Morning sunlight spilled into the room.
Feiyu opened his eyes slowly, lifted the embroidered quilt, nudged a pale arm off his chest, and stretched his shoulders with the lazy ease of someone who'd slept far too well.
Then he felt the shift in his body and frowned slightly.
…And sighed.
A pair of snow-white arms wrapped around his waist from behind. Pakura, woken by his movement, pressed her bare body against his back and nipped softly at his ear.
"What is it?" she murmured. "Feiyu… you look worried."
"The dual cultivation's getting weaker," Feiyu said flatly. "The last few days, the effect has dropped a lot. My growth slowed down."
Behind him, Pakura trembled when he leaned back into her. A blush bloomed over her skin like heat rising through silk.
"If the effect is worse," she whispered, voice sweet and eager, "then just find more furnaces."
"As Kazekage, I can summon kunoichi for you to choose from. And once you've 'tamed' them, your control over Sunagakure will only deepen."
She didn't even hesitate.
"What about Karura?" Pakura continued, tone almost casual. "She already has a child, but her talent isn't any worse than mine. Other than me, she's the best furnace."
"And now that she's awakened Magnet Release, she's Kage-class too. Once you bind her… the entire village will be in your hands."
It had only been a little over ten days since Feiyu's first dual cultivation with Pakura.
Yet the once public-spirited Fifth Kazekage had already been completely trained—offering up the village's women with a straight face, just to please him.
She knew her state wasn't normal. She knew the Hehuan Codex was controlling her.
She didn't care.
If anything, she was more than willing to help Feiyu bind even more kunoichi.
Feiyu understood something clearly at that moment:
The "demonic inheritance" he held wasn't just ruthless.
It was vile in a way that bent people's minds while smiling.
Fortunately for him…
He wasn't exactly a good person either. No guilt came with the realization.
He patted Pakura's arms lightly.
"Fine," he said. "I'll leave it to you."
"But don't bring me trash. I'd rather have fewer. At minimum, they need the potential to reach jōnin. Otherwise they're not worth being called a furnace."
Pakura's eyes gleamed.
"Don't worry, Feiyu. I'll arrange everything perfectly."
She rubbed against his back a few more times, utterly shameless, then finally let him rise.
Feiyu replayed the taste of the last few days in his mind, then put on his mask and stepped out.
If he wanted Sunagakure to recover fast, he still had work to do.
Wood Release made greening the desert possible—but it wasn't a miracle that ignored nature. You needed water.
Some of the plants he had created near the village had already withered: without underground water or steady irrigation, most would die within days. Only hardy drought-resistant species survived.
So he didn't need to "green the entire Wind Country" all at once.
The priority was expanding oasis zones, reducing sandstorms, and reinforcing soil and water retention.
Sunagakure's shinobi were also scouting for underground water sources. Once found, Feiyu would use Wood Release to drive roots deep, stabilizing them into new living oases.
In the short term, the workload wasn't heavy.
In only a few days, he had already turned most known oases and detected water-source areas into grasslands and forests.
The next stage was maintenance—slowly reinforcing the new greenery while mapping underground river routes for planned oasis expansion.
Even so, the results were ridiculous.
In just days, the oasis area under Sunagakure's control had expanded seven to eight times.
In the desert, oases weren't "valuable."
They were priceless.
That kind of expansion would boost Sunagakure's finances, population, and long-term capacity across the board.
Pakura had estimated earlier that even with Wind Daimyō support, Sunagakure would need at least ten years to recover its strength.
Without support?
It would be lucky to stop the bleeding.
But with Feiyu's Wood Release—
Even without daimyo funding, Sunagakure could recover within five years, maybe even push beyond its old ceiling and regain the confidence of a true great village.
The fundamental problem had always been money and manpower.
No money meant fewer shinobi.
Fewer shinobi meant fewer chances for top-tier talents.
That spiral only led downward.
Feiyu's greening work was like flipping the board over from the root.
No wonder Sunagakure was acting like it had seen salvation descend from the sky.
After finishing today's work and leaving behind a crowd of grateful shinobi and oasis residents, Feiyu returned to the village.
He didn't go to Pakura.
Instead, he walked into an underground facility.
Like Konoha, Sunagakure also had underground bases.
And like everyone else in the shinobi world, they also did human experimentation.
Root didn't "invent" this filth.
The entire ninja world produced it.
The Five Great Villages condemned it in public and played with it in private.
Sunagakure was poor, but it wasn't behind in ambition.
Without a foundation like this, how could Sasori have learned to turn the Third Kazekage into a human puppet… or transform himself?
Still, Feiyu's evaluation was merciless.
"Their research level…" he said, glancing around, "…needs work."
He had spent time in Root and had Orochimaru as a "cheap teacher."
Even if he hadn't eaten pork, he'd watched enough pigs run.
Compared to Konoha, Sunagakure was behind in both equipment and technique.
But the basics were there.
At minimum, they could cultivate and multiply the Hashirama cells Feiyu had brought from Konoha.
As for implantation?
Forget it. Sunagakure wasn't equipped for that level of hell.
