"This is honestly impressive!" Temari exclaimed as the primitive elevator platform finally finished its descent from above the ground to the bottom of a hundred-meter-deep shaft.
In front of her and Ren's eyes, a massive room with no end in sight spread into the horizon. Countless massive pillars were symmetrically organized in rows all across the room, supporting the ceiling to ensure it wouldn't collapse, while the ceiling shone with enough light to brighten up the entire room as if it were a nice day above the surface.
On the ground, multiple people could be seen working, shoveling the earth that Ren knew Ebizo was sending squads to discreetly steal from the most fertile places in the Land of Fire, the Land of Rice, and other countries known for their produce during the last two weeks.
It was a rush job, but fortunately, Land of Rivers was one of those fertile countries with great soil, and it was right next to the Land of Wind. From what Ren was seeing, Ebizo had gotten enough soil for several fields.
And indeed, the floor of the room was already starting to resemble fields in several places all around the massive, thick pillars that would conveniently serve as a watering system.
A small, smug, and content smirk appeared on Ren's face as he looked at Temari's awestruck expression and felt how she was squeezing his hand with hers, not even noticing in her wonder.
To be fair, he felt very similarly to her when he first saw it. The room was nowhere near the level of Urahara Kisuke's underground training room, but it was still nothing to scoff at.
Especially since...
"It is, isn't it?" Ren hummed, squeezing affectionately Temari's hand in return, causing her to pull out of her reverie as she looked at him and slightly blushed, but her lips settled into a happy, if a bit silly grin. "And consider that this entire underground facility did not exist a week ago. It is amazing what ninjas can accomplish once they start thinking about using their techniques for something else than just combat."
Saying that would have been a sacrilege in any polite ninja society. A grave offense. Ninjas took immense pride in their combat capabilities. Suggesting they use them for building? How offensive!
But this was why he loved Sunagakure. People here were desperate. Desperate enough to put away their pride for a moment and actually listen without arguing too much when Ren suggested that they should have their Earth Release masters create this wonder and turn it into underground farming fields.
"The light, that's your work, no?" Temari, still in wonder, shining in her eyes, started to look around as they slowly walked on the side of the already constructed, and perfectly even, stone road. Carts full of more soil, seeds, farming tools, and other necessities for the workers passed them almost every minute.
Hearing her question, Ren's lips twitched, and he had to put some effort into not showing the distaste that surged within him at the mention of these blasted things.
"Yes." He said, calmly and evenly... but maybe not calmly and evenly enough as Temari still shot him an amused look, and one of her eyebrows rose in a silent question at him.
Ren, however, only returned her stare with a blank look of his own, making her snort a minute later when she realized he was not going to tell her more about the reason for his displeasure.
Temari, mirthfully smirking at the irritated glint in Ren's eyes, abruptly leaned forward and kissed his cheek, "You poor boy. Do you need more kisses to feel better?" She teased, making Ren snort too, and rolled his eyes at her attempt to lift his mood.
Temari's smirk widened because, judging by Ren's reaction, her attempt clearly worked just as intended.
Ren silently appreciated her effort, even if she had no idea what he found so annoying about the seals. The reason for his reaction was simple. He had thousands of hours in his memory of doing mind-numbingly boring and extremely repetitive work of producing these infernal things.
His clones had created tens of thousands of them in the last week alone. First, they used a transmutating seal to create two wooden tiles, and then they inscribed two paired seals on said tiles. These seals had one purpose. Through a modified storage dimension, the first seal 'sealed' the sunlight that fell on the tile, and the second seal then accessed said dimension, releasing the sunlight out of its own tile's surface.
It worked on the same principle as the seals providing drinking water to Suna nowadays, just for sunlight. It was the cornerstone of this whole underground farming plan.
And creating them was a major pain in the ass for Ren. If he never had to inscribe these seals again in his life, he would die happy. Sadly, he knew this wish would not be fulfilled.
By the second day of production, he hadn't even finished ten percent of the necessary tiles, and he had already wanted to give up. In fact, his clones were still tirelessly working on making more because only around two-thirds of the room was covered. The parts in the very back of the room were still shrouded in darkness.
Ren couldn't even delegate that work to anybody but his clones, either! Nobody could create these seals. And since this whole plan was his idea, he really couldn't just give up halfway through, no matter how tempting it was.
When he started, he thought, 'I can become a human factory and manufacture seals like nobody's business with shadow clones, mwhahaha!'
Now, a week later, it was more along the lines of, 'No. Please, no more! Just let it end!'
He really underestimated how getting thousands of hours of tedious work, all crammed into a small timeframe, would affect him mentally. He could feel himself getting depressed in real time. It was only the fact that Ino, Hinata, and even Temari, to a smaller extent, were fully willing to drop their work and cheer him up whenever he needed it.
At first, he tried to hide his state from them, but man, females must have some sort of hidden sixth sense because Ino and Hinata practically sniffed his woes in the first five minutes after meeting him.
Shaking his head, Ren decided to stop thinking about it. The topic reminded him of the fact that he would be getting another bomb of hundred-plus hours of the same tedious work this evening again, and that made his spine slightly shiver in dread.
'I am starting to understand why Sarutobi always made it sound as if paperwork was his mortal enemy.' Ren wryly thought. If he found it half as tedious as Ren found trying to cosplay as a human seal factory, then he was surprised the old shit-flinger hadn't burned Konoha to the ground during his tenure from sheer frustration.
