Chapter 21: The Answer to a Reluctant Question

It had been a full week since he had been given the vase and, remarkably, it was still in one piece. Young ninja do not always have the best aim with their kunai yet, but, when given a kunai, they are still very likely to try throwing it at something. He didn't think they had really been aiming for the vase, but the reality was that now the wall just a few centimeters shy of the vase had a fresh stab wound.

Other than that latest excitement, Axel had had a peaceful, largely unremarkable seven days.

Well, assuming he looked past the fact that ninja—actual martial-arts-magic ninja—had become a normal everyday thing for him. Which was pretty remarkable in and of itself.

Really, the thought that he had been hit by a car, sort of died, and woke up to find himself in a real-world version of a famous anime still baffles him sometimes. Still, that had been almost a full year ago by now and nothing nearly so world changing—for lack of a better phrase—had happened since.

Thankfully.

These days he mostly spent his time working in the forge, stocking up the shelves in the shop, or just sitting behind the register. Routine would be shaken up by the occasional visit from a friend, and of course customers—mostly ninja—would pop in throughout the day to chat and shop. And usually they would buy something, even if just a single kunai.

Axel didn't think a single kunai would have been worth a trip out to his shop, given his shop was basically the only thing in the abandoned district worth visiting, but whatever. Ninja were weird.

So, in short, nothing terribly exciting on a day-to-day basis.

This week wouldn't even have his friends dropping by for dinner, unfortunately, as Minato had gone off on an out-of-village mission six days ago and wasn't due back for at least another six. And given that Akaiko hadn't dropped by at all either, he guessed that she probably had some kind of super-secret mission as well.

Axel tried not to think too closely about what might happen during those missions.

Just like he tried not to wonder just where the kunai and other such tools he sold would ultimately end up. He just hoped that… that his customers were good at what they did. That they were efficient. And he tried not to let his hand in the matter bother him too much.

"Andere Länder, andere Sitten," he muttered to himself, making his way to his bedroom after locking up the front door of his shop. After all, when in a ninja village, the best choice is to steer clear and just let the ninja do their thing. And lock the doors, even if it probably wouldn't help much.

At least he wouldn't have to worry about anybody dropping in at his windowsill for the upcoming week, since the two people most prone to doing that were out of town.

Which meant that he had a chance to do something that he hadn't in almost a full year, and he was only slightly nervous about it; he closed his bedroom door behind him, checked the window for unexpected visitors, and then opened his laptop to the music app.

He hit shuffle, letting the computer decide what to play and then humming along in an only-slightly-off-key harmony.

But he wasn't just here for the music.

It was time to open that folder.

Although… since he was using the computer already, perhaps he should take a moment to see if he could find that German-Japanese dictionary first. Just real quick, while he's thinking of it. A few searches later, and he had determined that he probably didn't have that application downloaded anymore. Though he had found a couple of the assignments he had typed up for a language course at some point, which could maybe be helpful.

Skimming through old files made his heart ache, even just documents from old school work. It wasn't painful anymore, not really—it had been nearly a year now, he'd had time to come to terms with it—but sometimes that weight would still settle heavy in his chest. At least his friends and family were probably okay, wherever they were a world away.

A pop-up window appeared with a small disgruntled-sounding boop, alerting him to the fact that his email application couldn't reach any servers.

Go figure.

Dismissing the alert with a click, he switched the screen over to his perpetually-open-but-now-largely-useless mailbox. He had started using it as a journal of sorts just a few weeks ago; writing emails to his sister, his mom and dad, friends—anyone, really—even though he would never be able to send them.

He wondered, and not for the first time, if they thought he was really dead or if he had just vanished right off the street. Either way, he wished he could tell them that he was alright. After all, he wasn't exactly dead so much as he had been caught up in some kind of dimensional fluster cluck and fallen into an alternate reality… or something.

Actually, when put that way, he wasn't sure if they would take that as an improvement.

The song changed again, and he returned to browsing his computer.

Slowly, finally, making his way to one file in particular.

It was time. Today would be the day that he finally opened the folder on Minato. With the man in question out of town, Axel should have a bit of time to process anything he might find out about his friend before he came back.

He had his notebook open beside him, so that he could copy down anything that might be important onto something not dependent on functioning electronics from an entirely different dimension.

He was ready.

He should be ready.

…He was not ready.

That's why he was listening to music and wandering through his other old files to distract himself from actually opening that folder and reading whatever was inside. Not that he expected there to be anything really bad in there per se—he doubted his sister would have put so much effort into a costume if there was, after all—but more that he didn't know what he wanted to be in there.

