Chapter 46: Reunions

When Axel woke up again, having apparently been tired enough to drift back off, he was still on his own bed in his own room. There was real, actual sunlight filtering through the window, bright and clear, as if the day itself was welcoming him back home.

It felt a little unreal.

He wondered how long he'd been away: a few days, certainly, but the specific timing had been lost in the unchanging gray room.

Everything felt heavy but weirdly fragile, like his arms were made of thick glass and he'd never find the energy to lift them up. Or, if he did find the strength, that they would shatter in the attempt. It was a… disconnect.

Axel flexed his hands and feet, and was relieved to find everything in order.

(It had become something of a habit, waking up and checking: ten fingers, ten toes.)

But he did notice an odd weight down by his feet. He propped himself up on his elbows, somewhat blearily looking down to the end of his bed, and found there the splayed-out flop of an exhausted dachshund.

"Aww…"

He'd tried to be quiet, quite willing to let his sleeping dog lie, but apparently that was still enough to rouse him. One dark ear twitched, his nose sniffed, and then Dach blinked his eyes open. His tail wagged, still tired.

"Goo' morning," he slurred out.

"Ja, guten Mor—"

His brain blue-screened partway through the word: a full stop and restart as he processed what he'd just heard, that he was giving a reply, and to whom he was replying. Then he was sputtering through half-started questions in German, at least until he could get Japanese to click back into place.

"You can talk?!"

"Uh…" The dachshund looked a lot more awake now, and he awkwardly glanced to the side. "Bark?"

That was quite possibly the least convincing faux-bark he had ever heard before, and it nearly had him break into a fit of shocked laughter. He didn't, but only because he noticed the flighty way Dach was eyeing the distance to the edge of the bed.

"Oh no you don't, you little… little roof-Wiesel." Axel scrambled to sit up, scooping the dog so they were nose-to-nose. "Speak."

"…Good morning," he repeated, clearly.

Okay, Axel hadn't expected that to actually work. Well, to be frank, he had no idea what he'd been expecting—nothing, probably. He had been kind of half-asleep still, so maybe it had all just been his imagination. Or the knock-out drug could have just made him hallucinate it, or something along those lines.

Apparently that wasn't the case.

"Heilige Scheiße," he breathed, that peculiar feeling of unreality returning in full force for an entirely different reason. "My dog can talk. How can— Have you been able to talk this whole time?"

"Yeah." Tail limp, Dach squirmed in place. It seemed kind of like he wanted to say more, maybe explain himself, but he just didn't have the right words.

(His dog had words. What was even—)

Axel thunked his head back against his headboard before his brain could spiral, tucking the dog more comfortably into his arms and scritching at his ears. "That is… a lot. I cannot believe my dog can talk."

There was a small twitch, perhaps the start of a hesitant wag. "Sorry."

"It's fine, you are fine." He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and re-centered. "I am just… very surprise. Surprised."

His brain was still rebooting, and he felt like he was tripping over every other word.

"Aren't you… mad at me?" Dach asked, with what might be the canine equivalent of a skeptically raised brow.

"Should I be?"

Now the expression was leaning toward incredulous, which… well, Axel decided he really should have seen the talking-pet twist coming. No other dogs he had ever met were nearly as emotive in such a recognizable manner—not counting some of the other strays in the area, he supposed… and actually, maybe those dogs could talk, too.

Whatever. The point is, while head tilts and tail wags are fair game, a dog giving a raised brow or an eye roll is a bit further out there in terms of typical canine body language.

To be fair, Axel had noticed that odd expressiveness earlier. But at the time he'd just attributed it to the ninja-anime 'art style'—with strong air quotes—dictating that, in this world, dogs just are a few steps left of his expected normal. People in this world could look like land-sharks or grow infinite bones or whatever, so dogs having more facial quirks didn't seem too far out there.

And actually, he did want an answer on that earlier thought—

"Can all dogs in this… er, can all dogs talk here?" he asked. "Or just some?"

Dach gave him another look. "If you mean Konoha, you have better than even odds most animals can understand humans. As for speaking, that's more of a ninken thing."

"What about your pack, in the area?"

"Some of us, yes," he admitted, somewhat reluctantly.

With another deep breath—inhale, long exhale—Axel looked back down at his dog. "It's just, where I'm from, talking animals are…" He abruptly drifted off, struck by a vaguely embarrassing realization.

When left alone, he tended to default back to his native language. Because of course he would—rambling to himself in German was just more comfortable, and was often just plain soothing for him.

And if his dachshund was often witness to his foreign rambles, well, a dog wouldn't be bothered by words it couldn't understand.

Except, apparently, this particular dog could understand. Japanese, anyway.

"Sorry for… talking at you so much," Axel said.

Blinking up at him, Dach hazarded, "…Okay?"

