Chapter 4: Somewhat Larger Discoveries

Walking for extended periods of time is tiring; anyone who has spent hours tourist-ing through a city or wandering around a museum knows that.

It turns out that walking for a whole day, just to travel from point A to point B, is an entirely new level of exhaustion. There's an added level of monotony and boredom and this-needs-to-be-done that weighs the experience down—in addition to the actual weight of his bag, which really wasn't heavy if he compared it to the overburdened cart Morimoto was stuck with.

Even though the older man didn't seem to be having any issues with it.

"Are you sure you don't want me to help with—"

"It's fine, Axel." Even though Morimoto was preoccupied making sure the cart would stay in place during their well-earned snack break, he still found the time to shoot the blond a quick look. "Just like the last time you asked."

Clearing off a fallen log to use as a seat—the only task deemed safe enough to be relegated to him—Axel grumbled back, "No breaking yourself."

Morimoto wedged a rock under each of the wheels, waited to see if it would keep rolling, then decided it seemed to be enough to keep it in place. With a satisfied nod, he replied, "I appreciate your unnecessary concern."

Axel sat himself down, one hand distractedly rubbing at his latest bandages. And what a thought that was: he wasn't used to being injured frequently enough to have need of classifying a cut as 'latest'. Trying to be gentle, he did his best to work out any new pain in his leg from all the walking. It was frustrating that he shouldn't actively help with the heavy lifting, since his bruised and broken bones were not yet back to full strength. His earlier attempt had, after all, resulted in a fumble and a brand new cut.

"'Unnecessary'," Axel scoffed quietly, pointedly tapping on his injured leg as he half-heartedly grumbled to himself. "Erzähle das meinem Bein."

Even though he hadn't been able to hear most of what the blond man had said—and, of course, what he had heard sounded like nonsense—Morimoto could easily get the gist of it from the snarky tone. "I've made it this far, haven't I? Besides, after this last rise it should all be a bit downhill."

Eyeing the sky and sorely missing the ease of just checking his phone clock—or his wristwatch, which he honestly wasn't sure what had happened to—Axel tried to gauge how long they had been walking. There was just the barest hint of warmer colors in the blue stretching overhead, so he'd say very close to the whole day. It was tricky, given that he couldn't actually see the position of the sun because of the trees, but he thought that they probably only had an hour or so of sunlight left. "Soon, then?"

"With any luck," Morimoto replied, taking a seat on the log as well. He held out a box with some of those onigiri rice-ball things, offering a late snack to tide them over until dinner. "You can probably get a good view from the top of this hill, actually."

Gratefully taking one of the onigiri, Axel munched on it as he looked up and down the road they were traveling on. It was a fairly broad dirt path, packed down by years of travelers but still dusty enough to flick up dirt in a breeze. The forest lining each side of the road was full of tall, sturdy trees: many with branches that looked strong enough the stand on. Given the dense tree cover, he had to assume there would be a gap of some sort in order to get the view Morimoto was talking about. Any added height from the slight incline of the road wouldn't help much, otherwise.

Axel swallowed another mouthful of tasty rice before asking, "Is there a… uh, hole? I mean, a clearing?"

"Not so much a 'clearing' as a 'crater', at least last I saw." The older man shrugged, taking a drink from his canteen of water before continuing, "Usually they try to keep things like that in the training fields, but you know how they can be sometimes. I just just hope they make sure us civilians don't get caught up in anything."

Which, as an answer, really only brought up more questions. For example, Axel had no idea who 'they' were or why they might be randomly making craters. Or, to be honest, how they might be randomly making craters. After all, a crater has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is typically explosive. Which in this case, according to the remark about training fields, means that that particular explosion was at a legal somewhere.

As if blowing up the local forest was just part of the norm.

Axel couldn't help but wonder what kind of village would just have explosion craters near the city limits.

