Great Lakes & Expectations chapter 16

Jiraiya ordered a good amount of cheap beef and absolutely no vegetables. Then he put his filthy elbows on the table. 

‘I can’t believe I have to pretend to be related to you.’ she thought, not without some fondness. He had the manners of a dingo. 

The Hokage was quiet. He was obviously watching her. And probably Momo. 

Shizune looked like she was longing for the grave. 

Regina bumped her companionably when she swiped the menu from her father, directing her to the drink menu. 

Then she ordered some vegetables to go with their pile of gristle. After some thought, she ordered some edible cuts for herself. And tea for the table.

It arrived fairly quickly, which was par for the course when they made you cook your own food. 

Momo initially tried to take over grilling duty, but Jiraiya and the Hokage eyed him like he was a particularly smelly bug. He backed off, with his hands up, and began to admire the utter lack of decor.

Jiraiya took the tongs in a surprisingly aggressive manner and clacked them menacingly. 

Then he proceeded to wave them around while he was talking with the Hokage, and let the meat burn.

Regina watched her pieces of cabbage wither and crumble into ash.

Then she called the waitress back and asked for a second set of tongs. 

The worst part was that Regina was forced to pretend to be a lady while she ate grilled meat, which felt like an insult to her personally. Grilled meat was meant to be enjoyed with abandon. It was the American way.

She tried not to glare at anyone. 

“So, Sensei…” Jiraiya took an entire slab of meat that was intended for sharing and dumped it on his rice, (Regina tried not to twitch) “what are you going to have my beautiful daughter do in the glorious service of Konoha?”

Was this death? She had never really considered working for a military dictatorship. Regina had always kind of seen herself as the dictator, if anything. Not a secretary. 

“We will see, depending on her abilities.” The Sandaime smiled wanly. “I believe that her language ability will need some improvement.”

‘Two things. First, I am going to burn this country to the ground. Second, I have reason to believe the Hokage is a grade-A troll.’

Regina carefully did not react to that, taking another sip of her tea and trying to think calming thoughts. 

If she flipped her lid or defended herself, it wouldn’t look professional. This wasn’t actually a safe place full of friends. And pretending to not know the language as it suited her was actually a significant advantage, so long as she actually understood what was happening. 

There were a limited number of times in her career she’d be able to use the wrong verb form to tell them she didn’t ‘eat’ the Japanese language before someone would catch on. 

If he presumed he couldn’t read her contract and what he’d empowered her to do… he was mostly right. But Momo and Shizune had walked her through every line. 

Technically, she could make any Hokage-level decisions that weren’t military maneuvers. Which would basically be war decisions, anyway, and there wasn’t a war going on. 

The implication was that it was with his expressed approval, but technically there was no real oversight. Who would be able to do that but him?

Shizune leaned forward, shielding her from the Hokage’s view. 

Beautiful, wonderful Shizune. Always looking out. 

‘But not for much longer.’

Regina felt a wave of depression wash over her. God. Jiraiya was definitely going to leave, probably to get more secret mail and distribute softcore porn. And Momo couldn’t stay, either. He had a tiny little kid to watch, and mysterious Momo things to do.

She was going to be so alone. 

She took another sip of tea. She still hated it. It tasted like grass. 

But to be honest, that sounded about right. Everything in her life was garbage. She drank her grass water. 

Her father and her dictator were having a polite conversation about her. She didn’t know whether they were assuming that she couldn’t understand, or that she didn’t have the authority to talk over her supposed father figure. Probably some combination of both. 

She glanced over at the man who’d shown up late to see if he seemed like a candidate for her new squad. He was sitting rigidly straight and staring directly down at his plate. Occasionally, he took nervous glances to where Jiraiya had hidden the book with her face on it. 

He evidently noticed her looking, because he looked up to make eye contact with his one exposed eye. 

He (she assumed by body posture, but couldn’t tell for sure due to the very baggy clothes and face mask) wrinkled up his eye in an obvious attempt at a smile. 

Something tickled at the back of her memory. She shoved it right back down to hell, where it belonged.

She smiled back, but not too wide. He was obviously connected to Jiraiya somehow, so he was an approved person. How much stock she wanted to put in that, she didn’t know. 

Her father was evidently a man who was taught by a dude in a snuggie. His judgement was questionable at best. 

She tried not to think of her past life with Tsunade, and how about now she would have been napping with Tonton in a hot spring without masked weirdos watching.

Momo took the opportunity to start ordering drinks and meat, which was nice of him. He asked her what kinds she liked, and wasn’t startled when she pointed out basically the most expensive things on the menu.

