Konoha: Superman template, the spoiled brat becomes strong.

In the basement, as Onodera Ren finished embedding the last piece of the blood name talisman, a hundred phantom figures rose from the earth's veins.

They were dressed in warrior armor and peasant women's coarse cloth. Some clutched broken pens, while others held faded wooden puppets. Yet, on their decaying faces, there was an extremely clear obsession—names that had been erased by the ink of the historian, now surging from their hearts and solidifying into large golden characters in the void.

Byakuya stood in the center of the altar, the roots of his Wood Release technique forming a green river beneath his feet.

He watched as the phantoms gradually approached Speaker Shige, who was slumped on the ground, the blood-red characters "Substitute Zero" on the back of his neck like a living venomous snake, crawling up his skin and down his throat.

"Today, no new history will be established." Bai Ye's voice mingled with the sobs of a hundred illusory figures, "Only the old names will remain."

Speaker Scott's fingernails dug into the brickwork.

He stared at the nearest phantom—a woman holding a puppet, the puppet's face still smeared with milk, and the name on her heart was "Aju." He had seen this name in Shi Ge's discarded manuscripts, where he had written, "Irrelevant person, delete."

“I…I was just following the rules.” His throat tightened, sweat dripping from his chin onto the floor. “The rules were…the rules were set by the former acting speaker…”

The woman's phantom suddenly raised the puppet.

It was a little figure sewn from scraps of cloth, with the word "little dog" crookedly embroidered on its back. Ten years ago, there was a case of "a peasant woman killing her son" in the official history. But at this moment, he suddenly remembered that there was a note at the bottom of the case file: "Little dog is dying of the plague. Aju couldn't get the medicine, so she put a wooden puppet in place of her son in the coffin."

Rocks began to fall from the dome of the basement.

The footsteps of the hundred phantom figures drew closer, and the names on their hearts shone brighter and brighter in the morning light, as if they were about to pierce through the speaker's soul.

He suddenly remembered the warning left by the First Hokage: "If history becomes a lie, those who are erased will eventually seek revenge." But at that time, he only took it as a legend, until the bloody words on the back of his neck began to burn, until these names that he had personally deleted were now poking his throat with rotting fingers.

Chapter 110: Mere Accomplices

"I...I was just following orders!" His roar slammed against the walls of the basement, startling the morning crows on the eaves.

But in response, the tattered cloth on the puppet suddenly fell off, revealing half a blood-stained garment stuffed inside—the name on it, which he had once painted into a blotch with cinnabar, stroke by stroke, while reviewing manuscripts in the middle of the night.

As the falling rocks from the basement dome struck Speaker Shige's shoulder, he was grabbing his hair and roaring. The bloody words "Substitute Zero" on the back of his neck had seeped into his collar, leaving a hideous red stain on his plain white kimono.

"The First Hokage said that the substitution of shadow clones is the price of maintaining peace!" His Adam's apple bobbed violently, and stone chips were embedded in his fingernails. "By using substitutes to die, to take the blame, and to change names, the daimyo of various countries can remain in their high positions, and the ninja villages don't have to kill each other... That's the rule he set!"

Byakuya stood at the edge of the altar, his Wood Release roots weaving a green net at his feet.

He stared at the Speaker's contorted face, the bell in his throat ringing softly—it was carved from a branch of the First Hokage's Wood Release technique, and it vibrated with his breath.

"The rules of the first generation should not become a weapon to erase true names." His voice was like a blade dipped in ice water. "Peace should not be used to fill graves with true names."

Before the words were even finished, the earth's deep blue fluorescence suddenly surged.

The stone bricks at the speaker's feet cracked with a spiderweb pattern, and a withered hand emerged from the crack, its fingernails blackened, and a half-rusty wrist guard still hanging on its wrist bone—it was the remains of Fujiwara Shuichi that had been destroyed by the Shige.

The withered hand precisely gripped the speaker's ankle, the sound of rotting flesh rubbing against the fabric piercing the eardrums.

"No! No—" The speaker, like a wild dog whose tail had been stepped on, scrambled backward, his back hitting the bronze lamppost in the basement.

A thin crack suddenly appeared on his left cheek, and silvery-gray liquid gushed out along the crack, dripping onto the stone bricks with a hissing, corrosive sound.

