Here we are with another chapter.
I don't think that I've got anything to respond to this time, nothing that isn't plot related at any rate. Sorry if anyone asked a question that I overlooked.
One other thing that I was asked to mention was this fanfic community I've been asked to and agreed to join called "Dreamers Community". It's basically a group of authors and betas that someone is trying to put together. Feel free to check it out if you want to.
With that out of the way, onwards with the chapter!
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Anise stared at the results of the DNA analysis without comprehension and with more than a touch of incredulity.
Roksana had gone to sleep pretty much immediately after Naruto had left, but Tok'ra were fortunately capable of controlling the body even if the host was asleep. It was generally considered rude, but Roksana had said that she didn't mind.
Anise suspected that Roksana had also done this because it would spare her from having to clean up the mess that Naruto had so generously left between their legs, though even she had to admit that it had been an incredibly pleasurable experience at the time. Regardless of having to deal with the goopy mess dribbling from Roksana's body, Anise had still been pleased with having access to Naruto's genetic material and his explicit permission to study it.
She would have studied it even without his permission, but it was still nice to have it.
Unfortunately, the actual studying proved to not be as enlightening as she had hoped. In fact, it was nothing short of baffling. She had run the tests over three times and been extra careful, but the results made no more sense than they had the first time.
Naruto's DNA made no sense at all. It had everything you would expect DNA to have...if the sample was from a human. A completely ordinary human except for the fact that he was apparently sterile.
But that was impossible! Humans did not have horns, humans did not have claws, slit eyes or fangs! Humans did not casually violate the laws of physics!
Anise felt terribly cheated. She had been nearly bursting with excitement when she had started examinig it, only to get nothing. She could admit that her expectations had perhaps been a bit high, having thought that she would learn some great secret of the Universe, but this was ridiculous.
Perhaps we need a fresh sample. Roksana suggested lecherously.
Anise scowled. Unlike her, Roksana was not at all upset at the results and would be more than happy for a repeat. Even though Naruto didn't owe her anything, she still felt the absurd urge to slap him...even though nobody could control their genes, it still felt as if the infuriating results were somehow his fault.
She knew that Roksana was seriously contemplating the idea that he really was a god and that was something that Anise refused to even think about.
There were no gods and anyone who claimed otherwise was a liar with a hidden agenda. That assertion had never been disproven in the entire existence of the Tok'ra. It had long been suspected that a sufficiently evolved race would manifest various metaphysical powers and it was likely that they had simply found one such race.
The problem was the sheer scale of what Naruto had demonstrated so far. It was stretching credulity to think that even a highly evolved race would be capable of creating air quakes and personal wormholes.
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Ra was angry and that was putting it mildly.
His research base on Akoris had been attacked and destroyed, the technological improvements being researched lost and the scientists killed without hope of resurrection. Not even a sarcophagus would bring back someone who had been beheaded.
Just like all the other System Lords, Ra had been forced to accept(with a great deal of rage), that the raids on poorly defended slave worlds would continue happening and there was nothing much that could be done about it. They simply did not have the resources to fortify every single world unless they wanted to leave themselves open to the attack of a rival.
Despite the insolence of it, those attacks were little more than pinpricks to the might of the Goa'uld. It wasn't as if there was any particular shortage of slaves after all and the need to relocate more to those worlds with naquadah deposits was little more than a minor nuisance.
This attack though...this was more than just a pinprick. Valuable research and underlings had been lost. This had actually hurt him quite badly.
How had it been done? The thought gnawed at his mind ceaselessly.
He had always assumed that only poorly defended worlds were attacked because this unknown enemy lacked the strength to strike anywhere else, but this seemed to not be the case. Or at least, not the case anymore.
How had the shield on the gate been breached? He had no way of finding out, because the emitter had been taken.
How had the Al'kesh been destroyed? He couldn't find out, because the only thing left of them were a few small chunks.
What had happened to the orbital defenses? He had no idea, because they had all been destroyed.
It was exactly the same as all the previous attacks, except for the fact that Akoris had not been poorly defended, nor did it have any slaves and that instead of some cryptic message on a stone tablet a banner had been left behind.
The symbol was unfamiliar to him and did not tell him anything of use, aside from giving his underlings something to watch out for in case they ever ran across it.
Ra had long ago guessed that these attacks were happening for the slaves, though what anyone hoped to achieve by stealing that many slaves was beyond him. That was why this attack puzzled him so.
He would not have been surprised if the Tok'ra had attempted to attack that base, it was why he had hidden those Al'kesh on the planet without telling anyone but their pilots after all, but this had been completely unexpected.
The main cause of his rage was not the attack or even the losses he had suffered during it. No, he was mostly angry because it had scared him.
If even a heavily defended world in the heart of his territory wasn't safe, then what was? The banner that had been left behind made dread settle in his stomach, because he could only assume that it meant whoever this was, they were growing stronger.
He didn't put any stock in Jaffa campfire stories about a clawed demon come to devour all life in the galaxy, but he was wary of anyone that could keep their identity secret for so long while attacking the Goa'uld Empire.
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Zarin was making her way to her quarters at the end of a long day, glad to have some solitude. This assignment was better than most at least in the fact that she didn't need to watch over a slave world.
Coordinating one part of the mess that was a Goa'uld domain was frustrating in other ways though. As one might expect considering the feudal nature of Goa'uld society, it was not exactly organized. Most Jaffa were kept deliberately ignorant to keep them servile, which left them unsuited to organization, so Goa'uld underlings were needed for the job.
Goa'uld underlings who tended to have their own ambitions that needed to be kept in check and that wasn't even going into the conflicting orders that might happen if the First Prime of a System Lord issued one order and an underling issued another.
It was a relief to get away from all of that at the end of a day and Zarin felt the tension melt off her shoulders as she walked through the door of her quarters.
"You look stressed." An amused voice noted.
Zarin jumped back with a yelp and tripped over her own feet, depositing herself on the floor in a highly undignified position. She had let her guard down completely and had not expected anyone to be waiting for her in her quarters.
She glared at the horned man leaning on a wall and smirking at her, irritation and bafflement warring for dominion in her mind.
She scrambled to her feet and all but stomped up to him, hissing quietly into his face as if speaking in a normal tone of voice would cause others to discover his presence. "What are you doing here?! How did you get here?!"
Naruto's smirk widened at the reaction. Way too few people were willing to be rude to him these days.
He saw that Zarin's new host was a beautiful woman with pale skin, curly brown hair, bright blue eyes and a small dusting of freckles on her nose. Her outfit consisted of a very interesting black corset with red accents that emphasised her medium sized breasts, tight black leather pants and black leather boots finishing off the ensemble.
Very nice.
"I'll tell you that in a moment, but would you be so kind as to introduce me to your lovely host first?"
Zarin gave him a deadpan look, obviously guessing at what was going through his head, before wordlessly passing control over to her host.
"I am Korina, it is an honor to meet you Emperor." She said formally, smiling slightly and bowing her head.
While she had all of Zarin's memories of their last meeting, she did not want to be presumptuous by being too familiar.
