Naruto: Eroninja

Why Me: Part III

Chapter 27: Why Me: Part III

Karin felt a little nervous as she neared the bridge that connected Wave Country to the Land of Fire. The primary reason for it was she didn't want to disappoint Naruto. But also she didn't want to be a flop in her first outing as president of The Great Tree Shipping Company. She knew Naruto wouldn't hold it against her if she failed but she still wanted to prove she was the right person for the job. Although she knew Kyuubi had picked her due to her experience running one of Orochimaru's research bases. She had quickly learned doing that was almost completely different then running a company. For one, there was no profit motive when she had run one of the Northern bases. If she was running low on a particular item all she needed to do was send a request to the person in charge of sending supplies to the various bases and she'd receive what she needed. All without worrying about how much it cost since for all intents and purposes Orochimaru had ruled Rice Paddy Country so almost all of the taxes collected went to his projects. Now on the other hand if the company was short of something then she would need to find a way to get it all the while balancing cost against quality.

That was one reason she needed to be extremely smart about how she went about trying to buy the hotel. Truthfully with the limited resources at her disposal she probably wouldn't even have stood a chance if not for the fact the people of Wave so feared another Gato popping up they demanded the sale of the property be through an auction. Their hope was that an auction would prevent the remnants of Gato's old company from once more joining into one large company through the competition such a means of offloading the property would create. Gato's old company wasn't exactly pleased with such an arrangement, but since Gato's demise it had been hovering on the brink of dissolution. The reason for this was naturally due to the people of Wave boycotting the company. Still those that had taken over had desperately tried to prevent this, but Gato's putting so much stock in his monopoly had all but guaranteed that once bridge had been built they would be finished. The Whirling Tides Manor represented the last major asset they had before shutting their doors.

In truth Karin had no idea as to what Gato had hoped to gain by bankrupting Wave as it seemed such a one dimensional plan. After all, by making the people of Wave poorer it all but guaranteed that they would eventually be unable to pay, which in turn would guarantee his company's demise in turn when there was nothing left to take from what amounted as his only major customers. Karin just couldn't imagine what his goal was or how he hoped to profit from it in the long term.

Gato's actions also had negative consequences for her strategies for Wave, which was another reason buying the hotel was so important. Naturally after having a company like Gato's move in and then try to destroy their home economically the people of Wave tended to frown on new company's arriving from outside of their country. They had no problem if the businesses were homegrown, but she had quickly learned that trying to open a branch office in Wave would cause so many headaches as to not be worth it. That was why she hoped that upon buying and rehabilitating the old property the people of Wave would come to welcome their presence.

If she could pull that off then she believed Wave would be a first step towards getting a foothold into Water Country and by extension Kirigakure. As an island country, The Land of Water found itself in much the same situation as Wave had before the bridge had been built. There wasn't a megalomaniac trying to bankrupt the country, but due to its location the many companies that shipped goods there tended to charge far higher prices to send in food and other things the island needed. Karin, planned to undercut those companies, but lacked the one thing she needed, a company office with access to a large port. The only place that would work was Wave due to the demise of Gato's company and the inability of a new one to takes its place. If she could gain the people's trust enough she would be able to gain access to the port he had built without having to invest massive resources to build one herself. Not to mention she'd have practically no competition something she wouldn't be able to say if she set up shop anywhere else. If she pulled her plans off she could see Wave becoming a massive transportation hub that would supply almost all of Water and Sea Country's needs, as well as the other small island ones.