"Excuse me, what?" says Madara, his eyebrow twitching. "I would rather you made me clean public toilets."
Iruka sits up a little straighter and looks Madara dead in the eye. "Lord Fifth put me in charge of keeping an eye on you, and the best way to do that will be to have you help me teach in the Academy. It won't be too bad; you will just be passing out worksheets and kunai - and other relatively simple things."
"Children are scared of me," says Madara, leaning on the table and gritting his teeth. "You had better not."
"I'll fix that," says Iruka smiling, and leaning his head on his hand. Off to one side, a still-angry Fugaku is watching the meeting taking place in his kitchen.
Madara scrutinizes Iruka and realizes something. "You have another task for me, don't you?" he sighs. "Let's have it."
"Oh yes, there is another task," confirms Iruka. "However, it is not a 'pick which one you would rather do' situation. You will do both."
Madara thinks every swear word he knows. One of them, he even says aloud. "You're a ****."
Iruka smiles unnervingly. "You are to look after a small family of orphans."
"Why?" demands Madara. What is up with this guy? Madara thought he was sane, but right now he seems to be the most bonkers of the lot! "What makes you think putting me in charge of a bunch of kids is a good idea?"
"THANK YOU!" says Fugaku, gesturing at Madara. "You see? I'm not the only one who thinks this is a bad idea!"
"Shh, you've already been outvoted," says Iruka. "Calm your tits, Lord Hokage."
"How many children?" asks Madara, sighing. He can see there is no getting out of this. "Two? Three?"
"Five," says Iruka. "The same number as your family. You were one of five, weren't you?"
Madara has to suppress the sudden urge to stab Iruka in the face. "That's not a small family," he says, through gritted teeth. Madara can feel his eyebrow twitching again. "Kaguya is looking better every second."
"I feel ya, man," says Fugaku, sympathetically. "I'm sure Eizo will be upset, but this development means you can't stay here anymore."
Madara stayed with Fugaku's family the previous night. "Then where will I stay?"
"I've put aside a four bedroom house in the new district between the Uchiha Compound and the main part of the village," says Fugaku. "I'm having some of my people furnish it for you and the children. One room will be yours, one will be set up for the oldest boy, one for the twins and the other room for the two little girls. You will get a monthly allowance per child to go towards anything they need. Currently, they need everything. Kushina, Minato, Hizashi Hyuuga, the Mizukage and Iruka's parents wiped out the Order of Joe and rescued these kids. They are the children of the Order and they are so inbred that we might as well just say they are siblings - which they might be, or might not be. You will need to buy them everything they need because they have nothing. Nothing at all. They don't even have clothing. Currently they are in the hospital receiving treatment for their birth defects. Only the eldest child is able to leave. We will show you your new house, then take you to the hospital to meet your new foster kids. Any questions?"
Madara sighs. "Can I refuse?"
"Not even I can refuse," says Fugaku. "So no."
Madara does not miss the quarantine sign on the door of the ward the children are staying in. The room the children are in has another sign warning people to be careful as well. Madara wonders why all the precautions? Are these kids dangerous or something?
Madara, Iruka and Fugaku entre the quarantine room. Four children are there. A boy sitting in bed staring blankly at the far wall, a pair of conjoined twins fighting for elbow room and a baby lying in a crib with a feeding tube in her nose. Madara is not sure what he expected. Iruka and Fugaku told him the kids names, ages and genders, but they did not mention that the twins were joined, that the baby is practically a skeleton or that the oldest kid is blind. On top of that… "I thought there is supposed to be five kids," says Madara.
"Oh, Sekitei is in surgery," says the left twin. What was his name? Sazanka.
"Hey, it's my turn to have my arm in front," says the right twin, Yatsude, fighting to get his arm in front of his brother's.
"Alright, kids," says Fugaku. "Listen up. This man here," he puts his hand on Madara's shoulder. "Will be looking after all of you from now on, okay. You will go to live with him when Tsunade says you can leave the hospital. You, the oldest one, what's your name? You are to go with him now. Have fun."
The blind boy finally moves. He simply gets out of his hospital bed and walks over to Madara. Madara racks his brains to remember the kid's name. Tachibana, that's right. What the hell is he supposed to do with this kid? Really. Iruka needs his head checked. "Ah, hello," says Madara awkwardly. "I am Madara Uchiha."
Tachibana reaches up and puts his hand on Madara's face. "Your chakra feels so old," he says, frowning. "But your face feels young."
