The next time that he came into the office, he did not wait for any power games. He stalked to the office of the ridiculous woman who barred his way to the Hokage and slapped his materials down on her desk. He ignored the child napping on the couch.

"Good morning Jiraiya-hime, this is what I'd like to talk to the Hokage about in my meeting today."

She lifted her head slightly to look up at him. "Good morning, Hatake-san. Just a moment." She perused what he'd brought, lips pursed. This time, he could see palpable approval. He had gone beyond what she had suggested the times prior. When she was finally done, she handed his folder back respectfully.

He tucked it against his leg.

"Thank you, that was very well done," she said. She smiled at him. It seemed sincere.

He frowned down at her, a little offput. "Thank you." He knew it came out stiffly. "About the meeting…"

"What are you going to say to his likely rebuttals?" she asked.

He felt his muscles tense. "I have thought about it."

"What if he doesn't ask? What if he does not want to consider it at all?" Her hair must have been a very soft texture, because it slipped to the side when she tilted her head. Her big green eyes were fixed on him with a nearly unnerving intensity. It was aggressive, challenging body language that did not match her relaxed muscles and high, friendly voice.

'Is she really as useless as Jiraiya implied?'

Kakashi frowned at the supposed civilian. She was awfully comfortable being rude and confrontational. That usually meant a person could handle a situation that went downhill after offending someone.

'She acts too cocky. I don't like it. I don't buy this.'

He thought about testing it. And then he thought about the consequences of if he was wrong and threw a kunai at a totally untrained civilian princess.

"I'll deal with it as it happens," he said. He kept his tone professional, slow, maybe a bit bored sounding.

She hummed, and the sound was somehow unimpressed. She leaned back and pulled out a planner. At the angle she held it, he could not see it at all. "What time today are you free for a meeting?" she asked.

He listed off his availability.

She nodded as she listened, and ran a finger over the page she was looking at. Then she sucked air through her teeth and made an apologetic expression. "I'm sorry, that won't work."

His whole body was tense. "Tomorrow."

She made an "mmmm" sound, lifting her shoulders and continuing to look sorry. "Ah, there are no meeting slots tomorrow."

'That's a lie.'

"Why?" he challenged.

She paused for a second. She was clearly thinking. "It's No Stress Thursday," she lied, and it was yet another obvious lie. But she looked him dead in the face as she said it.

'There is no possibility that is true.'

Maybe she read the disbelief in his face. She smiled, very slightly. She might have thought he didn't see any amusement. "He'll be doing a hair mask and can't be disturbed. It's a chance to catch up on the work we already have."

"The Hokage is bald," Kakashi said flatly.

She sat back, looking offended. "He's always wearing a hat. You don't know that. In any case, tomorrow is impossible." She inhaled sharply, as if she had just remembered something. "Oh, no." She made a face that was bordering a pout. "I was about to say we have plenty of openings on Friday. But you have a mission, don't you." She held her hands up, as if to say, 'What can you do?'

She was such an awful little person that… that he grudgingly liked her.

'But I see why Jiraiya kept her out of the shinobi system.'

He turned and left without another word.

"Regina-hime." Keiko called lightly from her doorway. "The Hokage wants to see you."

So she went, after tucking the mildly sensitive info on her desk into a drawer.

When she entered the office, the Hokage leaned back and lit his pipe. "Close the door, please, Rejina-hime."

She obediently did so.

"How is he?" the Hokage asked, quietly.

She blinked. Uh. "Who?"

That could be referring to at least three people off the top of her head. Her neglected, bullied orphan adopted son? Her very recently and violently orphaned son? The desperate young man slowly breaking down because he'd been moved from a prestigious murdering position to a respectable job where he wasn't likely to be violently murdered?

"Uchiha-kun." he clarified. "The hospital reports showed no sign of recovery, until you and Might-san left the village. I see that he's recovered, but not yet in school. How is he now?"

'Scared, clingy, jumpy.'

She bit her lip. That was obvious.

"As one might expect after that kind of trauma. He isn't ready to be alone. I think he would benefit from specialised therapy."

Even though she wanted to, she did not say 'and being removed from the shinobi training program entirely.'

Gai was absolutely great, but it was really hard to see how continuing his murdering education would be good for Sasuke's mental health. He was starting out so traumatized.

She had a sinking fear that Sasuke really didn't stand a chance.

"Do you remember the Yamanaka clan?" he asked, taking out his pipe and letting it dangle from his hand. Ashes spilled out and dispersed into the gentle breeze from the window.

