The following days in Sunagakure were quite peaceful by Rei's standards. Sure, some cocksure ninjas who just returned from missions, hence they missed Rasa's and Pakura's match, deemed it wise to challenge Pakura's new authority... and as expected, they got ass-whooping of a lifetime for their effort.

Pakura wasn't killing them. Suna was far too weak for that. She, however, made sure they learned their lesson in humility and subservience well. Few burns here, few cut tendons there, and even the bravest ninjas experienced the fear of being crippled for life with no way to provide for themselves and their family, which then fed their survival instinct, and voila, Pakura got the necessary obedience. ​​

The sharp decrease of discontent background noise after these events was surely just Rei's overabundant imagination.

Honestly, it wasn't even that cruel of a method and the Suna ninjas knew it. If it was Rasa in Pakura's place, he would probably execute them or someone from their family in front of them depending on their importance in the village. That didn't make the man evil. That simply made him an effective leader of a militaristic village full of trigger-happy professional killers. One simply had to somehow keep his soldiers in line.

Rei was actually glad the tension in the village eased after a few days. Pakura portrayed herself as a hardass but a reasonable leader and as such, she was accepted quite readily. It did help that the Suzumiya clan and their allies put their support behind Pakura which stacked up nicely with the financial help from the Uzushio Trading Company Rei prepared even before the actual Grudge Match. Sunagakure was on the fast track to full recovery and people noticed. It was quite hard to miss the increase of readily available and cheap food, better ninja supplies, more metal deliveries for the forges, and overall increase in the living conditions. Frankly, it really didn't take long for Pakura to be praised to kingdoms come after that.

Rei spent this time leisurely, watching Pakura's frustrated expression while drinking Sake in her office. It wasn't that he was enjoying her 'suffering'. Rei knew Pakura well enough to understand she enjoyed working. She, for some inexplicable reason, enjoyed the paperwork. She never felt it was a burden. She loved doing it and figuratively building something with her own hands. The horror! In his capacity as a responsible husband, Rei simply had to show her what she was missing by relaxing right in front of her with a satisfied smirk while she worked, no?

The suggestive and heated looks he was throwing at her most definitely had nothing to do with her frustrated expression and slightly lustful gleam in her eyes. No, no, Rei was definitely not having fun by subtly trying to make her use her table for a more... productive activity.

The real kicker, however, was seeing Pakura interact with her new charges, the Sabaku siblings.

Much to Pakura's dismay, after re-making Gaara's seal, the young eight-year-old boy who no longer heard Shukaku and could now sleep peacefully got it into his half-insane head that she was his new mother because she had beaten Rasa. Anyone can imagine the kind of problems it caused for Pakura almost as well as the amount of amusement it provided for Rei. When one day Gaara came to the kitchen and in a deadpan voice asked Pakura what 'monkey sex' was and if it could really prove his existence... well, let's just say Kankuro got a thrashing of his lifetime by both Temari and Pakura.

As for the young puppeteer, nothing much changed. Pakura was cordial to him and let him pursue his dream of becoming the best puppeteer of Suna. There wasn't much interaction between them because the boy somewhat resented Pakura. Thankfully, Temari was putting quite the effort into making him understand Pakura's side of things. If only to prevent him from doing something they would all regret.

Temari was the most peculiar of the trio. She became Pakura's personal kunoichi.

That was one very old tradition coming from the Warring States era. To be honest, it was barely even seen in use these days. Simply put, ninjas without a clan had quite a hard time bettering themselves since nobody felt like sharing techniques and discoveries. It wasn't like nowadays where Hidden Villages have whole libraries of stuff the clans are willing to share and then some from the civilian-born ninjas who made their own discoveries and shared with the entire village out of sheer stupidity, cough, propaganda brainwashing, cough, for free.

One way for those clanless ninjas during that era to get learning material was to bind oneself in service to a feudal lord who usually had their own small libraries on ninja-stuff exactly for the purpose of attracting these 'special' servants.

Temari swore the oaths and was registered as Pakura's sword kunoichi and that was that.

While there was no loyalty seal involved, Temari was fully aware she was sealing her fate and binding it to Pakura's. Rogue ninja had it hard but rogue sword ninjas had it a lot harder. Their problems were no longer just hidden villages and occasional opportunistic bounty hunters. Nobles from all countries knew about personal ninjas and laws around them and they took it very seriously even though it was rarely used nowadays. If only to prevent the idea from spreading.

There was a reason why most ninjas avoided swearing their loyalty to individuals like a plague. Defecting a hidden village meant a chance at life in another hidden village. Nobles didn't care so no really preventive laws were put into use on an international scale.

Little ten-year-old Temari started to study the mannerisms of servants and drove Pakura half-mad with her childish and innocent attempts at proving herself. Especially since Pakura only wanted the girl to be a loyal apprentice who she could call for in times of need to fight by her side. Alas, Pakura gained a small bossy maid with a penchant for cute pouting and teary eyes.

Seeing Pakura's flustered look as she tried to handle the three children Rei really had to admit that taking over Sunagakure was indeed worth it!

...

"Well, I must admit, I didn't expect you to provoke a Grudge Match only to do... this. Isn't it a bit much, disrupting the entire country alongside its hidden village only to... er, I have no clue how to call it without sounding ridiculous." Konan deadpanned as she stared at her husband's newest creation.

Pakura was currently handling important affairs in Sunagakure and unlike Ringo, she loved it so there were usually no shadow clones and blackmailing other people to do her job involved.

Rei thankfully didn't stay in Suna all the time. Even though Tsunade was away for a few months, leaving only a few reassuring efforts that she is on a mission to better her healing arts, Rei still had three other women whose needs he had to satisfy. Konan was glad she didn't have to drag him out of the Sunagakure by force. It would make their bedroom activities that much more awkward.

"Not really. You know we have a lot of mountains that contain gold in them. This was the fastest and easiest way to mine them all without putting much effort or resources into it. Just imagine it, Konan! With how massive these mountain ranges are, they contain more wealth than the richest Daimyos are worth!" Rei excitedly exclaimed, looking over his latest experiment, something most would frown at.

Konan raised an eyebrow and regarded Rasa's re-animated corpse with another judgemental look before closing her eyes and scrunching her face as if she was in some kind of mental pain.

"Let me get this straight, Rei. You fucked with Wind Country's food import negotiations, one of the most important events in that country. You spent two months to ensure Grudge Match between Rasa and Pakura, effectively removing the Sabaku clan from the rule and installing Pakura in their place. You made Pakura seemingly get rid of Rasa's body while covertly snatching it with your seals. You made your own fuinjutsu version of Summoning: Impure World Reincarnation, the Jutsu you found in the Senju library, the same Jutsu that binds souls of the deceased into service of the user. And you did all that in order to..." Konan's even voice cracked, "to make Rasa's corpse into some kind of mining machine because you could not be bothered to research seals that could do it instead? Seals that could most likely mine more than just gold?"

Konan intently stared at Rei, her eyebrow twitching, causing him to realize that maybe he should have discussed his plans and motivations with somebody other than Mei who was in post-coital bliss before he actually proceeded with them.

"Well, when you put it that way..." Rei awkwardly rubbed the back of his head with a sheepish expression plastered all over his face.

In his defense... there really was a lot of gold in the mountains behind his hidden village.

---

Author note:

Fuuh~... finally finished the Sunagakure arc.