Chapter 53

Chapter 53

"Orochitama-sama!"

"My Lady. Welcome back."

"Boss Lady."

The wave of greetings did my heart well as I walked through the Sound base, or rather, the Tunnel base; which was a base hidden in a tunnel, so it was a Tunnel tunnel base. A joke I was sure I'd grow tired of eventually, but for the moment was delightful. As I walked the halls, I passed ninja sporting the new symbol of our village, though I passed the occasional musical note, or stylized representations of a waterfall or grass. The logistics of making brand new headbands for every single ninja was an ongoing process though one that should be solved within a week or two. I hadn't wanted to start mass production of the headbands until after I had declared the formation of the new village after all. It was hard to hide making tens of thousands of new headbands with a new symbol after all.

Many of Sound's old bases had, of course, had an injection of Grass and Waterfall ninja to help staff the locations. A much needed improvement over the scramble for niche jobs I had to do just after my transformation. Logistics were the heart and soul of any governing body and it was something Orochimaru ignored to the best of his abilities.

After all, why waste time and resources building a secure and effective human resources department when you could instead watch the desperation of a starving man unravel his sanity before your very eyes?

I rolled my eyes at the idea. Such a waste.

Even someone that appeared useless and without merit at a glance had their usage if you put the time and effort in placing them in the correct location.

Case in point, the first person I had to meet with on my return.

"Tatewaki-san." I greeted.

"Orochitama-kakka!" The man greeted excitedly. The suffix of address drawing a raised eyebrow from me. Kakka was lesser used honorific that mostly found it's place in the palaces of the Daimyo, and his use of it, more than endearing, just made the man seem odd.

"I'm very glad you have graced us with your presence! I hope you see the grand work I've done with the Mission Center! We are operating with great efficiency! Already we have increased the income from missions for Grass, Waterfall, and Sound by more than thirty percent! As confidence picks up, I expect we will have a net income rate increased to forty percent by the end of the month." Tatewaki commented as he turned and gestured to the room. It was a massive theater of more than three dozen ninja on various computers, maps, and radio relays. Large displays dominated the walls that displayed active missions and the locations of the deployed mission booths.

"Any trouble from other villages?" I asked as I studied the mission board for myself, and tried to get a feel for the work flow in the room.

"The mobile operator in the Akita province fell under attack and had to flee the area. He sustained minor injuries but is expected to make a full recovery. The nearby deployed teams converged on the position and took out the offending party. They were wearing the marks of being from Hidden in Bamboo, but we are investigating further. I believe them to be deniable assets of another village." Tatewaki reported.

"See to it he gets a hefty bonus." I ordered. I needed those that did mobile mission desks to find the risk worth the while. They were, in many ways, out on their own. Help was always a short way away, but sometimes backup being fifteen minutes away was just as useful as backup being a week away. "Any other issues?"

"Minor. Two of our encrypted radios got stolen, but we activated their fail safes. We changed encryptions now anyways, so it wasn't too large a loss." Tatewaki responded as he turned back to his paperwork with great reluctance; an action for which I was grateful, as it saved me the awkward conversation of telling a subordinate that staring at my tits for a solid minute straight while participating in a conversation was inappropriate.

Not that I didn't understand, but we were working.

"Things look busy. How is staffing here?"

"We don't stay this busy. The missions come in waves as the locals hesitate to put in a request until someone else picks up the nerve. Once that happens though, everyone comes in all at once. I expect that will change as time goes on and the people grow used to seeing them. There are some times we all sit around for an hour without any significant updates."

"Very good. Then I need you to put in a mission for me."

Tatewaki sat bot upright and turned to make eye-contact with me for the first time that conversation. "Of course. I'm glad you recognize my ability and would hand it to me specifically. I will make sure that our best will fulfill the mission or die trying. I will see to it that no cost is overlooked! That whatever blood needs to be shed shall spill over the Earth and-"

I rolled my eyes and reached into my cleavage to pull out the written message. The act instantly shut the man up and eye-contact was again lost.

"I need this message delivered to major Hidden Villages. Tell the messengers to be as unsubtle as possible on the content of the message and to gossip about it at every chance presented." I ordered.

Kimimaro looked, for the first time in years, like the teenager he was.

"You were all my right hand. The ones to enforce my will. Your service was exemplary, but I am changing seasons. I will spend weeks, months even, where the only help I need is from a lab assistant or someone running paperwork. For you all to sit around and wait on me for that is a waste of your talents."

