Chapter 56.2- One Thousand Hands

I titled my head at my new Secretary as she silently scrawled all my orders down. She was a recommendation from Uraume, a Hyuga branch family member that she swore by and who I was mostly certain would be Tallinn my cousin every single thing I got up to. But that was better than the alternative— having Danzo’s spy at the centre of my operation. That was why I had sacked her predecessor in minutes after taking the job. Uraume’s cousin was the lesser of all evils. At least with her, I could know what her connections and biases were. With a classless shinobi, it could literally be anything. With any of the other clans, it was worse because none of them were as close to me as the Hyuga as a whole were. I just had to hope that they would remain committed to propping up my reign for the long run.

“Do you understand?” I asked when she had finished taking down all my orders in her notes.

“Yes sir,”

“Then I’ll be off” I said, using the flying raijin to appear back home.

“Grandmother” I called out to the massive place, not in the mood for going room to room to check and wary of simply teleporting to her location with the mark I had on her. Neither of us wanted what happened last time to happen again.

“Drawing room, Shori” I heard her voice call out and nodded before teleporting to her side.

“Grandmother—“ I began to speak before the older woman shushed me with what looked to me to be a fond smile.

“Before that, there’s someone here who has something to say to you” She said, and I whirled around to see Tsunade sitting before the Drawing room desk.

“Tsunade?” I asked. She looked at me before looking away. Like the words were struggling to leave her lips. Then she abruptly pushed off from the chair, sending it flying backwards and into the wall. I internally winced. Living with two Uzumaki women meant there was always something in need of being repaired, but I had been able to avoid having to replace any of the chairs so far.

My thoughts left that as she did what no one could have anticipated. Tsunade dropped to her knees, squatting into a full bow with her face mere centimeters away from the ground.

“Thank you, Cousin. Thank you for saving our lives and for holding off Hanzo long enough to allow us escape” She said, voice breaking as she said the S-rank’s name. I could tell that this Hanzo had had a different effect than the one from canon. It was obvious in how he had nearly killed off all three rather than christening them with their legendary title.

“THere’s nothing to thank me about, Cousin. I simply did as a cousin ought” I said, trying to navigate an awkward situation. And then she moved unexpectedly again. From being bowed to the floor, she pushed against the ground to capture me in a hug that wrapped around my whole body.