Chapter 28: Halfway Realized

Axel would probably be pretty pissed if he saw what he was doing at the moment. Even Minato himself was feeling a little guilty about it… but he wouldn't need to sneak around his friend's house if the man would just open up about what was bothering him so much!

And yes, he was perfectly aware that, as a shinobi, complaining that someone was being overly secretive was kind of hypocritical.

Using a few tricks to unlatch the window he was perched beside, Minato pushed away his doubt. "Oh well. Better to ask forgiveness than permission."

Though when he'd first heard that saying—from Axel, ironically—it had been a bit hard to parse out the meaning from his word choice. That had been just a few weeks after they first met, back when he still stumbled over some of the most basic phrases, and it had gone more along the lines of 'more good to say sorry than please'.

Minato quickly scanned the area again, noting that one of the two canine chakra signatures he'd already been aware of had moved. One was still milling about the backyard, and wouldn't be a problem. The household dachshund, however, had come upstairs and was now just down the hall.

Pausing, he considered that possible complication. And quickly decided that it wasn't really a complication at all, given that the dog would probably side with him on this break-in instance.

Ducking his head through the window he'd just opened, Minato took a moment to tune his ears to the quiet house before actually stepping down inside. An extra precaution that usually wasn't necessary, but given Axel's uniquely undetectable chakra, he couldn't trust his skill as a sensor to tell him if his friend had somehow come back without him noticing.

So he settled, and listened closely.

No sign of Axel.

Which, having watched his friend leave nearly ten minutes ago, was to be expected. Axel had left with an empty shopping bag tucked under one arm, a sort of burnt bread smell hanging on his clothes (odd), and he'd heard him muttering under his breath about 'pretzels'. Whatever that was about.

Minato latched the window behind him—making sure there was no trace that he'd come in—and he scanned over the room quickly as he passed through.

The second floor had five rooms, only two of which saw any kind of regular use: the master bedroom and the bathroom at the top of the stairs. The other three rooms, including the one he was in now, clearly hadn't been touched in years.

Since any furniture Morimoto had left in the house wouldn't exactly be the best place to look for clues on his friend, Minato only gave each of the unused rooms a cursory check.

"He should really do something with all this space," he murmured quietly, after the door to the third and final empty room closed behind him with a soft click. "Maybe rent one out or something."

That last bedroom still had a bed frame and everything. There could have even been a mattress hidden under the protective dusty cover. By shinobi standards, that's basically fully furnished.

"Akaiko would probably take him up on it," came a gruff voice from behind. And from about foot-height.

Minato chuckled, turning to give the short dog an amused grin. "I guess she might; the rent'd probably be cheaper," he replied. "Sorry to bother you, Dach. I'm surprised you're not out with Axel."

"Don't pretend you didn't know I was here the whole time," the dachshund huffed, glancing between the intruder—who was also a friend—and the closed doors. "What's this visit about, anyway? Like you said, my human's not here."

He hesitated, scratching the back of his head as he considered what to say.

Minato knew what he was here for, of course: he needed proof. A pretty ridiculous theory had been bouncing around in his mind for a while, built by all of the little oddities he'd noticed over the months. It hadn't been much more than an idle thought before, just a curious what-if that he'd toy with occasionally.

Lately, though, he'd started to really wonder if he might be right.

But he wasn't going to tell anyone else until he knew.

Least of all Axel himself.

(But maybe if Axel knew that he knew, his friend would be able to take comfort in that.)

"I'm… worried about him," Minato said after a moment. "I hadn't really noticed until last week, when I got out the map, but lately he's been…"

"Tired."

He carded a hand through his blond hair, nodding. "I was going to say 'down', or maybe 'gloomy'. Either way, I want to figure out if I can do something about it." Another quick pause, and then, sounding hopeful: "Want to help?"

"I do, but…" Dach lifted one of his forepaws in a small shrug. "I don't know much about what's bothering him. When he's by himself, he doesn't make much sense."

"Because of that genjutsu he was hit with," he said, pointedly.

The dachshund gave him as skeptical a look as a dog can give. "You think?"

He frowned slightly and crossed his arms, defensive of the point. "Genjutsu can have unexpected longterm effects, especially with civilians."

"True," Dach replied, though he was still giving him that same unimpressed look.

Minato could tell that the dog wasn't budging on this. After a moment of rapid internal debate, he crouched down and came clean about the lie he'd been running with for months. "Fine. No, I don't really think it's from a jutsu."

He had considered the possibility, of course. It would have been remiss not to, especially since Morimoto and that doctor from Chotto had both concluded that blaming a genjutsu made the most sense. And it did sort of make sense, if only because there was no other reason readily available.

But the more time he spent with Axel, hearing him speak and asking him about his odd 'alphabet', the more that explanation just seemed to fall short.

"Me neither."

"So I gathered," Minato remarked dryly, but with a small smile. "What tipped you off?"

Dach blinked, then gave him a canine smirk. "You."

"What?"

"You and Akaiko, technically." He gave another paw-shrug. "Neither of you were trying to fix it."