The music changed to some upbeat techno song, one he recognized as being from a CD his sister had given him years ago, and he found himself laughing at himself.

"Komm schon, Mann." He shook his head, bemused by his own half-baked reservations. "What's the worst that could happen?"

His cursor found the file in question, and he clicked it open.

And the first thing that caught his eye was an image titled 'FourthHokage_vs_NineTails'. From the image preview, the picture had an awful lot of red and orange framing snarling teeth, with a single bright spot of white near the bottom left.

With a growing sense of unease, he opened the file.

It depicted a small figure standing against a wall of red flames that shaped the face of a positively gigantic demonic fox. Each fang was as tall as the human figure it was looming over, and its red eyes were marked with some kind of unnatural designs in black. The spot of white he had seen in the preview turned out to be a billowing cloak, bold red text written down the back and with a bottom hem of stylistic flames.

He actually recognized it, since his sister had worn just such a cloak when… she cosplayed Minato…

This picture was in Minato's folder.

And the figure had familiar, bright yellow hair.

Axel glanced back to the file name, and then again to the name of the folder the image was tucked inside of in the first place.

Minato. The fourth Hokage. The Nine-Tails.

He did not like where this was going.

One after another, he opened the rest of the pictures in the folder. Then Axel went back to that first image and leaned back in his chair, as if those added centimeters could ease some of the shock from what he had just learned. Unfortunately, it didn't help very much. All it did was give him a slightly different angle of pictures that were still definitely anime-style depictions of his best friend—though perhaps it should be the other way around, since to him, in a way, this all was the live-action version of an anime.

Anyway.

So.

Minato was… or would become, at some point, the fourth Hokage.

Alright.

Okay, sure.

That's perfectly fine.

Apparently his best friend would one day become the head honcho of the entire ninja village. And also would die because of a giant chakra fox-demon thing.

That's great.

Axel took a deep breath, holding it in his lungs for a long moment. His hands were pressed tightly together palm-to-palm in front of his face, though he could still see the images displayed on-screen. Slowly, he exhaled. Told himself to relax.

Well, so much for trying to avoid involvement with the super-powered people in his new reality. Though, to be fair, that plan had never really showed any sign of actually working. And he had known that already; he was perfectly aware that his best friends now were basically all ninja.

Honestly, Minato's sheer ninja-ness wasn't the issue here. Axel was more bothered by the fact that his friend was apparently slated for death at the hands of a giant monster.

Not to mention the fact that the giant monster responsible for the death of the fourth Hokage had also attacked the entire village. The village where Axel now lived, and that was home to most of the people he cared about. Well, the ones that weren't on the other side of a dimensional divide, anyway.

At least the Morimoto family would probably be safe, since they lived a day's walk away. Though even then, he couldn't be sure: it was a very big giant monster, after all.

All of a sudden, the orange and red pixels making up the nine-tailed fox in the pictures on the screen looked quite menacing indeed. Though he had, on some level, known that the demon fox would attack Konoha eventually—he had realized that as soon as he had laid eyes on the village—but knowing who would stand against such a monster, and seeing even an artistic rendition of the event… it added a whole new sense of reality to that knowledge.

Because that creature actually exists in this world.

He had no idea what to do about that.

Or even if he could do anything about that. Which, to be honest, he probably couldn't—the fox was literally the size of a skyscraper, after all.

He held his head in his hands, and wondered what he should tell Minato. And how, and when, and if he should tell anybody else. Mostly the how and what, though; it's not like he had any way to prove it, short of trying to explain everything. And who knows how that would pan out.

Axel looked at the pictures through his fingers, meeting the digital black-red gaze of the demon fox.

"Scheiße."

So much for his unremarkable, peaceful life.

Author's Note:

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Sometimes, ignorance is bliss. How do you think Axel's gonna approach this issue?

Apologies that this chapter is as short as it is, it felt really weird to try and make it any longer and, seeing as this past week was finals week… well, let's just say that I was short on time and energy and leave it at that.
On that note, congratulations to any graduates this semester! Best of luck with whatever your next plans are!

Translations:
"Andere Länder, andere Sitten." = "Different countries, different customs."
"Komm schon, Mann." = "Come on, man."
"Scheiße." = "Shit."

Updates on the 15th of every month, though clearly pretty late in the day, given how these past few chapters have gone.
Thanks for all the reviews, favorites, and follows!

See ya on the flipside, everyone!