The Blessed Realm

Chapter Ninety-Eight: Rules

Finally the day of the entrance test had arrived. Sasuke was extremely nervous – he still had difficulties with calculating percentages. He still considered the whole test stupid and unnecessary, but he was determined to pass it. He was determined to become a policeman in Music Town, according to the rules of Music Town, even if these rules were stupid.

Naruto accompanied him to the training center and waited with him for the test to begin. For the first time since their visit to the mixed dance school they were together with teenagers of their own age (even the people at the riverside were a few years older), and when Naruto looked around he thought that they all looked childish, the boys even worse than the girls. Most of them had come alone, they were nervous, and some were still busy studying with their books.

By now Naruto had learnt that embracing Sasuke or kissing him without restraint was perfectly okay within the gay community, but not on the street. Holding his hand, however, or laying his arm around Sasuke's shoulder, had become a habit he no longer was aware of, and only seeing the weird looks of the other boys made him realize that perhaps this was not the right place.(But Sasuke needed his comfort and his encouragement, didn't he?)

Sasuke actually tried to contact one of the other boys. “What book is that?” he asked when he had spotted that the boy was using a different book than the one he had been studying with himself.

The boy showed him the copy. “I was told that this one is the best.”

Sasuke got even more nervous.

“But it's stupid anyway. I want to go on patrol and hunt down criminals, not sit behind a desk and do calculations.”

Sasuke agreed, and when the bystanding boys joined in he felt kind of accepted. He observed that some of them were preparing cheat sheets.

“I thought that this was not allowed,” he said.

“Of course not,” the boy replied.

“Then why do you do it?”

“To pass the test of course.”

“And if they catch you?”

“Then I've failed. Haven't you ever cheated in a test?”

“Of course I have,” Sasuke answered. “I used to be a ninja. I was expected to cheat. But now I'm going to be a policeman, and I won't cheat any more.”

The boys looked at him as if he had said something very weird. He felt that he had again got into conflict with the complex code of behaviour of Music Town.

“You're a ninja?” one of the boys asked. “A ninja from one of the ninja villages?”

“Yes. But now I live in Music Town.”

“Cool. But why do you want to be a policeman when you could be a ninja? Ninja are cooler than policemen.”

“Actually they aren't,” Sasuke answered, feeling more comfortable now. He realized that if he wanted to be a policeman he'd have to get along with his future colleagues. He was determined to learn this too.

“I had to leave my village. I like it better here, though.”

“You had to leave because you're gay,” a girl said who had joined the group.

“Yes,” Sasuke answered, not wanting to tell the real story. He took Naruto's hand. He remembered that in their mixed dance class girls had been more acceptant than boys, except that they wanted him and Naruto to split up. He smiled at the girl and drew Naruto to his side. He was glad when the test began.

Naruto waited in the entry hall together with the few girl-friends and boy-friends who did not have to work or go to school or university. He was nervous now too, even though he did not know what he hoped for. He had supported Sasuke in every conceivable way, but the idea of Sasuke training to be a policeman in Music Town still felt weird to him. It would mean that Sasuke would spend most of the day apart from him, talk to people he, Naruto, did not know, and have an aim that had nothing to do with him.

The test was over, and Sasuke returned with the other prospective policepeople, pale and exhausted. Naruto saw one of the girls try to talk to him: “This was very difficult,” but Sasuke just nodded and didn't reply. He sought out Naruto and allowed Naruto to embrace and comfort him, and to find them a place in a corner, where Sasuke leant heavily against him, looking down on his lap.

“Were it those percentages?” Naruto asked.

“It was everything,” Sasuke answered. “I thought I had understood it, but I hadn't. Also, there was far too little time.”

The other candidates seemed to be of the same opinion. They all looked depressed, few of them talked, and those whose boy-friends or girl-friends had waited for them allowed themselves to be comforted. Boys too, Naruto observed, so Sasuke shouldn't get into any trouble for appearing weak.

With time Sasuke calmed down. “There's alternatives,” he said. “Taking classes and learning the stuff they demand here. That's what the others are going to do.” Just that they had gone to regular schools and found the test extremely difficult all the same.

There was still the prospect of having to go to prison, but he didn't discuss this with Naruto. He was stil waiting to get an appointment with the state attorney, but he didn't discuss this with Naruto either.