"Oh."

He hadn't considered that but, now that he did, it was kind of a big giveaway. Perhaps he should make a show of renting some of the books on genjutsu side effects from the library.

With that break in the conversation, Dach trotted over to the other end of the hall and began making his way downstairs. By way of a goodbye, he apologized: "Well, sorry I can't help more."

"That's alright," Minato replied, standing back upright.

He glanced to the door that led to Axel's room—the room most likely to have anything that could help him figure things out—then back to the staircase the dog had disappeared down. And made a quick choice. After all, he had enough time to bother Dach and still get back to the room later.

Hopefully.

"Wait up!" He quickly vaulted the railing along the open stairway, landed on the opposite bannister, and then dropped the rest of the way down to the first floor.

Only just hopping off the bottom step, the short dog gave a jealous-sounding sniff. "Show off."

"You're a ninken, Dach," Minato reminded him. "I've seen you jump onto the roof. You got stuck in the gutter, for goodness sake."

"We do not speak of that."

"Noted."

Dach turned, heading toward the kitchen, and Minato followed after him.

The ground floor had the shop, the kitchen, and a room with enough seating that it could be considered a living room. That is to say that the room was where two of the kitchen chairs were kept when not in use, and there was a cardboard box set up by them that served well enough as an end table.

He made a mental note to take Axel shopping and buy him some actual furniture. It was long overdue.

"Either his notebook, or the weird rectangle on his desk in his room."

Minato blinked, returning his attention to the dachshund in surprise. He resisted the urge to ask which weird rectangle he was talking about, since he knew of at least two. "What about them?"

Dach didn't say anything for a moment, focused on nosing open the kitchen pantry. It apparently didn't latch properly, so it wasn't too difficult.

"I think they'd be a good place to start," Dach clarified. Then glanced to the side, looking a bit annoyed with himself. "Though I'm not sure where the book went."

"Thanks for the tip."

Even if the remark about the notebook being missing was just a tad concerning.

Having gotten the pantry open, the dachshund seemed to be considering his next step. He was eyeing a wooden bin labeled with three of the letters Axel uses when writing: a sort of sideways smile (D), a zero (O), and a curved arrow (G). Minato guessed, based on the smell and Dach's apparent interest, that the bin was probably full of dog food.

"No problem," the dog replied. "But, in return, do you think you could…?" The sentence drifted off, but he set a paw on the side of the food bin and gave a metal bowl beside it a meaningful look.

"Sure." Minato flipped back the lid of the container and pulled out the dish. "I assume this is for some friends?"

"My pack keeps an eye on Axel while he's out. They don't think I've noticed." Dach watched him scoop chows into the metal bowl, waving a paw for him to stop when he judged it nearly too full to carry. "The least I could do is bring along extra food when I can."

Ever since Axel had taken to leaving out treats for the strays in the district, the strays had, in turn, seemingly decided that he was a part of their pack. Or packs, rather, since Minato was fairly sure that multiple separate groups had claimed him. Though the man himself probably didn't know it.

Very carefully—and skillfully—Dach bit the edge of the filled bowl and picked it up.

"I'll help with the doors," Minato offered, seeing as he had opposable thumbs.

While Axel had thoughtfully cut out flaps in the doors for the dog to come and go as he pleased, using them wouldn't be nearly as easy with a mouth full of dishware. Minato held open the door to the forge for the short dog, followed him in, and… immediately noticed that there was a fluffy canine head poking through the dog flap on the exit at the other side of the room.

Well then.

That must be Miho; he recognized her from the local pack Dach used to—and sort of still did—run. The other canine chakra he'd noticed before must have been hers, though she certainly wasn't just wandering the backyard anymore.

"Hi, Boss," she said, and from her tone her tail was probably wagging on the other side of the door. "I was wondering when you'd show. You need any help with that?"

The flat stare from the dachshund was all the answer she needed.

"Yeah, that's what I thought you'd say." Miho had the presence of mind to back out of the way as Minato pulled the door open.

As soon as he successfully navigated the small step to the ground outside, Dach struck out across the backyard. He only paused when he realized Miho hadn't followed quite yet, at which point he stopped and looked back impatiently.

The fluffy dog glanced up at Minato with a small shrug, then trotted after the dachshund with a distinctly cheery spring in her step. He watched the two dogs until they turned the corner and vanished behind another building.

Returning to the matter at hand—he was on something of a time limit, after all—Minato walked back through the forge and into the house. Crossed the kitchen, spent a cursory few minutes looking around the shop space just in case, and then he headed back up the stairs.

And hesitated, just outside the bedroom door.

Again.

He wasn't exactly sure why, really. It's not as though he hadn't seen the room before, and he already knew that there were very few items in there that had the potential to be revelatory. The store-bought comforter certainly wouldn't be hiding anything of his friend's background.

It really was a ridiculous theory.

But he couldn't let it go.

