Chapter 48: Multicultural

"Okay." Obito had his hands held together in front of his face, palm to palm, and he tipped them forward as if to clear the way for his next thought. "Explain 'trains' again."

Axel had to take a moment—more than a bit frazzled at all the talking he'd been doing, and needing time to find another way to describe public transportation. But he was beaten to the punch by Rin, who, despite being as unfamiliar with the concept as the rest of them, had been paying close attention. He was more than happy to let her try to summarize things as best she could.

They had been talking for over an hour, nearing two, and somehow the topics had branched out in ways he never would've been able to anticipate. The fixation on trains was unexpected, but quite entertaining—like they have some kind of innate appeal, even across dimensions.

He stretched a little, watching them chatter with a tired-but-content smile. When his elbow dropped onto the backpack by his side, as if it were an armrest, it thunked on something more rigid than he was expecting. And, rather abruptly, he remembered why he'd packed his things up in the first place.

"It might be easier to just show you," Axel said, reaching for the zipper-pull.

Minato, who had joined him on the floor at some point, leaned forward in interest. "Right, you did say you had pictures."

Better: he had some videos.

Laptop open—and subsequent flurry of questions about it ignored, for now—Axel quickly navigated his files. He had a lot of photos saved to his computer, as he'd transferred them from his outdated phone whenever it ran out of space. Not all of his pictures had made it, alas, as the last batch he'd moved over had been from around a month before the trip back to Germany.

But he did have most them.

Thank goodness for crappy phones and regular backups.

He skipped over the folders that had photos of family and friends—eventually he would want to share stories about them, but right now… He was already getting emotional about trains, for goodness sake. One step at a time.

Plus, it would be extremely awkward if they happened to catch sight of any stray cosplay pictures. His sister had dressed up as the fourth Hokage once, and that would be a heck of a thing to explain—not least of all because Minato hadn't even been nominated for the position yet.

The batch of pictures from that last trip to Japan would probably be the safest bet: he had a good idea of what he'd find there, and none of it should be Naruto-themed. Or at least not obviously so, hopefully.

Clicking the folder open, he set about quickly skimming the contents to get to the train clips he was looking to share. But he was forced to slow down quite a bit, as it would seem that his over-the-shoulder audience was interested in… well, all of it.

It felt like they stopped him at every other picture, asking questions about even the most mundane settings—and he had plenty of those. Images of empty streets, clips at intersections, buildings that caught his eye: pictures he'd taken to send to his sister, knowing that Adri wanted to see everything from his time in Japan.

Axel still had stories he'd wanted to tell her, too, and he might never get the chance.

He paused, mid-explanation, as he turned that thought over in his head. Bittersweet, perhaps, but he got to share some of those stories now, here, with new friends—no matter how unexpected this all had been.

(She'd be glad. Probably jealous, given the context, but glad nonetheless.)

It was nice, taking the time to openly think back on what his life had been with joy: with celebration, almost, as he shared some of the highlights. Everything had become so caught up inside his head, and mired in grief. Getting to just… talk about it, fond and wistful and homesick, was a deep relief.

All the asides they led him on meant it took longer than expected, but he got to the train videos eventually: clips recorded from trips on the high-speed rail in Japan, green countryside blurring past the glass. Those had garnered interested murmurs; not just on the details that could be seen from the train, like the tall buildings and passing cars, but on the train itself. More specifically, its speed and apparent accessibility.

But the picture he'd taken from the small white window of a plane, the wing in focus with the ground left indistinct kilometers below, had a greater impact.

Axel had tapped past, noting it only as a picture that didn't really show much of the detail of his old world—too far up, and not even flying over the squiggly lines of city roads to offer a literal overview—but apparently a glimpse was enough to snag interest from the ninja peering over his shoulder.

"Wha— Hold on, go back!" Rin's insistence was echoed by a few other watchers. "Go back!"

With a compliant click, Axel flicked away from a picture of a random city street and back to the view from the plane. Honestly, he'd debated deleting it a few times before… all of this other-world stuff happened. It offered a good point of context when he looked through his photos, but otherwise he didn't think it was a very good picture: mainly because he could see a hint of his reflection in the window, so it wasn't even a particularly clear outside view.

