Madara rarely wondered if there would be a point in his shinobi career at which motherhood or baby animals would be involved, and the times that he did wonder he concluded this – none. And yet here he was, in the company of a few dozen animals, some which were objectively babies, and some of which arguably considered him their mother.
How this came to be could be blamed on one individual. Madara also happened to be madly attracted to this individual. As the saying goes, all is fair in love...and in this case love certainly pushed his body to actions he never thought capable of. It all started with a lovely, sunny day five weeks ago.
The day was bright, skies blue, with birds chirping happily in their nests. Madara woke after a long deep sleep, smiling to the smell of spring in the air instead of the smell of blood that he had been long accustomed to. Life was good.
There he was, casually enjoying his peaceful lifestyle in the newly founded Konoha, minding his own business when Hashirama appeared out of nowhere and tackled him. This pleased Madara, as Hashirama only entered in such fashion when he needed something from him.
"I need your help," Hashirama said cheerfully, slinging an arm around Madara's shoulder. Madara knew this already. He wondered which army he needed to torch this time as he folded his arms, hiding with feeble attempt his self-satisfaction. Konoha may be at peace, but no shortage of threats lay beyond its walls – threats that Madara was very good at destroying.
"Anything you want," Madara replied. Of course, there was the hidden agreement of getting something in return. Exactly what would be at Madara's discretion - just as he intended. Another date would be nice, he thought happily, thinking of their last one where they raided a bandit encampment that was frequently targeting Konoha residents. It had been just the two of them, raining fire and wrath on a group of scoundrels who happened to mess with the wrong village. Beautiful.
Hashirama's eyes lit up, clearly not expecting Madara to agree so quickly. "I can show you right now?" He said, excitement in his voice. This confused Madara, who rarely (if ever) saw Hashirama so gleeful at the thought of sending Madara to destroy their enemies. Nevertheless, he followed as Hashirama lead them both to a newly constructed wooden house that Madara had not seen before. Top secret mission? He sniffed in anticipation.
Inside, Madara saw a room that was mostly empty. It looked like a nursery, with everything made of wood. Something furry was stirring in the corner.
"I found him alone around here last night," Hashirama said sadly, looking at the sleeping furry creature. Madara wanted to say "so what?" as his eyes darted around the room, confused. He could only guess the room to be an alone space of sorts – somewhere that Hashirama could go and live out his nurturing fantasies perhaps.
"What is it?" Madara asked, suddenly interested. "What is it" actually meant what will it grow up to be? A bloodthirsty murder machine ? A powerful monstrosity that could strike fear into their enemies? A fabled tailed beast that could lay waste to mountains? These possibilities excited him.
"He's a kitten," Hashirama answered as if it was the most obvious thing ever.
"Kittens? I didn't know Konoha had kittens. Do kittens grow fangs?" Madara asked, thinking of all the combat-applicable uses of such a creature, and if there were more of them.
"No." Hashirama said.
"Are kittens apt in chakra use? Can they be trained to use jutsu ?" Madara continued, thinking of the clans that used animals in combat. Maybe this was Hashirama's plan – to develop weaponry in the form of animals.
"No." Hashirama was starting to sound annoyed now.
"Well why did you bring me here if not to lead Konoha's new army of mass destruction?" Madara let the last part slip accidentally out of excitement. Hashirama frowned.
"There is no army. Kittens aren't weapons. I couldn't sense his mother anywhere, so I built him this shelter", Hashirama snapped, "he needs food and care, and you agreed to help."
Madara felt the sudden urge to flee.
"You will look after this kitten," Hashirama said with finality. His expression softened, "we destroyed some homes when we cleared space for Konoha. Who knows how many other lost animals we find? There may be more."
Madara found his voice again. "There are enemies at our doorstep, countless clans that want to kill us, new countries looking to invade us...and you want me to look after a kitten?"
"Yes." Hashirama replied, and left abruptly.
Madara wanted to complain – and complain he did...internally, and all the while grumpily tending to his new furry nuisance. As a result, he spent the remainder of that day not practicing new jutsu or military planning but feeding, cleaning and playing with Fur. Fur was the name he gave to the kitten, as he was covered by nothing but. Madara had never named anything except for his own jutsu , and he decided that naming animals should be no different.
Madara decided that he neither liked nor disliked Fur, but that did not stop him from doing the task assigned to him every day. The creature was helpless and weak, yet it did not mind being so. If Fur had been shinobi instead of kitten, he would hide his face in shame for being the incapable creature that he was. Or so Madara thought, until he came to the shelter one morning to find a pile of dead bodies. Fur, it turns out, was very good at catching mice. Impressed by this display of bloodthirst, he determined from that moment on that there was some merit to Fur's existence.
A few days into his new full-time job as a kitten caretaker, Madara decided that life with a kitten wasn't so bad. For one he didn't have to ruin someone's life by killing them. For another, he wasn't making multiple enemies every day giving baths to kittens. Maybe if the world had more kittens, the warring states would have ended much sooner. Such a shame.
One day Madara came to the shelter to find a couple shinobi waiting outside, both of them holding something in their arms.
"What is this?" Madara demanded suspiciously. Were they here to drag him from kitten caretaker back to the reality of his life? The two shinobi jumped at the sight of him, clearly not expecting to see Madara Uchiha here.
"W-Word has spread that there is an animal shelter here," one of them stammered timidly. More baby animals? Must be Hashirama's doing. Madara did not recall signing up for this, but the sight of something furry in their arms compelled him to ask.
