Konoha: Superman template, the spoiled brat becomes strong.

“So… I wasn’t the first one either.” His voice echoed in the empty shrine.

The bell in his throat suddenly became hot, burning his skin until it turned red, but strangely it calmed him down.

He didn't struggle when the vines from the ground wrapped around his ankles.

Chapter 1005 The Shadow Without Replacement

The vines carried the vitality unique to Wood Release, yet they were also mixed with some unfamiliar fragments of memory: there was the profile of Hashirama Senju bowing his head to record in the laboratory, there was the image of the First Hokage's wife burying Wood Release seeds in the Gobi Desert, and there was also... a face similar to the one in the mirror, saying to him in the blood mist: "Remember, you are Root."

The wind in the middle of the night ripped up the ruins of the shrine.

Bai Ye sat cross-legged in front of the shattered mirrors scattered on the ground, pale green wood-style threads swirling around his fingertips.

He gazed at the slightly raised outline of his chest—where the Wood Release core left behind by the First Hokage was hidden, now pounding against his ribs with each heartbeat.

The silk thread tied a slipknot at his fingertips. He took a deep breath and slowly placed his hand on his heart.

New shoots outside the ruins of the shrine trembled in the night breeze, and the scarred face in the dewdrops flickered in and out of view.

Byakuya's fingertips were still pressed against his heart, and the Wood Release threads were drilling into his flesh along the lines of his skin, creating a subtle resonance with the Wood Release core hidden under his ribs.

He could clearly feel that warm energy pulsating, each pulse seeming to ask, "Who are you?"

Aoba Mori's dying words suddenly echoed in his mind: "The flame is not inherited, it is awakened... The next one should be yourself." His Adam's apple bobbed, and the crimson-gold bell in his throat swayed gently with his breath, its heat seeping into his bloodstream through his skin. "If I wasn't the first one..." He closed his eyes, his eyelashes casting dappled shadows beneath them, "Then who is 'White Night'?"

Before the words were finished, a muffled thud came from the ground of the shrine.

He suddenly opened his eyes and saw a ghostly green glow seeping from the cracks in the gray floor tiles. Nine dark patterns crawled out from the ground like living things and formed a circular array around him—the sealing patterns commonly used by the First Hokage, each one engraved with the ancient character "忆" (memory).

“The Corridor of Memories…” Bai Ye murmured, the wooden threads at his fingertips suddenly taut.

Chakra surged into his meridians like a river flowing backwards, and a blinding white light flashed before his eyes.

The boy's roar pierced through the mists of memory.

It was a figure dressed in a moon-white robe, locked in the damp underground, where water seeping from the stone wall had accumulated into a small pool at his feet.

A blue seed was stuck in his chest, and vine-like veins bulged under his skin, climbing up his collarbone and down his neck. "I am not a vessel!"

"I am... Fujiwara..." The boy's voice trembled with tears, yet he gritted his teeth desperately, "I belong to the Fujiwara family!"

"Fujiwara..." Byakuya's temples throbbed; the surname felt like a needle piercing his memory.

He recalled the portrait of Fujiwara Shuichi in the History Pavilion of the Land of Fire, and the word "truth" written in blood ink by Fujiwara Shizuka in the water dungeon—it turned out that fate had already planted the seeds when he first met her.

The tremors of the earth's veins traveled up to the soles of my feet, and the ruins of the Guiyuan Shrine began to crumble and fall to dust.

In the underground water dungeon of the capital city of the Land of Fire, Fujiwara Shizuka suddenly gripped the chains tightly.

The veins on the back of her hands, hanging by her sides, bulged, and the scabs on her wrists were torn open, blood dripping down the chains into the puddles at her feet. "It's him." She looked up, her long, damp hair clinging to her pale face, dark red bloodstains on the front of her prison uniform. "He's tracing back to the source."

On the stone wall of the water dungeon, the family tree she had drawn with her fingertips dipped in blood was glowing. The names "Fujiwara Shuichi" and "Fujiwara Yoake" were circled again and again in blood ink, and next to the name Yoake, she wrote in even smaller characters "style name Hakuya". "Yoake, style name 'Hakuya'..." Her voice was as soft as a sigh, yet it carried an undeniable certainty.

She pressed her bitten fingertip against the family tree again, and the blood ink suddenly evaporated into red mist, which then seeped out through the vine holes at the top of the water prison—her secret passage connecting her to the outside world. At this moment, it carried her memories and drifted towards the Guiyuan Shrine.

Meanwhile, deep within the archives of Konoha Village, Onodera Ren's fingertips rested on a yellowed scroll.