There was a moment of quiet as they looked over the image.

Obito was the one to actually speak up, pointing a finger just shy of the screen. "What is that?"

"Ein Flugzeug. Or… the wing of one, at least." And, although he guessed that they didn't actually have the word in their version of Japanese, he added, "It's a photo from an airplane. I mentioned them, right?"

"That image… When you said there were craft that could fly, I admit that I wasn't expecting it to be so far up! It's higher than mountaintops." Minato's eyes had a fascinated glitter to them, enamored by the concept. Given what skilled jonin were capable of, he was no stranger to great heights—even so, airplane altitudes were quite literally next level.

"How's that even work?" asked Obito, expression skeptical. "That wing looks real stiff. And it's got something stuck under it."

"It doesn't move, and the thing under it is a… it's what moves the plane." That didn't make much sense, so he tried again: "The wing stays still, and the air—the wind—is what lifts it up." He attempted to shape what he meant with his hands, one hand sliding past and the other held in place.

"Huh?"

"It's— Have you ever made a paper airplane?"

Rin tilted her head, curious. "A what?"

Right, it probably wouldn't be called that here. But still, he was fairly sure that paper planes had been invented ages ago in his world—paper had been around for a very long time, after all, and folding wasn't exactly rocket science. The ninja world probably had something similar, though presumably with a different name and also probably weaponized in some way. Given there were ink-chakra patterns that were drawn on paper and could literally explode, he didn't think that would be hard to do.

…Actually, wasn't there a ninja in the show who could control paper?

Whatever, that's beside the point.

"You fold paper so that it can fly, a little." That should be a broad enough description to get the concept across.

Kushina, at least, seemed to make a connection. Her face lit up and she quickly pulled out a blank paper tag from her pouch. "I don't use this trick much," she said, tightly folding the long edge of the sheet in on itself a few times before pinching it into a slight 'v' shape. "It's usually fine to just tie your seal to a kunai or boost it with chakra, ya know."

Then, with a light toss, the tag-turned-glider flew across the room.

Obito was immediately enamored, though Kakashi seemed as unfazed as ever and Rin remarked about having seen something similar in class. Regardless, the conversation completely derailed once again, this time into a lesson on folding paper planes—or paper gliders, as they were apparently called. It was a good thing Kushina had so much paper, and doubly so that she was willing to share it.

The kids were all quick studies, and soon enough they (namely Obito) seemed to have spontaneously begun a competition on who's paper plane could glide the farthest: starting at the opposite wall and measuring out the door, down the hall, and into the unused guest room. Theoretically. Several planes had been lost to the staircase, and not many actually made it to the opposite room.

At present, they were bickering about whether a plane that went down the stairs could count in the rankings.

"It was still flying!" Obito defended, stubbornly.

"It was crashing," countered Kakashi, deadpan, "there just happened not to be any floor there."

"Flying!"

Kushina nonchalantly threw a plane that coasted all the way to bop against the closed window in the far room, but none of the bickerers noticed. "All that metal is a lot heavier than some paper, ya know," she said, pointing back to the computer screen. It had gone dark a while ago, but her reference was clear. "So how's that fly?"

Smoothing a crease in his own half-folded plane, Axel considered. "I'm no expert, but…" He bowed the paper back on itself, making a teardrop shape. "The wing is like this, a little. When it goes fast enough, it… tricks… more air to go under than over, so the plane goes up. I think."

Minato tilted his head to the side, thoughtful, but seemed to follow the concept easily enough. "The Flugzeug—or airplanes, you called them? How long can they fly for? How high?"

"Very," he answered, wishing he knew more of the specifics. Most of what he could recall was from safety rundowns given by flight attendants. "The plane is so high that it needs to be… hmm. I do not know the word. The air is… too light, that far up? So the plane is sealed—"

"Fuin?" Kushina repeated. "There's a fuinjutsu on these, ah, planes?"

