00180. The Hands new direction.

    After the family summer vacation a couple things happened. The first one was Jacob and Ben started looking for new employees to hire. With all the new equipment it was time to hire people who were skilled with it. They didn''t want to mess with the current harmony they had in the shop so they took their time to find people and interviewed each of them.

    As for Theo he ended up having to do a lot of work to make sure the people he wanted had interviews. Sure they didn''t have as much experience as some of the other people Jacob interviewed. But Theo made sure they would be able to work and jell with everyone in the shop. It helped that they were all ninjas and had spy and infiltration training, which helped a lot. They also all had an interest in cars and the type of work they would be doing.

    It took almost the rest of the summer but Jacob and Ben finally hired the people they wanted for the shop. Minato and Kushina were hired as paint specialists and could do a lot of really custom artwork and pinstriping. Their skills with fuinjutsu made some of the work like pinstriping very easy for them to pick up and master after the memories were implanted.

    Next was metal fabrication which turned out to be a blacksmith who was famous for making chakra blades. His skills with blacksmithing and the knowledge he gained with the help from Inoichi made him adapt quickly. He was actually one of the most skilled people Jacob ended up hiring and would help save a lot of time when it came to metal work. Sure he had to learn how to use more modern tools, but a hammer and anvil were still one of the tools used for metal fabrication even in this day and age.

    The next person who was hired was a Nara clan member. She was pretty lazy like most Nara but she enjoyed building things and liked computers. Once she discovered CAD and how she could make things without much effort it was over and she was hooked. After the experience she gained, some cramming to learn a few things in math and other subjects, she easily passed all tests Jacob had for her. She was mostly in charge of the CNC machines, plasma cutter and milling machine. She would also use CAD to help mockup designs for projects going forward.

    A good welder was next on the list and the person they found was Sasori. While he was new to welding, he was technically an amazing engineer. All the puppets he created and designed throughout his life were hand made with simple tools. It took a lot of passion and creative engineering to produce his puppets and he brought that enthusiasm into welding. He also learned CAD and a few other things which made him a great addition to the shop.

    They followed Sasori up with an upholstery specialist, since they planned to do everything in house from now on to control quality better. As for the person they hired, it was one of the crafters who was originally a clothing maker for ninjas. They worked with all types of material from cloth to leather and everything the ninja world could produce. Upholstery work for cars would obviously be different from making clothes, but it wasn’t a major departure and they picked it up quickly along with the implanted memories they copied from other upholstery specialists in the industry.

    The last person they hired was an electrical specialist for wiring and other types of issues. Darui, the person who was supposed to be the fifth Raikage, ended up with the job. While his lightning release wouldn’t help him much with work, he actually had a talent for electrical wiring and was interested in cars. With the memories he was granted and practice he was easily hired after Jacob and Ben gave him a working interview. It was actually something they did for everyone, since they wanted to make sure everyone was skilled in what they said they can do. It also helped that Theo took photos of the practice projects he had everyone work on to gain practical experience and had them use that for a work portfolio.

    With the shop almost fully staffed near the end of summer and Theo happy that the people he wanted were hired. He focused back on other issues, mainly the dismantling of the Hand. The fingers, under watch from Theo and his helpers, systematically dismantled and consolidated the Hand into a new group. The problematic members after some debate were disposed of since most of them had no morals and did things that weren’t redeemable. Sure they were conditioned to be that way, but they were pretty much broken and beyond saving at that point.

    The next group of people were the ones that might have killed people before, but still had some humanity left. Theo had Yamanaka clan members help them out and work to deprogram them and save them. Some ended up breaking and Theo was forced to put them down, but most of them were saved. Theo still wanted them to atone for what they did so he assigned them to work as ‘nameless’ heroes who would go around fighting crime. They were all skilled fighters so Theo figured why waste their talents.

    The last group and also the largest was the recruitment organizations spread all over the world. Besides the people who ran them and maybe a helper or two, no one knew what their true purpose was for. Since they were mostly designed to bring in wayward kids and find feature members for the Hand. Well, Theo kind of kept that the same expect he added to it. Instead of focusing on just teaching kids how to fight, he expanded the programs and gave them more people to help kids and the communities around them.

    Sure they taught martial arts, but now they had programs to help kids study after school. For older kids they helped them figure out what career path they might want to choose. They would also help teens to prepare for college, or find work internships for teens that wanted to go into trades. They set up food and clothing drives for the underprivileged people in their areas and would help people find jobs. The programs also helped older people learn new skills for free so they could get better paying jobs.

    “What do you want?”

    Ezekiel focused on the camera as he said, “I would like you guys to stop harassing the former members of the Hand.”

    “We can not do that.”

    Ezekiel raised an eyebrow and asked in an annoyed tone, “And why not?”

    “Because they are the Hand and we are the Chaste. Our purpose is to destroy the Hand.”

    Ezekiel shook his head as he said, “I already told you, they are no longer the Hand and under my leadership now.”

    “What about the five fingers? Where are they?”

    “Taken care of after they transferred leadership to me.” Ezekiel said with a smirk.

    “So you’re the current leader of the Hand?”

    Ezekiel nodded slightly as he said, “Yes, after I cleaned house I took over leadership of what was left.”

    “Then that makes things much easier.”

    “Why do you...” Ezekiel didn’t get to finish his question as the warehouse around him exploded.

    The warehouse itself was completely leveled to the ground and most of the warehouses around it were also destroyed. Car alarms and animals could be heard for several blocks around the area from the noise of the blast and almost all windows within a certain distance were shattered. Ezekiel for his part was perfectly fine as he stood in the fire and rubble of the building. A magical shield flashed around his body as the flames touched it sometimes. Ezekiel glanced around the destroyed warehouse for a moment before he created a portal and disappeared. It looked like he would need to be a little more forceful with the Chaste going forward.