Then, briefly, a ghost of a thought brushed against his mind, whispering that it was only natural for Konoha to have blast craters around its perimeter. It was honestly to be expected.

Of course, that would be in fiction Konoha.

For some reason… that thought wasn't very reassuring.

They sat there snacking for a few minutes longer, enjoying a companionable silence as they watched the sky shift into the warmer colors of oncoming sunset. It was quiet, peaceful; certainly not indicative of any potential fiery destruction happening in the immediate area.

Which, if the anime his sister had made him watch were to be trusted, fiery destruction was exactly what would happen.

He paused mid-bite on his second onigiri, almost jokingly listening for any sign of—

There was an odd sound of metal hitting wood, like an arrow on target at an archery range.

Then three pitches humming slightly out of tune, growing louder and more dissonant.

A snapping pop.

And a resounding BANG.

Air—warmer than a natural gust would have been, but by no means scorching—rushed through the trees and did its level best to knock them off the log as it swept up from behind. Even startled, Morimoto had the wherewithal to brace himself and snatch the box of onigiri before it could topple to the ground. The cart, luckily, seemed too heavy to budge just because of a little forceful wind. As for Axel, well. In his defense, he wasn't fully recovered yet.

He would also claim that his surprised yelp was very manly. Naturally.

In short, he didn't stay on the log.

At least he didn't fall on his face: he just sort of… slid (flailed) off to the side and onto the ground.

"Fantastisch," Axel grumbled, though a part of him had to appreciate how silly he probably looked. He flopped over so that he was staring through tree branches at the now orange-tinted sky.

"I'm so sorry!" Someone was calling out perfuse apologies: strange how the voice sounded almost like it was coming from up in the trees rather than the ground. There was a thud, like a landing perhaps, and whoever it was continued. "Is everything alright? I heard a yell, and— Oh!"

Suddenly Axel's view of the sky was cut of by a sheepishly grinning blond, long sunshine-yellow hair framing a sincerely apologetic expression. In greeting, Axel blinked and managed, "Uhm. Hi…?"

"Hello," the other man replied, offering a hand to help him stand back up. "Sorry again, I rushed out to try an idea I had for a new seal and, well… I must have miscalculated."

Which was a sentence with words that Axel was pretty sure he understood, but he still didn't really grasp what they meant. So he decided to ignore that in favor of bigger questions. For example: "Who are you?"

A blink, and then a slight embarrassed blush. "Oh, sorry, I— Yes. My name's Namikaze Minato."

…That name.

Axel knew that name. He'd heard it before.

Somewhere.

Even the man's face looked familiar, now that he thought about it. Long blond hair, cut shorter in the back than the front, fell loose around a friendly face. He was a bit frazzled and dusty—logical, since he had been much closer to his explosive mistake—but he didn't seem to care that his plain brown shirt and gray pants had a few extra shades thrown in courtesy of scattered dirt.

For some reason, Axel had expected him to be wearing white and forest-green. No idea why.

"Morimoto Hiroshi," the blacksmith provided, seeing that Axel was thoroughly distracted by something. He pointed to his horizontal companion. "And this is someone who'd likely be better served running his own introduction."

Intrigued by the peculiarity of that suggestion, Minato asked, "What do you mean by that?"

Axel, pulled from his fruitless attempt to place the newcomer's name, finally took the offered hand gratefully (if not gracefully) and was helped up off the ground.

"His name's a bit… well…" Morimoto paused mid-answer, struggling to find the right word.

Stood upright as opposed to laying in a heap in the dirt, Axel decided to just dust himself off and get on with it: his name would serve as its own explanation. "Brandt Axel."

"What?"

"My name," Axel clarified, grinning. "I'm Brandt Axel."

"…Ah, yes. I see." Minato nodded, faux solemnity outed as fake by the humor in his blue eyes. "All is clear now, Morimoto-san."