The number sequence that drew out a spiral and other little mathematical or scientific curiosities he'd mentioned, as well as more homely things, like the odd recipes that tasted good but still like nothing else he'd had before… heck, he might as well count the entire set of words Axel spoke and wrote with, too! There were a thousand little curiosities that set his friend apart.

Minato had wondered about that, when piecing together his ridiculous theory. He'd wondered just how far apart that might actually be, in a more literal sense.

After all, he hadn't been able to find München on any of his maps.

And, naturally, whatever lands might lie outside the Elemental Nations wouldn't be on his maps either.

The idea was, as he'd said, completely ridiculous.

Ridiculous, yet he thought that it felt right.

To a point, anyway. He was working with conjectures based on loose possibilities, after all, so he made sure to keep a healthy dose of skepticism involved.

Pushing aside doubt and guilt—bit late for either—Minato opened the door.

The first thing he noticed about Axel's room was the first thing he always noticed: the very plain, undecorated walls.

"You've been living here for nearly a year, Axel," Minato chided, though of course his friend wasn't around to hear it this time. "Yet you still have almost nothing to put up on your walls."

Really, the only decorations in the entire house were things that had been given to him: the vase and flowers from Akaiko, mainly, but there were other small trinkets here and there from customers.

Additional mental note: when he takes Axel out to buy furniture, he should make sure they get some ornamental items too. At least a nice rug or something.

He walked over to the desk and its 'weird rectangle', as Dach had put it. Though technically there were two in that general area.

The first rectangular thing was sitting in a patch of sunlight on the windowsill nearby, which was apparently just where Axel kept it all the time. A little odd, considering the traffic that window saw on a weekly basis. It wasn't as though his friend didn't care about the odd item; the one time Minato had nearly tripped over it, half-kicking it out of place and catching it an instant later, Axel had looked a little like he was going to have a heart attack.

Minato had sometimes seen the first rectangular thing connected to the second rectangular thing by a black wire, but that wasn't the case at the moment.

Sitting down at the desk, he unfolded the second rectangle.

(He'd seen Axel with it open before, but never from this side.)

The upper and lower halves were very different, with sleek black glass on the top section and several rows of buttons on the bottom. He recognized the numbers and the letters were clearly from the alphabet Axel uses, but some of the keys had text or icons he didn't recognize.

But overall, Minato was fairly sure that he knew what this was.

Even if it was crazy.

Because, looking at it now, he'd swear this curious rectangle was a computer.

"How did I miss that?" he muttered, unbelievably shocked (and more that a little embarrassed).

Looking back on it, he wasn't sure what he thought the rectangle had been. Maybe a fancy picture frame or photo album or something along those lines. In his defense, having only really seen it closed or from behind, it would have been hard to make the connection. The only other computers he'd seen were bulky, cumbersome things—a far cry from the thin rectangle that had always been innocently sitting on his friend's desk.

In plain sight.

Because Axel could be a little dense sometimes.

Minato shook his head, fond, and some of the tension left his shoulders. That thought eased the small paranoia that had bit into the back of his mind, wondering why—and how—Axel would even have something like this.

But the answer was quite obvious, really.

His ridiculous theory was correct.

It was kind of hilarious that Axel had been under watch for months and they hadn't even noticed, just thinking he was a bit of a weirdo with odd tendencies and who had trouble speaking sometimes. As it turns out, always looking underneath the underneath means sometimes people lose sight of the surface truths.

"Now I really need to talk with him," Minato decided with a sigh. He watched his dark reflection in the glassy surface for a moment. "Though as for what I'll say… that might require a bit of thought."

The chime of the bell at the front door was his first warning that Axel had finally returned home.

Immediately shifting mental gears, Minato shut the computer—he was still kind of reeling about that. With all the speed he was so known for, he silently darted around the room to make sure that everything was exactly as he had found it.

(He knew that he hadn't actually touched anything else, but it didn't hurt to check.)

Everything was in order.

He could hear his friend doing something in the kitchen.

Part of him wanted to rush down there that instant—he had so many questions—but most of him wanted a bit more time to think things over. Maybe an hour or so, at least, to let these new realizations settle a bit in his mind.

Then they could have their talk; he'd come clean about snooping around, Axel would come clean about wherever he's from, and hopefully his friend would be able to finally share some of whatever was bothering him so much.

So, with one last look around the room, he nodded to himself.

Minato vanished between instants.

Author's Note:

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Someone's creeping in the window, Axel…

Sorry for vanishing for so long.
Just a week or so ago, I realized an unfortunate truth: I wasn't going to get back on schedule by continuing to post late and hope better for the next month. As such, I decided to skip an update entirely, rather than posting late again.
(Which half worked, since I fell asleep and ended up late anyway. Alas.)

This means that, after finishing the chapter, I began on the next. Chapter 29 is already written (though it needs some editing), and ready to post next month. We're back on schedule from this point on!

The next chapter will be posted on the 15th of next month, guaranteed!
Thank you for your continued support.

Quick additional note, I'm probably going to go through some of the other chapters and do some clean up. Just letting you all know.

See ya on the flipside, everyone!