Chapter 34: The Gray Room
Kidnapped.
Axel hadn't been tied up, granted, but there wasn't really any other way to interpret his having woken up in an empty room wholly unfamiliar to him after having been knocked out. Though he did—very, very briefly—entertain the idea that he had actually been insane for the past year, imagined everything, and was only just now coming to his senses in a mental asylum.
But, unfortunately or not, that wasn't the case.
He had been kidnapped, plain and simple.
This couldn't be real.
Closing his eyes tight, Axel held his breath for a long minute. Held it until his lungs burned, his throat ached, and then he slowly exhaled. He was breathing, and alive, and more than a little scared. That was fine. Natural, even.
Axel let himself panic for a bit.
Inhaled.
Exhaled.
And then, head still aching, Axel made himself slowly look around the plain gray room again. It was small and unfurnished, save for the thin cot he was on and what he guessed was a chamber pot in one of the corners. The whole space was completely lit with harsh cold light, but he couldn't really figure out how.
Also, the room quite distinctly lacked a door.
That, certainly, was not a good sign.
As he processed this new situation—doing his best to keep his breathing steady and abate the rising twist of panic in his gut, just pushing through—he shifted off the cot and put his feet on the cold ground.
His shoes were gone.
Of course they were.
It should have been expected, even if they had left him in his own clothes, because taking shoes was such a simple thing to do to discourage escape. But they were his shoes: a pair he'd found at a store in München, and had worn all around Japan. He only used them as house shoes these days, to try and keep them in good-ish condition.
He breathed.
They were just shoes, after all—no matter how sentimental—and not nearly the most pressing thing about this entire kidnapping situation.
Standing somewhat unsteadily, Axel paced around the room. Trailing a hand along the walls as he walked, he found nearly invisible seams on the wall opposite from where he had woken; he only noticed them when his fingernails caught on the tiny ridges.
Following the seam up as far as he could reach, he traced out what he was fairly sure must be the door. It didn't really help him in any way to do so, but knowing that there was an exit, no matter how inaccessible, was still strangely reassuring.
Not very reassuring, granted, but at least it was something.
After circuiting the room two more times and finding nothing new—no surprise—Axel folded against one of the chill walls and set his head in his hands.
Kidnapped.
What in the name of all that was real (or fictional) was he supposed to do now?
Answer: not much.
There wasn't much he could do, obviously. The door was really more of a wall, and the room only had the bed and toilet. Both of which, he discovered after a few strong tugs, were quite thoroughly bound to the floor somehow.
So he sat.
And he thought.
The more sardonic part of his brain had to wonder what he had done that led his life to spiral so thoroughly into the realm of craziness he'd been living with for the past several months; he had no idea what kind of metaphorical domino he had knocked over that led to crashing into a fictional dimension and now being kidnapped by ninja, but it must have been a doozy.
How odd, too, that this was the second time in his life—heck, in a year or so—that he had fully expected to die. Before that fateful crash, this sort of incident was the stuff of stories. Not just the whole other-world thing, even, but just being kidnapped: he knew it happened, but he had never really thought it would happen to him.
Admittedly, given ninja and their suspicions of outsiders, he had sort of worried about it ever since arriving in Konoha. Especially once he learned Orochimaru was still in the village—the guy had a reputation for snatching people, after all. But he had quietly kept those concerns in the back of his mind, in a do-not-think-about-it-too-closely kind of way.
For the record, though, he was pretty sure Orochimaru was involved with this.
At the very least, this time, unlike when he woke up at the clinic, he was still wearing his own shirt and pants. While the situation right now was definitely more dire, there's just something very disconcerting about waking up in unfamiliar clothes.
Axel shifted, lifting his head so that he was peering out at the depressing slate-gray cell over his crossed arms. He stared at the patch of wall that he was guessing was the door—completely sealed, as far as he could tell—and thought that all of this was overkill.
He was just a civilian, for goodness sake! A simple lock probably would have been enough to keep him stuck somewhere.
"Warum…" A sigh, and he ended up simply shaking his head rather than finishing his question. He didn't know why he had been kidnapped, and asking an empty room wouldn't help.