"Oh," says Madara awkwardly. "I lived for over a hundred years and came back as a young man to cause the apocalypse."
"The what?" asks Tachibana, confused.
"Never mind," sighs Madara. He hands the kid the shorts and t-shirt he bought on the way to the hospital. "Put these on and we'll go."
Tachibana takes the clothes and frowns. He accidentally drops the shorts, but does not try to pick them up. Then he feels around the t-shirt, obviously trying to figure out which way up it goes. Eventually he sticks his head through the neck hole and tries to pull it on upside down. That effort ends with the boy getting his head stuck in a sleeve.
"It goes up the other way," says Madara, pulling the shirt off the boy's head and handing it back to him. "Try again."
This time, Tachibana tries putting it on the other way - not the way Madara ment, though. The kid tries to put the shirt on his legs and ends up falling over.
"I'll do it," sighs Madara, realizing that the kid has probably never put on a shirt before. It only takes Madara a few seconds to dress the boy. He used to dress his younger brothers after their mother died. His father thought they should dress themselves, but they were too young. "There," he says, when Tachibana is dressed. "You'll get the hang of it eventually." Madara takes Tachibana's hand and leads him out of the room. "Come on."
"Bye bye," says Tachibana, waving to the other kids.
"We'll be back for them," says Madara, pulling the boy along.
"Tomorrow?" asks Tachibana anxiously.
"Sure," says Madara, sighing. He should have realized these kids would be very close. "We'll come back and visit tomorrow." Madara leads Tachibana out of the hospital. He has to slow his pace several times so the boy can keep up.
On the way home, Madara stops at a kids' clothing shop to buy the boy some shoes and some extra clothing. When they finally arrive at their new house, Madara shows the boy where his room is and leaves him there.
Then he goes to the kitchen and takes stock of what Fugaku provided in the way of food and cooking utensils. Depending on how much the kids eat, and how soon Madara will be lumped with all five, he won't need to go shopping for food for at least a week. They might be forcing him to look after five random Uzumaki Orphans, but at least they weren't stingy with provisions. Now that that is dealt with, Madara needs to formulate some sort of plan.
The first thing to do, obviously, is to get strong enough to take on all the bijuu guards and all nine bijuu at once. As a rough estimate, Madara thinks he could take maybe half of them comfortably.
Crash. Madara sighs. He gets up and goes to see what the blind kid tripped over. The kid is sitting on the floor by the window looking dazed. "What did you walk into?" Madara asks.
"That," says the boy, pointing straight ahead of him.
"That is a wall," says Madara. "Don't walk into it again." He turns and walks out of the room, closing the door behind him.
Thud. The kid walks into the door.
Madara opens the door and pulls the kid to his feet. "Do you know what a wall is? What a door is?" he demands.
"No," says the boy. "And I need to pee."
"I'll show you where the toilet is, and then I'd better explain how buildings work," says Madara, suppressing the urge to find a stab Iruka.
"What's a toilet?" asks the kid.
The first thing I am doing once the truce is up, vows Madara. Is finding Iruka and cutting him up into a hundred pieces, then Amaterasuing what's left into non-existence. Nevertheless, Madara teaches the kid to use a toilet. It is incredibly awkward, and not the least because the boy is blind. Once that is taken care of, Madara explains how walls doors and buildings in general work. Then Madara leaves the boy to explore his new environment. Madara needs to plot the end of the world.
He will need a sparring partner to get stronger. Not the Hokage, he doesn't want the Leaf to know how strong he plans to get. He can't spar with Hashirama for the same reason. It is a problem - anyone he spars with will snitch on him, and training alone won't yield good enough results.
Thump. The boy trips over a stick outside. To his credit, the kid just gets back up and continues to explore. Maybe Madara could train the kid to be his minion. Thud. The boy hits his head on one of the branches of the old tree in their garden. Never mind. It will take too long to train that kid. Then Madara has an idea. He thinks it's rather a good idea, but he will sleep on it. Dinner time is drawing near, so Madara cooks some food for himself and the boy. He ends up having to teach the boy how to use chopsticks.
Finally, Madara has had enough, so he bundles the kid off to bed - after teaching him how to brush his teeth. It seems the people at the hospital already told him what a bed is for. When the kid is in bed, Madara goes for a run around the village, does some push ups and contemplates the best way to train himself without giving away to the Leaf just how strong he's getting.