The Blessed Realm

Chapter One Hundred Four: Fuss

It was time to talk to the social worker the state attorney had sent Sasuke to, and again Sasuke asked Naruto to accompany him. They had to wait for a few minutes, then they were admitted to the social worker's room. He introduced himself and asked the boys to sit down.

“So you've brought a friend,” he said.

“Lover,” Naruto corrected him.

“Okay, lover... have you become lovers here, or were you lovers already before Sasuke arrived in Music Town?”

“Only here. In Konoha we were just friends.” Naruto took Sasuke's hand. “We were only twelve then, after all.”

“You fled together?”

“No. He fled before me. We met here in Music Town by chance, and here we became lovers.”

“You must have been happy then.”

“I was.” Naruto laid his arm around Sasuke's shoulders.

“So, do you like it here in Music Town?”



“I do,” Naruto answered, knowing that he needed to be polite. “But you'll understand that we plan to return to Konoha as soon as possible. Sasuke likes it very much here, though.”

For the first time the man turned to Sasuke: “Do you?”

“I do. Here the administration is not allowed to murder people. You know, I really love the town with its festivals and the library and the gay community, but if it had nothing of this I would still prefer it to Konoha because here the administration doesn't murder people.”

“But it's normal not to murder people, isn't it?”

“Not in Konoha. In Konoha my whole family was murdered on orders of the administration.”



There were again those seconds of silence Sasuke was used to by now.

“I'm sorry,” the man finally said.



“Don't. It's not your fault after all. But this is why it's important to me that what I did myself does not remain unpunished.”

Again the man was silent for a few seconds, obviously surprised by Sasuke's sudden change of subject. “I see. But now first tell me about your life here. What do you live on, for example?”

He was speaking to Naruto again, and Naruto told him that they got paid for their work as policemen in training. “We get more than our classmates, and we get some money from the town. People have explained to us that it's okay to accept the money and not consider it an injustice as we don't live with our parents and therefore need more money than our classmates.”

“So you work for the police. Both of you?”

“Yes. It was Sasuke's idea.”

“That's unusual. Well, not that unusual, after all. I've met a couple of young men who consider joining the police when they are no longer on parole. None of them was accepted, however. So, do you like your work?”

“Mostly. I like learning foreign languages, as I can use this to talk to tourists, but I don't know what to think of all the theoretical stuff about finding proof and so on. I'm better at learning things by doing, but the only thing I'm allowed to do is walk around and pick up drunk people. Sasuke is better at it than I am: Looking strict and stern comes natural to him.”

Sasuke felt annoyed.

“The best part is that we've been accepted to work at some children's project now. We once visited it with our classmates, and when people learnt that we are ninja they asked us to come on a regular basis and teach these kids some taijutsu. It's supposed to make them calm down, so that they are less aggressive.”

“You don't think that taijutsu has that effect?”

“No. Taijutsu is for fighting.”

“Learning taijutsu of course means that the kids have to focus on their technique,” Sasuke explained. “They can't just let go and hit their opponent in whatever way comes to their mind. They also have to train regularly and learn to deal with frustrations. But all this does not make your aggression or anger go away. It only helps you focus and gives strength to your anger.”

The man looked at them, wondering, and both boys felt the gap that separated them from people in Music Town: People in Music Town didn't fight for real. If they had kids they might feel at home here, but maybe even their kids would feel the gap.

“So both of you enjoy your work, that is mostly. Have you found friends among your classmates?”

“The girls are okay,” Naruto said. “The boys keep at a distance. They feel insecure around us. The girls are insecure too, but they are also curious, and they want to be nice to everyone. Also, they are all in love with Sasuke, which makes talking to them a bit difficult.”

“Some are in love with you,” Sasuke said. “You can't resist flirting with them.”

Naruto's flirting still consisted mostly of making jokes and not caring that occasionally he made a fool of himself. The girls seemed to like it though.

“But they must know it's hopeless,” the social worker said.

“Female logic,” Sasuke replied. Naruto drew him to his side.

“They are too young for us,” he explained. “They are the same age, but they still live with their parents. They don't know anything about life, and they've never been away from Music Town. We get better along with people who are older.”

