InsaneJournal

The state of General Sephiroth's desk came as something of a surprise to Nesa when she stopped in to drop off the requested personnel folders.

"General Sephiroth?" she said, looking at the uncharacteristic disorder in the office. "I've brought those files you asked for. Although I don't quite know where to put them." The desk was covered in folders, reports, printouts, and requests for this, that and the other thing.

The General looked up at her. "Put them anywhere. I'll get to them some time in the next month or two." He sighed. "Miss Conway, maybe you can tell me - does paper breed?"

Nesa sternly repressed the smile that wanted to break loose. Most of the SOLDIER officers weren't at their best when it came to the paperwork which went with the job. Looked as though the Silver General was one of them. "Not to the best of my knowledge." She took another look at the papers she could see on the desk. One of them looked familiar. "Excuse me," she said, picking it up. It was familiar. "General, why are you countersigning stationery requisitions for the troopers barracks?"

"Is that what it's for?" The sigh from the man explained the problem in no uncertain terms. "I have no idea why my signature is required, Miss Conway."

"It's Nesa," she corrected, "and to be quite honest, I doubt your signature is required for this. If I may, I'd like to check through some of the other items here. You may have a few more things which aren't your worry in amongst the pile."


Zack rushed to the General's office, wondering what he was in for now, and scanning his memory to try and figure out which pranks he hadn't paid for in full yet. He wasn't coming up with any - maybe Sephiroth just wanted to get in a dressing-down ahead of time or something. Either way, the summons had been curt, premptory, and definite. He was to get over there now, on the double.

When he reached the office door, he found General Sephiroth pacing back and forth before it, which was unusual. "Sir!" Zack saluted.

"Captain Fair -" the general started, only to be cut off by the door opening.

Nesa looked out at the two of them, wearing her "annoy me now, and I'll make damn certain you wind up assisting the quartermasters with inventory audits for the next six months" face. "Good," she said. "Zack, take the General fishing."

"What?" Zack's face was a picture

"What?" Sephiroth looked completely stunned. Zack took a moment to grin - this appeared to be the first time the General had been exposed to Nesa on the warpath. It took some getting used to.

"Somebody," she said, her voice promising mayhem unbounded for the culprit, "has been using the General's office as a dumping ground for all their unwanted work. I'm in the process of finding out just whom." She paused to glare at Sephiroth. "Unfortunately, I can't do it anywhere near as efficiently with the General standing over my shoulder. So I want you, Zack, to take the General out fishing, or drinking, or anything else. Just keep him out of his office for a day, so I can sort through the backlog and get it sent back to the original owners."

The door to the office banged shut. Zack looked at the General. "Come on, sir," he said. "Let's get out of range, before she explodes."


There seemed to be a pattern here, Nesa decided. From some of the things she'd heard around the office, it was clear General Sephiroth's upbringing had been... unusual. Someone, or from the look of it, several someones, had been deciding to take advantage of this in a most unfair manner. While routing the items in question back to the original culprits was going to be satisfying, she needed to come up with a way of preventing it from happening again.

It was time for a conversation with her boss, a couple of quick words with facilities, and a few internal transfer forms.


By the time the two SOLDIERs returned to the General's office, then located the General's new office (one of the fancy ones with the outer and inner offices), it was well past five o'clock. Nesa was still present, and waiting for the two of them in the "outer office" section of the new office, along with one trolley of paperwork, a dozen file folders, and a couple of pieces of rather official-looking paper.

"Well," she said, "I discovered why you had such a pile of paperwork, General." She pointed to the trolley. "General Heidegger and his aides have been gaming the rules."

"Heidegger?" General Sephiroth looked confused. "What do you mean?"

"Officially a large number of forms require a senior officer to sign off on them, particularly where money is involved. There's no stated rank for a lot of them, so what's been happening is sergeants in the regular forces are passing paperwork to captains, and they pass it to the majors, who pass it to the colonels, who then pass it on to General Heidegger as the most senior officer in the corps. He, meanwhile, has been passing it all sideways to you, which is why you've been working flat out trying to keep up with the stationery requisitions from the troopers' canteen." Nesa frowned. "I've no idea how long this has been happening, but there's forms at the bottom of the pile which date back a year or so, indicating a set trend. So I've arranged a couple of changes to reverse the trend."

She held up the two official-looking forms. "This one is a change to standing orders; it makes you the senior officer for things relating to SOLDIER only. It needs your authorisation, and that of Mr Lazard. You'll note Mr Lazard has already signed it." She pointed out the place to sign, and handed it to the General with a pen.

"What's the other one?" Zack asked.

"It's to prevent this from happening again," Nesa said. She looked at the General sternly. "You need someone to act as your secretary, and screen the paperwork those fools in the troop command are trying to pass to you. So I'm taking on the job. This form," she placed the second one before the General, "authorises my transfer to the position of secretary for a period of six months, as a trial. Whether or not we decide the arrangement continues, I believe I can train General Heidegger's secretary to quit using your office as a way of dealing with the paperwork her boss refuses to manage inside that time."

Sephiroth looked over the second form, studying it carefully. "According to regulations," he said, "all persons who act as secretary for board-level personnel have to be trained as bodyguards. Are you trained as such, Miss Conway?"

Nesa looked straight back at him. "I discussed this with the senior officer of the Turks. He's willing to accept, given who I'd be acting as secretary for, my main role as bodyguard would be to die very noisily and messily, and thus give you all the warning you need. I believe I can manage to do so with my present competencies." She grinned. "Besides, they've arranged training for me. I start tomorrow - with your permission."

"And you have arranged all of this, as well as the office move, while still performing your normal duties?" Sephiroth was looking impressed.

"My normal duties consist of ensuring everything runs smoothly for the majority of SOLDIER. I can do so just as well from here as from Lazard's office. Besides, he needs the discipline of breaking in a new secretary - he was starting to get cocky." She looked calmly at the General. "So, do I get the job?"

Sephiroth looked at the woman before him, and then through the doorway to the desk in the centre of his private office. The clean desk. "Where do I sign?" he asked.

Inspired by: The root inspiration for this came from "Enough is Enough" by Kemis over on IJ. The notion of how such a situation would be tackled in the Nesa-verse appealed to me, and I decided to see what she'd do about it. This sprang out. I think there's another fic in there somewhere about what happened with the boys, but both Zack and the General are keeping quiet about it for now.