Great Lakes & Expectations extra- chapter 29 Regina perspective

‘He did not give up, no way. Nobody wants to do their job if he’s the one standing in front of their desk, and that did not happen by accident. ...But things are definitely different. He didn’t try the usual arguments. And that creepy little eye-smile and wave… Would Keiko-san have any idea about what that meant?’

She felt on edge throughout the rest of the work day. Staring silently into the space in front of her face and leaving before answering her firm rejection was weird, even for him, and she could not imagine that he was really just giving up.

But he didn’t come back. She felt the tension ease out of her muscles. She stopped glancing up every time she heard a small sound. She went home, and she actually felt a little better. Maybe he was done, maybe he finally understood.

The next morning, a hot latte was waiting for her on her desk. She glanced around, but saw no culprit.

She really did not like mysterious items appearing unexpectedly on her desk. But she did like coffee. It was a takeaway cup with nothing written on it other than ‘latte’. There was a weird little drawing of either an ugly face or a really ugly and particularly illegible kanji. ...Well. It did not look threatening. 

She tentatively popped open the lid, and immediately frowned in confusion. There was one sad marshmallow floating on the foam.

‘This was Hatake. Orochimaru is the only other person who left things out for me to find, and I bet he knows that you’re supposed to sweeten coffee with sugar. He’s not nearly as weird as this poor man.’

Regina decided it was probably about as close to a peace offering as she was going to get. And the chances that Hatake had decided to kill her via bean juice seemed very low, given the options at his disposal, so she stirred a stick of sugar in and re-fastened the lid.

‘I’ve never seen him be even a little bit normal, but maybe he’s a nice guy really deep down.’

She took it with her stack of files into the Hokage’s office for a day’s worth of meetings. 

It was long gone around 3 pm, near the end of the day, when Hatake graced the office again. ...He seemed much less aggressively weird. 

She frowned. It was hard to describe. But it just didn’t seem like he had woken up planning to ruin anyone’s life, and that was how he usually looked. 

‘Well, he did just get in from a mission this morning, he’s probably turning in the paperwork.’

He came to her. “Jiraiya-hime.” He said, holding out a scroll. She took it gingerly, and he eye-smiled at her. 

“Thank you so much, Hatake-san.” She unrolled it- tracking the details. So, he’d been on a basic B-class escort mission to the Land of Tea. But…

Oh no. 

She couldn’t help it- she had to swallow a laugh. Regina nearly choked on her own tongue.

He’d somehow convinced the Daimyo to extend his mission, delivering…

She squinted.  ‘This is a fucking personal newsletter. Hatake delivered her blogposts.’ 

This wasn’t her job, so she looked out into the office. And then she blinked.

It was empty. Everyone had disappeared in the last few seconds. The breakroom door was shut.

...Okay then. It was suddenly her job.

She looked up at the troublemaker, examining the few exposed parts of him for clues. He preened. ‘Would he have wheedled the Daimyo into that? Of course. What I’m not seeing is how. His brand of charm is very… distinct.’

It was also a development to Hatake’s benefit, because- “Now that this qualifies as an A-class mission- above your currently allowed B-class missions, I must take you to the Hokage for an immediate debriefing.” 

He made a very serious and very fake look of surprise and concern. “Oh, dear,” he said. “We have to bother him with this little thing?”

She managed to not laugh. “Please come with me, Hatake-san.”

The Hokage gave her a surprised look when she opened the door, because this was supposed to be his free hour to ponder birds or smoke or dance or whatever he did alone in there. His face fell entirely when he saw Hatake behind her. 

‘I kind of like this loon. He’s determined. If I were Gai, that would be the thing I’d say about him. ‘Gentleman’ seems significantly less accurate.’

“Hokage-sama, Hatake-san has had a mission change in class that requires immediate debriefing.” She managed a bland, professional tone. But she had a creeping sense that her face was not keeping to the party line of polite regret at the necessity. She needed to get out, fast. “Excuse me.” She began backing out the door. 

Her boss just looked at her. 

‘Oh, no. Please don’t be like that.’

“Please take a seat.” he said to her, eyebrow slightly raised. 

Regina froze. ‘Dammit. He knows I think this is funny. I’m being punished. Or maybe the Hokage is awfully democratic with suffering and likes to spread it around.’

There was no option to escape, so she took the blow with grace. She obediently did as she was told. She primly sat on her assigned divan and picked up her usual notepad and pen from the table. 

The Sandaime cleared his throat. “Hatake Kakashi, report.” 

“First, Hokage-sama, I want to talk about my removal from ANBU and how I should be reinstated. Surely I should be allowed to argue my case.”

The Sandaime’s eye twitched. Regina saw it, and looked at Hatake’s tense body posture. She scooted over on the divan to a position where she hoped neither of them would notice her. 

“Hatake…” The Sandaime sighed. He shook his head, but it didn’t seem to be a no. “This is unorthodox.”

There was a tense feeling in the air. It wasn’t scary, but it was intense.

