Konoha: Superman template, the spoiled brat becomes strong.

Three masked men staggered backward, covering their ears, black blood seeping from beneath their masks.

Bi stepped on one of the people's backs and ripped off their masks, revealing an excessively young face—about the same age as the ninja apprentice he had protected back then.

“You’ve forgotten,” Bi threw the mask into the Blood Ink Spring, watching it sink into the churning eddies, “that those who remember are the hardest to control.”

In the ruins of the Southern Buddhist Temple, Tanaka Hisashi's hands trembled.

He had just placed the rubbing paper over the charred stone tablet when his fingertips touched the raised, uneven marks—the last page of the "Choice Record," which had been burned seventy percent by the fire, but still retained half a line of text: "The two thousand three hundred and forty-sixth person, choose to remember..." He stuffed the rubbing paper into his pocket and heard the sound of vines whipping in the distance.

Moonlight shone through the broken wall onto his face, illuminating the light floating in his blue mark—the laughter of a young girl that had seeped from the stone tablet when he made the rubbing.

As the last ray of moonlight shone through the broken walls of the Southern Burning Sutra Temple, Tanaka Hisashi's fingernails were already filled with a pale red liquid.

He tore off half of his gray-stained shirt and wrapped it around the cracked tortoise-shell pattern on his forearm. As soon as the gauze was wrapped around the third time, thicker beads of blood seeped out of the crack, staining the fabric with coral-like patterns—the traces of blood ink and memory waves fighting inside his body, like two rusty swords stabbing wildly in his blood vessels.

Chapter 1047 The Final Form of Wood Release

The hum of the miniature printing machine suddenly rose, and as the last half bottle of Memory Dew flowed into the machine through the funnel, he heard the crisp sound of gears meshing. "It's done." He breathed white mist into the machine and tapped the metal casing with his knuckles.

Thin, cicada-wing-like pages poured out of the paper dispenser. When the first page reached his nose, he saw the densely packed names on it: "Mishima Haruko, Matsumoto Goro, Nakamura Yumi..." They were all fragments of the "Selection Record" that had been swallowed by the fire, and now they were being carried away by the wind to escape the ruins.

“Go to the snowfields to the north, go to the fishing village to the west.” He stood up, leaning on the charred stone tablet, a metallic taste rising in his throat.

As the paper butterflies fluttered past his head, one gently brushed against the back of his cracked hand, causing him to gasp in pain, yet he laughed out loud: "It's good that it hurts, it means I'm still alive..." Before he could finish speaking, stars suddenly flashed before his eyes, and he staggered to his feet, grabbing the stone tablet for support. His fingertips touched the unburnt marks on the tablet—it was the laughter of a young girl, seeping into the blue ink during the rubbing three days ago, now climbing up his veins like a warm hand supporting his body as he was about to fall.

"It's time to go." He grabbed the coarse cloth bundle draped over his arm, and as he turned around, he knocked over the ceramic bowl at his feet.

The bowl was filled with the rainwater he had collected the night before, and the surface reflected the light shimmering in his blue mark—the laughter of a young girl, the tears of an old blacksmith, and the lamps lit within him by all those who were remembered.

He bent down to pick up the bowl, but the moment he touched the rim, he saw a red light reflected on the water, indicating the direction of the snowfield.

Kazama Shin's eyelashes were covered in ice.

He knelt on the edge of the snowfield, the urn in his arms still warm from his body, Chiho's ashes pressed against his heart through the clay—she was his most beloved student, who had placed a frozen candy in his palm last winter when she was taken away by the sanitation workers.

At this moment, the flames from the eight Blood Ink Towers illuminated the snowfield in a crimson glow. He pulled out the "List of Lost Names" from his robes, icicles flaked off the cover. "Sakura Tsushima, Yu, Chiho..." he read the names, tearing off pages one by one. As soon as the pages touched the flames, they emitted blue-white light, and corresponding afterimages floated in the air: a girl with pigtails tilting her head and smiling, a boy in a cotton robe rubbing his hands and breathing on them, and Chiho tiptoeing to stuff candy into his pocket.

