The Blessed Realm

Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Six: Flutes and Woodpipes

Naruto waited anxiously outside. He did not like the idea of Sasuke having secrets, and discussing something with the head of the police which he, Naruto, was not allowed to hear. When Sasuke returned after some ten minutes that had appeared like an eternity to him he asked him what he had discussed with the head of the police. Of course Sasuke refused to answer.

“I'll tell you tomorrow,” he said.

“They were allowed to go on patrol again, and had to separate for this, as they were still being teamed with more experienced colleagues. For both of them it was a weird experience: for several weeks they had been with each other for almost every minute, mostly out of fear of Madara, and now they had to part again.

They also went home on their own, and Sasuke returned unusually late.

“Where have you been?” Naruto asked.

“I needed to organize a few things, and I went shopping.”

"What did you organize, and what did you buy?”

“I'll tell you later,” Sasuke replied, getting up to prepare dinner. Naruto was not content with this answer, but Sasuke would not tell him more. He saw Naruto's restlessness and tried to calm him down by caressing his cheeks and tousling his hair. It didn't work: Naruto remained troubled, and though they tried to behave as if everything was normal Sasuke could tell that Naruto's thoughts continued to return to what Sasuke wouldn't tell him.

“Have patience,” he said. “Everything will be told in due time. Just trust me.”

“How shall I trust you if you keep being secretive? Nothing good came from this before.”

“This time it will be different. Believe me!”

Again Sasuke caressed Naruto's cheeks and hair and kissed him.

“I just wished that you could be with me all the time,” Naruto said.

Sasuke was actually quite relieved that now they could move around separately again, and that he no longer needed to worry that Madara might abduct Naruto. There were a couple of things he needed to do by himself.

“Trust me: I didn't attempt to kill anyone, nor did I enter an alliance with a rogue nin.”

Silently Naruto admitted to himself that both these possibilities were highly unlikely.

Sasuke kissed him again, and caressed his cheeks and his neck and shoulders, and then Naruto gave in: he'd trust Sasuke, they'd have sex, he'd let Sasuke be the active partner. (These days he always was the active partner. Both of them felt that Sasuke needed to catch up in that respect. Also they had no idea whether they might be able to achieve the feeling of being one if they switched roles.)

It was difficult even as it was, and when they had finished Naruto was rather sad than happy.

“I wish you were with me all the time,” he said. “I wish you wouldn't leave me any more.”

“I won't,” Sasuke replied, wondering why Naruto was acting in such a stupid way.

The next day when Naruto thought they were going to the training center Sasuke dragged him to the head quarter of the police instead, and there he led him to one of the offices on the ground floor.

“What are you doing? We'll be late for class!” Naruto said.

Sasuke shook his head. “I've made arrangements for a day off.”

“A day off? What for?”

“You'll see. You'll like it.”

They could not continue arguing, as the door of the office opened and they were called inside. Sasuke told his name, and also that he had come for a permission to leave Music Town.

“A permission to leave Music Town? I thought you liked it here. Also, why do you think you can decide a matter like this without asking me for my opinion?”

“It's only for a day,” Sasuke replied. “It's just because we are still refugees and not citizens of Music Town we still need a special permission to leave the town.”

Naruto was still not content.

“It's to visit a village nearby that politically belongs to Music Town. You'll like it,” Sasuke explained while he signed the receipt for the permission.

They left the building and Sasuke produced a map from his backpack. He looked up the way to the village he wanted to visit, and he also let Naruto have a look into the map. Naruto was glad that now at least he knew the name of the village, and he refused to return the map to Sasuke but took it upon himself to find the best way. He still had no idea why Sasuke wanted to go there, but he had understood that Sasuke would not tell him.

He enjoyed the walk to the village though. They had to walk through some quarters of Music Town they had never seen before, and when they had left the town they enjoyed the view of golden fields and blue sky. They did not pass through any woods, so that they could not jump from tree to tree but had to walk, but they enjoyed the exercise all the same. After about an hour's walk they were in view of their destination.