The social worker asked them about older friends, and Naruto told him both of the gay community and the people from the riverside. The man frowned when he heard of the latter: “Keep at a safe distance from drugs,” he said. He understood however that these young people were more fascinating to Sasuke and Naruto than their own classmates.

“And else? Is there any aspect of your life you want to improve, and where you might need some support?”

“We'd like to return to Konoha,” Naruto answered. “But I doubt you can help us there.”

“I don't.” The social worker leant back, looked at both of them, but ended up looking at Naruto. “So all in all I don't think it makes sense to put Sasuke to prison.”

They have their own ways of making people talk, Sasuke thought, and now Naruto has fallen into the trap, thinking he was making small-talk while in reality he was being interrogated.

“Why?” Naruto asked back.

“His life is stable here in Music Town. He has you, he is training for a meaningful career, he has friends. Putting him to prison would ruin it all.”

“What's that got to do with the question of punishing him or not?”

“Putting him to prison would destabilize him. He'd make friends with problematic people, and in the end he might commit another crime when he gets out.”

“It wouldn't happen,” Sasuke replied. “I know now the difference between right and wrong and I know now that there's more to doing right than protecting one's own people. I know that there are things you must not do under any circumstances.”

The man looked irritated. “You don't want to go to prison, do you?”

Sasuke thought for a while. “I don't,” he answered honestly. “But that's not the point.”

“Then what is the point?”



“That I get punished for what I did.”

Naruto nodded. They were both leaning heavily against each other, and the man looked extremely irritated.

“We in Music town think differently,” he said. “We think the point of punishment is to prevent the criminal from committing more crimes, and it's obvious that in your case the best way to ensure this is to let you continue your life as it is. If there's a second crime we'll reconsider our decision of course. That's what being on parole is about.”

Both boys were silent, again considering the ways of thinking of Music Town that differed so much from their own.

“But his attack against Killerbee was a second crime,” Naruto said. “He attacked me and tried to kill me before he left Konoha.”

The social worker looked surprised. Sasuke himself was in shock: he had not thought that Naruto would bring up this event.

“He told me that he was out of his mind then. But then he tried to kill another jinchuuriki.”

“I was out of my mind,” Sasuke said. “And I was again out of my mind when I attacked Killerbee. I thought that there was no such thing as good and evil, just the duty to protect one's own people, or avenge them when protecting them was no longer possible. Maybe I was out of mind from the time my family got murdered, when I believed that it was my responsibility to protect and avenge them, but then everyone else in Konoha was out of their mind too, thinking it was my responsibility and not theirs.”

The man listened intently.

“Here it's not the victim's child's responsibility to catch the murderer. Here this is the job of the police.”

“But that's normal, isn't it? Any child would be overchallenged with such a task.”

“Not in Konoha. In Konoha I was encouraged to train hard and become strong, so that I could do it myself. In Music Town I would have been comforted.”

Murder was rare in Music Town, and having just started his career Sasuke would not be involved in a case of murder, but once he had been called to an accident: a man had almost drowned in the river. He had already been pulled out of the water when Sasuke and his colleague arrived, and some policewomen were giving first aid, while others were comforting the children who had witnessed the accident. They had kids of their own, Sasuke had thought, and knew how to deal with such a situation. He himself had been sent to fetch a doctor, and only later he had understood that they had tried to protect him too.

“I was out of my mind when I left Konoha, and I was out of my mind in a different way when I attacked Killerbee. When I left Konoha I thought that everyone else considered my family's murder a crime, even though no one cared to do anything about it. When I attacked Killerbee I believed that no one else considered it a crime, and that there was no such thing as a crime, only the pain of people whose loved ones have been killed.”

“But you must have taken into consideration that other people feel pain too?”

“I did, in the end. I didn't kill him after all.”

There was a silence of almost a minute, and Sasuke felt the gap that separated him both from Naruto and the social worker.

“How old were you when you attacked your friend?” the social worker asked.

“Twelve.”

“A mere child... you would not have been put to trial here.” The man straightened. “Regard it as this: You were extremely young when you attacked your friend, so young that you would not have been held accountable here, and punished only in the way children get punished. Maybe instead of punishing you it would have made more sense to find you a new foster family.”