Naruto gently grabbed one of her hands, placed a light kiss on her knuckles and purred out a response. "It is my distinct pleasure to meet you Korina, please call me Naruto."
He could be smooth if he wanted to.
Korina bashfully took her hand back, rubbing the the thumb of her other hand over the spot where he had kissed her, wondering at the slight tingle on her skin. That kind of greeting wasn't something she had ever heard of. Neither Goa'uld nor Tok'ra used physical contact while greeting someone and the most that the Jaffa had was a forearm clasp.
"As you wish Emp...I mean Naruto." She replied, stumbling over the words slightly, gratefully giving up control when Zarin prompted her to do so.
"If you are quite done with your attempts to seduce my host, perhaps you could tell me why and how you are here?" Zarin deadpanned.
"Zarin my dear, you wound me!" Naruto said, dramatically clutching at his heart. "Do you think me so base that I would seek to seduce every beautiful woman I come across."
Zarin opened her mouth to deny it and then stopped to reconsider. "Yes...yes I do actually."
"You got me." Naruto said, slumping in resignation. "You've figured out my secret. I'd love to get Korina naked and make her scream in sexual excstasy from the likes of which there is no return."
He is very...forward. Korina said to Zarin, highly embarrassed.
That he is. Zarin agreed wryly
"Naruto. How. Did. You. Get. Here?" She enunciated slowly, as if talking to someone a touch slow in the head.
"Being a god, I used my godlike powers to create a controlled tear in the space-time continuum that transported me here." He said with a shrug and cheeky grin.
Zarin gave him a look that clearly conveyed just how unlikely she found that to be, which was too bad because it was true.
Despite her obvious disbelief, Zarin didn't argue the point and instead asked the next pertinent question. "And why are you here?"
"I heard about Leah from the council stiffs and thought I'd pay you a visit. She was so cute, even though I never got to know her too well." He answered.
Zarin quickly went sober at his response, the familiar ache at the loss of her friend returning. Leah had been the last in a long line of hosts and her loss hurt just as much as all the ones before her. More in some ways, as they had been together longer than most.
It was an unfortunate fact of life for all Tok'ra they they constantly outlived their hosts unless both died during a mission. A symbiote could be exceptionally long lived, able to survive for thousands of years, but a blended human only had their lifespan doubled.
The Goa'uld could keep the same host alive indefinitely through the use of the sarcophagus, but the damage that it did to the mind with frequent use was terrible. Much of their evil bent could be blamed on overuse of the insidious devices and the Tok'ra rejected the technology utterly because of it.
This unfortunately meant that they also had to suffer the loss of their hosts time and time again.
Leah had died some time ago and she had grieved for her. Korina had helped ease the pain with her friendship and companionship, but she still missed her previous host.
"I appreciate that, but you should not have come. My cover will be ruined at the slightest hint of your presence." She replied after a moment.
"Don't worry yourself about that," Naruto grinned at her. "nobody is going to know I was ever here. What nefarious plots are you advancing anyway?"
"You know I cannot tell you that, my mission is secret." Zarin told him, frowning slightly.
Naruto hummed a bit and strolled around the room, finally sitting down on the extra large bed without bothering to ask for permission. "Don't be like that now, who am I going to tell anyway?"
"Tell you what, I'll go first." He continued before she could reply. "I've recently been lied to by that Grand Councilor of yours, Garshaw. She told me that you were undercover on one of Ra's worlds, Akoris I think it was called. Apparently Ra had some kind of research weapons and shield going on there that the Tok'ra wanted to destroy and told me you were there to convince me to attack it."
"You raided Akoris?" Zarin asked in shock, knowing that the planet was heavily defended from conventional assault. She was not even slightly surprised that Garshaw had lied to Naruto in order to get her way, though she was surprised that he didn't seem overly bothered by it.
"Yep, and let me just tell you that I was pretty disappointed that you weren't there, which is why I decided to visit you." Naruto confirmed and patted the spot on the bed next to him. "Now come on, sit with me and tell me what you're up to."
Zarin hesitated but relented in the end. It wasn't as if he couldn't just take the knowledge from her mind and he had a point. Who was he going to tell?
"I am helping Morrigan usurp the position of System Lord from her master." She admitted, gingerly sitting next to him and shifting uncomfortably in her too tight clothing.
The assignment wasn't the worst, but Morrigan's dress sense left much to be desired. More cautious and secretive than most Goa'uld, the redhead was also something of a pervert with a predilection for powerfully muscled men, leather and restrictive clothing. This naturally meant that those who served her had to wear similar things.
Had Naruto been a human born on one of her worlds, he would have likely found himself in her personal service, quite possibly even becoming Morrigan's Lo'taur. Despite the fact that a Lo'taur's most important function was supposed to be as an emergency host in case their current one was damaged, Morrigan tended to use them to satisfy her sexual appetites intead.
"Oh? Interesting, but what for?" He questioned.
"With Amaterasu having recently assassinated Izanagi and become a System Lord, the Tok'ra are hoping to use Ra's misogyny to start a war between him and the various female hosted System Lords." Zarin said. "Your destruction of his research into weapon and shield advancements will help in this, as they will be more likely to fight him if the technological gap between them is not so large."
"Maybe it will." Naruto said absently, not particularly caring.
Zarin tensed as she felt his hands on her bare shoulders. "What are you doing?"
"I'm giving you a massage because you look stressed." He answered lightly.
"I rather think that you are attempting to seduce me...again."
"We've already established that I want to hear you scream." He admitted wryly. "But this will be just a massage unless you want it to be more."
Both Zarin and Korina were somewhat embarrassed by his blatant invitation and remained tense as his large hands began kneading her neck and shoulders.
It wasn't long before they relaxed almost against their will under his skilled ministrations.
Undercover Tok'ra tended to accumulate a lot of stress without any way to relieve it and this assignment was more stressful than most. Zarin was quite high in Morrigan's service and the risk of discovery was proportionatelly greater, which resulted in a lot of tension.
Tension that Naruto was reliveing her of quite effectively right now.
She was considered important enough to have her own Lo'taur, but that man had been assigned to her by Morrigan and could not be trusted. The sneaky Goa'uld was well known for using Lo'taurs as spies. Zarin would never have dared ask him for a backrub, nor would she have felt comfortable doing so since the man was a slave.
She also had access to pleasure slaves, but the same problems applied. Since there was no other way, Zarin and Korina had simply learned to deal with the tension and the occasional resulting cramp that not even symbiote enhanced healing could fully prevent.
Neither one of them protested when he guided them to lay down, though they were slightly irritated by the uncomfortable clothing they were wearing.
That irritation abruptly turned into shock as the clothes vanished, leaving them quite naked.
Zarin tried to get up, but Naruto pushed her back down. "Don't get up now, I'ver barely gotten started."
"But how did you...?" She trailed off, sighting the clothes being neatly folded nearby.
"The sooner you start believing me when I say that I'm a god, the sooner it'll make sense." Naruto told her cheekily.
Zarin frowned and settled back down, feeling tense and frazzled once again.