She knelt on the dusty floor, the crisp sound of the scroll unfurling particularly clear in the empty archive room.

The words in the "First Experiment Log - Supplement" were tattered by insects, but that didn't stop her from reading the following: "Seventh experimental subject 'White Night', implanted with dual-source cores (Wood Release + Blood Ink), goal: to carry the memories of Senju and Fujiwara and become the 'Shadow of No Replacement'."

“The Shadow Without a Substitute…” Her fingers trembled as she traced the words “Dual Source Core,” suddenly recalling the greenish-blue chakra that seeped from Byakuya’s fingertips when he first came to the archives—the color of Wood Release and Blood Ink coexisting. “He’s not a substitute…” She abruptly stood up, the scroll falling to the ground with a “thud,” “but he’s not the ‘original’ either.”

Blood-red vines sprouted from her sleeves and climbed up the filing shelf.

This is her means of communicating with the outside world, and at this moment she is sending the warning, "You are not a substitute, but you are not the 'original' either," through the chakra network to the Guiyuan Shrine.

Inside the Guiyuan Shrine, Baiye's forehead was already beaded with cold sweat.

He could feel two streams of chakra colliding within his body: one was the boundless vitality of the First Hokage's Wood Release, and the other was a metallic, sweet scent, much like the aura of Fujiwara no Shizuka's Blood Ink.

Fragments of memory flooded back: the silhouette of Hashirama Senju bowing his head to record in the laboratory, the image of the First Hokage's wife burying the Wood Release seed in the Gobi Desert, and the scarred face that told him "You are Root" in the blood mist—now, thinking back, that voice was seven-tenths similar to his own.

"Ding--"

The crimson bell suddenly slipped from his throat and fell beside his legs as he sat cross-legged.

The runes inside the bell glowed faintly, echoing the nine sealing array patterns on the ground.

Bai Ye bent down to pick it up, but when he looked up, he saw the ancient tree outside the ruins.

The dew on the new buds had vanished, replaced by a faint chakra fluctuation—a warning from Konoha, and a projection of memories from the Land of Fire.

He reached out and caught the wisp of energy, and chakra rippled in his palm.

Fujiwara Shizuka's family tree appeared in his mind, and the four characters "Fujiwara Yoake" burned like a ball of fire, making his eyes burn; Onodera Ren's warning followed closely behind, like a basin of cold water, making his back feel cold.

"I see..." He chuckled softly, his voice tinged with bitterness and relief.

Wood Release threads were drawn from his heart and condensed into a green leaf at his fingertips.

He gazed at his reflection on the leaf, noticing the curse mark at the corner of his eye and the red mole at the corner of his left eye, and suddenly felt that none of that mattered anymore. "Whether 'White Night' is a vessel or a spark..." He crushed the green leaf, the fragments scattering in the wind, "At least for now, I am my own master."

Chapter 1006 Awakening Snow

The wind outside the shrine suddenly changed direction.

A very faint cough came from afar, as if someone was suppressing pain in a secluded room.

Bai Ye listened intently, but could only hear the sound of his own heartbeat—thump, thump, thump—perfectly matching the throbbing of the Wood Release core.

He stood up and stepped over the shattered mirror scattered on the ground.

Countless "selves" reflected in the lenses simultaneously looked up, their gazes intense.

The crimson bell was hung back on his throat, still burning hot, but this time, he didn't frown.

The candlelight in the secret chamber of Sunagakure flickered in the wind, and droplets of silver-gray chakra from between Ebizo's fingers stained the ancient scroll, corroding it with honeycomb-like holes.

He staggered and grabbed the sandalwood table for support, the bronze lampstand at the corner of the table clanging as it was moved from Luo Sha's old residence just yesterday—a "treasure of shadow" that now seemed to mock his futile efforts.

“Shadow Substitute…Shadow Control Project…” A broken laugh escaped his throat, his withered fingers tracing across the yellowed silk. “So the First Hokage used the Senju bloodline to create the Wood Release vessel, and Shige used Fujiwara’s blood ink to carve the shackles of memory. We, the ‘Shadows,’ are nothing more than clay figures casually sculpted by two groups while playing chess.” The vermilion annotations on the edge of the silk stung his eyes: “Substitutes have no soul, only power can feed them.” This was the secret pact between the First Hokage and Shige. It turned out that from the very beginning, they had nailed the “substitutes’” Achilles’ heel to their greed for power.

"My lord?" The stone door to the secret chamber creaked softly, and the black-clad shadow guard knelt on one knee, his breathing clearly audible beneath his mask.

