the sandstorm churning in his golden eyes suddenly froze.

Following his gaze, Bai Ye saw the sand flowing towards Ryusuke's throat hover three inches from the old man's Adam's apple. Fine runes appeared on the surface of the sand grains, resonating with the gear patterns under Ryusuke's skin at a speed visible to the naked eye.

"This is... a mechanical seal!" Yukino staggered forward, her fingertips just touching the sand flow at Byakuya's ankle when she was bounced back by the force of the impact. "A spell with the same origin as Obito's summoning circle!"

Ryusuke used a secret technique to alter Gaara's chakra!

Bai Ye's fingernails dug deeply into her palms.

He could feel the sealed ore inside his body getting hot, like a piece of iron thrown into a furnace, with flames shooting through his blood vessels to his limbs and bones.

Chapter 652 Damn it, I gambled.

The bronze ring was still clutched in his other hand, its six-lobed gears gleaming a deep blue in the moonlight, overlapping with the patterns in Ryusuke's pupils.

“Let’s take a gamble.” He suddenly hissed, pressing the bronze ring into the shoulder joint of the nearest puppet.

The metallic scraping sound stung the eardrums, and the Sharingan at the puppet's joints suddenly contracted—it was the unique spiral pattern of the Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan, seeping out black and red chakra as the ring rotated.

"Are you crazy?!" Yukino's scream was cut off by the sound of gears meshing.

All the puppets stopped moving abruptly, the red light of the Sharingan was extinguished like a candle flame, and the sand around Ryusuke's neck fell to the ground as dust.

But Bai Ye's temples throbbed, a metallic taste surged in his throat, and a mouthful of black blood dripped down his chin onto the bronze ring—strange runes appeared on the metal surface, resonating with the ore sealed in his abdomen, each line like a red-hot iron rod, leaving a burn mark on his flesh.

“Very good, White Night.”

Obito's phantom emerged from the eye socket of the nearest puppet, half his face still shrouded in dark, cloud-like chakra. "You finally understand the meaning of 'vessel'." His voice, like a pebble thrown into a deep pool, reverberated in everyone's eardrums. "This ring was originally prepared for you—your father used it to lock away the puppeteer's secret technique. Now, it is your turn to unlock it."

Bai Ye gasped for breath, supporting his knees, as black blood dripped onto the gravel, leaving eerie purple spots.

He could hear the humming of the minerals inside his body, perfectly matching the vibration frequency of the bronze ring, as if an invisible hand was manipulating his meridians.

Suddenly, he felt a chill on his wrist—the puppet silk that Chiyo had given him before her death had untied itself, and the silvery threads wrapped around his wrist like living things, their ends glowing and pointing towards the broken wall deep in the ruins.

"Coordinates of the secret room?" Yukino leaned closer to the thread, but recoiled as if she'd been electrocuted the moment her fingertips touched it. "It's... Granny Chiyo's chakra!"

Did she foresee this day would come?

Obito's phantom gradually dissipated as the puppet collapsed, but his last words were as clear as steel needles piercing bone: "Go and see why your father betrayed the Uchiha clan back then."

Bai Ye's fingers unconsciously caressed the silk thread on her wrist.

He could feel the thread pulling him, like his mother's hand guiding him as he learned to walk, and like the warmth of his father pressing his forehead in the ancestral hall.

The burning sensation from the ore suddenly subsided, replaced by a familiar pain—the same throbbing pain he felt four years ago when he picked up half a bronze ring in the scorched earth of Amegakure.

"Damn it." He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and looked up at Gaara.

The boy's sand flow is re-condensing into a shield, protecting Yukino and Ryusuke (Ryusuke has fainted at this moment, and the gear pattern on his face is fading).

The purple markings in his golden eyes had completely disappeared, but the black blood at the corners of his eyes had not yet dried, like ink spots that had not yet dried.

"Do you need any help?" Gaara's voice softened a bit, and Sand Flow gently touched Byakuya's hand—this was the first time the boy had taken the initiative to show kindness since they fought side by side in Amegakure.

Bai Ye shook his head, tapping the silk thread on his wrist with his knuckles: "I have to see my mother-in-law's things myself." He turned and walked towards the broken wall indicated by the silk thread, the sound of his boots crushing the gravel particularly clear in the empty ruins.

The moment the fingertip touched the crack in the wall, the entire broken wall suddenly emitted a buzzing sound, and stone chips fell down, revealing a hidden door that could only accommodate one person at a time.

The wind wafting out of the door carried the musty, earthy smell, mixed with a faint, almost imperceptible scent of sandalwood—the distinctive aroma of the Uchiha clan shrine.

Chapter 653 What's inside you isn't chakra at all

Bai Ye's Adam's apple bobbed as he reached for the kunai at his waist.

The silk thread tightened around his wrist, as if urging him on, or perhaps soothing him.

A faint humming sound came from deep within the hidden door, like the prelude to the activation of some kind of mechanism.

