Have you ever written the scary sociopath/psychopath version of Minato? Cause I'd love to see him in your style 'v' please? *offers you a cat*
Oh, I have absolutely been bribed with a cat, and I am weak. QQ
But I think the scariest version of Minato is not battlefield Minato.
Battlefield Minato is obvious. He is fast, lethal, and the reason entire enemy units developed a collective survival instinct. That is frightening, yes, but it is also straightforward. You see the flash of gold, you run, you pray, you live or you don’t.
Because Hokage Minato has learned to sit still.
And when a man like that learns politics, people should become very afraid.
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The day begins with sunlight.
It spills over Konoha in long, golden sheets, sliding across wet roof tiles and catching on laundry lines strung between narrow balconies. It gilds the steam rising from breakfast stalls and turns every suspended droplet from the morning wash into something briefly precious. The village wakes by degrees: shutters thrown open, sandals slapping over stone, iron pans hissing as oil meets batter, vendors calling out prices in voices still rough with sleep.
The air smells of rice and ink, damp wood and frying oil, old stone warming beneath the sun, and the sharp green bite of crushed herbs beneath passing sandals. Somewhere nearby, someone is grinding tea leaves. Somewhere farther off, a smith’s hammer rings once, twice, then settles into rhythm.
Minato walks through it without an escort. People complain about this constantly. His guards complain with professional despair. His advisors complain with the brittle patience of people who have repeated themselves too many times. Kushina complains in a tone that has made grown Jōnin suddenly remember urgent missions in other districts.
After all Hokage who cannot walk through his own village without armor has already lost something important.
A sweets artisan leans out of her stall as he passes, her sleeves rolled to the elbow and flour streaked across one cheek. The stall behind her glows with heat. Rows of sweet buns sit beneath damp cloth, soft and pale, fragrant with red bean and sesame.
“You’re too thin, Hokage sama,” she says, and presses a paper-wrapped bun into his hands before he can object.
Minato smiles. “I’m very well fed.”
“You’re very well impossible,” she says, and gives him another one. The paper is warm against his palm. For half a second, the smell of sweet dough overwhelms the morning: yeast, sugar, toasted flour. Something ordinary enough to ache.
A boy from the Academy nearly drops his books trying to bow and salute at the same time. His satchel swings violently into his knee. Minato catches the top book before it hits the mud, straightens the stack, and hands it back with solemn dignity.
“Good reflexes,” he says.
The boy goes scarlet so fast even his ears turn red.
Near the bridge, an old man stops him to ask about his grandson’s mission assignment. The man’s hands are knotted from years of work, his thumb rubbing anxiously over the edge of his cane. Minato knows the grandson. Genin. Twelve. Bright. Terrible at keeping his sandals tied. Minato promises to look into the team rotation and means it.
At the edge of the market, a little girl gives him a flower. It is small and purple, half-crushed from being held too tightly, its stem bent where anxious fingers have worried it soft. There is soil beneath her fingernails and a smear of something sweet at the corner of her mouth.
“For your desk,” she says.
Minato accepts it with both hands.
“Thank you,” he says, as though receiving a treaty from a foreign power. “I’ll take good care of it.”
She beams at him, missing one front tooth.
This is the Minato the village knows. Sunlight in human shape. Young enough that old women still try to feed him. Kind enough that children run toward him instead of away. Strong enough that everyone sleeps better knowing he is in the tower.
By the time he reaches the Hokage building, three civilians have waved at him, two Chūnin have straightened like snapped wire, and a medic nin with shadows under both eyes has smiled for the first time in what looks like days.
He carries the purple flower upstairs, past the clean smell of polished floors and the drier scent of old paper, and places it in a cup of water on his desk. The flower leans at once toward the window, bruised petals opening in the light as if it still believes in being beautiful.
Then he picks up the black folder waiting beside it.
And the sunlight leaves his face.
The folder is stamped with three harmless words:
POST-WAR DEPENDENCY RESTRUCTURING.
A beautiful title. Clean. Administrative. Soothing in the way poison can be soothing when stirred carefully into tea.
The paper is expensive. Thick. Cream-colored. Official. It makes a soft whisper beneath his thumb when he opens it.
Minato reads the first page again, though he already knows every word.