"We didn't all take this job because we worshiped you." Sakon cut in, an undercurrent of rage to his words, but he remained careful to not raise his voice. Despite the fact I could tell he didn't agree with my new views on the world, Sakon did believe in power and he knew I was still far beyond him. He would offer me no disrespect unless he thought he could actually kill me. "You promised power. Training. You're just going to take that away now?"

"I will take away nothing. You all have received that training. I've trained all of you more than I've trained any other ninja ever. In the months since my transformation all of you have progressed wonderfully, but you are lacking experience." I responded placidly. While none of them were what I would call an apprentice, I had personally seen to filling the gaps in their training and fine tuning their techniques. "You have reached a point now where you need to grow beyond me. You need to take missions and let the knowledge crystalize into something more for you. You have my knowledge but it has yet to become yours fully."

"So what do you want us to do?" Kidomaru asked. The four-armed man (three and a half feels mean to say) seemed to be taking best of all of them. Tayuya and Jirobo were uncaring, Kimimaro was having an existential crisis, and Sakon thought I was a complete cunt and was trying very hard to not say so. Kidomaru however, had his head held high and a future clear in his eyes. He'd come a long way since Wave.

"I want you to all to decide what you want to do for yourself. Grow as people and find your inner fire." That got a few eyerolls from the crowd. "I will, however, give you advice."

That got all of them to stand up straighter and pay more attention. Unsurprising, considering that over the last few months they had grown leaps and bounds by following my advice. Before my transformation they had all been strong more despite my training rather than because of it. Orochimaru actively didn't want them to be too powerful after all. If they were too strong, they became threats and Orochimaru did not care for threats.

"All of you would benefit greatly from training genin team."

Sakon, predictably, did not like my answer. "Are you fucking serious? You want us to go to babysitting your new whelp ninja for your power base?"

Tayuya gave a minute nod. I did figure that would be a hard sale for the two of them.

"I won't deny that it would be good for Hidden Tunnel as a whole if you took on teams. There is good reasons for you to take a team though. It is astounding how much you realize that you don't understand when it comes time to explain your specialty to someone else. You gain a firmer grasp on the basics, which are the building blocks of everything else. You have your weapons, teaching will sharpen them." I said with full confidence, though again, Sakon was clearly not satisfied with the response and Tayuya looked like she just sucked on a lemon. Kimimaro though looked just a touch less like his world was collapsing beneith him. "However, if that isn't up to your standards. Inada, former leader of Grass, is setting up a unit that will function similar to the ANBU of other nations. I can put in a good word there and you'd be doing a very similar job to what you've been doing already. You just won't be doing under my direct word anymore."

That, finally, appeared to appease Sakon.

"You mentioned a job traveling and cooking. Do you need an answer now?" Jirobo asked.

"No, of course not. It needs to be within about the next week, but I encourage not jumping into anything. Think on it, talk about it with others, and find the right path for you."

Kidomaru gave a nod. "I'll talk with Chika about things. It would be nice to have a job closer to home."

"Chika?" I pounced on the statement a devilish grin on my face. "As in Ayasugi Chika? The scientist I caught you fooling around with in that hallway? Things getting serious, hm?"

Kidomaru, rather than going to denials and blushing turned to a dopy grin. "Yeah. We're...well, I'm not sure exactly what we are to each other, but I want to find out."

He had grown under my nose without me noticing, and I couldn't be prouder. It was a microcosm of everything I had wanted for Sound from the beginning. Granted, Ayasugi Chika was, to my knowledge, an amoral sadist, but there was every possibility that Kidomaru had been helping her grow just as she clearly had him.

"That's wonderful. Go for it." I said, locking eyes with the spider user, doing my best to communicate my pride in him. If I tried to verbalize it, I risked the moment shattering. Instead I opted for a dismissal. "Thank you all for all your hard work. You are dismissed and if you want to talk to me about this further, visit my personal office around seven any night for the rest of this week."

They all slowly filed out of the room and I took a steadying breath. It had been an order that needed to be done, but they had all dedicated their lives to me...and I had just told them I didn't want it. I was, in fact, ordering them to take their lives back. It felt in many ways like I was dumping a long time boyfriend. I had always been shitty at that. Relationships tended to either naturally grow apart or had to explode in a spectacular fashion because I never could coldly cut someone off.

I could only hope that I did the right thing.

I groaned and flopped back into my chair. My eyes flickered to a shelf that I knew to have a false backing in the corner that contained a few premium bottles of liquor. I stared at the hidey hole, debating with myself, before ultimately pulling out a sheet of paper instead and began drafting a letter. I had a Kage Summit to prepare for and I had precious little time with which to prepare. A week wasn't much time to commission as many communication devices as projectors as I could throw money at, after all.