After Temari's little shock, where her tolerance for bullshit finally hit the critical mass, and after a small freak-out, Ren had the impression that part of her simply gave up and stopped giving a shit as she accepted this new reality. He nevertheless managed to usher her into the house, where they spent their evening.
They showed Temari the house, and with every room, Ren had to put more effort into hiding his rising mirth as Temari looked increasingly more shell-shocked as she listened to the overly excited explanations and descriptions of every seal Ino gave her on the house tour.
Ren couldn't exactly ask an electrician to come here and set up everything necessary. Nor could he dig up a sewer. Neither did the house have access to gas. He was a ninja. Not some giga chad master of Do-It-Yourself crafts.
He could build an okay wooden log house after getting a crap-ton of advice from various builders in Konoha. And even then... as embarrassing as it was, his clones had to take the finished building down a half dozen times and rebuild it anew because they screwed something up. The log house was on its seventh iteration right now, and finally, Ren was satisfied with it, even if it was not perfect.
But he had no way of providing certain facilities for the house with his skills. At least, not the normal, mainstream way. He couldn't exactly connect his house to the electrical grid, duh.
It was out of nowhere! It's not like he could just telepo-... ah?
Ren suddenly froze as an outlandish idea struck him.
Could he? He slightly tilted his head with a pondering frown. Could he really? It would require a portal that needed to be permanently open, though. Or maybe one that opened and closed when a switch was flipped?
His hand rose, and he started to rub his chin. Ino and Hinata had a few complaints about not being able to use their electrical appliances they brought from home. It was nothing major. But maybe he could provide an answer to their lack of electricity in this way?
Well, the house did not need it, but it could be nice? Ren was no electrician or builder. But he was a seal master. The house had everything a normal house needed to have, and then some, just done in a different way.
Everything ran on seals here. The lights? There was a seal on the ceiling that produced light, and another, linked seal in the switch on the wall near the door in every room that switched the main seal on and off.
The heating was the same. Was the room too cold or too hot? With a bit of fiddling with another switch, a heating seal could adjust the room temperature. Ren thought this one was actually an improvement from the normal heating systems in houses because it could both bring the temperature up and down based on demand.
Need to blow your hair? There was a seal for that. Need to cook things? There was a seal that substituted a cooker. Need to shower? Even that could be done through seals, and it had its upsides. Like an infinite hot water supply. And it was quite a simple thing, too.
Making a shower was not exactly a bijuu-sealing feat. It did not require a complex seal with dozens of layers, all made up of intricate designs with impeccable logic and with no easily exploitable flaw. No. All it took was a heating seal in the pipe above the showerhead, which adjusted the temperature of the water, and a water-producing seal above that.
Before he started dabbling in these applications of seals, Ren thought it would be hard. But it wasn't. It just required a bit of fiddling, experimenting, and inventing on his part.
To give a 'muggle' comparison, this wasn't exactly rocket science. Any sufficiently skilled seal master could most likely design something similar, even if they would struggle to make it usable for non-chakra users. Applying it would also be a headache without the ability to form seals via chakra with a touch. Ren didn't even want to imagine how hard fitting these two seals into the pipe would be without that.
But these were problems that could be worked around with sufficient creativity. Of course, that would require the seal masters of this world to get their collective asses out of their heads and think of using seals for something other than killing stuff or sealing demons.
And that's probably asking for too much.
This water-producing seal was not exactly a combat-grade seal. It had nothing on even a C-rank jutsu usable in a battle. If he had to qualify it, it would get D-rank according to the usual technique ratings of this work. There was not enough kick in the seal to cause any harm, even at the highest setting. The heating seal was actually more dangerous because it had the potential to easily boil or freeze the water. Ren had to set some hard limits on it, just in case.
And yet, even this D-rank water-producing seal was enough to create a stream of water for showering, pretty much indefinitely, by using the ambient chakra. It wasn't even that energy-intensive either.
