Chapter 6: A Midnight Encounter

The rest of the trip passed in a blur, at least to Axel.

He was pretty sure he had been part of a conversation, supplying distracted hums of acknowledgment whenever the topic veered in his direction. At some point Morimoto had been surprised by something, maybe, and of course Gai—he was still reeling about running into Gai of all people—was consistently energetic the entire time. Probably. Axel wasn't really paying attention.

Or maybe he had been, at the time. He certainly couldn't remember any of it now.

The house Morimoto led them to, though Gai and the cart were technically always in the lead, was a simple two-story building with a bit of overgrown yard between it and the road. Axel only noticed those things because he tripped on his way to the front door and again when trying to go up the stairs.

Morimoto had wasted no time showing him to what was presumably going to be his room, at least for the moment, before vanishing back downstairs to help the trio of newbie ninja—genin?—unload the cart.

And there Axel stood, just inside the room as the door swung shut behind him, not really sure how he got there.

His bag slipped from his shoulder, and he let it fall to the floor with a heavy thud. He followed shortly after, all but collapsing against the door as the willpower that had kept him upright for the past who-knows-how-long drained away. Exhaustion and disbelief and denial and confusion and deep, suffocating fear swirled in his gut.

Not fear of the ninja themselves, no. Although, thinking back to some of the late series fights Adri had either sent him the videos to or simply sat him down to watch… that would be justifiable. Summoning meteors or flattening villages or the entire whatever nonsense the final battle had been: that's all serious business now. Real threats.

But that wasn't what he was so scared of.

(Mostly.)

Axel stared blankly at the empty room. It was an unfamiliar, empty echo of his apartment back in München: a bare shelf and a desk on one wall, an unmade bed along the other. Numbly, he stood and managed to walk to the bed. Part of him noticed that he no longer had shoes on, just socks—probably took them off when he came in.

Sitting down on the edge of the mattress, Axel closed his eyes and tried to focus on his breathing. Keeping it consciously steady and deep and consistent.

He didn't know how he got here. Got to this world.

He didn't know how he could get home.

If he even could.

And that scared him.

With a suddenly shuddering breath, he flopped back on the bed—uncaring that it had no sheets or blankets yet—and draped one arm over his face. Lying like this, blind to his surroundings, he could almost convince himself that he was back in Germany. Or Tokyo. Or even back to earlier in the week, still blissfully unaware.

The window was open slightly, letting in a gentle breeze that tugged at the curtain and stirred the air. It was quiet. Peaceful. A few dogs somewhere outside barked. Axel focused on that.

Calm.

He was calm.

This was… unexpected, to say the least. But he was here, and that wasn't likely to change anytime soon. Especially if he panicked himself into an early grave.

With each breath, Axel focused on himself: how inhaling pulls and expands, exhaling releases and contracts. Focused on how his bones and muscles and skin felt in the moment, just existing.

And, after some time, he was calm.

Calm enough, anyway.

Still in his travel clothes and lying on an unmade bed, Axel fell asleep.

=X=X=X=

When he woke up, it was to a dark, empty room.

In that space between dreaming and wakefulness, Axel could almost convince himself that he was back in his own apartment. It was easy to lie to himself, to say that everything that had happened over the past month or so simply hadn't happened. And it was such a nice lie, too.

His eyes slowly adjusted to the dark, and Axel let go of the lie.

To be honest, he hadn't expected to be able to fall asleep at all.

With a tired groan, Axel propped himself up and blearily blinked at his pitch-black surroundings. He could make out the vaguest of outlines marking where the furniture was, but other than that he might as well have been blind. Too tired to continue the totally justifiable panic attack from earlier, Axel just sat there in the dark.

Blankly staring out at nothing.

Actually, now that he was awake enough to notice, he realized that he was kind of thirsty, to be honest.

Hoisting himself to his feet, Axel stumbled in the direction of the bedroom door. His stumbling nearly became a complete faceplant into the hardwood floor when his foot caught on something. Smacking a hand to the wall to regain his balance, Axel slowly crouched and carefully waved his hand through the air around where he tripped.

