Madara's Only Had Naruto For A Half A Quarter Of A Second - Tumblr Posts
Grand Elder
A canon-divergent AU where Madara never left the Hidden Leaf
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He outlived almost everyone he ever knew during the Warring States Period and the early days of the village, and he survived the three shinobi wars that took them.
In this timeframe, he never married, nor did he have children. The Uchiha elders pressured him as much as they could, but no one made Madara Uchiha do anything he didn’t want to. When it came time for him to retire, he simply passed down his mantle to a shinobi he deemed worthy of it and left things at that. Traditionalists called it unbecoming, but quite frankly, he stopped listening to people’s opinions of him long ago; he found life was too short to care about them. However, he couldn’t entirely retreat from Konoha’s bureaucracy.
At some point, he was named Grand Elder as the oldest living person in the village as well as its founder alongside Hashirama Senju. This title dumped work on him not unlike that of a clan leader’s, but now he had to concern himself with everyone’s business, from delicate foreign relations to trivial squabbles between rival street vendors. It was, as Naras loved to say, a drag.
What wasn’t a drag was his increased involvement in the education of young aspiring shinobi at the Academy. Who better to speak about the Warring States Period and Konoha’s history than the man who lived through it all? It also didn’t hurt his pride any to show off his ninjutsu and wow the students. It was like having kid brothers again, except instead of “Older Brother,” he was called “Great-Gramps.” (The bolder ones had the audacity to refer to him as “Fossil Uchiha,” which he took exception to.) He was particularly invested in the development of orphaned students, earning another reputation amongst the villagers to go with the many others.
“Strays,” they were called, but Madara preferred to call them his unofficial grandchildren. He invited them into his home for meals, shelter, and company. Even if their time together was brief, he was always sure to let them know someone gave a damn about them. The system sure didn’t; so, that was where Madara picked up the slack.
When the Fourth Hokage and his wife died in the Kyuubi attack, they left behind a Naruto Uzumaki, whom no one was chomping at the bit to take guardianship of. (Madara supposed it was reasonable for the villagers to fear the monster sealed inside him, but give him a break!) As things stood, the boy was going to grow up like the many other orphans he’d encountered, but something in him just couldn’t let that happen. His advanced age didn’t make him ideal, but he convinced the council to put Naruto under his care, and from then on, Madara’s golden years really began.