The Blessed Realm

Chapter One Hundred Forty: It really works

Both boys were disturbed by the man's answer, and they did not speak when they left his office. They were in a hurry: They were already late for their appointment for dinner with Juugo's fostermothers. They just changed clothes at their own place, then they left again, and arrived at Juugo's place at a time when dinner was already cooking on the stove, but still needed some time before it could be eaten. All the kids, except the youngest, were out, visiting some friends of theirs.

“This is your evening,” the women told Naruto. “We don't want to split our attention between you and our kids tonight.”

They opened a bottle of wine and made the boys sit down. They needed to explain why they were late, of course, and the women told Sasuke that they were looking forward to the text he had written, sounding however as if he was one of their kids who had done some assignment for school they wanted to see, not as if they expected something they might learn from, or that would make them think.

“It's some kind of letter to say thank you to the people of Music Town,” Sasuke explained. “I've mentioned you too because you did a lot for us, but even more for Juugo.”

“That's nice,” the women said, waiting for more to come. “But someone just had to care for Juugo. It would have been nice though if you had told us earlier that in reality he's a grown-up man. He behaves like a grown-up man now, helping us in the house wherever he can.”

“You should do that too,” the other woman said. “You're grown-up, or almost grown-up, aren't you? For example you might learn to cook, so that you can cook for yourselves on Sundays and don't need us to cook for you.”

“Or you could invite us for a change,” her partner suggested.

“We have both learnt to cook when we were still small children,” Naruto replied. “We just can't do the fancy stuff. Also, I thought you enjoyed cooking.”

“We enjoy the fancy stuff,” the woman replied. “And we enjoy doing it together. We don't so much enjoy cooking for a large family every day.”

“But today it's an invitation,” the other woman added. “Today you don't do anything.”

She went to the kitchen to look after the food, and when she saw that it was ready she called her partner. Together they laid the table and brought the food. As promised the boys were not allowed to help. They ate and talked, and Naruto told the woman that the man at the publishing-house had suggested to them that they might have to use the kyuubi if Konoha threatened to attack Music Town.

“It won't happen,” the woman said. “Konoha's weak. Danzou's busy controlling his own people, and preventing them from starting a rebellion.”

“But if it happens what should I do? Should I refuse to use the kyuubi?”

The women considered it, and looked at each other as if they were trying to read each other's thoughts. “You should be allowed to choose for yourself,” the second woman said. “You should not be forced, and no pressure should be exerted.”

“No one can force me,” Naruto said. “I'm too strong.”

“There's other ways of forcing a person to do what they don't want to do. They can make you feel that you're selfish and not loveworthy if you refuse to use it.”

Naruto had to admit that he was vulnerable to that kind of pressure.

“If I use the kyuubi Sasuke will have to act as my backup, and that is detrimental to his eyesight,” he said.

“That's a good argument to bring up against using the kyuubi. People would understand this attitude. They admire lovers who are true to each other, and also, you'd make clear that you're not being selfish.”



“But they might start to urge Sasuke that he should not be selfish, and that he should be ready to risk his eyesight to defend Music Town if Konoha attacks.”

All four of them (including the little boy sitting on his mother's lap) looked at Sasuke, but Sasuke did not answer.

“But even if there's no pressure, what do you think should I do? Do you think I should decide not to use the kyuubi?”

“I think it's best if you decide by yourself without being influenced by other people.”

Naruto was not content with her answer, but the woman had made clear that she would not say anything more.

“There's a programme on TV we wanted to watch with you,” the other woman now said. “Normally we don't watch TV with our guests, but tonight there's a documentary that might be of interest to you. You'll learn what demonstrations can really do.”



“We know about demonstrations,” Naruto said. “We've been at one. Normally we are not supposed to, but they were understaffed, so we had to step in. It was not at all like what you told us: there were just a few dozen people with banners, and if the police had not been with them nobody would have recognized them as a demonstration. We went through town for about an hour, and that was it. No one chained himself to a building, heroically offering to die if the building got taken down.”



“There's nothing heroic about chaining yourself to a building if you know that the building won't be torn down as long as you're attacked to it, but that the police will send for specialists with chainsaws, and that paying for the specialists will be the only problem you are facing,” Sasuke said.