When it was announced that the test had been seen through and that the results were hanging next to the door of the room where the test had taken place Sasuke sent Naruto to check whether he had passed. He watched other people go to check the lists and return with expressions of resignation or superficial indifference, while others talked to their friends and confirmed each other that the whole test had been ridiculous and that anyway they had more desirable options than joining the police (among them the boy with the cheet sheet.) Most people seemed to have failed, and Sasuke too resolved to agree to some years in prison and use the time to learn the stuff he needed to pass the exam.

When Naruto returned, however, he looked proud and he was smiling. “You made it” he said.

Sasuke could hardly believe it. During the test he hadn't felt as if he was passing: there had been too many problems where he had just given his best guess, or written what seemed most plausible to him. At the ninja academy of Konoha he had always been well prepared, he had passed every exam with a wide margin, and he had always known that he had passed and only worried whether he had passed with a hundred or ninety percent. He had no experience with scraping up just enough points to pass, which was what had happened now. Fifty-six percent, he read when he had a look at the results himself. Really nothing to be proud of. He didn't feel anything, while Naruto hugged him and caressed his hand: Naruto knew the happiness and relief that came with just passing, and he didn't understand why Sasuke wasn't happy too.

Of more than a hundred candidates only twenty had passed, and most of them were girls. Tests for physical fitness and a medical check-up followed, and Sasuke did not have any difficulties with these, but several of the other candidates had to leave at this point, so that only fourteen of them remained.

Naruto stayed with Sasuke throughout the test, so that both the staff and the other candidates gave him funny looks. Sasuke noticed the funny looks too, also he found it annoying that with Naruto at his side it was more difficult for him to talk to the other candidates. (Naruto was still in the habit of answering questions directed at Sasuke.)



The atmosphere was quite relaxed, now that only a few other candidates were left, and some of the girls decided where the whole group would go for lunch. They were nice, Sasuke decided, even though they were girls. He didn't trust them to be good at fighting, however, or at training hard for anything. They were too busy talking and chatting or being friendly towards people. At the moment he enjoyed their friendliness, and if Naruto had not been talking all the time he would have told people about himself too. Now everyone knew that they were ninja and that they were waiting for the right moment to take Danzou out of office.

“Then why do you want to be a policeman?” one of the girls asked.

“I plan to reestablish the police of Konoha once Danzou is down.”

Young people generally reacted differently to their plans than grown-ups. They were more impressionable, and did not automatically dismiss their plans as unrealistic. They remained sceptical, however.

The next stage of the test was a group discussion about one of the current controversies of Music Town. A new concert hall was being planned, which was considered a waste of money by a large part of the population. Only groups that had become famous already throughout the ninja world would be able to fill the hall, meaning that they'd only get conventional, noncontroversial music there, while new and innovative groups wouldn't benefit from the concert hall. It was for tourists, for the big labels, and for the hotel industry. People had been protesting against it for some weeks now.

Sasuke hadn't followed the controversy in the news, as he was mostly interested in news from the ninja countries. He didn't have any opinion about it – conventional music and innovative music all sounded the same to him. Also he didn't understand why such a discussion was part of an entrance test at the police. It took him some time to figure out that the discussion was not really about the concert hall itself, but about the protests and what were and what were not adequate responses by the police.

“You beat up each other about a concert hall?” he asked. “I thought people of Music Town took pride in being the most peaceful place of the ninja world?”

“It's not the fault of the police,” one of the boys replied. “People attacked them. If they got hurt they brought it upon themselves.”

“Still I thought that there were rules and that the police doesn't hurt people.”

“There's definitely rules,” the staff replied.

Sasuke fell silent: the sentence “they brought it upon themselves” had hurt him, and he kept thinking about it.

The discussion ended soon, as Naruto successfully derailed it (or got it back on track, as he perceived the situation.) He wasn't supposed to participate at all, but he did so all the same, and it wasn't possible to silence him: he delivered a passionate speech in favour of the new concert hall because he actually liked the music that was going to be played there. Everyone, both those who were against and those who were in favour of the project, looked horrified: Those who were in favour only thought that the town needed the money, they didn't like what they called conventional and noncontroversial music either:

“Really, you should learn more about music if you want to stay here”; they said. “It's our culture, and you need to accept it and make it part of your own. You have to stop listening to the sentimental stuff we export to the ninja countries and learn to appreciate intelligent music!”

 

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.