He paused, hands raised as he still tried to course-correct to the right word—which most certainly was not 'fuin', given the context it had in this world. The fact that it was the first word to come to mind really goes to show how much time he'd spent with these ninja types.

"I didn't mean it that way," said Axel, though he was drawing a complete blank on any synonyms. "I mean 'sealed', like, uhm…" A snap of his fingers. "A can! Closed tight like cans. It needs to hold more air inside, because the air is thin high up."

Not a great comparison, but close enough for his purposes.

"I've heard about something like that in class, about really tall mountains." Rin had wandered back over at some point, leaving the boys of her team to continue their 'debate'. "It was a lesson on environmental and situational awareness."

As if on cue, Kakashi beaned Obito square on the nose with an expertly folded paper throwing star. And Obito, naturally, squawked in outrage before… immediately demanding to know how he'd made the shuriken. It wasn't fair if only one of them was armed.

Rin shook her head, shrugging in a very 'oh well' kind of way before rejoining them—either to mitigate the inevitable squabble or to learn how to make her own paper projectiles, it was unclear.

Whichever she'd been planning on, it was cut off by someone's stomach giving a gurgling grumble. A lull of the conversations meant that everyone heard it, and everyone could pick out the source.

Obito flushed, embarrassed and defensive: "You guys woke me up and rushed me out the door, I didn't get breakfast!"

"And you stayed up late, didn't you," sighed Rin, with a fond but long-suffering air. "Even though you knew we'd probably be up early today."

From the caught-out look on his face, she'd hit the nail on the head. "I had to help, uh, get…" The excuse drifted off. "…I couldn't sleep."

She shrugged. "Me either."

Minato stepped in, a clap of his hands to catch everyone's attention. "I think many of us are running a bit low on sleep," he said, "and certainly low on food! Perhaps we're due for a late lunch?"

The kids needed no further prompting—or at least Obito didn't, as he eagerly leapt to his feet and left in search of food. His teammates were quick to follow after him, but the group as a whole was also quick to come to a complete stop at the bottom of the stairs. Apparently the paper plane that had ended up flying down the stairs had also managed to miss crashing into a wall and landed the next room over. The earlier argument made an immediate reappearance.

With a smile (only a little worn out), Minato remarked, "I should probably make sure they actually reach the kitchen in one piece."

"Three pieces, at least," Kushina corrected, as they headed out after the kids.

"Right. Food." Axel took a breath, mentally reorienting himself to the here-and-now rather than what-had-been. "Food would be good."

Akaiko tugged him upright, and steadied him for the moment it took to get his feet under him. "Then come on, you should still have stuff in the kitchen."

He should.

That word seemed to stick somewhere in his skull, and he picked over it like poking at a bruise. If he hadn't returned—or rather, hadn't been returned—somebody would have had to clear out the fridge eventually. Simple fact. Everything he owned would have needed to be dealt with at some point: packed up, given away, sold. Distantly, he wondered how long it would have taken.

Plainly longer than a week, it would seem.

Had it really been just a week?

Axel took a deep breath, moving to follow the group as they headed to the kitchen, but not really all-the-way present. Because that word—that 'should'—wasn't stuck on the past week.

It was stuck on the past year.

A year since he'd arrived, a year since he'd left. More than enough time for his apartment back in München to have to be emptied. Had anyone kept his books? Maybe some of them ended up donated to the library, or given to a thrift store. What about his furniture, his old clothes? All the stuff he'd had from his university club, the SCA projects, the tools he'd collected? The old box of legos stuffed in the back of the closet?

He smiled, faintly, and hoped that Adri liked the souvenirs he'd bought her.

It was weird—he felt like he couldn't even properly picture what his old apartment had looked like. Not nearly as clearly as he suddenly, deeply wanted to…

A hand, light on his shoulder, pulled him back out of his own head.

It was Akaiko.

She smiled, probably glad to see him refocus, but left her hand where it was for the moment—letting the others go on ahead while gently holding him back. Akaiko didn't say anything right away, head tilted slightly as she listened, letting the coast clear of eavesdroppers. Mainly the kids, if Axel had to guess.

