Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Time spent with the children had helped me stay sane; there I wasn't Orochimaru. Orochimaru looked and acted different and I was a girl, so to them I was clearly different. It was simple. I appreciated simple. I had very little that was simple in my life.

"Orochitama-sama! I have an important request for my project!"

"Orochitama-sama! The Daimyo of Plains, sent a response!"

"Orochitama-sama! I made a break through!"

"Orochitama-sama! There is a dispute in the cafeteria! Two dead so far!"

"Orochitama-sama! The Daimyo has concerns about Taki's acceptance of-"

On and on and on it went. As soon as I stepped out of the room with the children I'd had one request after the other. All things that did need my attention. I couldn't even blame Orochimaru for it. He didn't deal with stuff like this. His only rule was if you pissed him off he'd kill you. Simple. I was the one bringing in rules, regulations, and even mental care.

The end result was that everyone needed a mind numbing amount of my attention.

My office was often times filled with people working with me on a project or putting in a request for their own work. Ninja would occasionally come in with mission reports and requests for orders. The job was more stressful than most front line fighting I'd seen from Orochimaru's memories.

I had five people in my office, all trying to be heard and their requests handled all at once.

Then the door my office swung open and Zabuza walked in with his typical expression; that expression most commonly referred to as murderous.

"Out." He ordered.

In moments the room was empty of everyone but Zabuza and myself.

I raised an eyebrow at the man. "I'm guessing the first day of training didn't go well."

"How, the fuck, did those people get off calling themselves ninjas? Why aren't you training them?" He growled.

"I am getting them training. That's why I hired you." I responded as I picked up a report on the ongoing negations with our own Daimyo.Read latest chapters at novelhall.com Only

"I meant before that! What the hell did you do to train them?" He snapped.

"I didn't." I responded.

"What do you mean you didn't?"

"I mean that previously all these people weren't trained. They were given goals and if they did not meet them they had consequences. Usually resulting in them dying. If they couldn't figure out the 'how' of the request then that was on their head. Most of them were just results of seeing if we could get an experiment to work." I closed my eyes, leaned back and sighed.

Zabuza stared at me in silence for a solid minute before he began to speak slowly and hesitantly. "That's-"

"Stupid? Wasteful? Monstrous?" I cut in, doing my best to keep any sort of emotion from my voice. "I know. I've been trying to fix it."

Zabuza's eyes narrowed. That level of disregard compared to my current care was a difficult thing to align. Zabuza had been a ninja for decades, a massive inconsistence in behavior such as that was sure to set off alarm bells in the man.

I didn't want the man to dwell on it too much.

"Are you finding yourself not up to the task?" I tease, tossing hair over my shoulder.

"I can handle it." The man said with the grace of an ox. "You just implied I'd be working with people that knew the difference from their kunai and their ass."

"Oh come now, they can't be that bad."

Zabuza's palms slapped down on the table as his much larger form loomed over me.

"Some of them can't even do a jumping jack right."

Wow. That was pretty bad.

"As I said. Mistakes were made." I responded before standing up, forcing the Demon of the Mist to pull back from his looming. "Did you have a purpose here Zabuza? Other than to bitch about other people's incompetence?"

I'd dealt with administrative duties all day, and I was over it. In the right mindset, I'd joke and bitch about all the lemming tendencies of the Sound Nin right along with Zabuza. I was not in that mindset and the man came with accusations. I wasn't feeling very charitable.

The sudden turn in posture clearly reminded the Mist ninja who exactly he was talking to. I saw his eyes start to dart to the door before catching himself. The man loathed to backdown from anything and it was only his pride keeping him from excusing himself from the room.

"I was offered training for me and Haku in exchange for my service. I haven't been given any expectations on when that will be." The man said, arms still folded over his chest. The threatening tone gone.

I gave a lollypops and sunshine smile and clap my hand together. "Ara ara! How silly of me. I must have overlooked it in all my spare time!" I chirp. "Well you seem to be free right now, so please come with me to the training room 1 and we'll start right away."

With that, I turned, my yellow sundress twirling, and sashayed out of the room.

I did have to give some credit to Zabuza, he immediately followed after me.

xxxxxxx

Jugo's life seemed much brighter the last three months. His problems with losing control hadn't been solved, but it had grown much more manageable as of late. He personally thought it was due to the purpose he now felt. Kimimaro had been relived of duty and was able to spend a lot more time with him, the bone user had grown weaker and was under strict orders to remain in a bed or a wheelchair as much as possible. The two of them would spend hours wondering around the base together and just enjoying each other's company.

"Oi! Jugo! Jackass!" A familiar voice called. Jugo's face lit up. His other friend!

"Suigetsu." Jugo greeting warmly. Though he spied Kimimaro's face dropping at the interruption.

Jugo winced. Why couldn't his friends just get along?

"What do you want, bottom feeder?" Kimimaro asked with all the care of the Suna desert.

"I wanted to invite Jugo to come watch an S-tier ass kicking. He won't leave you, so you come too." The shark-toothed kid said.

"A what?" Jugo asked, confused.

"Boss Lady is doing a total beatdown of a guy and calling it training." He pointed a thumb over his shoulder. "You wanna watch?"

"Well, if it's alright with-"

"Yes." Kimimaro interrupted. "Take us there now."

