Sunagakure lacked water.
That was the first fact written in any "common sense handbook" about the shinobi world.
Drought year-round. Annual rainfall under fifty millimeters.
Even cacti struggled to survive.
In past years, one third of the Land of Wind daimyō's budget allocations went toward buying drinking water at high prices from the Land of Rain and the Land of Rivers.
Even then, ordinary villagers in Sunagakure could only maintain the bare minimum water ration.
But Sunagakure had Sunagakure's own kind of wisdom.
On land that lacked water, their ancestors invented the sand bath.
Not the kind where you just roll around in sand, that was a child's game.
A true sand bath required the finest, softest white sand from deep in the desert.
It had to be sifted and washed repeatedly to remove gravel and impurities.
Then it was spread across a specially made stone platform and baked in the sun for at least four hours.
At noon, the sand temperature could reach sixty degrees Celsius or more.
You lay down inside it, and the hot sand wrapped your whole body.
Your pores opened. Your blood sped up.
Fatigue and damp chill got pressed out of your bones, inch by inch.
The Land of Hot Water had its springs. The Land of Lightning had geothermal heat.
Sunagakure had sand.
A luxury unique to desert people.
Right now, Teizawa was lying in the best private room the sand-bath house had.
Enjoying a rare stretch of peace.
Ever since he'd confirmed that Sunagakure's Shinobi Representative Assembly would be held in three days…
Orders went out one after another.
All twenty-seven districts of Sunagakure had sprung into motion.
Even Temari was running herself ragged along with her two brothers, Gaara and Kankurō.
Meanwhile Teizawa had become a hands-off boss.
Genuinely idle.
Today…
He'd changed his face.
He looked like nothing more than an ordinary shinobi coming to relax after a mission.
Then he'd slipped straight into the sand-bath house.
That's right.
A sand bath.
Thankfully, no one recognized him.
Good.
Teizawa let out a long, satisfied breath.
He sank another three inches into the scalding white sand.
Heat surged in from every direction, clinging to his skin without a hint of sting.
His neck, shoulders, lower back, the backs of his knees…
That dry, gentle burn melted through him, little by little.
It felt incredible.
Teizawa closed his eyes, rare for him.
But his mind didn't stop moving.
Iwagakure, basically, could be put behind him now.
Ōnoki wasn't an idiot.
Losing a thousand elite shinobi hurt.
But would he bury all of Iwagakure for a unit that had acted on its own?
He couldn't do it.
More importantly, Konoha's request-for-aid letter had already gone out.
Tsunade, that she-wolf, might curse with her mouth…
But her body was honest.
She had no choice.
In Teizawa's view, there were only three paths left for Iwagakure.
First: publicly admit to cross-border raiding and declare war on Sunagakure under the crime of shattering the peace.
That meant facing the combined camp of Sunagakure and Konoha, while also guarding against Kumogakure stabbing them in the back.
Ōnoki was over eighty.
If he wanted to die, that wasn't how you did it.
Second: retaliate in the shadows, using the black market, mercenaries, and third-party forces to cause trouble for Sunagakure.
But that would be small-time harassment, nothing that could really take shape.
Third: swallow it and pretend nothing happened.
Which one would Ōnoki choose?
You could guess with your toes.
That old bastard had cooperated with Akatsuki before.
He would definitely hire some terror outfit to sabotage Sunagakure.
But it wasn't anything to lose sleep over.
Worst case, he could just hand Kurotsuchi back after he'd had his fun.
Everyone stays friendly, everyone makes money.
Thinking of Kurotsuchi…
Teizawa didn't even bother lifting his eyelids.
He'd "broken" her a bit, sure, but not truly broken.
Satetsu clogging her channels would at most keep her from gathering chakra for ten days or half a month.
It wouldn't kill her. It wouldn't leave lasting damage.
Not a big deal.
Then there was Sunagakure's internal business.
