Regina began her morning the usual way- she knocked on the boys' doors on her way upstairs, and she stretched with them before doing her own separate workout while they reclined on the floor with juice boxes until it was time to get ready for work and school, respectively.

She entered the Hokage Building by 9 as usual, dressed and cleaned up, to find a note attached to her door.

'I guess Sandaime-sama is finally ready to see me again.'

It had been an awkward month, in and out of the office. Every time she'd caught a glimpse of him, he looked like he was puffing up an amount of smoke that would knock out a dragon.

She put her purse away, grabbed her files in case he wanted a briefing on any of her many projects, and took a steeling breath before she pushed open the door.

"Good morning, Rejina-hime." He said, and she felt her muscles instantly relax. His tone was much more in keeping with their previous relationship- warm and friendly, slightly paternal. He was evidently in a much better mood.

"Good morning, Hokage-sama." She smiled and bowed, careful to keep her pile of folders from falling all over the floor. "You wanted to see me this morning?"

"Yes, yes." He beckoned her over. He'd moved her divan over closer to his desk. "I have been thinking about the meeting with the clan heads a few weeks ago."

She felt her shoulders deflate. Regina would really rather not contemplate that particularly public humiliation in excruciating detail. She hadn't even technically survived it yet.

"And I have decided that they were incorrect."

'Oh my god, he's doubling down.' She genuinely wasn't sure that this was better. Her heart rate picked up a bit.

He shifted some papers on his desk, evidently looking for something. "Rather, that some of their critique had merit. However, their accusations regarding you and Tsunade-hime and Jiraiya-san were without any real merit."

'Who the hell does that leave? Are we finally conceding that the terrifying snake dude who threatens people via letter for breaches of manners is not super awesome?''

"You came to me with the highest of recommendations, three competing offers of employment, and an education that has already proven useful." He shook his head, then inserted his pipe. "The Land of Iron is still very pleased with your work performance- something you completed before even being repatriated. Their series of letters express their wish to work with you regarding trade contracts with the foreign merchants you spoke with, and are very adamant about acquiring your assistance with the matter. It benefits Konoha when you represent us so well, not to mention the… improvement to our economy this trade will inspire, after you meet with the Daimyo to discuss terms."

'Uh. I feel like perhaps this is the opportunity shishou talked about.' She placed her stack of folders down on her divan. Evidently they weren't going to be immediately useful. 'Glad I've been investing my time in those decorum and language lessons.'

"And Kumogakure continues to send you offers of employment," he held up a stack of letters, "though most of them seem to rely on telling you that they are 'heroes, and Konohagakure is zeroes', with ...mildly concerning assurances regarding your physical safety." He looked like he was sucking on a particularly zesty lemon.

She leaned forward to peer at the letters. They were on beautiful stationary with delicate writing, marred by bold commentary in the margins from a second writer. The commentary may have been in marker.

"I think I might get the weirdest letters in all of Fire Country." She eyed them. "Can… Can I have those? If they're mine, I should at least reply. Orochimaru-san told me it was rude not to. He sends the most… illustrative… etiquette letters."

The Sandaime snorted. "Well, if Orochimaru-san says so."'

He looked meaningfully at her pile of folders, neatly organized, color-coded, and full of supporting material and graphs.

"Your quality of work has been high, and your initiative in improving the health and safety of our personnel in particular has been very appreciated. Morino-san and Nara-san have had little in the way of critique regarding your suggestions, and some have already been implemented."

She smiled tightly. It was nice to be recognized, and even nicer to know that some of those policies were starting. Less nice to know that Nara-san had known that and let her get lambasted like that without any protest. Morino-san, however, was on her very limited not-shit-list.

"The training and implementation of a police force and accompanying justice system has been ongoing, but impressive nonetheless." He looked smug. "I believe that it is indisputable that your hiring has been for the betterment of Konoha."

'Yeah, but that's not why you hired me. I think that was their point. If we'd sold me as a fortuitously-useful person to the public, I doubt there would have been as much backlash. You did it to tie Tsunade and Jiraiya back here.'

The hell of it was, it was working. Jiraiya sent her letters at least weekly, as did Shizune. Tsunade included notes in most of them.

'Oh, that's right. I really need to write them back...'

