Konoha: Superman template, the spoiled brat becomes strong.

"The true vessel is..." Madara's Rinnegan slowly turned, but his voice carried Hashirama's gentleness, "The heart of a ninja."

"What?" Bai Ye blurted out subconsciously, the blood foam in his throat spraying onto the blood sphere, which actually made the outline of the phantom clearer.

Hashirama's lips curled into a familiar smile, the one etched on the Hokage Rock that could reassure an army: "You think this throne is a seal?"

No, it's a mirror.

It reveals what each ninja truly wants to protect.

Madara's Susanoo suddenly dissipated, and he raised his hand to press on Hashirama's shoulder, and the two figures began to overlap: "Obito wanted to turn back time because he was afraid to face the pain of losing Rin; you wanted to tear apart the cycle of reincarnation because you had seen your comrades die in the same place—but true power is never in the past or the future."

The blood cell exploded with a "bang," and golden quicksand poured down like a torrential rain.

The originally floating puppet army disintegrated in the sandstorm and then reformed into the giant puppet of the First Hokage—an eight-zhang-tall Wood Release giant with a bronze throne embedded in its chest and golden and red light dancing in its eye sockets, which was the fusion emblem on the back of Byakuya's neck.

"The pendant!" Chiyo's afterimage suddenly screamed.

Bai Ye was startled to feel a chill on his chest—the bronze pendant engraved with "Ninja, always live in the present" had fallen off at some point and was falling into the darkness deep within the underground palace.

He lunged forward but grabbed nothing, his fingertips only touching the last trace of warmth, like the feeling of the needle brushing against the back of his hand when Chiyo was carving words.

"Chase?.

Chapter 679 Rescue Gaara

Or war? The giant puppet's voice reverberated throughout the underground palace, a mixture of Hashirama's and Madara's voices.

It raised its giant Wood Release hand, and within the golden quicksand condensing in its palm, Obito's distorted face could be vaguely seen—that guy was being dragged toward the puppet's chest by the quicksand, his Sharingan spinning wildly but unable to break free even a fraction.

Bai Ye wiped the blood from his face, and the emblem on the back of his neck suddenly shone brightly.

He gazed at the golden sand layer gradually solidifying beneath his feet and heard a familiar sound in the distance—the sound of a sandstorm sweeping over rocks—Gaara's chakra fluctuations.

The stone gate at the entrance to the underground palace was shattered by the sandstorm.

Looking up, Bai Ye saw the fragments of the Sand Village headband, which should have been in the Land of Wind, floating in the air amidst the swirling yellow sand, each fragment entwined with a wisp of golden sand.

The golden sand suddenly split into two streams: one pierced the giant puppet's knee like an arrow, while the other... wrapped around his ankle and pulled him into the golden quicksand at the core of the throne.

"Gaara?" Byakuya murmured softly, but in the sand flow he saw Sasori's puppet spikes, Kankuro's black ants, and even the sweet natto he had stolen and drunk in Sunagakure back then—all of them were the vivid, painful, and joyful "present" moments he had once protected in Sunagakure.

As the giant puppet's wood-style arm slammed down, Bai Ye suddenly laughed.

He released his grip on the throne, letting the sand flow carry him into the golden quicksand.

The emblem on the back of his neck overlapped with the lingering golden-red light of the rosy hue, reflecting two words in his pupils:

"Now."

As the golden quicksand clung to the white night and fell, the fusion emblem on the back of his neck burned so intensely it almost pierced his skin.

The temperature was just like the force with which the old woman used to poke the back of his neck with the tail of a puppet needle when he was caught stealing sweet natto in the Sunagakure drying yard as a child by Chiyo—but this time, the scorching heat was mixed with another familiar feeling of sand rubbing against his skin, Gaara's chakra, carrying the dry, fishy smell unique to the desert of the Land of Wind.

"Cough!" A metallic taste rose in Bai Ye's throat, and his descent suddenly stopped.

