Waking up went more or less the same as yesterday. Orochimaru on one side and a giant snake coiled on top of us.

I pressed my hands on top of the closest coil and pushed.

Hahahebi let out a sleepy hiss then rearranged herself so her coils slid off me and over Orochimaru.

He stirred in his sleep, turning over so that the tip of his nose peaked out from his hair. ¨Stay in the quarters,¨ he murmured, his voice heavy with sleep. He put his hand toward his face, and hit down over his thumb, then smeared his blood over the edge of the pillow. A cloud of smoke puffed up

Hayai popped into place. He immediately looked around the room suspiciously. "I thought I was in disgrace."

"Go be in disgrace in the study," Orochimaru turned away.

I reach over for Hayai and let him crawl up my arm, then peered at the pillow case. Orochimaru's blood was gone. Huh. I wondered if that was part of the exchange.

"I will give you all my ryou for sleep," Orochimaru whined, words muffled by the pillow.

Geez, okay I get it. You want to sleep. I tugged his blanket a little higher over his head and went off looking for a room with a bath or shower. There was a sliding door tucked just beside a large cotton wall hanging depicting blue stick line arts of people in different positions

Tucked in one corner was a small room with a toilet and sink that had another door hidden within that with a bathtub just big enough for a large man to sit. I flipped the knobs and gave Hayai a minute to crawl off before I climbed in.

I let get the water all the way up all the way to my chin. before I shut it off. It took a minute to open the gills up on my neck, but once they were open, it was like my whole body could relax.

Every muscle went limp and I dozed there until Orochimaru slid the door open. "Come along, Mother. I have a village to run."

It was too early to think about his mommy issues. Hayai dismissed himself while I got dressed.

Orochimaru and I walked out of the apartment and into the laboratory. There was a teenager waiting just outside the door with a clipboard and a Sound headband tied around his arm. His jaw twitched when he looked at me, as though he wanted to say something, then thought better of it.

"You have a meeting this morning with the Master of Sound followed by a curriculum review for the Wave survivors and our youth population. We also need you to review the results from Project Terracotta, Project Pear, Project Carp, etc. Then there's the building plans for the prospective bases of phase two of our village expansion. More importantly, there's a messenger from the Daimyo waiting to speak with the Master of Sound and a message from Rain."

Orochimaru tilted his head in though, his eyes sliding to look at me, then back to the teenager. "Thank you, Hiro. let's start with Ayame-chan. Meanwhile, tell the remainder of project Terracotta to prepare their results for review. I'll go over that before the Aviary. Hiro, this is Wani. She's-" He paused for a moment, thinking, then let out a small huff of laughter. "She's the biological daughter of the ruler of Sound."

Hiro tapped the edge of his clipboard. "The ruler of Sound?" he said, carefully emphasizing the word ruler as he looked to Orochimaru for classification.

Orochimaru made a small sound of amusement. "Did I stutter?"

Hiro gave me a warmer look and reached over the ruffle my hair.

Dude. Not Cool. I tried to dodge his hand but I didn't quite make it.

"Orochimaru was my jounin sensei. It's nice to meet you, Wani-chan." He smiled warmly at me and it made the skin on the back of my neck stand up. There was something just wrong about the way he smiled.

There was flutter from my connection to Orochimaru, like the chakra bond flickered with discomfort. I guess he didn't like it either.

"I'll be overseeing her directly." His arm came around my shoulder tightly and squeezed.

We went out through one of the side doors and went through the narrow corridors into the large, main chamber that had shocked me before. This time we took a wide ramp up a gentle slope. Now that I'd gotten used to the architectural style, I could see there were stencils etched into the walls in between art murals and graffiti.

Orochimaru smiled warmly when he caught me looking at the etchings. "Not everyone here is literate. We use the symbols to help indicate where to go. The badgers are for private apartments. The rabbits are for ninja barracks. The laboratories are snakes - that's where we live."

"Bird are for the children." There's where the term Aviary must have come from.

"It's a bit more subtle. Different demarcations on the creatures as you walk around, a few meaningless animals to lay false trails, and so on. Do you see that bird?" Orochimaru pointed at a fat yellow bird that could have been a sparrow or a Snidget for all I knew. "That's the Usuigu. That leads the way to the Otokage's chambers. Kage's are the leaders of major ninja villages. The smaller villagers refer to their rulers as Masters. Our population is too small for other villages to refer to our leader as a Kage. However our first ruler is strong enough to be a Kage." He winked at me and then laughed, the light hearted ku ku ku sounds echoing in the corridor.

I smiled back. Even if he was a shady guy with ten pounds of crazy in a one pound bag, it was fun being on the inside of a secret. It was starting to seem like Sound had a puppet leader so everyone could pretend Orochimaru wasn't a missing nin in charge. The way the ninja were acting, it seemed like they all knew and didn't care.

