A shinobi's greatest ally is the darkness. An excuse I wished I had come up with when I was programming back in my previous life. My “office” was dark as I had kept the lights off and the blinds closed all day affectively turning my apartment into a cave. The only light source was a single bulb over the stove in the kitchen.

In my defense, my eyes where closed as I focused on channeling Chakra through the prosthetic limb. The clicking of mechanical joints sounding random to anyone listening to it but myself. The fingers of the arm I held going through motions as I muttered to myself naming the signs.

I could have easily spent hours working alone in the darkness with only a marginal benefit but the approach of a familiar Chakra signature disrupted my focus. Surprised by who it was I defaulted to the military signal I used during the war and chastised myself for using it. The war had ended two years ago despite what the Cloud village said and if my meta knowledge was still good the fourth great ninja war was still nearly two decades away.

I received the Chakra response and walked to the door. Careful not to step on the piles of paperwork I had scattered on the floor I opened the door and used my hand to shield my eyes from the mourning sun. In my doorway was one of the most important ninjas in all of Shinobi history.

“If you have come to me because your pee burns, then go to a clinic,” I said while walking back inside leaving the door open.

“Don’t greet me like that, Is that any way to treat a man such as I,” Jiraiya said entering my home without closing the door behind him. With a minor thought, I manipulated one of the many bandages wrapped around my body to reach across the room and close the door. “Oh, I barely felt you do that,” Jiraiya said commenting on my Chakra control.

“Thank you, but a compliment so early makes me think you want something. Also, don’t step on anything important.” I said gesturing to the documents on the floor and every flat surface within a twelve-foot radius of my desk.

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“Which of these is important?” Jiraiya asked reasonably.

Taking a few seconds to look at and categorize all of the paperwork I huffed and freed a dozen bandages from my person and had them seek out all the paperwork. As if they were made of duct tape they stuck to their targets just to pull them along to another. Within a handful of seconds, my office which looked like a crime scene from a violent robbery now was neat and tidy.

The only evidence of the previous state of my office was the desk that still had a prostatic arm on it and the look of genuine respect on Jiraiya’s face. “I don’t think even Tsunade could perform the same feat as fast.” He said with a nod. While nodding his head he noticed the arm on my desk. “What’s that?”

“This, it’s a prosthetic arm made by puppet master Chiyo. She lent me it to study.” The arm in question was now revealed in the bright mourning light thanks to my opening some of the blinds in the room was as pale as ivory and was a beautiful work of art as well as a dangerous weapon for war.

“Hmm, Anything good so far,” Jiraiya said feigning interest in my work to avoid the real topic he wished to discuss.

“Yes actually.” Taking any opportunity to discuss my work. “The idea of this thing is to replace a shinobis arm, or more precisely his fingers so that they can perform the hand signs to perform a jutsu,” I said channeling Chakra through the prosthetic limb to perform the motions of Dragon, horse, and ox in a second. Those signs being more complicated for academy students to learn.

“I can see how that’s useful.”

“Yes, well I’m trying to make it more of a preprogrammed set of hand signs like how I use fuinjutsu to speed up the process of casting a jutsu.” I activated the program I had been working on before Jiraiya entered and the hand rapidly performed all 12 hand signs in the same time it took to perform the previous three.

Jiraiya visibly winced at the imagined pain on not just the user's fingers if someone tried to do hand signs that fast but on their Chakra network being forced to accommodate such rapid changes. “As you can probably guess, I have had setbacks on my research, but also a somewhat steady amount of progress.”

“Impressive.” Jiraiya nodded his head in a way that I could tell he wanted to bring up the subject he originally wished to discuss. “I came here to check up on you. You are the first ever long-term ambassador we have had and wanted to see your progress with my own eyes.”

I nodded in understanding as I made my way to the screen doors off to the side of my office. Opening them led to the spacious balcony with a large table and a half dozen chairs lined around it overlooking the sand village. “I like to believe I have had a positive impact,” I said looking out at the giant yet gently flowing waterfall leading to a lake at the center of the oasis surrounded with lush greenery that was the village hidden in the sand.