The Blessed Realm

Chapter One Hundred Fifteen: No career

“First: You won't go on patrol any more. You'll spend your days at the training center and your nights at home. On your way from one place to the other you'll be guarded by our staff in plain clothes. Else, don't go out.”

“What!” Naruto exclaimed. “That's prison! We haven't done anything to deserve this!”

“You don't know prison, or you would not talk like this. Also, it's all for your own safety.”

“But we don't need it! We are exceptionally strong ninja. We don't need to be protected. We can protect ourselves.”

“Second: Under no circumstances you will fight Madara yourselves. Everyone knows what a place looks like after a ninja fight has taken place. No one wants this. So when Madara approaches you you withdraw and leave your protection to our people.”

“They don't stand a chance against Madara,” Sasuke said.

“They do. We have our own methods. Actually you should have learnt a bit about them by now. Our strategy is to get him into a situation where surrender is his best option. So for this we need some more information: can you give us a description of him?”

“He wears an Akatsuki cloak, black with red clouds, and an orange mask with a black spiral that reveals only one eye. Actually he's easily recognizable by his mask.”

The head of the police was taking notes. “Easily recognizable by his mask,” he repeated while he wrote. “A bit absurd, isn't it?”

Sasuke shrugged. “Ask Madara about it, when you've caught him.”

“What do you know about Madara's fighting skills?”



“His space-time-ninjutsu is exceptional. Else he mostly relies on his talking skills.”

“Meaning that the two of you should not only avoid getting into a fight, but also into a discussion.”

“I am no longer vulnerable to Madara's manipulations.”

“I hope so. So what do you know about Madara's own plans, and strategies? Can you tell me the location of his head quarter?”

Sasuke could not give the exact location, but he could give a description and the area where it could be found.

“We'll inform the ninja countries, and they'll take care of it,” the head of the police said. “With all their intelligence officers and military capacities your information will be sufficiently precise for them to find the base.”

“Why not ask them to help us fight Madara here in Music Town too?”

“As I said: we don't want any ninja fights in Music Town. We like our place as it is, and we don't have the money to rebuild it. Also, even if they manage to avoid fighting, we don't want any foreign military here. This is our own place, and we protect it by ourselves. If there's foreign military here, even if allegedly they came to protect us, they will soon start to give orders and organize the place according to their own ways. We don't want this.”

The boys nodded.

“Also if we invite the ninja countries there'll be diplomatic complications as we cannot invite Konoha too without endangering the two of you. And if we don't invite Konoha we'll disrupt the fragile equilibrium of power that ensures our safety and independence. So we'll deal with Madara here by ourselves while the ninja countries take out his base. - Now, what do you know about his plans and aims? What do you know about his allies?”

He looked at Sasuke, but it turned out that Naruto knew much more than his friend: He could name all the members of Akatsuki, tell who was alive and who not, and he also told how Madara had tried to persuade him to sacrifice his own and Killerbee's life in order to create peace.

“You don't believe that he's really interested in peace, do you?” the head of the police asked.

“Of course not,” Naruto replied.

“The head of the police looked again at Sasuke, hoping for more information from his side, but Sasuke just shrugged. “So you entered this alliance with Madara without asking any important questions. I mean, how can you trust your ally if you don't know anything about him?”

“I never trusted Madara,” Sasuke protested. “And I never regarded him as my ally. We had a deal, that's all.”

“Even for a deal you need a minimum of trust.” He shrugged. “Well, we've discussed this before, so I won't expand this subject now.”

Sasuke felt humiliated, even more as he knew that the head of the police had a point.

“So my last question: do you have any suggestions how we may enhance your safety?”

Both boys thought the same: don't try to protect us, but leave our protection to ourselves. They knew better than to say this aloud, however.

“Allow me to stay with Naruto all the time,” Sasuke said. “I feel more comfortable when he's at my side, so that I can speak up when Madara tries again to convince him to sacrifice himself.”

“Aren't you together all the time already?”

