The Blessed Realm

Chapter One Hundred Fifty-Four: Opening Konoha

Juugo's fostermothers came over to congratulate them too, with Sakura in tow. “You did really well,” they said. “It's a pleasure to watch you, most of all because you smile at people and because you look as if you enjoy what you're doing. Your smile is not frozen like that of the straight couples – just look at them! Even in the B-class there's nothing genuine about them. That you made the third place in this tournament is a wonderful success.”

“You should have won the first prize,” Sakura said. “You were best.”

She looked at Sasuke when she said this, but Naruto answered her: “The winners were much better than us. They've also been training for much longer.”

Sasuke nodded. He felt annoyed that apparently Sakura still regarded him as her personal hero.

The women left, allowing Sasuke and Naruto to enjoy the tournament of the A-class together with their gay friends. They could lean back now, discussing the qualities of this or that female couple (no couple from their own club had made it to the A-class tournament for female couples), and when it was the male couples' turn again they cheered for their friends. It was like football, Naruto thought: with football you also cheered for your own team, and when they won you felt as if you had been on the lawn yourself, but it was also better than football, because here you knew the dancers in person.

It was quite close, but in the end the couple from their own club defeated the guys with the lilac shirts. Sasuke was content:

“You really don't need to dress up as parrots in order to win a dance tournament,” he said.

“I like it,” Naruto replied. “The dance floor does not need to look all black.”

“You may wear orange next time. Like this you make clear that you're following.”

“Next year I'll lead. Next year you'll be good enough to follow.”

They fell silent. They both knew that their thoughts were the same: Next year they'd be in Konoha.

They leant against each other and held hands while they watched the ceremony to honour the victors of the A-class. There were long interviews with all three top couples, where they were asked how long they had been training and what their plans for the future were.

“We plan to participate in tournaments in places beyond the ninja countries,” the couple from Sasuke's and Naruto's own club said. “We want to see how people in these places dance and what qualities they appreciate and whether we can compete with them. We know it's expensive, but we already started to save money, and we plan to teach beginners' classes. So everyone who's interested is welcome, same sex couples as well as opposite sex couples.”

They were asked to dance their favorite dance one last time, and they chose the samba, no longer hindered by other couples, and everybody could see how well they danced.

“Straight people too see that this is pure aesthetics, and not perverse or disturbing at all,” the husband of the guy from Earth Country told Sasuke and Naruto. “Even the men see this. It's so important for us that there's tournaments and festivals where we can mix with other people without hiding how we feel.”

Sasuke remembered the tournament on his first day in Music Town. He remembered how the couples at the tournament had made him feel that being gay was as respectable as being straight.

“When I first saw dancers on that level my desire was to become as good as they are,” he said. “I hoped to be like them.”

“Well, you've made a lot of progress towards that aim during the last months, haven't you?” the man answered, trying to dissipate Sasuke's melancholy about not having achieved that aim. “Next year you'll be even closer.”

There wouldn't be a next year, Sasuke thought. They'd be in Konoha next year.

The ceremony was over, and the couples were allowed to leave the stage to make room for the straight couples of the A and then of the S-class. The winners were welcomed with kisses and embraces, and then people went on discussing the tournament, and the other couples' performance and looks and costumes, but not the straight couples. After some time the guys with the lilac shirts joined their group, choosing places next to Sasuke and Naruto.

“Are you really from Konoha?” they asked.

“We are,” Naruto answered. “Why do you ask? Shall we show you?”

“It's because we are from Fire Country.”

Sasuke looked up their place of origin in the programme: in fact they were from the biggest city of Fire Country, which happened to be not the capital. He wondered how he could have missed the information.

“We follow the events in Konoha in the news, of course, and we are very concerned,” the men said. “Everybody is: With things getting out of hands there we no longer have a functional ninja village. Fortunately we live in a time of peace or the situation might get really difficult. The Daimyou is busy writing letters to his colleagues to tell them that he has no intention of attacking them and that any attack from Danzou's side does not have his support. Do you know more about what's going on there?”



“We left Konoha to live here in Music Town half a year ago. Our knowledge is confined to what we read in the newspapers. The most recent news we got was that people in Konoha protest against children being taken from their parents in order to raise them as members of Danzou's elite organization Root.”

“There's open protests? So the Daimyou has waited for too long now. A lot of important people in Fire Country kept telling him that he should replace Danzou, but he could not bring himself to act. And now it's too late.”