1 - Centralized guardianship review.
2 - Improved efficiency in war orphan placement.
3 - Streamlined evaluation of shinobi-capable dependents.
4 - Reallocation of “underutilized” medical stipends.
5 - Security consultation for children of strategic value.
His thumb rests over the phrase. For one moment, the office is very quiet.
Outside the window, Konoha continues living. Carts rattle along stone. Someone laughs below. A dog barks twice and is scolded by its owner. A vendor’s ladle scrapes the bottom of a pot. The village breathes, unaware that a hand has reached toward its children in the language of policy.
Minato closes the folder. The purple flower trembles faintly in its cup as the desk settles beneath his hand.
He goes to the council chamber at ten.
The chamber is cool and narrow, paneled in dark wood that holds the smell of old smoke and older decisions. The air is always heavier here. Even in morning, even with the windows open, it carries the stale residue of sealed arguments, burnt tobacco, wax, ink, and the faint mineral scent of stone walls that have absorbed too many secrets.
Morning light enters through high windows and falls across the long table in pale rectangles. Dust drifts through it, slow as ash.
Minato takes his seat at the head and sets the black folder in front of him.
Beside it, he places the flower. A small, absurd thing. Purple against polished wood. Softness at the center of a room built to preserve power.
Shikaku arrives next. His sandals scrape once at the threshold. He looks sleep-rumpled in the way he always does, hair tied high, shoulders loose, expression arranged around lifelong inconvenience. His gaze flicks once to the folder, once to the flower, once to Minato’s face.
Then he stops looking bored.
“Trouble?” he asks quietly.
Shikaku’s mouth tightens. “Worse, then.”
Minato’s smile does not change.
The others arrive in pieces. Homura first, precise and dry, every movement measured as though age has made him economical rather than frail. His cane strikes the floor with a soft, controlled tap. Koharu follows with her mouth already set in disapproval, her sleeves whispering around her wrists as she takes her place. She smells faintly of starch and medicinal herbs, clean in a way that feels severe.
Danzō enters last, of course, because men like him believe timing is a form of architecture.
Hiruzen comes too, retired but not irrelevant, pipe unlit between his fingers. He looks older in the council chamber than he does anywhere else. Perhaps the room remembers him too well. Perhaps he remembers himself too clearly inside it.
Danzō’s eye moves to the flower.
A smaller man would remove it. But Minato leaves it there.
“Good morning,” he smiles.
The meeting begins with patrol rotations.
Then mission tax revisions.
Then the hospital expansion.
Minato allows all of it to unfold. He listens. He nods. He asks one clarifying question about supply chains along the eastern road. He lets Homura correct a figure. He lets Koharu object to a staffing increase. He lets Danzō remain silent with the heavy patience of a spider at the edge of its web.
Papers shift. Ink dries. Tea cools untouched in shallow cups.
Shikaku says very little. His fingers rest on the table, tapping once every few minutes.
Anyone else might think he is bored.
The board is setting itself.
At last, Homura draws the black folder toward the center of the table. The folder makes a soft rasp against the polished wood.
“There is one additional matter,” he says.
“The dependency restructuring proposal,” Koharu says. “Given the strain on village resources after the war, we believe a review is overdue.”
“Of course,” Minato says mildly. “Reviews are useful.”
Homura opens the folder “The village has accumulated obligations beyond sustainability. War orphans, disabled shinobi, widowed spouses, long-term care dependents. We must be practical.”
Practical. It is always practical, the first time someone reaches for a knife.
Koharu’s voice is cool. “No one is suggesting abandonment. But sentiment cannot govern a military village.”
Minato looks at her. His expression remains pleasant.
Something small shifts in the room - the air, perhaps. Hiruzen’s pipe stills between his fingers.
Koharu does not retreat. “The village must survive.”
“Yes,” Minato says. “It must.”
Homura turns a page. The paper whispers. “The proposal recommends transferring guardianship assessment to a centralized office with security consultation. Children with shinobi aptitude would be evaluated for appropriate placement earlier. This would reduce redundancy between the Academy, clan registries, and mission welfare.”
“Potential,” Homura corrects.
Danzō finally speaks, “A military village cannot afford to waste potential.”
His voice is rough, low, almost bored.