That once again began leaving her as the massage was restarted, this time even better since he had access to more than just her shoulders. The feeling intensified when some warm and quite fragrant oil was added to it.
Where had he gotten the oil anyway? She suspected what the answer would be, so she didn't bother asking.
Zarin couldn't hold back a groan when his fingers found a particularly good spot on Korina's upper back. His hands didn't feel clawed anymore and every stroke across flesh seemed to send waves of soothing pleasure through their shared body.
Neither one of them had ever felt anything like it and couldn't muster even a whisper of protest when he straddled their legs, his obvious erection pressed directly between the buttocks. His hair tickled their legs pleasantly.
The massage continued mostly in silence, with the exception of the occasional groan from either Zarin or Korina. Both were feeling so relaxed right now that control of the body was being passed between them based on which one was slightly less relaxed at any given moment.
It went from lower back to upper, from neck and shoulders down to the wrists. In addition to the wonderfully soothing sensation, a heat was slowly rising between their legs that neither had the ability or even will to suppress.
Zarin... Korina said in an indolent murmur even in her mind.
Hmm? Zarin was no better off. What the host felt, the symbiote also felt.
He is much better at seduction than I expected him to be.
Yes, he is.
I won't be able to stop him if he tries to have his way with us.
Do you want me to do it then? Zarin asked, feeling relatively certain that she would be able to muster enough self control to tell him to stop if he tried anything. Relatively certain.
...Not really.
Good, because I do not want to stop him either.
Some minutes later, both felt disappointed when he got up without attempting anything of the sort, even getting off the bed entirely.
Then this hand settled on their left foot and the massage continued. Slowly, the stroking crept upwards until he was kneading the upper thigh and their toes curled in anticipation of having those skilled fingers going just a little further up.
A nearly inaudible whimper of disappointment escaped their lips when he moved his hands to the right foot and repeated the entire slow climb upwards until he was once again at their entrance.
The disappointed whimper was slightly louder this time when he bypassed it and went to their butt instead. The rubbing he gave it felt even better than what he'd been doing so far, but Zarin and Korina were starting to feel an almost uncomfortably insistent throbbing between their legs.
So it was with a sense of relief that they allowed him to roll them onto their back, keeping their eyes closed and awaiting what he would do next.
Feeling his hands settle on their feet again was an acute disappointment. Zarin opened her eyes and became unaccountably frustrated with the teasing grin on his face.
He is delaying on purpose!
As if he had heard her(which he very well might have), Naruto smoothly slid his hands upwards, stopping just before his fingers would have made contact with their nether lips.
Korina had taken control when Zarin had spoken and gripped the bed tightly in anticipation, bucking her hips slightly in an instinctive desire to give him better access.
She almost growled when he moved away to repeat the same thing with her other leg.
Then he climbed back onto the bed and they both found their gaze drawn to his groin as he had obviously removed his pants and was even more obviously aroused. The hungry once over and aroused growl he gave them were even more descriptive than the twitching member.
It's...big. Korina commented nervously. How was that supposed to fit inside her?
I am certain he will move slowly. Zarin tried to reassure her, but was equally nervous.
Much to their shock, he still didn't settle himself between their legs, but instead placed his hands on their shoulders and started rubbing them again.
At this point, Zarin was just about fed up with his delaying and was about to grab a certain protruding appendage and guide it to where she wanted it. Korina was of similar mind, but wasn't quite bold enough to do it.
Those intentions ended up unfulfilled as his hair slid off his back and gently slapped them directly on the moist opening.
Zarin gasped and arched her back at the unexpected shock of pleasure, digging her hands into the mattress.
While both symbiote and host were recovering from what had nearly been an orgasm, Naruto moved his hands downward and began massaging the breasts, giving the nipples an occasional flick, pinch or rub.
Zarin and Korina squirmed restlessly, a whimper escaping every once in a while at the ministrations on their breasts as well as the silky soft hair that continued to slide across the engorged sensitive bundle of nerves above her opening.
Naruto continued to give them a teasing grin every so often until it dawned on Korina why he wasn't doing anything more.
"Stop teasing us." She said, her voice more of a plea than she would've liked.
The teasing grin fell away from Naruto's face, once again replaced by a hungry one. Throwing his slightly soppy hair over to the other side, he loosed a deep growl before eagerly lowering his mouth to Korina's nether lips, the smell of which had been tempting him to do that since he'd first smelled their arousal.
Despite effort to the contrary, there was no holding back the scream as a far too long and agile tongue started wrecking havoc on every erogenous zone it could reach, and it could reach a lot of them.
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Hours later.
Zarin and Korina collapsed on top of Naruto, gasping for breath and completely spent.
"Looks like you last longer if the symbiote actively participates...or do you just have more stamina than Roxie and Anise?" Naruto asked teasingly, grinning at the sweak soaked woman.
"You slept with them too?" Zarin asked, somehow feeling surprised at her lack of surprise. She knew Roksana was quite beautiful and she should have guessed that Naruto would have tried to seduce her.
"Yeah, Anise wanted to study my genome and I told her that I'd be more than happy to give her a sample." He snickered. "She didn't want to sleep with me, but Roxie was interested and apparently took the choice away from her."
Zarin had to smirk at that. She was well aware that those two had wildly differing personalities. It certainly sounded like something Roksana might do.
"Why don't you abandon the Tok'ra and come with me instead?" Naruto asked out of the blue.
Zarin gaped at him, honestly shocked that he would even ask something like this. "I would never abandon the Tok'ra!"
He snickered at her passionate response. "Whoa, calm down will you? It was just a question."
"It was in poor taste." She muttered.
"Eh, I'm starting to think that there isn't a single one among you that would be willing to join up with me. Roxie refused me, those council types refused me when I offered them the chance to set themselves up on my planet and now you're refusing me. I feel so unwanted."
"You offered to shelter the Tok'ra?" Zarin asked, once again shocked. Nobody had ever offered to shelter them, it was simply too dangerous to draw that kind of Goa'uld attention.
"No, I offered them the chance to join the Celestial Empire." He corrected.
"I see." She muttered. "The council must have felt that the Tok'ra could not do that until the Goa'uld were toppled."
Naruto snorted derisively. "We'll destroy the Goa'uld long before you manage it."
"You may find that task to be harder than you think." Zarin retorted, feeling the need to defend her people.
"Ah, but I am a god. You may find that I am more powerful than you can imagine." He shot back grandly.
This time it was Zarin who snorted. Clearly she still didn't believe that he was a god.
"Alright then, since you insist on being a heathen unbeliever, I should probably be going home." The horned man said playfully, sliding her off him and onto the bed. "As a parting gift, have some of my divine favor."
In the next instant, Zarin and Korina felt the oil residue vanishing from their bodies and from the bed. Various other fluids also vanished, leaving everything perfectly clean. Even the seed Naruto had left inside them vanished.
"And now I take my leave! See you later cuties." And with that final goodbye, he simply faded out of existence.
Zarin and Korina simply gaped at the empty space where he'd once been, trying and failing to rationalize the whole thing.
Do you think he might actually be a- Korina's question was cut off.
