Chapter 12: Not Working as Intended

Akaiko was a bit concerned, to be honest.

She watched the house with a careful eye, occasionally probing with chakra to check that the house still felt just as empty as before. Of the two people living there, only one had a signature she could detect: the civilian named Morimoto Hiroshi. He was out at the moment.

The other resident was tall, blond, and if she hadn't spotted him earlier when he walked past a window, she wouldn't have known he was in the building.

So yes, it was a little disconcerting.

When she was assigned this mission, she had been warned that there was a supposed civilian who could hide his chakra well enough to fool high level shinobi. Considering who had reluctantly brought the information to the Hokage's attention, well…

Orochimaru might freak her out, but he had definitely earned his reputation. If it was something that could sneak past him, it was only natural to be interested.

But now, two and a half days after accepting the mission, she was having second thoughts.

Because it was, in every sense, a perfectly boring reconnaissance detail.

Okay, so that's not entirely true. There had been a brief altercation early on the very first day with a pair of ninken-turned-strays, but they left her alone when they realized she had to be there under the Hokage's orders.

One of the perks of being a uniformed ANBU, she supposed.

Akaiko carefully adjusted her mask and tried not to yawn. It was especially uninteresting to keep watch when she didn't even have her partner on hand to annoy— talk to. Inochi apparently had clan business, and had thus taken leave for a week: something about her cousin, Inoichi, finally getting hitched.

Cue mental scoff.

On a tangential note—and because there was nothing more interesting to think about—Akaiko had to wonder about the tendency clans had to name everyone with a similar pattern. All the Yamanakas seemed to be obsessed with starting names with 'Ino-', and the Naras like to use 'Shika-'. It made it easy to guess which clan somebody might belong to, but it's such a pain to keep track of everyone.

Plus people in a clan tend to look similar as well, so the issue was two-fold. Sure, she could do it—she was an ANBU, after all—but honestly.

Motion outside her target's house caught her attention, pulling her mind from its drifting. But alas, it was nothing interesting: just Namikaze Minato again. Given the past few days, the blond not-her-target seemed to stop by at least once a day to hang out with his… friend? Yes, she supposed that was correct.

A little peculiar, to be sure: shinobi don't often make friends—meaning real friends, not just business partners or convenient acquaintances—with civilians.

He leapt to an open window on the second floor, perched for an instant on the sill, then vanished inside.

She followed his movement through the house by tracking his chakra. Based on where Namikaze's signature had stopped, she'd guess that her target was in the back room, separate from the part that had been turned into the store.

Curious, and without her partner there to talk her out of it, Akaiko decided to get a closer look.

Careful to keep her chakra restrained and muted—doubly so, since she was trying to sneak up on at least one sensor—Akaiko jumped from her little surveillance base and crept up to the side of the house.

For a split second, she reconsidered. After all, she was just here to run reconnaissance on this strange new maybe-maybe-not civilian. There was no real reason beyond curiosity compelling her to move closer.

But she was a shinobi—curiosity is basically part of the job description.

Enhancing her ears with the barest trickle of chakra let her listen in on the conversation.

"—instead of one character being a… a, uhm." There was a pause, and the oddly-accented voice sounded vaguely frustrated. "I don't know the word."

Even knowing that her target was in there as well, it still came as a surprise to hear an unfamiliar voice when her chakra sensing told her that there should only be one person in there.

The next voice to speak was definitely Namikaze, who suggested, "Maybe 'syllable'?"

"Is that like 'char' in 'character'?" There was a pause where, presumably, Namikaze nodded. "Then yes. So instead, each is part of that."

Akaiko could hear some papers shifting, then the scratch of pencil writing something. She was kind of annoyed that now, limited to listening as she was, she couldn't tell what he was doing.

"Fascinating," said Namikaze, a moment after the scribbling sounds stopped.

This made Akaiko even more peeved that she couldn't see what he'd written.

"Sure," replied Akus— uhm, her target.

When she was first given this assignment, she had spent several minutes trying to figure out the name listed in the mission files. It was written as 'Buranto Akuseru'—which was weird enough—but then it also had a note that this was only an approximation for his actual name. Whatever that meant.

After writing some more, there was a quiet but distinct tap. The accented voice said, "This is the… I don't even know if you have a word for it."

"But you do, right?"

There was a pause, then: "Alphabet."

Namikaze snorted in amusement—or at least, Akaiko assumed it was amusement. "I have no idea how you come up with these things!"

Under her breath, Akaiko couldn't help but murmur the odd word to herself. Or try to, at least. "'Arufabet'?"

