It was late evening by the time the three returned to the Rook, as Iruka had been told to address it. Xeno had made certain that he could pronounce it well enough to Floo back on his own, following directly behind Luna and with Xeno bringing up the rear to listen for mishaps. Dinner had been pleasant enough, albeit much heavier than typical fare in the Elemental Nations with significantly more meat and grease and less vegetables. Thankfully Xeno had ordered on Iruka's behalf, and what the three of them had eaten was comparatively lighter than some of the other diners' meals. There were also no chopsticks to be found, but the function of the utensils available was obvious.
Conversation had been minimal and the topics light, mostly Xeno describing the unfamiliar foods being served or pointing out someone he recognized and sharing some bit of trivia about them, even if Iruka couldn't make heads nor tails of much of it. Here too, the people were dressed mostly in robes, with only a handful wearing other garments. Iruka's attire certainly drew its fair share of looks, but many simply shook their heads, particularly those who seemed to recognize his dinner companions.
Xeno stepped from the Rook's kitchen hearth a few seconds after Iruka, and a quick wave of his stick caused the soot on all three of them (and the floor) to disappear. He spoke briefly with Luna, who nodded and headed upstairs after giving her father a quick peck on the cheek. «It's been a long day for her, and I felt it best that she not spend more time looking at reminders of what happened earlier.» Xeno spoke as they walked back upstairs into the damaged room. «Thankfully, the investigators didn't make any more of a mess of things, so it shouldn't be too difficult to put to rights.» Iruka took this opportunity to get a more clear-headed look at the scene of the accident, and saw that the blast damage seemed to be centered at or near where he remembered arriving, near the edge of the room next to a now-shattered window. Xeno waving his stick-tool again had shards of glass flying up into the window's frame, reassembling individual panes as the cracks between them sealed up and disappeared as if they had never existed. More waves began repairing pieces of furniture and decorations and moving them back to their proper places, vanishing the various discarded items used in rendering aid to Pandora, and even cleaning up some of the stains and scorch-marks. Within a couple of minutes, the room had been largely restored, with only some persistent scorch marks and a large blood stain to attest to the violence of Pandora Lovegood's misadventure.
Now that things were more as they should be, Iruka could see that this was a living room, one that gave a strong sense of comfort and welcome. The decorations were a strange mix - garish and gaudy trinkets, items whose aesthetic styles varied so wildly that he suspected they came from the travels Xeno had referenced, simple and tasteful decorations like a small vase of flowers, beautiful and elegant little sculptures of spun glass, and the kind of crude handcrafted artworks produced by young children everywhere (though these clearly showed a marked growth of skill, suggesting that Luna was a budding young artist in the making, and depicted animals like nothing the scholarly chuunin had ever even heard of). Where once lay only bare and battered floorboards at the center of the explosion, there was now a large, complex, and well-worn desk built of dark wood. The worst scorch mark visible in the room marred the desktop beneath the remains of a blotting pad that was clearly beyond repair even with these seemingly-miraculous jutsu. Several books in an adjoining bookshelf likewise still showed scars from the accident, their spines and covers deeply scorched or gouged.
As Iruka was examining the room, Xeno had stepped out of the room briefly, and now returned with a large bottle that gave off a strong acrid smell when he unstoppered it. He poured some of it over the blood stain on the floor, then waved his stick again and set a scrub brush briskly working at the stain. «Mrs. Skower's All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover,» he explained. «The other dirt was easy enough to remove, but blood is magically active, so it's best to use a proper cleaning agent if you want to be certain of success. Doubly so when unknown magic occurred while the blood was still fresh - no telling what could have seeped in,» he scowled briefly, «and there have been enough unexpected magical reactions in this house for quite some time already today.» While Iruka may not have had any knowledge of this 'magic', almost every shinobi knew from long experience just how difficult it could be to remove a set-in blood stain with ordinary washing. Apparently they resisted more extraordinary cleaning methods as well.