"As to the matter of my students…" he cocked his head in contemplation. "Your father is a very accomplished spymaster and Tsunade-hime has been medically retired. Orochimaru-san," he paused and gave her an amused look, "has become such a threat that he is continually competing to secure your employment out from under us, and is too powerful for our shinobi to safely engage and eliminate."

His logic was fairly sound, but it did make her head spin. He was- not twisting, exactly- but tweaking his logic to fit around the facts. The idea that he was saying that the problem with Orochimaru was that he had been trained too well and was therefore not an error in judgement was a weird flex.

'Oh. I know who he's throwing under the bus.'

She felt smug, but tried not to be too obvious about it.

He looked at her, immediately clocked it, and began contemplatively eyeing his pipe. He dumped out the ash into the ashtray and hummed like he was thinking.

"It is a difficult scenario, Hokage-sama." she played along. "The clan heads need to be assuaged, but your logic is very sound. What can we offer to appease them?"

He pretended to think, scratching at his scalp and lifting his ceremonial hat up. She was gratified to see that he in fact did have a full head of hair.

"Perhaps the permanent appointments of the Hokage Council- a decision made in my extreme youth and under stress, is less than optimal. Especially given their early retirements and therefore lack of awareness of the issues pressing shinobi today." he took a long puff and looked at her with faux sadness.

'Note to self: my boss takes criticism even worse than I do.' She copied the look, trying to seem disappointed and sad. 'He's icing all three of them out publicly- there's no way this isn't retribution. The clan heads won't likely see it that way, because the internal friction is pretty damned secret.'

"Perhaps," she allowed, trying to think of sad things. Acting was fun. 'Early mornings.' 'decaf coffee.'...

'Meetings.'

Once her face was well and truly sad, she gave him the most wounded look she could conjure. "This does make sense. Perhaps Koharu-sama and Homura-sama, as well as Shimura-shishou may need to retire."

She stilled the impulse to smile. "To spend time with their families."

"They would enjoy the opportunity, I believe." The Sandaime nodded mournfully. "I am sure that they are overly busy with the commitment I assigned them, and would prefer to live out their days with their grandchildren."

'Except for shishou, who has…. Me? And a disbanded military force.'

She had noted exactly zero family photos in his home. It was empty, blank, and looked like a show home for a building company that catered exclusively to divorced dads.

He sighed, long and slow. "I suppose I will have to announce their retirements at the annual Nine-Tails festival next week."

'The one that's on Naruto's birthday?' She kept the curiosity (and mild disappointment) down. That meant she'd have to work on his birthday, probably. He wouldn't like that at all. Sasuke was still on a high from his own birthday, which had included a truly massive amount of books on medical jutsu, workout equipment, and a trip to the spa. Not letting Naruto have something comparable would feed his inferiority complex. Plus, she'd be damned if their first birthdays with her sucked a ton.

He seemed to know what she was thinking. He gave her a lightly upturned smile. "I'm sorry to say that your duties as fukukage require you to also be present at the speech, beside me."

'Drat. Foiled again by my ambition. I'm taking the week after off and the Jiraiya clan is going to a spa.'

"You need to become aware of how these things are done, if anything happens to me."

She gave him a mildly disbelieving look.

'I genuinely believe you might outlive us all. You're currently so full of heck that you're throwing your own friends out on their asses.'

"It could happen." He said, cocking an eyebrow a bit. "Or maybe I just won't want to do it. It is a perk of being the Hokage."

'Damn you, you magnificent troll king.'

She made a polite sound instead. "I look forward to helping Konohagakure in any way I can."

"I know." His eyes twinkled. "You were a very good hire."

She went to pick up her folders, because his free hour was almost up-

"Leave them, please." Sarutobi-sama said, giving a supremely amused look at the office door. "Those are your reports, yes?"

She nodded. "Yes, Hokage-sama."

"I have a meeting with a few clan heads in a moment. I'd love to update them on these projects." He was still staring at the door, while he put his pipe away.

'I hope they prepared themselves.' She thought with some amusement, then wiped the thought away. She didn't want to be retaliated against. Regina couldn't wage a likability campaign with them. It was in her best interest to pretend she wasn't aware of the impending embarrassment.

She let them in- noting it was the InoShikaCho team, Inuzuka Tsume, and the Aburame clan head.

Regina bowed, kept her eyes tilted down, and then slid out the door.