No, there must be a reasonable explanation for this. Zarin said, but it lacked conviction because a reasonable explanation was escaping her just now.
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Some years later.
Oma took another sip of her wine, hoping it would help make the current situation more bearable. It didn't, but at least it was good wine.
She'd come to talk about something important, but as was usual, Naruto and Xanna refused to discuss anything important right away.
There had been the usual dinner, massage, bath and now the three of them plus Akitsu were spread out across the room, drinking the very sweet wine that was making the ascended woman feel more mellow with every sip.
The supremely fluffy bathrobe they'd given her was making her feel as if it was trying to smother her in a cloud of comfort and put her into a sleep so deep that she'd never wake up again.
Aside from that...
"Roll for initiative!"
Wordlessly, Oma grabbed the twenty sided die and threw it.
"Ooh, Twenty. Looks like you go first cupcake."
...Aside from that, they had also insisted on playing this silly game called 'Dungeons and Dragons'.
"In that case, I would like to speak to you about an important subject in the further development of your empire." Oma said with a sigh.
"Oma turns towards Xanna to say something, giving the Orc Berserker a free attack of opportunity." Naruto said without missing a beat and threw the twenty sided die. "Nineteen, with a two handed axe, that's a critical hit! Another roll for damage and we get...ouch, fifteen times two. The Berserker hits you for thirty hit points, leaving you unconscious and critically injured."
Oma sighed again and downed another mouthful of the wine. She knew better than to try speaking when it wasn't her turn, they would just keep interrupting her until she stopped trying.
"I cast Greater Heal on Oma." Akitsu said, knowing that it was her turn next.
"Akitsu begins casting the spell and will finish by the end of the round." Naruto said.
"I cast Power Word: Kill on Oma as punishment for being stupid enough to attempt a conversation in the middle of battle." Xanna said imperiously, drinking the rest of her wine.
"Err honey, you don't don't know that spell yet and you're not high enough level to cast it either." Naruto informed her.
"Nonsense, I am a goddess! My level is beyond comprehension and I know all the spells."
Naruto rolled his eyes at the haughty response, clearly seeing that they were done with the game. "Well in that case, Oma dies instantly and the Orc Berserker becomes so confused that he has a brain aneurysm. The party is awarded a gajillion points of XP and goes to loot the corpse. They find the Vibrating Strapon of Infinite Pleasure which turns every female in every realm into submissive lesbian sex toys, resulting in the collapse of all civilization due to lack of children and male sexual frustration. The steep population drop causes the gods to become powerless and the very fabric of reality crumbles as the Overgod Ao stares in bafflement at this turn of events. This all happens instantly because the Vibrating Strapon of Infinite Pleasure has temporal distortion properties imbued in it that allows it give women 1d12/0 amounts of orgasms for every round it is in use. The sudden experience point boost causes Akitsu's healing spell to become dangerously overpowered and accidentally destroys the Negative Energy Plane, causing a runaway chain reaction that gives Ao a serious case of constipation, since the Negative Energy Plane was actually the only place he could take his shits. So now the Planes are in shambles and the supreme authority that could have fixed it all is unable to because he's too busy howling about the agony of his blocked asshole."
"Don't be absurd husband." Xanna said with an eye roll of her own. "A 'gajillion' is not a real number."
"Shush, I'm the Dungeon Master and I say that it is a real number." Naruto retorted.
"Fine then." Xanna conceded and turned to Oma. "I hope you are happy now that you've destroyed a fictional universe."
"You were the one who cast that spell on me!" Oma protested hotly.
"I would not have done it if you hadn't decided to start a dialogue in the middle of a battle."
"I only did that because I needed to..." Oma trailed off as she realized what she was doing. "Why am I even arguing about this?"
"You are drunk." Akitsu informed her helpfully.
"I am not drunk!" The ascended woman protested.
"You're a little drunk." Naruto backed up the Ice Sekirei.
"The Ascended do not get drunk!" Oma continued to protest, even more vehemently now.
"There is a first time for everything." Xanna said sagely.
"I AM NOT DRUNK!" Oma suddenly screamed, surging to her feet.
The other three just stared at her pointedly until it dawned on her that she had just gotten angry and raised her voice over something ridiculously trivial.
She felt mortified and tried to apologize, but then the room started spinning and everything went dark.
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Waking up the next morning was an unpleasant experience for Oma, characterized by a mouth that felt like a sewer and a dull throbbing in her skull.
People actually inflicted this on themselves for fun?
She eventually managed to drag herself out of bed and towards the water basin next to it. Without consideration for dignity, she gratefully sank her head into the cool water and kept it there until the need to breathe became an unignorable issue.
Several minutes later, her mouth was rinsed out and her face and hair had been toweled off.
Walking out of her bedroom with a hand pressed to her still aching head, she came upon Naruto Xanna and Akitsu eating breakfast in the adjoining parlor.
"Ah, looks like someone finally woke up." Naruto said as a form of greeting, his voice full of amusement. "How has your experience of a mild hangover been so far?"
This is mild? Oma thought to herself in disbelief as she sat down at the table. If this was mild then she never wanted to experience a severe one.
She didn't bother answering him or even thanking him as he slid a plate of fruit and a glass of juice over to her. Politeness seemed like such an absurd concept at the moment, especially since he was the one responsible for her current misery. Decorum and table manners were much the same as she ate, relieved to find that it was helping to bring down her headache to merely 'unpleasant' from its previous state of 'painful'.
"So, what did you actually want to talk about, we got kind of sidetracked yesterday." Naruto asked, unbothered by her strange rudeness. He rather liked it actually.
Oma's face twitched in irritation, recalling that it had been him who was the primary cause of the sidetracking. At least he wasn't making a big deal of her overindulgence in wine, that was embarrassing enough all by itself.
When she had arrived yesterday, she had come with a well prepared argument based on logic, facts, statistics and a small amount of morality. The first three were supposed to convince them and the last was supposed to be another attempt to get them to adopt at least a tiny measure of ethics.
What survived last night's intoxication and her current hangover was markedly more brief.
"Animal farming, I want you to stop it."
Xanna raised an eyebrow at the rather blunt delivery. "And by that you mean...?"
"All of it. Meat, cheese, milk, eggs. Everything."
"That's a big part of our total food industry." Naruto commented. "Why would we do that?"
"Because it isn't economically sound." Oma responded, starting to feel much better. "More resources are used to sustain those animals than what you gain from them. The numbers will continue to worsen as your population grows. Eventually, you will have no choice but to abolish it anyway. It would be wise to do it as soon as possible so that it causes a minimum of upheaval when it is done."
She didn't even bother trying to argue about the cruelty of breeding animals only to exploit and slaughter them, despite her original intention to do so. She just didn't feel like it and it probably wouldn't factor into their decision anyway.
"She has a point." Xanna conceded. She knew that the amount of land used for grazing could produce a significantly larger amount of crops. The numbers would likely be even more skewed once they had to start using those same crops to feed the animals and that wasn't even considering advances in farming techniques, followed later by the development of hydroponics and aeroponics.
