Regina was relaxed. Regina was, for once, not in physical pain or under incredible stress.
Regina was also feeling super not into going back home.
"Whyyyy do we have to go back?" Naruto whined. He shoved another cheese-flavored snack into his mouth. She'd banned fish-based food on the way out.
'Man, I don't even have the heart to argue with you right now. I know your biggest concern is that school sucks, and I feel that so hard.'
Luckily, Sasuke was there to impose order on a universe partial to chaos. "Because we can't miss more school. We need to go to class to become good shinobi, or we die."
'Kids, could you be a little less bleak? It's…' Regina's relationship with the concept of time was always shaky, but vacation made it worse. She wasn't given to operating on a tight schedule. It probably wasn't morning, though. 'I don't know. A time. All times are good times to not make me worry about you dying.'
She leaned her head out of the window and looked up, to where Boar was sitting on top of the carriage. He poked his head over.
"Help?" She asked. "My children are being depressing."
He shook his head.
"Okay, fair." She slunk back in.
"Okay, what should we do for my birthday next year? I drew some suggestions, kaa-chan." Naruto held up an artistic rendering that she suspected involved some form of animal, genus previously unknown.
"This is my birthday tiger." He pointed to the mystery animal. "We could ride it."
"That definitely is a tiger." She agreed amiably. "But we have a whole year until your birthday. Next we have my birthday, Christmas, New Years…"
She paused. "Also maybe ojii-chan's birthday. Actually, that's before anything else. We should… probably send him something."
Naruto raised his marker proudly. She saw where that was going.
"Yes, I'm sure he'd love to see art from both of you. That's a wonderful present."
'He probably doesn't care, but it won't hurt a damn thing. The only thing that glorious weirdo wants is fawning adoration for his romance novels. And sex. Neither of which is an appropriate topic for children.' She leaned back into the cushion and closed her eyes. 'I also probably need to send him more letters. He wanted to check my sealing practice with Sarutobi-sensei, even if all I can do are storage and privacy seals. I'm only copying, anyway.'
They stopped in a picturesque town just after the border for lunch, and piled out into the warm sun towards a tonkatsu restaurant.
'Ugh, more fried stuff. I like karaage, but…' Regina grimaced. 'I would like a vegetable. One health, please.'
But that was what was available, so she went in.
The menu actually had a few other things, so she took her time deciphering the shaky handwriting on the paper.
'Oh, I think that's pork skewers. Should be grilled- that's a little less oil. Oh, and a salad. Nice.'
The boys and Boar just got karaage kyuushoku, and the little elderly lady took down their orders.
"I would like two pork skewers and the fresh salad, please." Regina said, going last. She'd taken a weirdly long time to read.
"Oh, so sorry, there's no pork today." The woman bowed, half-frantic.
"Chicken skewers, then?" Regina asked. She'd had quite a few, but chicken was better for her anyway.
The woman smiled and wrote it down, before leaving.
Lunch was delicious, and they got back into or on the carriage to finish the last leg of their trip. As they left town, Regina noted that there were animal pens next to most of the houses, which was normal.
But they were all empty.
'Wonder how they ran out of pigs.' She turned back, and readjusted herself on the seat. Naruto immediately sat on her lap and reopened his sketchpad to the page after the birthday tiger.
"Ojii-chan is gonna love this, dattebayo." He said with conviction, puffing out his cheeks.
She put her hand on Sasuke's shoulder, leaned back, and took a nap.
They arrived back in Konoha a couple of hours later. Regina awoke when one of the doors slammed closed.
She looked around, and the carriage was empty, so she ambled out. The boys were trying to get the luggage off the back while Boar watched.
The driver rushed around to help them, and she turned to Boar.
"We're technically back now, thank you." She bowed. "You can leave now. I hope it wasn't too horrible."
He bowed, short and tight, and then shunshined away.
She wrangled the boys and all of their luggage, paid and thanked Nakayama-san, their driver, and got their papers stamped.
When they got back home, the boys rushed out to the wilderness territory just outside the gate to throw kunai at trees, and Regina went up to her personal office.
'It is not physically possible for vacation to be long enough.' She lamented, opening scroll after scroll for updates. 'This is nothing, this is nothing, this is important but requires no action from me or the Hokage, an update, an itinerary for my trip which is important but I cannot currently stand to process it…'
At the bottom of the pile were personal correspondences- from her father, Orochimaru-san, Tsunade-san, and one from the land of Iron. The big-ass seal on top was kind of a giveaway that it was probably from Mifune-sama.