"Teacher, I haven't been forgotten." As Chiho's illusory figure spoke, Kazama Shin's fingertips began to turn transparent.

He knew this would happen—the body of someone who carries too many memories of the dead will first become translucent, like snow being slowly blown away by the wind.

But he tore it even faster, and just as he was about to throw the last page into the fire, he suddenly clenched it tightly.

The page read "Shin Kazama," a name he secretly added last year, "because I was afraid that one day I would forget who I was."

“Not now.” He stuffed the paper into his mouth, bit his fingertip with the tip of his tongue, and dripped blood onto the paper, activating the resonance within.

His throat felt like it was on fire, but he still shouted at the top of his lungs: "Sakura Tsushima!"

Ah-you!

Chiho!

"Shin Kazama!" With each name called, the sound of ice cracking echoed from beneath the snowfield.

When the first vine sprout broke through the ice, he saw the words "Tsushima Sakura" on its tip; the second vine sprout had the words "Ayu" on it; the third... His hands were so transparent that you could see the knuckles, yet he kept shouting until his whole body vanished into the wind like melting snow.

When the tremors of the snowfield reached the vine peak, Bai Ye was kneeling on the highest vine branch.

He gazed upon the lands of the five kingdoms, where the blue imprints resembled stars falling to earth. To the east, the lights of Cloud Hidden City stretched out in a continuous expanse, while to the south, the paper butterflies of the Burning Scripture Academy were still fluttering, and to the north, the vine shoots of the snowfield were reaching for the sky—all of these were the shining lights of those who were remembered.

"now you."

The sounds came from all directions, as if millions of people were speaking right next to his ear.

Bai Ye clutched his chest, where the green shoots were growing wildly. The moment the roots pierced his heart, he arched his back in pain, and blood dripped from his mouth onto the vines.

What hurts even more are the memories—the sigh of the old priest of Guiyuan Shrine, the sunflower that Xiaokui drew on the back of his hand, the scraps of paper that Aoba wrote in blood, all of them now turned into sharp needles, pricking him until tears came out.

"Come on!" He roared, his blood bursting like firecrackers, and blood splattered on the vine sea. The originally translucent flowers suddenly opened their eye-like patterns.

As the petals slowly closed, he heard the old priest's voice coming from within the flower: "This is the final form of Wood Release. Use your blood to nurture a flower that can remember everything."

"Is it worth it?" he asked himself, but when he looked down, he saw countless faces floating in the sea of ​​vines—all of them people who were remembered, smiling at him.

"It was worth it." He laughed, his laughter mingling with the spray of blood.

Before his last shred of consciousness faded, he saw Ren Onodera in the distance.

She stood at the edge of the vine sea, the vine ring brand on her left shoulder shining with the same light as him in the moonlight.

As soon as Lian's fingertips touched the brand, she was burned and withdrew her hand.

The brand appeared suddenly just now, and its pattern was exactly the same as the vine pattern on the short sword at Bai Ye's waist.

She stared at the figure that had fallen on the vine peak, her throat tightening. Just as she was about to rush over, the vines at her feet suddenly wrapped around her ankle.

"Don't come any closer," came Bai Ye's muffled voice from the vine-covered sea. "These flowers... need time."

Lian squatted down, her fingertips tracing the eye-shaped patterns on the vines.

Xiao Kui's face floated up from the flower and winked at her.

She suddenly realized that these flowers were not ordinary Wood Release products, but rather...

“It’s a container of memories,” she whispered, tears falling onto the petals, which the little sunflower in the flower reached out to catch. “A container nourished by the blood of the living.”

The white night on the vine peak had fallen silent.

His wound was still bleeding, but not as profusely as before.