Bai Ye took a deep breath and bent down to disappear into the darkness.

He didn't know whether what awaited him behind the door was the truth or a trap; he only knew that the silk thread on his wrist was still burning hot, like the last clue left by his father, leading him toward the core of all the mysteries.

Behind him, the rubble above the hidden door suddenly loosened, and a grain of sand floated eerily in mid-air, refracting a ghostly blue light—in that light, seven blurry outlines were vaguely reflected, like shadows sealed in crystal, trembling gently with the movement inside the door.

The passage inside the hidden door was narrower than he had imagined. As Bai Ye bent over to move forward, his shoulder armor brushed against the damp stone wall, and the smell of moss mixed with rust entered his nostrils.

The frequency of the silk thread jumping on his wrist suddenly increased. He had a feeling that the truth he was about to touch would cut through all the disguises like a sharp blade—ever since he found the bronze ring in Amegakure, ever since Obito said "Father betrayed the Uchiha," all the fragments were finally about to be pieced together.

As you round the final bend, the entire secret room explodes into view in your pupils.

Seven crystal coffins floated in mid-air, their surfaces swirling with the unique blue-gold patterns of wind-attribute chakra. Inside each coffin sat a semi-transparent soul, whose attire suggested they were the Kazekage of past generations.

The face in the very center bears a striking resemblance to Gaara; it should be the Fourth Kazekage, Rasa.

"Ding--"

A slight tremor came from beneath my feet.

When Byakuya looked up, Gaara's sand stream suddenly seemed to come alive, detaching from the boy's palm and transforming into fine golden streams that burrowed into the nearest crystal coffin.

The patterns on the surface of the coffin instantly shone like stars, and flowing images appeared inside the coffin: Gaara, wrapped in swaddling clothes, was pressed on the operating table, his neck filled with chakra tubes. The surgeon had his back to the camera, but when he turned around to adjust the scalpel, his face overlapped with the white night.

"This...is my memory?" Gaara's voice trembled, and the Sand Shield surged uneasily at his side. "But I have never seen this scene before." His fingertips unconsciously touched his left eye—the eye that had been corrupted by the cursed seal, now gleaming with an unnatural gray in the light of the secret room.

Bai Ye's temples throbbed.

He clearly remembered using medical ninjutsu to save Gaara from the brink of death in Amegakure four years ago, but he had never seen a surgical scene like this before.

Suddenly, the puppet threads on his wrist burned with pain. When he looked down, he saw that the threads were climbing up his arm to the back of his neck, wrapping around an old scar on his cervical spine—a scar he had been given when he was seven years old by an elder of the Uchiha clan with a kunai, who said it was "punishment for touching a forbidden scroll without permission."

"The First Hokage's chakra container!"

Terumi Mei's drink exploded.

The moment Bai Ye turned his head, a water dragon bullet shattered the crystal coffin on his right.

In the splashing water, he saw the scar on his neck glowing with an eerie blue, perfectly matching the mineral patterns reflected in the water—the mysterious mineral that had been burning inside him was now showing veins similar to Hashirama cells under his skin as the water escaping rippled.

"The ore inside you is not a natural product at all." Mei Terumi placed her hand on the Executioner's Blade at her waist, her water robe billowing as chakra surged. "The First Hokage used this kind of container to seal the Tailed Beast's chakra. Back then, Tobirama Senju said that the last container was destroyed during the Uchiha civil war..."

Chapter 654 Joint Operations

"The Hidden Mist Village and the Hidden Leaf Village must join forces to arrest this dangerous individual!"

The sound of the window breaking was faster than Asma's shout.

Bai Ye instinctively turned to the side, and a shuriken engraved with leaf patterns grazed his earlobe and embedded itself in the stone wall, the explosive tag at the end exploding the moment it made contact.

Amidst the smoke and dust, Asuma leaped into the secret chamber, kunai in hand, his headband pulled low to obscure half his face: "The Anbu detected tailed beast-level chakra fluctuations here. You are suspected of manipulating the Sunagakure incident..."

"enough."

The sound of the white night is like being immersed in ice.

He tore off the bronze pendant around his neck—a keepsake his mother had given him before she died—and the cloud and thunder patterns on its surface suddenly began to flow.

The puppet threads on his wrist collided with Gaara's sand flow in mid-air, merging into a wind blade with a metallic sheen. With the hum of turning mechanical gears, it precisely deflected Asuma's kunai.

“Your father replaced my left eye with his Sharingan.” Gaara suddenly spoke, sand condensing into a spiral around him. “Three days ago, when I broke the seal, I found this in the chakra circuit.” He removed the protective shield from his left eye, revealing a three-tomoe Sharingan slowly rotating in the center of the grayish-white eyeball. “His chakra was in the sealing technique, and he left a message: ‘If these eyes ever awaken, tell Byakuya that I have never betrayed you.’”

'“.