“Himepoi.” He said, in what was definitely a personal joke at her expense. 

“Sou desu,ne.” She said quietly, folding her hands in her lap. “I wouldn’t know. Maybe I’m just very expensive.”

He ordered it all anyway, correctly ascertaining that it was on someone else’s tab. 

Dinner took hours and drug on into the night. By the end, Regina had vaguely settled into Shizune’s side. Shizune was warm. 

Jiraiya and the Hokage were still talking, now exaggeratedly exchanging stories about killing spider people. Oh wait. Cloud people. 

Jiraiya’s friend was obviously wilting, but rapt with attention. 

Momo was now doing math. She didn’t care to acknowledge that discipline in her life, so she ignored it. 

“Onsen after?” She asked Shizune. 

Shizune hummed assent. She was about to drift off into sleep as well. 

Technically, no one could leave until the Hokage did. Even though this wasn’t an official state dinner, it Just Wasn’t Done. 

But also- Regina was bored and tired and she wanted to leave. 

She stood up, and bowed. 

“Excuse my rudeness, Hokage-sama, but I and my companions should leave.” She directed her head to Jiraiya. “Father, if you will excuse me.”

They blinked. 

She took that as a yes and used her thumbs to pull Shizune and Momo up by their collars. 

“Good night.” She bowed again. 

The Hokage bowed back. 

They scarpered. She noted that the dude next to Jiraiya was trying to mouth something at her, but she couldn’t read lips. He would have to find his own way out. 

“I see the family sense of manners has survived intact.” Sensei sipped his tea meaningfully. 

Jiraiya didn’t really feel the need to respond to that. It had been a waiting game from the start, anyway. He’d held them effectively hostage for about five hours, after purposefully attempting to starve them.

He shoved some jou karubi into his mouth. Mmmmmmm. Medium rare. Reji-chan had done a good job.

“She was very polite, actually.” The ends of Sensei’s mouth curled up. “One might say that being raised by her mother was a real benefit.”

“Certainly.” Jiraiya felt a little heart pang at that. It felt like a gross betrayal to lie to his teacher and Kage. But it would probably be worse to let anyone know she wasn’t related to him at all. Danzo might have her dumped in a ditch somewhere. 

Especially since no matter how he tried, he couldn’t figure out how the hell that scroll had picked her up in her jammies and dumped her in a fight to the death.

‘Maybe that attitude she has. She seems to have some people cowed. I doubt Tsunade-hime would have brought her here at all if she was as soft as I’d thought earlier.’

She did seem to want to fight everybody, up to and including God. He really respected that. 

And shit, she still had his vest. He glanced over to his dining companion, who had been twitching in the direction of the very visible book in Jiraiya’s pocket. 

The harder thing was that Jiraiya believed in destiny. Sometimes too much, maybe. And a girl in the right age getting dumped into his life felt more like fate than he was comfortable denying. 

He’d never asked. But maybe, in a way, she was meant to be here? If he’d had a daughter, he would have been pretty happy if she’d turned out like Reji. 

If he’d had any kids with Tsunade, he would have expected someone like Reji who could punch people through walls. Tall, gangly, with big eyes and a bad attitude. 

He got out his money and sent the waitress off with it to pay for dinner.

“I think it is time for me to go home,” Sensei said with amusement. “I will see you tomorrow, perhaps.”

Then he stood and walked out. 

Jiraiya tried not to flinch at how much difficulty Sensei seemed to have in standing and walking. He was too old to be Hokage. It was much harder to pretend otherwise when you were staring at him. 

Of course, Sensei knew that. Which was probably a chunk of the reason he’d used Reji as an excuse to drag both him and Tsunade-hime back to Fire Country. Now he had an emotional connection to exploit. 

Jiraiya respected the ploy even as it coiled around him like one of Orochimaru’s nasty-ass snakes. 

He turned to Hatake, who was feigning polite disengagement. Who was he fooling? He sucked up information like a sponge. 

“Well, Kakashi-kun, how about we go find Rejina and Shizune, make a night of it?” 

The kid startled, looking at him with some mild distrust. To be fair, Jiraiya had only implied that he had to attend dinner in order to receive Literature. 

“How can you look after my beloved daughter if she doesn’t know you? I need someone vaguely responsible to make sure she doesn’t die of papercuts.” 

Jiraiya stood and stretched like a cat. 

Kakashi hadn’t fled, so he knew that the poor kid was locked in. Pitiable little bastard didn’t understand the sunk cost fallacy, evidently.

