Pleased to not only have survived his little foray outside of his nation but to have been pretty productive and been saved a trip to the deserts, Hiromasa entered his complex, a wide grin on his face. "Getting used to being a kage, sir?" one of the guards asked as he walked by. "So far so good my friend, so far so good. Any luck and it'll stay that way, but I've got preparations to make just in case luck isn't enough. Hopefully soon enough I'll be worthy of my new title and I won't need to wear this horrible hat for people to recognize me," The Korikage replied, pausing to chat with the guards for a moment. "As you will, sir. Know that we will give our lives to make sure you get all the time you need to keep our nation safe." "Sounds like a deal. You do your best to contain the small threats and I'll dedicate myself to averting the big ones. Have a good evening folks."

Feeling even happier with the guards so cordial and such, he walked confidently towards his chambers. It was a little early to be going to bed perhaps, but he felt emotionally drained from even the friendly encounter he'd had earlier. It was tense stuff even when it was going well, diplomacy. He hoped he'd get used to it with time, but for today he was wiped out. As he neared his room, a shadow fell down the hallway before him, and out stepped Maya like a thing from a horror story. "Holy shit there, Maya, startled the hell out of me. Everything go well while I..." His eye widened and a look of despair crossed his face as if someone had just kicked a puppy as he saw a gigantic stack of papers in his assistant's arms. Yes, arms. The stack was piled so high it could not be carried in just one. "Wow. I see you've been busy today, working hard and such...filling out all that paperwork...right? Please say that's not all for me?" He half asked, half pleaded. He settled into a resigned frown when Maya simply shook her head and he thought he caught a trace of a smile.


"I can do many things for you, Lord Kage, but some things simply require your hand, and there are quite a few things to be established in our young village yet. Many of these are laws suggested by various people of influence, some policies I and others have suggested and that kind of thing. Others are related to the establishment of a more formal Academy for students here, more along the lines of those of other Great Nations with a standardized system of promotions...partly to stop wild promotions like what you yourself experienced-though I'm sure you're going to do well in this position of course, Lord Kage. Not everyone is prepared to be rocketed through the ranks like that, however. Of course, it makes little sense for me to tell you everything you're going to be reading so I'll simply hand these over to you," His assistant said, handing over what had to be at least ten pounds of papers. Not bothering to hide her amusement anymore, she laughed quietly. "If you need any help-with details, explanations or my own advice, I can't sign any of that- I'll be in my quarters. Good luck, Lord Kage."

Left standing there as she walked away chuckling, Hiromasa stared at the seemingly insurmountable task before him and wondered who was really in charge here, casting a glance at his assistant just as she disappeared from view. No sleep for him anytime soon, he thought, as he turned around on his heel and walked back towards his office. Once all this newness settled down he really hoped there were more benefits to being a kage than a sweet office and comfy bed, this was turning into a whole lot of work.

Spoiler:

"In order that prices should remain high and to be able to continue to store high amounts of the healing bacteria of the Hidden Springs, I propose a maximum of 500 vials total be sold to foreign nations every year, allowing the other 4500 annual vials to remain in the possession and use of our own budding nation. This is one of our most valuable national res-" Hiromasa's face hit his desk and he woke up from his bored grogginess. Trying to remember what he'd just read, he squinted at the most recent proposal for a moment before signing it. Keeping the majority of that stuff in-house seemed like a good idea and any sneakiness could be fixed later on if he was being fooled. Taking the paper and setting it atop the sizeable stack he'd mentally labelled "Done" he gasped with horror as he looked at what had yet to be done. Not only was the stack not smaller, but it appeared to have grown considerably!

Reaching up to his face, he pulled back the eyepatch hiding his young sharingan, the single tomoe casting a dull red light across the desk. With a sigh, he pulled the patch back down. Unless it was particularly complex, this was no genjutsu prank or shadow-cloned pile of documents and he started to feel like he might never see the world outside his office again. Maybe he could sneak out for a bit...reaching out with his sensory abilities, he could tell there was no one directly outside the door at least...focusing harder, he could detect all the way to his quarters from here, as well as Maya's right next to them. She was there, and didn't seem to be moving. Asleep maybe? He hoped so as he slowly slid his chair back as if she could hear him all that distance away. Tiptoeing his way across the floor, he opened the door as stealthily as possible, keeping an eye on Maya's location. OPening the first window he came across, he leapt out to his freedom, landing on his feet and dashing down the street cheerfully. Cold air rushed around his body as he sprinted across rooftops, slowly coming around in a circle to climb up the wall to his office. Hopping cheerfully into the window, he came face to face with Maya, who had a book in hand and did not look pleased. He'd totally forgotten about paying attention to the chakra around him in his joyful escape.

