Chapter 5: Welcome to the Village

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

Axel couldn't believe it.

"It's been a while, but it's just as striking as I remember."

The ground felt unsteady under his feet, and everything around him felt… too real. Fake.

It must be. It couldn't be real.

A dream, he thought. This must all be a dream.

"—do you think, A—?"

Someone was speaking, but he couldn't… couldn't focus when the world had gone sideways!

"—el? Hey—"

He could see the world—the village and the trees and the people—but his mind refused it, too shocked to be able to accept reality as it was. And while he could feel that he was standing upright, all but frozen in place, at the same time it felt like everything was spinning. Axel tried to concentrate on his breathing: in, and out. In, and out. Simple.

It should be simple.

Focus.

"Brandt-san?" The voice—newly familiar, not Morimoto—sounded like it was coming from far away, but the sound of his name helped to ground his shattering perception of reality. Footsteps, maybe, and then a gentle hand rested on his shoulder. "Are you feeling well?"

How could he possibly be?

How could he ever be again?

"F-fine," Axel managed, but his accent was heavy with the confusion he was feeling. His voice sounded weak and unconvincing, even to himself. Not that he was really trying to convince himself that everything was alright. He knew where he stood on that front, because he didn't know where he stood in literally every other sense of the phrase.

He was just so lost.

But he needed to pull himself together, and fast. If that village was truly one and the same as the fictional hidden village from the show—well, ninja. Enough said.

Blinking and giving himself a stern mental shake, Axel turned his attention to the concerned voice and its attached hand on his shoulder. His own blue eyes met another pair of worried blue, and he was surprised to find it had been Minato who had reached out to him, cart left unmanned a meter or so away. It made sense, of course. To be worried, that is. Perfect sense. He wasn't quite sure why he was so surprised, given there were only two people with him so really it had to be one of…

And now his fellow blond was giving him a highly skeptical look, single brow raised in concerned disbelief; Axel's one-word, clearly uninspiring attempt at reassurance falling flat in the wake of his distracted silent staring.

But it was Morimoto, watching with concern from where he stood minding the cart, who drily remarked, "Sure you are. Unresponsively staring out into nothing for nearly two straight minutes is perfectly normal."

Correctly guessing what 'unresponsively' meant by context, Axel couldn't do much but shrug. He could tell that if he tried to talk too much it'd likely just come out a stuttering mess. Or in German, which would be colossally unhelpful. Thus, more silence.

Silence which was, thankfully, filled by Minato as he lightly joked, "Don't worry, I'm sure Brandt-san was simply struck speechless by the view."

Axel paused, brain latching on to the more handleable surprise and choosing to blatantly ignore (for the moment) the world-shattering discovery of ninja-anime-is-real-life-now. "Did you… you said it right?"

"Said what— Oh!" Minato smiled, face lighting up happily. "So I did pronounce your name correctly. I wasn't sure, especially since there wasn't much of a reaction earlier…"

Not much of a reaction, indeed. The dimensionally-misplaced man had been much too busy reeling at his reality toppling down to pay too much attention. Now, though, he was using the unexpectedly correct pronunciation as a distraction. He needed a distraction. At least until he got somewhere safe where he could properly fall apart and sleep, hoping to wake up somewhere logical.

He doubted he would. It's already been a month.

It's already been—

Ignore that thought, continue on.

"Ja," he confirmed, swallowing past his panic. "Yeah. Überras— er… Surprising, that's all."

Morimoto nodded in agreement. "It took me over a week to finally get it right, and way longer for his given name. I swear, it's a tongue-twister and a half."

"That bad?" Minato had an expression that rather distinctly reminded Axel of the 'challenge accepted' face, crossed arms and all. Very deliberately, he sounded out, "Ax-el. Axel-san."

"Well, I'll be darned," muttered Morimoto, expression a mix of disgruntled and impressed.

After his own brief moment of surprise, Axel felt he had to insist, "No '-san'." Feeling self-conscious about his own honorifics-usage short-comings, he gave a slightly embarrassed shrug. "I have problems with, uh, with using the end things. If I don't—can't—you shouldn't need to."