"You've spent basically the whole day talking and answering questions. Are you feeling alright?" She might be a ninja, but Akaiko was pretty good at being to-the-point. "Tired, I'd bet."

"Tired," Axel echoed in agreement. "But a good tired."

Her expression turned thoughtful, worrying over something. But before she could find whatever words she wanted—

"Hey!" came a shout from downstairs, "Where's your rice?"

Axel blinked, wondering if he might still have what would now be a nearly-year-old bag from when Morimoto was around. "Uhm…"

Apparently his thoughts were plain on his face, or maybe in his discomfited tone, since Akaiko snorted. "You don't have any rice, do you."

"In my defense—"

"There is no defense, Axel," she replied, with faux offense. "What kind of functioning adult doesn't have rice, honestly!"

"The kind that doesn't know how to cook it!"

Nearly tripping down the first step of the stairs, her expression slid straight to blatant surprise. "You seriously don't know how to cook rice?"

He would have crossed his arms, but he still wasn't feeling totally stable and definitely wanted a hand on the banister. "I did just spend hours telling you I'm not from here. We ate different things in Deutschland. A lot of bread."

"…And no rice?"

"Some," he corrected, shrugging. "I've eaten it, I just never had to learn to cook it."

Outside of versions he could throw in the microwave, that is. But if the people here held food standards anything like some of his coworkers in Japan, they would absolutely scoff at the idea of instant rice.

When the two of them reached the kitchen, Minato and Kushina were already working around each other to pull some food together: less a well oiled machine and more a chaotic bumbling that nonetheless seemed to be producing something edible. Kushina was clearly the force-in-charge, with Minato flitting around seeking out requested ingredients.

Set beside the pot on the stove was a pile of opened packages, the paper-and-plastic brightly colored and as such easy to recognize: of course Kushina would make ramen, given the chance.

The kitchen space had never been so bustling, so crowded. Despite their regular visits, this was still the first time everyone—Minato's team, and Kushina, and Akaiko—was over at the same time. And, just like the first time the team had come over for dinner, the seating arrangement was still short a few chairs. Thankfully, it would seem that the kids had decided to neatly sidestep that problem by taking up spots on the floor.

Axel sat in his usual chair, content to simply watch everyone for a moment. The welcoming smell of cooking food, the noisy chatter, the room itself: it was a comforting balm against the too-close memories of gray walls. He glanced back towards the front room, and he could just see the edge of the large window and the cash register on the desk. The vase was gone, of course.

Shattered.

His thoughts stuttered, and he bodily turned away from that reminder. Mentally grasping for a distraction, his eyes landed on the trio on the floor and a thought struck: "Is it an off day, or are you skipping classes?"

Two of the three suddenly looked quite shifty, with Kakashi as the odd one out; even with most of his face covered, that expression was definitely smug nonchalance. Fair enough, since he'd probably already graduated from the Academy.

Rin was first to rally.

"It's a class day," she said, with one of her almost-too-innocent smiles that shouldn't be trusted. "But Minato-sensei is our teacher, too, so it's fine."

Obito did his best to back her up, but it was a pretty clumsy attempt. "That's, uh, right! It was probably just gonna be another lesson on clones or something, and Sensei's way better anyway, so even if we were… uhm…" His rambling petered off, since he could plainly see that he wasn't convincing anyone. He was, in fact, having rather the opposite effect.

"You're gonna be in trouble," Akaiko sing-songed, unimpeded by the fact that her chin was propped up on one hand as she leaned over the table.

"Sure, maybe, but I…" He paused, something adding up in his head. "Wait, Rin is basically number one in class and the teacher loves her and Bakakashi—" the immediate admonishment was ignored, "—isn't even in class anymore, which means I'm the only one that… aw man, I am so gonna get yelled at for this tomorrow."

"No you won't." Kushina dolled out a bowl of steaming ramen for each of the kids, handed them off to her boyfriend to carry over to them, and then scooped out another set of dishes. "Family emergency, ya know. They can make an exception."

"So, basically, Minato is helping them skip."