Danzō’s eye narrows slightly. Minato tilts his head. “That was not agreement. I was answering the premise. We cannot afford to waste children either.”
The air changes. It is a subtle thing. A tightening around the edges. The same sensation before lightning breaks, when the hair along the back of the neck lifts and the world seems to wait for impact.
Homura’s fingers tighten around the page.
Koharu interjects, “Yondaime, no one here is proposin--”
“You are proposing,” Minato says, still gently, “that children whose parents died in service to this village be sorted by strategic usefulness before they have finished mourning.”
Silence. The sentence lands without force, which makes it heavier.
Koharu’s mouth thins. “That is an emotional interpretation.”
He opens his own copy of the folder and flips past the pages. His hands are clean. Steady. Beautifully still.
“It is also an accurate one.”
Homura exhales through his nose. “With respect, Hokage sama, you are young. This village has always made difficult choices in the aftermath of war.”
Minato looks down at the page. For a heartbeat, he looks exactly as young as Homura wants him to be. Twenty four. Golden-haired. Soft-faced in the wrong light. A boy in a dead man’s chair, surrounded by institutions older than his bones.
Then Minato turns the page.
“I have read the records.”
Hiruzen’s eyes close briefly.
Danzō watches Minato now with full attention.
“I read the casualty reviews from the Second War,” Minato continues. “The wardship transfers after the Ame campaigns. The Academy intake revisions after the border conflicts. The medical ration waivers that disappeared from the rolls between fiscal quarters.”
He lifts his gaze “There is a pattern.”
Homura’s face goes still.
Shikaku leans back in his chair with the faintest scrape of wood against wood.
Minato reaches into the folder and removes three sheets of paper. He lays them side by side.
“The public proposal,” he says.
“The administrative draft.”
Danzō’s expression does not change.
That, in itself, is almost impressive.
Homura clears his throat. “I am unfamiliar with a security appendix.”
“I would hope so,” Minato replies lightly.
The chamber seems colder. The flower beside him has begun to droop from the heat of the room. One petal touches the rim of the cup. The water inside has taken on the faint green smell of bruised stem.
Minato smooths the third page with two fingers.
“This appendix recommends that orphaned children of active-duty shinobi be screened for bloodline traits, unusual chakra capacity, psychological compliance, and suitability for non-standard training tracks.”
Koharu’s eyes flash toward Danzō.
Danzō does not look at her.
Homura says carefully, “If such a document exists, it was not approved by this council.”
“No,” Minato agrees. “It was not.”
Relief almost enters the room.
Minato kills it before it can breathe.
“It was circulated before approval.”
Shikaku murmurs, “Messy.”
Minato glances at him. Shikaku’s face is blank now. Entirely blank. The Nara have perfected indifference into a weapon.
Minato returns his attention to the room.
“Three versions of the proposal were released from my office.”
Danzō’s hand rests on his cane.
“One version went through Welfare Administration,” Minato says. “One through Academy Records. One through Mission Accounting.”
The silence has teeth now.
Minato taps the public proposal “The version that reached Homura sama included an error in the stipend totals.”
He taps the administrative draft “The version that reached Koharu sama included an outdated Academy intake table.”
He taps the third page, “The version that reached Danzō sama included neither error.”
Danzō’s voice is flat. “Are you accusing me of something?”
“No, of course not.” Minato smiles. “I am establishing sequence.”
Shikaku’s mouth twitches.
There it is. The shape of the board, finally visible to everyone else. Homura is a rook: straight lines, institutional weight, old authority. Koharu is a bishop: angled pressure, quiet influence, always arriving from the side.
Danzō is the hidden queen, though he would hate the comparison. Long reach. Unsentimental. Most dangerous when ignored.
Hiruzen is the old king, removed from play but still warping the board by existing.
Shikaku is the knight in the corner, already seeing the endgame.
Minato has no piece. He is the hand.
Koharu places a hand on the table. Her nails are short, immaculate, pale against the dark wood.
“This is an internal matter. If an unauthorized appendix was created, we can investigate quietly.”
“Quietly,” Minato echoes.
“Yes,” Homura adds. “There is no need to destabilize public confidence.”
Minato’s eyes soften. For one terrible moment, he looks almost sad.