The light-hearted snark earned a snort from the older man, who wholly agreed with the sentiment. Cheerily grumbling to himself—though it was more of a purposeful stage whisper, really—he turned from the pair of blonds to check that the gust of wind hadn't dislodged anything from the precarious stacks in his cart.

Minato was quietly mouthing words to himself, likely trying to figure out the strange name.

"I'm no good with name…s." Axel had needed a moment to recall the plural, but quickly pressed on. "So, because I'm no good, you can call me any. I mean either. Axel, if you want."

"More like 'if you can'," called Morimoto. "It looks good over here, by the way. Shall we get moving?"

As he watched them gather up their things, shifting from one foot to another in that uncertain way that suggested he wanted to help but didn't know if he really should, Minato asked, "Heading in to Konoha?"

The blacksmith nodded, somewhat distracted, then kicked the stoppers out from under the cart wheels. It rolled back maybe a few centimeters before he caught the handles and held it in place. "That's right. Got a whole buncha' stuff to sell."

"Oh!" Minato was at the front of the cart in a near instant. "Here, let me! I should probably head back anyway, if I'm so tired that my mistakes have turned explosive. I knew I should've checked my figures before rushing out, but too late now."

Still staring at where the other man had stood just a moment earlier, Axel slowly turned to find him taking over cart-pulling duty. He blinked, mentally measuring the distance and wondering if perhaps he had hit his head when he fell off the log: hadn't even noticed Minato moving until he was already gone.

The traveling duo-turned-trio started off up the hill at a much faster pace than they had previously managed, since apparently Minato barely noticed the heavy load he was now stuck pulling along. Morimoto was walking by the cart itself, keeping an eye on the cargo, while Axel trailed a few meters behind.

At the new speed, they crested the hill in no time. It was much brighter there, the dim sunset light near blinding when compared to the shady forest, and Axel had to take a moment to shield his eyes and wait for them to adjust. From what he could make out of the nearby trees, it really did look like something had blown up here and cleared space.

Then, still blinking, he looked out.

And froze.

As promised, the rather out-of-place gap in the trees let them see down over the village. Colorful rooftops—orange or burnt red, typically—topped nearly every building lined along the village's internal roads. He couldn't actually see the streets, but he could still see people: small figures zipping from roof to roof. A mountain, carved with the images of three massive faces, stood tall at the village border.

It wasn't a perfect view, by any means—tree branches crowded in along the edges and vibrant green leaves blocked a good deal of the mountain, in particular—but it was certainly more than they could make out otherwise.

"Gott im Himmel," he breathed. Then, in Japanese even more hesitant than it had been a month ago, quietly added, "I really am crazy."

Because it was Konoha.

As in, it was actual fiction Konoha.

Granted, he hadn't seen the show for a few months now. And granted, there are obviously differences between how something appears in a stylized drawing versus real life.

But.

But—impossibly, crazily… it was Konoha.

Author's Note:

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Keep yourself together, Axel. You can do it. Just, ya know, accept that your entire world has become an anime with crazily super-powered ninja and you'll be fine. No biggie.
Idea Partner: Rikkamaru

Updates come on the 15th of every month.
So as a status update, my trip around Europe is finally do and I'm back in America! This means that updates will be later than usual (or on the 16th, if I'm extra late and you're in the other half of the world), but doesn't really change much else. The next chapter is also likely to be short due to the trip, moving into my apartment, and university starting next week… but hopefully once everything settles, chapters will settle as well.
Anyway, thanks to everyone who reviews or follows or favorites or simply reads and enjoys!

Geschichtensammler: Thanks, for both the compliment and the offer! I've just gotten back from a year studying in Munich, and I took advantage of my fellow students to try and get the German translated accurately. My written German is better than spoken, but it's always good to double check with a native speaker!

Translations:
"Erzähle das meinem Bein." = "Tell that to my leg."
"Fantastisch." = "Fantastic."
"Gott im Himmel." = "God in heaven."

See ya on the flipside, everyone!