Heaven's above, he really hoped this wasn't because of what he had told Minato. If somebody had overheard… well, he could kind of see the whole 'from another world' thing as being a valid reason for abduction. He didn't like it, but he could understand it.
Just look at sci-fi shows: aliens are always snapped up by the government, or hidden by the government, or—
Caged. Killed. Experimented on.
Axel inhaled.
Exhaled.
He wasn't going to panic. It wouldn't help. Of course, he didn't even know who had kidnapped him or why; it could have nothing to do with his world, or his past. There's no point agonizing over those possibilities.
Just consider them, and move on.
Right now, he was alive—trapped, but alive—and he wasn't fully out of options yet.
In order to get through this, he had to stay calm: assume they didn't know he was from another world, and they had taken him for some other reason. If they were still in the dark about that, he wanted to keep it that way.
And he had to be compliant.
Axel may not know why he had been taken, but he could certainly guess that there would be an interrogation at some point. Much as it might gall him to cooperate with kidnappers, he would answer their questions willingly and remain as truthful as possible.
These were ninja, after all. He didn't want to give them any reason to get out the knives.
Oh, that thought made him sick.
For now, though, there wasn't really anything to do… but wait.
And wait.
And wait.
The lack of windows made it impossible to tell how much time had passed. Which, in a somewhat whimsical and likely stress-induced way, sort of reminded him of the oddly liminal feeling of movie theaters: those moments just after the film has ended, before stepping outside, and there's only that strange sense of having misplaced a few hours.
Like that, but significantly more uneasy and tense.
Axel must have dozed off at some point, curled there against the wall, because that's where he woke up—even more sore and disoriented than before. The concrete floor had left rough marks on his arm, and there was a painful crick in his neck.
"Aua," he groaned, pushing himself back to a sitting position.
Across the room from him, in front of the door-wall as if it had been there all along, sat a tray with a bowl and a cup of water. Somebody must have delivered food while he was asleep. He wondered if they actually opened the door, or just ninja-magicked it inside somehow.
The bowl had some kind of rice slop that looked wholly unappetizing, but it just smelled like salt and broth so it probably tasted fine. The first spoonful proved him right: bland and salty. He paused before the second, though, as the thought struck that they could have slipped some kind of drug into the food. Not poison, surely, since they could have killed him ages ago, but it wouldn't have to be fatal to cause all sorts of problems for him.
A drug to intoxicate or loosen his inhibitions, or anything that would encourage him to talk without considering what he was saying, would be chancy at best. A straight-up truth serum (which he really hoped didn't exist) would be disastrous.
But then, he had to assume that any food he received could be similarly laced. He needed to eat sometime, and if ever the food would be clean, it would be the first meal.
The way he saw it, of the options—eat it or not, laced or not—there was only one good outcome. Not eating, whether or not there was something mixed in, would be suspicious. Eating if it wasn't drugged was fine, eating if it was would be a risk.
And a risk he had to take.
So he ate the slop, drank the water, and returned the tray to where he had found it. Wasn't much else to do in an empty room, anyway.
After a few more long hours of staring at nothing, a lot of the tension of having been kidnapped seemed to almost melt away. He wasn't sure if that was because of the boredom, or some kind of apathetic acceptance.
Axel had first tried to pass the time by brainstorming metalworking projects, but it was frustrating to be unable to write anything down: he couldn't visualize anything clearly enough to make progress on form or methods. So instead he started playing word games with himself, going down a line of words where the last letter of the previous had to match the first letter of the next, which at least gave him something to do, if not thrilling or particularly entertaining.
When he started running out of new words—in any language—he switched to retelling old stories to himself. They blurred together a bit, but daydreaming about characters he had read or watched and accidentally carrying them over to the setting of a different show was actually kind of fun.
And ironic, given his situation.
He was lying on the cot, staring up at the ceiling and trying to remember the plot of a film he had watched once or twice, when a soft whoosh of air startled him from his musings. He sat up in time to see the concrete wall fold back together, once more leaving behind only the faintest of seams around the doorway.
His visitor regarded him with a cold interest, slit golden eyes sharp. Rather than the usual jonin outfit, the ninja mad-scientist was wearing something that resembled a lab coat: pristinely white in contrast to his long black hair.