She nodded. He probably knew that she was making friendly overtures with the clan head's wife.

"They have a number of mental health specialists in that family. If you went to their clan head, I believe that he would provide a list of acceptable names to you."

Regina bowed. "Thank you, Hokage-sama."

He rubbed his temples with his free hand, looking tired. "Is there anything else you think you might need?"

"I believe that Naruto might benefit from treatment as well, but that requires nothing further from you. Another issue is that I may require someone trusted to help me to take care of them- between work, my classes, and my apprenticeship, I have little time to do certain caretaking necessities such as cleaning and cooking."

He just looked at her.

"Very well." the Hokage picked up his finished stack of papers and put them in her hands. "You may go. Uchiha-kun can come to the Tower with you until he has been signed off by a Yamanaka therapist to go back to the Academy, and I will find a list of potential housekeepers for you to peruse." His lips twitched. "I believe that a salary was provided for this purpose in your contract."

'Bet no one foresaw me calling in that one so early. Tsunade really went hard on the benefits package.'

"Thank you." She bowed and left, shutting the door behind her. She went directly into her office.

Sasuke was sitting up, pale and drawn. His big dark eyes followed her as soon as she walked in.

"Oh, I thought you were still sleeping," she said. "I'm sorry I left while you were asleep. I wasn't gone long."

He nodded once. He looked a little guarded still, with his knees pulled up to his chest.

"I'm going to look at budget requests from the Academy," she said, and instantly regretted. That was not an interesting topic for children. She was committed now, though, so she soldiered on. "Want to help me?"

He scrunched up his nose, but then nodded seriously. He unfolded his legs and trundled over to her desk. She sat down and held her arms out. He didn't climb onto her lap, but he stood right next to her and leaned into her body. It was only natural to drape her left arm over him in a hug as she got down to work.

"Mizuki-sensei says he needs 100 more kunai," she said. "Does that make sense? Should we give them to him?"

"Mizuki-sensei is lazy about sharpening kunai," Sasuke said. His high-pitched voice was a little raspy from disuse, but it came out hilariously stern. "Don't approve it. Tell him to maintain his tools."

Her jaw dropped. She looked for words. She didn't find any. So she wrote that on the page-

"That's not right," Sasuke said. This was the most alert and engaged she had ever seen him. He wiggled in her grip, nearly crawling on her lap in order to point at what she'd just written. "You wrote that wrong. The left part should be like- like this." He picked up her pen and scrawled the kanji radical on his own hand. Then he held it up to her. "See?"

She leaned back a little, because he nearly bopped her nose. "I see, thank you." She crossed out what she'd written and wrote it correctly above her mistaken kanji. "Anything else I should change before I rewrite this?"

Sasuke looked back at the paper, very serious. He was silent for a long moment. "No," he said. "It looks good now."

Regina nodded. "Thank you." She took a clean sheet of office letterhead and copied out the polite denial.

She had a thought. Jiraiya had fucked off without correcting any of her writing practice in her workbooks. She had kinda given up hope of finding someone invested or perfectionistic enough to do that for her. But… "Sasuke," she said, to her very small and serious son. "How would you feel about correcting my homework?"

He nodded. "Yes," he said. "This first, though." He pointed at a paper she hadn't even begun to read. "This is a mess." She couldn't see his face, but she could hear the scowl. "Tell them to get a lot better at their jobs."

She craned to read. It was from T&I, and she did not know the kanji to know what bleak things they wanted an additional 2000 ryou for.

'It's not a huge number, so I almost want to let it slide because they are scary. On the other hand, budgetary decisions shouldn't be made out of fear.'

"I trust your judgment, but I'm afraid of Mitarashi-san," Regina said. She tapped the paper. "I don't want to tell her she's bad at her job. She uses snakes liberally."

"It's your job to tell her no," Sasuke said, instant and stern. Then he softened a bit. "...I guess you can leave off the bit about her work performance." He seemed doubtful.

She very nearly snorted. "Thank you. What are they asking for? I don't know those kanji."

"Budget for house-keeping services," he said. His tone was acidic.

"That doesn't sound that bad," Regina said. "It's probably gross down there."

"Yes, but." Sasuke wiggled. "Firstly, it's their job to maintain their own space. Secondly, this is ambiguously worded and that's suspicious. I don't see anything indicating that these cleaning services would be used by the actual department." He pointed at a kanji. "It specifically says 'house' cleaning. I think whoever wrote this has a dirty house and low estimation of your literacy."