The redhead grinned fiercely back at him, which was definitely an affirmative.

Minato himself just shrugged, setting down the rest of the food at the table before taking a seat. "I'll go over some things later, so they won't be missing much. This is more important anyway."

There should be enough sets of chopsticks that all the skilled users (that being everyone but Axel) could have a pair, but Kushina had instead elected to distribute forks to everyone. It was unclear if it was a preference thing and she just liked the atypical utensil, or if she was doing one of those sneaky 'underneath the underneath' things by accepting one of his eccentricities.

With ninja, it can be hard to tell.

There were a few minutes of relative quiet, conversation dropping off as everyone shifted focus to eating. Axel poked at the ramen in his bowl, mostly just picking at the toppings. Somehow Kushina had managed to pull together a decent variety from whatever mishmash of ingredients he'd had in his kitchen. It was impressive, and tasty.

Almost too tasty, frankly—very different from the bland mushy gruel he'd been stuck with for the past few days.

"We kinda skipped asking earlier," Obito said suddenly, half-muttered around a mouthful of noodles before he swallowed, "but what even happened to you while you were gone? Are you okay?"

"Obito!" hissed Rin, sounding scandalized (but, admittedly, interested), "You can't just ask what it was like being kidnapped! That's, like, traumatizing and stuff."

Axel just paused his absent-minded stirring. "I…"

To be honest, he wasn't sure what to say—or even what he should say, since the whole thing felt a little dark to talk about with children. Even if nothing much really happened, somehow, the possibility had certainly loomed over the whole situation. And, though they were training to be ninja, they were still just kids.

Minato, apparently seeing some of his conflicting thoughts on his face, gave his permission with a small tilt of his head. Though he also mouthed something that Axel thought might be 'no names', which—

Oh, right. Orochimaru hadn't been kicked out of the village. Yet? Or maybe that wouldn't even happen in this timeline; the man hadn't seemed as committed to the evil-villain approach, and certainly not as far-gone as his anime-counterpart.

Regardless, as the Snake Sannin was still counted among Konoha's ninja and not against them, it would probably cause unrest in the ranks to call him out.

Or something along those lines. Axel had never been good at any kind of politicking in his original world, and he hadn't even needed to account for ninja secrecy obsessions back then.

Anyway, to the question at hand.

"It was… weird. I was put in a room, with a thin bed. No windows, but no door either. The wall… opened itself." Axel closed his eyes for a moment, picturing the first time his captor had entered the cell. "Not what I would have expected."

When he had faced Orochimaru—the peak mad-scientist ninja—it had been… well, terrifying. Because of course it was: given the man had arrived with a bone saw, pliers, and a syringe the size of his entire hand, it'd be more insane not to be scared.

That part, at least, fell in line with his expectations.

It was the fact that he'd survived the encounter at all that was surprising.

Minato hummed quietly, a fresh wave of concern darkening his blue eyes. "You said that you weren't hurt."

Not in as many words, but it remains mostly true. "I wasn't, not really. Could have been bad." He wasn't sure of the specific word in Japanese, but he figured that breaking down the German one would get the point across well enough: "But nothing worse than some blood taking."

"There's a vampire under the village?" Obito asked, with dawning horror.

"A mad-scientist," he corrected, "that takes people's blood."

"That's not really better. You… you can see that's not really better, right?"

Unsure how to reply to that, Axel just shrugged. "Vampire or mad-scientist, I cannot do much about either."

He gave his noodles another half-hearted stir, trying not to let that bother him. It shouldn't, it's just a fact of life. Technically speaking, even in the normal non-ninja world, there were plenty of dangers he couldn't deal with.

Case and point: getting hit by a truck.

At least here, at least now, he had his friends to help him.

"True," a not-yet-familiar voice agreed. "Which is why I have a proposition."

It took a moment for everyone to find the speaker, given his size, though Dach did try to make things easier by jumping onto an empty chair. Still, even after jumping up, the dachshund could barely see over the table. His nose traced a line between everyone: not sniffing for anything specific, just considering them.