"Oh," Axel said, surprising himself with how calm he felt. "It's you."
=X=X=X=
Orochimaru was beyond displeased.
He was stressed, nearly to the point of throwing out all of his previous research due to its continued failures, annoyed, sleep-deprived, and so over-worked that it was beginning to impact his performance.
Unacceptable.
And now he had been assigned yet another project.
The civilian—Brandt Axel—was currently in one of the laboratory holding cells. A cell which had, in his opinion, much more security than was actually warranted; strange chakra or not, a latched door would have been sufficient to thwart any attempt at escape.
Not that he even cared to keep the man locked up. It would have suited his purposes just fine to leave the civilian in place, where he could pursue further inquiry concerning that fascinating written and spoken language at his own leisure. Among other things.
Because that was what really interested him about Brandt: all the curious inconsistencies, the little unexpected quirks and missing information. Investigation into his past turned up nothing, even though the man never hesitated to answer questions, and never seemed to lie when he did. And beyond personal history, his snake summons related talks of science and math that would be considered cutting edge, if only Brandt could explain more than just the broad strokes.
So, long before his… old teammate had brought in the unreadable journal, his attention had been caught. Words that could not be understood, ideas and concepts that answered questions that hadn't even been asked yet: he wanted to know more.
While his undetectable chakra may have been what first drew the shinobi's eye to Brandt, it was only after looking closer that he became truly intrigued.
The greatest mystery of Brandt Axel, he felt sure, was in what the man knew.
And he wanted to learn everything.
Unfortunately, Orochimaru did not have time for an interrogation. That was the main reason he hadn't taken action earlier, before the civilian could have a chance to form bonds in the village who would care if he vanished.
Now, of course, that planning was all thrown out the window.
He shut his eyes, brows drawn together, and resisted the urge to rub away the growing headache stabbing at his temples.
Apparently the new information the agent had brought in from what should have been the last investigative mission was too important to leave be, and Brandt Axel had been brought in for further examination. Meaning, of course, that now Orochimaru had yet more work to add to his already full research schedule.
Politically and strategically, the move made sense; the legendary eyes of the Hyūga clan were a valuable asset, and anything that could potentially lessen their ability must be explored. But it really didn't matter to him if the civilian had been invisible to the Byakugan—and, in fact, he was privately amused to see the lauded dōjutsu subverted.
As fascinating as that may be, he simply does not have time to care all that much.
He has no need for another test subject, least of all for an entirely new line of experiments: as is, he barely has enough energy to devote to his current project. Enmeshed as he is currently in kekkei genkai research and various attempts to unravel the delicate intricacies of Wood Release, bringing in a new distraction now would be simply foolish.
Yet, that is exactly what has happened.
Biting back a frustrated hiss, he glared down at the sheets of data spread out over the entire lab countertop. The test subjects that had been in decline were still creeping toward death. Very few remained steady—including S27, remarkably, though only tenuously at best. Most pressing, however, was that the entire S36-45 group had suddenly undergone extreme and unexpected mutations, malignant growths, and he needed to keep at least some of them alive long enough to figure out why.
He didn't have time for this.
But unfortunately, it would seem he would have to make time for it: forced to set aside his largest and most costly experiment at this critical point, just to prioritize a completely new project. And, most galling of all, the answer to how Brandt—the civilian, the subject—had remained unseen seemed blatantly obvious.
It was an easy leap to guess that undetectable chakra couldn't be seen, either.
Simple.
So why must he waste his time—
Orochimaru had always considered himself to be difficult to anger, driven by cold logic more than volatile feelings—but right now he had to wrestle his temper under control. It was difficult, but he refused to be mastered by his own emotions: such things could only get in the way of his goals.
Yet, in a distant and almost forgotten way, he recalled moments with his team—so long ago, now—helping him to calm down after a rare outburst.
He…
He ignored that thought, though he did follow their old advice to count up to ten or, if that did not work, down from a hundred, instead of taking more direct means of stress relief.
Stabbing his superiors would not be worth the trouble, long term.
