Yondaime Patch Notes
A/N: Just a series of things Minato suffered as Yondaime (every Hokage does, really). Set in Icarus because the verse where no one dies is my happy place.
Day 10: Please Stop Jumping off the Monument
By Day 10, Minato has discovered that the Hokage Monument is an excellent transportation hub.
It’s high, it’s central, and it’s very easy to throw hiraishin markers from.
Also: the look on enemy scouts’ faces the first time the Hokage falls off his own face and vanishes mid-air? Priceless.
Unfortunately, the look on his own villagers’ faces is… less ideal.
------🐸------
It starts like this: Early morning. Mist in the valley. The village just waking up, lights blinking on one by one.
Minato stands on the edge of his newly carved stone hairline, flame cloak snapping in the wind, hat safely back in the office where it can’t kill him.
He runs through the day in his head: border report, academy visit, ANBU drill, the aftermath of the previous war trying to chew through his schedule. There are three hiraishin seals waiting below - one in the tower, one near the training fields, one at the hospital.
He takes a breath, steps off the edge, and falls.
For a glorious second, there’s only wind and sky and the gut-deep lurch of the drop.
The village tilts up toward him.
Then: flash.
He reappears on the tower balcony without breaking stride, already moving toward the office, cloak still fluttering like he’s personally dragging the wind behind him.
It’s efficient. It’s clean.
It’s also apparently horrifying to watch from the street.
------🐸------
He doesn’t realize that part until Shikaku brings him the reports.
“Complaints?” Minato says, flipping through the stack. “Already? It’s Day 10; I thought that took at least a month.”
“Not about policy,” Shikaku says. “About… you.”
Minato pauses. “…me personally?”
“Your ‘commuting pattern’” Shikaku clarifies.
Minato reads the top one.
To the Office of the Hokage, It is very upsetting to look up during morning shopping and see the Hokage falling to his death. Please stop doing this. My husband dropped an entire crate of daikon. Respectfully, Tanaka Aya (and several rolling daikon)
Minato blinks.
The second complaint is shorter.
HE JUST STEPPED OFF HIS OWN FOREHEAD??? – signed, traumatized chunin
The third is from the hospital.
Dear Hokage-sama, Please be advised that three civilians and one genin have presented with elevated heart rate and dizziness after witnessing you “plunge to your doom” off the Monument, as they described it. We are running out of calming tea. Sincerely, Shizune (on behalf of Tsunade sama, who is currently shouting and is threatening to medically remove your kneecaps)
Minato looks up slowly.
Shikaku stares back, the embodiment of tired. “If you die” he says, “I’m not doing your paperwork and a replacement Hokage’s.”
“I’m not dying,” Minato says. “I’m teleporting.”
“Mm,” Shikaku says. “Tell that to the part of the village that doesn’t see the second half.”
------🐸------
The real problem hits at lunchtime.
Kushina bursts into his office without knocking, red hair half-up, half-escaped, eyes blazing.
“Your son is going to be so stupid 'ttebane” she says instead of hello.
Minato blinks. “Hypothetically.”
“Yes, hypothetically,” she says. “Also, your current genin are already stupid.”
She drops a sheet on his desk.
It’s a note from the Academy.
He reads:
Hokage sama, While we are very proud of our students’ enthusiasm and admiration for your skills, we must request that you refrain from dramatic leaps off the Monument in full view of the academy windows. Several children have attempted to replicate the maneuver from lower heights, shouting “If the Hokage can do it, so can we!” Thankfully, they cannot. Injuries were minor. My patience is not. Regards, Sarutobi Ichiki (substitute for a very tired teacher)
Minato sags back in his chair.
“Oh no.”
“Oh yes,” Kushina says. “Hana chan’s kid cousin jumped off the jungle gym. Someone’s civilian toddler yeeted themselves off a bench.”
“Are they okay?” Minato asks, already half rising.
“They bounced,” Kushina says. “That’s not the point.”
She plants both hands on his desk and leans in.
“You,” she says, “are setting a terrible example 'ttebane!”
“I didn’t tell anyone to jump off anything,” he protests.
She stares.
“Fine,” he amends. “Not verbally.”
------🐸------
Minato calls an emergency… optics meeting.
(He tries to call it “public perception strategy.” Kushina calls it “Stop Making People Think You’ve Died O’clock.”)
Present: Shikaku (logistics and world-weary common sense), Inoichi (because apparently mass panic is a mental health issue), and Kushina (self-appointed head of the “no more heart attacks before breakfast” committee).
Kakashi and Obito are technically guarding the door but is also, very clearly, listening.
Shikaku taps the stack of incident reports.
“So,” he says, “the problem is that the Hokage keeps jumping off a mountain.”
“I step off,” Minato says. “Gracefully.”
Inoichi steeples his fingers. “Have you considered that ‘gracefully’ is not the primary concern?”