In a sealed container sat a massive, pulsating lump of flesh—Hashirama cells like a grotesque tumor.
Feiyu carved off a thin slice and continued deeper.
Further inside was the holding area—where "materials" were kept alive.
He presented Pakura's authorization and drew out one experimental subject.
The prisoner was filthy, half-dead-looking. His chakra was sealed, his mouth gagged.
Convenient.
Feiyu placed the Hashirama cell slice on the ground.
A sealing array spread out beneath it.
Then he grabbed the human "material" and tossed him into the formation.
His hands flew through seals at high speed.
"Ninpō—Edo Tensei!"
Paper fragments erupted from nowhere, swirling and wrapping the body like a storm of ash-white butterflies.
The subject convulsed, muffled sounds escaping his gag—
Then disappeared fully beneath the paper cocoon.
A moment later, the form inside reshaped.
Black long hair.
Red armor.
A bold, heroic presence.
Cracked lines ran across the skin—distinctive marks of the reanimated dead.
Senju Hashirama.
The First Hokage.
Hashirama opened a pair of black eyes and looked around, faintly confused.
Feiyu didn't waste words.
He took out the control talisman he'd prepared and shoved it directly into the reanimated body's brain.
Only then did he exhale.
"Finally succeeded…"
This was his fifth Edo Tensei attempt.
As an S-rank forbidden technique, it wasn't something even Feiyu could master in one go, no matter how solid his foundation was.
But now he had it.
The reanimated Hashirama wasn't strong—probably not even true Kage-level.
But Feiyu didn't care.
As long as it could use Wood Release, it was good enough.
As he recalled the sensation of a soul traveling from the Pure Land into reality, Feiyu narrowed his eyes, a sudden burst of inspiration flashing through his mind.
If he could intercept a soul during the Edo Tensei process…
Couldn't he just store it directly?
Warden of Wandering Souls grew stronger with the quality and number of souls he held.
If he could fuse Edo Tensei with his soul-binding system…
Then in the future, he wouldn't even need war.
He could dig graves and still stockpile powerful souls.
Feiyu's desire immediately sharpened.
He was drooling for the Second Hokage's soul.
Tobirama's forbidden techniques. Tobirama's research.
And especially—
Flying Thunder God.
Feiyu was the kind of person who feared death down to his bones.
A space-time escape art like that was a dream he couldn't abandon.
If Flying Thunder God users weren't so hard to kill, he might've already tried assassinating Namikaze Minato to rip the technique out of his soul.
Hashirama's soul, though?
Feiyu didn't care much.
He could keep feeding Hashirama cells into the Blood Pool and refining himself with Swallow-Spirit Blood-Refining Art—eventually he'd gain a complete Sage Body anyway.
Hashirama had invented Wood Release and even developed practical arts like the Darkness Technique…
But compared to Tobirama's sheer technique invention?
Hashirama's "genius" looked almost ordinary.
Feiyu sealed the controlled Hashirama corpse into a coffin.
He didn't plan to use it in combat.
From now on, greening Wind Country could be done by this reanimated body.
He would hand the control over to Pakura.
"Next," Feiyu thought, "is moving the Blood Pool from the Land of Fire to Sunagakure."
That could be done entirely by Sand shinobi. To anyone else, the materials were worthless. No one would bother robbing them.
"And after that…"
He looked toward the horizon beyond Sunagakure.
"Let's see how this war develops."
Back in the Kazekage office, Feiyu handed Pakura the control talisman for Hashirama's reanimation and left a summoning seal array on it. Then he returned the reanimated body to its coffin.
Pakura leaned close to him, eyes soft, expression full of obedient joy.
"With this Edo Tensei First Hokage…" she murmured, "you won't need to exhaust yourself anymore, Feiyu."
Even weakened, with an immortal body and Wood Release, the reanimation could still function close to Kage-level.
Pakura was thrilled—not only because it benefited Sunagakure, but because she took it as proof Feiyu valued her.
Feiyu's true reason was simpler:
It was annoying to handle himself.
Then Pakura's voice turned sweet again.
"By the way, Feiyu… this morning I said I'd prepare more furnaces for you."
"I've already handled Karura."
"Tonight… do you want to try her?"
Feiyu paused under his mask, thinking of the stubborn widow with quiet steel in her eyes.
"…She doesn't seem like the type to compromise."
"And she's Kage-class now, Rasa's widow, too. She's sensitive—high-profile."
"How did you 'handle' her?"
Pakura smiled lightly.
"Karura-jie is strong," she admitted. "But she has one fatal weakness."
"Don't forget… she's a mother now."
"For little Temari, she can only 'sacrifice' herself."
Feiyu's voice stayed calm.
"You threatened her daughter?"
Pakura shook her head, smile still there.
"I told her it's a secret technique to grow stronger."
"I showed her my own improvements—told her it was all because of this method."
"And I told her it wouldn't take long. Just a few times."
"In the end…"
"She accepted."
Pakura leaned closer, voice turning amused.
"And once it starts, Karura-jie will understand what it means to taste the marrow."
"By then… Feiyu, you won't be able to chase her away even if you try."
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