"She's not wrong, but she's not getting that." Regina wrote "I refuse this," in red ink and decided to give the request back just like that. She took a moment to wish she had stickers or even a stamp that said 'good try'. Then she looked down at her dark-haired son. "Thank you for coming to work with me today."

He tilted his face to grin up at her. The gap in his smile where he was missing a tooth stuck out to her, childish and carefree. "You're welcome. Let's see who else is bad at things, and tell them to do better."

'Maybe the stamp I need just says "NO" on it.'

She kissed Sasuke's forehead. "I like you so much."

After she and Sasuke finished gleefully refusing spurious budgetary requests, they picked up

Naruto from the Academy. Tanimoto-sensei was waiting for them.

"Princes and princesses should never be late." She said, beckoning them into their own home. It was a little funny. "Please come, we have much work to do."

'We weren't late. You were just earlier than usual.'

"Bow as you would to the daimyo." They did.

"No, lower and longer. Bow again." Tanimoto-sensei instructed. "Now, how would you greet a foreign lord or lady of similar station to you? Demonstrate."

Regina went first, then Sasuke, then Naruto. As always, because technically, Sasuke was the eldest son.

It took a long time for Regina to get approval. She couldn't really tell the difference, but Tanimoto-sensei was forever adjusting the angle of her head. There was clearly something that Tanimoto-sensei didn't like about her inflection, either, because she made Regina repeat the greetings again and again.

Sasuke barely needed correction. He had an eye for detail and seemed to excel with the slightest bit of feedback.

Naruto landed somewhere in between the two of them. His biggest problem was that he tended to forget the second half of phrases and mumble or mix it up with another greeting.

She was starting to feel worried that Naruto would feel frustrated or dispirited, but then Tanimoto-sensei nodded briskly and switched tracks. "Acceptable for now. Today, we will begin to talk about poetic form. As lords and ladies, it is necessary for you to possess knowledge regarding art and poetry. You must be able to write your own, to recite the most famous, and to conduct yourselves in a cultured manner." She opened up the case she had brought and withdrew sheaves of paper, brushes, and black ink.

Regina looked at the writing utensils like she would look at Mitarashi's snakes. This was a terrible way to do first drafts of poetry.

'Turns out, I hate a whole new art form now.'

They suffered through two types of poetry. Tanka were long. She could see how they could be beautiful, but it was hard to enjoy that when they were being mercilessly beat into you by an unsmiling woman you could not escape.

She already knew the vague basics of haiku, but it meant she had to write them.

Her poems weren't very good, to be honest. Sasuke's were evidently ok. Naruto did the best by far. He actually got a facial expression that was nearly a smile from Tanimoto-sensei.

'With all our efforts combined, we might make one acceptable princess.' she thought glumly, attempting to think of nice words to describe trees.

Tanimoto-sensei finally left after two and a half hours.

"I'm tired," Naruto whined. He stretched. "Can we do something fun now?"

'Oh god. We have dinner, then koto lessons. Then I can die in my bed.' Regina looked at her room longingly. This was a marathon. Her entire life was suffering.

'Though it's the same for the boys, too, to be honest.' She thought guiltily. 'They're kind of being drug into this.'

But tomorrow was an off-day for them, after etiquette lessons. She'd go to tea ceremony alone, and they'd have monitored play time with Yuina-san and her daughter.

"Next is dinner. You boys can choose a restaurant. What should we eat?" She asked, kind of dreading the answer.

Sasuke won out with udon, so they drug themselves out the door and into the street to the restaurant Sasuke recommended.

"I'm sorry that you two have to keep being so busy." She apologized over her noodles. "You deserve more free time than this."

They seemed to shrug.

"Other than the etiquette lessons, I'm ok." Naruto said, stretching out like a cat. "And those end at some point, right?"

"Yes. When Tanimoto-sensei knows we've learned everything she needs to teach us, she'll go. Apparently, all little princes and princesses do this at about your age." She felt mildly depressed about that. What a sucky way to spend your childhood.

"Yeah." Sasuke agreed. "I had some lessons before."

"Is Tanimoto-sensei similar?" Regina asked, curious.

He shrugged. "Tanimoto-sensei is more… particular."

"She did come to us at the special recommendation of the Daimyo's wife." Regina informed. "I don't know if that makes a difference."

"At least she's probably really good at it, then." Sasuke popped a bit of fried daikon into his mouth.

They walked to koto lessons together- and evidently Naruto had decided to switch to koto basically overnight.