That was the "pseudo-blood" unique to stand-ins. Thirty-eight years of using a stand-in's identity had long since turned his flesh and blood into a vessel for maintaining lies.

“I took his place for thirty-eight years…” His voice suddenly became hoarse, as if all his strength had been drained away, “I’m almost forgetting who I am… Am I Fujiwara Shuichi? Or Speaker of the Council of History?”

From the depths of the underground vault came the wailing of a hundred dead souls.

The tattered cloth of Ajuku's puppet floated to his knees, and the blood-stained collar of the puppy fell at his feet. All the names he had erased now became dull knives, tearing at his soul again and again.

He suddenly grabbed the half of his shirt, his nails digging deep into the fabric: "I didn't want this back then! The brazier in the Shige Pavilion burned for three nights, and every time I burned a blood name talisman, I would stuff a fragment into my pocket..." He laughed maniacally, silver-gray liquid gushing from his seven orifices, "But now? Even these fragments are pointing the finger at me!"

"Enough." Byakuya's Wood Release: Root Formation suddenly wrapped around the Speaker's wrist.

He could clearly sense the other person's chakra—thin, murky, like a tattered cloth that had been repeatedly crumpled.

This body does not contain the original soul of "Chairman Smith," but only fragments left behind by countless name substitutions.

"Your confession should be told to those you have erased."

The speaker's laughter stopped abruptly.

He stared at the hundred phantoms surrounding him, then suddenly crawled forward two steps and grabbed the hem of Ajuku's skirt—it was a remnant consciousness that couldn't even be considered chakra, but it made him feel like he was grasping at a straw.

“Akiku, I hid your confession in the pile of discarded drafts back then… I had Xiao Quan’s coffin replaced with the thickest nanmu wood…” His tears mingled with silvery liquid, “I’m not a bad person, I just…”

“Just an accomplice,” Bai Ye interrupted him.

He turned and walked to the highest point of the altar, the core of his Wood Release technique glowing with an emerald light in his palm—the essence extracted from the First Hokage's Wood Release clone.

When the core touched the heart of Shuichi Fujiwara's mutilated corpse, the air in the basement suddenly froze.

The mutilated corpse's knuckles twitched, and its rotting eyelids slowly lifted, revealing a single tear of blood seeping from its empty eye socket.

“This is… Wood Release: Resurrection.” Onodera Ren clenched the unfinished blood name talisman in his sleeve, his voice trembling.

She saw the green light of Wood Release spread along the blood vessels of the mutilated corpse, blooming into a blue-green flower on his chest, with the four bloody characters "Fujiwara Shuichi" faintly discernible on the petals.

The next moment, the green light shot towards the four walls of the basement like a living thing, growing wildly along the earth's veins, and finally exploded in the dome—a giant tree that would take ten people to encircle burst out of the stone, with hundreds of names densely carved on its trunk, each mark tinged with the red of blood ink.

"The root is not in bloodline, nor in substitutes." Bai Ye raised his head, the branches of the giant tree brushing against his hair, "but in memory."

At the same time, the sound of shattering porcelain came from the Sand Village prison, a thousand miles away.

Ebizo lay curled up on the straw mat, dark red blood dripping from between his fingers—and in that blood floated fine silver threads, like crushed moonlight.

He touched his cheek with trembling hands, and the sensation of his skin struck him like a thunderbolt: his once taut skin was now as soft as melted wax, and a dent would form when he pressed it with his fingertip.

“This is the 'manifestation' of the Stand.” Chiyo’s wooden clogs sounded at the door.

She held the bronze mirror inlaid with mother-of-pearl, its surface covered by a thin veil. "The longer it's used, the thinner the fake skin becomes."

Ebizo suddenly looked up.

He saw Chiyo lift the curtain, and a strange face was reflected in the bronze mirror—a scar running diagonally from her left eyebrow to her jaw, and her left eye was a cloudy gray-white, a face he had never seen in the mirror before.

“Saeki Kenichi, former advisor of Sunagakure, died on the night of the coup d’état twenty-three years ago.” Chiyo’s voice was like sandpaper rubbing against bronze. “You took his place for twenty-three years, even imitating his chakra to a seven-tenths degree, but unfortunately…” She pointed to the blood on his wrist, “the fake blood couldn’t be hidden.”

Ebizo suddenly laughed.

His laughter grew louder and louder, causing the sand in the cell to fall in a flurry.

