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The Blessed Realm	By : susanna Category: Naruto > Yaoi - Male/Male > Naruto/Sasuke Views: 1746 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: Disclaimer: Naruto, his friends and the world he lives in don't belong to me but to Masashi Kishimoto. I write this story only for my pleasure and I don't make any money with it.

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Chapter One Hundred Eighteen: Konoha, how dangerous is it really?
Slowly the restrictions on Sasuke and Naruto were lifted. Mostly this took the form of more and more exceptions being granted and of “protection” being organized more quickly. They needed to train for their dance tournament, after all, and also they were allowed to meet their friends at the riverside, even though their superiors still did not consider it appropriate for prospective policemen to have such acquaintances.
The young people were more serious and down to earth than on other days. University was going to start soon, and they needed to organize themselves and could not stay up until late in the night any more. (Also, it got dark now rather early.) They had news for Sasuke and Naruto:
“There's a lecture on Konoha at the university,” they said. “We thought you might be interested.”
They were interested, of course, and for the first time they sought out the university. It had a representative main building with a pair of stone dragons in front of it, but when they were inside and asked for directions they were told that the lecture would take place at the department for modern history, which had its rooms in one of the minor buildings. They were given an address and a lengthy explanation how to get there, completely unnecessarily, as by now they knew even the tiniest streets in the center of Music Town. The most difficult part was finding out that the historians had their rooms in the backyard, and then finding the one where the lecture actually took place (right under the roof, and it was rather shabby too).
The result was that they were late, even though they had set out quite early. They were lucky that the door opened to the back of the room so that they did not have to go past the rest of the audience (it was bad enough that people turned their heads at them.) They had just missed the introduction of the woman who was going to speak.
The lecture's title was “Konoha: how dangerous is it really?” Not only Naruto but Sasuke too felt a bit disturbed by the title: As much as he hated Danzou, and as little as he cared for the people of Konoha he still did not like the idea of people being afraid of it, or considering it an evil place. He was from Konoha too, after all, and if foreigners considered Konoha dangerous and evil he was included into that distrust.
Naruto suppressed the urge to speak up and protest against the title. Just as Sasuke he felt intimidated by the situation: There were some old people around, looking like ordinary old people of Music Town, but the rest of the audience were young people clad in black in a rather shabby way with brightly coloured hair: the same kind of clothes the young people at the riverside wore, whom Sasuke and Naruto had learnt to respect as very intelligent and much better educated than themselves. The speaker herself looked pretty normal, however. Neither Sasuke nor Naruto dared to ask a question in this situation.
The speaker announced that she would first give a brief overview over Konoha's history and culture and then discuss the current situation, the danger posed by Konoha both to the ninja countries in general and to Music Town in particular, and also what could be done about these dangers.
She began with the foundation of Konoha, with the alliance between Senju and Uchiha, and Naruto felt Sasuke grow tense while he listened to the story, and he laid his hand on Sasuke's arm. Sasuke had already read about this early alliance in the history book he had got from the library, but he had not known what had happened afterwards: Being united the two clans felt strong enough to capture the kyuubi, and their new lord ordered them to use it to enlarge his territory, taking advantage of the fact that his neighbours were all exhausted by the long war.
“We shouldn't judge him too harshly,” the woman said. “It was the way of thinking at the time, and other countries had also grown considerably, while others had vanished completely. In fact having only a dozen powerful nations instead of every valley fighting against its neighbour valley had pacifying effects, at least during the years between the three ninja world wars. It appears that in spite of these great wars this century's death toll is lower than that of previous ones.”
She continued to explain that though the surviving countries had agreed to some kind of truce, or peace agreement mainly in order to ensure their victory over their more unlucky rivals there remained a huge obstacle to true peace in the form of the kyuubi, and the ninja village set up by the daimyou of what was later to be known as Fire Country. Naruto froze when he heard the woman tell this in a matter-of-fact way. He had not known that the founders of Konoha had captured the kyuubi on purpose in order to use it as a weapon, but had always thought that it had been roaming free before the time of his birth.
He forced himself to listen again to the woman telling how the other countries founded their own ninja villages and captured the remaining bijuu, and how one of them, a country that no longer existed, attacked Fire Country in order to reduce it to its former, more appropriate size. The war lasted for several years, it involved practically all the ninja countries, and later it was called the First Ninja World War. It resulted in a full victory of Fire Country and its allies.
“The most important consequence of the war was the redefinition of the relationship between the daimyou of Fire Country and his ninja village,” the woman continued. “The two clans who had founded it had secured themselves a considerable amount of independence, but when the war started the daimyou considered himself commander of his army of ninja, being responsible for all major strategic decisions. Some of his decisions had disastrous consequences, almost leading to open mutiny, and it was only when the ninja took charge that they were able to turn the table and lead their side to victory. They used this fact to recover their former independence when the war ended, and also to gain a couple of new rights. For example they were no longer subject to the jurisdiction of Fire Country but were allowed to make up their own laws, based on their more archaic ninja code of honour. Most of all, however, they had now gained a foothold in the government of Fire Counter: They were responsible for foreign affairs now in addition to the defense department. They focused on security question of course, and left minor matters as trade agreements to the civilian authorities, though they still claimed the right to have the last word on those too.”