Shizune woke up quite a bit after they’d left all the smoke, actually. She chattered nonstop on the street. 

Then she stopped. 

Regina stopped, too. What was she looking at?

Oh. It was a bar. ‘Covert… schnapps?’

“You wanna go in?” She asked, sticking out her thumb at the sign. 

Shizune obviously did, but she was working up the nerve to say what she wanted. She hemmed and hawed a bit. 

“I’m going in, then. Maybe someone in our relative age group is in there.” Regina parted the curtain and stalked inside. Evidently they’d invested in some nice stone flooring (probably for cleaning up spills), because her heels made nice, satisfying clacks on the floor.

She took a seat and had a small, smiling staring contest with the bartender before Shizune walked in behind her, sitting at her tiny table. 

Evidently this was a shinobi bar. Everyone had their hitai-ite on. They looked very sharp in both a fashionable and literal sense. 

They were also pointedly not staring, which meant they were definitely watching her. 

God. These people were so rude and weird. 

“Have you been here before?” She asked Shizune idly, swirling the glass of umeshuu she’d ordered first. 

Shizune had not. 

Regina handed her the menu. “Knock yourself out.”

“Zabu- ah, Momo-san said he would wait back at the residence for us.” Shizune said quietly.

That was probably for the best. Regina pointedly looked around at all the prickly little ninja. One of them was holding a glass hard enough that his hand was changing colors.

“Yeah, good call. He probably wants his mandatory ten hours of sleep.”

They tried something called a “Konoha Slammer”, “One Night in Mist”- which seemed to be lit on fire and then drenched in blue liquor, and then a “Sex on the Beach” before her grumpy looking father showed up, with Mr. Me in tow. 

‘Oh, no. That’s where I know him from. I should never drink. I remember things.’

Regina chugged her inappropriately named drink before Jiraiya could ask what it was called. 

He plopped down in a chair he’d stolen from an aggrieved looking man in sweatpants, and stole the next set of drinks going by with the bartender. 

“I have to imagine those were for someone else.” Regina said blandly. “We didn’t order those.”

“It’s fine.” Her father said, dropping them down his maw like nothing. He set the empty glasses on the table with a disrespectful kind of clank. 

‘You animal, glassware is expensive.’

She just gave him a Look. 

He was, as usual, completely unashamed. He flagged down the bartender and ordered a whole bottle of heated sake. 

Shizune seemed to be frozen, hand still tipping her drink into her mouth. 

“Reji, you didn’t finish listening to my war stories.” Jiraiya whined. “They were really cool. Even Sensei was impressed.”

“Maybe you should make me a picture book, then.” Regina ordered two more drinks for her and Shizune. She gestured to Mr. Me, whose real name was still a mystery. He actually ordered a glass and some sake before disappearing.

He reappeared with another chair and smiled at her. 

A man in the back of the bar shouted. 

Regina leaned slightly over to see that a man with brown hair and a face-framing hitai-ite was sitting on the floor and rubbing his ass, looking hard done by. 

Out of the corner of her eye, Mr. Me seemed to be examining his fingernails. He didn’t move.

She raised her hand delicately, to cover her face. 

Shizune cough-laughed, and swallowed the last of her drink. Then she stared at the table with incredible focus. 

Jiraiya seemed to be considering something. 

“How long were you annoyed in there?” he asked. 

Man, subtlety was not his suit. 

She smiled. “What do you mean?”

That seemed to bother him. He blinked and shuddered. “Sensei was right. It’s creepy when you do that.”

“What do you mean?” Her smile was frozen on her face. Her head stayed tilted. 

“You understood like, all of that, didn’t you.” He stated. “In there.”

“Who can say.” God, this was irritating. Was this all just some massive test? 

Normally, Regina would say she was good at those. Six or so months in to whatever the hell this was, she wasn’t so sure. This was an awful lot to ask of anyone. She would probably never see her family again, no one understood her really, and she was going to be herding contract killers like carpet sharks at a daycare. God, the depression was overwhelming.

She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. 

“Reji.” Jiraiya said, gently. “Reji.”

She slightly lifted her left eyelid. 

“Wanna get really drunk about it?” He tried, jiggling a bottle of heated sake with his right hand. Mr. Me looked uncomfortable. 

When did he not, though. 

She reached out with her palm up. Jiraiya paused, a little confused. Why did he never learn that she only meant fuckery with it?

She took the hot bottle. She opened it, and then she dumped it all in her and Shizune’s ice-filled cocktail glasses. 

“Kampai.” She said, holding up her glass for a clink. 

Let it never be said that Shizune left her hanging.