"I don't come up with them," grumbled her target, sounding vaguely annoyed and… maybe sad? With just his voice, it was hard to discern between what was emotion and what was just his odd accent.

"Anyway," it seems Namikaze has chosen to change the subject, "how do you write my name?"

Akaiko sat back against the wall as the sounds of writing returned, and wondered just what this strange 'arufabet' thing looked like. Wondered how her own name would appear, written differently from how she had always seen it.

She had never really liked her name all that much. Honestly, nobody had ever accused the orphanage of having creative naming sense, but they could have put in a little more effort than 'red child'.

And it only got worse when she was saddled with the red fish mask and the ANBU codename 'Koi'. She was fairly sure that choice had been made for the pure word play; meaning she had gone from 'red child' to 'red fish'—what an upgrade.

On the other side of the wall, she could hear Minato start listing other words he wanted to see written in this new way; he was going through colors now. He asked for green, yellow, orange, red— and the beginnings of an idea formed in her mind.

One hand reached up and tapped the edge of her mask thoughtfully.

If Inochi were here, she would probably advise against this course of action. Yes, surely her ANBU partner would think this new idea stupid, unnecessary, and just generally bad. This was a surveillance mission, after all: protocol said she should surveil the target at a distance and without them knowing.

But there was no reason she couldn't run her surveillance from up close.

Akaiko returned to her base of operations across the street, ill-advised plan in mind. After checking the area one last time to make sure she was in the clear, she took off her mask. The smooth porcelain was painted with a leaping fish. Tapping it to the tattoo on her shoulder sealed it away with the slightest puff of chakra smoke.

She was no longer acting as ANBU Koi.

Well, kind of; her mission would continue without her in uniform.

Pulling her brown hair out of the strict bun she always wore it in when working, she switched it to a loose braid. Fishing through the sealing scrolls she had on hand, she found a disguise that would suit her needs. She really only needed the clothes: a pair of dark blue pants and a comfortable pinkish blouse. The top used to be white, but she put it in the wrong wash. Several times.

She was ready.

Jumping back out of her base, Akaiko crossed the street and walked right up to the front door. It was locked. In fact, there was a sign hung up that declared the store to be closed.

Stepping back, she eyed the open window on the second floor.

Then again, the lock should be easy enough to pick.

And so it was. Tucking away her lock pick set, Akaiko opened the previously-locked door and stepped into the shop.

Taking a moment to scan the area, noting things ranging from civilian kitchenware to shuriken and more, she had to admit to being a little impressed. There was less of each item in-stock than she had seen in some of the village's other stores, but the sheer variety put those other smiths to shame. Especially since she could tell a lot of care and skill had gone into everything set out for sale.

She could hear Namikaze and her target still talking in the other room, so she walked through the shelves toward them. From the doorway, she saw that they were sitting on either side of what looked like a misplaced tree trunk, scroll unrolled on it as if it were a table.

"Hey," she called out. "What're you guys up to?"

Namikaze looked up to her, smiling and perfectly relaxed. But there was an edge to his easy smile, as if he were judging whether or not she was a threat to his friend. She had the sneaking suspicion that he had known she was there the entire time: even when she had been eavesdropping from outside.

Her target took her arrival less gracefully, trying to twist around from his spot on the floor and nearly falling over for his trouble. Clearly he doesn't do well with being startled.

Then he looked up at her, annoyed, and she saw his eyes.

Blue. As blue as the sky at noon.

And while blue eyes weren't particularly rare—take Namikaze, for one, and the entire Yamanaka clan, for another—his eyes were so… open. She wasn't really sure how to explain it.

"What?" he said, then decided to ask a better question. "Who are you!?"

"My name's Akaiko."

"That's not the point!"

She cocked her head to the side. "So what is the point then?"

Namikaze looked inordinately amused at this whole deal. "I believe Axel wants to know what you're doing in his house."

Akaiko blinked at the name—it was his first name, so he and Namikaze must be better friends than she first thought. Plus, well, she could see why they had needed to use an approximation in her files. She tried to say it, and felt like she got close: "Axer?"

"Axel," he corrected, though she was pretty sure it was just an instinctive response. "Brandt Axel."

She repeated, "Brandt Axel."

Her target—Brandt—nodded, and looked faintly impressed. But then he frowned again, remembering the original issue. "So? Why are you here?"

Gesturing back at the shelves in the room behind her, Akaiko said, "Well, it's a store, isn't it?"

"It's closed right now," Namikaze pointed out.

Brandt looked suddenly pale, and he glance in the direction of the front door with worry. "How did you even get in?"

"I picked the lock. Easy."