“Most of the time. We aren't together during my horse-riding lessons, or when we're on patrol. We always go out with more experienced colleagues.”

“Neither of you will go on patrol anyway until we've dealt with Madara,” the head of the police said. He looked at Naruto: “What do you think about it? Do you feel safer with Sasuke at your side?”

Naruto had been very annoyed by Sasuke's suggestion. He had been on the point of declaring that he didn't need Sasuke, neither to protect him nor to speak up for him, but the phrasing of the question made him reconsider his answer.

“I feel safer when he's with me,” he said, thinking that with Sasuke at his side his chances of fighting off Madara were much greater. Together, they could even risk using the kyuubi, though only as a last resort. “I need to be with him when Madara again tries to lure him into a cooperation.”

The head of the police nodded. “So you'll stay together... You may now return to the training center and take up your classes. We'll find some meaningful work for you to do in the afternoon when your classmates are on patrol, so your time won't be wasted. Don't leave the building without permission – we need to organize your protection.”

The boys nodded. They both felt dumb and humiliated as they obeyed and returned to the training center. They reported back with the secretary and their teachers told them not to join the class but to look after Sasuke's horse, which needed to be fed, groomed and exercised. Naruto joined him – for the first time, actually. The horse had always been Sasuke's business, his private source of joy that had nothing to do with Naruto, and Naruto had always respected this, partly really out of respect for Sasuke's wishes, partly because he didn't like being in the situation of the third partner.

Now it couldn't be avoided any longer: Naruto followed Sasuke to the stables, barely able to subdue his jealousy at the sight of Sasuke's anticipation or his joy when the horse greeted him by turning his head towards him and whinnying.

“Hello, old boy, how are you, my cutie?” Sasuke said, adapting the pitch of his voice to the horse's whinnying, just as he did when he talked to little children. He embraced the horse's neck and laid his cheek against its thick mane, and Naruto did not know whom he felt more jealous for: Sasuke or the horse. He got aware that unreserved embraces as those between Sasuke and the horse had become rare between the two of them, and he realized that he longed for them, but he also knew that the causes of their estrangement would not simply vanish.

“Come and say hello to my friend, too,” Sasuke told the horse and led it to Naruto.

“Hello,” Naruto said.

“You may caress him,” Sasuke said. “He likes that.”

Naruto reached out to touch the horse's mane, but he felt awkward, and between him and the mane there was the horse's mouth with a couple of strong teeth.

“Don't be afraid,” Sasuke said. “Horses don't eat people, They eat grass and hay. You may feed him a cookie if you want.”

“I'm not afraid,” Naruto replied. “It's just that the horse senses the kyuubi's presence, and he won't let me touch him.”

“He's a bit shy, that's all. It's got nothing to do with the kyuubi.”

“It's the kyuubi,” Naruto insisted.

He withdrew from the horse, and was content to watch Sasuke care for the horse, and then ride it. He looked beautiful, Naruto thought, proud and strong, and at the same time gentle and caring. Sakura would like that.

Actually Sasuke did not do more then let the horse go at a walk and occasionally make it stop and then go again, and also turn left and right. After one hour or such exercising the horse he led him back to the stables and put some cover over him to warm him. When he left the stables with Naruto neither of them said a word.

They were still annoyed about not being allowed to go on patrol, because normally both of them enjoyed that part of their work (mostly because it felt more like work, and less like learning), but when they were sent to the public relations department of the police instead, where they were again asked for a description of Madara and then learnt how their informations were transformed into an article that could be released to the press, they were content again: At least they had the opportunity to learn a bit about the tasks of the police that were more complicated than ending conflicts between drunk people and comforting worried parents whose children had not turned up at ten p.m.

When work was over they returned to the training center to wait for permission to leave and go home. To their surprise Juugo's fostermothers were already there, waiting for them: Some members of the police had turned up at their place, informing them that Juugo was at risk and that he needed to be protected, and immediately they had thought of Sasuke and Naruto and decided to accompany them on their way home. The two boys wondered how they intended to fight Madara in case he turned up, but they did not reject the offer: they'd protect the women if necessary.