She decided to open them in descending order of perceived stressfulness- first, Orochimaru's weird brand of negging/mental horror interspersed with social niceties and etiquette 'recommendations', then the one from Iron, then Tsunade, and last, her father's, which was probably just an envelope with pictures of frogs in it.
'Dear Rejina-chan,' Orochimaru's letter started out strong and wrong, 'in the time of autumn it is customary to review your social engagements and associations in preparation for the new year, as well as contemplate the finality of life in general.'
"Holy shit." She sat down in her beautifully upholstered leather chair, and held the letter away from her face. "Okay, so we're being more overt with the threats to my person. Good to know."
'I thought you should know that I value our relationship greatly, and would rarely, if ever, do anything that might cause you inconvenience. With that said, I do hope you come to reconsider my generous offer of employment when an appropriate time comes. Your father and I have had such a close relationship that I hope you begin to think of me as an uncle, or even a family friend. With Love, your Uncle Orochimaru.'
"Probably would have meant more without the implication that dying is imminent. Also- what is with Jiraiya, and the quality of these imposed 'family friends.'" She said wryly. "Thankssss, uncle-friend- Oh no, there's a postscript."
'My messengers inform me that you have prudently upgraded your security through the use of the fine arts at your home and office. I compliment your foresight and obvious improvement in the fine arts, as I remember what it was like when I was just starting out, and that my teacher did me the kindness of showing me their weaknesses. In similar fashion, I do hope that you continue to improve these measures, as they are currently inadequate to repel anyone with sufficient education.'
Regina slowly put it in the tray that meant it necessitated a response. Then she stared at it for a moment, willing the initial flight response back down. He wouldn't respect it anyway.
It was time for the letter from Iron, which she carefully unrolled.
'Most honorable Princess Jiraiya Rejina, fukukage of Konohagakure' it started. 'The Land of Iron was most honoured to make your acquaintance in the past year, and grateful for your learned assistance. We would like to request your assistance again, as a proxy for negotiating terms of trade with these foreign countries, including a representative from the British Empire. We await your response. Taishou Mifune'
Another set of personal and professional hanko accompanied the bottom of the letter.
'Intriguing, but doesn't provide much more information than Sarutobi-sama. I suppose that makes sense, they don't necessarily have particular goals to achieve. This is likely an exploratory meeting.'
It also merited a response, though she might need to consult the Hokage, as it was likely that he'd already sent his own. Unlike her previous stay in Iron, she was now a representative of Konohagakura government.
She carefully opened the letter from Tsunade.
'Rejina, I hope you're taking the medications and supplements I prescribed for you. I'm glad to hear Sasuke is doing well and receiving therapy- he's in a critical stage of brain development, and ?repercussions? could last his entire life. Much like the damage to your feet, ankles, and knees for some reason. No pressure.'
Regina took a moment to get out her dictionary to check the kanji, circled it, and was gratified to see that she'd been right.
'I still won't be returning to visit you, but Shizune and I would like to see you for your birthday. We will come to a secondary location, and we'd love to see the boys.'
'Your scruffy father is explicitly not invited. If he complains, please advise him to plan better next time.'
Regina blinked.
'Love, Tsunade.'
'P.S. take your goddamned vitamins and do your stretches. Are you even seeing the physical therapist I prescribed? Please send five receipts for verification.'
Shizune had included a note with the location for Regina's birthday getaway, as well as suggestions for what they should do while there.
Regina wrote back a response immediately, and opened up her desk drawer allocated for personal files. She included several more receipts than Tsunade had requested, including ones for the vile little supplements, vitamins, and new anxiety medications she'd been taking.
'At least she'll probably lay off for a week or so.' She thought, sealing them carefully together. 'She obviously thinks there's reason to believe I'd immediately stop following medical advice after being out of her sight. Bodes real ill for my yearly exam initiative, if avoiding medical care is a shinobi thing.'
Jiraiya's letter was pretty long. She was disappointed in the utter lack of pictures in this one.
'Ugh. If they're going to be so long he can't include them on his reports to the Sandaime, can't he at least include some visuals to break up the text?' She squinted. Hard.
'His handwriting is so bad.'
She could *just* decipher that there were some sections that were poetic in nature- and something about obligation, pretty something-something.
'Can I just assume this is either a letter waxing poetic about how fatherhood has made him a better person and he hopes I'm ok, or a new draft of one of his books?'
She made a face at it. 'Nope. I can't assume anything.' She squinted again. A few paragraphs down, there was a sentence about 'romance'.
'Okay, it's one of his books. Don't know what to do with that. File it? Tell him he's the greatest author of all time and hope he asks no clarifying questions?'