“Anyway, it was weird and even a bit sad,” Naruto continued. “There was nothing of the conflicts we had heard of. Just a few people with banners walking through town.”

“What was the demonstration about?” one of the women asked.

“They want to restrict tourism. They think that Music Town is flooded with tourists, not only from the ninja countries but also from oversea, so that the locals no longer feel at home.”



“Naruto was really upset,” Sasuke said. “He wanted to speak to the demonstrators and discuss the issue with them, but our superiors told him that while he was on duty he had to remain neutral. In the end one of our civilian officers got him some leaflets and brochures that were distributed by the demonstrators.”

“I mean, why do they want to restrict tourism? What do they have against tourists? They don't cause much trouble, they have interesting ideas if you bother to talk to them, they bring new music from other continents, they are laid back, as they have a lot of time. Also, I've always thought that Music Town lives on tourists and that with the money they spend here Music Town buys new technology and coffee from abroad.”

“It does.”

“So why do they demonstrate against tourists?”

The woman shrugged. “There's all kinds of weird people in Music Town. They are all entitled to demonstrate if they think it necessary.”

“Now be quiet!” the other woman said. “The documentary will start soon. Then you'll see: this is about the real thing. Not just a few people who are not content with this or that minor issue, but a really huge demonstration, the kind of demonstration that's able to take down a government. We thought you might be interested in it, as you're still thinking about a way to bring down Danzou.”

“Demonstrations don't work in Konoha,” Sasuke said. “In Konoha people who chain themselves to buildings won't be liberated. They'll be killed.”



“That's far from certain” ,the woman replied. “Now be quiet!”

The documentary was about a demonstration in a country on a different continent, on the occasion of its anniversary. They were a bit late already, and had missed the introduction and the explanations. The first pictures they saw already showed the demonstration: a huge crowd of people, not just a few dozen who would not be noted if the police weren't accompanying them, but the whole street was full of demonstrators, with hardly any space for people who wanted to watch the demonstration from the sidewalk. What was even more impressive: the crowd on the street did not seem to end. At some point the street turned around a corner, and from that corner more and more people turned into the street, while in front people disappeared from the screen. Sasuke and Naruto had never seen so many people in one place, not even during football matches.

“It must be a big town,” Naruto said.

“About five times the size of Music Town,” one of the women replied. “Now look at this!”

There was police at the sides of the street, police in thick clothes to protect them against stones, with shields and with weapons. They also had heavy vehicles: Sasuke and Naruto did not know what to make of them, as vehicles were not common in the ninja countries, and the women had to explain to them that they were weapons on wheels. Sasuke and Naruto knew that in countries on other continents, where they did not have any ninja, they needed mechanical weapons (and chemical explosives) to make up for their lack of powerful ninjutsu. They had not heard of weapons on wheels, however.

What was most astonishing, however, was the behaviour of those policemen. In spite of their weapons they appeared nervous. They talked to their colleagues: the rank and file to reassure themselves, the officers to discuss what to do. The demonstrators, however, looked determined: they were afraid but defied the danger. They did not carry any weapons.

“What's going on?” Naruto asked. “It's an illegal demonstration, isn't it, otherwise there would not be so much police. But if it's illegal, why do the police not intervene?”

“They can't,” one of the women answered.

“But why? They are much stronger, aren't they?” Sasuke asked. “The demonstrators are just ordinary people.”

“That's why the police can't intervene. They can't fight ordinary people.”

“But they could tell them to stop their demonstration, or to demonstrate legally on another day, or to change the route?”

“It won't work if the demonstrators are really determined to take the route they want to take. You can't talk to seventy thousand people.”

“You can block a street without hurting people,” Sasuke said. “You can end a blockade without hurting people. You can form a kettle. I know, a kettle is considered violence by people in Music Town who enjoy demonstrating, but to someone like me who's experienced real violence a kettle is nothing.”

“All these strategies only work if there's not too many demonstrators.”

Sasuke had to admit that he could not imagine a kettle around all these people. The police would have to block the whole center of town.

“The only option they had was a bloodbath. In the end they decided against it.”

Again the documentary showed some high-ranking policemen in a discussion with civilian authorities.

“In Konoha they would have chosen a bloodbath,” Sasuke said.