He then realized that the sand flowing around his ankles had split into two streams. One stream stubbornly pulled towards the core of the throne, while the other, like a snake's tongue, coiled around his heart, leaving a burning mark under his clothes. "The twin vessels need..." A hoarse male voice, mixed with the sound of sand rubbing against each other, exploded in his ears. Bai Ye suddenly looked up, meeting a pair of reddish amber eyes.

Gaara stood behind the rubble door at the entrance to the underground palace, his hair still damp with the lingering sandstorm, and the Sand Concealment Guardian on his forehead split into three pieces that floated beside him.

The fabric over his chest was torn open, revealing golden patterns on his bronze back, identical to the mark on Bai Ye's nape.

The patterns were climbing along the sand, weaving into luminous golden threads between the two.

"When did you..." Bai Ye's words were cut off by a sharp pain in her chest.

The sand that had been swirling around his heart suddenly tightened, and he could clearly feel his heart being squeezed and crushed by the sand grains, each beat feeling like it was grinding and crushing rock.

Gaara's fingers trembled slightly at his sides, a struggle flashing in his eyes: "Chakra resonance... requires a heart-to-heart connection." His voice was strained, as if each word was tearing a nerve apart, "The sealing array requires... two containers."

"Water Mirror!"

A clear, sharp shout pierced the rumble of the underground palace.

Mei Terumi was standing behind the rock pillar on the right at some point, her light blue chakra condensing into a mirror at her fingertips, reflecting the dark patterns flowing inside the throne.

Her jaw muscles tensed, and her pupils reflected the Wood Release seals swirling within the array: "The First Hokage's Wood Release puppets require a living medium, but you have one inside you—"

Chapter 680 Your chakra is not enough, nor strong enough.

Before he could finish speaking, the emblem on the back of Bai Ye's neck suddenly burst out with dazzling golden light.

He could feel the blood vessels beneath his skin boiling, and the golden blood flowing upwards along the sand and gold threads, blooming into tiny golden flowers on the patterns on Gaara's back.

Mei Terumi's water mirror cracked with a spiderweb pattern, and she abruptly turned her head, water chakra condensing into a shield in her palm: "Get out of the way!"

Resonance overload —

"The Puppet Master's Ultimate Seal!"

Chiyo's afterimage suddenly burst out from the pile of puppets, twenty puppet threads wrapped around her withered fingers, each one gleaming with a poisoned, eerie blue.

The threads, like serpents, burrowed into the crevice at the base of the throne, and the old woman's voice, still sharp with youth, said: "A twin sacrifice is needed—"

A loud metallic scraping sound rang out.

A rain of gears burst forth from the bronze emblem of the throne, each gear engraved with the Senju clan's Wood Release talisman.

Before Chiyo's afterimage was torn to shreds by the gears, her last wisp of chakra struck Byakuya's shoulder: "Remember... what you protected..."

Bai Ye staggered and grabbed the rock wall for support, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth onto the golden sand.

As he looked up, he saw the phantoms of Hashirama and Madara pointing at him simultaneously from within the giant puppet's eye sockets—at their fingertips, a beam of light pierced through the core of the throne, precisely aimed at his and Gaara's hearts.

"Get out of the way!" Mei Terumi's water shield smashed through the two gears, but the beam of light was faster than any ninjutsu.

As Byakuya gazed at Gaara, the struggle in his eyes suddenly vanished, replaced by a sense of serene relief.

The golden sand threads suddenly tightened, pressing their chests together.

The pain came on more slowly than I had imagined.

When the beam of light pierced through his skin, Bai Ye felt as if a ball of scorching magma was spreading along his ribs, and his heart was so hot that it almost stopped beating.

He saw Gaara's eyelashes trembling, and the golden patterns on his back were emanating a mist of light from the wound, echoing the crest on the back of his own neck.

"So... this is the price of twins." Bai Ye chuckled, blood splattering on Gaara's clothes. "But look, those puppet spikes of the... Sweet Natto, Black Ant, Sasori of the Red Sand, that we protected..." His voice grew softer, but his vision became clearer—at the heart of each of them, their respective golden emblems were now glowing faintly, like two drops of gold dust dissolving in clear water, slowly moving closer to each other.

