Furiko~
5;
'You're not the dummy part of me. You're the boring part.' We groan—for different reasons—in unison. It isn't hard to be bored after spending the last eight hours reading reports—filled with words that I do not know how to read, I might add. The only solstice I can take in these piles of paperwork is how disillusioned with the world and humanity Azula is becoming with each case we deduce.
Touching my cheek with one hand with utter tenderness brings an entirely new sensation to our skin. You know that phenomenon when you touch your skin, you feel little because it's you, right? And if someone else touches that same place, suddenly you're feeling a hundred different things you aren't ready to feel… I don't even remember what it's called.
It works though, for us. If my influence moves that hand, I can feel the nerves lighting up as if on fire within us as a part of Azula's reactions. It's… I guess it would be weird to say that I felt like I was pleasuring myself, in a totally platonic way? How little human contact Azula must have, to be left shivering, breathing hard, and with butterflies and a quivering heart, just from such simple, tender touching? It helps that she's so young, and thus she has not yet lived long enough to be desensitized. 'Would the boring part of you really bring you so many new experiences? I'm the part of you that compliments you; we are marvelous already, but together, more so.'
"You say that, but all we're doing is depressing ourselves," Azula complains with a grumble.
We are in the main offices of the barracks, which we have on lease for the next week, before we set off on our first mission, whatever that may be. There is no one here, but if we speak loud enough, our adjutants Dai and Sho will charge in. Sho is still too eager and unbroken, and her older sister still acts too superior.
We will have to fix that eventually.
"Fine, fine, let's look back at the Omashu report," We turn back to the pile. This is the reports of new, dissident activity that is occurring, where there is also the greatest opportunity.
"Omashu…" Azula's eyes flicker over it. She reads faster than me. I am practiced in simplified Chinese, but the script being used to this day is still traditional, and thus I have to decipher so many words. Some do not even exist. Did you know badgermole in this language is not written as 'badger and mole', but as one entirely new word that does not exist in Chinese? Azula finishes skimming the page before I finish the third paragraph. "I see… not much. We haven't conquered the place, and it only sells a trickle of weaponry to the Red-Omashu Trade Company. What is it that I missed?"
'Money. Follow the money.' I point our eyes towards the profits.
'What of it? They make great profit for… so few shipments…' She begins to see, but not completely.
'And? What do they sell to Omashu?' I prod on.
'Cabbages and fish, but that isn't too strange. Omashu is mostly a mountainous region with little farmland, if it is closed off… but then they have their underground mazes for sneaking in.' Our forehead creases with a frown. 'So? They're extorting the enemy civilians. That isn't…'
I find myself chuckling, "Come now. Do you see the profit numbers? Converted on current market prices from the fish lost per shipment in the Crescent Island Pirates report, the price of the lost cabbages alleged by the cabbage merchant's complaints, and look at the profits… see this?" I scribble down some numbers in cursive Chinese. "With an operational input of 2,500 kilograms of silver and the costs of 15 kilograms per year, they issue a profit of 750 kilograms this year. They report it as… look, the Red-Omashu Trading Company has stock trading in the Capital, and it lists a constant growth of a three-year growth pattern of 33%, 35%, 28%, and 39% every quarter. This might be so for the first operating year, but for the past twenty eight years and consistently?"
"… What are you… what are we getting at?" Our eyes sharpen and squint.
I want to scream Ponzi scheme, but we have no proof. This can be big… because the company is making quite a few other established trading companies upset by shaking up the established, relatively peaceful way of things in the court, and with the new money flooding in from somewhere, they will need to take an aggressive stance on the war to maintain the façade, even if these are real profits.
No, people constantly pushing for war, and thus establishing a blossoming military industrial complex outside of our reach is never a good thing…
"We should investigate them," I mutter cautiously.
"That isn't easy. War Minister Qin is one of their major shareholders," Azula notes. But her interest is piqued. She licks our lips. "This can be interesting."
"If our intuition is right, then outing a corrupt bureaucrat will show our prowess to everyone in the court. This would not be fighting prowess, but the prowess of administration." I keep to myself that even if we don't find what we do go in for, there is the matter that they don't even use double-entry, so there's going to be someone laundering money. Considering that they are also a trading company that operates in a warzone which the Fire Nation only controls about 18% of the province…
Well, even if not this, we'll find someone doing something bad.
'This still feels like something beneath me,' Azula sighs after we pen in our intentions.
'Of course it is. But just because a bug is beneath you, it does not mean mosquitoes will not bite you.' When in doubt, agree. Always agree. Agreeing is the best way to show that you are so similar, in addition to sharing the same body and voice, even inside the head.
'We should squash the bug then.' Blue fire blossoms in our fingertip.
