On the subject of my made-up 'marriage law', I have
two things to say:

<snip>

- and, of course, why there aren't any married
twentysomethings around Konoha.

   Besides Shikamaru's dad, no. We haven't seen any yet.



   Warning: Spoilers ans speculation lie herin, so read it as you will. It
may or may not be useful.



    Well, canocally, I think we're all forgetting something - the current
batch of adults are *all* that's left of the young Gennin-level ninja and
the other survivors of the battle between Konoha and the nine-tailed demon
Kitsune. Literally every single able bodied nin of the village was fighting
against him, which is why everyone ten or so years older than Naruto treats
the boy as an outcast - the Kyuubi inside of him *wiped out* most of the
adult population of Konoha on it's own. Then you also have Itachi's massacre
of the Uchiha clan, which seemed to be one of the largest clans in Konoha
(So involved in the military/police force that the Uchiha red/white fan
crest is used as their badge; it is mentioned/hinted at that an entire Anbu
squad was comprised of Uchia clan members [or something close, like three or
four out of five]; the Uchiha seem to have an entire district of Konoha as
the families private lands; that sort of thing). Massive depopulation of
this sort doesn't lend itself well to teenage romance. And since Konoha is a
Ninja village, everyone that survived both of these major drains on the
population would still need to 'wake up and go to work' the next day. You're
a ninja. Sucks to be you.

    Orochimaru and the Sound/Sand nin's attack on Konoha alone managed to
wipe out a fair number of Konoha ninjas, and all told, I doubt Orochimaru
and all his flunkies combined, including the Sand's Sennin (Gaara, Temari,
and Kankuro), could even measure a fourth as powerful as the demon fox - and
they still did a lot of damage. Itachi himself is left alone only because no
one is powerful enough to go out and kill him (Speculation: perhaps Kakashi
was given the Sharangan eye in order to hunt Itachi down?).

    At any rate, the reason I believe there aren't many young couples shown
in the manga is that there aren't many young adults in Konoha. The Jounin of
Konoha seem to be comprised of the young ninja who survived the Kyuubi's
attack, and of those I can only recall Anko (Orochimaru's former apprentice,
so she'd probably be shunned on the romance front anyway) and Kurenai
(Hinta's team leader; Kakashi seems to be gently pushing her to hook up with
Asuma [Shikamaru's team leader]) as being women. Remember that scene where
the Hokage is asking Kakashi, Kurenai, and Asuma if they'll nominate their
rookies for the Chunin exam? The people standing behind him are all of the
Konoha Chunin/Jounin

            Of course, it could always be that female ninja are the
exception, rather than the rule, and that there are more children under the
age of twenty in Konoha than it seems and we're not seeing them due to the
focus on Naruto, and on ninja in general. It's obvious that the Kyuubi
disaster was a very localized event, as there are plenty of teenage people
in the country of fire (as evidenced by the various towns outside of Konoha
Jiraiya and Naruto stopped in during the search for Tsunade), just not in
evidence in Konoha.

            Anyway, that's enough conjecture out of me.



            On a side topic, does anyone recall the names of any of the
other, older Gennins? The only other older Konoha Gennins I can recall is
Gai's group of Neji, TenTen, and Lee; also Kabuto, who is maybe seventeen or
eighteen (Failed the Chunin exam seven times, it's held twice every year
[3.5 years], and I assume he was fourteen or so at his first exam, and that
places him in that age bracket). If anyone can think of any older
Gennins/Chunins from Konoha, let me know with a private reply please (Yeah,
yeah. so I'm working on a Naruto-fic too, darn it. Be quiet.).

I'm glad, though, that everyone liked it enough to
miss the glaring mistake
(coughcoughTsunade'sassistant'snamecoughcough) and I
hope you'll all like the next chapter.

    Her name is Shizune. I can't remember if her family name is given or
not, but that's her first name.

Raye

 -JJ Corley

ronin_salsolo@hotmail.com

http://mslcp.cjb.net



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