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If Weasel's word was one thing to believe in, then the intel sitting on Tern's desk was another thing that gave her hope it was going to be different this time. She thought she was in for a trial-by-fire where she would be left to fend for herself, but it seemed Ratel was telling the truth about working together because he had provided her with credible information about a potential ROOT associate that she was to build a case against.
Everyone in the squad knew that Ratel controlled the flow of information within the anti-ROOT initiative by virtue of supplying the majority of the intel used by the initiative.
It wasn't just her. He had given the rest of the squad the information they needed to get started within the Hidden Leaf Village, using the authority granted to them by being on the "Ratel assassination attempt" case.
She was even allowed access to an analyst from the Leaf Intelligence Division's Analyst Team assigned to the squad, who would give her requests priority over the rest of the squad. It was already more help than she had seen in the last two years. She felt lighter than she had since ROOT's exodus, as for once, everything seemed to be going up rather than down.
But there was one thing that bothered her. She glanced out of her office at the noisy bullpen and stood up to walk to her door.
She hadn't thought much about the number of desks in the bullpen that outnumbered the staff attached to the team, and simply thought that the office administrator had sent more by mistake. When the staff set up the extra desks instead of stacking them in a corner for someone to pick up, she was too stressed about her future in the squad for it to enter her mind. Today, she understood it wasn't a mistake in the first place when she saw half a dozen clones of Ratel working around the bullpen.
A section of the floor was reserved for them as clones used the extra desks as their workstations. She had passed by the meeting room and saw a time slot reservation after lunch by "Ratel and clones".
She wasn't the only one taken aback.
The staff and operatives chatted about it in the snack room.
"Did you know about this?" Mor asked Boobook.
She shook her head as she sipped her coffee. They looked at Goshiro, the head of staff, who also denied knowing about it.
Some thought that he was using clones because he wanted to help the squad get established as soon as possible, but the clones seemed far too comfortable working with each other for it to be something he did rarely.
"But, I guess it makes sense. If he works like this regularly, he's a freak," Boobook said.
"You have to be careful with this stuff," Tern commented as she gazed at two clones arguing with each other. "More often than not, people will look at someone doing a good job and instead of praising them, they will dump more work on them… Imagine what a squad leader or a lieutenant like that would do if they found one of their operatives could shit out clones."
The others nodded in agreement. ANBU was just like any other workplace. One's time at work heavily depended on who their manager was. People who worked under someone who viewed them as labour to be squeezed for work as hard as possible would have a terrible time.
"And once the boss does that, there will be at least one fucker on the team who will try to push some of their work on you. If you make the mistake of helping out, that's opening something you don't want to. Even if the others are understanding at the start, eventually, they'll become desensitised, stop caring and start doing the same."
Tern spoke from experience, and her tone made it so others knew that as well.
"Looks like he was lucky with his previous squad," Mor said as he blew on his hot tea.
"…Or maybe he wasn't," Goshiro commented.
The others didn't have anything to say in response.
However, over the week, everyone came to the horrifying realisation that Ratel's clones weren't a special case; it was something he did every day—and that he had done it so much that he had optimised his work life around it. Ratel created a shadow clone, and then they created a few water clones each. For some reason, he had a time limit for his shadow clone—so to make the most out of the clones' time, he took his lunch late. He had created a system of effective communication and was absurdly good at note-taking—through those skills, he knew what every clone had done during the day before they were dismissed.
And then they learned something more concerning,
"You can't force clones to do something they don't want to," Aquilla said. He had mentioned it to his family, and someone familiar with clones had told him that lesser-known fact.
Then people began to notice other things about their boss. Ratel came in early and left late. He—and his clones—took the bare-minimum breaks and kept themselves busy. He was invested and wanted to know what they were doing, and because he used clones, instead of update-meetings, he talked to people individually, allowing him to know things better because he could spend a bit more time on each person without wasting anyone else's time. That enabled him to run a smooth ship by helping coordinate everyone's efforts at a high level. He was much more involved than other squad leaders, but never micromanaged.
At first, everyone was happy. Their boss was doing a good job at running the team, and he was also a hard worker, working on his own cases.
