Chapter 8: Unpacking

To distract himself from the confusing mess of impossibility that his life had apparently become, Axel worked hard to help Morimoto unpack the boxes and otherwise get the house set up. He still hadn't figured out why they were working to make the old house livable again, but at least it gave him something to do. It was an effective distraction, even if some of the contents only served to remind him where he was; many of the boxes held tools or jewelry-type things, but there were others filled with weapons like kunai and shuriken.

Axel also wasn't sure how Morimoto expected to sell all these things quickly enough to get back to his son before the teen burned something down. Not that Kichirou would purposefully torch anything, but, to be fair, he had a tendency to get a bit distracted at times. It was an almost valid concern.

Kicking out the bottom of one of the last cardboard boxes and folding it flat, Axel tossed it onto the pile with the others. After a full week of mindless busywork, distributing the contents of all those boxes—weapons included—around the house, they were finally nearing the end.

Morimoto, who had been doing something in the forge area (yes, this house had a forge and it was amazing), came into the room with a suspiciously happy grin. "Nearly wrapped up here?"

"I think?" replied Axel, half because he wasn't sure how long it would take to unpack the rest and half because he wasn't sure about the use of 'wrapped' in the sentence. "Just three more boxes."

"Fantastic!" The blacksmith walked over and popped one of the last boxes open, nodding to himself as he recognized whatever was inside. "Oh, right. These. Best save them for later, actually."

Choosing not to question it, Axel only shrugged.

Morimoto took the silence as a chance to push for something he had been trying to get Axel to do since that first afternoon in the village. Namely: "I need to get some more things for the forge, fuel and the like. Want to join me?"

Now, just because Axel was no longer in a state of shock due to complete-world-flipping didn't mean he was quite ready to face that flipped world. Thus he had avoided going outside or even looking out the windows for too long. Using a rather lackluster excuse, he answered, "It gives so many things here that I still need to do."

"I think you mean 'there are'. As in 'there are so many things', which I suppose is true." The blacksmith paused before pointedly adding, "Or at least was true. I think you can spare an hour or so."

Axel's eyes darted to the door, then back to the man attempting to convince him to walk through it into the world beyond. That strange world beyond that should be fiction. "I still need to, uh… I-I could… clean more?" It came out as a question.

Not impressed with either of the lame excuses, Morimoto crossed his arms and gave the blond a stern look. "I don't know what you're so scared of, but it's not going to work itself out in here."

He started to protest, but the words died before he could even finish a full sentence. It was true, Axel realized. He was scared. At this point it was more than denial or unease or discomfort; it was fear, plain and simple.

It was about time he faced it.

"Besser spät als nie," he said to himself, cementing his decision. "I… I guess I need to sometime."

The blacksmith's stern look melted into a pleased smile. "Good! I was planning on restocking the forge, you know. This is a good chance for you to see how it's done."

Not quite sure what was meant by that, Axel asked, "Why would I need to—"

The question was swiftly interrupted as Morimoto ushered him to the door. "Anyway, let's be off! Places to go, things to buy, and only so many hours in the day."

Now Axel was downright suspicious. But, having no idea what it was all about, he simply let himself be dragged to the door. He stood at the threshold, pulling on his shoes much more slowly than necessary, and tried to psych himself up to face the world. It's not as if delaying would make it any easier.

As ready as he'd ever be, he followed Morimoto outside.

It was a beautiful day, and the sun was shining bright with nary a cloud in sight. He had always thought that the fictional Konoha was remarkably colorful for a village full of ninja, and it was pretty clear that that impression was correct. Even here, in what he understood to be an abandoned district, the rooftops were still colored vibrant shades of blue, orange, red, or green. Plants were retaking what they could, now that nobody cared to maintain the roads or buildings, but all that meant was there were more shades of green trailing across the pale walls.

He took a deep breath—appreciating the clean, earthy scents in the air. A breeze, warm with just a touch of the upcoming summer heat, tousled his short hair. The sun shone overhead, and the ground was solid under his feet.

The world was still as real as it had been. Just… different.

Focusing on that, he began to follow after Morimoto. "Where we going?"

"Left out an 'are' in there, Axel."

Familiar with this routine, he simply corrected, "Where are we going? Forge stuff?"

"I know a guy over in the market district," was the supremely unhelpful answer.

"For forge stuff, yes?"

Morimoto waved a dismissive hand, answering, "Old business partner. Thought I'd, you know…" In actuality, Axel did not know. The older man vaguely finished, "It's good to have contacts."

"Er, alright?" Axel wasn't sure what else to say, other than maybe slightly annoyed complaints about skirting around a subject. Honestly, he didn't see what was so hard about speaking plainly.

