"Incoming." Rin says, and Leah looks up just in time for a few of Fate's threads to tickle the edges of her sense.
"You're getting better."
"I know." Rin flashes a quick smile, sunny and bright, and Leah momentarily remembers that the sarcastic, annoyed assistant she knows wasn't always like that.
She's kind of cute like this, in the manner of puppies and small children. She's barely more than a child herself, so…. Hm.
"You take care of it." Leah says, and turns back to her papers. "Go stretch your legs. If you find something interesting, you have my permission to offer up a job or two."
"You know, I think only hiring people that have weird or strong connections to Fate is a form of discrimination." Rin points out.
"I'm queen of the dead. Who's going to sue me?" Leah's smile then loses a tiny bit of its humor, becoming more contemplative. "Besides, it's not that nobody else can apply. It's just that these are the ones I specifically seek out, in order to keep an eye on them and events in the world of the living. I want to know why Fate decides some people are important and others aren't."
"Whatever you say, ma'am." Rin says, gathering up the last of her necessary papers and putting them into her clipboard. "I'll be back soon."
"Have fun." Leah says, returning to her own paperwork. She wonders, for a few moments, what she can do with the slowly growing population of her realm. She has her reapers, however few at the moment, and Rin, and a handful of people working under Kushina's guidance to create a loyal demonic force. She even has a few people running the day-to-day jobs of the realm that enchantments can't do quite properly. Quality inspectors for the magic, once trained, are fairly adequate at their jobs, and good enough that Leah herself no longer has to spend excess time micromanaging the spells that run daily life in Hel. Sure, none of her subordinates can use magic (she's not entirely sure that their bodies would even allow them to learn, given the nature of this universe), but they can learn to read the twists in the fabric of reality.
She doesn't have a proper army yet, though.
Leah knows, technically, that gods amassing armies is probably frowned upon in this reality. At minimum, it's uncommon enough that she can assume there's some kind of stigma. On the other hand, the reality she was born to was drenched in gods fighting wars amongst themselves and against outsiders. She knows in her blood that she needs warriors, ones that are trained in how to fight battles that don't involve solely living, mortal opponents.
She thinks she might need to train the first few herself. Maybe actually start some magic classes.
(She doesn't want to be a teacher. Loki, though, is very fond of telling stories these days, and what is teaching but another form of storytelling?)
(Also, she has blackmail material, and contacting the All-Mother or Thor with pictures of Loki's slightly drunken escapades from another dimension isn't really all that hard.)
"I'm back." Rin calls from the door, and steps in with a tall man trailing behind her. The man has pulled-back hair and bandages over his forehead, with blank white eyes that lack both iris and pupil. He holds himself with noble bearing, and something in Leah perks up to take a better look.
He's certainly very pretty, Leah thinks, considering the subtle signs of age on the man's face. Perhaps early to mid-thirties? Certainly too old to be called pretty, but it's the best adjective coming to mind.
"This is Hyuuga Hizashi." Rin explains. "He was a Konohagakure Jounin. Kushina can vouch for him, if necessary."
"Yes, we've met, if only briefly. Mikoto introduced us."
Hizashi faces Leah, stock still and holding his chin high. Leah thinks he probably doesn't know how to react to her; finding out that the strange woman that sometimes frequents the local cafés is actually a death goddess must be a bit of a shock. Well, shinobi are pretty used to strange things happening. It might just be resignation, though, since he's had a few minutes of the walk over to compose himself.
"How did he die?" Leah asks. There's something about his death tangling up in Fate's strings and crawling out towards the future, pulsing in a way that says the consequences are uncertain, but almost sure to be interesting.
"My brother's dead body was requested as a… reimbursement of sorts by Kumogakure after he killed an official of theirs that was attempting to kidnap his daughter. Due to the fact that my eyes were sealed and his were not, I offered to go in his place." Hizashi's eyes are fixed on Leah's desk, perhaps in respect.
"That's not the whole truth, though, is it?" Leah asks, tilting her head.
"I wanted to choose my own fate." The man says, raising his eyes to meet hers.
Leah holds his gaze for several moments, well aware of Rin's quiet nervousness off to the side, and then nods. "I like that, I think. Rin? Please explain how perception of Fate here differs from others."
Leah finds the paperwork that is Hizashi's afterdeath certificate and skims over it. Rin isn't wrong about him having been a distinguished soldier while alive; he hadn't been the most powerful shinobi on the battlefield then, but he'd been a good tactician and an effective leader, often responsible for leading larger teams into battle, and usually convincing them to work as a cohesive group, even when it seemed impossible. He didn't lead out of charisma, or through fear, but through trust in his abilities.
("So it's a lot less about predestination, and more about influence and potential and maybe some precognizance. That make sense?")
In short, Leah isn't sure if the man is ready to lead an army, but it's a start.
"Tell me, Hyuuga Hizashi," Leah says with a smile as Rin is just about wrapping up. "How does the title 'General' sound to you?"
Just as the man opens his mouth to answer, Yahiko bursts into the room, grabs Rin by the wrist, and drags her out.
"Sorry gotta get some confirmation on a thing going on in the world of the living and I need Rin for it promise I'll bring her back soon see ya in a few hours!" he shouts over his shoulder, accompanied by the sound of Rin's incredibly half-hearted protests.
"Hm." Leah pouts, just the tiniest bit. It probably wouldn't seem like a pout on most people, but Hizashi gives her one of those looks that she sometimes got from dead nobles, the ones that say 'you're not fooling me nearly as well as you think you are.' Well, the man was a noble himself back when he was alive, after all. He can probably read her expression based on years of dealing with people like his brother and the Hyuuga Elders. "He could have at least knocked."
"Ah yes," Hizashi practically drawls, and Leah turns to look at him. "Someone bursting in and out of your life with no warning or explanation must be so irritating."
Leah frowns at him. "That's sarcasm, isn't it?"
It isn't really a question
"I assure you I hadn't noticed." Hizashi says, the slightest glimmer of humor in his eyes.
"…You've been speaking with Mikoto." Leah decides.
Hizashi shrugs. "She's not always particularly happy with you, no."
"Fair enough. I do aim to confuse." Leah leans back against her desk, hands on the edge in that peculiar way that people sometimes put them, with the elbows locked and the shoulders scrunched up towards their ears. "So, about that job?"
"You want me to lead an army," Hizashi says, "Or at least, that's what I'm hearing from the whole 'General' thing."
"Well, it won't really reach army levels for a while." Leah muses. "I'm thinking of borrowing some structural ideas from this strange little Japanese comic series that Loki gave me a few years ago. I can't use their entire system, of course, but they have some good ideas."
Hizashi shrugs. "I don't think I really need a job now that I'm dead, but I'm sure it'll be more interesting than anything else on my plate."
"That's the spirit. Now, let me just find that paperwork…"
o.o.o.o.o
A/N: The "Japanese comic series" that Leah is referring to is, of course, Bleach. Loki got her a few afterlife comics that he thought would be funny.
As for what Yahiko needed Rin for... I'm sure you can guess.
Next time: Yahiko really did need Rin, okay, it's IMPORTANT.