The Undesired Second Chance

Chapter 32: It's Always a Day Away

"Not that far," Minato breathed, minutes later, wondering how high he could suspend his disbelief.

Pretty darn high, as it turns out—to the point that his disbelief had soared so high so fast that it might as well have not existed at all. It was such a crazy story that it seemed completely impossible, but he found that he couldn't doubt Axel for more than a few seconds once he got into his nigh unbelievable story.

"I don't know why I told you this," Axel muttered, reaching for the bandages. "You probably think I'm crazy now."

Well. He may have originally planned on letting Axel sort out his own injury—to give him some personal space there, at least, since the cut really wasn't too bad—but now... If he wanted to shore up his belief with proof, this was a perfect chance.

"It's plain that something's crazy." Snatching back the wrappings before his friend could, Minato reached out with one hand and pointedly activated a simple medical technique. "But I don't think it's you."

Not entirely, anyway. This seemed to be one of those instances of 'too crazy not to be true', and honestly it answered a lot of questions.

For instance, it shed new light on one particularly persistent speech stumbling-block his friend had tripped over time and again: past or present tense. Specifically when talking about his family, old friends, and where he was from in general. Minato had assumed it was simply a reluctance to admit what he had lost—to say out loud that so much he had cared for was gone—but now he knew that wasn't the full truth.

At least not in the typical sense, anyway. Lost and gone, yes... but not destroyed.

And that made a difference.

After all, it's sometimes hard to decide what tense to use when talking about people from the past after growing apart. And when talking about his life before Konoha, Axel hesitated every time: it wasn't always obvious, but it was there in a hitch of his breath or a too-long blink.

Because everyone he had once known were, and maybe still are. So in that way, at least, his impossible (improbable?) story made a startling amount of sense.

Still, for every question the alternate dimension explanation answered, it raised about a million more. Though to be fair not all were about Axel specifically—many were geared more towards Minato's fundamental understanding of how the world works and other such things. As such, a problem to deal with later.

Stay focused.

Axel was eyeing that tell-tale green chakra glow with trepidation.

"I have several questions," Minato stated, trying to keep his expression calm and the technique steady. This was a bit tricky, given his mind was caught in a swirling mix of shock and curiosity, but he managed.

Even nervous and emotionally worn out, Axel couldn't help a rueful smile. "Just several?"

"In the interest of time, I'm only considering the high priority questions," he replied, with a small shrug. "If you count all of them—including the basic ones, like what it's like where you're from—the numbers get pretty extreme pretty quickly."

Axel looked down to his cut, then back up to the chakra-shrouded hand and the unspoken offer it represented. "Is this to get an answer?"

"More like a confirmation," Minato allowed. "I believe you, but it never hurts to double check, right?"

"...Right."

Axel let him take his hand.

Minato turned his attention to chakra and hurt, trying to feel along his own energy to find and repair the cut that he knew was just under his fingers. He was familiar with medical ninjutsu, though it wasn't his focus—such a simple injury should be easy to heal. But the technique just wouldn't take hold.