"You just—" He pinched the bridge of his nose in clear consternation. "Ninja," he mumbled under his breath, and the unfamiliar words had an almost mocking edge to them, "haben kein Konzept des persönlichen Raums."

There was more, but it got too quiet to hear and likely remained as impossible to puzzle out, so she ignored it. With Brandt clearly distracted by his grumbling, Akaiko shot a questioning look to her fellow shinobi.

Namikaze just shrugged. "I was told," he began, and the emphasis he put on the word made her think he wasn't quite convinced, "that it's a side effect of a particularly persistent genjutsu."

She'd never heard of such a genjutsu, so she could see why he sounded doubtful. Still, it did make a certain sort of sense; she'd make sure to include it in her report, in any case.

"Anyway," he continued, "Why are you here? Because, as I said, the store is closed right now."

In answer, Akaiko sauntered over and plopped herself down across from her target; he glanced up at her warily, and she had to commend his instincts. She repeated the first thing she had said to them, as if none of the conversation between then and now had happened. "What're you guys up to?"

"What."

"I want in," she said.

With more stress: "What."

Namikaze smiled again, and this time it wasn't judging her motives: it was just bright and friendly. "I think she wants in, Axel."

"Great," Brandt groaned, looking between his friend and her. "There's another one."

Akaiko just grinned: she liked him already.

=X=X=X=

Axel squinted at the bright light—or near it, technically—as the scrap metal heated through red to white-hot, melting into a pool at the bottom of the crucible. At least he could get something useful out of the dull, chipped, and broken weapons; kunai and shuriken are basically disposable, so once broken they just aren't worth the time it would take to repair them.

It was, however, well worth the effort to melt them down. No sense letting perfectly good metal go to waste in broken tools.

He quite purposefully turned his mind away from what those tools were built to do.

When he judged it to be completely molten, he carefully moved to the mold he had set up: he'd shape the metal into a basic kunai, nothing special. With practiced ease—though it was always a tad nerve wracking—he poured the liquid metal into the mold. Now it was just a matter of waiting for it to cool.

Stepping back, Axel set to work cleaning up his tools and putting things away.

The odd woman who had intruded two days ago—Akaiko, his mind supplied—hadn't come by again, though she had made it clear that she planned on inviting herself over more in the future. He wasn't sure how to feel about that. Minato seemed okay with her, which was a good sign, but he was still undecided.

As for Minato himself, he had, for some reason, insisted on coming over today to sit in on some of the smithing process. Specifically for making kunai. As for why he wanted to watch… Axel had no clue. Regardless, he was watching all of this with peculiar intensity, as if he expected Axel to pull some special trick partway through.

"Do you make most of your kunai from scrap?"

Axel shrugged. "Since you started bringing in enough for me to do that, yeah."

With a considering hum, the other blond reached over to the worktable and picked up one of the nearly complete throwing knives: it still needed wrapping for it's grip, and a final sharpening. He weighed it in his hand. "You made this one."

It was more of a statement than a question, which he thought to be a little strange. Morimoto had made a good number of the kunai laying around, after all, since he was coaching Axel. As a simple hobbyist blacksmith, making things for fun or because a friend had requested something, he hadn't pursued some of the finer points of the skill.

"How'd you know I made it?"

Minato sighed, spinning the kunai around his finger. "That's what I'm trying to figure out."

Which was, to be honest, a very odd way of answering the question. It was only a half-step away from answering a question with another question, and as such still equally unhelpful.

Axel quirked an eyebrow, silently prompting for a better response.

"Well, I've noticed that the ones you make feel…" The ninja had to pause, gathering his thoughts. "They feel different, somehow. As if they're more familiar. I thought maybe you were doing something to the metal, but if you're just using scrap—"

"—then clearly I'm not," Axel finished, thoughtful. "But, what do you mean by familiar?"

He considered the knife he held, and, after a contemplative moment, he gently tossed it blade-over-handle to catch it in his other hand. "Well, perhaps…" Minato chose his words carefully, as if working out an idea as he spoke, "My chakra flows through it naturally, easily, so it feels almost practiced in my hand. So I thought maybe you had done something."

"How could I have, I don't even have—" Axel had to cut himself off one word shy of what would probably have been a very ill-advised confession: that he didn't have chakra.

"Don't have what?"

In an attempt to steer the conversation away from his near slip-up, Axel turned his attention back to the cooling metal. "Let's go inside," he said. "This will take a while."

Minato frowned slightly, but, at least for the moment, he went along with the blatant deflection of his question. "Alright."

They relocated to the kitchen, and Axel was a little disappointed that Morimoto hadn't returned from wherever he had gone; he would have been able to distract the ninja. Probably. But, without that as an option, he just busied himself getting a couple of glasses of water and hoped the delay would be enough.