Ah. It was his bag, left forgotten where it had fallen earlier. He gently pushed it aside with one foot, safely out of the way, and opened the door.

The rest of the house was just as dark as the bedroom, apparently. That, plus his complete lack of knowledge about where most anything was—in this case a sink, which would presumably be in a kitchen or a bathroom—meant he had no idea where to go. He was pretty sure the stairs were to his right, and he thought he remembered passing through a kitchen when he was led to his room, so that's the way he went.

He was correct: turns out the stairs were directly to his right. His left hand, which had been reaching for a wall, whiffed through empty air and he rather unexpectedly leaned out over empty space. With a startled gasp, Axel blindly grasped for the railing, found it, and decided he had better let his heart slow back down before continuing.

Good to know that the stairs apparently led almost directly up to his room, only offset by about the width of a door. He would have liked to learn as much without nearly falling down them, but oh well.

Axel made the rest of his way downstairs without further mishap, though he did stumble on the small landing halfway down.

At the base of the stairs, feeling slightly (very slightly) more confident in his darkness-navigation skills, he took a left and promptly tripped over a box. He managed not to fall on his face only by toppling sideways into another box. Clearly he had discovered where the cart's heavy burden had been stored. So, one hand on the wall and one foot scooching cautiously over the floor ahead of him, he crossed the room and entered the next.

And was quite delighted to find that he had successfully made his way to the kitchen. The glow from the digital clock over the stove didn't light up very much and Axel rather doubted the time displayed was correct, so it wasn't helpful for anything other than confirming where he was. Based on the texture under his fingers—still held up to track the wall—he was standing right beside the fridge.

But, though he was kind of hungry, thirst won out in the end. He could make out the faint outline of what he hoped to be a sink opposite him. A bit closer and he could see four glasses and some plates set out on an old drying rack, from which he grabbed one of each, trusting that they would be clean. Axel held the cup under the faucet and twisted the handle on, then just listened to the pitch of the splashing as it filled up.

With his first gulp of cool water, he realized he was much thirstier than he had thought.

And hungry. He really hoped that there were leftovers from the trip snacks in the fridge: maybe half a sandwich from lunch.

Filling his glass again, he wandered carefully back to the fridge. Opening it swung a beam of cool light over the rest of the kitchen, and he was pleasantly surprised to find—

Something behind him skittered.

That wasn't the pleasant thing.

Axel spun, water sloshing around in his cup. There, in the shadow of the doorway between the front entrance and where he stood was a— a… That couldn't be right. He blinked.

It was a dog, frozen in the act of sneaking around the house. Its fur was mostly black, with tan on its muzzle and three of its feet. The dog—a boy dog—had scruffy dirtier-than-it-should-be hair and no collar. It was the lack of a collar, more than anything else, that led Axel to believe the dog was a stray.

A stray that was both very long and very short.

And also very much breaking into the house.

The dachshund gave a somewhat hesitant wag—that wag dogs use when they're pretty sure that they've been caught mid-crime but were still hopeful for an escape.

"Warum ist…?" Axel began, but he couldn't quite figure out how to finish that question. Man and dog stared at each other for a long minute, so he decided to ask something else instead. Rhetorically, of course, since the dog wouldn't be replying. "Hungry?"

Perhaps there were a number of questions that would make more sense in this situation—what, how, where, general confusion—but then again it's not like the dog could supply any answers. Though the dog did perk up at the possibility of food. Which was a bit strange, to be honest, since it was almost as if the question had been understood. The dachshund slunk closer.

"That's a yes, then."

Taking a quick drink before setting his cup down, Axel finally checked the fridge to see what sorts of food Morimoto might have in supply. He was quite relieved to find that Morimoto had either brought food in one of those crates or he'd gone on a quick grocery run while Axel had been too busy freaking out to be helpful in any way. It would have been unfortunate if there hadn't been anything to eat, seeing as he'd already gotten his hopes up.

Grabbing a package of ham, Axel tore it open and pulled out a number of slices to flop on his plate. Though technically no longer his plate, seeing as the food he set on it was intended for the dog. In the light from the refrigerator, he took a moment to appreciate the tiny-but-detailed shuriken designs on the plate.