"Alright, but what about nutrition? I've seen people eating the things you've mentioned everywhere I've been so far." Naruto asked.
"As have I." Xanna added.
"There is nothing in any of those that you cannot gain from a properly balanced plant based diet, and without the inevitable health issues at that. Humans are not true omnivores, otherwise they would be able to eat raw meat." Oma said dismissively. "Besides, there are large portions of your own citizens that have only rare access to milk, meat, cheese or eggs, if they have any at all and they are perfectly fine."
Naruto and Xanna exchanged glances and then looked over at Akitsu, suddenly realizing that the Ice Sekirei ate mostly fruits, vegetables and various grain based foods. They hadn't really paid attention to what she was eating, but neither one of them could recall her reaching for anything else in decades.
Akitsu sensed their scrutiny and looked up, looking as sleepy as ever as she slowly chewed her food. A few seconds later she finally swallowed and cocked her head slightly to the side. "Ah...what?"
"Nothing sweetie, you're a good girl." Naruto said soothingly.
Akitsu gave him a happy smile and went back to her food.
Alright, so maybe Akitsu was a bad example given that he and Xanna were constantly rejuvenating her, but Oma still had a pretty good point. Not everyone in the Empire had access to animal based food, because there simply wasn't enough to go around and they were perfectly fine.
"Alright cupcake, bring us a report on which types of food people need to eat for proper nutrition and we'll start abandoning animal farming." Naruto said to the ascended woman.
"You want me to write a report?" Oma asked in disbelief. She was pleased that they had been so easy to convince, even if it had taken a whole day to get to the point, but this seemed a bit strange.
"Naturally." Xanna said with a frown. "We have no laboratories yet and no way to quickly research the subject, while you seem well versed on the issue. It will take considerable reordering of the Empire to implement such a move and we will need relevant information."
"Exactly, so hop to it." Naruto added with a clap, releasing the constraints that kept her earthbound in the process. "We'll be expecting that report in a week."
Oma stared at him with some irritation, but simply faded away instead of responding. It would just encourage him anyway.
"I guess we're making the Empire vegan." Naruto said contemplatively once Oma was gone. "I can't say I saw that one coming."
"Neither did I." Xanna agreed. Neither one of them even considered the thought that Oma might have been deceiving them, either intentionally or by accident. Though not nearly as powerful as them, she was still ascended and had accumulated a great deal of knowledge. Besides, they could always just switch back if it didn't work.
"I'm not going to miss eggs or milk, but I'm not giving up meat and cheese unless someone comes up with an equally tasty substitute." Naruto said after a while.
"Likewise, though I suppose since ice cream is made from milk, I will not be giving it up in addition to meat and cheese." Xanna agreed, adding her own two cents.
"That's true and eggs are used in a lot baked goodies that we like, so I guess we're not giving up that either." He concluded, realizing that they weren't going to give up anything at all. Not unless equal or better substitutes were figured out at any rate.
"It is most fortunate that we can make everyone else do it without adhering to our own decrees."
"Hypocrisy is a wonderful thing."
And so it was decided that the Celestial Empire would go vegan, with the only non-vegans being its Emperor and Empress, who didn't even need to eat in the first place. This move was wildly unpopular and earned them a great deal of criticism, which was countered by a challenge to look at their teeth and tell them if they needed the same kind of food.
Most people settled down after that, not picking up on the fact that they had merely been asked to look at their teeth without receiving an actual solid answer.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Time skip.
A man was climbing the stairs of the palace at a fast clip, his face cast in an angry scowl and a sheaf of paper clutched in his hand that he was obviously trying not to damage with his grip.
He cut a fairly imposing figure, broad shouldered and tall, dark brown hair cut short and going grey at the temples, along with a neatly trimmed brown beard.
His name was Alexandros and as one might be able to deduce from his general demeanor, he was very angry.
He had been chosen to be part of the government years ago and had shown himself to be competent since then, resulting in his elevation to regional overseer of the capital city. He was well known as a very patient and rational individual that always kept the best interests of the Empire's people in mind, clear thinking and not prone to emotional outbursts, which made his current ill temper all the stranger for those who knew him.
He was unimpeded in his angry march since the palace was never guarded, allowing him to reach the throne room in short order.
Naruto was already there, lazily sprawled in his seat, with his legs hanging over the armrests in a manner that looked rather undignified to be honest.
Wordlessly, Alexandros threw the papers clutched in his hand to the ground, making a loud smack as they hit the polished black marble.
Naruto looked over at the fuming man with an amused quirk of his eyebrow.
"That's littering, but is there something I can help you with?"
"You dismissed my proposal without even looking at it." Alexandros said stonily.
"That does sound like something I would do." Naruto agreed.
"Why?"
"Because I'm the God-Emperor and I can do whatever I feel like doing?"
"The people deserve to have a voice." He ground out, struggling not to glare at the horned man.
"Woot?" Naruto asked, blinking owlishly and giving every impression of being confused.
Alexandros watched as he got off the throne and picked up the discarded documentation, leafing through them at a fast pace.
"Ah, this proposal." Naruto said in realization and then threw the papers over his shoulder. "Yeah, this proposal is a piece of crap."
It was basically a petition to institute a rudimentary form of democracy.
"As you can see by the signatures, there are many who disagree with you." Alexandros growled.
"It's a good thing that their opinion doesn't really matter now isn't it?" Naruto asked ironically.
"Without the people, the Empire would not exist!" He said passionately.
"Yet they do exist and they've got nowhere else to go." Naruto countered and then switched angles. "Honestly Alexandros, we've been rejecting this proposal for years. What did you think was going to be different this time?"
"You cannot continue to disregard the will of the people like this." Alexandros said insistently, refusing to back down from his stance.
He had been pushing for this for a long time now, gathering support despite opposition and repeated failure. His normally even temper had finally snapped when he had been rejected once again, this time without so much as a glance at the improvements he had made to the proposal.
"And what is anyone going to do about it?" Naruto mocked, poking the shorter man in the shoulder. "What are you going to do about it?"
The other man stayed quiet, visibly trying to keep hold of his temper. Unfortunately, Naruto kept poking him in the shoulder, repeating his last question and sometimes adding an incredibly annoying 'huh?' at the end.
His temper finally snapped and he swung his fist, catching Naruto across the jaw with a mean right hook.
Alexandros went pale when he realized what he had just done, his hands shaking at his sides no matter how much he tried to still them.
Naruto's head had snapped to the side from the punch and he slowly turned back to look at the man that had just punched him in the face. His face was like stone but his mouth was twitching, obviously fighting against his self control.
Any moment now, Alexandros expected the Emperor to snarl at him with sharp teeth and twist his head off like a screw, but he didn't back down or start blubbering apologies. Instead he kept his gaze locked with those fiery orbs and waited.
Finally it was too much for Naruto to take and a wide grin escaped him, a laugh following soon after. "Alright, I'll approve your proposal, with some changes."
Alexandros was completely flummoxed and it showed on his face. "Wha...? But I...?"
"Why am I approving it only after you slugged me in the jaw?" Naruto asked with a heavy dose of irony.