Kushina snaps a dango stick in half. “Minato, people like you. They are not emotionally prepared to watch you plummet.”
“I don’t plummet,” he mutters.
“You do for them,” she says. “The teleport is the plot twist. They don’t always see the plot twist.”
Inoichi nods. “From a cognitive standpoint,” he says, “repeated exposure to what looks like the Hokage dying can have… effects.”
Minato covers his face with one hand. “I was trying to be efficient.”
“You’re being efficient at cardio arrest” Shikaku says.
Kakashi coughs from the doorway. “Hokage sama… Dog squad has also reported increased roof activity.”
Minato peeks through his fingers. “Roof activity?”
“Genin,” Obito adds reluctantly. “Trying to ‘get used to heights’ to be like you. And one chunin asking if they can get hiraishin tags too, ‘so it’s fair.’”
Minato wants to lay down on the floor.
“Okay,” he says. “Fine. I understand. No more Monument jumps in view of civilians.”
Kushina squints. “Define civilians.”
“Anyone who screams when I do it,” he says.
“That’s everyone, you idiot” she says.
Inoichi clears his throat. “We could handle this partially with messaging. A public advisory. Perhaps a note in the village bulletin?”
Shikaku already has a brush in hand.
“For the record,” he says, “I’m writing: ‘The Hokage is a trained professional. Do not attempt Hokage nonsense at home.’”
Kushina snorts. “Print that. Put it everywhere.”
Minato groans. “I am going to be a warning label.”
“Good,” she says. “You’re finally living my dream 'ttebane.”
------🐸------
The warning bulletin goes up the next day.
By order of the Hokage’s Office: The Yondaime’s advanced space–time techniques are NOT to be imitated. The Hokage is a trained shinobi using specialized seals. Please DO NOT jump from roofs, monuments, sheds, or other high places in an attempt to “do the cool thing.” – With thanks, the Academy, the Hospital, and everyone’s blood pressure
Someone adds, in a different handwriting at the bottom:
(Looking at you, Gai.)
Gai circles it and writes back:
I WILL CLIMB TO EVEN GREATER HEIGHTS!!! (OF RESPONSIBLE BEHAVIOR.)
Tsunade adds, under that:
If you come into my hospital because of “responsible behavior,” I’m making you fill out your own paperwork.
------🐸------
Minato does, in fact, stop using the Monument as a public dive board.
Mostly.
He still uses it in emergencies - war waits for no committee - but he coordinates. If he has to jump, he pings Kakashi or a patrol chunin first. “Eyes on me, eyes on landing.” Witnesses who know the trick, so the rumor chain starts with, “No, he’s fine, I saw him reappear.”
He also adjusts his daily routes.
Some days, he walks.
Down actual stairs.
Like a normal person.
Kushina sees him do it once and claps sarcastically from the street.
“Look at that,” she calls. “The Yondaime knows what gravity is.”
He gives her a look as dignified as one can manage while navigating seventeen consecutive steps in a floor-length cloak.
On the roofs, kids watch him and go, “Huh,” and keep their feet on the tiles.
Progress.
------🐸------
That night, Minato sits at his desk, flame cloak folded over the back of his chair, hat glaring at him from its stand.
Shikaku’s left him a neat summary of the day’s “Monument incidents.”
Day 10 – Jumping complaints down 80%. No more student attempts reported. One civilian slipped off a crate; blamed “clumsy feet,” not “Hokage impression.” Tsunade has stopped sending death threats in memo form. For now.
Minato exhales, rubbing the back of his neck.
He can feel the weight of the village in strange new places: in the way he walks, in the routes he chooses, in how many seconds he’s allowed to be out of sight before someone panics.
The hat seems smug about this.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he tells it. “You’re still worse than stairs.”
Kakashi appears in the doorway, hands in his pockets.
“Hokage sama,” he says. “Gate report: villagers seemed… calmer today.”
“Good,” Minato says. “No more impromptu heart tests.”
Kakashi hesitates. “For what it’s worth… the first time I saw you do it, I thought you were--”
“Yeah,” Minato cuts in gently. “I know.”
They stand in the quiet for a moment.
“Thank you,” Minato adds. “For telling me when my ‘efficient’ is everyone else’s ‘horrifying.’”
Kakashi shrugs, looking at a spot over his shoulder. “Someone has to,” he says.
Minato smiles. “Add it to your duties. ANBU and Hokage Reality Checks.”
Kakashi inclines his head. “Yes, Hokage sama.”
After he leaves, Minato leans back, looks out the window toward the dark line of the Monument.
It’s still there. It always will be.
“Day 10 patch note,” he says to himself. “Public death-plunges discontinued. Teleportation: now with 40% more consideration.”
The paperwork sits in its neat stacks. The cloak hangs peacefully.
The hat is definitely still laughing.
At least this time, Konoha isn’t screaming.