Sasuke took some brochure from his backpack. It contained the address of the place he wanted to visit, but even before he had unfolded it Naruto had spotted it himself: “Uzumaki flutes and woodpipes,” he read on a huge sign on one of the buildings around the place at the center of the village.

“So this was it,” he said. “Why didn't you tell me?”

“I wanted it to be a surprise,” Sasuke replied.

He straightened and headed to the building in question. Naruto felt a bit embarrassed: he had not planned to visit the place, and he feared that Sasuke might get them into an embarrassing situation again.

The building looked too big for a workshop and too small for a factory. It had a shop attached to it, and after having looked into the shop window for some time, which indeed displayed flutes and woodpipes, but also clarinets, oboes and bassons and even a couple of instruments made from metal, Sasuke entered the shop, dragging Naruto with him.

Sasuke took it upon himself to do the talking. He had gained confidence by now, knowing that he still appeared more awkward than Naruto, but certain that he would be able to make himself understood and, if possible, get what he wanted. So it was him who answered the shop assistant when she asked them whether she could help them.

“It's about my friend,” he said. “his family name is Uzumaki, but he has never heard of any relatives of his. He has never met another person who was called Uzumaki. We thought we might find some relatives here, or at least news of his relatives. Are you an Uzumaki too?”



“No, I just work here. I'll call my boss, however.”

She went into the shop's backroom and returned with an elderly woman.

“That's him,” she said, pointing at him.

“So you're an Uzumaki looking for other Uzumakis,” the older woman said. “Won't you come with me?”

Sasuke and Naruto followed her through the back room, through a workshop with a lot of instruments that needed to be repaired, and through an office to a place that looked like a living-room.

“Sit down, I'll prepare tea for you,” she said.

“My friend was never told that there are any other Uzumakis in the world,” Sasuke said when she returned to the table. “He always believed he was the only one.”

“There's lots of them,” the woman answered. “Half the village is called Uzumaki, and works for Uzumaki flutes and woodpipes. Where are you from?”

“Konoha,” Naruto answered.

“There's no other Uzumakis in Konoha,” Sasuke added.

“So you think you might be related to us?”

“I have no idea,” Naruto answered.



“He's probably named after his mother,” Sasuke explained.

“What was her given name then?”

“I have no idea. I have nothing but my family name. It was my friend's idea to come here. I don't want to cause any trouble.”

“It's okay. I think there's a branch of the family that moved to Fire Country. I'll fetch my sister-in-law, she'll know more about them. I was not born an Uzumaki, you see, I just married into the clan.”

She left. Naruto leant against Sasuke. “You should have warned me,” he said. He had no idea what to make of all this.

The woman returned. “My sister-in-law tells us to come to her place,” she said.

The sister-in-law was ten or even twenty years older than the first woman. She lived quite near: in a very small apartment in the attic of one of the workshops. She too prepared tea for her visitors.

“So you're an Uzumaki from Konoha,” she said.

“Yes,” Naruto said, realizing that he had to speak for himself now, and that he could not leave this to Sasuke any more.

“And you're looking for relatives...”

“My friend thinks I should look for relatives. He brought me here.”

“A cousin of ours moved to the capital of Fire Country where they worked for the family, selling instruments and buying raw materials. One of their granddaughters moved to Konoha after marrying a man from the village. So what's your mother's name?”

“I have no idea,” Naruto answered again. “I was never told anything about her. I was never told anything about my father either, and it never came to my mind to ask about them.”

“But you're certain that you yourself are an Uzumaki?”

“Yes: here's my ID if you want to see it.”

“It's okay... You know, it's a sad story for us, and we are a bit afraid of spies.”

“We aren't spies. My name is really Uzumaki, and I fled from Konoha myself. Both of us fled from Konoha, actually.”

“Our cousins never heard that their granddaughter expected a child. They would have told us if they had. We were always in close contact. They have died, but we are still in contact with their children. They lost contact with their daughter some time after her marriage, allegedly because of safety issues. No contact to people outside the village, not even close relatives as parents. So this is maybe why they had no idea they were expecting a grandchild. Do you want to see some photos?”