'Probably because that's where I and Sasuke are going. He can keep his taiko lesson if he wants. It's the healthiest expression of hitting things I can possibly think of. Taiko, taiko for everyone. Fuck those neighbors.'

Sasuke plucked at his assigned instrument with a demonstrable lack of interest. But he was happy to be told he had delicate little fingers, which evidently made him a prize pupil.

"You know, once we get good enough, I'll let you pick a class we can take together." Regina mentioned. "I like doing things with you." She plucked the chosen note again. The song was supposed to be performed by memory. No sheet music, here.

"Mandatory, educational family time?" He asked, looking bored. Then he seemed to think about it. He plunked out a few notes.

She wondered where that was going, but to be honest it was going to take a long time to be finished with any of the classes they were currently stuck in.

'He has tons of time to figure out something. Wonder whether it'll be heinous punishment or really interesting.'

Naruto was examining the instrument from top to bottom, looking at how the wires were tuned. She had no doubt he'd figure it out in time. He liked to figure out how things worked.

The next morning she was dragging, but she managed to pretend to be alive anyway. Naruto was at school, and Sasuke was with Gai in between appointments with Yamanaka Santa. She was currently free and clear with only her regular work to do.

Another letter was in her box. It was clearly from Danzou-shishou.

She went into her office to open it.

'My God. It's more training. How much training does one woman need. I'm literally running out of hours in the day.'

Regina breathed out. It was good. This was hard, yes, but would make her life better. It wasn't forever.

Then he walked in.

'Oh, no. This will definitely not improve my life in any way at all. Go away. Please.'

Judging by body language, his mood was even worse than usual. Hatake was stalking like he was on a mission. Knowing him, it was a mission to ruin her life, personally, for literally no reason other than spite.

'Please let him go somewhere else. Bother someone else.'

But no. Six feet of bad news and worse attitude was on an unmistakable course for her open office door.

'Fuck.'

She was definitely not fast enough to lock the door before he got there, and she didn't have another plan. Maybe Sasuke could have, but he was at his appointment with Yamanaka-san.

Glass shattered somewhere nearby. ...Or maybe Hatake just had that aura.

She steeled herself for the inevitable battle.

'So be it. Let him come. I am the master of my sea, queen of this domain. I am not going to cry in front of this very troubled man and the entire office pool. They'd get it, but no.'

She took a deep breath and looked down at the budget from the Department of Corrections. It was the most fascinating thing she had ever seen. She could not even hear footsteps in her office.

Actually, she literally did not hear any footsteps. But she did have a sense of looming doom, so he was probably really close.

'Here we go.'

The woman he was going to see looked up and stiffened when she saw him. Her eyes glazed over. If he had to put a name to the emotion on her face, it would be 'grief.'

'A bit dramatic, that.'

She wasn't alone, though. He could feel the whole office hold their breath the instant he stepped into the Hokage Tower. Someone who was leaving the breakroom swiveled midstep and went right back in. An older woman covered her face with her hands. But what really hurt was that the chuunin secretary flinched on hard-won reflex and used both hands to sweep everything on her desk to the floor. Something broke.

"Oh no," she said, in a very quiet monotone. "I dropped something." And then she slid bonelessly underneath her desk, where absolutely none of those things had landed.

He was a little offended. After all their conversations, she would treat him like this? So cold.

'What is she crying about? I'm not even here to see her this time.'

He stepped over a stapler and two photos of some mediocre-looking children. The glass frame they had been in crunched underneath his sandals.

Jiraiya's stubborn daughter was still looking at him. Her gaze darted upward for a moment, as if looking for help or divine intervention. And then-

She ducked her head and pretended to be very busy.

He stifled a snort, but he did not alter his trajectory for a second. He walked into her office.

She was still staring intently at what looked to be some exceedingly dull sheets of numbers.

Kakashi walked directly up to her desk.

The office princess took a deep, steadying breath.

'This is a little awkward.'

He shifted from foot to foot.

She valiantly continued to ignore him.

He put his palms on the desktop and leaned forward. She flinched backward and finally looked up at him. He noted the flinch, regretted it, and dismissed it.

"Jiraiya-hime," he bit out. "Give me a meeting. I know there are times available. I am tired of playing these games with you. Get out the calendar, schedule me a time."

The words were sour in his mouth. He was practically begging and he hated it.

She looked down at the floor.

