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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.

Chapter List
- 13
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- 15
A/N:
One of the problems with
writing a fanfiction that is as close to canon as mine is that
inevitably there will come the day when my story is deviating from
the original. I have been lucky for quite some time, yet last week we
had finally got to the point where my story is no longer in
accordance with the canon.

Well.
It was not to be expected that Sasuke and his team would really go to
look for some mysterious Blessed Realm, nor that there exists any
town in the Narutoverse where they celebrate Gay Pride Day.

But
with the new chapter I am perfectly happy – my story is „in
canon“ again.

Chapter
Eleven: Heroes' Park

When
the sun had risen over the horizon Sasuke woke up Juugo and sent him
to relieve Naruto. He insisted that Naruto got some hours of sleep,
even though he claimed that he did not need it, and that he would be
even more tired when he got up after too little sleep.

Sasuke
decided to prepare breakfast while Naruto slept, to show their
gratitude for his hospitality during the weekend, and together with
Karin he went to the bakery where he and Naruto had bought some rolls
the day before.

Again
he wondered when he looked at the men in blue having some coffee and
a sandwich in the bakery, and at others in business attire hastily
drinking an espresso while reading their newspapers. No soldiers,
nowhere. The blue overalls might be some kind of uniform, he was
musing, but the men were carrying tools in their pockets, not
weapons.

He
looked at the newspapers too, and took one of them out of the rack,
to see whether there were any news of Konoha, and when there were
none on the frontpage he looked inside.

“Are
you going to buy it or not?” some other customer snarked at
him. “You know, people don't like newspapers that have been
ruffled through.”

Ashamed
of his fauxpas Sasuke muttered that he would buy the paper, and lined
up in the queue. He wanted to buy something special for Naruto, and
ended up without any rolls at all, but with a lot of croissants with
different fillings. When he gave the shop assistant a rather large
banknote she checked it against the light.

“I
cannot accept that”, she said. “You've painted it
yourself.”

“No
surely not”, he replied, shocked with the unexpected
accusation. “No one can paint that finely!”

“But
it is a really beautiful painting”, she continued as if she had
not heard him. “Much more beautiful than the ones we get from
the Daimyou's mint in Wind Country.”

They
had the same currency here as everywhere else, didn't they? Hadn't
they accepted his money without any problems on the day of the
festival?

“I
think I will accept it all the same”, she said, stored the note
away in her cashier and gave him his change. He felt a bit dumb,
wondering what mistake he had made this time.

“Now
this one is not beautiful at all”, he heard the shop assistant
tell the next customer. “It's just as ugly as the official
ones.”

“I
have to apologize”, the customer replied. “I did not have
much time yesterday. Next time I will try harder.”

“Well,
for the moment I will accept it”, the shop assistant gave in.
Sasuke wondered whether they really painted their money themselves,
but then it dawned on him that it was a joke. All the same he was not
one hundred percent sure.

He
liked the place, actually, where people had leisure to jest in the
early morning, but he did not fit in, and he was glad that they would
leave today.

Naruto
was still sleeping when they arrived, lying on his back, as always,
his chest heaving and sinking in rhythm with his snores. He sounded
cute, Sasuke thought. He was tempted to touch his shoulder to wake
him up, but he refrained from it. He didn't have another excuse in
store, not even a lame one.

They
made coffee and set the table, or rather the floor, as Naruto did not
own a dining table, and he woke up by the smell of coffee, and by the
noise caused by Karin doing the dishes.

He
was pleasantly surprised when he saw that breakfast was ready. It was
something he had never had, neither back in Konoha nor here in this
town: Breakfast with people he cared for, at his own place, and they
had even prepared it for him. He wondered about the food Sasuke had
bought, as it did not seem like him at all. He, Naruto, had always
considered croissants as too little substantial, but he saw the
gesture and appreciated it, and beyond this, he was just happy that
Sasuke was here, with him, trying to be friendly.

Sasuke
saw the joy in Naruto's face, so open and vulnerable that he could
hardly bear it, and he lowered his eyes.

“The
doctors said that they will release Suigetsu some time in the early
afternoon”, Naruto said. “They want to make sure he's
really fine.”

“We'll
have to leave then”; Sasuke answered. “We don't want to
intrude any longer on your hospitality.”

“Well,
I cannot help you if you still insist on searching for a place that
does not exist.”

Sasuke
waited for Karin's reaction, but there wasn't any.

“I
have an appointment with the publishers of the Icha-Icha-series”,
Naruto continued. “They want to release an authorized biography
of Jiraya, and apparently I am the one who has to authorize it.”

(Actually
he had no idea what the word meant, he just hoped that he would not
have to write the biography himself.)

