Great Lakes & Expectations Chapter 13

Regina sent Shizune and Momo off to terrify the general populace, noting that a gaggle of anbu immediately appeared to shadow them. 

‘Where were they hiding, the vases?’

Regina eyed the water suspiciously, but nothing moved.

She found Jiraiya just outside, suspiciously not-lurking by the flower beds. He was supposedly inspecting a daisy, but she’d bet her right tit that he knew jack all about botany. He kept making ‘hmm’ noises, and gently turning leaves. 

‘Hmm. This is a leaf. Oh wow, hmm, this is still the same leaf. It has a distinct leafiness to it. Yes, a high quality green leaf, shaped like a leaf.’

“Reji-chan?” he turned around, obviously feigning surprise. 

Why. why was he like this. 

“Reji-chan! My dearest daughter!” he wrapped her in a hug that felt surprisingly like a boa constrictor’s grasp. 

She just went limp. 

If it went on too long, she could always bite him. 

He swung her around lightly in a circle before finally putting her down. 

“So… how did the job interview go?” he asked, reminding her of her great-aunt Mabel. 

‘How was school? Have you met any nice men? When will you be getting married?’

She just… looked at him. He had to have known how it went. Ten jerks in fancy clothes just left the building moaning about nepotism. 

Well, nine. Akamichi-san wasn’t a dick. 

He grinned wolfishly. 

‘Yeah, he knew.’

“That good, eh?” He clapped her on the back- too hard. She stumbled forward a few steps. 

His eyes went a bit wide and immediately helped her steady herself. 

“You’re not very sturdy.”

“It’s a very bad family resemblance, I’m told.” Regina said dryly, before yanking her coin pouch back from his hand. 

He lifted his hands up to his head, still grinning. She could understand why Tsunade wanted to murder him constantly. He just stole…

Actually, she was still a little fuzzy on money amounts here, but it was a lot. Wads of bills, anyway.

And he didn’t care- he just took it for the fuck of it, and probably to see if she’d notice or take it back. 

“I thought daughters were only supposed to support their family when they were retired and dying.” She dropped the small purse down her bra. He wasn’t stupid enough to feel her up, probably. He had an overdeveloped sense of ethics and chivalry where breasts were concerned.

“Are you dying?” She asked, pretending to look sad and concerned. 

He was affronted. His hair poofed up. 

‘Incredible. Like a cat.’

He was evidently about to go into a speech. Probably something long and dramatic with posing involved. His chest was puffing up with bravado, and he inhaled.

But also, it was lunchtime. 

Regina started walking away. To be honest, she was still pretty keyed up from that meeting and didn’t have the energy to deal with Jiraiya’s dramatics right now. 

“The karaage place Shizune talked about was this way, right?” She tried to remember from the night before. Yes, it was. It was kitty corner from the bookstore she wanted to see, down this little street on the right, after a quick left at the sketchiest-looking izakaya she’d ever seen. 

It evidently took him a moment to switch gears and catch up with her. 

“Which place are we going? I like the one up by the memorial, but the one off to the left…” he pointed in the direction she had been intending on, “has really good korokke as well.”

Ugh. That sounded like so much fried stuff. How did he live like that.

“Whichever one you prefer, then.” She said, stopping and turning to him. “I don’t know where anything is.”

“And you were just gonna go and try to find lunch and leave your father alone by the Hokage building?” He was mostly amused now. 

“I thought the anbu would keep you safe.” She said innocently. “And you obviously followed very quickly. Should I have worried?”

He narrowed his eyes for a moment, then receded into his normal veneer of confident bravado.

On the way to the karaage restaurant, he elaborately re-introduced himself to no less than twenty people. 

Regina kept walking. At one point she ducked into a conbini to buy herself the nasty nasty green drinks Tsunade had informed her she had to drink. 

Ugh. Oversteeped green tea and vegetable medley. She chugged them dutifully in the shade of the awning before disposing of the bottles. They left a film on her tongue and a bitter taste in her mouth.

‘Health… is bad. Have we considered dying?’

Jiraiya had evidently brought a large and festive toad into the production by this point. Some people were cheering. At least one actual shinobi was clapping to the rhythm. 

Unfortunately, she had no idea where to go at this point, so she had to wait. She bowed at people who bowed at her and avoided eye contact with everyone who walked by. Several shinobi vaguely approached her, but didn’t actually introduce themselves or walk within social engagement radius. 

‘If they’re hoping I’m like Jiraiya, they are in for at least one sad, sad surprise.’

Evidently Jiraiya’s presentation was not stopping soon- he was reenacting some fight with the toad. 