“That's not certain. Killing thousands of unarmed people isn't as easy as it sounds.”

“Itachi did it without hesitation,” Sasuke replied, and then, after some thinking, he added: “Well, most of them were powerful ninja in their own right. But some of them weren't. My aunt and uncle were old and no longer able to fight.”

“For most people it's not easy,” the woman repeated. “This also means that if the officers order a massacre it's not certain whether they will be obeyed. For them, it's their own people. Some of them may have friends or family among the protesters, and for all of them, the protesters look like ordinary, hard-working people, not like your good-for-nothing friends who spend their time hanging out at the river or in pubs, discussing their weird ideas and consuming drugs.”

“They're not weird,” Sasuke said. “They have the most fascinating ideas I found in Music Town."

“Still they spend too much time hanging out, and they consume too many drugs. This is not what keeps policemen from shooting at them. But if the protesters look like ordinary people with ordinary problems, if they look as if they spend most of their time working and raising their kids and as if demonstrating is not a hobby of theirs but something they do as a last resort because something is going really really wrong, then the police will think twice before they intervene.”

“My family were ordinary people too,” Sasuke said. “Still they were murdered because people perceived them as different.”

The women didn't answer. The documentary now showed the end of the demonstration: people assembling at a public place and listening to speeches, then they began to leave and go home. The police watched them without doing anything, then they left too.

“Maybe the problem with your family was that they were too few, and they were not popular with the rest of the population. If it's really the whole people who are demonstrating the police is helpless.”

“What happened afterwards?” Naruto asked. “Did they succeed?”

“A week later, even more people demonstrated. They were no longer afraid. And some more weeks later the government broke down.”



“It broke down? You mean it's possible to bring down a government just by walking around with signs and banners with political slogans?”

“Sometimes.”

“Even in places where people don't have a lot of rules about not fighting and not employing violence?”



“Maybe it's even easier there. But maybe the real point is whether you have the support of the population. In Music Town most people are content with their situation, so they won't try to change the government.”

Naruto sank down in his seat, thinking. The woman switched off the TV-set, as the documentary had ended, and brought some board game.

It was one of those games where you form teams and then guess words, one drawing something or doing a pantomime while the other has to guess. As neither Sasuke nor Naruto had ever played such a game each of the women teamed up with one of them, and they were astonished how the boys, once they had understood the game, got ambitious and tried to defeat each other, as if they had not realized that having fun and making a fool of oneself while doing a pantomime was the purpose of the game. Even Sasuke, who was not much of an actor, did his best to invent minimalist pantomimes that gave his partner a clear idea of the word she had to guess. For the next round they let the boys form a team, hoping to stop their competitiveness. Now they were astonished how well they played, even though they had just learnt the game.

“Is reading each other's mind a ninja technique?” they asked.

“None that we are capable of,” Sasuke replied.

They considered a third round, but when they looked at the clock they saw that it was half past eleven.

“Not enough time,” they said, pouring the boys another drink. One of them went to look after the champagne she had put into the fridge, making Naruto wonder. Also their kids returned. They got themselves chairs and orange juice and looked at Naruto. Even the youngest boy, who had been sleeping on his mother's lap, woke up.

When the clock struck midnight first one, then the other woman embraced Naruto and kissed him on his cheeks.

“Happy birthday!” they said. “We hope that tomorrow will be a wonderful day for you, and that the next year will be a great year, and all the years that follow too.”

Naruto had completely forgotten about his birthday as he had never celebrated it.

The little girls climbed onto the sofa and embraced him too, then one of them went to her room and brought a picture she and her sisters had drawn. The boys didn't embrace Naruto, and they were too old to draw pictures for birthday presents, but they also wished Naruto a happy birthday, and gave him a litre bottle of lube. (They must have had a spy, as they had bought Naruto's favorite brand.) They giggled worse than their sisters.

The women themselves had a present too: a couple of pots as in their opinion Sasuke and Naruto had far too few of them, and also some fancy kitchen tools.

“We want you to be able to invite guests and cook for them.”

Naruto thanked them.

Finally Sasuke was able to embrace him too. “Happy birthday, Naruto,” he said. He held him for several minutes, caressing his shoulders and kissing him.

 

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.