Looking a little curious and a lot unsure about dropping honorifics altogether, Minato nonetheless nodded. "If you're sure, Axel." He cocked his head to the side, as if listening to what he just said, then observed, "You know, it's a bit weird but… it actually does sound better for your name without it. Huh."

"Yeah, I thought so too."

Axel laughed nervously, turning to look anywhere else but at the two of them. Unfortunately his gaze slid back to the village and landed on the three gigantic faces on the mountainside.

Three. Only three.

The part of his brain that wasn't still scrambling for anything—literally anything—to distract himself with noted that that should mean something to him. That there was something important about the fourth face that should be carved up there, stonily watching over the village he had saved from—

Oh sweet merciful heavens.

The fourth Hokage. Naruto. The Nine-Tailed Fox attack.

It hadn't happened yet.

He only noticed that he had frozen up again when Minato once more called his name in concern. Blinking himself back from his spiraling thoughts, Axel was again struck by that sense of recognition when he looked at the worried ninja. And yes, he belatedly realized, the other man definitely had to be a ninja.

"Sorry, I was…" Axel gulped, having no clue how to explain without actually explaining; it sounded insane in his head, so putting it out in words would probably be down right lunacy. "Just. Realized something."

Minato still looked pretty concerned, but he did step back to give him some space. "Are you sure that's it? You look like you, I don't know, saw a ghost or something."

"A ghost," he echoed, voice small as his eyes flicked back to the empty space on the mountain.

In the village below, life went on its merry way. They were standing close enough that there was a sort of quiet clamor of the sounds of people shopping and selling and walking and talking and living. Occasionally one of the crowd would break off and casually disregard physics by running up or along the colorful walls of the buildings. Axel watched a pair of small figures jump to a rooftop, seem to have a brief argument, then vanish in opposite directions so quickly that it was obvious why, in animation, it's just a blur of lines.

Well, it's certainly not animation anymore.

=X=X=X=

It looked like Axel was having a bit of an existential crisis.

Morimoto Hiroshi didn't really know why Axel would be so suddenly unsteady—as if the world was pulled out from under him—and he certainly did not like it. He especially didn't like how empty Axel had sounded, repeating those two words to himself. Or how empty he had looked—blue eyes disbelieving and so, so lost—when they had just looked out over the village.

Axel said he had only realized something.

To himself, Hiroshi wondered what realization could shake the young man down to his very core with only a glance.

However, much as he'd love to get answers right away, he would need to pester him about that later: Axel looked a gentle breeze away from collapsing right where he stood. At least Namikaze-san had seemed to pick up on that as well, since he offered a shoulder of support that Axel automatically latched onto with a murmured phrase that was probably thanks.

"We should get going," Hiroshi said, his gruff tone not doing much to disguise his worry. "You might just need some rest, and you're not getting that on the road, Axel." He sighed. "Maybe it was a bit soon for such a long trip."

After all, the good doctor had never figured out what had garbled Axel's language skills so throughly. In all likelihood, whatever it was that had messed with his speech could have done worse; sometimes what the man said, while technically understandable, was just nonsensical. Especially whenever he talked about his life before he had somehow wound up half-dead off the side of the road. Head injuries could do strange things, and doubly so if shinobi were involved.

Perhaps seeing Konoha had simply… knocked something loose.

Glad that the rest of the trip would be both short and mostly downhill, Hiroshi took up position at the front of his heavy cart and began to tug it forward. He could feel Namikaze-san's gaze on his back, clearly concerned, but the shinobi apparently decided that Axel needed more assistance because he moved to help him stay steady.

"So… where are you two from?" Namikaze-san asked a few minutes later, just to make conversation. The question was followed rather quickly by apologies. "Sorry, I mean, uh, well," he floundered, trying to fix what he clearly thought had been the wrong thing to say.

Hiroshi spared him his stammered attempt at maybe-apology, distractedly answering over his shoulder, "Chotto, just about a day's walk away."