For now, she tucked it back into its envelope and put it in the drawer. 'I'll read it again tomorrow, and see what I need to do with it. By then, Naruto might even have some artistic renderings ready for distribution as well.'
There was a little knock on her office door- three sharp raps, purposefully not too loud.
'That would be Sasuke. Ikemoto-san would have only done it once, and louder.'
"Yes, Sasuke?" She called, "You can come in."
She heard the door creak open, just a little bit. Regina turned.
Sasuke was peering around the room suspiciously, evidently absorbing knowledge about this other prohibited space.
'I swear to God that adorable little boy exists to absorb all my knowledge and experience like a sponge, then move on to the next victim.' She sighed.
He was scanning the books in the room- she'd bet an obscene amount of money that he would ask to borrow some of them later.
"Kaa-chan?" He finally asked, big black eyes focusing on her with intensity. "Can I go tell them I'm back? They might be worried."
She blinked. 'He will at least mourn me once he's absorbed my life essence, though, so I guess it's not so bad.'
"Yes, of course! Ikemoto-san already prepared the rice, I think. We should really make sure those genin fed your fish, too…" she shut her desk drawer, and locked the mechanism. "Is it ok if Naruto-kun and I come today?"
He nodded, and slipped out of the room. "I'll go get Naruto-kun. If I wait, he'll be covered in mud."
'That feels like something that I probably should have asked about, but Sasuke is definitely gone by now.'
She activated the seals protecting her office, and left down the stairs. The boys' regular shoes weren't in the genkan, so she went to the courtyard.
Sasuke was using a broom to brush/beat Naruto, who currently seemed to be only moderately filthy- 'they must have gotten into something while they were outside, he rarely gets this messy just for target practice.'
"Oy, kaa-chan!" Naruto jumped, and Sasuke took the opportunity to thwack him on the back with the broom. Shards of dried mud clattered to the ground. "Sasuke said I needed to be clean?"
"We're going to the Uchiha complex, yes." Regina liberated the broom from Sasuke, and eyed Naruto. "Go rinse off and change clothes- we'll be in the main house."
He raced into the house, and Sasuke looked up at her.
"I would have gotten him clean enough." He said archly.
"You don't believe that- please don't hit your little brother with cleaning supplies." She put the broom down by the outside of the genkan- it was usually for sweeping leaves off the stone pathways.
Regina held out her free hand, and readjusted the heavy bag of food she was carrying with her other. "Shall we go?"
He took it and led her back to his other home- like she didn't know where she was going, no matter that they did this at least twice a week.
She inspected the cleaning jobs the genin had been doing in her absence. It was pretty half-assed, to be honest.
Sasuke seemed to be under the same impression. His mouth was tight.
"I think we may have to start helping them clean." She said, lightly squeezing his hand. "It's too much for us to do on our own, though. We still need to have the genin teams doing basic cleaning, even if we don't trust them to do a wonderful job."
He seemed to relax a bit.
"It's big." He said quietly. "It would take a long time without help."
She hummed.
Sasuke's hand slipped out of hers to rush up and open the doors to the main house. They slid easily, which was reassuring. If nothing else, use was keeping them somewhat maintained.
The previously understated family room was now occupied by a massive, custom-made butsudan. No one normally needed one this big.
Regina held back the cringe that accompanied that thought. She had been wrong in her initial estimations of there being only a couple hundred Uchiha less than a year ago- the real number was almost a thousand.
The family shrine had been overfilled, which is where they would go next, after also making offerings at the kamidana.
'And to think, I've found pictures of *most* of them for these shrines.' She thought queasily, putting the bags of cooked rice in containers down on the floor. 'That reminds me, I need to develop more of those cameras the genin teams are finding. I'm at least a hundred short, off the top of my head.'
Sasuke lit the incense and reverently removed the containers of cooked rice. She helped him refill the bowls on the butsudan with rice, carefully placing them by the pictures of various family members.
Regina looked at the rows of birth announcement photos with a now-familiar feeling of melancholy. Those were the only ways to find pictures of the 96 babies that had died- and twenty were still missing.
They finished with the food offerings, and they settled into seiza.
Naruto slipped in on her left side, purposefully sitting so his leg touched hers. He slightly leaned into her side.
They all clapped twice, bowing their heads. It was quiet for a few moments.
"Tadaima." Sasuke said quietly.
They made offerings and prayers at the kamidana and the family shrine, then fed Sasuke's precious fish. They made satisfying and greedy little noises as they vacuumed up the pellets that were thrown onto the surface.
"Can we clean a little bit?" Sasuke asked. She'd noticed him twitch whenever he saw the dust build-up in places those genin must have thought she'd miss.