"It was probably weird to have to listen to me like that," he continued, a bit caught up in his own head, "and kind of rude. Even if I didn't know—"

The dog abruptly stood, sticking his nose right up in his human's face. "Now listen here, Odd-ball." An affectionate nickname, even if Dach was using his most boss-of-the-pack tone. "It's not a big deal. You weren't really talking to me, you were talking to yourself with extra steps."

Axel had to nod, conceding that point.

"…You smell like not-smell, by the way," Dach noted with another sniff. "It's kind of unsettling."

"What do you mean, 'not-smell'?"

The dachshund blinked at him for a second, then ducked his head into the bed—it was probably the closest thing to a face palm a dog could manage. "Right, we wouldn't have told you. And you've only just gotten back." He huffed, then looked back up. "It's a trick they did, so we couldn't track you. It clears out all the smells."

"Oh."

Dach gave a few more sniffs, and added, "What happened to you? I know some of it, but… Are you doing alright?"

"In comparison, yes," he offered, taking a deep breath and gently moving the dog from his lap. "You remind me, though: I can't wait to get clean. I'm going to shower now. Could you…?"

"I'll keep an eye out," Dach nodded, jumping from the bed and taking up a station where he could keep an eye on the doors.

Grabbing a change of clean clothes from his closet, Axel retreated to the bathroom. He closed the door—despite the slight twinge at shutting himself in—and briefly marveled at the fact that he could lock it if he wanted to.

He didn't, but he could.

Once in the shower, Axel just closed his eyes: savoring the feeling of warm water and cleanliness for what felt like the first time in months. It had probably only been a week, if even that, but time was a nebulous thing in the gray room. In the lonely silences between those tense and often vaguely threatening visits, it had felt much longer.

Scratching his fingers through his too-short hair, he…

His hand was… he was trembling, all over.

The tension finally snapped and his knees gave out on him, folding him down to the floor against the wall. Water pulled blond strands into his face, but they weren't quite long enough anymore to get into his eyes.

He was still shaking.

Why was he—?

Inhale, exhale.

Inhale, exhale, breathe.

With the mantra he's repeated to himself countless times in the past few days, Axel gathered himself back together.

What was he even doing?

Why— He was out.

There had been reasons to panic while he'd been in that cell, even if it was a waste of energy and wouldn't help at all. But now—in his own home, in his own shower—there's definitely no point in panicking.

"Aber hier bin ich," he managed to mutter to himself, voice oddly hoarse and almost too quiet to hear over the water.

Axel focused on the warmth, on the measured in-out pattern as he breathed and the blanketing sound of the shower. And slowly, eventually, his limbs started feeling like his own again.

At least the guilt he felt for letting the water run for so long was an improvement on the dumb panic that stole his legs out from under him. It also got him back up to his feet, quickly soaping and rinsing off so he could turn off the shower.

Partway through getting dressed, Axel paused to pick up his dirty shirt. The texture was a bit different from the newer shirts he'd gotten. He didn't like seeing it so filthy, and he was very glad it hadn't gotten torn up too badly. It was one of the few clothes he'd had with him when this whole ride started, after all, and he really did mean the whole ride—it had come with him from Germany. Even if it was just a plain t-shirt, it was his.

He set it aside, to be thoroughly cleaned later.

After changing into fresh clothes, he was feeling a lot more… real. He was well and truly back in his own house.

And he had no idea what to do about that.

What was he supposed to do now?

Could he really just… go back to his routine, as if nothing had happened?

It was a tempting option, though he didn't consider it for very long. He knew that his freedom wasn't guaranteed. Beyond that, he knew about the terrible experimentation going on down there—though he hoped Tsunade's influence would help.

It felt wrong to consider moving on.

Axel wanted to do something about it.

(But what could he do?)

He felt rather useless, but as that wasn't an unfamiliar feeling—especially after this past week—so he just made himself push past it. At least here he could actually go somewhere beyond a single room.

Taking a deep breath, Axel stepped back into his bedroom.

The door was still open.

Dach had been waiting attentively in a position that afforded him a good view of all the doors and windows. "You smell better," he remarked. "Feel better?"

He gave a noncommittal hum that he hoped was taken more as affirmation. In some ways, of course he felt better; he'd just cleaned off days of discomfort and got to put on fresh clothes. But in other ways, he was still feeling cold. Gray.

Brains work in weird ways, he reminded himself. There's no point trying to speedrun his reorientation to normal life. It hadn't even been a day yet—if he'd been returned last night, it had barely been a few hours!

One step at a time.

Part of him still thought the empty feeling was ridiculous. He knew, on a surface level, that what he'd been through definitely counted as a traumatic experience. He'd been held against his will by a freakin' mad-scientist ninja: if that wasn't an abnormal and stressful situation, he wasn't sure what would count.

But at the same time…

Gott im Himmel, he'd had it easy.

He had been sealed in, sure. It had been tense and anxiety inducing, absolutely. But he hadn't been hurt. Cut hair and drawn blood was nothing compared to the fact that he still had all of his extremities—ten fingers, ten toes, all intact. And still alive, too! All things considered, he'd got off lightly.