The moonlight shone on his face, illuminating the bloodstains clinging to his eyelashes, like a string of red coral.

Even more strangely, the cracks on the back of his hand were healing, and tiny green shoots were emerging from the cracked skin.

Bai Ye was awakened by a burning pain in her left shoulder.

He had expected to wake up coughing up blood as usual amidst the severe backlash of Wood Release, but this time the dull pain in his chest was as light as a branch weighed down by spring snow.

Instead, the newly appeared vine ring brand on his left shoulder was throbbing, its frequency completely out of sync with his heartbeat, as if a living thing was churning under his skin.

He propped himself up, and moonlight filtered through the gaps in the vines, casting silvery spots on his scars.

Then he saw it—those raised bumps, which were originally just patterns, were now slightly distorted with the angle of the moonlight.

At first, there were a few blurry strokes, like ink dots soaked in water, and then suddenly they became clear: Chiho.

His Adam's apple bobbed as he reached for the dagger at his waist.

Chapter 1048 Warning

The vine pattern on the scabbard was still there, but when the fingertips touched the brand, the throbbing under the skin suddenly quickened, and the words changed again.

This time it's "Tsushima Sakura," the three characters appearing as if someone had branded them in stroke by stroke with a red-hot iron pen.

"What's this?" He twitched his lips, the blood already dried on his chin.

He pulled out a blood talisman from his pocket. This was a sealing technique passed down from the Guiyuan Shrine, which could even suppress the cursed seal of the Otsutsuki clan for three days in the past.

But the moment the talisman touched the skin, a ghostly blue flame suddenly shot up and burned to ashes in the blink of an eye.

"Don't waste your energy."

His voice was slightly breathless as he looked up and saw Onodera Ren running from the edge of the vine sea.

Her skirt was stained with mud, and her hair was still damp with dew. The rattan ring on her left shoulder was exactly the same as his, and it was now gleaming with the same eerie light as beneath his skin.

Lian squatted down in front of him, her fingertips hovering half an inch above his left shoulder.

"Don't move." She took out half a piece of blood jade from her sleeve, a magical artifact that had been refined over a hundred years with the blood of her ancestors.

The moment the jade piece touched her skin, her pupils contracted sharply—the Wood Release chakra that should have been flowing through Byakuya's meridians was gone, replaced by streams of warm torrents, much like the fragments of memory she had touched when probing with her spirit.

“Inside you…” She swallowed, the blood jade shard burning in her palm, “it’s not chakra, it’s other people’s memories. The memories of hundreds and thousands of people, flowing in your veins.”

Bai Ye didn't speak, but just stared at her trembling fingertips.

The wind lifted the stray hairs on his forehead, revealing dark red blood vessels in his eyes.

“I used to think those flowers were containers,” Lian’s voice was as soft as a sigh. “Now I see… you are the conduit. Memories are no longer sealed in some place; they flow through you to those who need them.”

The wind in the wilderness swept the vine blossoms over their heads.

Bai Ye gazed at the distant mountain ridges bathed in moonlight and suddenly chuckled.

He ripped off the cloth belt from his waist and roughly wrapped it around the still throbbing brand on his left shoulder, his movements as crude as if he were binding a knife that could be drawn at any moment.

“A passage is a passage.” He stood up, the bloodstains on his clothes fluttering in the wind. “It’s better than being a broken stone.”

Lian did not stop him as he walked toward the wasteland.

She watched his figure disappear into the night, then turned to look at the sea of ​​vines behind her—those flowers that had originally taken root beside the stone tablet had begun to loosen at some point.

The vines in the front row are slowly moving, their stems winding across the ground like snakes, heading... towards the scorched earth to the north.

She remembered that it was once the village most brutally purged by the Otsutsuki clan, and the survivors still dare not mention the name of the place.

"Ahe!" she called to a passing villager, "Go and collect all the blood-stained strips of cloth, and cut some bamboo poles."