The passage became more ornate the farther in we went, until we came to a pair of beautiful gold doors with seals running down in thick vertical purple bars down the front. A pair of ninja were there, covered from head to toe in what I would have sworn was a Hazmat suit.

The Hazmat nin pulled open the doors for us to reveal a large, poorly lit room. The ceiling was entirely made of glass but it was like looking at the sky from underwater. There was a hammock slung along on wall from one of the support beams crossing the ceiling. The opposite wall had a dumbwaiter and a water cooler. Filing cabinets covered the back wall, most of the drawers pulled out to different degrees. There were large, comfortable armchairs scattered around. The center of the room was filled with a large circular wooden desk that curved around one large office chair and the woman sitting in it. As we walked in, she pressed her fingers over a section of the desk. The light fixtures along the walls brightened.

She had long red hair, dark enough to have looked black in the dim lighting, and green eyes that lit up when she looked up at us. The woman raised her hand at the Hazmat nin, rapidly signing something that cause them to close the doors behind up and then make the doors glow a soft, ominous purple.

The minute the doors started gowing, she bowed towards Orochamaru. "It's good to have you back, Orochimaru-chan. How long will you be able to stay?"

Orochimaru bowed back, not an inch deeper than her. "It's good to see you, Ayame-chan. Unfortunately, I'll need to be back in Konoha in three days. I'll be putting our plan into effect earlier than planned. It will take me a couple weeks to tie up loose ends in Konoha but I should be able to return after without a problem."

Ayame nodded and then got up from her desk as she spoke, "And who is this little baby?" Ayame knelt down in front of me and smiled. "You wanna share your name?"

I looked up at Orochimaru, hoping he'd give me a hint as to what to do. His eyebrows were raised. That wasn't helpful.

"I'm Wani." I looked down at Ayame and then back up at Orochimaru. After a long silence he got the hint.

"The leader on Project Carp thought he would be able to ensure his place by creating a hostage." He gave Ayame a look of contempt and commiseration. "Wani is biologically my child. That said, with our current political climate, it would be best if everyone believed her to be your child."

Ayame let out a huff of laughter, "That'll be true soon enough, anyway."

"My main concern is what to do with her while I'm in Konoha. I can't let Danzo know about her and our strongest jounin are two weeks on and off with the Daimyo. The simplest solution would be to send her out to the Daimyo's court with the rest of the jounin and have the jounin rotate guard duty between the Daimyo's family and Wani, but that would leave this base defenseless for two weeks. It's also too early."

"I'm not completely useless. You do remember that, right?" Ayame ruffled my hair and then stood up. "What about if we let the current court jounin stay at court and keep our current set here on Wani-chan?"

Orochimaru turned his head slightly. "Then we only have six jounin in this base and there's no telling if you'll be healthy for the entirely of the time."

Ayame jerked back looking wounded. She moved as if to say something then stopped, her shoulders slumping. "Then temporary fostering is your best option."

"No," said a quiet shaky voice.

The two of them looked down and I realized the shaky voice was me. I shook my head head enough to feel dizzy. "No, no, no, please." I wrapped my hands in the fabric of Orochimaru's clothes and clung as closely as I could. If I was going to be trapped in this world of killers and monsters, then I wanted the best of the best keeping me safe. If anything went wrong in Konoha, he'd be dead and I might as well be.

I had already screwed up the timeline. Maybe if I could convince Orochimaru to run away, we could do something nice like - Farming. We could move to the land of Fruit and Vegetables and just farm cabbage. Nothing bad ever happens there, right?

"Wani-" Orochimaru said, one hand coming down on my head, stroking reassuringly.

"Don't leave me," I murmured, sniffling loudly. I honestly couldn't tell if these mood swings were the result of being a child or being, you know, stranded in a terrifying apocalyptic hellscape for the rest of my life.

Orochimaru slowly crouched down and grabbed my hands in his own. "Wani, I need to leave you alone for a few weeks to make it safe for both of us. I promise I will come back and if you miss me, all you have to do is reach for your seal and you'll be able to feel for me."

I put my hand over the seal and pushed chakra at it until I could feel Orochimaru's chakra telling me he was right next to me and he was irritated.

I wiped the snot and tears off my face with my sleeve. He looked disgusted.

"Sorry. I'll be good."

Orochimaru pulled a piece medical gauze from into his kimono-thing. "Clean up and then practice your taijutsu in the corner. There's more business to see to."

I wiped my face as best I could and then took to the corner. Ayame and Orochimaru continued to discuss arrangements and then projects.

The best I could figure out what that Project Peach had something to do with the curse seal. So far nine out of nine initial test subjects had died so they'd need to revamp the seal array. It took me a while to figure out they were even talking about the curse seal, until Orochimaru said he hadn't had the opportunity to seal the tenth test subject. His apprentice had been left in Wave with a Kage Bushin while he oversaw the dismantling of Project Carp.