“I thought I was controlling the game, that I was making a fool of that old bastard Chiyo…” He grabbed the short knife from the corner of the wall, the blade pressed against his wrist. “Turns out I’m not even a chess piece, just a rag placed under the chessboard!”

The moment the dagger sliced ​​through the skin, blood dripped onto the sand.

Strangely, the fine sand did not absorb the blood as usual. Instead, it quickly solidified into a lump and stood up at his feet on a palm-sized stone tablet with a scarlet character "伪" (fake) carved on its surface.

“What a 'fake'.” Chiyo stared at the stone tablet, a hint of pain flashing in her eyes.

She turned and walked toward the door, the sound of her wooden clogs echoing rhythmically in the corridor. "You should thank me. At least now you know who you are."

In the basement, the roots of the giant tree suddenly wrapped around Bai Ye's ankle.

The verdant vines meandered up his calves and waist, finally stopping at his heart.

Chapter 111 This body covered in blood was shed for them

He could sense the Wood Release technique probing him—examining his bloodline, his soul, and the reality of his existence.

“If I am also a created being…” he said softly, his voice mingling with the sound of the sap flowing from the giant tree, “then this blood I shed will be for them.”

The root system suddenly loosened.

A green leaf drifted down onto his shoulder, and Fujiwara Shuichi's face was clearly reflected on the leaf—a calm that came after his remaining consciousness had been soothed.

The blood-red ink in the underground vault began to fade, and the hundred phantoms gradually became transparent, eventually merging into the rings of the giant tree.

The sound of silk tearing came from the direction of the water prison.

Fujiwara Shizuka gazed at the last blood-red words appearing on the wall, her fingertips gently tracing the lines: "Next, it's your turn to write your own name." Her blood ink ability fully awakened at this moment, and even the stone wall could feel her heartbeat—intense, scalding, as if it wanted to break free from all constraints.

Bai Ye looked up at the giant tree.

The morning light filtered through the gaps in the leaves, casting dappled patterns of light on his face and into his pupils.

The roots of the giant tree continued to extend into the earth. He could feel that those roots were penetrating the veins of the Land of Fire, touching deeper secrets—about the first generation's Shadow Substitute Project, about his own origins, and about the greater truth behind the word "remember".

The wind blew in through the basement ventilation opening, lifting the hem of his clothes.

The branches and leaves of the giant tree rustled, as if in response to some force about to awaken.

Byakuya reached out and caught a falling green leaf. His fingertips touched the raised lines on the leaf's surface—the two characters "Baiya" carved with wood magic, with beads of blood still clinging to the strokes.

He watched as the giant tree pierced through the vaulted ceiling of the underground palace, casting a massive shadow over the sky above the City of Fire.

The air carried the scent of cherry blossoms, mixed with the grassy aroma of Wood Release, much like a morning he had never remembered.

“Next stop, I should investigate…” he said softly, the bell in his throat ringing softly with each breath, “Whose stand-in am I?”

Morning light pierced through the cracks in the basement dome, weaving a golden net among the branches of the giant tree.

Bai Ye looked up at the blood-red words that slowly appeared on the tree bark, the silver bell in his throat trembling with his breath—the line of "Memory Bearer" still held the heat of the chakra he had just injected.

The whispers deep within the tree roots still lingered, like the rustling of countless leaves rubbing against each other. The clearest phrase among them, "Who will write the new history?" struck the core of his Wood Release technique right at his heart, making his fingertips tremble.

“So ‘Inheriting Memories’ isn’t about carrying burdens, it’s…” He reached out and touched the bark, his fingertips just touching the words “Inheritor of Memories” when the entire giant tree suddenly trembled.

The dappled sunlight between the branches shattered into stars, seeping into his body through his palm. He saw countless erased names surging in his consciousness: Fujiwara Shuichi, Watanabe Goro, and even the old servant who always tucked him in late at night—their fragmented memories spread like blood ink in water, eventually converging into a beam of light, solidifying into a new imprint deep within his sea of ​​consciousness.

A soft crackling sound came from the direction of the water prison.

Fujiwara Shizuka knelt on the slippery stone ground, the chains on her wrists jingling with each movement.

She stared at the blood-red words that suddenly appeared on the wall, her nails digging deep into her palms—the strokes of the characters were exactly like those of her father, Fujiwara Shuichi, yet they possessed a sharpness she had never seen before, like a knife carving into bone.