Unable to focus, Orochimaru sealed away his documents and moved on. Frustrating though it might be, he still had his orders; he would first need to obtain suitable materials from the subject, and then he could proceed to testing.
The sooner he finished this, the sooner he could return to his main project.
What a waste.
He set out a scroll, and began gathering the tools he would require: a saw, long-handled medical shears, chisels and knives of various sizes, pliers, scalpels, syringes. Fully dismantling the subject was not yet necessary, so he only took glass containers large enough to hold, say, a finger or two.
In fact, a finger would make an excellent sample. Hands have such a dense tracery of chakra pathways—second only to the brain. And, of course, he would prefer to preserve the mind for as long as possible.
The dead tell no tales, after all.
Sealing away the collection, Orochimaru departed for the holding cells.
As he passed through his laboratory, the rows of unlit and emptied testing chambers seemed to mock him: so few still held living subjects. And of those remaining, most had been twisted by tumorous growths.
Sickly green light lined his failures in stark relief, the thick suspension fluid distorting already mutated figures even further.
He scowled, and hurried his steps.
The cell containing the subject in question was not too far, one of many in a long hallway regularly marked with labels detailing the contents of each room.
Proper procedure would mean releasing knock-out gas into the cell, thereby guaranteeing the incapacitation of the subject prior to entry. It was a safety measure, though hardly necessary when dealing with such a weak subject.
Almost on impulse, disregarding protocol, Orochimaru trigged the seal to open the door.
The subject didn't even notice he was there until the entrance was almost fully closed once more, or at least he didn't react until after he sat up on the cot and looked over.
And then, his reaction was… unexpected.
"Oh." Even with the lines of fear evident in his stiff-seated posture, the subject sounded remarkably composed. "It's you."
Resignation. Acceptance. Almost as if the subject had been expecting him, specifically.
Orochimaru paused, caught off-guard in spite of himself. Then he silently turned away, hands flicking through a doton technique to pull a flat surface from the concrete wall. He unrolled the scroll across the impromptu table, and, with a pulse of chakra, unsealed his various tools.
Behind him, the subject tensed.
"Before you do anything," he said, some fear was creeping into his tone, "that healing magic—er, chakra—it doesn't work on me."
Setting his hand on one of the scalpels, Orochimaru gave the subject a level look. "If you hope to dissuade me, I'm afraid you'll need to invent a more creative excuse."
"No, well yes, but—"
He turned back to his tools, selecting, instead, the pair of thick-bladed scissors: an index finger would serve his purposes for now. "Be still, or I will be forced to restrain you."
The subject held his arms up defensively, though whether the guard was against his reprimand or the sight of the shears was unclear. "I-It's the truth."
There was a bandage on the subject's right hand.
Orochimaru felt his annoyance spike. "Did that injury occur when you were brought in?"
It wouldn't be the first time the agents had brought in damaged material—no matter how often he warned against doing so. Testing on injured subjects could result in unexpected complications, no matter how superficial the wound.
Sure, given the type of experiments to be run in this particular case, it may not matter. It was still frustrating.
The subject glanced at his wrapped hand, then quickly back. "No, this was just from an accident at the shop. Minato tried to heal it, but…" Conflicted about something, he paused.
"But what?"
"…He couldn't, because I don't have chakra."
Impossible.
Orochimaru said nothing. Instead, he grabbed the subject's wrist and swiftly unwound the bandage to inspect the damage.
"Hey! What—"
Fingers lighting up with green chakra, the shinobi focused on the the cut. It was a simple injury, but the technique seemed to catch on nothing; it was as if there was nothing there to catch. His energy slipped away with no effect.
"Uhm…?"
Orochimaru let go of the hand. "Curious."
"So…" The subject rubbed at his wrist, and clumsily tried to re-wrap the bandage. "What exactly are you going to do?"
Though tempted not to reply at all—and honestly, he probably should not be wasting his time talking with the subject—Orochimaru couldn't help himself.
This was… interesting.
"Well. I shall settle with a blood sample, then," he remarked, stepping back to the table and trading out the long-handled shears for one of the syringes.
Remarkably, after a second of hesitation, the subject willingly held out his arm.
It actually caught him a little off guard.