That must have been Mitarashi Anko. If she had never been sealed -

Fuck. I was changing the narrative just by existing.

Orochimaru told Ayame to roll out their new version Genin exams to the Project Carp a test group before using it on the rest of the population. I tried to get away with standing still and eavesdropping but orochimaru threatened to send me to the Aviary for the rest of the day if I didn't keep moving.

After that it just got boring. They went through the paperwork on Ayame's desk, with Orochimaru picking out contractors and picking out locations on maps for Sound bases, design schematics, blah blah boring.

It was probably a short discussion but it felt like forever. When the sound of wind chimes went through the room and the room open, I sighed in relief.

The Daimyo's representative was dressed in what I'm assuming are full formal robes. There were probably twelve layers at least but no paint of any kind. Ayame and Orochimaru were both leaning against the large desk when he entered. He didn't seem surprised to see Orochimaru, but he did do a double take when he spotted me moving in the corner.

The representative leaned forward into a deep bow. "Master Uzumaki-sama of Sound, it is a pleasure to see you again."

What the actual fuck. Ayame is an Uzumaki? Wow. With all the other Uzumaki's out there, they must have spread out from Uzugakure like cockroaches.

"Hello Kiyomori. It's good to see you too." She said, giving him the slightest bob of her head in return. "I've reviewed the signed trade agreements and the proposed missions she sent this time. The missions will be assigned out to our shinobi by the end of the week. I'll send runners to the Court with each completion. I have a revised patrol schedule to send back as well. Did you need something else."

He gave Orochimaru side long glance. "May we speak in private?"

Ayame signaled for the guard to close the doors. Once they were sealed again and glowing, Kiyomori looked directly at Orochimaru.

"The Daimyo In All But Name wants additional reassurances that your best shinobi are guarding the Daimyo's heir. She wants permanent placements instead of rotational guards."

Orochimaru smiled. It didn't reach his eyes. "We are a young village," he said kindly. It's sounds kindly, but the killing intent he lets leak out makes the representative jump. "Our Jounin have different specialties. Permanent posts would remove some of Sound's very limited resources. If we didn't have them to take missions, the village might not have enough funds to pay all our shinobi. That would mean hundreds of missing nin right here in the Land of Rice. That would would be terrible, don't you agree? Wani, I will send you to the Aviary if you can't focus."

I hadn't even noticed that I had let my form go to shit. I tucked my elbows back in and tried to keep the movements precise.

Kiyomori had gone pale but he still held his ground. "You have to understand, Orochimaru-sama, The Fire Lord has twelve guardians and eight children to succeed him. The Daimyo In All But Name only has one son. The next closest relative would be the cousin of Lightning's Daimyo."

Orochimaru's expression turned serious. "She's heard of the assassination of the the Daimyo in the Land of Hot Water."

Kiyomori nodded.

"You will not be receiving any permanent shinobi." Orochimaru raised his hand before Kiyomori could launch into another argument. "Instead, you'll receive Sound's heir." He gestured towards me.

Great. I'm a political pawn now.

"She will accompany you back to Court and she can remain there as proof to the other nobles that Sound is providing the best guards. I'll collect her in a few weeks, once the Daimyo In All But Name has been sufficiently reassured."

Kiyomori was silent for a several seconds, expression blank before saying. "That is an acceptable solution."

"Wani, start that kata over and don't think I can't notice when you aren't positioning your feet properly. When you can do it ten times perfectly, we'll move on to a new set of forms."

I nodded and went back to my corner.

Orochimaru took Ayame's seat behind the desk while Ayame and Kiyomori pulled up chairs and started going through another pile of papers in the corner. Jounin rotations, guard shifts, patrol routes. Mostly boring except, it sounded like they were trying to keep the existence of Hidden Sound a secret. The patrol groups were supposed to spy on the patrol routes to track what shinobi from which villages were passing through. Rice had border's with Hot Water, Fire, and some land that that no one inhabited or accurately name. Kiyomori called it the Cursed Lands, Ayame called it the Graveyard and Orochimaru rolled his eyes each time and basically called it that place over there.

Eventually I got tired enough that I took a nap in the hammock. When I woke up from my nap I was on one of the beds in the Aviary. I pulled the pillow out from under my head and screamed into it before using my seal to find Orochimaru.

He felt far. Really far. Not like in another room but far. His chakra felt alert but I didn't sense anything like fear or urgency.

Daisuke was suddenly leaning over me. "Shh, It's okay, Princess. Orochimaru-sama dropped you off while you were sleeping. Why don't you come have lunch with us?"

"He left me," I sniffled and rubbed at my face with my sleeve.

"He'll come back, Princess. Aren't you hungry? We're having udon today." He held his hand out.

I pushed myself off the bottom bunk and took his hand. He'd better be back. He owed me a kata.