"Hell yeah!" Suigetsu cheered before leading them over to Training Field 1.

They arrived to find dozens of ninja had already beaten them there. Some sitting back and lurking in corners while keeping a watchful eye. Others gathered right up against the fence and gossiped to the person next to them. None talked loudly though.

You didn't want to attract the attention of either person in the room.

The three stopped in front of the iron bars that separated the training area from the rest of the base. Inside was an area ninty by thirty meters of concrete with holes patched up with orange clay. It also had a path dug through that had a constantly recycling stream of water.

As they arrived a thick mist began to rise up from the water and settle over the area.

"Aw, we aren't going to get to-"

"He began taking these actions immediately after his last encounter with us." Pein stated and Itachi felt the force of his stare increasing, "With you, Itachi."

All the eyes in the room slid over to stare at him.

Why were they staring?

"The fuck did you do to him?" Deidera asked, an appalled look on his face.

"I put him in a genjutsu and came close to killing him." He stated simply. "I don't see how this has any bearing on me."

How was he supposed to know? It was like they thought he-

Oh.

Even Kisame was giving him a look with intense emotion. "Itachi?" Kisame asked, voice questioning, "Did you fuck Orochimaru?"

"No." He stated simply. It was the truth.

None of them looked convinced.

They continued to stare.

Itachi disconnected from his illusion, stood up from his meditative position, and began to walk away. In a few moments Kisame began to stand too.

"Itachi! Wait!" He called, hurrying to catch up.

Itachi considered running and not letting him catch up. Though it would more likely make him look guilty. He settled for staying at his casual walking speed.

Kisame caught up to him in a few moments, though the fish man was gratefully silent as they-

"So was it that you are attracted to men, or you have a thing for MILF snakes?" Kisame asked.

Itachi turned to Kisame, Mangekyo blazing as he calmly stated, "I will kill you."

xxxxx

"Hehehehe." Jiraiya giggled to himself, staring through his telescope. Doing his level best to ignore the familiar chakra signature approaching him. "My what a firm peach that is~!"

"Jiraiya-sama." The ANBU spoke up. Jiraiya was tempted to ignore him for a while for the view, but it was Tadaomi, and his sensei's younger son was always stickler for the rules. "What do ya want Saru? This is quite possibly the finest ass in the country and she's bent over right now, so this better be pretty-"

"We have news on Orochimaru." The monkey masked ANBU said, holding out a scroll.

Jiraiya dropped the telescope and snatched up the parchment.

Jiraya looked at the message. It was encrypted with a familiar cypher, the one that he and his sensei had made to communicate exclusively with each other. He translated the message in his head.

Then he checked it again.

That wasn't right. Couldn't be. Orochimaru wasn't capable of it.

"Did he use another cypher?" Jiraiya asked.

"No." Saru said, though Jiraiya could hear the amusement in his voice.

Jiraiya stared at the wooden mask for a few more moments.

"Are you pranking me?" Jiraiya asked, though he figured it wasn't a prank. This was Tadaomi. The kid didn't have a funny bone.

"No. It is all correct and factual."

What. The. Actual. Fuck?

Jiraiya had seen Orochimaru attempt to flirt. It was mission related a few times over their career. Tsunade didn't have the temperament for cover work and Sensei always seemed to think he'd do something crazy that would cause chaos, so he kept trying to give Orochimaru a chance at it, and he sucked at it.

He continued to be baffled on why complimenting facial symmetry was not considered good flirting.

Flirty was an art. It required both confidence, comfort, and humor. Orochimaru had the first, was passible at the second, and had no hope for the third. Hell, the traitor had made comment a few times that he didn't understand what people saw for attraction in boobs.

Boobs! Who didn't get boobs!?

If what the paper said is true, then Orochimaru had to have been working on being able to do this for years!

Why?

What reason would Orochimaru have for pretending to be a voluptuous and flirty-

Jiraiya dropped the scroll as the pieces fell in place.

"My god." It made sense. Who kept hunting him? Who was it that understood his methods? It all made sense.

"Orochimaru is doing this to mess with me specifically!" He yelled as he slammed his foot down on a rock next to him.

"What?" Saru asked in confusion.

"Think about it Saru! Think!" Jiraya stated, pointing to his head. "Which of Orochimaru's enemies would this sort of behavior give him an advantage on? Me! He just so happened to do it on a mission with my godson? Bullshit. He's trying to call me out. He's trying to effect me. This is personal." Jiraiya said with conviction.

"That..." Saru stated before fading off, "Is actually a better theory than most of what we had."

"Exactly." Jiraiya said before picking back up his telescope and looking back to where he had been looking.

"What are you doing?" Saru asked. "We need to return."

"Oh sure. Just a last inspection. For- uh-" Jiraya trailed off and let out a giggle. "Any Orochimaru-ness."

Silence fell as Jiraiya started giggling himself.

"Are you done?" Saru asked impatiently.

"I don't know." Jiraya said lightly, "Orochimaru is a tricky bastard. I think this inspection could take a loooong-"

"Be on the road in ten minutes or I'll burn your book manuscript." Saru stated before leaving.

Jiraiya rolled his eyes. "I swear, how that kid managed to land a woman I'll never know."

Jiraiya stared for a bit longer.

"Fuck, I'm gonna have nightmares about vagina snakes." He groused.