Alexandros nodded mutely.
Putting his hands on the man's shoulders and looking deep into his eyes, Naruto answered. "Because you finally stopped being a little bitch."
Alexandros was obviously still too baffled for words, so Naruto continued. "Ever since you put your idea forward for the first time, I've been waiting for you to come up here and demand that it be taken seriously. Any idiot can write proposals and make petitions, but I wasn't going to acknowledge that unless someone came up here and fought for it."
He stepped back and rubbed his jaw, grinning again. "I'll admit that I wasn't expecting a punch to the face, so that was quite a pleasant surprise."
"So you will approve my proposal for a democracy? For a government voted in by the people?" Alexandros asked, filled with both relief that he wasn't about to die and hope that his effort would bear fruit.
"With some changes." Naruto replied. "The most major of which will be that Xanna and I will retain absolute authority over all aspects of the Empire."
"But...that is how it is now." Alexandros said back flatly, wondering if this whole thing about accepting the proposal was one of the Emperor's abstract pranks.
"No need to sound so disappointed." The horned man said dryly. "People will be allowed to vote for whoever they want in government and Xanna and I will agree to keep our meddling minimal. We will have our own projects that will need to be completed and we may remove people from their positions if they are judged unsuitable, but on the whole we will allow the Empire to run itself."
Naruto might have a very dim view of democracy, but he had come to realize that it might be beneficial to have a self sufficient government that could run itself without direction from him and Xanna. That way, they could focus on the big issues and cut down on the micromanagement.
Xanna had taken somewhat longer to convince, but she had eventually capitulated and agreed that there was no need for them to constantly have their fingers in everything. A guiding hand could be more effective than a stranglehold sometimes. She wasn't present for this approval because she would have reacted poorly to demands being made of her.
"So you would allow us to govern ourselves, but keep us chained to your authority?"
"Those chains are there to keep you from walking off a cliff." Naruto continued in the same dry tone as before. "Trust me on this, democracy might sound like a great idea to you right now, with images of rational and clear thinking people selecting the most able candidates to represent them going through your mind..."
Alexandros nodded, that was exactly what he had in mind.
"...But take the word of someone who's already seen democracy at work. That isn't how it's going to be and you'll be grateful for someone to get things moving when the wheels start breaking down. As long as it works, Xanna and I will stay out of it, but we'll be there to give it a kick when necessary."
Reluctantly, Alexandros nodded his agreement. He wasn't really sure what he had expected to achieve when he'd stormed up here and he'd definitely expected to die after throwing that punch, so this was still pretty good all things considered.
"Would you agree to relinquish power if I punched you in the face again?"
"Ahahahahaha, no."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Time skip.
Xanna looked down at the man speaking to the crowd. She would admit that he was a good orator, with a powerful voice and plenty of charisma. Such a shame that he was so reprehensibly stupid.
She was currently standing invisibly on the roof of a building in a city that was quite a great distance away from the capital. No doubt it was that very sense of distance, false though it was, that was giving this man the confidence to spread his idiocy.
The idiocy in question being the idea to secede from the Empire and establish an independent republic. On the same planet even! How ridiculous.
Both Xanna and Naruto had expected something like this to happen when they had allowed a limited democracy to form, it was inevitable really. While not a bad system of government per se, it was also not a good one. It allowed too many parasites and misguided idealists to gain access to power and the inevitable result would be conflict.
That was why the limited democracy they had allowed would remain subordinate to the Throne.
"What do you intend to do?" Oma asked from beside her.
The ascended woman had been curious to see how she would react to this rebellious behavior from her subjects.
"I will let him blather for a while yet, then I will crush their hopes and break their hearts."
"You could simply allow them their independence for a while." Oma suggested. "You would be seen as gracious and benevolent and it would allow them to try their hand at self governance. They may eventually realize that they had it better under your rule, or they may succeed without any need for further input from you."
"If one region is allowed to secede, others will get the same idea. The Empire will fracture and it will not be long before these idiot humans go to war with each other." Xanna rebuffed.
"This world has not seen war for centuries and you have done much to unite them, they will not turn against each other so easily." Oma countered.
"You give them too much credit." Xanna snorted and then looked at her with a smirk. "You also give your own judgement too much credit. What ever happened to the mother and child that you had me spare?"
Oma looked away, swallowing down her bitterness at the memory. She had watched over them just as the horned woman had demanded and had become fond of the boy that the woman had given birth too. Children were easy to like, innocent as they were.
It had made it all the harder to watch when a drought on that planet had caused them both to starve to death. It had been a long time since she had resented her inability to interfere so much.
Xanna was of course as unsympathetic as ever and had brutally pointed out that their meaningless suffering would have been avoided if only Oma hadn't stopped her from killing them both.
"This desire for independence is the product of greedy self interest on the part of the few rather than any altruistic purpose." The horned woman went on, uncaring that she had just twisted the metaphorical knife.
"I did warn you that your heavy handed methods in preventing the rise of a noble class would have consequences." Oma said back a touch tersely.
"I had no intention of tolerating the existence of a bloated aristocracy whose only purpose is to get in the way and cause problems." Xanna retorted.
"Still...do you not think that there were better ways than seizing all their assets and reminding them that 'all were equal beneath your feet'? It is little wonder that resentment has festered ever since."
Xanna shrugged carelessly, not interested in whose feelings were hurt. She knew herself to be in the right and that was all that mattered. "Their parents accumulated great wealth through their skill, knowledge and work, but that does not make their children entitled to anything. They have no claim to achievements not their own and I will not tolerate the existence of parasites."
Oma sighed and went silent. She could understand the horned woman's argument, she even agreed with it, but the heavy handed way that the whole thing was executed was practically asking for problems later on and that was without taking Xanna's superior attitude into account.
She'd been surprised and pleased when they had allowed a limited democracy to form, seeing it as a step in the right direction. While democracy was by itself a fairly inefficient system of government, it was an important step to let people decide for themselves and their oversight would smooth over the clashing interest of a culture as diverse as theirs was.
The problem was that both Naruto and Xanna seemed to find it amusing to let people argue for a while, only to jump in and settle it with all the subtlety of a meteor impact. It kept people jumpy and nervous for a while after until they relaxed again and the cycle repeated itself.
Such as right now.
Silently, Xanna floated down from the roof of the building where she had been looking down on the speaker, eliciting exclamations of shock from the listening crowd.
The speaker did not immediately catch on to what was going on, but he did grasp that there was someone behind him when fingers were pointed.
Spinning around, he found himself staring at a very nice pair of breasts that were attached to a woman that was a good bit taller than him. Looking upwards, he paled and stumbled back at having the very person against whom he had been trying to turn the people suddenly appearing behind him.
"You disappoint me Barbas. Did you think distance alone would place you out of my reach?" Xanna said idly.
Somewhat impressively, Barbas managed to regain his composture enough to answer despite his surprise. "I did not come here because it was so far from the palace...Heika, my presence here is only one part of my journey."
Xanna had noticed the slight pause before his use of the royal address, as well as his distaste for it, but made no mention of it. It was hardly worth quibbling about.
