Orochimama

Kabuto looked over the small staging area with satisfaction. Orochitama's insights into the "atomic structure", as she called it, had been doing great work for multiple projects, but Ayasugi had received some manner of inspiration from the information and made several large leaps in metallurgy and chemistry that in turn led to several knock-on effects with other scientists. Transparency and the sharing of knowledge had continued to show dividends beyond what he had ever expected. Most of the remaining scientists from the days of Sound had either whole heartedly embraced the new academic culture that seemed to provide a new treasure every week; there were those that had still grumbled at their lack of access to human test subjects, but the ones that couldn't help themselves had managed to cross the line and been permanently handled.

Kabuto often wondered just how far ahead Orochitama had predicted the rapidly changing culture of the scientists. He couldn't decide if it was just what they would have grown into in a more healthy environment, or if it had been a masterful example of manipulation. Hell, he had several times brought her their latest work that he was certain was groundbreaking the world over and that it was beyond what most minds would think was possible, only for Orochitama to already have a name for the invention on sight. He was certain that she hadn't come up with the name on the spot, but instead would respond as though it had been something she was already intimately aware of.

Part of him suspected she could divine the future, but he wasn't willing to commit to it. It sounded ridiculous but far too often that seemed to be the only explanation for the woman's behaviors.

"How goes the development, Kabuto? Are we going to meet deadlines?"

He suppressed a jump of surprise and refrained from rolling his eyes in irritation. She'd managed to spot a flash of irritation from him when sneaking up on him once and seemed to now take great pleasure in spooking him at each of their meetings.

She was teasing him. An odd development considering she'd also dropped the "kun" suffix from his name that she had previously said with a teasing tone. There was some acknowledgement of a change in their dynamic. She was removing herself from the position of a superior to him. She was less and less speaking to him as a maternal or authority figure and had been trying to instead speak to him as a peer.

An odd decision after she'd earned his undying loyalty.

"Orochitama-sama." He greeted. "We have managed to find several ways to increase the signal strength as well as how to make the system more physically durable. Ayasugi in particular seems to have found a gold alloy that shows great promise in all our electronic efforts going forward. However, as we continue it has become more and more clear that fabrication is going to be a major issue for a lot of your plans. To increase the scale of production to what you want we would have to make large factories of workers that will undoubtedly be destroyed by rival villages."

She walked up next to him to gaze out at all the workers. Dozens of projectors and audio outputs were in various stages of construction with dozens more already assembled at the back.