“Public confidence,” he says, “is not destabilized by truth. It is destabilized by discovering truth was hidden.”
Danzō makes a low sound. “Idealism.”
Minato turns to him “No,” he says. “Leverage.”
The word strikes the table like a blade. Even Shikaku looks at him then.
Minato reaches into the folder again. This time, he removes a list. It is longer than the others by several pages.
Names. ID numbers. Demographic data. Guardian status. Medical notes. Clan affiliation where applicable.
The paper is thin enough that the ink ghosts faintly through from the other side. Efficient paper. Bureaucratic paper. The sort used when many lives must be reduced to columns.
The room recognizes what it is before he says anything.
Minato places the list in the center of the table.
“These are the children who would become eligible for centralized review under the proposed language.”
Koharu does not touch it.
Danzō’s visible eye remains fixed on Minato.
The sound of it fills the chamber with something worse than accusation.
Children’s names do not behave like numbers. They refuse to sit cleanly in columns once spoken aloud. They crawl into the air. They attach themselves to memory. They become faces, houses, empty sandals by doors, mothers who do not come home, fathers whose mission pay arrives after the funeral.
A six-year-old with a scar beneath one eye.
A nine-year-old who still sleeps with her mother’s hitai-ate beneath her pillow.
A boy who failed his first Academy entrance exam because he cried when asked to perform the clone technique.
A girl whose medical stipend had already been delayed twice.
Minato does not add those details aloud. He does not need to.
By the seventh name, Homura’s jaw is locked.
By the twelfth, Koharu looks away.
By the fifteenth, Hiruzen says softly, “Minato.”
Minato stops and looks at his predecessor. There is no disrespect in his gaze.
There is no obedience either.
Hiruzen’s eyes are tired. Minato can see the plea there.
Do not tear open the floorboards while everyone is still standing on them.
Minato loves him for that instinct.
“I am almost finished,” Minato adds. Then he reads the remaining names.
When he is done, the room is colder than before.
Minato sets the list down.
“Those children are not inventory.”
Danzō says, “You think saying their names changes what they are.”
Minato’s gaze turns to him. A faint sound rises outside the chamber: distant voices, the creak of a cart, a civilian arguing cheerfully about fish prices.
Life pressing against the walls.
“What are they?” Minato asks.
The question is soft enough that, for one absurd moment, it almost sounds harmless.
Danzō’s visible eye narrows.
Around them, the chamber seems to shrink. The high windows let in a thin wash of afternoon light, but it no longer warms the table. It lies across the polished wood in pale strips, catching on the edges of paper, the rim of Hiruzen’s untouched teacup, the faint silver line of Koharu’s hairpin. Dust turns slowly in the brightness, each mote suspended as though the room itself has stopped breathing.
No one reaches for the folder.
The flower beside Minato gives off the faintest green smell where its stem has begun to bruise in the water. Beneath it, older scents press close: ink, wax seals, oiled wood, the ghost of pipe smoke trapped in the chamber walls after years of difficult decisions.
That is one of the things people forget about speed. They think speed means motion - a flash of gold. A blade at the throat. A body gone before the eye can follow.
But true speed is control over the moment before movement. It is the discipline of choosing the exact instant a strike becomes useful.
It is knowing when stillness will do more damage than motion.
Homura’s fingers tighten once against his cane, the dry creak of old knuckles briefly audible in the silence. Koharu’s gaze flicks from Danzō to Minato and back again, measuring the space between them as though it has become a battlefield. Hiruzen does not speak. Shikaku has gone completely still, which somehow makes him look less lazy than dangerous.
Danzō does not look away.
Minato does not either. His face remains calm. Open. Almost gentle.
Only his eyes have changed. They are very blue in the cold light, bright and depthless as winter sky.
Deny, and Minato will produce the page that proves he saw the language before this meeting.
Evade, and Minato will force him to define the children in his own terms.
Reveal, and the room will finally hear what has been sitting underneath every polite phrase in the proposal.
Minato has prepared for all of them.
Somewhere beyond the wall, a bell rings faintly from the Academy yard. Children’s voices rise after it, thin with distance, laughing, calling, alive.
The sound enters the chamber like an accusation.
Minato sees the exact instant he chooses.
