A tense silence had been made inside the cave. Minato couldn't do anything else but stare at his wounded hand and then look at the other one that strongly gripped Madara's glove. That man had saved his life twice during this dangerous competition and he continued to do so without knowing the reason why.
"He nailed a kunai into me to immobilize me," Minato said, taking Madara's glove off and seeing how the raven had already bandaged it. "Why...?" He began saying something, head cast down before a curious Madara. "Why are you helping me?"
"Who knows," Was Madara's only response. "Maybe... it was when I heard your horse's name. It's a beautiful name."
"It can't be because of that." Minato assured.
"Do you know what mine is called?" Madara smiled. "'Yoarashi'. Do you believe in coincidences, Minato?"
Upon hearing the name, Minato was paralyzed for a second. It was true that this changed something— both had made a reference to the night in the names of their horses. It couldn't be some simple coincidence.
"For a moment, when I heard it, I thought that it was possible we'd have a connection, I don't know... but it can't be a coincidence that we'd think of something alike." Madara smiled. "And then there's your clan's matter: it's too weak now and you made me remember my brother's actions when he saved you from that ninja that tried to kidnap you— I don't know, Minato... you've created a weakness in me. I don't want to see you die here. You're too young to die in a place like this."
"I gave him that name because of the wind that blew that night," Minato said with a smile. "What's more... the wind is something typical in our clan."
"The day they brought me this horse, there was a great storm." Madara smiled.
"Perhaps we looked up at the sky at the same time." Minato added.
"It's possible. Come, get closer. I want to see how your hand is doing."
Minato moved the blankets over him and approached the fire where a few fish had been cooking— surely Madara had fished them out before closing the cave. With caution, Madara untied the knot on the fabric and began taking it off to check the wound. It had stopped bleeding, but the other could barely close his hand due to the pain. That kunai had been nailed through.
"It's going to leave you with a good scar." Madara told him.
"I don't care. I'm still alive."
"Yeah," Madara whispered, taking out a bottle of ointment from his clothes. "This'll help it scar faster."
"Ah!" Minato complained, trying to pull his hand away upon feeling Madara's fingers apply the ointment.
"I'm sorry, I can't do anything about the pain. It'll be difficult for you to fight with this hand for some time."
"That's fine, I'm alright."
"Deal with the pain a little. I have to heal this for you or it'll get infected."
Minato opened his hand despite it costing him to keep it open from the pain. The Uchiha's dark eyes fixed themselves upon the wound once more. The blood had clotted but even so, he could clearly identify where the hole from the kunai had been made. To be honest... it didn't appear like it had been a very decent battle. How could someone nail a kunai in someone else's hand? It was almost impossible to do that during combat.
"What happened?" Madara asked, sliding his fingers along the border of the wound as he applied the cream while his other hand fed him some fish so he could eat and recover his energies. "This isn't your typical battle wound. Did you lower your guard?"
"I don't know..." Minato said, eating the fish. "He shouldn't have been able to get up after the blow I gave him, but it wasn't like that. I had forgotten the Uzumaki are able to recover by biting at their own chakra. I completely fell in his trick."
"Wasn't he supposed to be your brother-in-law? Why would he want to attack you?"
"I suppose for the same thing as always," Minato said. "He wanted to sleep with me. Isn't that what all the ninja want? They just want to show off in front of other ninjas that they've had sex with a blond. We're just trophies since a long time ago. I don't even know why you haven't tried anything with me yet." Minato forcibly smiled.
"You're not some trophy for me, Minato. You're a good ninja that deserves respect and whoever doesn't see it like that, they don't deserve to be called ninja. It's possible that you're too young and that you've never participated in a race such as this, but... you're good. Your abilities are unique and special; I don't care if you're blond or a brunette— you'll still be the same determined man that I now see before me. This is done, Minato." He said, separating his hand from the blond's and closing the bottle of ointment. "Let me bandage it for you again. You might be able to move it a little despite the pain by tomorrow."
Madara's agile fingers began bandaging the blond's wounded hand once again. Minato attentively observed the Uchiha's hands. They were soft despite him always believing that they should've been rough— everyone knew the Uchiha trained many hours a day, so they must've had calluses, but they didn't.
"What are you looking at, Minato?" Madara curiously asked.
"Your hands," He said. "they're... soft."
"Yours are torn." Madara chuckled. "I think you train too much; they already had wounds on them before you even entered the competition and now... they've gotten worse."
"Us Namikaze don't have any talent of blood," Minato said with his head cast down. "We don't possess the Sharingan like you do, nor the Byakugan like the Hyuuga, and neither a chakra to recover ourselves with like the Uzumaki. We're too weak. The only thing that makes us strong is hard work and our intelligence. I invented all my techniques; nobody has anything like mine, but my one ability... is to take the enemy by surprise and be much faster than he is. To take him out without him touching me or at least... without giving myself the least amount of damage."