“I didn't need a foster family. I was well able to look after myself,” Sasuke interrupted him.

“Or finally find you a foster family as obviously you couldn't look after yourself. So what you did now to Killerbee counts as first, not as second crime, and it makes sense to put you on parole. It's unusual with a severe crime as attempted murder, but as you broke off the attempt from your own accord, as the victim has forgiven you and as you've never had a chance to develop more than very crude ideas about morality and as even these crude ideas were undermined when you learnt that Konoha was responsible for your family's murder it may be justifiable. Being among people who make you think about right and wrong will be more beneficent for you than putting you to prison.”

Sasuke looked down, feeling ashamed. Naruto took a while to understand the implications of the man's words.

“You don't need a very refined sense of morality to know that you don't attack your friend,” he said.

“Nor anyone else,” the man replied. “That's what I mean by crude.”

Again Naruto had to think for some seconds. “So you believe that letting him go without punishment is not just a compromise because Killerbee insists that the whole fight was a fake, but that actually it is the best solution?”

“Yes.”

“Even though he tried to kill first me and then Killerbee?”

“Yes.”



“I didn't kill you,” Sasuke spoke up. “I might have done it, but in the end I didn't.”

“But then you should have learnt and not attacked Killerbee.”

They were stuck. Sasuke looked to the floor.

The social worker spoke again: “I understand that it's difficult for you to accept that Sasuke should go without punishment, even though he tried to kill you. From your point of view he was a boy of your own age, just as strong and mature as you. But from our point of view he was a mere child, and that he tried to kill you was only partially his fault, and mostly the consequence of some cross neglect from the side of Konoha. They should have explained to him that killing you was neither necessary nor justifiable. They should have made clear to him that he did not have to avenge his family all by himself, but first of all they should not have ordered the murder. From our point of view he was a lonely child, too young to take responsibility for his actions, and we won't punish him for what he did to you at the age of twelve.

But you are not under any obligation to adopt our point of view. As I said, being of the same age it's understandable that you don't look at him as a child. No one would blame you if you left him because you cannot live with someone who tried to kill you. We won't put him to prison, however, but provide him with an environment where he can learn about good and evil, not as a child learns who simply adopts the attitudes of those close to him but like a young man who asks a lot of questions.”

“I won't leave him,” Naruto replied. “In Konoha we are true to our friends. I won't give up on him.”

The man looked surprised. “But then why do you want him to go to prison?”

Naruto understood that his attitude was not very logical.

“I don't want him in prison. It's just – he has tried to kill me, and then someone else too, and instead of punishing him everybody just makes a lot of fuss about him.”

“He's making a lot of fuss,” the social worker said after a few seconds. “The police would have preferred to keep it all hidden. Also, a trial would be much more fuss.”

Naruto was silent. The social worker looked at him, trying to read his expression, but Naruto lowered his eyes. The social worker turned again to Sasuke.

“As we are not going to put you to prison, as you insist on not just being let go for free you may offer some compensation to the man you attacked. That's what we normally demand of young people who did something wrong. Do you need support contacting the man?”



“I don't.”

“He already invited him to a beer?” Naruto said. “A quite expensive beer in one of the pubs for tourists in the center of town, but it wasn't better than what we served at the restaurant we used to work at.”

“I would have invited him for dinner too,” Sasuke added, “but he didn't want it.”

“He would have considered it an attempt of bribery,” Naruto continued. He thought a bit more. “We've volunteered to help carry equipment and tidy up after the man's next concert.”

“But that's what everyone does,” Sasuke said. “Help people when they need help. It's no compensation for attempted murder.”

“Sasuke has also accepted to listen to Killerbee's concert even though he hates loud music,” Naruto added. “Sitting it all through will be pure torture for him.”

“But that's no compensation for attempted murder either, is it?”

“No, not really,” the social worker replied. He seemed quite confused now.



“So that's my task for you until our next appointment: go and ask Killerbee what kind of compensation he would consider appropriate.” He got up. “We have talked longer than we should,” he said. “There's probably already someone waiting outside. I'm looking forward to seeing you again.” He turned to Naruto. “You're welcome too. Then there will be some fuss about you too.”

“I don't need any fuss,” Naruto replied. “I can care for myself.”

 

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.