The bitterness on her tongue was too much, so she dipped back inside to get a drink that didn’t taste like sadness. 

When she came back out, she watched. He’d apparently gotten to the romance section. There was a beautiful lady that he made out of a clone, and they embraced. But then something something sad- he had to leave her? She died? She realized that he was never going to get a real job at a bank and told him to get lost?

He mimicked being sad for a while, while also apparently hocking his new Icha Icha book that he’d had printed a few months ago in Iron. Then, apparently, Regina appeared. 

She wasn’t sure she liked his artistic rendition of her- she looked a bit too fluffy and fake- like a confectionary of a human being. He’d transformed her pajamas into some very fancy hanfu-looking thing. Her hair was… fairly accurate, she’d give him that. It was odd to look at it now, though. Tsunade had done something to her hair with her freaky glowing hands to make her look more like Jiraiya. It was silver, now, which seemed to be an odd color even here. 

No one had actually bothered to tell her whether that was permanent or what. It didn’t seem to have been dye. She watched a woman with light pink hair walk down the street, balancing her shopping.

Then the fucker pointed at her- true, she was dressed nicely and in makeup with her hair styled. It was not the worst she could have looked. 

And yet…

They oohed. They ahhed. 

Then he said something that made it even weirder. 

Something about a… new book. He was still pointing at her. 

She did not like this. At all.

‘It is not appropriate to make a sex and romance book about your adoptive daughter, you incorrigible degenerate.’

She was going to learn how to whoop his ass into the sun like Tsunade. She felt it deep down in her soul. 

Or at least she was going to inform Tsunade of this development, and tape the beatdown for herself. 

Well. 

He was still going on about the plot of the book, but she had had about enough of this as she cared to endure. She started walking again, in the same direction. Eventually she’d find somewhere with food that didn’t taste like grass and eat it. Just as she would eventually find an anbu to direct her at least back to the hokage tower, if she wandered far enough. 

She walked for more than twenty minutes, noting that she was approaching the same ramen stand she’d gone to last night. 

A familiar-looking tiny butt was on a seat. 

It seemed otherwise empty. 

Fair enough, it was pretty late for lunch at this point. Regina still didn’t love ramen that much, but it was sure food. 

She ducked under the curtain and sat a seat away from the child, who was slurping down his ramen with table manners that may have spontaneously tied her fallopian tubes. 

She ordered the same thing as the night before. It didn’t take long before a hot dish of ramen with seared pork belly was placed in front of her. She noted that the pork belly was augmented with an extra side.

When she looked up, the proprietor gently tilted his head in the direction of his other patron, and winked. 

Huh. 

The kid didn’t seem to notice her, so she ate her food and just watched. He was about the size of one of her handbags in a past life, but managed to put away two big-ass bowls of shio ramen before tapping out. 

Regina couldn’t summon quite that much enthusiasm. She happily ate the extra pork with hers, and ate her noodles with a minimum of slurping. Yes, she knew it was polite. But also mouth noises are disgusting and she wasn’t interested in being part of the problem. 

Evidently at some point the kid had noticed she’d arrived, because when she turned to get a napkin she found his face about 8 inches away from hers. 

She blinked. 

What… 

Why was everyone here so irredeemably weird?

The ramen man came towards the counter and tapped the boy on the shoulder. 

“Naruto-kun, that’s rude.” He chided gently. “You can’t get that close to people who don’t know you.”

The boy’s eyes went wide. 

His ass smacked back into his seat. But he was still staring. 

“Staring is also… not polite.” the man said, looking a little embarrassed. 

Ramen man was good people. She tried to remember his name. Ta… Te? Ta for field was a usual name kanji. 

Dammit, she should have paid more attention last night. 

The boy - Naruto, like that weird little rolled fish sausage, she reminded herself- looked ashamed. 

“That’s true,” she said slowly, “but I think today it’s okay. Why were you staring?”

Naruto kind of froze. He shrugged, but it looked really stiff and mechanical. 

“I’m not angry.” she said, feeling a little amused. “Do I have something on my face?”

He shook his head. 

The silence lingered. He wasn’t going to give her more answers. 

The curtain behind her parted, and her ersatz father figure sauntered in. He looked pleased with himself, which Regina could only take to mean that that crowd had provided him the incredulous love and admiration that she had denied him. 

It wasn’t like she wasn’t grateful, it just seemed to be a bottomless well. He needed more attention than any one human being could ever provide. And also her schedule was pretty full, what with her life being on fire. 

She was trying very hard not to blame him for that. 

It was only somewhat working.

He plopped down with a decided lack of grace and ordered five bowls of ramen, both shio and miso. 

‘Everyone I know here is at severe risk of cardiac arrest.’