Maybe it was another ninja-world thing.

As they got closer to the edge of the abandoned district—which didn't take as long as he had expected—they ran into more and more people just wandering the streets. And with more people about, there always seemed to be at least one darting shadow cast by a passing ninja.

It was a little unsettling.

Everything was just… just different enough to throw him off.

Frankly, he was feeling a little overwhelmed the more people he saw; every new face—and especially any faces that brought on that disconcerting sense of recognition—just drove in how very far from home he really was.

It hurt to think of home.

Because this wasn't just the other side of the world.

But he just took another deep breath. After all, here was where he was. No matter how much he might wish otherwise.

"Here we are," Morimoto said at last, having led the way to a small shop ringing with the sound of hammers and the muted roar of a furnace fire.

Axel stared at the door, colored a bright shade of green, but more to the point he stared at the sign hanging off it. After a moment to translate what was written there into sounds, he realized he had just wasted time puzzling out a sign that just indicated that the store was, in fact, open.

"Oh," he acknowledged, eyes still latched onto the three printed characters. Distracted, he didn't notice Morimoto's growing concern.

The older man wasn't blind, and he certainly wasn't as socially inept as a rock, which is what he'd need to be to completely miss the soul-deep grief that occasionally settled over his blond friend. Axel would be fine one second, then his gaze would drift over to the window or settle on something perfectly ordinary—chopsticks, for example—and suddenly he'd just close down.

Like right now.

Morimoto set a hand on Axel's shoulder; he'd learned that contact helped pull the younger man out of whatever dragged his mind away in the first place. "You can wait out here if you'd like. The fresh air will do you good."

With a wry smile, Axel replied, "Think I'll embarrass you?"

"No," the blacksmith shot back, "but you might embarrass yourself."

It seemed that Axel had no argument for that, mumbling what sounded like an agreement with those oddly foreign sounds. "Gute Entscheidung."

Decision apparently made, Morimoto headed into the shop without the dimensionally-displaced blond. Axel leaned back against the wall beside the green door, planning on waiting and trying not to think too hard about where he was.

It was what he had been doing since he first realized that Konoha meant Konoha.

Frankly, he was embarrassed. He had been here for over a month now, technically, even if he hadn't known as much for most of that time. Yet here he was, still scared to look at the world around him. That needed to stop. Now. Swallowing past his indecision, he turned toward the mountain, and he could just barely see the third face between the buildings. His blue eyes stared into unseeing stone, head on.

His sister wouldn't be so unsettled. Maybe. Adri had ranted to him about stories like this often enough, so at least she might not have been caught so off guard.

Oh God, his sister.

The thought felt like something cold, reaching through his gut and wrapping around his spine. Unable to remain standing, he slid down the wall until he was sitting folded with his knees to his chest.

He might never see her again.

Because for all that he still breathed, he might as well be dead to her. And to his parents. And his friends.

His world.

He looked away from the mountain's face.

"…Axel-san? Or, er, Axel?"

Blinking to refocus, he looked up at the sound of that concerned voice. "Minato?"

For a split second, Axel didn't recognize the man before him. Well, he did recognize his appearance. Nearly, anyway. Add a long white coat, edged with stylized flames, and cut off a few centimeters of height. Memories of his sister overlapped the here and now. She had stood at the top of the stairs to show off her latest costume—or latest cosplay, as she would correct him—with a happy, thankful smile. He had made her some of the character's knives, though dull, to complete the look.

In the memory she spun one around on her finger, but it only made three full turns before slipping off. They shared a surprised laugh when it struck the floor and ended up sticking upright out of the carpet.

"I asked first," the ninja quipped back, smile only slightly worried. "What are you doing down there?"

Axel closed his eyes on the happy memory—now tinted with sharp loss—and then looked past his knees to the mostly clean sidewalk he was sitting on. Since the ninja would be expecting an answer and Axel had no clue how to say 'pondering the fate of my previous existence' in Japanese, he settled with, "Thinking about… life."

With an expression that suggested he knew exactly the sort of thinking might have been going on—that is to say, the bleak and distressing kind—Minato offered him a hand up. "A dangerous game," he remarked.

Taking the hand and letting himself be pulled upright, Axel countered, "But it needs making."

"'Making'?"

Axel reviewed his sentence, then corrected, "It needs doing. Or maybe playing. I have problems with words."

"What sorts of problems?" Minato asked, openly interested.

"Eh, well…" It probably wasn't the greatest idea to tell the crazy world-hopping truth, but he couldn't resist saying, "Japanisch ist nicht meine Muttersprache."