But then, things began to turn as a thought entered their minds.
Was he expecting them to work as hard as he did?
Watching their boss work hard motivated them to work hard as well, but almost instantly, it turned from motivation to pressure. Seeing all the clones work hard and long became too much. They could only do so much—they only wanted to do so much because it couldn't be any clearer that Ratel was a workaholic.
They felt trapped. The clones worked in the bullpen, so it felt as though their boss had eyes on them constantly, making them conscious of what they were doing all the time.
Operatives had the liberty to come and go from the office according to the needs of their work, but the desk-bound staff members found it difficult to leave work on time when the boss was working late almost every day. However, they couldn't say anything. Complaining a few weeks into the formation of the squad wasn't an option.
How would Ratel feel about that? What if the word reached Weasel, whose impression would be formed by Ratel's word? What if it reached Stag? The ANBU Commander had personally visited their offices—something he rarely did, even with captains, as they all visited him.
So, they simmered in silence until Ratel called a Monday morning all-hands meeting.
"You're all idiots." Ratel started the meeting with a sigh. "It should be obvious that you don't compete with a team of clones, and trying to do so is foolish. Putting in more hours doesn't guarantee better results, let alone positive ones. In the end, all that matters is getting the job done. Everyone has their own process, so stick to it while making sure you don't unnecessarily inconvenience others. But we will have a problem if you perform poorly, so work smarter, not harder. It's one of my goals to make us into the best squad in ANBU.
"Now, I'll admit, I didn't see this coming, or else I would've dealt with it much sooner. And since none of you said anything to me, the resolution was only delayed. I should've expected that as well. I can't believe I'm saying this, but we need HR."
Everyone in the room looked at each other to see if anyone understood what he was saying.
"From now on, if anyone has a problem and they don't want to say it straight to my face—which I don't mind—they can discuss it with Goshiro. He will listen to your problems before bringing them to me, anonymously."
The tension in the room drained visibly when Ratel made it clear that he wasn't expecting them to run themselves ragged. He even proposed a delayed-shift system in which a different staff member each day of the week would come in later than others, so they could stay late to support any operative working after hours.
Not all problems were solved. The presence of clones was still a point of pressure, but everyone understood that not everything could be resolved instantly. They were satisfied that he had acknowledged the problem and even set up the "HR" system with Goshiro to discuss more problems.
"However," Ratel's voice cut through the relieved chatter, "heed my words because this is a warning: I will not stop using clones… I believe I'm better than you; my clones are better than you." He didn't care about the frowns in the room and continued. "I said: Work smarter, not harder—but I work longer, harder, and smarter than you, and so do each one of my clones. You'll quickly realise that I will outperform each and every one of you, and I'm confident in that claim… Be careful because if you don't produce impressive results, you might find me overshadowing the rest of the squad collectively—that there's such a big gap between what I did and what you managed to do individually, that even if your work is good by normal standards, it might pale when put next to mine."
Even though he addressed the entire squad, the five operatives knew he was talking to them.
"If you're not careful, I might just end up drowning you," Ratel said with a smidge of smugness as though he was taunting them from a position of superiority.
It happened often in anything that could be compared. If two theatrical plays were released simultaneously, and one of them was good but the second was groundbreaking, then most people would choose to watch the second one and thus would shower it with love, sing its praise, and recommend it all the while the other would fail to garner much attention, even if it were splendid enough to be the talk of the town if it were released at any other time.
He was the squad leader, and they were his operatives. They would know about their contributions, but outsiders would be blind to them because when others talked about their squad, they talked about "Ratel's squad". Unless the operatives managed to get their names out there, no one would know about them. Ratel's name was the barrier, and if that name got bigger, the barrier they would need to break through would grow thicker.
Ratel gazed over the room, and Tern knew she wasn't overthinking when she saw his gaze linger in her direction briefly.
Was it a warning, threat, or friendly reminder?
It was whatever the one listening to it thought it to be, but one thing was clear: Ratel's squad was going to be a good place to work, but it wasn't going to be the chair next to a fireplace in a snowstorm.
He had set the tone.
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The link is in the synopsis!