But he set aside the odd feeling, taking the civilian's elbow and expertly inserting the needle into one of his veins. The drawn blood looked perfectly normal.
He wondered what secrets it might hold.
"This will serve my purposes." He capped the full syringe. "For now."
"O-Okay." The man swallowed dryly: it was clear he found the implication disconcerting. "But… uh, what purposes?
Pausing as he put away his tools, Orochimaru raised a curious brow. "You don't know?"
"I can guess, but," he shrugged, "I've been living in Konoha for almost a year. Why now?"
Flicking his hands through the signs to collapse the concrete table back into the wall, the shinobi once more briefly considered whether he should reply at all. Having been asking himself that same frustrating question since the order had been given, Orochimaru had only found one explanation.
"Paranoia," he finally said, with a condescending scowl.
"Uh, 'paranoia', that's… fear, or something."
"Indeed."
Still confused, the civilian asked, "But fear of what?"
"It would seem," Orochimaru stated, "that the odd quality of your chakra has unforeseen consequences in relation to certain shinobi techniques."
"What techniques? And who—"
"That—" he cut in sharply, then took a breath to center himself. "That's enough questions."
"…Okay, fair enough." Brandt went quiet for a moment, thinking. "I guess whoever was in my house probably tried something, and it didn't work out as expected."
Given that he had not been planning to set aside his far more pressing work to make time for this, his tone was fairly irritable when he replied, "Many things do not work out as expected."
"That's true." Sighing, the civilian sent the plain gray walls of his cell a pointed glance. "I mean, until this whole… Konoha… thing…" He drifted off, as if suddenly second-guessing what he was saying.
Orochimaru raised a brow, his thoughts naturally turning to the mystery his investigations had not been able to crack: before Brandt had arrived in Konoha—or rather, in that small town—it was as if he simply didn't exist.
"Anyway," the man said, trying for a graceless evasion, "I mean, you sounded like you were thinking of something specific to you."
"Oh, certainly," he hissed, tone perfectly smooth. "I had not expected to have a new research project thrust upon me with no consideration to the demands of my current work." His smile became sharp-edged. "But naturally, I can handle such… inconveniences."
The civilian looked startled by the outburst, yet, oddly enough, sympathetic.
Orochimaru simply turned away, deciding quite abruptly that he had already lost too much time here. He would be back later, of course, for more samples.
And answers.
Saying nothing more, he set one palm against the wall. A shift in his chakra activated the seals on the opposite side, which pulled the seams in the concrete wider, and the door folded open with a slight gust of chilly air.
"Wait."
Surprising himself, Orochimaru paused. When he looked back, he noticed that the civilian—still seated on the cot—had a curiously conflicted expression.
"You can make all the right moves, and still lose," Brandt said, picking each word carefully, though his voice sounded almost nostalgic. "That's not weakness, that's just life."
For a long moment, the shinobi said nothing.
Then: "Is that a proverb, where you're from?"
"It's from, er…" The man blinked, as if not fully sure how to answer. "Yes, it is."
Orochimaru gave the civilian—though clearly a very strange civilian, even more so than he had first thought—a considering look. The scrutiny seemed to make Brandt uneasy, as well it should, though he managed to remain steady.
"That is an… interesting ideology," he said, and let the concrete close between them.
The concept that failure was simply an unavoidable aspect of life, that it could happen regardless of one's actions against it, was not one he had heard before; such an idea could even, in no small way, be considered wholly opposite to the shinobi doctrine.
Failure stained honor, and those it touched were cast away.
Even Konoha—for all its claims to the Will of Fire, touting camaraderie and teamwork—was not above that perception of failure.
"How curious."
Orochimaru turned, and walked away.
But he felt he would be visiting that gray room quite often.
Author's Note:
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
One room, four walls, and no way out.
This was originally just going to be Axel's point of view (very short, I know), but I decided to delay a week to sort out and add the Orochimaru section. I asked this on the discord, but I'll ask here too: do you prefer a longer chapter later, or a shorter chapter on-time?
Updates monthly, aiming for the fifteenth.
Thanks for reading!
Translations:
"Warum…" = "Why…"
"Aua" = "Ow"
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