Slowing briefly to look back, a joke about his hometown's frankly uninspired name (a small town called 'small'—how clever) just waiting to be… the joke died in his throat. He could see why Namikaze-san had immediately tripped over himself with apologies. Hell, the look in Axel's eyes, all the more blue when set wide against shock-pale skin, nearly made the blacksmith stop in his tracks. He had seen that expression before, on the face of a friend standing outside what remained of his home, less than rubble, as the reality sunk in little by little.

Axel had somehow lost everything, just by looking out over the village.

Hiroshi promised himself that he would get the answers he wanted—that he needed. After all, family held each other together, through thick and thin. Not knowing why the blond was hurting, what he had lost… Hiroshi wanted to help, but he couldn't if he didn't know what had broken.

=X=X=X=

Foot well and truly introduced to his mouth, courtesy of what he had thought to be a harmless question, Minato tried his awkward level-best to right the conversation.

"Chotto… Oh, I think I've been through there," he replied, perhaps just a hair too quickly. Hopefully the cadence of small-talk might help Axel (no honorific, he reminded himself) to keep a grip, despite whatever it was that had thrown him so badly. "My first mission after making chunin, I, well… I forgot to pack bandages and had to pick up some up from the clinic there."

They managed to keep a fairly steady stream of lighthearted banter going for some time—even earning a few distracted chuckles from the still shell-shocked blond—and soon enough they arrived at the village's western-most gate. The green doors stood wide and unobstructed, save for a pair of shinobi keeping watch and what looked to be a jonin with a trio of tired genin.

Or rather, two tired genin and one small, exuberant green beast.

Minato smiled, giving the almost impossibly driven genin a small, one-handed wave. Maito Gai was, well… he was an experience all his own. And apparently, he was an experience barreling straight toward them. An odd sort of confused recognition flickered through Axel's eyes when he spotted the seven-year-old genin charging their way.

Morimoto-san cautiously maneuvered the cart more to the side of the road, making sure he wasn't in the path of the almost preternaturally energetic boy. He chuckled softly: likely at Axel's expense. This was promising to be an amusing encounter. Especially since Axel was still gaping like a fish out of water.

Then, rather abruptly, his fellow blond smacked one hand to his forehead. Minato thought he overheard him murmur, with a hushed sort of disbelief, that the world must be joking at this point. Or at least, that was the sentiment dripping from each indiscernible word of nonsense.

"Hello, Gai," Minato greeted, quite familiar with this particular bombastic genin thanks to his own stoic and anti-social student. "Just back from a mission?"

Whispering quietly, Axel confusedly asked himself, "'Gai'? Nicht Lee? Aber dann—" A glance to the carved mountainside. "…Oh. Richtig."

Any other strange words Axel said were soundly drowned out by Gai's energetic hello. "The first of what is sure to be a shining career, Minato-sensei!" he declared with a thumbs-up and a sparkling smile. "And what luck to meet you here!— I must find my Eternal Rival to tell him! Do you know where he is!?"

"Not at the moment, no." The jonin could make a few guesses, but he'd been in the forest for some time. All day actually: he had rushed out before breakfast with an idea he just had to test out.

For a moment Gai looked slightly less (hyper?) energized, but it passed quickly when he rather abruptly noticed that there were two blonds standing before him, not just one.

"A new face! Today is truly overflowing with youthful good fortune!" Gai gave another one of his literally shining smiles and struck a dramatic pose before introducing himself. "Hello! My name is Maito Gai, genin of Konoha!"

A recent promotion, Minato knew, but a genin all the same. The boy's team was slowly making their way over as well, now that it had become clear that Gai wouldn't be heading back with them soon without someone pulling him away.

Axel nodded, understandably overwhelmed. While Minato might not know why seeing the village could have struck the other man dumb, Gai's particular brand of… youth was more than enough to shock anyone into silence.

When Axel made no move to introduce himself, Gai spun into another somehow-even-more-dramatic pose; he decided to take the direct approach: "What is your name?"

"Woah, Gai, give the man some space!" called one of the green beast's teammates: a slightly older boy named Shiranui Genma, if Minato recalled rightly. He pointed towards Gai's hand, and funnily enough the senbon in his mouth wiggled as if it, too, were gesturing. "Your finger's only, like, less than a handspan from his nose."

