What it takes to be Hokage

Chapter 2

Madara and Hashirama returned to the cave only to find the teen fast asleep again. They'd wanted to talk to him but some things, like chakra exhausted crazy ass Shinobi who needed to regain their strength, couldn't be helped.

A strange weight had lifted from their shoulders. They knew each other's names, knew they were supposed to be enemies, but in spite of that they had chosen to still stick together.

"Bet you can't beat me in taijutsu anymore." Madara smirked, Sharingan swirling into existence.

"Oh yeah? Let's put that to the test." Hashirama grinned but paused to look back at the sleeping ninja. "Still, blondie is weird. Wonder what he was talking about, but at least he's getting better now."

"Yeah. At least he's talking. Still don't know if he's an enemy and that could be our greatest mistake yet. Let's just be hopeful that he doesn't catch us by surprise; that this isn't going to come back and bite us on the ass." Madara replied darkly, walking out into the clearing while Hashirama put the teen in the sun, purely out of habit.

The moment he was done he pulled out a kunai and rushed at the Uchiha, grinning broadly the whole time. "Yeah, yeah Madara. Put your paranoia to the side. I've for a fight to win and it's really no fun when you're this distracted."

.0.0.0.

Fighting, they were fighting again. Naruto sighed before opening his eyes, squinting through the bright light. They were so persistent. He wondered if they were trying to prove something. He didn't say anything nor shift any part of his body to alert them to his conscious state. He merely watched.

He could tell there were Uchiha style attacks and counter attacks from the one blob. It was in the way he moved. The other one seemed to be like the Academy style, only way better, more elaborate, but Naruto couldn't be sure. He still couldn't see very well but it was getting better with every blink.

Every time one was knocked down, they got straight back up and Naruto admired the ethic. He was familiar with it after all. It was also unclear to him who the better was. They seemed to be equal which was something that confused the blond. Uchiha were supposed to be better, but then again, they were supposed to be dead.

Naruto supposed if he really wanted to get moving all he'd have to do is go into Sage Mode. He was forced into a state of motionlessness anyway, so it wouldn't be all that hard but that might startle his caretakers, and he still wasn't sure where he stood with them. They had said that there were no such things as Ninja villages, that the Senju and the Uchiha would never work together, but that was just ridiculous.

Still, Naruto enjoyed their company, even if they themselves seemed to have been born and raised under a rock.

However, they each disappeared in opposite directions every time they left. They did not live together. So that meant two entirely different families having been raised under metaphorical rocks. He knew they had families from the snippets of conversations he'd heard and he was intrigued with some of the things they spoke of. Still, this was confusing in ways that he'd never been introduced to before.

Naruto was getting to the part where things just never made sense to him, and people stopped trying to explain it to him so he decided to try someone else, or rather some thing else. Perhaps now he'd be able to concentrate enough to talk to the Kyuubi.

He allowed his eyes to drift shut once more, focusing on falling deeper within himself. Briefly he wondered where the fox had been in terms of chakra. He shouldn't have taken this long to recover in the first place.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Opening his eyes, Naruto was delighted to find that not only had he succeeded, but he was standing as well. Stretching out and grinning broadly, the blond took full advantage of this sudden turn of events.