Minato blinked once, then twice: surprise and curiosity played across his face, mixing with quite a bit of confusion. "Wait, what?"

Of course, instead of answering the question, Axel changed the topic entirely. "Why are you here, anyway?"

A bit miffed at the blatant redirect, Minato vaguely replied, "Oh, no reason, Axel-sa… Axel."

It must have been odd addressing a virtual stranger without any honorific at all, as evidenced by the ninja's stumbles. But then again, it must not have been that off-putting, seeing as Minato went along with it without protest.

Before Axel could make a cheeky guess about the purpose of the other blond's presence—they were standing outside a shop, after all—the green door swung open and Morimoto stepped out onto the street.

"Hello, Namikaze-san," he greeted, one hand busily folding away a few papers while the other offered a cheery wave. "How have you been this past week?"

"Blown up anybody else?" added Axel, unable to resist the urge to tease. He was an older brother, after all.

"Ah, w-well about that…"

"Shinobi," Morimoto scoffed with a smile. "Always up to something."

Axel really had to agree, even though his only experience with ninja so far was Gai; he knew from the show that even most other ninja thought him and his… youthfulness to be peculiar, so that might not be the most accurate baseline.

In this, however, it seemed that Minato also agreed. He just gave a sheepish, but pleased, smile. "I lost a lot of good kunai, hence why I'm here, but I think it will be worth it."

He reached into one of his vest pockets and pulled out what was left of one of his throwing knives: what was probably the very tip of the blade, though it was hard to tell given it had melted into a barely pointy blob.

To be honest, Axel was impressed. "How many?"

"Maybe… around fifty? Sixty?" Minato scratched the back of his head, embarrassed. "I sort of lost count at around thirty-two."

"Das kann nicht dein Ernst sein!" Axel exclaimed in disbelief, ignoring the confused looks his foreign language earned him from other people walking down the street.

Morimoto burst into laughter. "And that," he said, still chuckling, "is why it's good to be a blacksmith in this town."

They spent a few more minutes chatting, discussing both the creation and destruction of various ninja weaponry, before Minato abruptly realized that he really didn't have time to talk. After a fast apology and an even faster goodbye, the other blond took off like a shot—plan to shop for more kunai abandoned by time constraints.

Morimoto was slightly disappointed that he didn't get to invite him to drop by the house: like a playdate, just not phrased as such. In his opinion, Axel really needed to make a few friends. And after all, it hadn't escaped his notice that Axel had quite enjoyed talking shop with Minato.

As they made their way back to the house, Axel was in a better mood than he had been for several days now. That, too, didn't escape Morimoto's notice.

"Glad to see you smiling again." He led the way up the short yet overgrown path to the house. Then, in a gentle tone that suggested he wanted to know what was wrong, he added, "You had me worried."

Busying himself with the keys and unlocking the door, it seemed like Morimoto either didn't notice or simply ignored how his statement froze Axel where he stood.

Then, as the silence dragged longer, he softly added, "You don't need to tell me anything if you don't want to."

Axel had known he'd need to bring this point up eventually, but the words still caught in his throat. It had been days since his initial realization, but those days weren't nearly long enough. Just as he had avoided the outside world, he had yet to admit it out loud: that just felt too… final. Too real.

But he had to, of course. Saying it aloud wouldn't really change anything.

"When we first got here…" Axel began, hesitantly. "Or, well, I suppose it was when we hadn't actually gotten here yet, but when we first saw the village." He swallowed dryly, and found himself unable to continue.

Morimoto, who had been hopeful to get an answer but hadn't really been expecting to get any, rested a reassuring hand on his friend's shoulder. "It'll be alright," he said. "And you can bet that if I can help, I will."

Axel nodded, still gathering his courage. When he began speaking again, his sharp accent was far heavier. "I see, er, saw it—the village—and I… remembered, I guess. I can't… everything is…" He broke off again, took a deep breath, and finished, "I don't have anywhere to go."

He thought of his sister, and another stab of heartache wrapped around his chest. It was hard to breathe. His family, his friends, his home, his world, his everything: it was all gone.

Maybe he hadn't technically died in that car crash—who knows what the heck had actually happened—but he thought this might very well be worse. Alive, but alone. Separated.

"Oh." The older man didn't move his hand, and, when Axel glanced over to gauge his expression, Morimoto gave him a comforting smile. "But you do have somewhere. It might not be the same as whatever you've lost, but you can stay for as long as you like."

"...What?"

Morimoto didn't look even remotely embarrassed. "While I have to go back to Chotto to make sure my kid hasn't caused some sort of catastrophe somehow—" apparently he and Axel shared similar concerns about that, "—you are free to stay here as long as you want."

