"And what changes will you be making?" asked Danzo.

Hiruzen watched with some interest as Jaimi and Adamu glanced at one another before both turned to face him. "Beg pardon, Hokage-sama," said Adamu, leaning slightly away from Danzo as he did so. "Do you want us to inform this man on the planned security changes?"

"I'm not telling this man a thing about the changes to security we are making if I have any say on the matter," said Jaimi, looking blandly at the bandaged wrapped standing next to him, silently fuming.

Hiruzen tried not to smile, but it took a great deal of his self control. "Danzo is one of my most trusted advisers."

Jaimi nodded, but his bland look did not change. "And I will tell him every change Adamu and I have made so far... if so ordered. Should you decided to do so, however, I'd have a new recommendation for the security changes."

Hiruzen ran a hand over his face. "And what changes would you suggest, should I order you to reveal your security alterations to my advisor?"

"I'd suggest you end our contract, dedicate the money you would have paid us to internal surveillance, and terminate whoever advised you give that order." Jaimi's bland face turned from Danzo, who was glaring at him in the same sort of dull manner Jaimi himself used, and raised a single eyebrow before turning back to the Hokage. "By terminate, I mean removed from their job. Of course."

Hiruzen allowed his smile to surface, now that he could claim it was from the… joke. "Of course."

Adamu stepped forward slightly, giving Danzo a smile. "No offence, of course, Danzo-san, it's jus-"

"Sama," said Danzo.

"Pardon?"

Danzo straightened, his knuckles creaking slightly as he gripped his cane. "I understand you're new to our language. You will address me as Danzo-sama."

Adamu paled slightly and glanced at the Hokage before he straightened. "Forgive me, Danzo-san, but we've been directly hired by Hokage-sama to improve security. As per our contract, we report directly to the Hokage and those he designates as our handlers. As I understand your naming conventions, I would address Hokage-sama as my direct employer and thus superior, as well as any superior he may have and any superior he designates to me, with the sama suffix. Which he has yet to do for you, Danzo-san."

Jaimi turned to face Danzo, and an amused gleam came to his eye. "If you prefer, Danzo-san, we can drop honorifics entirely. Surely we all know where we stand. Men of such minds as ours need not repeat pointless social niceties."

"Quite so," said Danzo, a distinct chill in his voice. "By your leave, Hokage-sama, I have other business to attend." He waited just long enough for Hiruzen to nod before he swept out of the room with the same measured step as always, the only hint to his anger being the slight stiffness in his good arm.

Adamu exhaled loudly once the door closed, then grinned sheepishly when everyone else in the room looked at him. "Sorry, not used to pissing off people who could arrange my death."

Jaimi coughed quietly into a fist.

"And would be willing to do so," finished Adamu, with an fond smirk as his companion.

Hiruzen sighed quietly and glanced at the paperwork in front of him. These two strangers had some odd habits, but their paperwork was a thing of dreams for any Kage. They had very elaborate diagrams, sheet after sheet of specifications and explanations, but what made them special was the little sheet on the top that succinctly summarized the entire folder they'd turned in. A few minutes of reading had informed Hiruzen about what he needed to actually know, and he found the language referring to him not by his office, but by the far less impressive term "end user," to be somewhat refreshing. They wrote as if he was not the Hokage of the most powerful of the Hidden Villages, but as just another person asking for advice.

"I approve of these changes, including options one through seven. I cannot approve of options eight and up because of the degree of public access I must have for the tower, but I thank you for your thoroughness, and will keep your expertise in mind should a more… expendable… location need security."

The two strangers both grinned, and Hiruzen had to bite back a groan. Suggestion eight had suggested burying hundreds of explosive tags embedded in an iron shell under the Hokage's tower. The key part of that plan, and the one that had caught Hiruzen's eye, was doing so as part of a public ceremony and then quietly moving his office to a significantly more secure but much less obvious location than a tall tower with the village symbol plastered on it.

The other options only got more destructive from there. Hiruzen suspected that if those two hadn't taken such an instant dislike to Danzo that the man would almost certainly be trying to recruit them.

"Tenzo, please show these two how to access the current security panels," he said to his apparently empty office. "You and Kakashi will stay with them to answer any questions or otherwise assist them."

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

Adamu jumped slightly and turned to see a previously unseen masked ANBU opening the door and gesturing for them to exit. "I'll never get used to that," he muttered good naturedly as he walked out the door, leaving the ANBU to stare at Jaimi, who had not yet left.

"Hokage-sama, if I might add one more thing?" asked Jaimi.

Hiruzen waved at him.

Jaimi's facial hair twitched slightly as his usual look of mild disinterest became a full frown. "I realize I am probably tell you what you already know, but… Watch that man, Hokage-sama. I would trust him no further than I could throw him, and two meters is a very short distance."

Hiruzen nodded slightly, and without another word, Jaimi walked out of the room. There was a click as the door shut, followed by a gentle whoosh of air as Kakashi stepped in from where he had been perched below the windowsill to stand before the Hokage's desk.

"Hokage-sama?"

"Yes, Kakashi?"

"If I may ask, why did you do that? I cannot imagine Danzo-sama's arrival was an accident, or your vague permission to speak of their security plans without making it an order one way or another."

Hiruzen sat back and smiled as he began to fill his pipe. "Kakashi, if I told you to run to Danzo right now and report these new security measures to him, would you?"

"Of course," said Kakashi, without missing a beat.

Hiruzen grinned. "And what would you say before you left to do so?"

Kakashi glanced at the empty room, and he almost seemed to deflate slightly. "I'd… probably confirm the order first, sir."

"To ensure you heard me correctly, because you think such an order would be a bad one."