I quench it, having come to understand the usage of flames better now. At the very least, I can control the Qi within, even if I can't produce as powerful flames as Azula. 'If we go in, killing everyone, burning down all of their operations bases…'
'I'm not stupid,' Azula rolls our eyes. I'm so proud; she learned that gesture from me just after three times.
'But if we have irrefutable proof?' I ask, allowing her to form the idea on her own and believe it hers.
'Then father will allow us free reign over these traitors.'
Well, close enough.
Really, do we even have time to torture financial thieves, of all people? I sigh as we set to work immediately. There is a lot to do, after all, to coordinate our efforts.
The best skill which I impart onto Azula, or so I hope, is the ability to delegate and manage our resources. Of the one hundred and twenty members of our fledgling organization, forty-seven are fire benders. Fifteen of the one hundred and twenty are officers of one kind or another, logistics, tactics, cavalry, navy, night-fighting, resource management, paperwork and that sort of secretarial aide. It's a good number for training the rest.
Fifty of my girls are sixteen year old trainees entering for the sake of combat trained in fighting on ships, cavalry, and in darkness. Ten of them are non-bending archery specialists. Of the rest, fifteen are artists, artistic craftsgirls, secretaries, and the sort with miscellaneous skills. Ten more are originally career bureaucrats, from moderately well-off merchant families. These ninety are all educated finely with our Fire Nation's academies in combat, mathematics, scripts, history, and basic engineering and sciences, though some of them will not see combat at all.
The remaining thirty are more common girls chosen because they only attended basic schooling for mathematics and language, but their family had no money to pay for advanced schooling. They are our girlpower. I refuse to use the term 'manpower' for them! Anyway, they volunteer for several years in the local militia to have some funds for themselves, but now they have a purpose.
All of them have spent at least six years in informal training and four in formal training and drilling 'self-defense'. In the Fire Nation, our girls are as skilled in combat as our boys, after all. The entire structure of our numbers is that a vast majority of us are more educated than the average citizen. And that is what we want; we will use every force multiplier in every way available to us, for every operation. And it is such a waste to throw my girls into a meat grinder…
… And more importantly, with experience and training, we can become a much more formidable group operating within the system.
"Sho, Dai," We call. "Li, Lo."
They enter. Sho hops in, while Dai saunters in, as if she owned the place. I have little doubts that her family actually does own this barracks. The two older crones come to our side quicker, but no less haughty. It's also as if they are instructed to pressure Azula into working for impossible perfection.
"Princess Azula," They bow, as is customary.
I hold up the gold case, immediately giving my words the authority of the Fire Lord, rather than the Fire Princess. "Li, Lo, you will instruct, but not obstruct. Have twenty girls be given new identities, from every corner of the Fire Nation. They are to become employees in the Red-Omashu Trading Company. Get our officers to have dossiers made of everyone in the company, I want profiles of everyone from janitors to the Chairman Sato. I want to know what their vices are, when and where they sleep, and their every secret. Be discrete. This is on your heads."
Shenwu Li and Lo bow, receiving the word of the Fire Lord and do not dare question Ozai. I do not let go of the scroll, and thus they do not dare question us yet. But we know their questions. They will ask why do we target the complaint filer rather than the general in charge of pacifying the region, or just go straight for seeking out the rebels in the region. They think so small, and they think we do not read between the lines.
"Why bother?" Dai whispers to Sho.
They giggle like the teenage mean girls that they probably are. Or maybe they aren't, but they certainly picked it up somewhere.
Our glimmering, golden eyes dart towards them.
Something snaps within me.
They think just because they are older and stronger, they can expect any sort of groveling from me that they have had from all their underclassmen back in their little provincial island? Or do they think that they do not need to be serious, here in private, with a ten-year-old princess?
Azula takes us forward a step, but I nearly growl, causing blue embers to leak from the corners of our lips. "Dai, you seem to not understand the reports you brought me this morning. According to the intelligence gathered by the three neighboring trade companies, the Red-Omashu Trading Company earns every three months about as much as half of the city of Omashu does in a year. How long do you think it will take for them to have the money to simply buy the court into invading Omashu and expand to hide their indiscretions that will soon cause their entire structure to fall apart if they do nothing? I give them five years. Two years, if they aren't airheads like you two are acting like."
She titters back, as if I am speaking a foreign language to her.
Maybe I am.
"Then again, it seems like all I've done all day is spend my hours pent up in this office." Azula stretches us a little, making the most comfortable feelings to happen in our body. 'I'm going to do it.'
'… Fine. Don't overdo it. Scarring isn't pretty.'
'Of course!'
"Come, Dai, Sho," We beckon as we step into the courtyard where our girls are drilling. "It seems I must first prove myself. This can be a good learning experience for us all."
It certainly will be educational for every one of them.