'I know they hate it, but they can't think we'd just promote them to more interesting missions for such lackluster work.' Regina swept a finger along the top of a shelf, unsurprised at the dust bunnies that came along for the ride. Ikemoto-san would probably have their hides for this one.
Regina was undyingly fond of that woman.
"Of course."
They got out the cleaning supplies and went about scrubbing the main house until it gleamed. When Sasuke had proclaimed it acceptable, they stowed the cleaners, dustrags, and other cleaning apparati away.
It was dusk when they left the complex. Sasuke leaned into her side and sighed, reaching a hand up to grip onto her shirt.
Naruto lightly swung the now-empty bag of plastic containers with every step, making a clattering noise. When they got back home, he silently headed into the kitchen to put them into the sink and hang up the cloth bag in the pantry while she and Sasuke headed towards the bath rooms.
The mood was always somber after those visits, but it was sweet how Naruto seemed to respond to Sasuke's emotional state- he immediately identified the moment when Sasuke would be amenable to snuggling, when they were watching a movie about ninja cowboys in.. space? She didn't get it, but the boys loved it.
Sasuke fell asleep first on the pile of zabuton, then Naruto. She could tell by the snoring.
'I want to be enjoying how cute it is, but I feel like I should probably see if there's something wrong with Naruto's breathing. I think you're not supposed to snore that much?'
Parenting was a neverending pain in the ass.
At an hour unbecoming, she roused them from their beds and brought them up to her studio.
They sleepily went through an hour of warm-up stretches together, and she evaluated.
"Your flexibility has gotten a lot better." Regina complimented, seeing that they both had finally secured perfect splits. "How's your turnout?"
The boys responded to her English fairly quickly. Naruto only blinked twice before jumping up to stand, demonstrating a perfect line with his feet.
"Check?" She asked. They put their toes and heels almost together.
"Bien." She went to the bar. "Plie, s'il vous plait."
'Is it messy to combine French, English, and Japanese? Maybe. But I'm not a language teacher, merely a garbage ballerina teaching scruffy sons.'
"Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf, dix."
"Hantai."
They obediently switched sides.
"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten."
"Tendu, onegaishimasu. Vingt, s'il vous plait. Count with me in English please."
"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight…" They counted together. At least they had some sort of handle on counting.
"Switch sides."
"Battement dégagé, please. Ten per side, slowly."
Regina did hers quickly, and inspected their footwork. Naruto's was, characteristically, enthusiastic and a bit sloppy. Sasuke was precise, but too mechanical.
'It's not surprising. It's hard to make it look effortless, and I haven't been teaching them that long.'
"Naruto, watch your toes- and your ankles look... floppy, they should be straight." She watched. "Much better."
"Sasuke, try to move a little less rigidly-" She walked in front of them both and demonstrated. "This is what you're doing now-" they watched with sharp eyes, "and this is what it should look like."
She focused on the length of her legs and feet, making graceful lines. She went slowly, demonstrating the needed grace in movement that made ballet more than pure athleticism. "The goal is to make it look effortless and airy, even though much of ballet is very physically demanding."
"Why." Naruto asked, not for the first time. It seemed to be his favorite English word. "We want to be shinobi- does it matter?"
"I refuse to teach you ballet badly." She said crisply. "Besides, wouldn't it be cool if everyone thought you were so perfect that difficult things look easy for you?"
"Yes." Sasuke said grimly. He copied her slowly, from position to position. He was already working out some of the tightness in his movements.
"Good. Are you both done?"
They nodded. "Ten more with me, please keep in mind what I just told you. Can you count in French, this time? S'il vous plait."
"Un, deus, trois.." they counted out together. She was aware that every once in a while they would dip out on the numbers, and come back in again.
'I think it just takes time? Maybe I should use more French in the house.'
"Ron de jambe- then I want to work on your jumps today."
After the boys performed small jumps to her satisfaction, she sent her sweaty children downstairs to get showered.
'I'd love to take them through a whole class sometime.' She worried her lip, and re-did her hair bun. 'But not on a school day yet- they have too much physical work to do.'
She took another hour for herself- trying to piece together routines she remembered, and practicing her pirouette- being out of ballet for a few years had not done her footwork any favors. But the training Tsunade and Shizune had put her through had actually gotten her up to a very good level of conditioning, and she'd never stopped stretching.
'If I keep practicing, I might get back to my personal best.' She thought, watching her feet in the mirror. 'Though it would be better to get a teacher, if one was available.'
Her ankle twinged, which meant it was probably time to finish up and ice it before heading to work.
Regina finished her set, then sat down on the ground to do the ankle and foot exercises she'd learned from a rotating set of PTs after her injuries. Even after, they kept aching and sent up occasional distress flares of pain.