The sandstorm in the underground palace suddenly subsided.

Mei Terumi's water mirror fragments fell at her feet, reflecting two overlapping figures.

She gripped her water-style kunai tightly, staring at the ever-brightening golden light, a sense of foreboding rising in her throat: "This is not the end..."

In the last moment before his consciousness sank into darkness, Byakuya heard Hashirama and Madara's voices, mixed with the chirping of cicadas from the Sunagakure drying ground: "True power has always been... in this moment."

The golden emblem on his heart finally touched the edge of another one.

The moment the golden emblems touched, it was as if the air in the underground palace had been sucked out.

Byakuya's fingertips dug deep into the fabric of Gaara's back, and he could clearly feel the blood vessels under Gaara's skin throbbing at a strange frequency—it wasn't a human pulse, but the tremor of chakra flowing backward.

"Your chakra isn't enough..."

The phantoms of Hashirama and Madara suddenly twisted into a grayish-white mist, and a shrill whistling sound swept past the eardrums.

Bai Ye's pupils contracted sharply. He saw a crack appear between the illusory figure's brows, and the black mist seeping out was flowing back into the two intertwined hearts along with the golden sand.

Chapter 681 The First Puppet Master

Gaara's eyelashes trembled violently, and his previously closed Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan suddenly snapped open, revealing a bronze-lustered pupil below—a mechanical eye exclusive to puppeteers, with a fusion crest engraved on the iris that was exactly the same as the one on the back of Byakuya's neck.

"This is..." Bai Ye's voice caught in her throat.

He recalled secretly learning mechanical arts at the puppet warehouse in Sunagakure when he was twelve years old. He had seen the mechanical eyes revealed when the old puppeteer disassembled the failed products, but he never thought he would see the same structure in Gaara's eyes.

Gaara's fingers gently covered the back of his hand, the metal gears of the mechanical eye making a soft turning sound: "It was planted from birth..." His voice was colder than the desert night wind, "The crest on the back of your neck was carved by the same craftsmen."

"Water Escape·Broken Current!"

Mei Terumi's sharp shout shattered their conversation.

Her water whip, imbued with chakra, lashed heavily at the core of the puppet throne. The bronze outer shell shattered, and a half-rolled, yellowed scroll, enveloped in dust and mist, fell to the ground.

The scroll's edges are embroidered with the Senju clan's Wood Release crest, and the blood-red "Forbidden" mark can be faintly seen between the pages.

The puppet remains of the old advisor Ebizo suddenly exploded at Mei Terumi's feet, and Chiyo's afterimage rushed out from within, her withered fingers gripping the scroll tightly: "The First Hokage's...last will!" With only a wisp of chakra left, puppet threads, glowing with a ghostly blue light, wrapped around Byakuya's wrist. "Catch!"

Before he could finish speaking, the remains of the throne suddenly emitted a metallic, rumbling sound.

Bai Ye felt a sudden weight in his palm as the scroll was stuffed into his robes by Chiyo's afterimage.

The old woman's chakra disintegrated into golden quicksand the moment they made contact. As the last grain of sand brushed against his earlobe, he heard a very soft sigh: "Take one last look at the true Sand Village for me."

"too slow."

A deep male voice boomed from above.

The moment Bai Ye looked up, his pupils were filled with a blood-red vortex—the Puppet Throne was actually reassembling, with bronze gears and black Zetsu's tentacles intertwining and solidifying into a human form. His left eye was the familiar Mangekyou Sharingan, but his right eye was inlaid with gears identical to Gaara's mechanical eyes.

Obito's lips curled into a cold smile as he placed his right hand on the reconstructed puppet's heart. The sound of gears turning, mixed with his words, caused rocks to fall from the underground palace: "The true meaning of the twin sacrifices... is to grant the puppeteer immortality."

"When did you..." Bai Ye's question was interrupted by the scroll's unusual movement.