Gai gasped, retracting into a less in-your-face but still equally bombastic position. "You are right! I was simply overflowing with energy and did not notice my rudeness!"

"Das kann ich sehen," Axel grumbled, but the corners of his mouth twitched upwards, almost involuntarily. "I'm Brandt Axel."

A blink to process, and then Gai leapt into yet another pose and began proclaiming how 'youthful' such a name was.

Genma-kun, in quiet contrast, just asked, "Ak-su-what-now?"

Apparently quite used to repeating himself by now, he simply did so. "Brandt Axel."

"No offense, but that's certainly a mouthful." After a moment's consideration, mentally trying to shape the odd name, Genma-kun seemed to find it to be a lost cause. The third genin team member, who had walked up just as Axel introduced himself, seemed to agree with the sentiment, since he didn't even bother trying to figure out the pronunciation.

"Bu-rant Aku-ser!" Gai exclaimed, rather suddenly. Then: "B-rant A-kser! I will get it soon!"

The practice names continued with variable success, and Genma-kun simply ignored them. "Anyway, I'm Shiranui Genma, also a genin, and this is Ebisu."

"Genin," Ebisu-kun added, just to be consistent.

"And I'm Akimichi Chōza," said a low voice, "the jonin supposedly in charge of these three."

Axel looked very much like this entire situation made positively no sense to him at all, but that, for the sake of sanity, he had decided to just go with the flow for now. This didn't stop the other blond from taking a single, carefully judged step back in order to position Minato solidly between himself and the rowdy young ninja. Or maybe it was more between him and the large Akimichi: Minato's fellow shinobi did look imposing, even if he was actually anything but.

So, while Minato did notice the slight shift, he choose not to comment on it. Instead, he teasingly quipped, "Oh dear, are these three causing you trouble, Chōza?"

The large man nodded, expression almost an even split between false and perfectly genuine sincerity. "Seems to be their natural state. But whatever, what are you doing out here?"

"Ah, well…" Minato was a little embarrassed, given the accident he'd had with his experimental seal, so he waffled over what to say for a bit.

He waffled a bit too long, since Morimoto-san took it upon himself to answer (even if he didn't bother moving from where he stood beside the cart). "This young ninja here had a… somewhat explosive problem near where we were resting from our journey. He's decided to help us out as an apology for scaring Axel off a log."

Axel seemed somewhat bothered by the frank description of his graceless-ness, but since he couldn't dispute it he just crossed his arms with a slight huff.

Minato smiled sheepishly. "An experimental seal," he explained. "It just… didn't work as desired."

"Seriously?" Chōza raised a skeptical brow and pointed out, "He said it exploded."

"Kinda, when the outer seal six-point array triggered out of sync with the tertiary—"

"I'm gonna stop you right there, Minato." The large man had never had an inclination towards the sealing arts, and he could tell when Minato was slipping into teacher mode; it was something of a habit for Minato, even back in the academy.

"But, well, I mean," he replied, even as he tried to sort himself into a neater explanation. Eventually he had to concede the point. "Okay, yes, it did blow up in my face. But only a little!"

Axel shook his head, and Minato barely caught the tentative smile that twitched at the other man's lips. "'Only a little'?"

"As one does, you know," added Morimoto. "Explosion or not, I—"

Suddenly, Gai. It doesn't really need any more description. "BE-RANT ACK-SEL," he said in time to the handstand push-ups he had apparently decided needed doing. "If I cannot get it right by the fiftieth, then I shall do one hundred more!"

Axel was staring, so Minato gave him a little nudge and a smile.

"Gai's a bit of a, ah…"

"Interesting character?" provided Axel. The words were ever so slightly bitter, and his voice had that barely-held-together fragility that was a bit worrisome, but overall the tone suggested it was a joke of some sort. Minato couldn't quite figure out how.

"That's one way to put it."

"BRANDT ACK-SEL!"

Ignoring the noise coming from his loudest genin with enviable ease, Chōza glanced between the two newcomers to the village and their overburdened cart. And to Minato, who was still standing beside Axel just in case. Then, finally, to the still energetic Gai. He seemed to have an idea, because after a moment, he called for said shinobi's attention: "Gai-kun."