“Yes.”

Naruto did not know what else to say. While the woman searched for the albums he pressed Sasuke's hand so hard that he hurt him, but Sasuke bore the pain without complaint. When the woman returned they made room for her so that she could sit between them.

“This is my cousin with his wife in front of their new shop,” she said. “They had just married when they moved to Fire Country. Here they are again, and here they are with their first child.”

There were a couple of pictures showing both parents with the child in their arms, and then the child growing older and taller.

“Here's pictures of the next child,” the woman said, “and here's the third child: This would be your grandfather, if you are who we believe you are.”

The grandfather was a baby on his mother's arms, and then a toddler between his older siblings. A fourth child joined them, and a lot of pictures showing all four children playing, or sitting with their parents. On every photo the woman pointed out his grandfather to Naruto, and Naruto was glad becasue he was not really interested in his grandfather's siblings.

That's him on his wedding day,” she said. “Your mother was a beautiful bride.”

She got another photo album which contained pictures of the young couple and their children. The one they believed to be Naruto's mother was the youngest. The woman showed them pictures of her as a baby on her mother's arm, as a toddler on her father's shoulders, as a schoolgirl and a teenager.

“She was really cute, wasn't she?” the woman said.

She had really been a cute baby and a cute toddler, Naruto thought, but he was not much interested in these pictures. He wanted to see pictures that showed his mother as a young woman.

The old woman sensed Naruto's impatience. She quickly turned the pictures that showed her older brothers, until they arrived again at some that showed the girl they believed to be Naruto's mother. She was older now, about the age Naruto himself was now, and she looked really pretty on those pictures. She went to some college.

“We wanted her to learn to make flutes herself,” the woman said. “but she preferred to start training as a management executive. And then she met that young ninja from Konoha whom she married.”

The last photos were photos of the wedding. Naruto stared at them, unable to say a word.

“Look how she's beaming! She was a happy bride! And so young and beautiful!”

“I've never seen any photos of my mother,” Naruto said when he could speak again. “But I've seen lots of pictures of my father. He was the Fourth Hokage of Konoha.”

“So you think it's really her?” The woman asked, finally understanding how much this moment meant to Naruto.

Naruto nodded.

“We never got any other photos,” the woman continued. “A few months after the wedding contact was cut off. My cousin's son never heard what happened to her. Only a few years later he and his wife wrote to the administration for news of her, and then they heard that she had died. They never knew they had a grandson.”

It took Naruto some minutes to process the information.

“You mean I have grandparents who are still alive?”

“Yes.”

“Grandparents who would have taken me in if they had known of my existence, so that I would not have been raised in an orphanage?”

“Probably.”

Naruto considered it. “I would not have been raised as a ninja,” he said. “My father was a ninja, you know.”

“Your grandparents are in the flutes and woodpipes business. Your grandfather repairs instruments, your grandmother works as an accountant and secretary.”

Being a ninja had become part of Naruto's identity. It was hard to imagine himself as a maker of flutes and clarinets instead.

“You can't work as a ninja if you work in Music Town,” the woman said. “What are you doing anyway? Still going to school?”

“I'm training to be a policeman. Though what I like best is a project with difficult kids I work at on Friday afternoon, so maybe I'll quit being a policeman and become a social worker instead.”

“That's an honourable occupation,” the woman said. “Your grandparents would be glad to hear it.”

Naruto considered it. Something else came to his mind: His grandparents would not have been able to deal with the kyuubi. They could not have raised him.

“I have another question,” he said. “I have heard that the Senju clan that co-founded Konoha is somehow related to the Uzumaki clan. Is that true?”

“Senju, the clan that has the power to make dead wood come to life again?”

“Yes.”

“Some of them married into our clan at the time before the ninja villages were founded. It's said that because of this our instruments, most of which are made out of wood, sound as if they were alive.”

 

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.