Three days later, in the dead of night, the wasteland was filled with "memory banners".

The faded blood-stained cloth fluttered in the still air, and three vines were wrapped around the top of each bamboo pole.

Lian stood under the tallest banner, watching the first flower fall to the ground.

The moment the petals unfolded, she gasped – it wasn't a flower, it was a transparent wall.

The scene that appeared on the wall was: soldiers in black armor rushed into the hut, a woman holding a child hid under the bed, a flash of a knife, and the child's crying stopped abruptly.

The woman's mouth was wide open. The image on the wall was silent, but Ke Lian could clearly see the shape of her lips: "Please."

"no no!"

An old man's choked sobs came from behind him.

Lian turned her head and saw the village's most stubborn old soldier kneeling on the ground, his hands digging into the soil, blood seeping from between his fingers.

“I thought they were yelling ‘Help!’…” His tears fell to the ground. “But… but they were actually yelling ‘Please!’”

The wisteria blossoms continued to fall, and different scenes of massacre were playing on each wall.

Looking at these moving "flowers," Lian finally understood what the old priest meant by "remember everything"—they were not decorations, but witnesses who would not lie.

Meanwhile, atop a tower in Cloud Hidden City, Bi was staring intently at the blue and white porcelain on the windowsill.

This is the seventh consecutive day that he has found the flower in the early morning.

The petals had withered, but a line of small characters was engraved in the center: "Watanabe family's second son, 3:45 PM." Yesterday, he went to the Watanabe family according to the list, only to find that the patrol team was heading in that direction. He changed his route at the last minute and ended up intercepting three members of the secret service with Otsutsuki markings in another alley.

“This is Aoba Hachi’s handwriting.” Saeki Hotaru’s voice came from behind.

His eye socket, now missing an eye, was covered with a black cloth. His fingertips gently traced the carvings on the petals. "Before I was gouged out, I saw him carving secret texts on prisoners' arms. The strokes and pauses of his brush were exactly the same."

Without saying a word, he dipped the flower into the pool of blood-red ink on the desk.

As the ink churned, an image appeared on the water's surface: Aoba Hachi stood in the gray-white space, with countless intertwined vines behind him.

His hand rested on the vine vein, and his lips moved as if he were saying "future".

“He’s issuing a warning,” Bi whispered.

On the new flower that appeared last night, there were only two words written: "Trust me." He looked at the gradually brightening sky outside the window and for the first time felt that the Cloud Concealment Headband on his waist was no longer a constraint, but rather a mark of some kind of inheritance.

Meanwhile, at a post station a thousand miles away, Tanaka Hisashi was huddled in a corner.

His breathing was rapid, like a broken bellows, and the skin on his neck cracked open, revealing pale blue veins underneath.

The copy in his arms was soaked with cold sweat, and the words on the last page were blurred, with only the words "Memory... will hurt" barely visible.

As the morning bell rang, his finger suddenly twitched and pointed to the doorway—there, a wisteria flower was squeezing in through the crack in the door, the eye-shaped patterns on its petals exactly the same as the brand on Bai Ye's shoulder.

As Tanaka Hisashi's fingernails dug deep into Saeki Hotaru's hand, the charcoal pencil left crooked marks on the parchment.

"Hot..." His chapped lips parted, sweat trickling down his forehead and into his collar, the cracks in his neck spreading like a spiderweb behind his ears. "Don't let memories... become new shackles... Cleaners shouldn't have a leader..."

Saeki Hotaru put down her charcoal pencil and used her sleeve to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

When his fingertips touched the cracked skin, his fingertips trembled violently—what seeped from the cracks was not blood, but a greenish viscous fluid, mixed with his body heat and sticking to his hand.

He suddenly remembered the wisteria he had seen in Cloud Hidden City three days ago; the carvings in the center of the petals were also this bluish-green.

Chapter 1049 Street Cleaners Shouldn't Have a Leader