It wasn't.

"So," Minato said, taking his glass and sipping some of the cool water. He was smiling in that way that meant he was about to cause a little trouble. "What is it you don't have?"

"Uhm."

What a great start.

Then, luckily enough, there was a knock at the door.

"Gott sei Dank," he murmured to himself. More loudly and perhaps a bit too eagerly, he invited whoever was there to come in. "It's unlocked!"

Minato smirked at him, seeing the escape for what it was.

The door opened to reveal… green. It was Gai. Which was unexpected, given the genin usually just burst in whenever he came for a visit. But perhaps he, of all the ninja out there, had actually respected the sign on the door that said the store was closed.

"I see you have finally named your fine store!" announced Gai almost immediately after opening the door, and he gestured toward where the log-turned-sign had been placed out front.

He nodded, pleased but also a tad concerned. Based on the kid's fixation on his name, Axel could guess why he'd wanted to come in: "I assume you want to know how to say it?"

Gai bounced on the balls of his feet, nodding excitedly.

Axel, rather suddenly, had misgivings about his plan.

Since the blacksmith wasn't making any move to reply, it was actually Minato who provided the genin with the name. He said it slowly, clearly, and perfectly.

Gai stuck out his tongue, as if tasting the word on the air. "Eku-suk-ari-ba"

"Excalibur," Minato repeated.

"Ek-ska-ri-ba."

Which was such a significant improvement from his first attempt that Axel couldn't help but smile, regardless of conflicting feelings about the energetic (and, as a consequence, loud) genin learning the name of his shop.

"YOSH!" Gai exclaimed suddenly, pumping a fist in the air. "I have decided! If I cannot say it by my fiftieth try, then I shall run twenty laps around the village!"

And then he was gone, as swiftly as he had arrived (as usual). The door was left swinging—which was impressive, because Axel could have sworn that the door didn't open both ways.

Well, hopefully the door frame hadn't been broken too badly.

Minato was staring after where the green hurricane-in-small-human-form had ran. "Has he even figured out how to say your name yet, Axel?"

Shrugging, Axel took a sip from his glass of water and tried to ignore his sudden apprehension. "He's better now, for sure."

"I suppose I'll just need to get used to hearing shouts of 'Eks-kal-i-baru' at uncomfortable hours in the morning." He sighed, but otherwise looked resigned to that fate. "That's what he did with your name in the beginning."

Slowly, as his mind realized just what Minato was suggesting, Axel set his glass down. "Wait," he said, and he knew now what those misgivings had been about. "Wait. Gai's going… going to run around the entire village… shouting the name of my shop."

"Well, yeah."

Fantastic. Simply fantastic. He honestly should have expected this.

Axel could all but feel the heat as his plan went up in metaphorical flames.

Minato was staring at him, expression slightly befuddled. "Was… that not the plan?"

"No!" he snapped, though it wasn't so much in anger as it was self-deprecating annoyance. In an almost defeated tone, he repeated, "No. It was supposed to stop that."

Sounding thoughtful and very amused, Minato pointed out, "That won't quite go as you wanted."

Axel held his head in his hands, and he wholeheartedly agreed.

Author's Note:

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

So how's that store name working out for you, Axel?
Idea Partner: Rikkamaru

A note about Akaiko sealing her ANBU mask into her tattoo: I always thought it strange that ninja would mark themselves with an easily recognizable icon. It must be more difficult to go undercover with ink permanently marking you as not only a ninja, but a really freakin' skilled ninja.
So I figured it must have some other use that makes it worthwhile. By having the tattoo be where the mask is stored, not only is the mask kept secure, but an ANBU can go on-duty at any moment. Plus, if the fact that the tattoo is a seal is kept secret, that can be used to identify fake ANBU tattoos from genuine ones.
Just my thoughts on that, please tell me if you know of something in the story that breaks this headcanon.

As for the chakra flowing through the kunai, Minato isn't saying that Axel is making chakra blades that can channel jutsu or extra techniques like that. Just that when he uses chakra to help a kunai fly true or to keep his grip firm, it feels easy: as if the kunai was one he had practiced doing that with for years.

Updates come on the 15th of the month.
Thanks for taking the time to read, and, hopefully, enjoy! Any favorites, follows, and reviews (especially those) are greatly appreciated.

Translations:
"Ninja haben kein Konzept des persönlichen Raums." = "Ninja have no concept of personal space."
(I had to use google for this one, so if you have a better translation I would greatly appreciate it!)
"Gott sei Dank." = "Thank goodness."

See ya on the flipside, everyone!