The body language was new, but he had the sinking fear that this was just going to be the pause before some more bullshit. He clenched his jaw. "I assume he's already taken his daily walk with all the feral cats in the village."

The silence stretched on. He felt his hand twitch, but pressed it harder onto the wood to ride out the muscle spasm.

"I need to see the Hokage." His voice came out stronger and harder than he felt.

There was a quiet sound from behind him as someone closed the door to Jiraiya-hime's office.

He still didn't see a way to change the Hokage's mind. But if he kept trying, threw himself on the Hokage's mercy, cited his career statistics- maybe. Maybe he could add just enough to outweigh whatever the Hokage had based his decision on. He just had to get access to have a chance to plead his case. And convincing this civilian to schedule an appointment was the only way to force his way into that office without getting arrested. He knew she didn't want to, had probably been told not to, but she did have the power to do it. He could outlast her. He even knew she was sympathetic. There was no other reason for her to try to improve his arguments if not to increase his odds of success.

"I gather that you want to. However, I won't schedule it. I'm sorry to break this bad news." His temporary adversary finally bit out, quietly. She held her head a little higher.

Kakashi frowned. He narrowed his eye at her.

She swallowed. He watched the motion on her unprotected throat. "Hokage-sama expressly asked me to reject your meeting requests for the foreseeable future."

He furrowed his brow.

...Obviously. She had not taken the law into her own hands and arbitrarily black-balled a jounin she barely knew.

"I'm sorry to be so blunt. I tried polite deferrals, I hoped you would give up and come to terms with this on your own." She lifted her head, but still wouldn't look at him. That was an accomplishment, since he was nearly breathing on her face. He glanced down at her hands when they shook. They were curled into fists, stupidly, with her thumb tucked inside and so much tension that her knuckles were turning white.

'Bad form.'

"But you keep refusing to acknowledge what we both know, and I have to assume that you don't want to."

He felt his brow furrow. Yes. That was the point.

When he didn't answer, the silence dragged on for whole seconds. He watched her take a deep breath. She slowly, deliberately forced the air back out in a rush of air that was clearly doing something to calm her nerves. The fists on her lap were beginning to uncurl. Her shoulders were not quite as hunched forward.

"So here we are, again. I'm tired of this harassment. I can't get any work done when we are having this tired discussion, and yet I'm still not allowed to give you that meeting. You have me at your mercy, Hatake-san."

He hid a flinch. Luckily, there was no risk of her noticing.

She shrugged, unclenching her hands and splaying them a bit to work out the tension. She rolled out her shoulders. After another pause, she finally looked up and made eye contact. "I can't do what you want, and I can't authorize your reentry, either."

'Yes, you can. You'd just be disobeying a direct order from your superior officer. That is what I am trying to get you to do.'

Sure, she would lose standing and trust in the office, but she'd ride it out.

"If you want to continue standing over me, harassing me, or intimidating me, I have a couch there for your convenience- I don't know what to tell you anymore." She pointed to said couch, on the side of her office.

He felt a pinprick of guilt.

"The only thing I can tell you is that Hokage-sama is not going to reinstate you into ANBU, and I don't think there's anything anyone can do to convince him otherwise."

She then muttered something under her breath, but he didn't understand it. Her language, probably. The lack of meaning in the syllables made it even easier to hear how tired she sounded.

'She's close to breaking.'

And oddly, he did not feel pleased by that. It didn't sit well in his stomach to be able to get what he wanted by wearing down a civilian through harassment.

'...Damnit.'

That was definitely guilt. He glared at her, but he knew it lacked teeth.

"Is there anything else I can do for you, Hatake-san?" She asked wearily, running her pale hands through her hair. "As long as you understand that I absolutely cannot schedule a meeting for you to discuss this topic, I am happy to help."

He felt his muscles go very still at the last phrase. That… That was true, wasn't it. She couldn't schedule a meeting about his reinstatement into ANBU, but she was not opposed to his goal overall.

'I can use that.'

He didn't need to be here now. "Okay, thanks, bye." He gave a two-fingered wave.

She narrowed her eyes. A line appeared between her eyebrows. She looked between his face and his hand.

'Looks confused.'

He took the chance to leave via shunshin to the stairwell, therefore avoiding any risk of seeing the office staff hide from him again.

...Though if he were to be perfectly candid, that was one of his favorite things about visiting offices.

'I should put that into my presentation,' he mused. 'People would rather chew off a foot to escape than talk to me about paperwork. I am a deeply troubled individual and cannot integrate into regular society.'

Had a nice ring to it.