While the brush continued its work unsupervised (something that made Iruka somewhat uncomfortable, but he had to trust in his host's abilities until he had more information), Xeno beckoned Iruka back to the kitchen, and bade him take a seat as he went about making tea. Even if the methods and flavor were slightly different, a cup of hot tea in his hands was still a relief - an island of familiarity in an ocean of strangeness. It soothed his frayed nerves after a long, tiring, weird day.
«So, Iruka-san,» Xeno began about halfway through their first cups, «you mentioned being from Hi no Kuni. Where is that located, generally?»
Iruka wondered just how far from home he was. «It's largely along the southern coast of the Elemental Nations, between Kaze no Kuni and Mizu no Kuni, albeit mostly surrounded by smaller countries.»
Xeno's brows furrowed. «None of those terms are places I've heard of. Which island is this on? Which prefecture?»
«Hi no Kuni is part of the mainland, Xeno-san. Mizu no Kuni is the only major country composed of islands.»
«Iruka-san, Japan is entirely composed of islands.»
«I'm afraid I've never heard of 'Japan' before today.»
«It's the only country I know of where this is the dominant language.»
Iruka's mouth opened and closed several times at this, as his brain tried to process the new information and figure out how this could be possible. Perhaps this 'Japan' country was just beyond the Elemental Nations, and thus spoke their language? But then, why wouldn't knowledge of the Elemental Nations have filtered out to wherever this was? It was well within the lifetime of every adult he'd encountered that the Fourth Great Shinobi War took place, and even if Madara's and the Juubi's attacks weren't felt this far away, people tend to notice things like the moon turning into a giant Sharingan and trapping them in an idyllic genjutsu for several minutes. Finally he managed to squeak out, «Do you have any world maps?»
Xeno nodded and waved his stick again, and soon a globe floated its way into the kitchen, bobbing slightly in the air as it came over to the table before settling between the two men. Iruka frowned slightly as he looked at the continents shown, and that frown only deepened as he slowly rotated the globe, searching for any familiar points of reference. After several complete rotations, he could see only two possibilities: Either these people had incredibly detailed and thorough maps that were somehow completely wrong, or this was somehow an entirely different world from the one he knew. Given what he had seen and heard, the latter option seemed far more likely; it didn't look like he was getting home by conventional means.
«Xeno-san, I don't recognize anything on this globe. Unless it was produced by a particularly imaginative cartographer, it may be that the mishap that sent me here was some sort of time-space jutsu. If that's true, returning home won't be as simple as locating my destination and booking passage.»
«Well then, let me amend my previous offer to include helping you learn English and helping you get settled here.» the blonde gave him a warm smile «Your return will likely require an extended period of research, which means you'll need to establish yourself at least for a while. When Pandora is well again, she may be able to help somewhat in your research, particularly since she was trying to develop an improvement or alternative to the Floo, so her experiments may well be connected in some way with your arrival here.»
«That would be a great help, yes, though even with immersion training it will likely take me quite some time to pick up enough English to speak on technical matters.»
«Not necessarily; most of my knowledge of Japanese was acquired in less than a month. There is a potion called the Linguanova Libation that speeds things up a great deal. You know how young children pick up languages far more quickly, easily, and completely than adults?» Iruka nodded. «The Libation temporarily reactivates that faculty, greatly speeding language learning, though the individual's intelligence and aptitude for languages still play a role. Still, the average adult is far more mentally-developed than a young child, and that added intellect means that with immersion and the potion, it rarely takes more than a month or two to become reasonably fluent, especially for a diligent student.»
Finishing his tea, Xeno stood. «And now that it appears we have both finished our current refreshments, I would suggest turning in for the night. No offense, Iruka-san, but you look half dead with fatigue. It has been quite a trying day, and I suspect we will both be better off for getting a good night's sleep. Come, let me show you our guest room.»