So why, now that he was out, did his mind keep turning gray?

A sudden thud from the window startled both of them, Dach spinning around with his hackles raised and Axel with his heart nearly jumping clear out his throat. But a moment later, after the dog gave a sniff and an amused snort, he relaxed again.

The pane jostled for a bit and then slid up, letting Minato lean into the room with an abashed smile. Embarrassment that was quickly swept away by relief, and he sagged onto the window frame. "I'm so glad you're back safe, Axel!" Rubbing at a spot of pink on his forehead, he added, "…Ah, sorry for the new smudge on the glass. I got a bit ahead of myself."

Axel tried his best to unwind his tension, with some success. "You got here quick."

"Soon as I woke up!" his friend chirped, dropping from the sill.

"Lies." Dach had a tired smile on his muzzle and his tail was lightly patting against the floor. "You've been too antsy to sleep."

"A fair point," allowed Minato, "but you underestimate my girlfriend's willingness to knock me unconscious if she feels I've been going for too long."

An objectively funny mental image at any other time, even if the thought right now was like too-heavy air clogging in the back of his throat.

"To answer the implied question, however," the ninja continued, "As soon as I was told you would be released in a few days, I made sure to set up a few trigger seals so that I'd know when you were back. Tricky to work out how to do that, actually, since you don't exactly have chakra to detect. I went with…" Minato paused, noticing he was getting sidetracked, and just shrugged. "It doesn't really matter, I'll explain some other time."

Axel was actually a bit disappointed. It was nice—familiar and grounding, in a way—to just listen to his friend ramble on about sealing. He might not really understand the theory behind it at all, but he'd been a sounding board often enough that it was a comfortable routine between them.

Normal.

Minato took a small step forward. "Would you be alright if I…" He let the sentence drift away, holding his arms open a little in question.

He smiled, still emotionally exhausted but happy, and mirrored the gesture.

That was all the permission Minato needed, as he swept him into a tight hug. "I'm just so relieved to have you back, Axel."

"I'm alright. I am." He returned the embrace wholeheartedly. "Orochimaru didn't actually… I mean, the threat was there, and I don't doubt that he would have, given… everything else he was up to, but—"

Minato had tensed suddenly, at some point in that ramble, and slowly pulled back to look his friend in the eye: blue-to-blue, hands still with a steady grip at his shoulders.

"…What's wrong?"

"Axel, this is going to be a weird question." His hands gave a light tap. "But could you, uh, let me see your back for a second?"

"You were right, that is a weird question."

"Please."

As much as he didn't really want to take his shirt off, there was a tightly-held worry in the ninja's tone that wasn't to be ignored. Axel really hoped that, whatever this was, it was just a false alarm. And the best option to settle that would be to let him check for anything strange. Even if it might be a little uncomfortable.

Still reluctant, he pulled his shirt over his head. Minato—and Dach—circled around him, and… said nothing. It was a very pointed nothing, disturbingly enough.

"What is it?" Axel uselessly tried to crane his neck to see his own back.

"Nothing good," Dach growled.

He felt a light touch on his shoulder and twitched away before he could process that it was just Minato. And actually, now that he was focusing there, it sort of felt warm across the back of his neck: like a sunburn.

"Sorry, I just want to check something. Can I…?" With permission this time, Minato set his hand on Axel's shoulder again. He was very focused on whatever was back there, and didn't say anything for a while.

"Dach, seriously—" and it was still weird to be speaking to a dog and genuinely expecting a verbal answer, "—what is it?"

"…I can't see much from this angle. Looks like a seal."

Okay.

Okay, so like those luggage seals and the electricity seal and exploding seals and the other stuff he'd listened to Minato talk about. On second thought, hopefully not like the exploding ones.

That wasn't really expected, but only because he hadn't paused to consider the many ways a non-disclosure agreement might be enforced in a secrecy-focused world like this one. Although, now that he was thinking about it, he hadn't actually been told to keep quiet. Which seems… odd.

Was Orochimaru hoping he'd accidentally kill himself on this seal?

But why? He hadn't even—

"That would have killed you," Minato said at last, with a long exhale. "Painless, I think, and fast. If you weren't built they way you are… But it works through the chakra system, so when it triggered just now, it didn't have any effect. Thankfully."

"Oh." Reaching up, Axel touched the warm line across his own shoulders. "…I think I'm going to sit down now."

And he did, folding down right where he'd been standing.

Author's Note:

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Axel is very glad to be back. And not dead.
(So far.)

Upcoming chapter schemes at present—Under the Veil in July, and here again in August.
Thank you so much for every favorite, follow, and review!

Translations:
"Ja, guten Mor—" = "Yes, good morn—"
"roof-Wiesel" = roof was said in Japanese and "weasel" in German, sounded like "yane-Wiesel"
"Heilige Scheiße" = "Holy shit"
"Aber hier bin ich" = "But here I am"
"Gott im Himmel" = "God in heaven"

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