The Undesired Second Chance

Chapter 4: Somewhat Larger Discoveries

Walking for extended periods of time is tiring; anyone who has spent hours tourist-ing through a city or wandering around a museum knows that.

It turns out that walking for a whole day, just to travel from point A to point B, is an entirely new level of exhaustion. There's an added level of monotony and boredom and this-needs-to-be-done that weighs the experience down—in addition to the actual weight of his bag, which really wasn't heavy if he compared it to the overburdened cart Morimoto was stuck with.

Even though the older man didn't seem to be having any issues with it.

"Are you sure you don't want me to help with—"

"It's fine, Axel." Even though Morimoto was preoccupied making sure the cart would stay in place during their well-earned snack break, he still found the time to shoot the blond a quick look. "Just like the last time you asked."

Clearing off a fallen log to use as a seat—the only task deemed safe enough to be relegated to him—Axel grumbled back, "No breaking yourself."

Morimoto wedged a rock under each of the wheels, waited to see if it would keep rolling, then decided it seemed to be enough to keep it in place. With a satisfied nod, he replied, "I appreciate your unnecessary concern."

Axel sat himself down, one hand distractedly rubbing at his latest bandages. And what a thought that was: he wasn't used to being injured frequently enough to have need of classifying a cut as 'latest'. Trying to be gentle, he did his best to work out any new pain in his leg from all the walking. It was frustrating that he shouldn't actively help with the heavy lifting, since his bruised and broken bones were not yet back to full strength. His earlier attempt had, after all, resulted in a fumble and a brand new cut.

"'Unnecessary'," Axel scoffed quietly, pointedly tapping on his injured leg as he half-heartedly grumbled to himself. "Erzähle das meinem Bein."

Even though he hadn't been able to hear most of what the blond man had said—and, of course, what he had heard sounded like nonsense—Morimoto could easily get the gist of it from the snarky tone. "I've made it this far, haven't I? Besides, after this last rise it should all be a bit downhill."

Eyeing the sky and sorely missing the ease of just checking his phone clock—or his wristwatch, which he honestly wasn't sure what had happened to—Axel tried to gauge how long they had been walking. There was just the barest hint of warmer colors in the blue stretching overhead, so he'd say very close to the whole day. It was tricky, given that he couldn't actually see the position of the sun because of the trees, but he thought that they probably only had an hour or so of sunlight left. "Soon, then?"

"With any luck," Morimoto replied, taking a seat on the log as well. He held out a box with some of those onigiri rice-ball things, offering a late snack to tide them over until dinner. "You can probably get a good view from the top of this hill, actually."

Gratefully taking one of the onigiri, Axel munched on it as he looked up and down the road they were traveling on. It was a fairly broad dirt path, packed down by years of travelers but still dusty enough to flick up dirt in a breeze. The forest lining each side of the road was full of tall, sturdy trees: many with branches that looked strong enough the stand on. Given the dense tree cover, he had to assume there would be a gap of some sort in order to get the view Morimoto was talking about. Any added height from the slight incline of the road wouldn't help much, otherwise.

Axel swallowed another mouthful of tasty rice before asking, "Is there a... uh, hole? I mean, a clearing?"

"Not so much a 'clearing' as a 'crater', at least last I saw." The older man shrugged, taking a drink from his canteen of water before continuing, "Usually they try to keep things like that in the training fields, but you know how they can be sometimes. I just just hope they make sure us civilians don't get caught up in anything."