“It's not too late,” Naruto replied. “The protests will succeed. Danzou will be forced to give up his post, and he'll be put to trial.”

“You think so? And what do you think will become of Konoha? People in Fire Country fear they might get a civil war there.”



“We'll see that this won't happen,” Naruto answered.

“We'll see that the insurgency succeeds and that Konoha returns to being a normal, peaceful ninja village.”

“Naruto will be the new Hokage,” Sasuke said, feeling the need to contribute something to the conversation. People looked at him.

“We've decided to join the insurgents,” he said.

People around them turned silent. Sasuke thought that in the faces of the two men from Fire Country he saw recognition and respect, not the usual disbelief they got from people in Music Town who considered him and Naruto teenagers who could not be taken seriously.

“You will?” the guy from Earth Country, who had been listening, finally asked.

“Yes. We want to support them,” Sasuke answered. “We can't let them do the fighting all on their own.”

“We want to tell them to stick to nonviolent tactics,” Naruto added. “They shan't attack, but only employ their ninja tactics in order to protect themselves. We need to tell them, and we need to share the risk, so they know we're serious about it.”

People listened. Their friends from Music Town took them seriously now, too.

“When do you plan to leave?” the guy from Earth Country asked.

“Tomorrow morning. Our friends brought some important documents that need to be made public, and we plan to take them to the newspaper so that they can get printed.”

“You should have breakfast with us then before you leave,” the man's husband said. “You can't just run away. We'll take a day off from work.”

Sasuke and Naruto looked at each other. They had planned to leave Music Town immediately after taking the documents to the newspaper's publishing house.

“And you need to tell people at the training center of the police. You can't just stay away, and then turn up again half a year later and say: sorry, but we had to join the insurgency, and expect them to re-admit you to the training.”

“We don't plan to return,” Naruto said.

“But you should: you need to complete your training so that you can reestablish the police in Konoha.”

He looked at Sasuke.

“My family used to be in charge of the police,” Sasuke replied. “I will build on their traditions and on what I've learnt in Music Town so far.”

“But you'll come back to visit us, won't you?” the guy from Earth Country said. “You'll have to if you want to marry. You can't marry in Konoha.”

“I'll change the law when I'm Hokage,” Naruto said. “Then we'll be able to marry in Konoha.”

He realized that he had hurt these two people whom he really liked. “We'll invite you, however. You'll come to our wedding, won't you?”

“We'll visit you, too,” Sasuke said. “Once we've defeated Danzou there's no reason not to visit you, after all, is there?”

He did not know why he was speaking. He could have left the talking to Naruto, after all, but he felt the need to tell the friends he had found in Music Town that he cared and that he would not leave them forever.

“Of course we'll come back for visits,” Naruto said now too. “And when I'm Hokage I'll make certain that kids from Konoha will visit Music Town on a regular basis so that they too may learn to dance and to play musical instruments. We'll also see that someone opens a CD-shop in Konoha, and some clubs where people can play and listen to music. We'll make sure that parties and hanging out on public places won't remain something people in Konoha only know from Icha-Icha, or from missions to other places.”

“Ichiraku won't be happy about the competition,” Sasuke said.

“Who's Ichiraku?” people asked.

“He runs a ramen stand,” Naruto replied. “It's the only place in Konoha you can go to if you want to spend some time with your friends. There's some advantage to it, however. If you have some spare time and no idea who to call you can always go to Ichiraku's and be certain to meet some acquaintances there, just as here you can always go to the riverside or to the gay community center and meet someone you know.” He thought a bit. He remembered Ichiraku with fondness after all. “When I'm Hokage I'll give him a concession for putting up some tables on the street, so that more people will come, and they will eat in a more leisurely manner. Maybe he can also expand his kitchen and offer more kinds of food than just ramen.”

“We'll tell him about coffee,” Sasuke said. “People in Konoha will like it.”

“We'll invite children from Music Town to visit Konoha,” Naruto continued. “They can come during their vacation and take summer classes in taijutsu. Those who have the talent can learn to forge chakra, and to use ninjutsu and genjutsu too.”

“We'll have to teach them not to use it against people, however,” Sasuke said. “It will be some kind of sport for them.”

People listened. They took them seriously.

“We'll open Konoha,” Naruto said. “People will learn to think about other things than fighting and they won't consider every stranger a threat.”

People were silent. They listened to Naruto's dream, and started to dream too. From the stage they heard the moderator announce that now the Latin S-class tournament would start. They watched, but their thoughts were elsewhere, as they did not care about the straight couples. The whole group had dissipated by now: Supporting the dancers of their own group had been the purpose of sitting together, so now that the tournament for same-sex couples was over they were free to walk around and meet some other friends or their family.