"And you intend to spread your ideas of secession elsewhere as well?" She pressed with a raised eyebrow.
"I do." He said back firmly. "By your own laws, that is not illegal and I believe we will be better off without your interference."
My interference?! She snarled inside her own mind, angry that this stupid human dared say such a thing. The Empire was hers, she could do with it whatever she damn well pleased!
But she reined the rage back under control, reminding herself that he was just a human and therefore doomed to be short-sighted and stupid, as well as greedy and self-centered. Tantrums and violent outbursts did not befit an Empress and had spelled the end of her previous two tenures as one. This one had lasted far longer already and she would not ruin it all with an act of destructive violence, no matter how satisfying it would be.
She had known that letting the sheep think for themselves would lead to idiots like this one that thought they knew best. On the whole it had proved beneficial, she and Naruto had to deal with less of the insignificant day to day crap and could instead focus on the important things, but people like Barbas still annoyed her to no end.
She nevertheless managed to calm down enough that instead of a fiery volcanic eruption, Barbas received a response so cold it brought to mind the void between galaxies. "You seem to have forgotten to whom this Empire belongs...or have you? Were you ever intending to reveal your plans to poison Naruto and I?"
A gasp of shock went through the crowd at the accusation. Many of those present were intrigued by the idea of becoming an independent nation, but to attempt an assassination on the Emperor and Empress? It just wasn't done!
"I was planning no such thing!" Barbas quickly denied, though the sudden sweat on his face betrayed him.
"And now you lie to me." Xanna said idly, her earlier anger cooled now that the man was squirming. "I see it all in your mind, how you intended to slip the most virulent toxin you could find into our food. You would have failed, we are gods and thus far removed from your ability to do us harm."
"Again with this superior attitude!" Barbas spat, having apparently gathered his courage again. "Is it any wonder that there are people who wish to split away from the Empire when you place yourself so far above them?"
"Only fools attempt to make equal that which is intrinsically unequal." The horned woman retorted. "I have heard this petty argument before, but I suppose I could compromise. If you chafe so much under our rule, an empty world can be found for you to make your own way. You will however, leave behind everything that does not personally belong to you and you will no longer be protected from the Goa'uld or any other danger. That is the only such offer you will ever receive, as I will not allow a portion of the Empire to split away."
With those final words, Xanna vanished in a burst of fire that was a deliberate show of power as much as anything else.
In the end, Barbas' rabble rousing didn't amount to anything. Even if the army was not staunchly loyal to Naruto, they would have had no ability to enforce their secession and nobody wanted to risk going to some other planet where the Goa'uld could prey on them. Erius was still mostly empty after all and it wasn't hard to find an out of the way spot to live if you didn't want to be part of the society living there.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Naruto and Xanna stared stonily at the two dozen bound and rather badly beaten looking men kneeling in front of them, silently scrutinizing them for a good few minutes. Behind them, Setsuna and several other soldiers were also staring at them, obviously thinking violent thoughts.
The reason for this was that they were pirates, the first real pirates that Erius had ever seen. Not long ago, they had attacked a merchant ship, killed the men, raped and killed the women before hiding out on an empty island, thinking that they wouldn't be found.
Unfortunately for them, they had been found in very short order and hauled to the palace on Naruto and Xanna's demand, entirely bypassing the standard judiciary procedure.
"Why?" Naruto finally asked. "None of you had difficult lives, none of you had any reason to do what you did, so why did you?"
The captain said nothing, but he did spit on the floor in front of him.
"Random human evil then." Xanna determined, paying no heed to the disrespect even as Setsuna bashed him in the head with the hilt of her sword.
"Just kill us and get it over with already." The captain growled, glaring at her.
"After the shit you pulled, the last thing I'd give you is the peace of death." Naruto growled back. "I'm just not sure yet what to do with you."
These idiots pissed him off even more than usual because they'd taken up their short lived careers in piracy only because they knew they couldn't get away with any kind of shit on the mainland. They hadn't suffered any noteworthy hardship that would have made them turn to crime. They'd simply seen the undefended merchant ships and saw an opportunity to do whatever they wanted away from any kind of law enforcement.
Erius had no navy, why would they need it? There were no foreign powers on the planet, nor any other dangers that would require it.
"I have an idea of what to do with them." Xanna said, lips twisting into a somewhat cruel smirk. "The medical knowledge of our doctors is progressing nicely, but I am certain that having live human test subjects would be better than corpses or animals."
Naruto's eyebrows rose before he too smirked. "A suitable punishment and a means of speeding progress at the same time. I like it."
Xanna nodded at him in agreement before turning to Setsuna. "Take Test Subject-01 and his companions to the holding cells, we will begin making arrangements for their new...accommodations...immediately."
"It will be my genuine pleasure Heika." Setsuna said and started hauling the horrified pirates away.
As soon as they were alone in the throne room, Oma showed up and launched into a discussion without preamble. "This act could have terrible consequences. Did you not agree to refrain from using slave labor or gladiatorial combat for that exact purpose?"
"We did, this is neither." Naruto replied, for a change not in the mood to play games with her.
"No, this is potentially even worse." Oma said grimly.
"It is no use Oma, we will not be moved this time." Xanna told her dismissively. "If death is no longer a sufficient deterrent against such behavior, then the punishments clearly need to be made harsher."
The ascended woman was going to say something else, but Naruto cut her off before she could do so. "They are all adults and they decided to attack that ship knowing full well that it was an act that would carry dire consequences. There are no extenuating circumstances and no tears will be shed over their fates."
"You truly have no remorse over having them used as laboratory specimens, do you?" Oma asked disapprovingly.
Xanna looked puzzled over the question, which had been expected. The horned woman had still not managed to grasp the idea that life had value, despite doing a rather good job as a ruler. At this point Oma doubted she ever would.
But she had hoped that Naruto at least would have developed at least a little respect for life. But no, nothing had really changed. He valued personal choice over life and considered any worth a person might have had based on those choices. As soon as anyone made an important life decision that in his opinion caused them to forfeit their own worth, he reclassified them into three possible categories; things to be used, things to be disposed of and things that could be played with.
She would not have been so disapproving of his outlook if only he wasn't so ruthless about it.
"Eh," Naruto shrugged and grinned unrepentantly. "at least we won't have to use perfectly innocent animals for it anymore."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The next day, Naruto and Setsuna found themselves looking down on the city from one of the palace balconies.
Just like everything else on the planet, the palace had changed a lot since their arrival and it no longer bore even a passing resemblance to a Goa'uld structure.
For one thing, it was a lot bigger and more imposing, with a massive stairway stretching from the bottom of the hill it was on and all the way to the permanently open gates. The inside was also much changed, now featuring crystal windows and intricate columns, as well as indoor gardens and various other features.
Most of it was the product of various design ideas that Naruto, Xanna and sometimes Akitsu got.
Naruto was currently supposed to be listening as Setsuna updated him on the progress of the latest batch of recruits for the army, but his mind was elsewhere.