“You
may join me, and on our way I will show you the town.”

Karin
agreed, and Sasuke pretended that it was okay to him, as they had
nothing else to do, but he was curious too, and so they departed
early in order to have enough time to look around.

Naruto
enjoyed being the one who knew more about this town, so that he could
explain things to Sasuke, even though he had been living here only
for six weeks.

“That's
the main temple”, he told his guests. “I am not sure
which deity it's been originally built for, as it is very old, but
now it is the temple of Kannon, goddess of mercy and peace. Though
most people here are not particularly religious, it's rather for the
tourists who come to visit and have a look at the artwork, which is
quite famous.”

The
temple was really beautiful, painted in bright coulours, with
gracious roofs and a lot of decorations on the walls.

“We
can have a look inside too”, Naruto suggested.

Sasuke
had never been to a temple, as the ninja of Konoha were not religious
either, the only exception had been the main temple of the Nakano
shrine, which held the secret meeting-place of the Uchiha clan in its
basement. He had not taken any interest in the temple itself on that
occasion, still struggling with the immediate aftermath of his
family's murder, so now this was his first real visit to a temple. He
looked at the bigger than life statue of a friendly, smiling woman
with a lot of candles around her, while some pious people were
praying or lighting more candles, and at the groups of tourists
listening to their guides and taking photos. Sasuke was not
religious, but he felt pity for the goddess of stone who had just
become a piece of art.

His
eyes caught a bronze tablet explaining the temple's history.
Apparently over the centuries the temple had been dedicated to a
large variety of gods, and only after the last war, when the pain had
still been fresh, people had consecrated it to Kannon. Only that now
they cared as little about her as about all the deities who were
honoured here before her.

The
building next to the temple turned out more interesting. There was
nothing fancy about its architecture; basically it was a large box of
bricks, with a smaller box on top of it, and the entrance was the
only art of the building that was in any way decorated, though just
with some pillars and a pair of phoenixes. All around the building,
however, was now a red and yellow marquise, and below it were some
tables, with leaflets displayed on them. People sat behind them,
talking to curious visitors. The windows on the ground floor were
decorated with posters, but also with paper stars and fish.

“It
used to house the administration of the local ninja organization”,
Naruto explained. “It's not called their kage tower, as it was
too small to be headed by a true kage. Now it is simply the town
hall.”

Sasuke
would not have guessed it, and Karin was surprised too.

“Do
they make these” - she pointed to a mobile that was hanging in
a window - “during their town council meetings?”

“The
Office for Youth Affairs is on the ground floor. They organize some
children's activities here too.”

So
this is what their children do, Sasuke thought.

“What's
the tables around the hall about?”

“Some
are campaigners for the upcoming elections. Some are advertising the
holiday programme the town is offering for kids, and then there's an
initiative for renaturalizing the river that goes through thee town.”

“Where
is there a river?”

“They
put it underground when they had to rebuild the town after the last
war. Not all of the town is old, only the innermost centre with the
market place, and a lot of it has been reconstructed or rebuilt after
old photos. They needed space then, and thus the river was put under
the earth. Now they think of deterring it again.”

“Do
people here ever work?” Sasuke asked. He thought both the idea
of putting a river underground and then deterring it again equally
crazy.

“Course
they do. Campaigning and offering activities for young people is part
of their job.”

He
led them on, to the park that began on the back side of the town
hall. “It's not the shortest way, but the nicest”, he
explained.

It
was more or less an ordinary park, mainly consisting of lawn, but
also of geometrical flower beds, and some hedges, and some beautiful,
very old trees. Unusual about it, however, was the amount of art:
Everywhere there were statues, some of bronze, some of marble,
showing men and women (far more men then women) on pedestals, all in
very dignified positions. When they continued however, the style of
the statues changed: Some were more naturalistic, showing ordinary
people in ordinary everyday activities, some were rather
experimental, with distorted proportions: some unrealistically long
and thin, some rather plump. A few of them looked as if they were in
agony. When they got further into the park, however, these statues
gave way to pieces of art that did not represent any people at all,
but were just fancy constructions of metal. One of them looked quite
pretty in Sasuke's opinion, a large wheel of iron with some coloured
ribbons and bells hanging from it.

“It's
a memorial for the children that were killed by an explosive jutsu
that accidentally hit the ninja academy during the last war”,
Naruto explained. “The ribbons stand for their young souls.”

Sasuke
still liked the thing, but he had grown serious with these words.

“It's
Heroes' park”, Naruto went on explaining. “They are
commemorating their deads here.”

