The Undesired Second Chance

Chapter 38: Taking Two Sides

As hours had crept into several days of nothing happening, Axel was tired of waiting. There wasn't really anything else for him to do, though, beside stare blankly at the gray ceiling and try not to think gray thoughts. He'd run out of stuff to do: recounting old stories and playing word games could only go so far, after all.

It was a dull cycle of fall asleep, eat the bland food, contemplate the absolute mess his life had become, and sleep again.

Despite having nothing to do but sit around and think, he still had very few ideas for what to do about this whole situation. Not that he had many options to work with in the first place. Escape wasn't viable, of course, as being stuck in what was essentially a cement box with no door would make that quite difficult.

At least contemplating what-ifs and maybes killed some time.

Besides, despite the inherent drama in being kidnapped by a ninja mad-scientist, his days in the cell had been pretty calm and, in all honesty, a little bit boring.

After he'd gotten most of the immediate panicking out of his system, the monotony of empty gray silence was kind of driving him nuts. He'd taken to talking to himself—commenting on his own train of thought, as if having a one-sided conversation—in an attempt to fill the empty space with something. Even if it was just mentally-stressed ramblings.

Yeah, Axel was going stir-crazy.

Which explains why his first reaction to Orochimaru dropping in again was less 'oh no, the mad scientist is back to probably experiment on me', and more along the lines of 'finally, something is happening'.

Well, to be technical, his first reaction upon waking up and finding the ninja in the room with him was to jolt upright with a surprised squawk. Followed closely by wondering just how long he had been standing there, and if he had done this the other times he'd slept as well... but Axel set those thoughts aside for the moment.

Leaning against the wall opposite him—and not acknowledging him at all—Orochimaru flipped though a few of the documents he was holding. After a pause, he scribbled something down. Though it had been a few minutes since Axel had woken up to find he wasn't alone, as of yet absolutely nothing had been said.

The quiet that had settled over the cell was worse than just being left alone. As if, in some way, this silence was sharp.

Purposeful .

It was really starting to get to him.

Which could possibly (quite probably) be the whole point: getting him nervous enough to maybe blurt out important info. A very ninja-esque plan, in his opinion, and it wouldn't be out of place in a spy-thriller movie.

Although he wouldn't usually think of Naruto, being a somewhat power-of-friendship action anime, as falling into that genre, but...

Axel shook his head a little, trying to get his thoughts back on track. He wasn't living in the pages of a comic book—crazy as this was, it was real life. Even if the ninja certainly looked the part of a fiction-typical supervillain. Slit golden eyes, purple eyeliner, long dark hair, ashy pale skin: all together, it kind of made his pristine white lab coat look mundane and almost nonthreatening in comparison.

"Are you a doctor?"

Axel blurted out the question without really thinking it through—of course the ninja's not a doctor, he's a researcher. Perhaps the filter between his brain and his mouth had deteriorated these past few days, given how much of that time had been spent talking to himself.

Orochimaru glanced up from his folder, one brow raised in question. "I do not have time to waste on students."

That wasn't—