"I don't like to admit it," Dach continued, finally breaking the waiting quiet, "but maybe one of you should stay here, with him, for the time being."

Axel looked up from his bowl, mouth hanging slightly open in surprise. The fact that his own thoughts had been running in parallel with his dog's was definitely… a sign: a good one or a bad one, he honestly couldn't say.

"Stay?"

Dach nodded. "I think I speak for all of us when I say this," an exhale, inhale, "but we'd all feel much better if we knew you were safe. Safer, at least. And I'm just one dog."

"That's very true," said Akaiko, suddenly thoughtful. "I'll have to get you a fish."

Axel blinked at the apparent non sequitur. "A what?"

"For your own safety."

"How—"

"I feel like you're undermining my position in this house," Dach grouched.

"Having more security surveillance can't hurt, we're not replacing you or anything." She shrugged. "And I can stay a few days, more than enough time to set up a tank. You have a guest room, dontcha?"

"Yes, kind of," Axel replied, once he realized the last question had been aimed at him. He tried to picture the unused space across from his bedroom: whatever furniture was in there was all under dust-sheets and therefore indistinct. "I don't remember if there's a bed though."

Akaiko waved that point off. "If there isn't, I can just sleep on the floor. We're all shinobi, man, we can handle a little indoor camping. No big deal."

"Although, after looking through your pantry… Axel—" Minato pointed at him with his fork, what should be a largely unfamiliar utensil to him nonetheless looking completely natural in his grip, "you are going to need more groceries."

"At least some rice, man!"

"I told you about the rice, I—"

"I'm gonna get you rice, you can't stop me. And probably some other stuff, too." Akaiko lifted her bowl, slurped up the ramen with the speed of a woman on a new-found mission, then set it back down with a sense of finality. "If I… well, if any of us are staying, we should at least pitch in for food."

"I guess I should probably go with you," said Kushina—who had finished her own noodles in a similar fashion. She took the two empty bowls and pushed them in front of Minato, plainly volunteering him to do the dishes.

"What," Akaiko asked, sounding a little affronted, "you think I can't buy food on my own?"

"I've seen what you call cooking, ya know—don't subject him to that." Kushina shook her head. "I'm going with you to get groceries, just to make sure you buy stuff other than rice, mission rations, and salt-encrusted anything."

"I don't only—!"

"And the kids can come, too," she barreled on, shooting the trio an amused look. "It'll basically be a D-rank mission, they can carry the bags!"

Obito coughed, mouth full of noodles. "Wha?! Bu' I still—"

"Just eat faster!" Rin quickly downed the rest of her broth.

But Kakashi, standing to add his empty bowl with the others on the table, casually asked, "If this is a D-rank, do you plan on compensating us?"

Kushina snorted, and she managed to ruffle the kid's fluffy white hair before he could duck away. "What do you think that ramen was, kiddo?"

He scoffed, but didn't actually protest.

So, with two of the three teammates egging on the third to hurry up, Obito had no choice but to stuff his face. It was a miracle that he didn't choke, frankly. He only had the time it took Kushina and Akaiko to ask a few questions about what Axel usually kept stocked in his kitchen, plus a minute or so of them scoffing at his answers, and then the whole group was off.

That just left Axel and Minato at the table, alongside Dach and a teetering stack of dirty bowls. Then his friend removed two items from that list, as he carried the dishes over to the sink, piled them in, and turned on the faucet.

Over the homey sounds of sloshing water, Minato remarked, "It's a lot quieter around here now, isn't it?"

Axel huffed a laugh, tired but smiling. "That is one way to say it."

After drying off his hands on the dishtowel, he tossed it back to its hook without even looking. "Though to be fair, we've all been pretty noisy today." Then his expression shaded with concern. "If you ever need somebody to talk to, I'm here."
"I know. Really, it was… not good, but nothing too bad," Axel reaffirmed, sipping at some of his ramen broth. "I was— It was… scary, at first. Then uncertain, which is a different kind of scary."

Minato nodded, though the worry in his eyes remained. "My assumption was that you were taken for your presumed 'kekkei genkai'." He took a breath, one hand restlessly curling and uncurling against the countertop. "I was worried about what could happen."