Sasuke
remembered Naruto's words on the day of the festival, about the lawns
of Heroes' Park being full of couples making out on fine summer days.
There weren't any of them now, only some elderly couples on the
benches holding hands, sometimes the man had put his arm around the
woman's shoulders. On some of the benches there were two men (or two
women, but Sasuke did not care about those) and he tried to determine
whether they were lovers or just friends, but he did not manage. With
a pair of statues he was luckier however, it portrayed a gay couple
in close embrace, passionately kissing each other.

Karin
stared at it too. “What's this about?” she asked. “I
thought they were honouring their heroes here, not some guys making
out.” ”

Sasuke
heard the disgust in her voice, a disgust probably directed at the
fact that it were two guys and not a straight couple, and he was
annoyed.

“They
put it up in honour of one of their most important gay rights
activists”, Naruto told his companions. “I am not sure
whether it actually shows him and his partner, or just some nameless
couple, in order to represent his cause.”

“So
he was a warrior, fighting for his town and dying for his town, and
being honoured for it, in spite of being gay”, Sasuke
concluded. He really liked the place. He almost regretted that they
would leave today.

“No,
he got honoured for being a gay rights activist. He only fought with
words, giving speeches on the market place or writing letters to the
editors of the local papers. Also by refusing to hide in clubs and
marrying a woman to appear straight. He insisted on his right to walk
hand in hand with his partner, or kissing him in public.”

“What's
courageous about kissing your partner in public?” Sasuke asked.

“Would
you do it in Konoha?”

Gay
men didn't exist in Konoha, except in dirty jokes and as rumours
about ninjas who appeared weak or effeminate or who wore strange
clothing. Openly admitting that one was gay, even showing any
tenderness in public, was absolutely out of question and would cause
a great upstir. It might be an idea, Sasuke thought, kissing Naruto
in front of the Hokage tower, and when people rushed at them to
separate them, blow them all up in one giant explosive jutsu. It
would not even be his fault, he'd just do it to protect Naruto.

For
some time he lingered on the fantasy, then he discarded it: It would
be a very effective way to kill a lot of people, but leave the Hokage
himself unharmed.

“But
if it took courage to kiss his partner in public, why do people here
honour him for it?” If he blew up a lot of people who'd want to
hinder him kissing Naruto, he would certainly not be honoured for it.
“And also, don't they think it an insult to all the others here
who died fighting for their village that someone is honoured for
kissing his partner in public?”

“It's
more complicated”, Naruto said. “He actually got killed,
not while kissing but during a demonstration. Someone who really
hated gays sneaked up behind him and stabbed him. The result was that
everyone, including those who had been indifferent or even slightly
anti-gay before, started to support gay rights. Then they put up the
monument.”

“Why?
He didn't even fight to defend himself.”

“He's
still a hero, isn't he, fighting for his cause. - Do you remember
that monument back in Konoha for all those who died defending the
village? Kakashi showed it to us the day we became genin.”

Where
had Naruto got the idea that he might forget an occasion as this?
When he had just summoned his courage to overcome his reserve and
offer his food to Naruto. Though his memories of what had happened
afterwards were certainly a bit confused, he only remembered Naruto
bragging that one day his name would be engraved into the stone too,
and that then Kakashi had delivered a long sermon. He did not
remember any of Kakashi's words, he had been far too excited by the
fact that he had offered his food to Naruto and that Naruto had
accepted it (and also he had been busy not showing his excitement,
but this he didn't remember.)

If
he finally came to the conclusion not to destroy Konoha as a whole,
but only kill Danzou and the Elders, he would make certain that
Itachi's name found its place on the monument too. He was not sure
about his parents and the rest of the clan – maybe it was more
appropriate if they got a monument all for themselves. Something
beautiful, he thought, with ribbons that blew in the wind just as
they had attempted to blow away every memory of the clan. But there
also had to be something to honour what they had done for the
village.

“He
died for his friends”, Naruto went on. “The other gay and
lesbian people in the town. He died, but after his death, their
situation improved. That's what they honour him for.”

Maybe
if he died killing Danzou and clearing the way for Naruto to become
Hokage, and thus making the world a better place for everyone, they
might honour him with a monument too, even though they would not
approve of him in the first shock. Maybe Naruto could see to it. He'd
also somehow have to inform him about his wishes for a monument for
his family, and how to honour Itachi, so that Naruto could take care
of it when he, Sasuke, was dead.

A/N:

Sneakyfox:
Thanks again for answering! Naruto is certainly at an advantage, as
he has been staying in this town for longer. But Sasuke really has
difficulties dealing with a peaceful place.

Kinai26:
Thanks again for your compliments! I hope you like this chapter too!

BremerGuy:
Thanks for your comment! Normally I update on Sundays.
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The Blessed Realm