Not in his face. Danzō is too disciplined for that - but in his hand. One finger shifts against the head of his cane.
“They are future shinobi of Konoha,” Danzō says.
Minato’s expression does not change, but the room feels the trap close anyway.
He studies him for one short moment, almost disappointed.
Hiruzen’s pipe lowers by an inch, the movement slow enough to seem accidental and too deliberate to be anything but warning. The unlit bowl knocks softly against the edge of his sleeve.
It is not loud. Nothing in this room is loud unless someone has already lost control. But the breath catches at the wrong place, sharp and thin, and for the first time that morning her composure shows a seam.
Homura’s chair creaks as he leans forward.
Homura’s mouth remains open around the rest of the sentence. Then it closes.
Outside, the village continues without them. A cart wheel rattles over uneven stone. Somewhere below, someone calls for fresh radishes. The sound is ordinary enough to be cruel.
Inside, even the paper seems afraid to move.
The strip of sunlight across the table has shifted toward Minato’s wrist. It catches on the edge of his Hokage sleeve, turning the white fabric bright enough to hurt the eye.
A year ago, Homura would have pressed the point with the full weight of age and precedent. Koharu would have cut in from the side, cold and precise, steering the conversation back toward procedure. Danzō would have said nothing and let them test the new Hokage’s boundaries for him.
A year ago, they had mistaken Minato’s courtesy for an opening.
They know better now. They have learned that courtesy is not permission. That gentleness is not surrender. That silence from Namikaze Minato is never uncertainty.
The held breath before the board changes.
Only then does Homura sit back.
Only then does Koharu breathe again.
Only then does Danzō’s visible eye narrow by the smallest fraction, because he understands what the others are slower to accept:
The boy at the head of the table has stopped asking to be heard.
He is allowing them to listen.
“Here is what will happen,” Minato says. “The dependency restructuring proposal is withdrawn. The hospital expansion passes today. War orphan stipends are renewed at the post-war rate for three years, with review after that period conducted by Welfare, Medical, and the Hokage’s office. Any child under village guardianship may not be transferred into non-standard training without civilian guardian consent, medical approval, and written authorization from the Hokage.”
Danzō says, “You are limiting necessary tools.”
Danzō’s fingers tighten once on his cane.
Homura’s eyes flick toward him.
Koharu recovers first. She always does.
“You cannot force a unanimous vote.”
“No,” Minato says. “I cannot.”
That is when he places the second folder on the table.
It is red. No title. Only the Hokage seal.
The wax stamp catches the light like fresh blood.
“However, if the proposal is not withdrawn voluntarily, I will declassify the financial irregularities attached to wartime discretionary accounts and submit them to the Jōnin council for review.”
Homura goes pale with anger. “That is reckless.”
“It would damage trust in village institutions.”
“It would clarify which institutions deserve trust.”
“You would weaken Konoha to win a policy disagreement?”
There is still sunlight in his hair from the walk through the village. It catches there absurdly, beautifully, making him look young and bright and beloved.
His eyes are something else entirely.
“No,” he replies softly. “I would weaken you.”
For the first time, Danzō has no immediate answer.
Shikaku closes his eyes, as if pained, or impressed.
Minato turns a page in the red folder.
“I have already asked Shikaku to review the accounting pathways.”
“What?” he says lazily. “He asked nicely.”
Koharu’s lips press thin.
Minato continues “Inoichi has confirmed chain-of-custody irregularities in message transfer logs. Tsume has agreed to audit courier assignments. The Aburame have offered assistance with document preservation.”
Danzō’s expression darkens at that.
Good. He had not known about the Aburame being involved. That means there are still blind spots.
Minato files the satisfaction away without showing it “None of this leaves the room,” Minato adds, “if the proposal is withdrawn and the protections pass.”
The chamber watches him consider it.
Outside, a bell rings from the Academy. High and bright. Children released into the yard.
Minato’s gaze moves briefly toward the window. When he looks back, his expression is gentle again.
“No,” he says. “Governance.”
Koharu laughs once, humorless, “You are very confident for a boy surrounded by people who know this village better than you do.”
“You know the village as it was,” he says. “I know what it costs.”