She shrugged, iced them, and took a bath before heading to work.
Her ankles were *murdering* her today. And now something in her right foot was in on it- it shifted, inspiring a wave of pain that shot up her leg. Regina grimaced as she delivered yet another stack of pre-approved files for the Hokage to stamp.
He gave her a look.
"Paperwork injury?" He joked wryly.
She smiled tightly, in a way that seemed to frighten people sometimes. "Old injuries I seem to have made worse this morning."
He hummed politely. Not surprising. Shinobi seemed to assume that real injuries or trauma could only be attained through their work- notwithstanding the occasional freak accident. It was somehow like military culture back home, which would be comforting if it wasn't also incredibly shitty.
She resisted the urge to roll her eyes and walked carefully towards the door.
'Tsunade was right to ask me about the physical therapist. I've gone, but maybe not as often as I should have. I'll go to the hospital after work and make sure I didn't do any more damage.'
"Ano..Rejina-hime." The Sandaime said. His voice indicated that he was in his 'contemplative' mode. "What were the details of that meeting you have, again?"
"The one in Iron?" She asked, carefully turning. Her left ankle twinged resentfully.
He blinked. "Yes, that one."
"I go to the Daimyo's palace next week to discuss desired terms, imports, and exports. After I compile those, I will be going to Iron. At that time, Mifune-dono and I will discuss Iron's desired terms. A week later, the envoy from the British Empire should arrive, and I will work to secure those terms. Afterwards, I will return from the land of Iron to Konohagakure, and then go to the Fire Daimyo again to debrief him on the results after reporting to you."
The Sandaime leaned back. "And have we decided your shinobi escort?"
Regina stopped to think- that would be his deal, so she hadn't planned it. He'd told her three weeks ago that it was handled, but didn't give her a name.
"No." She said slowly. "I don't believe you have- at least, I don't have that information."
"Can you-" he paused. "Can you ask, ah, Keiko-san to bring the roster?" He hurriedly pulled out his pipe. "We will need to check if it has already been assigned- if not, we need to find an appropriate escort that has that time available."
Her eyes went slightly wide. 'Uh, that's bad. Yeah, this close to the mission, lots of shinobi aren't going to be available. They might all be assigned somewhere else- this thing is going to take, like, a month.'
She rushed out to the office and secured the mission rosters from Keiko, flipping through files. Regina couldn't find ANBU Boar, ANBU Cat was out on a long out-of-country assignment.
'Fuck, fuck, fuck. Those are the two I know best.'
There were probably some Jounin that were available- she flipped through the files. But Gai wasn't one of them. Fuck, there were so many shinobi. This would take forever.
She hit the tokubetsu jounin section and noted that Shiranui was available- she looked up and made eye contact with him as he stood 'guard' over the office. He winked.
'Hard nope.'
"This sucks." She said without feeling. Then she looked over to the office across from her own. 'Maybe I should just ask the Jounin Commander, instead. He'll know who's available without me cycling through a mass of paper while having a prolonged panic attack.'
She walked up to the door and knocked.
"Please come in." Nara-san said, tone conveying perfectly that he wanted absolutely no visitors.
Regina opened the door and poked her head in.
"Rejina-hime, nice to see you." Nara-san said, face behind a report.
She squinted. The report was obviously closed. "Thank you for seeing me, Nara-san." She said politely. "I've been told to secure an appropriate escort for a month-long assignment to both the Fire Daimyo's court and on a diplomatic mission to the Land of Iron."
He winced and put the folder down. It was definitely closed.
"When?" He scratched the back of his head. "Personnel is a bit… tight, right now."
"I know." Her limits on overwork didn't mean that anyone was necessarily free. "And unfortunately, it starts next week."
He blinked. A small line formed on his forehead, conveying he understood that it was concerning, but it disappeared a second later. "Why wasn't it assigned earlier?" He asked, leaning forward onto his desk and steepling his fingers.
"I.. don't know." She grimaced slightly, and tried to recover it. "Hokage-sama just asked me to check in- earlier I'd been told it would be taken care of."
"Hmm." He pulled open a drawer and she could hear the distinctive sound of files being tabbed. He looked up. "I can find someone, I think- but you're not going to enjoy it."
The resigned tone of voice conveyed more meaning than any book her father had ever written.
"Oh no." She flipped her hair. "Um. I'm sure it'll be ok."
"I'll let Hatake know." He said, pulling out a file and a pen. "Just so you know, he's going to be very late for the meeting time."
"Yeah, I know." She visibly wilted a little, and pulled back. "Thank you so much, Nara-san."