Making sinks was easy from there. It was pretty much utilizing the same seals, just on a smaller scale. The only issue was that the water lacked the necessary minerals and nutrients, so it wasn't drinkable.
Now that was a problem that was going to need some nice, different angle thinking but-
Ren's thoughts were suddenly interrupted as he idly followed the girls into the bathroom, where he found Ino introducing Temari to the wonders of a toilet.
"Well, we don't really need to use it, you see. We have seals on our bodies that take care of our waste while it is still in us." Ino shrugged, ignoring the small horror that appeared on Temari's face.
Honestly, that was fair enough, in Ren's opinion. If somebody told you they had a seal tattoo that messed with their biology to this degree, the good rule of thumb was to consider them barking mad, walking soon-to-be corpses.
"But since Ren knew you would be at least a guest here, if not live here with us, he decided to build the toilet for you." Ino smirked, giving Ren a mischievous side glance as she leaned closer to Temari, "And just between us, you should have heard him cursing when he was putting it together, and the seals refused to work as he intended. He even threw a small temper tantrum. It was adorable." She giggled as Ren snorted.
"Well, excuse me for ensuring the cleaning seal would not tan the skin off her ass." He grumbled as he crossed his arms on his chest. But inwardly, he was laughing like mad when the horror in Temari's face shifted and she gave the toilet a slightly scared and wary look.
Neither Ino nor Ren could hold it after that, and both burst into laughter. Realizing they were making fun of her, Temari scowled.
"You both suck." She huffed, but her lips started twitching until she too laughed a bit with them.
It took close to an hour to introduce Temari to every seal appliance in the house, but eventually they made their way back to the living room, where Hinata sat sprawled across the armchair, reading a book. The table was full of snacks, many of which Ren knew were baked by the girl while they gave Temari the tour. Ren walked toward the armchair, and as Hinata put her book down, she outstretched her arms in a silent demand.
Chuckling, Ren leaned down, and their lips met as her arms snaked around his neck.
"Thanks." He said after a while, when he pulled away from her and she reluctantly let him go.
"Mhm. I know we are all probably full," Hinata sweetly said before she turned toward Temari, "but I wanted to properly welcome you."
"And what better way than making her addicted to your cooking, right?" Ino fondly sighed as she made herself comfortable on the sofa and instantly snatched a cookie from the table.
"Hugh, bimbo." Hinata playfully replied with an indulgent smile.
The warm and cozy atmosphere was almost overwhelming to Temari, who stood rooted in her spot, having no idea how to respond to the inviting attitude.
Her home situation was not... like this. Her father was pretty much absent all the time, and when he wasn't, he acted more like a military commander, more interested in the progress of her training than in asking her if she was okay.
She could count the number of times he gave her affection with two hands, and the times she remembered getting a hug from him on one hand with five fingers to spare.
Gaara was an insane murderhobo whom you could not approach because he would kill you on a whim. Interacting with him was the definition of a high-stress situation, and Temari learned from an early age to stay alert and on her toes near him. She loved him. He was her brother. And he was getting better. But this was the truth.
And Kankuro? The boy fucked off to his room as soon as he could, more interested in his catsuits and dolls. Temari didn't feel resentful. She understood. It was his way of getting away from the bleak state of their family. A person had to find some enjoyment in life. It made the lack of affection hurt less. It made it bearable. Kankuro found his in the puppetry just as she found hers in taking care of and training with her mother's war fan.
Being treated like a part of the family... Temari felt her throat swell as she gulped down, blinking to prevent herself from tearing up while she was inwardly admonishing herself for being so easy. But she couldn't really help how she felt.
Secretly biting her inner cheek, she tried to compose herself and walked to the sofa as she sat down, trying to pretend everything was fine.
Unknown to her, all three other ninja in the room noticed her small emotional outburst, even if she did a great job of hiding any outward sign. But they stayed politely quiet and decided to just ease her into their acceptance.
Ren looked around at the three girls and smirked. "So... board games?"