Ebizo wiped the chakra from the corner of his mouth, crumpled the blood-stained handkerchief into a ball, and threw it into the charcoal brazier.

The flames licked the silver-gray marks on the handkerchief, and in the rising smoke, he saw that the tear mole reflected in the mirror had deepened its crack by an inch—a sign that the stand-in was about to collapse.

“Go to the mausoleum.” He grabbed the bronze lampstand from the table, oil dripping from his fingers and drawing twisted runes on the blue bricks. “Open Luo Sha’s true coffin.” The shadow guard’s shoulder armor trembled slightly, and a sound of swallowing came from beneath his visor: “But… Shadow’s mausoleum has three seals. Opening the coffin rashly…”

“So bring this.” Ebizo slammed the lampstand heavily on the table, a drop of eerie blue liquid seeping from the wick. “This is the ‘Awakening Dew’ presented by the Shige, which can regenerate flesh from rotting bones.” He leaned down, the shadow obscuring the shadow guards’ vision. “When I use a real corpse as a base to perform ‘Shadow Resurrection’ at the festival—at that time, all of Sunagakure will kneel at my feet, begging me to let the ‘True Shadow’ stay a little longer.”

"What if we're exposed?" The shadow guard's voice trembled.

Ebizo's fingernails dug deeply into his palms, where the skin was turning white at a visible rate—the Stand's body was rejecting his emotional fluctuations.

"Those who expose him will be personally eliminated by 'Shadow'." He forced a stiff smile. "After all, who would believe the words of a dead man?"

The shadow guard's boots crunched over the ashes in the charcoal brazier, and the dull thud of the stone door closing echoed in the secret chamber.

Ebizo turned to look at the bronze mirror; the cracks in the reflection had spread to his brow bone, resembling a ferocious centipede.

He suddenly grabbed the short knife on the table and pressed the tip against his left chest—where his heart should have been beating, but now there was only an empty, cold space.

“I have lived in Luo Sha’s place for thirty years,” he whispered to himself in the mirror. “Now, it is time for Luo Sha to live in my place.”

The moonlight at Guiyuan Shrine suddenly dimmed a bit.

Cold sweat seeped from the back of Bai Ye's neck as vines crawled up his ankles and down his calves, the sensation remarkably similar to the burning sensation he felt when the First Hokage's experimental subject had the Wood Release seed implanted in him.

He gazed at the pale figure locked underground in his memory—the blue seed on the boy's chest perfectly matched the core pattern of his Wood Release technique, and the bloodstain on the boy's neck was exactly the same shape as the red mole at the corner of his left eye.

“Fujiwara Yomei…” His throat tightened, and suddenly the family genealogy written in blood ink by Fujiwara Shizuka exploded in his memory. The six characters “Yomei, courtesy name Byakuya” surged in his mind. “So even my name was borrowed.”

The vines suddenly tightened, pulling him until he stumbled.

He looked down and saw more vines sprouting from under the gray-blue floor tiles, like countless green hands climbing up his trouser leg.

"A blood test?" He narrowed his eyes, drew a short knife from his waist, and cut his palm.

The moment the blood dripped, the vines curled up as if struck by lightning, but before the blood droplet hit the ground, they sprouted new buds and carefully touched the droplet.

A bluish-green fluorescence emanated from the tips of the vines.

Bai Ye stared at the light and suddenly remembered what Onodera Ren had said about the "dual source core"—Wood Release and Blood Ink coexisting within his body. At this moment, the vines produced a kind of "confirmation" fluctuation.

“I am not a native,” he loosened his grip on the dagger, blood dripping from between his fingers, “but the blood I shed is real.”

Before the words were finished, a blinding red light rose from the direction of the capital of the Land of Fire.

Bai Ye suddenly turned his head and saw the eaves of the post station faintly visible in the firelight—that was the location of the "Blood Name Talisman".

He leaped onto the ruins with a light touch of his toes, and in the distant firelight, a line of blood-red words condensed from the red flames: "Fujiwara Yoake, died on the 17th of the 7th month of the first year of the Fire History, Substitute number zero."

The Wood Release core within his body suddenly throbbed violently, causing his eardrums to ache.

"What you inherited is not power... but sin." A strange whisper entered my ears, the voice hoarse like sandpaper soaked in blood.

He pressed his hand to his chest, but then touched the crimson-gold bell in his throat—the bell was no longer hot, but rather bone-chillingly cold, the runes on its inside glowing with a faint blue light, as if echoing the distant firelight.

In the water dungeon of the Fire City, Fujiwara Shizuka suddenly raised her head.