Sasuke and Naruto did not walk around, but Kakashi and Karin joined them at their table. Karin was a bit shy around the guys with the lilac shirts, but with time she gained confidence and asked them to be allowed to have a look at the nana they had won.

“We have one too,” the guy from Earth Country said while Karin looked at the nana of the two men with lilac shirts. He picked the nana up from the floor where he had put her because she was too big for the table. He passed her to Karin.

“Ours is bigger, and she has three breasts!”

“They sell them in the women's bookstore here, too,” Karin said. “They are much smaller, however, and they have magnets in their bellies so that you can use them to pin notes to the fridge as ‘don't forget to buy milk’”

“So they're useful at least,” Sasuke said.

“But she's cute, isn't she?” Naruto said. He was still holding her on his lap, and caressing her belly.

“You don't want me to look like that, do you`”

“You're cute as you are,” Naruto replied, embracing and kissing him. Normally Sasuke did not like being called cute, but this time he didn't care. (Also he considered Naruto cute in his turn, but he knew better than to tell him.)

Juugo's fostermothers joined them too, bringing Sakura with them. They also wanted to have a closer look at the nanas, and contrary to the men the two lesbians dared to discuss them in detail: “She does not only have three breasts, she also has three arms!”

“And the left leg is weird. I don't think it's anatomically possible that it's turned out like this.”

“But she seems to be happy even if her legs are twisted in a way that indicates they are broken. She seems to enjoy herself.”

“She represents the joy of life. Therefore she's painted in bright colours.”

“There's another one at the backside of the museum,” the first woman explained to the rest of the group. “She's three metres high, and you can walk inside. She's a symbol of universal motherhood.”

“I haven't ever seen anyone inside, however,” the second woman added. “I guess it's too dark, and there's not enough space.”

Sasuke and Naruto had seen the statue, but they had never given it any attention.

“I still cannot believe you participated in a contest for dancing,” Kakashi said. “I can't believe you are content with the third place, or with a weird price as this statue of a fat woman.”

“But she's pretty, isn't she?” Naruto said. “You want to hold her? You may touch her if you want.”

Kakashi took the nana, and everyone could see that he was rather embarrassed about touching her belly. “You should touch her breasts too,” the guy from Earth Country suggested. “Even if she has only two breasts, not three, as ours. But I don't think they are going to share.”

He was referring to Juugo's fostermothers who were still holding the big nana on their laps.

“I guess it's okay that we've won the third prize, not the first,” Naruto said. “Otherwise we'd have to carry the big nana back to Konoha.”

Those who had not yet heard the news stared at him.

“We plan to support the insurgency.”

“Are you certain?” one of Juugo's fostermothers asked. “Don't you think it's too risky? You have a life here: you should not waste it getting killed by Danzou's army.”

“It's risky, but it's even riskier for our friends who have now started the insurgency,” Naruto replied. “We need to be with them and to share the risk.”

“You shouldn't do it,” the woman said. “We need you here. We care for you, and we'll miss you when you leave. We'll miss you if you die.”

“Our friends in Konoha need us too,” Naruto said. He felt moved by the woman's words, and his voice had become soft and gentle. Still the woman understood that there was no way to dissuade him and Sasuke.

“When do you plan to leave?” she asked.

“Tomorrow. We wanted to leave before daybreak, but we need to inform people at the police, and we need to take the documents Sakura brought to Music Town to the newspaper's publishing-house. And also they” – he pointed to the guy from Earth Country and his husband - “want us to have breakfast with them.”

“Then you should have lunch with us!” the woman said.

“Like this I have some time to pack and prepare for the journey,” Sakura added.

“You stay here,” Naruto said. “You need time to relax, and to adapt to Music Town. You've done more than enough.”

Sakura looked as if she wanted to contradict him, but the two women were faster: “He's correct: You've done more than enough. You stay here in Music Town.”



“You may look after our flat,” Sasuke suggested. He preferred Sakura not to come with them. “We'll come back when the insurgency was successful, and then we'll decide whether we'll continue our training at the police.”

“That's a great suggestion,” the women said. “You stay here, look after their flat and learn to live in Music Town.”



“It won't be difficult to find a job,” Karin said. “If they discover you're a med nin both ill and healthy people will come to you in flocks and ask for treatment.”

 

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.