Then, careful not to startle his unexpected four-legged visitor, Axel lowered the dish to the floor and nudged it over with his foot. It skid smoothly across the floor, but the dog took a hesitant (and some would argue wise) step away. Axel stayed crouched, since he thought it probably made him seem less threatening.

After a minute of silent staring, the crouching position was deemed to be too much effort so he sat down entirely. The motion startled the dachshund, who gave a sharp twitch and then shot the human a distinctly disgruntled glare.

Axel thought it was pretty darn cute.

As if able to read his thoughts, the dog gave a huffed bark. Taking those last few steps over the the plate, the ham was given a hesitant sniff and deemed safe enough. Then, naturally, the dachshund proceeded to thieve the entire plate. Which is to say the dachshund carefully took the ham—plate and all—and swiftly booked it in the opposite direction.

"Hey, wait, that's—" Axel cut himself off mid-sentence, realizing that the target of his confusion had already vanished. With a sigh, he leaned back onto his hands; the floor below felt cool and only a little dusty. "It not even my plate of give."

He was trying to peel out another slice of ham for himself when he abruptly realized, "Wait, I meant 'it's' and 'to', not… well, not that anyone's here to complain."

Finally freeing another slice, Axel stood up, tossed the package back into the fridge, and shut the door. The kitchen was plunged back into darkness, but at least he sort of knew where things were now. Finishing his small midnight snack, he blindly reached for his cup. Blindly and cautiously, thankfully, which would be why he didn't smack it off the counter.

Glass in hand and a slightly less vague mental map of the house in mind, Axel began his careful trip back to bed. As he walked, he could feel his eyes sliding unfocused as exhaustion crept back up on him: it seems that sleep due to sheer panic wearing him down to near unconsciousness is not particularly rejuvenating.

Go figure.

When he reached his room, he left his cup on the desk and briefly pondered if it would be worth getting bedclothes and changing into pajamas. Fairly immediately, Axel realized that a blanket and pillow and some sheets were already nicely folded near the head of the bed. They were even slightly disheveled; clearly he had actually laid right on top of the folded stack without even noticing.

However, just because he had sheets and stuff didn't mean he had to nicely make the bed quite yet. Instead Axel just sort of haphazardly spread out one sheet—mostly on the mattress though a good deal spilled onto the floor—then the blanket. It would do for now. After that, he barely put in the effort to change into sleepwear: his t-shirt would be good enough.

Stretching one last time, his gaze flicked to the curtained window. Unavoidably, his mind turned to the truth of his situation, and it felt like something cold gripped his throat. He swallowed past it.

It was a relief to crawl into bed and call the long, crazy day well and truly finished.

=X=X=X=

When he woke up, the world was still crazy. As evidenced by the perfectly mundane, empty room he awoke to.

He sat up.

In the light of morning—or maybe afternoon, he wasn't sure—Axel realized that his bedroom was rather large. Certainly larger than the guest room he had claimed previously. Even slightly larger than his room back in München.

That thought, reminding him just where he was, twisted in his gut. A deep, measured breath smoothed it out.

His eyes landed on where his bag still sat on the floor, and, after staring at it for what was probably an unnecessarily long time, he decided he might as well deal with it.

Swinging his legs out from under the pile of (mostly) unmade bedsheets he had slept in, Axel stretched. Some ache from the long walk the day before eased away, and so he stood up.

It wasn't until he scooped his bag off the floor that he noticed something about his room. Namely: it was more than just really large. In fact, there were three doors, only one of which would lead out. Naturally that begs the question of just what the other two doors led to. So, obviously he temporarily abandoned his bag on the bed and went to investigate.

Turns out his room apparently had a walk-in closet and an en-suite bathroom.

He stood in the doorway to the bathroom, confused. For multiple reasons, not least of which being why his room had an attached bath. Other than that, though, the layout was strange. It had the usual bathroom stuff—toilet, sink, shower—but it also had a separate bathtub. A large separate bathtub. Looking between the shower and bath, Axel wondered why they each had their own space; it would be more efficient, after all, to have the shower built into the tub and use the same drain.