Naruto tried to follow her. He had always taken it for granted that ninja lived according to their own laws. They were different from civilians, weren't they, braver and more courageous, and ready to fight to protect civilians. He looked at Sasuke who had relaxed by now, his hand lying gently on Naruto's arm, listening intently.
“In the other countries there were similar developments with the ninja villages partly taking charge of the government while retaining their independence and their privileges. They were not only their countries' standing armies and secret services but also had the power to decide about peace and war and how to deal with conflicts with other countries in general. Thus the ninja countries became places dominated by the military, which in its own turn was no longer answerable to civilian authorities. This situation lasts until the present day, though there are several developments that give us hope for a change. It makes our continent one of a few places in the world where the military has gained almost complete control also of the civilian sector, and the only one that's currently not at war. Only here the military is in charge even in times of peace.”
Naruto wondered that someone was questioning this arrangement. Ninja fought wars, so it seemed natural that they should have the last word about fighting them or not. Civilians could not be trusted with such a matter. On the other hand it made sense that in times of peace it was not necessary that ninja had that much power.
“When we look at history, however, we'll find situations of the military establishing itself as some kind of elite on other continents too. It were always unstable situations, often resulting in explosions, concretely in wars. This is because members of the military have a tendency to see the world only in terms of security issues, perceiving threats everywhere, or opportunities to increase their power. Under normal circumstances this is no problem as there's other branches of government to balance this: Economists who see markets, not threats, when they look at other countries, and artists or scientists who see opportunities for cultural and scientific exchange.
So we have a whole continent dominated by the military and for a long time the result was a constant state of war. Mostly the ninja villages were able to confine it to some kind of low-level war – they don't long for continentwide wars either, knowing that a lot of them will die during such a war, they just haven't learnt of other ways of dealing with their opponents. Some skirmish here, some ambush or kidnapping there, and then a temporary truce: that's their idea of sorting out a conflict. For many years they managed to avoid wars that included more than two ninja villages, and they made sure that civilians did not get hurt, except that their fields got ruined.
The Second Ninja World War changed that situation. It started like any other minor conflict, with one village, in this case Konoha, attacking one of its less powerful rivals, Amegakure. Almost every ninja village had been in negotiations with Amegakure about a strategical alliance, and in Amegakure itself there were different factions preferring different allies, and some proposed that keeping an equal distance to all the great powers - just what Music Town is doing now - might be the best solution. So they were in negotiations with everyone else, irritating their partners by never saying yes or now, or, even worse, one negotiator saying yes and his colleague saying no.
In the end Konoha lost patience and decided to end negotiations by attacking Amegakure. They had not taken into account, however, that this attack was considered an affront by all the villages that had been in negotiations with Amegakure too, so that they now rushed into the war in order to assist the small village. Konoha managed to secure itself some allies among the villages further apart, who had not shown any interest in Amegakure, and some of the minor villages, rivals rather of Amegakure than of the great powers, and thus started the Second Ninja World War.”
Naruto wanted to speak up and tell the woman that not Konoha as a whole was responsible for the war but only Danzou. No one else asked any questions or spoke up to contradict the woman, however, and so Naruto refrained from it too.
“It was the worst war the ninja world has ever seen. During the First Ninja World War the bijuu had been present as a threat, but they were used very cautiously due to the fact that people had not yet learnt how to properly control them. The technique of sealing bijuu into human beings and turning them into jinchuuriki had not yet been discovered. During the Second Ninja World War, however, the art of controlling the bijuu was at a level that's never been achieved again, and they caused hitherto unimaginable devastations. In the end the civilian populations, including the daimyou, urged the ninja to negotiate for peace, and even in the ninja villages themselves voices calling for peace grew louder. Ninja suffered from the war just as much as civilians, or worse, as they were more likely to die, and only their leaders were out of danger.”
Again Naruto froze when he heard the woman speaking nonchalantly of jinchuuriki, apparently without any compassion, just seeing them as a means to control the bijuu. Also she spoke as if she took it for granted that having a bijuu controlled by a jinchuuriki was as normal for Konoha as it was for Suna or Kumo.
“The daimyou, fearing for their power, made sure that people ready to negotiate for peace rose to the top positions in the ninja villages, and after some complicated negotiations they came up with a peace settlement.
So the Second Ninja World War brought about a change of the way of thinking in the ninja countries, and also among the ninja themselves. For the first time they questioned the necessity of constant war and began to strive for a more stable situation with well-accepted borders between countries and sovereignty within the borders. The heads of the ninja villages still saw the world mostly from a military point of view, regardring other countries as potential threats or allies that had to be balanced against each other and not as opportunities for cultural, economic or scientific exchange or cooperation, but they had become more careful and thought not twice but twenty times before they attacked a small place that seemed to give a strategic advantage: they had understood that what appeared a good opportunity to enlarge one's country's territory might be a road to disaster both for you and your people.
Not all of them adopted that new way of thinking. There were still those who believed that increasing one's village's power, not treaties and alliances or, from one's own side, predictability and reliability, were the key to safety and peace...”

A/N: Thanks again for your reviews and your plusses! You can find my answers at http://www2.adult-fanfiction.org/forum/index.php/topic/14965-blessed-realm/ .It is now possible to access the thread without registration at the forums.
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The Blessed Realm