Axel pushed his bowl away, throat tight as he tried to pick out the right way to explain the strange limbo he'd found himself stuck in inside that gray cell: threatening and dull in turns. His friend just waited, endlessly patient.

"You are right," he said, finally. "I was there because my 'kekkei genkai'," a familiar phrase, though he'd never claimed it himself, "had a strange effect with some ninja skill. But… actually, I think Orochimaru was interested in something else."

Suddenly Dach twitched, hackles rising, and—

"Quite the astute observation."

Minato was instantly on the defensive, whirling to draw one of his three-pronged kunai before the non-ninja in the room had even fully processed the words. The glare in his eyes was sharp with promise.

Because Orochimaru was there, was here—just leaning against the doorway that led to the forge, as if this could be just a casual visit.

And Axel was… split, his reaction torn between a gnawing dread and a blank sort of 'yeah, I should have expected that'.

As the saying goes: "Wenn man den Teufel nennt," he muttered.

Dach had—somehow, in less than a second, without knocking over any dishes—jumped onto the table itself, positioned to defend if necessary. With a slight shift in his stance, Minato let his grip on his kunai slant a little more aggressive: an unspoken threat.

"Don't be a fool, Namikaze," the Snake Sannin said, acting completely unbothered. "I only wanted to check on something."

Apparently Minato caught a shadow in that tone that Axel really hadn't, as his own expression darkened dangerously. "Someone," he corrected, firmly.

Dach growled.

Orochimaru gave a dismissive wave. "You're making assumptions as to the purpose of this visit."

"You would have killed him," he returned, sharp as his blade. "You could have killed him, with that seal."

"A seal that didn't work. I had my suspicions that it wouldn't, of course." A glint of the scientist rose in his gold eyes, and he looked Axel up and down as if checking for any aftereffects. "There was some concern that it may still impact your nervous system, though the chance of death was minimal. Tell me, do you retain full motor function in your extremities?"

Axel's fingers twitched, instinctively checking that everything was in order. "Uh… yes?"

Orochimaru tipped his head slightly, an acknowledgment that felt distinctly as if he was taking down mental notes. "Did you notice any sensations at the time the seal was triggered?"

"I— No, not really?" He looked to Minato, feeling vaguely lost and generally unsure how he was supposed to be reacting to this entire situation. "Just warm, after a bit."

"Residual chakra bleed, I'd imagine." Another maybe-nod. "The energy itself has no impact, but it naturally still effects its surroundings."

"Are you seriously just here for… for a check-up?" asked Minato, sounding baffled. But even as his tone eased somewhat, his blade was still held at-the-ready and his gaze stayed just as sharp. "Well, you're not taking him back."

"No, tempting as that may be, I have an altogether different proposal." Orochimaru's voice was steel in silk, and he looked between Axel's confusion and Minato's defensive glare with a smugly assessing smirk. "Though I do think you'll find it rather impossible to decline."

Author's Note:

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

A chapter in which stories have finally been shared, but people get thoroughly distracted by the details.

(happy new year! hahahah… sorry)
(…good luck to those of you with finals coming up!)

HOLY CRAP, I don't know why this chapter was fighting so much but it certainly was! I've had the main bits of the beginning, middle, and end for this chapter all written for quite some time, but the transitions and connective dialog continued to evade me.
Still, I really enjoyed it, and I hope you do too!

Next chapter to be posted will be for Under the Veil! Next month? …Eh, maybe? I'd love to, and that's what I'm aiming for—but in the end, I can't be sure.
As always, I cannot thank you all enough for your support: every favorite, follow, and review! I really appreciate that you've been sticking with me.

Translations:
"Ein Flugzeug." = "An airplane."
"Wenn man den Teufel nennt" = "Speak of the devil"

If you're interested, feel free to visit the Discord server to chat about whatever, canon or headcanon or fanfiction or anything else.
Here's the invite code: m3CFXnC

Stay safe out there, and I'll see ya on the flipside, everyone!