"And that's what makes you the more admirable," Madara encouraged him.
Those words made Minato raise his gaze in surprise. No one had ever said something like that to him; nobody had ever admired him. Everybody thought they were superior to his clan and the fact that those words came from the one he considered to be much stronger than him, had stunned him completely.
"All the other ninja are sure of themselves because they've inherited the abilities of their ancestors, just like me. We learn to use them, but we think that there is no need to train so hard because we don't have rivals. Nobody has our abilities. And then there's you: a young man without any blood abilities that has trained like no other knowing that the other participants are much stronger than him, that they have bloodlines to which he can't win against, but you're here, showing them that hard work can do more than inherited blood. It's easy to not be scared when you have a blood ability, what's difficult is doing what you do: being here with only your training and your abilities that were made out of cleverness. They should all respect you like I do. You have the courage to continue on ahead knowing very well that it's possible you might die here."
"I don't mind dying," Minato confessed to Madara's surprise. "Not even my life belongs to me. If I come out alive... I'll marry Kushina Uzumaki and half the ninjas of her clan would take advantage of any opportunity to violate me, just like her brother tried. I have no escape whatsoever," He commented, seeing how at that moment, Madara clenched his fists with force. Upon realizing he was being observed, Madara raised his gaze, losing himself in those blue eyes.
"Sorry. It just frustrates me and pisses me off knowing that your own brother-in-law... the one who'll be a part of your political family, is thinking about sleeping with you. That's falling too low."
"You're the only one who doesn't wish to do that," Minato said, softly approaching him.
For an instant, Madara's eyes lowered from the other's blue eyes to the young one's lips. He watched how the other pronounced those words and he couldn't deny that it excited him. Of course he had thought about sleeping with him, the man attracted him. There was something exciting about him but Madara was not like the other ninjas; he would never force himself upon that boy.
"Why do you not wish to be with me?" Minato softly whispered in front of the lips a tensed Uchiha.
Both could feel the closeness and it was bothering Madara. He couldn't go on like this. He noticed his heart accelerating, his eyes perplexed in the perfect, outlined lips of that blond boy that kept getting closer to him each time but he could not move. His body refused to move away from him. His brain shouted at him to back away but his entire body refused to respond to such demand, waiting to feel the contact of his lips.
The graze came like the most delicate of caresses— a simple graze in which Minato's lower lip brushed against Madara's lower one, moving slightly upwards as if teasing to want to kiss him. Madara sighed, closing his eyes and letting himself be invaded by the situation, by the aroma the young man radiated of lotus— a characterized flower that grew in his village surrounded by water.
Doubt assaulted Minato for a second; the doubt of whether he should continue or not. The thought made him back his nervous lips away a few millimeters despite still being able to smell the fragrance of chrysanthemums that characterized the Uchihas. Minato smiled for a second, remembering still how the royal family always cultivated chrysanthemums, a flower that seemed to grow naturally near the Uchiha, perhaps demonstrating that they had the authentic power.
Madara didn't dare to say a word despite his curiosity he felt towards that smile. He refused to break that magic that had formed between them. He still felt how Minato's lips trembled, all of him trembled with uncertainty of the moment, but not even that made him stop. Once again he pushed his lips onto Madara's, waiting for the other's response, a response... that didn't make him wait when Madara slightly opened his lips, taking between them the blond's lower lip, sampling them for the first time with total tranquility.
Madara's hand reached for the young one's blond hair, caressing the back of his head while the other, little by little, continued to get closer to a Madara who could not think of anything else that wasn't the boy. He knew that surely this was something he was doing out of rebelliousness— that perhaps he wanted to do something voluntarily before dying or even before they force him to marry. Slowly, Minato got close to him, sliding his knees until he managed to sit over the raven's thighs, both refusing to break the kiss.
None of the two could have imagined that they would've found love in a place like this. This was only a battlefield where there were daily fights for survival and where everyone betrayed each other, however, all of that seemed far away to them inside the cave. It was ironic and even a bit absurd to fall in love in a situation like this one, but they didn't care.
Minato's shaking hands reached the bandana on Madara's forehead engraved with the Uchiha clan symbol. His hands reached around the other's hair, searching for the knot to untie and as he was doing it, in an attempt to unite his lips with the other, his forehead clashed against a Madara who began laughing by such clumsiness. Nerves could be traitorous sometimes and not everything came out the way you wished it to be, but Minato, too, smiled after apologizing for the random impact.
"You're safe with me, so calm down." Madara said, grabbing the other's wrists and bringing one of the blond's hands up to his lips to deposit on them a sweet kiss.