“You finally…” Her voice was colder than the water in the basement, yet hotter than any heartbeat, “You’ve started writing about yourself.” The chains left red marks on her trembling wrists, but she was oblivious, simply pressing her forehead against the stone wall, listening to the sound of sap flowing from the giant tree on the other side, as if echoing her pulse at that moment.

As the sun reached its zenith, a cloud of snow mist rose from the abandoned Shige branch station on the border of the Land of Wind.

Kazama Shin, wrapped in a faded blue cloth shirt, squatted by the dried inkwell, the "Awakening Snow" between his fingers falling softly onto the cracked bottom of the pool.

The copper whistle hidden in his sleeve was slightly warm—it was the code for communication among members of the "Awakening Bone Society," but he didn't care about that at the moment.

The spices mixed with the ashes of the Blood Name Talisman were lit with a tinderbox, and as the bluish-gray smoke rose half a foot high, ripples suddenly appeared on the surface of the ink pool.

"It's an afterimage!" He straightened up abruptly, his bamboo pen case at his waist hitting the edge of the pond, sending several wolf-hair brushes tumbling into the dust.

In the afterimage reflected on the surface of the pool, an old historian with white hair was being forced to sit on a desk by two men in black, and a brush dipped in ink was forcibly shoved into his trembling hand.

“The imperial edict announcing the death of Rasa…” Kazama Shin’s throat tightened, his fingers gripping the pebbles by the pond. “So the news of the Fourth Kazekage’s death was a lie from the very beginning.” He pulled out a crystal ball from his pocket, and the moment he poured chakra into it, an image began to condense inside the ball—this was the Water Release Recording Technique that he had secretly learned over three months, and it was now sealing this evidence of the crime within the crystalline sphere.

"Put your things down."

The sound of metal scraping came from behind.

Kazama Shin knew without turning around that it was Shigeki Kiyori's bronze mask that had arrived.

He counted the footsteps: three on the left and two on the right, three people, the leader with a poisoned short blade hanging at his waist—a unique "name-marking weapon" of the upright officials of the Shige Pavilion.

He slowly turned around, the Xue Gu in his palm burning hot from his body heat.

“You can kill people, but you can’t burn the names in the snow.” He suddenly laughed and raised his hand to throw the last handful of snow into the air.

The wind and snow swept in without warning.

On the broken walls of the abandoned history pavilion, the phantoms of a hundred villagers emerged from the snow and mist. They were dressed in coarse cloth and short jackets, and held wooden plaques with chipped corners in their hands. The plaques were engraved with the same name: "Matsumoto Masao"—the old historian's real name.

A faint cracking sound came from beneath the bronze mask. The leading Qing official suddenly staggered backward as the mask split open at the bridge of his nose, revealing an excessively young face underneath.

“I’m acting in place of my master…” His voice trembled with sobs as the dagger clattered to the ground. “He said that if I signed this edict, he would send my son to the clinic…”

In the twilight of the City of Fire, Chiyo's wooden clogs clattered against the bluestone slabs.

She had just come from a secret meeting with the Konoha reformists, and she still had the draft of the "True History Court" charter in her arms—a charter for representatives of the bereaved families of various countries to jointly examine the old archives of the History Pavilion. This was the sharpest knife she could think of, to cut open those lies covered in gold paint.

But as she turned the corner, a pungent, poisonous fog suddenly filled the air as she was greeted by the wind.

"Scorpion-style poison needle." Her pupils contracted sharply, and she leaped backward on her toes, the puppet threads in her sleeves darting out like silver snakes.

Three shadow guards wearing sand-covered headbands leaped down from the rooftop, the leader's poisoned needle gleaming with an eerie blue light—a killing move modified from her most prized puppetry technique.

Chapter 112 The True Image Appears

But Chiyo's gaze passed over them and landed on the prison cart covered in black cloth at the street corner—the prison cart carrying Ebizo was being escorted was being forced back to the wall by the Shadow Guards' offensive.

"Silence them." She gritted her teeth, and suddenly the puppet silk wrapped around the wrist of the nearest shadow guard, pulling him violently towards a wine jar on the street corner.

But the other two men's poisoned needles were already grazing the curtain of the prison cart, one of them aimed directly at the hunched figure behind the curtain.

Without thinking, Chiyo sidestepped and crashed into it.

"Ding--"