Shiranui was waiting outside the door to her office with a grumpy expression, shifting from side to side and occasionally glancing back at the office pool. He was obviously trying to look cool and unaware of their (nonexistent, but hoped for) glances- but the constant darting of his eyes made it unlikely that any of them bought it.

Okamoto-san coughed. Shiranui did what she could only really classify as the 'bend and snap'- dropping a kunai to the floor and waggling himself at the area of desks.

'Interesting. Really, truly interesting.'

Then he seemed to register Regina, and his eyes lit up.

"Heyyyy." He drawled, letting the senbon he was currently mangling fall from his lip. He caught it with one of his hands and smoothly tucked it away before pulling his shoulders back and angling his neck. "Jiraiya-hime, you're looking gorgeous today." He winked.

"I look gorgeous every day." She responded, then remembered. 'Oh, he's probably angling for a compliment. The office staff is probably refusing to hit on him, because they know he wanted it.'

"You also look good." She gave him a thumbs up.

Shiranui-san looked distinctly unimpressed, eyes boring into hers. "That's all you got?"

She stared at him. Then she looked him up and down. Regina cocked her head to the side

'Stupidly, I did not study the vocabulary for this. Is this the part where something my father wrote is finally useful?'

"Your eyes are like stars." She tried.

"How?" He probed. "I know you made a quota. Come on."

"Is that why you're haunting this office at the beginning of working hours?" She asked rhetorically, walking past him into her office and going for the door handle.

'Makes sense. Mathematically, someone somewhere will eventually be below quota and have to say something flirty to him.'

"You're a goblin and I like it." She said, which was much more honest. "See you later."

He processed that quickly, attempting to kabedon her door frame. "Dinner?" He winked.

She laughed at him.

"Tonight?" He asked, sounding more hopeful. "I make a mean takeout box."

She laughed at him harder, and carefully shut her door in his face.

There was a fierce set of whispering in the break room again- Regina could only take it to mean that it was either about the Hokage's new position on 'FUCK YOU, AM RIGHT' or that he'd overridden her denial of the fancy espresso machine they wanted.

'Regardless, it wouldn't pay to ask. I doubt they'd tell me. It's better to just wait it out and see how this goes. It probably won't get worse.'

Regina filled her coffee mug and stirred in milk and sugar, aware that several people were looking at her. She looked up with a smile. "Good morning!"

She received the standard chorus of repeated greetings, and then she calmly walked out and back into her office, where she was re-reviewing the budget.

'I don't buy it for a second that that was a total coincidence.' She thought as she ran through the numbers she'd nixed, trying with increasing desperation to make them line up with outgoing expenses somewhere. Anywhere. 'Less than a week after I cut off funding that was probably being embezzled, I got my ass kicked publicly. I don't know that that wouldn't have happened organically, but it's too close in timing to not look.'

But try as she might, she couldn't find where the hell that money had been going. The outgoing budget book for purchases lined up, and there didn't seem to be anything missing on that end.

'But of course, no one would be that obvious.' She thought sarcastically. 'They're not going to write down 'crime' as the memo on the bankbook.'

The expenses for Shishou's black ops thing had been kicked to the curb before that, which had luckily freed up some money for her investment into mandatory psychiatric check-ins for personnel.

'But the money we have now after cutting these is massive. Was it all going to one place, or is there a lot of small fraud?'

Writing expenses to be lightly inflated to get cash back would probably be the best way to get those funds out of the office. But that would require a lot of coordination from people in the office.

'Or just one person who knows that the Hokage hates this shit and just stamps it all, and our office processes to file it.' She thought grimly. 'Could be any of the 200-some people in this building.'

She paused.

'Or anyone in leadership in the outside departments, or high status. I don't think it's the clan leaders. Most of them don't have office jobs and our paperwork system is a goddamn labyrinth. Could be Nara or Yamanaka technically, but… I don't see it.'

The best way to figure it out would be pretty ethically fucked.

'I don't think I should try to spy on people and see who is spending above their means. That's… well. Security, spy work. I don't know who I could really trust with that assignment, either. I'll have to ask Sarutobi-sama.'

But it was a massive security breach. Whoever was doing this was risking a lot- for Konohagakure and themselves.

'This place is a snake pit.' She sniffed, getting out a second pen. Her other one was out of ink and she'd need to go get a refill.