Gai immediately flipped out from his handstand push-ups and landed in a pose—more business-like than earlier, and yet only marginally less bombastic. "Yes, Chōza-sensei?"

The big man gestured to Morimoto and his cart. "How would you feel about a quick mini-mission?"

"Wait a second," Genma-kun interjected, crossing his arms with a slight scowl and petulant flick of the senbon in his mouth. "Why only Gai?"

With a nod, Ebisu-kun added to the protest, "We're a team, aren't we? We should do missions together."

Chōza smiled at his students, clearly already soft on them even though their team had only been together for a few weeks. "If you think you're still up for it after our mission, then…" He shrugged. "Eh, I guess you could help too."

There was a brief lull in the conversation as the trio of genin waited to hear what their sensei had planned, but, when no details were forthcoming, the ever-eager Gai decided to press on. If 'press on' meant 'wildly guess'.

"Oh, is it a mission to race back to report to Hokage-sama? Or to help a little old lady cross the street?" A dramatic hand pointed toward the village without looking and, surprisingly, there actually happened to be a little old lady quietly making her way home with groceries. He didn't seem to notice the vast difference between his first two guesses. Gai paused, then vigorously shook his head. "No, no! It must be—"

"Gai-kun. Really," Chōza shook his head, still smiling, "it's just helping them get where they're going."

Axel looked vaguely horrified by that idea, but then again he had looked vaguely horrified by everything that had happened since he had first seen the village: or at least landing somewhere on the spectrum between 'denial' and 'vaguely horrified'. Minato wasn't a hundred percent confident in his ability to read the slightly older man for… well, for various reasons, actually. Not to be rude, but Axel's face was peculiar. Obviously his facial features weren't as out there as some shinobi, but his prominent nose and the position of his eyes in particular made Minato second guess himself.

Plus, they had only just met.

Before Axel could try and dissuade the idea—that's probably what he was planning on doing when he opened his mouth—Morimoto had already agreed. "That'd be a big help! After today, I just wan—"

Morimoto wasn't even able to finish his sentence before Gai all but appeared in front of the cart, ready to start off at top speed. Before he could, thankfully—who knows where it would have ended up, otherwise—his teammates rushed over.

"We're a team, Gai!" Genma-kun poked his green-spandexed friend, tone reprimanding. "Don't just run off to do the mission without us!"

However, since Gai had already begun to pull the cart, further chiding was set aside as the trip resumed. All seven of them walked the final, slight distance to the village threshold.

As they approached the two shinobi guarding the gate, Morimoto seemed to remember something and proceeded to slump in exhaustion. "Dagnabbit, I still need to hand over the paperwork, don't I."

Minato winced in sympathy: he might never have needed to fill out the customs forms when coming or going, but he had witnessed the impressive lines that sometimes formed outside the gates. Luckily it seemed to be just late enough in the day that it shouldn't take too much time.

"It should be fairly quick, this time of day."

And so it was, much to everyone's surprise. Even if there was a bit of a snag when it came to Axel—who apparently had no documents, strangely enough—the guards didn't seem too bothered. They just waved him on through.

But Axel hesitated. He stood there, staring blankly at the line in the dirt that marked the edge of the village. Then, as if mechanically, his eyes panned up and over to the mountain side and looked at each giant face in turn. But he otherwise remained completely frozen in place.

So, naturally, Minato gave him a little shove.

Axel stumbled into Konoha.

"Welcome to the Village Hidden in the Leaves, Axel!"

Author's Note:

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Because meeting Maito Gai after experiencing a severe shock is the best thing that could happen.
Idea Partner: Rikkamaru

Updates come on the 15th of every month.
Thanks to everyone reading and enjoying the story! And then thanks again for every review, favorite, and follow! Just, you know: all the thanks for all the things. You guys are great.

Translations:
"Überras—" = The beginnings of "Überraschend" or "Surprising"
"'Gai'? Nicht Lee? Aber dann—" = "'Gai'? Not Lee? But then—"
"…Oh. Richtig." = "…Oh. Right."
"Das kann ich sehen." = "That I can see."

See ya on the flipside, everyone!