“Nonetheless,” Hatake said stiffly. 

She looked at the window. It was so close. But they were on the 10th floor.

‘I wish I was a bird. No one makes birds attend meetings.’

Hatake whipped out his own cardstock displays. And the easel that she had told him to buy, because she had hoped to be nowhere near this meeting and did not like carrying the one from downstairs. It was heavy and somehow always had what looked like blood on it.

Hatake just stood there, looking a little awkward. But she could tell he felt victorious. He’d gotten his meeting, and the Sandaime couldn’t dismiss him until he finished his mission report.

“I have written materials for you both, as well.” He said stiffly, producing them from a pocket.

He was truly an awful little man. She liked him. She hadn’t told him to do that. 

Regina took her surprisingly thick booklet, then resumed her position on her divan. 

He’d done a lot of work on it since the first time, that was for sure. It was very neat and organized, and either he’d had it typed or had painstakingly written it so clearly that she could read it without straining. His analysis of his performance over time and the data provided was fairly thorough. 

If he was one of her students she had TA’d, she’d have been pretty damn proud. 

“I believe that I should be reinstated into ANBU forces, following up on my forced retirement as of a month ago.” Hatake said, sounding a little bitter. She winced. “I have ample documentation to support this position. As you can see on page 1, there are statistics of my abilities, mission completion rates, and other metrics prior to entering ANBU.”

Regina reviewed them. She’d already seen the numbers in his earlier iterations, but frankly she didn’t think he would take it well if she didn’t even look. The real issue with those numbers is that he’d been a literal child before ANBU- it wasn’t actually a valid comparison. 

“In my time in ANBU, I was able to significantly raise these statistics due to the rigorous training that ANBU provides, and with my team I was able to complete countless missions at a high standard. This is documented on pages 2 through 10.”

She looked at all of his graphs carefully. For some reason, he labelled every single point in his graphs- it made it look a little messy, especially when he was mostly accounting for age or mission rankings. It wasn’t necessary. 

It was not the time for feedback. Even though his penmanship and understanding of helpful supplementary materials still needed work.

She looked over at the Sandaime, who was reading his own booklet and rubbing his forehead. He didn’t look up. He appeared to be utterly absorbed. 

So Regina chanced a glance at Hatake. He was looking directly at her with some intensity. She gave him a very surreptitious thumbs-up while holding her booklet. 

He eye-smiled. That one might have been genuine. 

Hatake-san flipped to the second piece of posterboard. “One of the most important metrics is the number of S-class missions I was able to complete over time. In my first year, I was sent on one long-term S class mission, guarding…”

“Yes, I know.” The Hokage cut him off, giving Regina a sharp look. 

She was a little taken aback at that. What the hell was he bothering to hide? And how was it possibly related to her?

“It was a failure.” Hatake said. The tone was odd, in that he normally either sounded bored or irritated. This was totally blank and a little forced. She would have expected him to be more upset about a failure. Or maybe that was how he dealt with bad feelings. Not at all.

‘Until he gets really mad and goes all weird on someone like me, anyway.’

“In the next few years, I was able to steadily increase the amount of these missions. I have a specialization in tracking and eliminating missing nin and Konoha deserters-”

‘Oh. He kills people that run away.’ Regina swallowed, and looked back down at her paper. 

“That role is needed, and the people who fill it are not easily replaced. My skill set was specifically developed for ANBU work, and is unsuitable for other missions. If you would look at page 12, you will see the analysis of the missions I have taken in the past month since being reassigned.”

Sure enough, there were complaints and slow mission times, as he’d said. She wondered how much of that was subconscious self-sabotage. It wasn’t like he was definitely trying his hardest to be the best goddamned Jounin doing B-class missions the world had ever seen.  His heart wasn’t in it. Was it really a fair metric, either?

“Though I am required to spend at least six hours a day training, I have had no marked improvements to my skills. And again, these skills aren’t suited to the missions I am currently working. I have no need for jutsu development and use on delivery or escort missions, my speed and tracking abilities are also nearly irrelevant.”

‘The training thing is another one that I would be pushing back on. His skill reports say he hasn’t actually improved by a significant amount in years. He was A class as a teen.’ she thought, feeling a little sick to her stomach. She couldn’t quite shake the part about him killing Konoha nin that just didn’t want to be here anymore.

She was going to throw up. She swallowed it. It tasted like sour dairy and coffee. She was pretty sure it was just her nerves and not something Hatake had put in it. It had been a pretty nice coffee, actually.

Given that the person who had ostensibly given it to her killed his own fellow citizens for work, and wanted to get right back to it.

‘You will hold it.’ She told herself firmly. ‘After this is done, you can go into your office and throw up into your trash can if you still need to.’

She could barely concentrate through the rest of his presentation, but she managed to read everything and try to look as interested as possible, given that she was seconds from stress vomiting all over the blood-stained carpet.

“Thank you, Hatake-san.” The Hokage said formally. “Now, would you be able to brief us on your mission?”