It was not phrased as a question, and Hiruzen was treated to the rare sight of Kakashi losing a little of his composure. "I would never disobey a direct order, Hokage-sama! I just… know a lot about Danzo, just as you do, and I'd have to at least conside-" He stopped talking as Hiruzen raised his hand in a calming gesture.

"I learned a few important things from that meeting," Hiruzen said. "They both know I am the authority here. They know enough to keep quiet on security issues, even under significant pressure. They will speak up when a problem comes up, even if doing so would impact their lives negatively. And perhaps most importantly…" He gave Kakashi a smile. "They have enough sense to be wary of someone like Danzo."

Adamu stared up at the bottom of the trap door. The design was fairly effective, the mechanism well built and properly maintained. In truth, the only problem he saw was that the entire thing was at the top of a shaft that ran from the ground floor to the waiting room. There were no obvious handholds or platforms to get up there. No elevator to lift troops up. No crossbows or kunai launchers or poison gas or...

"So… what's the point in this?" he asked himself.

"What kind of question is that?" said Kakashi, making Adamu jump. The engineer shot Kakashi a dirty look and pointed up.

"That. What's the point in this whole thing? You can't go up this without a lot more effort than it's worth, it'd probably take a healthy man a full thirty seconds to get up there, so it can't be for access reasons. But the trap door above was a little too obvious for a trap, and if you're gonna make a trap door, adding spikes is not much more effort. So, how is this useful?"

Kakashi walked past Adamu and looked up the shaft before he let out a sigh of disdain and started walking up the wall of the shaft. He only stopped when he heard a thump on the floor below and turned to see Adamu staring up at him in shock.

The strange man slowly scooted back on the floor, the entire time staring at Kakashi's bemused face, before her started to shout.

"Jaimiiiiii!"

"Shinobi can climb walls," said Adamu breathlessly as he ran into the small hallway where Jaimi and Tenzo were working. Jaimi stopped tightening the brace for the crossbow he was setting up and looked at Adamu expectantly, then at Kakashi, who shrugged.

"Without using their hands or anything," Adamu added.

Jaimi turned and looked at Tenzo, who looked back blankly before putting his tools down. In a few moments, he was standing upside down in the tight maintenance tunnel with the exact same blank look.

"Is this a common ability for shinobi?" asked Jaimi, his face still expressionless. When Tenzo nodded, he sighed and walking back down the tunnel, leaving the crossbow unloaded. "We need to have a meeting with the Hokage."

In hindsight, Hiruzen felt somewhat silly.

Strangers in a strange land, wearing outlandish clothing and speaking an unknown language. Of course the idea of chakra and its resulting abilities were foreign to them. Hiruzen, like most Kage, knew that there were nations and people outside the scope and control of what most considered the known world, but interactions with those distant strangers were so rare as to be legendary. The Five Great Nations left the outside world alone, and the outside world returned the favor.

"We need information, Hokage-sama," Adamu said. "Our plans were made with the assumption that nobody would be walking up walls. We need to know exactly what shinobi are capable of doing."

Hiruzen nodded. "I think we can provide some textbooks with an overview…"

The pair were back within a few hours.

"The textbook was insufficient," said Jaimi. "It gives vague statements about abilities and chakra. We need hard data."

Hiruzen glanced at Kakashi, who shrugged. "What exactly do you need?"

Adamu rubbed the back of his head. "We need… jeeze, how do I even say it… we need a sense of scale. Like, look, how do you tell a new shinobi how much chakra to use to make a fireball?"

"For the most part, their sensei will observe their efforts and inform them if they need more or less than what they are using."

Adamu and Jaimi shared a look, and Hiruzen resisted the urge to frown. He remembered that sort of look from his own sensei, whenever he said something foolish, and it was not a look he was used to seeing any more. "Okay," said Adamu "so the new shinobi can use a fireball. How do you determine the volume and temperature of that fireball in relation to the amount of chakra spent? When two shinobi use the same technique, how do you determine who used the most chakra?"

Hiruzen sat back and fiddled with his pipe. He wasn't entirely sure what they wanted for an answer. His first reply would have been "Whoever runs out first used too much," but he knew that would only draw more of the same questions.

Jaimi was looking at him, and after a moment, the man nodded. "How long is the stem of your pipe, Hokage-sama."

Hiruzen glanced down at it, then back up. "Maybe six inches, give or take."

"How long is one of those regulation knives I've seen? The thin ones with no edge."

"A regulation kunai is seven point five inches from pommel to tip."

Jaimi nodded. "How much chakra is used to make a fireball five feet in diameter and producing a flame that is five hundred degrees fahrenheit?"

Hiruzen's eyes lit up. "I think I understand. You need formal measurements."

Adamu and Jaimi smiled, and it was Adamu who spoke. "Exactly, Hokage-sama. We're facing an engineering problem, 'How do you shinobi-proof a trap.' If your average shinobi can produce a flame that burns at five hundred degrees, our trap needs to withstand at least five hundred and one degrees. If a shinobi can run at thirty five miles per hour, a crossbow bolt must travel at least thirty six to catch up."

"Never mind needing to know their actual abilities," added Jaimi. "We know from the textbooks that they can shoot fire and increase their speed or strength, but not everything they can do would be in a simple book. We'll need some assistance from someone with a broad grasp of shinobi abilities that we can examine and test."

Kakashi didn't even need to look at the Hokage. He just sighed and slumped. More babysitting duty.

A/N: Unfortunately, I am discovering that this story lends itself to relatively short chapters. I made a few attempts at longer explanations, but they felt very forced. In the end, considering the crackish nature here, I suspect I am best off posting small content where small content makes sense.