Namely, it was on what Oma had said yesterday. Once his temper had cooled, he was able to consider whether it had been wise to agree with Xanna on using those pirates as lab rats. He didn't feel guilty about it, nor did he think they deserved any better, but he did wonder whether it would have unforeseen consequences.
Oma was smart, and her advice had been helpful on many occasions. There had been times when they had disregarded it, but only rarely and only after putting a lot of thought into it. Oma didn't make a habit of giving suggestions often and whenever she did it was with a well thought out and hard to refute argument.
He had been too pissed to listen yesterday.
"Heika?" Setsuna questioned, laying a hand on his arm to get his attention when she saw that his thoughts were elsewhere.
The touch snapped him out of his thoughts. "Setsuna, Do you think it was a good idea to punish those pirates the way we did."
"They have more than earned it." Was her unhesitating and firm reply.
Right, wrong person to ask. Setsuna had long been of the opinion that death was too good for the likes of them.
"I guess I'm just wondering if the gain will be worth the price." Naruto mused. "I already know that we can expect the human rights weenies to come bitching about it being inhumane."
Setsuna scowled. She hated those people. All they ever seemed to do was complain about things in the Empire being too harsh without having any understanding of how good they had it.
She had not been pleased that the Emperor and Empress had allowed a democratic government to form and had flatly told them that she would not take orders from anyone but them. Nobody else could be trusted in her opinion. The rest of the army had reacted much the same, they would follow Setsuna as their commander and Naruto as their Emperor. They would also listen to Xanna, though she left the management of the armies in Naruto's hands.
"Their energies would be better spent doing something useful rather than defending criminals." She finally said.
Naruto hummed non-committally. "The problem is that the number of criminals is on the rise despite everything. I don't suppose you have any ideas on how to reduce the number of people deciding to be criminals?"
Setsuna pursed her lips in thought and stared out over the city.
It had grown more than a hundredfold since she had first seen it all those years ago. It had been so different then. Despite the work that the Emperor and Empress had been doing to make it better, life had still been difficult and consisted of a great deal of hard work. Food had to be carefully rationed to make sure everyone got enough and housing was often improvised until something better could be built.
Her own people had simply been grateful to be away from the Goa'uld and had gladly thrown themselves into making their new home the best they possibly could and had managed to rebuild a replica of their settlement close to the capital.
That settlement had long since been swallowed by the expanding city and was now its own district within it. Her people had by now mostly assimilated into the whole despite the infusion of new blood from raids into the territories of Izanagi and now Amaterasu.
Setsuna felt some nostalgia for those times and sometimes felt adrift in the ever changing Empire while she remained the same.
Her lips quirked into a smile at the thought that her grandfather had intended for her to be a concubine to the man next to her. She had been such an angry child then. It made her wonder what the Emperor had ever seen in her.
Also very ironic that she had started lusting after him not long into the training he had put her through. She had been terribly disappointed when he had shown no sign of wanting to take her to his bed, but had understood it later on. The men under her command would never have respected her if they thought that she had gotten her position by sleeping with the Emperor.
Men could be so stupid sometimes and more than one of them had lost teeth for insinuating something like that. So had several women actually, so she supposed it would be more accurate to say that people could be stupid sometimes.
Then there were some people who were stupid all the damned time. Like the aforementioned idiots whining about it being inhumane to execute the worst criminals, pacifists advocating that they stop attacking the Goa'uld and similar nuisances.
If these people had any sense in their heads they would understand that you couldn't deal with problematic people and monsters by being nice!
Setsuna hated pacifists too. How the Emperor and Empress kept an even temper around them escaped her understanding. Though she supposed that ignoring them wholesale meant that they didn't have to deal with them overmuch.
It was another thing that she missed about the old days. People knew that life was not all sunshine and roses and didn't waste their time championing stupid causes.
For all that the Empire had become great under the rule of the Emperor and Empress, it had also made things a bit too easy in her opinion. With abundant access to food, water, shelter, entertainment, healthcare and plenty of free time thanks to the generous work reforms, people quite simply had too much time to be stupid. No matter how much they both pushed forward the agenda of educating people, there were always going to be people that were just too stupid for words.
The thought sparked an idea in Setsuna's mind.
"You have made life too easy." She said slowly, still formulating the idea in her head. "There are many citizens of the Empire that have never known any true hardship and some of them feel entitled because of that."
Naruto looked at her in interest as se finally spoke after several minutes of silence. After a short consideration, he found himself agreeing with her and wanted to hear where she was going with this.
"A mandatory time spent in the army would force them to experience some difficulty in their lives and they may be more grateful for what they have."
Naruto's eyebrow rose in a sardonic expression as he replied. "I can't conscript the entire population of the Empire into the army Setsuna, even if it probably would have some positive effect."
The number of new children born per annum now exceeded the number of people brought to Erius through the stargate by a large margin. He had actually been considering the idea of stopping the raids altogether. The woman next to him would be bored out of her mind if he did that though.
"Of course not Heika." Setsuna said, sounding a bit miffed at him thinking that she would suggest something so stupid. "I meant that we could institute a mandatory military service of a few years when adulthood is reached."
Naruto rubbed his chin in thought, now intrigued by the idea. That could be done, it would take some time to get everything set up, but it was doable. It would certainly instill some discipline into people. He wasn't blind to the fact that a large portion of the population was basically good for nothing but breeding more people and that they had gotten a bit too opinionated ever since a limited democracy had been allowed to form.
Army training was pretty demanding though and not everyone was suited for it. Perhaps a somewhat reduced version of it?
Of course, this no longer had anything to do with his second thoughts on using live criminals as laboratory specimens, but he shrugged it off. If they didn't want it to happen to them then they shouldn't become criminals in the first place.
"I like this." He finally said. "Lets go find my lovely wife and see if we can't hammer out the details."
Setsuna smiled and took her place next to him as they went to find Xanna.
She couldn't help herself from grinning when she heard his amused muttering.
"Hehe, this is going to piss off the pacifists even more."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Time skip.
It was finally time, time to let out all of his cute little sisters and other assorted Sekirei.
It had taken so very long, centuries longer than her had originally predicted(a prediction that he had long since realized had been hopelessly optimistic), but the time had finally come. It would be great to have a bunch of cute girls around calling him onii-chan again and he could hardly wait.
Before he could get to the Sekirei though, it would probably be wise to get one other person out of stasis first. He would probably need to devote some time to get her settled before he could fully focus on having fun showing his little sisters around.
With that in mind, he reached into the Interdimensional Storage Locker and pulled out a very troublesome(but amusing) woman.
She came out as pissed as a wild cougar that someone had poked with a stick.
"-son of a bitch! Huh?" Her expression turned confused as she noticed that her surroundings had changed.
Naruto pouted at her. "You're seriously still upset about that little ass groping Takami-chan? It happened centuries ago, you really shouldn't hold grudges for that long."
Her confusion deepened and Naruto grinned at her widely, his disgustingly good mood obvious.
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And we have finally reached the point where the Sekirei will be let out. I know a lot of you were waiting for this to happen, so you can be sure that the next chapter is going to be mostly devoted to that.