It was actually the police that explained to the women that Sasuke and Naruto were well guarded and did not need any additional protection and that they should rather consider their own safety, but if as their legal guardians they wanted to accompany them on their way home and talk to them they were of course welcome to do so, and the police would protect them too. Indeed on their way home Sasuke and Naruto spotted an unusual number of colleagues, most of them in plain clothes.

At the boys' flat the women made clear that they wanted more information, and that they would not leave before they knew what was going on. Sasuke asked them to sit down and prepared tea, then he joined them and Naruto at the table.

“Who's that Madara? And why is he targeting you?”

“He needs the kyuubi, that's sealed up in Naruto, and he needs me to control the bijuu. For Naruto it's worse, however, as Madara can simply beat him up and abduct him, while with me he needs to persuade me.”

“He can't simply beat me up,” Naruto said. “And don't forget that once already he has managed to draw you to his side.”

“He won't manage a second time,” Sasuke replied coolly. He turned to the women again: “What's worst, however, is some talking frog that tries to persuade Naruto to leave me and Music Town and instead save the world.”

“It's a toad, not a frog,” Naruto said, annoyed that apparently Sasuke insisted on calling Fugasaku a frog on purpose.

The women looked confused. “Why should you save the world?” they asked.

“Because I'm the kyuubi's jinchuuriki, and the son of the Fourth Hokage.”

“What's that got to do with having to save the world?”

Naruto had to think before he could answer. “My father sealed the kyuubi inside me because he felt that I should be able to tame it, and to use it to save the world and establish peace.”

“Ah,” the woman replied, making clear that she was not convinced.

“Look, we have kids of our own,” her partner joined in. “When you hold a new-born child in your arms you mostly think of his or her present needs, that he or she is warm and healthy and gets fed, and that he's happy in your arms and feels comforted and knows that he's not alone, and you talk to him the way you talk to babies. But of course you also have dreams of what may become of the kid, that he turns out well, with a meaningful job and a couple of friends and hopefully one day with a partner and some kids of his own. Of course it's great to think that one day he might make a significant contribution to world peace. But you also always have to be prepared that your kids don't turn out according to your dreams, and you have to be ready to cope with this and still accept your child.”

“Actually it's very important to be prepared for this, as children have a tendency to develop their own dreams,” the first woman took up the idea.

(In fact both Sasuke and Naruto had the impression that neither woman was ready to accept that against their wishes their daughters had turned out extremely girly, wearing pink all the time.)

“So sealing the kyuubi inside you was a risky affair: What if you turned out not strong enough to cope with it, or if you developed some other dream?”

“But I am strong enough,” Naruto said. “And I do share my father's dream of peace. Also I am Jiraiya's student, and Jiraiya dreamt of peace too. There's a prophecy that one of Jiraiya's students would be the child of destiny that brings peace or utter destruction. I am that child of destiny, and I want to bring peace.”

“You're listening to a prophecy made by a talking frog,” Sasuke said.

“A toad!” Naruto protested.

Sasuke tried to take his hand, but Naruto withdrew it.

“What kind of toad?” the woman asked.

“They live at Myoboku mountain, where they practise meditation and senjutsu. They cultivate wisdom, and they're my friends.”

“But if they're your friends, why then do they tell you to leave behind your love and the happiness you found in Music Town for some vague dream of saving the world?”

“They mean well. They know it's my destiny. They know that I cannot escape my fate.”

Again, the woman looked not convinced.

“You are running away from your fate if you leave Music Town now,” she said. Saving the world! Really, to me that sounds as if you're not content with your training at the police. It makes sense, as you mostly joined them in order to be with Sasuke, but if you're not happy there you should look for another career that's better suited to you and your skills and dreams. Saving the world, however, is no such career! It's a vague daydream you indulge in in order to run away from your life here and now.”

 

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.