She was invited back in for the meeting with the Jounin Commander for the first time in at least a week. When Nara walked into the room, his head slowly rotated around in her direction to stare at her.

'He looks like a sloth.'

She stared back at him. Then she smiled with her eyes. His head rotated back to Sarutobi-sama's desk.

"The new physical check-ins are going well." He said, handing over a stack of files. "But they really don't like them."

"Why is that?" Sarutobi-sama asked calmly, folding his hands together and looking intent.

Nara shrugged. "People don't like change. And it's always been public knowledge that many Jounin are lying on their other evaluations if they can, because they want to get back to work. The psychiatric evaluations are likely to fail. It's rare for any shinobi to admit to the mental ramifications of the job."

"But they have these issues, regardless." The Hokage said, looking to Regina. She quirked her head. "Is that correct?"

"Oh sure, yeah." Nara-san nodded. "Just usually they don't get treated until somebody can't function anymore."

'Yike. This place is yike.'

"So identifying these conditions for treatment earlier is… better or worse?" The Hokage asked.

Nara shrugged again. "Too early to say. Probably best to head off any major episodes, but again. They don't like it right now."

"That's fair." Sarutobi-sama said, leaning back. "I'll expect updated reports on this matter- numbers on our Jounin's performance, and so on. I assume that the contents of their evaluations are unknown to you?"

"That would be correct, sir." Nara bowed lightly. "For their privacy, as Jiraiya-hime directed. I only receive approvals or disapprovals for a Jounin's ability to take missions for the next month or so."

"And what are they doing, if not cleared to take missions?" Regina asked. She'd included recommendations, but… who knew what they'd actually done. Hatake hadn't exactly been thrilled to be given a temporary discharge.

"Mentoring and training teams of the Genin Corps to receive pay, training, and continued appointments with the health specialists until they're re-approved. Though as this system is new, we don't know how long that may take."

The end of that sentence was a little… judgy. Regina tried not to betray her feelings through her face or body posture, and was aware that it wasn't entirely working.

'Yeah, yeah, I get it. Mission fulfillment is important. It's our main source of income and a major factor of our international reputation. It just doesn't help us if we fulfill our quota by running our Jounin to death.'

Short term versus long term gains. She kept the sigh in.

'We may have to look at who takes what missions to fill the gap- it's regrettable, but I don't think we can actually fulfill every mission we get. We've been hemorrhaging personnel for over thirty years and the population can't take it.'

She wrote that note down for later. It was a temporary detraction for her reforms- she had known people wouldn't be thrilled about that one.

"And we've been conducting interviews and evaluations on the Jounin you requested for the new genin teams." Nara handed over another set of folders. "Gekkou Hayate, Shiranui Genma, Hatake Kakashi, Yamashiro Aoba. Morino-san has indicated that he would be able to take on a team if needed, and several other clan heads have done so as well."

'That...is an interesting list. No Gai? No Ebisu? They're the ones who want that job. Hatake is evidently really competent at his job, but I don't know about his teaching skills. There was nothing in his files about that.'

The other people she didn't know as well. Gekkou was a competent jounin, Shiranui was technically tokubetsu.

'God, imagine a whole bunch of kids just like Genma. The village would fall apart.'

Yamashiro kept his head job and did his job, so far as she was aware.

She kept quiet. There was precious little she could offer on that score, so it was best to say nothing.

"Thank you, Nara-san. Is that everything for today?" Sarutobi-sama asked, putting the files into his massive 'in' pile.

He bowed. "Yes, sir. That's all."

"Thank you, you are dismissed." Regina got up to get the door, but the Hokage held up his hand. She paused.

Nara-san slipped out the door and closed it behind him.

"Rejina-hime." He said, gesturing her over to him. She quickly complied. "I wish to discuss something with you."

'Sounds serious. Makes me itch, a little bit.'

"Earlier you asked me a question, and I asked if you trusted me. Do you remember?"

She thought back. That hadn't been today, for sure.

'Oh. When I asked him about Naruto.'

"Yes, sir." At least she could answer him.

"And I trust you, as well. I need to tell you a few things. They're going to be… rather hard to explain."

Regina stood, stock-still, thinking. Then she walked over to her divan and pulled it over in front of his desk, and sat down with her notebook and pen.

"Okay. I'm ready."