But then it wasn't his place to judge: it could just be an oriental thing or maybe a… ninja-world thing.

Regardless, everything about this room felt… large.

He had better things to do than stare at a bathroom, though, so he returned to his original activity. Straightening out the snarl of blankets, he proceeded to dump out his bag on the bed. Axel carefully set aside his backpack, which still had his laptop and so on, and grabbed the secondhand clothes. There was plenty on closet space for them, obviously, so he dropped them on a shelf in there and called it good enough.

He placed his backpack on the desk, not quite willing to unpack it yet.

Pulling on pants, he decided it was time to face the day. No matter how crazy.

The situation wouldn't be changing any time soon, after all.

Axel found Morimoto in the room of many boxes, stooped over one and shuffling through its contents.

"Good mor—"

The older man jolted upright, startled, and spun around. "GAH—! Oh, it's just you… Yes, good morning, Axel." He collected himself quickly, having become at least somewhat used to the blond's unexpected skill at sneaking up on people. With a glance outside, he added, "Although I'm pretty sure it's afternoon already."

Following the older man's gaze to the window, Axel saw that it was, indeed, pretty darn light outside. The extra sleep was well worth it, though—necessary, even—so he didn't let himself be bothered. Instead, he hopefully asked, "Food?"

"Food," Morimoto confirmed. "Though when I looked this morning some of the ham was suspiciously missing."

Axel blinked at the sentence, needing a quick moment to string meaning together from what he knew should be a fairly simple statement. Finally, and somewhat surprised, he asked, "That really happened?"

"What?"

"I was hunger—"

"'Hungry'," came a swift correction.

"—hungry," Axel repeated, logging it somewhere in his mind before continuing. "I came down and got food late. There was a… a, uhm…" Having no idea what the word for 'dachshund' might be, he went with a somewhat goofy sounding descriptor. "A long dog broke in. I gave him some food."

Shoving the box he had been digging through out of the way, Morimoto turned around with a skeptical expression. "By 'long dog', do you mean a dakkusufunto?" he asked.

The word was unexpectedly similar, assuming they were indeed talking about the same thing.

At Axel's only somewhat hesitant nod, a smile tugged at the corners of the older man's mouth. "Seriously?"

"Yeah, a dachshund."

"And it broke in?"

"As far as I know."

At this point Morimoto was shaking with silent laughter, and Axel was doing his best to keep a straight face. It was quite hard: likely because picturing a dachshund sneakily slipping through a cracked window, shifty-eyed and decked out in spy gear, was, on all accounts, a hilarious mental image.

"He stole a plate, too."

That was clearly the final straw, since Morimoto doubled over laughing. He tried to support himself with one of the cardboard boxes, but all that succeeded in doing was folding in the side of the box and making him stagger awkwardly until his balance returned. Which it did do. Eventually.

Finally catching his breath, the blacksmith smiled at his blond friend. "The dog… the dog stole a plate? How did—? Or wait, better question: why?!"

"When I gave him ham," Axel answered, and, looking back at the events of the last night, he shook his head. "I put the ham on a plate, and the dog took both."

Morimoto shook his head in amused befuddlement. "I suppose that explains why dishes were missing from the drying rack."

A few minutes later, when they actually went into the kitchen to get food, they would both be confused to find the bottle of soap knocked over onto the floor. Then they were further perplexed to find the missing plate, edges decorated with the tiny shuriken Axel remembered, sitting at the bottom of the sink in a shallow layer of soapy water.

"Either we're both crazy—which is still up for debate—or that," Morimoto mused, "must be one well-trained dog."

Axel could only nod in agreement: a very well-trained dog, indeed.

Author's Note:

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Phantom Thief Dachshund has made off with some priceless treasure: around four pieces of ham. He returned the plate though, since, despite his sneaking ways, he is a good dog.
Idea Partner: Rikkamaru

Updates come on the 15th of every month.
Thanks to everyone who has read and enjoyed! I hope you continue to as the story goes on.

Translations:
"Warum ist…?" = "Why is…?"
"…dakkusufunto?" = "…dachshund?" (rōmaji transcription according to Google)

See ya on the flipside, everyone!