“I know the price of every delay in reinforcement. I know how long a medic can keep a child alive when the hospital runs out of seal-stabilized blood packs. I know which roads flood first during evacuation. I know which families stopped receiving mission benefits because someone reclassified death in enemy territory as an administrative ambiguity.”
His voice lowers, “I know where the bodies are buried because I brought some of them home.”
The room is silent enough for the flower stem to scrape faintly against ceramic.
And just like that, the warmth returns.
A door closing over a blade.
“I would prefer,” he says, “to spend my first years as Hokage rebuilding.”
“But I am willing to excavate.”
Minato is not foolish enough to believe men like Danzō are beaten in a single meeting.
A file opened in the right room. A name spoken aloud. A financial trail placed under Nara eyes. A courier network made visible. A proposal poisoned by its own language. A warning wrapped in procedure and signed with a smile.
Though Minato understands, with perfect clarity, that the distinction is often decorative.
“The proposal,” he says, each word dragged out by force, “requires revision.”
Minato inclines his head.
A pause. Homura’s nostrils flare.
Koharu says nothing for several seconds. Then: “The hospital expansion will need amendments.”
“Already drafted,” Minato says.
He slides a folder toward her. She looks at it as though it has teeth.
Shikaku yawns into his hand.
Danzō remains still. Too still.
Minato turns to him last.
The honorific is perfect.
Danzō’s eye is cold, “You are making enemies.”
Minato’s expression softens. That almost makes Hiruzen flinch.
“No,” Minato says. “I am identifying them.”
The words enter the room and do not leave.
There are many things inside Minato that people love.
Gentleness. Loyalty. Patience. A strange, earnest hope that survives despite the absurdity of shinobi history. A capacity for affection that makes him remember birthdays and favorite foods and which genin hates carrots but will eat them if they are cut small enough.
None of it is decorative.
But beneath it sits another thing.
A mind that can reduce a room full of elders to angles, incentives, pressure points, and probable outcomes. A mind that can look at a man like Danzō and feel no fear, no thrill, no righteous satisfaction - only the clean click of one piece moving into place.
This is the part the village never sees.
This is the part hidden behind flowers and market buns and a smile bright enough to make people believe kindness is the same as softness.
Danzō sees it now - and perhaps he is the first in the room to understand fully.
Minato would rather be loved. But now that he is the Yondaime, he does not need to be loved.
That is the dangerous part.
The vote passes unanimously before noon.
By afternoon, the village knows only this: the Hokage secured funding for the hospital expansion, protected war orphan stipends, and ordered a review of mission-family support systems.
By evening, someone has left more flowers outside the tower.
By sunset, a rumor moves through the market that the Yondaime cried during the meeting when discussing the children.
He did not. He read their names without trembling once.
Kushina finds him after dark.
The office smells faintly of ink, cold tea, and the sweet bun he forgot to eat. The paper wrapper sits untouched beside the cup, translucent in places where the oil has soaked through. The purple flower rests on his desk, wilted now but still upright in its water, petals curled inward as though keeping one final secret.
Minato stands by the window, looking down at the village lights. Lanterns glow along the streets. Windows burn warm in stacked rows. Somewhere below, a door slides shut. Someone laughs. Someone sings half a line of a lullaby before the night swallows the rest.
For a moment, he looks exhausted.
For a moment, he looks twenty four.
Then Kushina sees the red folder on his desk.
Minato does not pretend to misunderstand.
He is quiet. Below them, Konoha glows warm and golden, every window a small act of trust.
“No,” he says finally. “I moved first.”
Kushina studies him. Then she steps closer and touches his sleeve, right where the Hokage robes hide the old stains no washing ever fully removes.
Minato looks down at her hand.
“Did you scare them?” she asks.
Minato turns his head. The smile he gives her is tired.
Kushina searches his face. Whatever she finds there does not frighten her.
Or perhaps it does, and she loves him anyway. With Kushina, the two have never been opposites.
Outside, the village sleeps.
Inside, the Hokage returns to his desk, removes the wilted flower from its cup, and presses it carefully between the pages of the black folder.
The petals leave a faint purple stain against the paper.
Not as a keepsake. As evidence.
Because tomorrow there will be another board.
Another man who believes a kind Hokage is an easy one.
And Namikaze Minato, beloved of Konoha, will smile at him too.
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