She watched him slurp them down. Unlike her, he seemed to revel in making more noise than necessary.

The loudness was kind of giving her a headache. She gritted her teeth. 

Naruto was now watching them both, but trying not to stare.  Which seemed to mean that this six year old was hunched over steepled fingers and fully staring, but out of the side of his eyes. 

Wow. The stealth. 

She wondered if she’d been that obvious and adorable at that age. Probably. 

Jiraiya finished slurping down his noodles and then started to make horrible teeth-sucking noises.

She was now 100% sure he was doing this purely to fuck with her. 

“Rejina-chan, are you paying?” Jiraiya cooed. When she turned to look at him, he was picking his teeth with a metal stick. 

She looked at the proprietor. To his credit, he looked mildly disgusted but nonplussed. 

The teeth sucking noise started again. 

Out of the corner of her right eye, she could see that Naruto was now openly watching Jiraiya with no small amount of amazement and confusion. 

Oh, no. She was enabling him to teach children. 

Regina, for no apparent reason, suddenly remembered the USA policy on not negotiating with terrorists. 

Her father looked smug. There was no other word for it. 

Fine, he could have this one. 

“Of course.” She said, handing over an appropriate bill to the ramen man. 

The tooth-sucking immediately stopped. 

She turned to him and eyed the very sharp metal stick in his hand. 

“You should probably burn that.” she said, as she held out her hand for her change and turned to smile at ramen man. 

Regina slid off the seat and out of the curtain. 

“Gouchisousamadeshita,” she called, and smiled at Naruto. “Take care, yeah?”

Jiraiya affably ambled out behind her.

“I guess I should take you home, yeah?” He asked, surveying the city. 

“That would be nice.” she said. Some people walked by and stared at her. She felt uncomfortable and overly exposed. 

She stepped closer to Jiraiya, pressing into his shoulder. He looked down.

To his credit, he was decidedly not weird about it. He reoriented to pat her on the head. Then he held out his arm. 

Was she supposed to grab it? She reached out to lightly hold his forearm. It was too big for her to do that. 

“No, I’m gonna pick you up and carry you. You’re real slow.” He clarified, with a shit-eating grin. 

“Whatever. Pick me up, then.” She said. 

He scooped her up like she was nothing in a princess carry, which was probably more dignified but definitely less fun than the times when he’d let her do the piggyback thing. 

He jumped up. 

Regina looked down. He was balancing on a telephone line. She could see the ground more than 30 feet below.

‘Yeah never mind, fuck this. Don’t look down.’

She relaxed and leaned into his ugly vest thing. He wasn’t likely to drop her somewhere she could get hurt. 

About twenty minutes later, he stopped moving. 

She removed her face from his collarbone and looked out. 

They were standing in a pretty secluded area- there were some groups of  large houses in the relative distance, surrounded by massive walls.

Oh, this was bougie. 

“Is this where you finally murder me?” She asked, out of reflex. 

He twitched. Then he carefully put her on the ground. 

Jiraiya walked away, up what was a decidedly overgrown stone path. 

‘I guess maybe that doesn’t play as well with people who kill for a living.’ 

Well, that was a good thing to know. She made a mental note for later.

She followed him carefully, trying not to trip over the overgrown grass and jutting stones. She was paying so much attention to the ground that she nearly ran into him. 

He was stopped. She looked up, and leaned to the side. 

This had to be a joke. He was just fucking with her some more. She wished that she was surprised. 

He turned around with a grin. “Welcome home, Reji-chan!” he gestured grandly, and beckoned her towards what could be best described as a shack made out of garbage. 

The walls were uneven- the boards were obviously just whatever the builder had been able to locate. There were windows, in that there were holes at various places. 

“Sasuga.” she said, and walked in the shack. 

He followed her in, which was an achievement in itself because it was basically a six foot by six foot closet with a fire pit in the middle. 

“Do you like it?” He asked, obviously waiting for her to flip her lid. He kept wiggling his hands as if to sell her on the idea. His mouth was frozen, open wide.

Regina thought that maybe he was too used to riling up Tsunade. That would have worked on her. 

But Regina didn’t wind up quite the same way. He hadn’t ever managed to hit any of her buttons, really. 

She held her hands out, palms down.

It seemed to break him. He was puzzling it out. He put his hands under hers, very slowly. 

She walked into him a little bit, into a hug. At the last second, she lifted her hands under his vest and lifted it up and towards herself, taking the vest with her. 

Then she balled it up, turned around, plopped down on the ground, and used it as a pillow. 

“This place is just like you.” She chirped, facing a crack that led right out into a field that had to be full of snakes. She closed her eyes. “Very your style.”