Axel's voice became very small, uncertain, and he just repeated, "What."

"I own the place," the older man continued, his relaxed air disguising some of the old hurt in his voice. "Of course, the district's been abandoned since about fourteen years ago. I took Kichirou and left to stay with what was left of my family."

Given that the man now lived alone with his son, Axel could guess something had happened. Something he shouldn't pry into now, and maybe not ever. Instead, he asked, "Why let me stay here?"

"It's empty, I don't use it, you need somewhere. Why wouldn't I?"

"'Why wouldn't—'! Because— because es ist…" The outburst petered out almost as soon as it had begun, and all Axel could manage was a confused expression. He had lost his grip on Japanese—a part of him distractedly wondered if the language was still even called Japanese here—and he suspected he'd need a moment to regain it.

"Look, Axel." Morimoto's calm tone demanded his attention. "You're a good guy. I like to think that I've gotten to know you pretty well over the past month, given you've been living under my roof, and Kichirou definitely thinks of you like an older brother."

Axel was still at a loss for words of any language, but even if he could gather enough words to form an understandable sentence—which was doubtful—the older man wasn't done yet.

"My son, well… he has a few close friends, but he certainly isn't a social butterfly. And he certainly doesn't usually befriend near-dead strangers he finds in the forest." He had a pleased grin on his face and, taking his hand from Axel's shoulder, he added, "So look, even if I didn't trust my own judgment about you—and I do—I'd trust his. Why shouldn't I help you?"

A blink, then another. In an almost whisper, Axel said simply, "Thank you."

"Eh, no problem. I mean, this works out well for all of us." Morimoto looked a bit sheepish and, with a gesture to the house as a whole, he explained, "I've kinda been hoping to force the place on you for a while."

"A while? Since when?"

He shrugged. "Since I learned you have a great hand at smithing. Figured you could restart the smithy here."

"You've been… since… And wait, so I could WHAT?"

=X=X=X=

"And just what," he hissed, "could you mean by that?"

The snake curled in on itself, recoiling on instinct, but its eyes remained as sharp as cut glass. When it spoke, the words slid one into the next with an almost whispering cadence. "Just what I have said, Master."

For a long moment, tension thick as blood, the only sound in the laboratory was a quiet drip: a buret releasing a single drop of acid into a sample of unknown solution. Measured, calculated, predictable.

"I see."

In the silence—drip, drip.

Not daring to move, the small summon simply stared back. It had done as was commanded. It had watched and listened, and finally reported back. Now it could only wait.

Golden eyes cold as ice and voice deceptively relaxed, threats left unspoken, he asked, "You say my seals were poorly drawn?"

"No, Master," the snake replied. "Only that they were wrong."

A slow, measured blink. "Explain."

Its tongue flicked out to taste the air, cautious and trying to judge the tone of that single word. "There are two warmths."

"Two," he echoed, with that same emptiness. "Where my seals found only one."

Dangerous, the snake decided. And with an edge from bruised pride. It needed to approach this carefully. Pulling itself up, arching into a graceful curve, it soothed, "Two warmths, yes. But only one chakra."

That got a narrow look.

"As it sounds, Master." With a motion that was likely a serpentine shrug, it added, "I watched, I felt. I am sure of this."

Drip, drip.

"It's impossible," he said at last. "Having no chakra is the same as being dead."

The snake said nothing.

A series of rapid hand signs, followed by a sharp jab to the wall and a precise pulse of charka, sent black lines radiating outward from his pointing finger. In a rapid cascade of ink, a map of the abandoned district drew itself with precise strokes. A few spots blinked, moving or remaining in place, updating the position of the chakra signatures being tracked. Checking over the entire seal in a brief but thorough glance, he found no obvious faults.

So, withdrawing his chakra, he allowed it to fade away.

He closed his eyes, thinking. The snake waited.

And quietly, that constant rhythm—drip, drip.

"You would not lie to me," he said at last, but it felt like an accusation.

"Never, Orochimaru-sama."

His smile was slow and, like a knife, it glinted with a killer edge. "How very, very interesting."

Author's Note:

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

It seems that the abandoned district might have remained as such by design. And now Axel's living right in the middle of it, being all peculiar when compared to regular civilians.
Idea Partner: Rikkamaru

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Translations:
"Besser spät als nie." = "Better late than never."
"Gute Entscheidung." = "Good decision."
"Japanisch ist nicht meine Muttersprache." = "Japanese is not my native language."
"Das kann nicht dein Ernst sein!" = "You cannot be serious!" (not a direct translation)
"…es ist…" = "…it is…"

See ya on the flipside, everyone!