"Easy there, Maya. Gotta take a break once in a while or my head'll explode from the insane amount of paper you gave me." Pausing, he got somewhat annoyed. He was the kage here, not her, and having her acting the disciplinarian wasn't how he was going to live the rest of his life defending this village. "At any rate, don't work yourself too hard either. Life's not worth living if you don't spend a good amount of it doing things you enjoy. I'll see you tomorrow." With this, he walked past his assistant back towards his office, smiling. "Lord Kage-" Maya began firmly, only to be interrupted by a dismissive raised hand from Hiromasa.  "You're dismissed, Maya, go enjoy the rest of your book and time off. You can tell me about it tomorrow if you like, but for now I've got worked to do. Have a good night." Unable to contain his mirth, Hiromasa chuckled as he opened the door to his office and stepped inside, unsure if she'd heard the laugh. Settling down in his awesome  sage-bear leather chair, he began going through the paperwork again at a much more efficient pace than previously, carefully reading and approving or disapproving and, in a few cases, tossing papers with completely ridiculous ideas on them into his fireplace. He'd need to develop some sort of screening process, some of these were just absurd.

"Declare War on Konoha as a show of force to the other nations...what the fuck? That's it, Maya's gonna be filtering this crazy out before I see this stuff from now on. Wasting my time isn't much more terrible a thing than that of anyone else, but it's still a waste. Don't have the patience for this nonsense." Still, a lot of the requests seemed to have serious thought and consideration put into them, and Hiromasa tried to respect this and explain his reasonings for whether he approved or disapproved them all, which slowed the process but he hoped would pay off in the long run and make him seen as approachable. He suddenly became aware of Maya's chakra just outside his door and realized he'd begun to passively use his sensory abilities. Nice.



"Whatcha need, Maya?" He called out, smiling widely at the sound of her startled gasp. The door opened slightly, and Maya poked her head in. "...Lord Kage, I just wanted to apologize. As Kage, you are of course allowed to do your work at your own pace. I just wanted to remind you that the whole village is dependent on your guidance and that we are all eager for a better future as a respected village. I'll leave you to your work now, sorry for bothering you." She began to leave, but Hiromasa beckoned her in. "No need to be sorry about it, Maya. I need someone like you to keep me working hard. Just try not to overdo it, eh? As I said earlier, all work and no play makes for a whole lot of crankiness and decreased efficiency as a result. I should be done here in not too long and then I'm going to turn in for the night. Tomorrow's gonna be a busy and probably more violent day, so I'd get some rest if I were you." Maya looked at him, curiosity filling her eyes, but the Korikage had already turned his gaze back to his work, muttering something about sage bears. The office door closed quietly and Maya's chakra passed down the hall, returning to her room.

Spoiler:

"I already declared an open bounty on Sage Bears, what is wrong with these people? I'm not going to declare a full on war against bears, however sagey they may be." Honestly, people want this nation to be great and then turn around and request dumbassery like this and make them a laughing stock. War on bears...maybe another mission could be posted, but not a full-scale war. It occurred to him that nothing was being done with the meat from the bears as far as he knew. Eating a sentient being could be frowned upon he supposed, but sage bears were assholes and they could always use more meat for the stores. He disapproved the request, but made a note about adding some incentives to continue the battle-not war-against their ancient allies.

As if by magic, he looked over at the two stacks of papers and saw that the "incoming" was nearly empty, the "outgoing" now containing almost all of the horrible behemoth that had been his bane for the last...how long? Looking outside, he saw that the daylight he'd entered with had given way to a deep darkness. Son of a bitch getting up wasn't going to be fun a little later. Quickly, but thoroughly going over the last few requests, he placed the final papers on the stack, pulling a piece of paper with a small amount of light adhesive on one side. Drawing a smiley face on it and attaching it to the pile, he carried it over to Maya's smaller office next door, setting it down with a quiet chuckle. Her problem now.

Feeling a combination of exhaustion, antsyness and satisfaction at having completed some of his first mundane tasks in his new position, he trudged towards his quarters heavily. Taking off his shoes, kage robes and setting his hat on a hook prepare for just that purpose, he crawled into bed under the fur of a sage bear. While he enjoyed and wasn't bothered by the cold of his home, there was relaxation to be gained from some degree of warmth canvased against the endless chill. Settling his head on a perfectly firm pillow, he began to think about his plans for tomorrow-or was it later today? If not, it was close to midnight by now. Regardless, he had more things to do and likely more paperwork, though hopefully much, much, much less than today. He'd hardly begun his planning however, when exhaustion overtook him and he fell asleep, rushing through time to the coming events.

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