Chapter 88.2- One Thousand Hands

And continuing the theme of the council being made entirely of my people, the next person to rise was Shikahime. Where the others had done so crisply and sharply, she rose with a sort of lazy lean that suited her even for all it was out of place in the cold discipline of the room. “Nara Shikahime. Intelligence, Counter Intelligence, and Strategy” She said. And that was another invention of mine.

The goal there was simple. Put the Nara mind towards spying. Well, not spying per se. The Anbu were still going to be in charge off that no matter what. Her job was just going to be putting together the results of what they gathered, and what we got from the next ministry together and turning it into actionable things I could work with. She was the one in charge of separating the signal from the noise.

“I am Inoken Yamanaka, Head of Torture and Interrogation” He said, and I nodded. He was the second half of the group that would report their intelligence gathering to Shikahime. And in his case, I didn’t even have to circumvent anything when it came to getting him promoted. He had already been the next in line apparently. His grasp of the Yamanaka clan techniques meant no one, not even his elders in the clan was better at getting information out of a target than he was.

The four of them made up the left hand side of the table, and I turned my head to the last seat on the right hand side.

“Nara Kagame, Head of the Hospital” She said, and I nodded, leaving that aside. She was also the one in charge of my kekkei genkai transplant efforts, but that was not something I was going to be advertising here and now.

“I am Uzumaki Reiji, Head of the Barrier Corps and Fuinjutsu Research and Development” The red head stood up, snapping to attention and offering me a bow. I had offered the position to Grandmother— the second one that was, but she had vehemently turned me down and suggested merging the roles. The Barrier corps at present was basically filled with Uzumaki already. So having them do fuinjutsu R&D while they were at it was a no-brainer. If they managed to make enough shit, we could see a splitting of roles, but the present outfit would work for now.

“Shiba Aburame, Head of Root” was it a mistake, maybe. But like it or not, Danzo had had a point. There was a need for better spies. Better shinobi trained from the ground up to act in the shadows and with loyalty to Konoha being their only priority, The place where he had gotten it wrong was when he began to see himself as the only path forward and believed working against the village would somehow head the village. Shiba was nowhere near arrogant enough for that, and as his position on the table showed, I would be keeping a very close eye on him and what he did. I had faith in him though. And faith in myself not to repeat Hiruzen’s mistakes. That was why I chose Shiba partly. He was my friend yes, but he was not one I would hesitate to put down if it became necessary.

“The name’s Uchiha Uzume. Chief Enforcer” She said, not bothering to stand up. I gave her a look before sighing and turning to the rest of the room.