That was the part that really drained him.
The Representative Assembly in three days…
That was his first carefully laid card.
Not a show.
Not a whim.
Sunagakure's rot ran too deep.
The top was rigid. The middle was scattered. The bottom was numb.
Chiyo's belief that "a shinobi village should be run by shinobi" wasn't unique to her.
It was the entire shinobi world's old consensus.
And to break a consensus like that…
Administrative orders were useless.
You had to make everyone participate themselves.
Let them choose representatives with their own hands.
Let them propose agenda items with their own mouths.
Let them watch those agenda items get adopted, implemented, and rewarded.
Once someone has tasted the flavor of power, they can never go back to a life of silent obedience.
That was real reform.
Teizawa sank another two inches into the sand, his thoughts drifting farther.
The assembly was only the first step.
Next, several things had to be pushed through as fast as possible.
First: desalination.
The Land of Wind had a long coastline, but couldn't use it because of technological limitations.
If he could drive the construction of desalination equipment…
Even covering thirty percent of the village's water needs would carry immeasurable strategic value.
Second: roads.
If you want to get rich, build roads first.
A cliché from his past life.
Still true in the shinobi world.
How weak was Sunagakure's control over the Land of Wind?
A thousand Iwa shinobi crossed the border and Sunagakure didn't notice until it was too late.
Was that acceptable?
It wasn't that Sunagakure didn't want to control things.
It was that the Land of Wind's internal transportation was terrible.
Once the main arteries were built, Sunagakure's military and political influence could flow along the road network into every corner of the Land of Wind.
The daimyō?
A lucky charm was plenty.
Third, and most important…
Improve Sunagakure's overall combat power.
Teizawa slowly opened his eyes.
He stared at the mottled sunlight filtering down from the ceiling, his gaze deep.
Two hundred and thirty billion was seed money, not a perpetual motion machine.
To truly remake Sunagakure…
He needed more core, more irreplaceable strategic resources.
And in the shinobi world…
There were plenty of good things lying around, forgotten.
The ruins of Rōran within the Land of Wind held the Dragon Vein.
In canon, Naruto and Mukade had caused chaos with it, and it ended with a seal.
But Teizawa knew…
The Dragon Vein's energy was, in essence, a crystallization of space-time chakra.
If it could be extracted stably and converted into storable, usable energy…
Sunagakure would never again have to buy water or grain by swallowing its pride and begging anyone.
Then there was the Sky Ninja Village.
That high-tech floating base, and its full sea-air mobility system.
The tech was a little outdated, but the underlying concept was still ahead of its time.
If he could get his hands on it and standardize it at scale…
Sunagakure could field the first truly organized aerial combat force in the shinobi world.
And then there was the moon.
Teizawa narrowed his eyes.
Homura Ōtsutsuki's descendants, the Tenseigan, the passage to the moon…
That was a long-term goal.
It would require a tighter plan and far greater strength.
But that didn't mean he couldn't start preparing now.
He needed to find the teleport coordinates left behind when the Ōtsutsuki clan had descended to the earth from the moon back then…
"I remember it was a lake, I think?"
Teizawa muttered, about to close his eyes and continue—
"Ahahaha, stop running, Matsuri!"
"Yukata, you're the one who needs to stop, don't throw sand!"
A bright, bell-like burst of laughter and playful arguing came out of nowhere from next door.
Teizawa's whole body went rigid.
Next door?
He'd confirmed it himself when he arrived: today he was supposed to be the sand-bath house's only guest.
He was in the highest-class section, separated into private compartments by coarse hemp curtains.
The price was five times the normal area.
It was supposed to be quiet.
Teizawa turned his head on instinct.
His gaze slipped through a gap in the curtain where the breeze lifted it slightly…
And then—
For the first time, Teizawa truly understood what people meant by:
"You'd have been better off not looking. Once you do, you'll never be able to sleep again."
(End of Chapter)
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