The puddle at her feet reflected the newly appeared blood-red words on the wall: "What you replaced was not a person—it was the 'first victim'." The bloodstains continued to drip down, and the ripples created when they dripped into the puddle reflected the ruins of the Guiyuan Shrine and the silhouette of Byakuya standing in the moonlight.

She reached out her hand, and the scabs on her fingertips cracked open again, drawing an arrow pointing towards the capital in the puddle.

"A sin?" Bai Ye gazed at the distant firelight, the pulsation of his Wood Release core gradually coinciding with his heartbeat.

He drew the short knife from his waist, the blade reflecting the reddened corners of his eyes. "Then I'll start by dealing with the first one."

The night wind whipped up the shards of mirror from the shrine, and a piece of shard grazed his cheek, leaving a tiny bloodstain on his face.

He looked down and saw a blurry figure reflected in the shattered mirror—it was Kazama Shin, holding a box wrapped in black cloth, standing by a dry well outside the capital.

A sliver of snow-white peeked through the gap in the black cloth, much like the legendary "Awakening Snow" that could awaken dormant memories.

Byakuya gripped the hilt of his sword and turned to walk towards the path outside the shrine.

The moonlight cast a long shadow of his, which overlapped with the shadows of the vines on the ground.

Chapter 1007 The Burner of History Looks in the Mirror

In the distance, a muffled rumble like thunder came from the direction of Sunagakure, the sound of the Shadow Guards beginning to dig the underground tomb; while in the firelight of the City of Fire, the blood-red characters of "Stand Number Zero" were slowly dissipating, leaving only the last "Zero" character, like an empty eye, gazing in the direction he had left.

As Bai Ye hurried toward the City of Fire, stepping through the shadows of the shrine ruins, the soles of his boots crushed a few dewy blades of grass.

Wood Release flowed through his meridians like a trickle, and the branches of the bushes along the way automatically parted to the sides, as if they were carving out a dark alley for him.

The distant flames had died down, but the burn mark left on his retina by the number "zero" remained—a mark Speaker Scott used to intimidate him, but which had also become the lamp that lured him into a trap.

"The source of the Shadow Body double system should be exposed to the light." He murmured, his fingertips tracing the crimson-gold bell on his throat.

The deep blue runes inside the bell suddenly rippled, as if in some kind of resonance.

As they rounded the third earthen slope, Kazama Shin's figure emerged from behind the dry well.

The black cloth box in his arms was wrapped very tightly, but a few strands of snow-white seeped through the edges, gleaming coldly in the night.

"Awakening Snow." Bai Ye recognized the white hue; it was the legendary artifact capable of awakening altered memories. "The Records of Remnant History?"

Kazama Shin didn't say anything, he just handed over the box.

His hands were trembling, his knuckles were deformed from holding a pen for a long time, and there were ink stains under his fingernails—a unique mark of a scribe.

The moment the box was opened, Bai Ye smelled a strong scent of wood ash. The edges of the pages were frosty white, indicating that they were made of special paper made from a mixture of bone-chilling snow and blood ink.

“Every page contains their dying words, which were burned by Shige.” Kazama Shin’s voice sounded like it had been sanded. “They wrote them in their blood on the walls, on their clothes, and even under their fingernails before they died… It took us, the ‘Awakening Bones Society,’ three years to piece them together.”

Bai Ye paused in his page-turning motion.

The first page contains a samurai's last words: "I was standing in place of the second prince of the Land of Fire. I was right next to him when he fell from his horse, but history records that he died a heroic death—those who live in his place don't even have the right to cry foul." The second page contains a peasant woman's blood-written letter: "My daughter was chosen as a substitute for a daimyo's concubine. The day before she was to enter the palace, she threw herself into a well, and history records that she died suddenly from an illness."

When he turned to the last page, his breath suddenly caught in his throat.

In the corner of the yellowed page, there was a line of small writing, the ink lighter than the others, as if it had been written with a fingertip dipped in blood: "Brother Xiuyi, are you in the mirror?"

“Fujiwara Shuichi.” Bai Ye uttered the name, the bell in his throat suddenly burning hot. “Chairman Shi said that this is a person who does not exist.”

“Of course he would deny it.” Kazama Shin’s fingers dug into the moss on the edge of the well. “Twenty years ago, during the Shige fire, it wasn’t the servants who died, it was the first chairman. The one who survived…” He looked up at Bai Ye, his eyes reflecting the moonlight, “was the first substitute to be replaced, number zero.”

Bai Ye's pupils shrank to pinpoints.