He subconsciously looked down and discovered that the words at the end of the scroll were seeping out golden blood—not ordinary blood, but golden sand blood resonating with chakra, winding along the signature "Hashirama Senju" like a living red snake.

Gaara's mechanical eyes suddenly emitted a blinding golden light, and streams of sand gushed from his fingertips, wrapping around Byakuya's waist and abdomen.

Obito conjured a black rod in his right hand, but it was deflected by Mei Terumi's Mizukage before it could touch the two of them.

Cold sweat beaded on the Mizukage's forehead, and water-style chakra condensed into sharp water blades in her palm: "There's a sealing technique in the scroll!" Her voice carried an unusual urgency, "But the blood... is moving."

Bai Ye's hand, gripping the scroll, trembled slightly.

He could feel the warmth of blood seeping through the paper, much like the warmth of the old woman's palm when Chiyo caught him stealing sweet natto as a child—but this warmth was mixed with the soft sound of Gaara's mechanical eyes turning, the crimson of Obito's kaleidoscope, and the tremors from the depths of the underground palace, the awakening of some ancient seal.

As the golden blood spread its final trace across the scroll, Obito's laughter pierced through all the noise.

Chapter 682 Inheritance!

“Don’t rush to see,” his kaleidoscope rippled with crimson light, “wait until the blood is written… and you’ll know who the real puppeteer is.”

As Byakuya gazed at the still-spreading golden blood on the scroll, he suddenly recalled that when the fusion emblems touched, the phantoms of Hashirama and Madara had said, "The true power is now."

But now, the blood-red lettering continues to grow. Gaara's mechanical eye and the crest on the back of his neck are both burning hot. Obito's kaleidoscope reflects a third golden line emerging within their overlapping shadows...

The moment Bai Ye's fingertips touched the edge of the scroll, Jin Sha Xue seemed to have its last layer of restraint removed.

The moment the crimson blood exploded on the page, the Hashirama crest on the back of his neck burned so intensely it felt like it would scald through his skin.

It wasn't pain, but rather the force of a dormant resonance being forcibly awakened—just like when he was a child, squatting in the puppet workshop of Sunagakure to steal sweet natto, and Grandma Chiyo used the puppet strings to wrap around the back of his collar, the warm chakra crawling into his veins along the strings.

At this moment, the temperature was filled with the hum of Gaara's mechanical eyes turning, the crimson of Obito's Mangekyou Sharingan, and the crisp sound of falling rubble from the dungeon ceiling.

"The true vessel is not a living person, but—"

An aged male voice suddenly boomed overhead.

Bai Ye suddenly looked up and saw that the golden blood had condensed into a semi-transparent phantom in mid-air: white hair hanging down to his shoulders, wooden clogs stepping in the void, but green vines were growing on his ankles, it was none other than Senju Hashirama.

As the First Hokage's gaze swept over the crowd, Bai Ye inexplicably thought of the stone statue in the village history museum—gentle, yet carrying a weight that could crush mountains.

But this gentleness lasted only a moment.

"boom!"

Suddenly, the remains of the bronze throne burst forth with a blinding blue light, and a beam of light pierced through the illusory shadow between the pillars like a sharp arrow.

Golden chakra fragments fell in a flurry, the First Hokage's voice was cut off in the wind, and in the final dissipation of light and shadow, his lips clearly uttered "contract."

"Fool!"

When Chiyo's puppet threads wrapped around Byakuya's wrist, he nearly ground his back teeth to powder.

The old woman's afterimage appeared beside him at some point, her eyes, formed of golden sand, brimming with anxiety: "Use your Wood Release combined with the Sand Village's puppet technique, but first you must sever—"

"grandmother!"

The roar of Luosha mingled with the rumble of the sand waterfall.

Suddenly, crimson-gold sand billowed before Bai Ye's eyes, and the soul of the Fourth Kazekage stepped out from it, his red trench coat fluttering, and the Sand Shadow headband on his forehead gleaming faintly: "The frequencies of the Twin Resonance are overlapping!"