"What is that?" Madara pointed, trying not to sound too interested. Not like he wanted Fur to have a friend or anything .
"Raccoons," they said, still terrified of him. Madara sighed, shook his head and took the animals in. That day two adolescent raccoons joined Madara's new animal family. Three animals weren't so bad. Fur hissed in suspicion at the intruders at first, but a few hours later Madara spotted them all fast asleep and huddled in a corner.
Feeding an extra two animals did not add much work to Madara's largely workless job. Fur was not happy about his new friends sharing his cache of dead rats, but eventually relented when they made their own contributions. This one will be Big Fur, and that one Bigger Fur Madara thought to himself – there wasn't much remarkable about the raccoons save that they were also covered in fur, but larger than Fur.
A few days later more Shinobi turned up at the shelter. Word of mouth seemed to be spreading fast and more lost animals found their way into Madara's care. A mother fox and her pups, a hawk with an injured wing, an old owl, some songbirds and a few other creatures he did not recognize. More and more Madara felt that he wasn't sufficiently prepared for all of this, especially when now the animals did not all eat the same thing and some would have preferred to eat each other instead. Also, he had run out of names.
After breaking up the fifth fight that had broken out since the newcomers, Madara decided enough was enough. He wondered how much of a monster he would be if he just set the entire shelter on fire, but then he remembered that maybe he felt something for the animals. Ill-tempered and storming his way to Hashirama's residence, he met Hashirama outside chattering with some new residents. One glare was enough to send them scurrying.
"I demand more space," Madara declared before Hashirama could speak, "more rooms, more toys, a bigger yard..." He continued to list all his demands as Hashirama listened in confusion, "...a medic, healing equipment, vegetables and preferably someone who knows what birds eat."
"Wait, stop, I get it," Hashirama chuckled.
"Do you think this is a joke?" Madara demanded more seriously than he had ever been in his life possibly.
Hashirama looked taken back. "Not at all. I didn't know you were having so much fun, although I did hear rumors."
Rumors of the almighty Madara Uchiha's sudden disappearance, then infrequent sightings of him in a deserted hut in Konoha's middle of nowhere yelling at anyone who came too close, no doubt. Little did they know he spent most of his days cleaning animal waste.
"I am not having fun," Madara replied tonelessly, but Hashirama only shrugged in return.
Madara then lead the way and the two men walked back to base where the birds had now escaped and were partying out on the roof as the animals below watched them hungrily.
"There are so many!" Hashirama exclaimed, impressed. Madara liked impressed. You're goddamn right he wanted to say but instead he began laying out what he needed and what he wanted built. Hashirama complied with all the requests obediently, causing Madara to remember why he was attracted to the man in the first place.
By the end of the day, the shelter had grown ten-fold and was now equipped with water fountains, multiple zoned huts, a medic center and various obstacle courses for the animal's leisure. Madara was a happy Uchiha indeed.
"Did you try teaching them jutsu?" Hashirama probed, observing a particularly aggressive group of baby foxes.
"No." Madara lied.
Hashirama laughed until some songbirds flew down and defecated on his head.
"I have no idea why they did that," Madara lied again. He was able to teach them some things at least. Not like it became his life mission to teach every bird in Konoha to excrete on the Senju residents or anything.
Hashirama didn't seem to mind and was more interested in meeting the animals. Madara put on a façade of annoyance and introduced him to Fur, Big Fur, Bigger Fur, Hoot, Orange Fur, Small Orange Fur, Other Small Orange Fur, Curvy Beak and all the other creatures of Konoha's new shelter for lost animals.
The two men then celebrated a good day's work over a bowl of noodles at the local ramen stop, and Hashirama bade him goodbye while promising a gift the next day.
Madara woke the next day and found no gift. Instead he found half a dozen shinobi hanging around the shelter, accompanied by Hashirama. Were these humans also considered lost animals perhaps?
"This is an animal shelter. Who are these people?" Madara demanded. How dare they touch my animals is what he wanted to say. He noticed that the shinobi were from different clans. Some even had the nerve to walk around and interact with his animals. He also noticed that Curvy Beak's injured wing had miraculously healed. One of the shinobi playing with Fur sent Madara into a such fit of jealously that his sharingan twitched.
"Calm down," Hashirama pleaded, alarmed at the murderous intent that was oozing out of Madara. "These are the volunteers who agreed to help run the shelter," he tried to explain, "some of them know medical ninjutsu and others come from clans with affinities to animals."
"I don't need volunteers. These are my animals," Madara protested.
"You are needed elsewhere," Hashirama said, "scouts have spotted enemy movements at the Land of Lightning in the north. I can't have our best fighter tending to animals."
"I refuse."
"You...refuse?"
"I refuse." Madara repeated stubbornly. Like hell he would leave his animals to these amateurs. Weeks of sweat and toil to keep this group of entitled pets happy, and now to hand it over to someone else? Over his dead body perhaps.
Hashirama looked at a loss for what to say.
"You always liked raiding enemy shinobi camps with me. I thought this would be a nice gift after all your help with these animals," he finally said, confused. This gave Madara pause.
"Is this a date?" He asked suspiciously. Maybe he could spare a few days.
"If you want it to be," Hashirama shrugged.
And so Madara bid a short farewell to his friends at Konoha's Shelter for Lost Animals and resumed his duties as a shinobi god. Konoha was safe for yet another day.