"If you look at the walls," Ren pointed toward the wall in the distance to their right side that was the closest to them, "you might notice another set of seals. Those provide air to the room. That is another important thing for the plants." Ren explained to Temari, who instantly started squinting into the distance.
Chuckling at the dismayed and discontent look on Temari's face when she failed to see that far, even with ninja shenanigans, Ren gently bumped her shoulder with his and pointed toward the closest, massive pillar to their left.
Temari turned around, and after a few seconds of looking, her eyes widened, "Are those the water-providing seals!?" She asked in astonishment, and Ren smiled before leaning closer and kissing her cheek, just like she kissed his a moment ago.
"Got it in one. Looks like your lessons in sealing were not as hopeless as they first appeared, eh?" He teased her as a return for her previous teasing, and the tips of Temari's ears turned red from embarrassment as she subconsciously lowered her head with a small, childish pout.
Ren laughed. While his clones worked on their assignment, he had started teaching Temari a bit about sealing in the past week. After all, his deal with Suna was to get her to the point where she could create these 'water-providing' seals on her own.
But damn, she was hopeless in the art.
Ren realized he would get her to a sufficient level for these seals with a lot of effort, but the girl was practically like Hinata. She could learn to use and make a few seals expertly, but she was never going to be a Seal Master capable of innovating or creating her own seals. She lacked the necessary interest in the field to stick with it long enough to learn it properly.
Not to mention Temari's atrocious math skills. Remembering that... Ren had to take a deep breath. Let's just say she inherited at least something from Rasa and leave it at that.
... Holy shit, it was a great thing she was going to have advisors once she took the hat. The girl could be sharp as a knife, but she didn't betray her natural hair color. The blonde girl was still a blonde.
It didn't even make sense! The girl was a genius, just a lesser one than Shikamaru when it came to strategy and tactics. She was also starting to have a knack for governance, too, but give her a math problem and the result might just summon a Cthulhu.
"The air seals on the walls will also provide air ventilation." Ren grinned at the pouting girl and decided to get back on the track with his explanations. "And the water seals on the pillars will not only provide watering for the fields, but also act like a cooling system for the place."
"Huh, that's quite well thought out. I didn't even think of the need for cooling and ventilation." Temari noted, still looking over the pillars as they resumed their walk.
"I didn't either until Ebizo gathered several experts on underground bases that talked my ear off until they were satisfied with any adjustment to the plan I proposed." Ren huffed, but Temari wasn't paying his whining any attention.
"To think Suna would have its own farming fields one day. I am still working on believing it." She wistfully uttered as she teared up.
To play her emotional state off, she sniffed and turned her head to the side, "The security is quite tight in here." She deliberately changed the topic, and Ren's lips twitched in amusement. He didn't call her out on it.
"Is it safe to hire these workers, though?" Temari asked, her emotional state receding as a small, concerned frown appeared on her face while she was looking at some of the poorest people from Suna now working in the fields as they passed them by.
"That was actually one of my ideas." Ren lowkey boasted a bit. He couldn't help it. He felt quite accomplished for coming up with it. "You know how the scariest things for a hidden village are saboteurs?"
Temari blinked and slowly nodded. "It's why I asked in the first place. It does not matter how many ANBU are hidden in the shadows," And Ren noted that there were enough of them to make even Akatsuki reconsider attacking, "but no number of them will be helpful against an undiscovered spy. It's just... hiring so many unknown, homeless people sounds like a huge security risk for a project this important." She said, and her eyebrows furrowed.
It was obvious to Ren that she hated it, but she wasn't going to close her eyes in front of reality because she wanted to help the poorest people in her village.
"You'd think that." Ren smiled, "But it is actually the opposite. Nobody puts spies among the homeless population in a hidden village because it's a pointless endeavor. Homeless people might be overlooked more often than not, but they don't have any sort of access to important information within a hidden village."
Anywhere else, they might at least serve as eyes and ears, but in a hidden village teeming with ninjas, maybe only a genin would not notice a homeless person trying to eavesdrop on them. And even that is debatable.
"Not only will this work help many of them get back on their financial feet, so to speak," Ren said, sounding very pleased with himself, "But also, the chance that the other hidden villages wasted money on a pointless mission like becoming a homeless spy in Suna is practically nonexistent."
As he watched the ANBU all over the place, Ren was a bit butthurt that Ebizo rejected his security seals for the facility, but he also understood that his affiliation with Konoha was putting the man between a rock and a hard place, even if Ren was the cornerstone of the entire project.
It was aggravating. Then again, his worries were not misguided. Ren indeed had an ulterior motive of his own. All these homeless people? This work was well paid, and many would most likely turn their lives around thanks to it.
But they would need more work, and soon.
Wasn't it just nice that Samui was going to come to the village with the intent of making several businesses, then? Such a coincidence was almost god-sent for them!
Ren could not gain much influence in the village politically. No matter how much benefit he brought Suna, he was still a foreigner in their minds. If nothing else, Konoha had taught him that he was so bad at politicking that he was liable to out-politic himself rather than his enemies.
So, he changed his approach.
His influence in Suna was going to come from... money. If he owned half of the village, even his biggest nay-sayers on the council would shut up.
Hopefully.
After all, he always thought he was just as bad at merchanting as he was at politicking.
...
AN: Writing this chapter was a pain in the ass.