Two

(Don't own Naruto or Boruto, just my characters. Enjoy)


'I miss Rou-sensei... She wasn't this boring.' A classroom filled with children has been Zeko's environment for the last two months since he was enrolled into the shinobi academy that Suna had. His days were filled with sitting in place and listening to whatever lesson Iida-sensei decided they'd evaluate that day. The young man standing ahead of the class wore his flak jacket showing his chunin rank while his dark brown hair and almost tired face gave him a bland appearance, however his cheerful tone betrayed his disinterested appearance.

The window at Zeko's left only let him see that it was almost time for lunch since the sun was not visible he could tell that it was high in the sky and beaming down on anyone walking in the streets. Almost on cue their sensei stopped talking about whatever Zeko wasn't listening to. "And on that note you all can go to lunch." The class started to get up at different intervals, bento boxes in hands as they started to leave. Zeko got up from his seat in the last row and started to leave. "Except you Kusanabe-kun..." Zeko froze as he looked at his sensei who had his arms crossed and one eyebrow raised.

"Am I in trouble Iida-sensei?" Zeko stood in the aisle of his row with a confused expression.

His teacher only shook his head and directed him to come down the walkway of the rows. "I've seen you space out and not pay attention to the lessons, am I a bad teacher? Or is something else wrong?" Iida looked concerned for the white haired boy but Zeko shook his head at the questions.

"It's just boring sensei... I got taught this stuff already. Ran and Rei aren't in this class but I am."

Iida squinted for a moment but a laugh escaped his lips as he sat against his desk. "Of course. Let me guess, Rou-sensei?" His student nodded and Iida pinched the bridge of his nose. "Those two are two grades ahead of you, no wonder you're bored. Of course they wouldn't bother to ask your parents if you had private lessons, you know what? This is getting fixed here and now." Iida left the room in a hurry and in the two minutes Zeko was alone he came back with an adult woman.

"This is the one?" She eyed Zeko until realization crossed her face. "Of course it's him, well if you think he can make it then fine." She took a pen and paper from the desk and quickly scrawled on it. "I'll make sure to handle the administrative work if he can make it past today." She handed the note to Zeko and told him to go to the class number written on it. Zeko quickly turned and walked out of the classroom.

'Room three hundred and one.' He walked up a flight of stairs then straight down the hallway and to the left was the room he was looking for. He opened the door and was greeted by a flak jacket wearing woman who turned to look at him.

She looked over the boy and quickly shook her head. "Wrong classroom, you should be downstairs." Zeko walked up to her and handed her the note. Her brow furrowed as she read it until she pointed to an empty seat in the third row which was by a window. "Sit down." Zeko quickly moved the the empty space, eyes following him all the way until he sat down next to a boy with hair that was a disgusting shade of green.

The boy leaned over to Zeko as their instructor began talking again. "You're really small. Shouldn't you be home sucking your mom's tit?" He snickered as he leaned back to his seat, but Zeko didn't even care for his insult since he knew he was younger than him. He looked around and eyed the twins in the back of the class and gave a covert wave that they paid back.

"First day in the class and already not paying attention? I suppose that means you can answer this question?" Zeko's hair stood on end as he realized he'd been caught and as he looked back he saw his teacher scowling. "I'll repeat myself this once then, if two shinobi have managed to corner you and launch both fire and wind jutsu what is your best counter?"

As the eyes of the older students went towards Zeko he felt hesitant to answer but quickly remembered his own training and had his response. "Sensei in that situation the best response is using either a large water style jutsu or defending with an earth jutsu."

"Name one of each that would apply." His teacher smirked, figuring that the boy was a bit too young to have any specific names in this case but her smirk quickly returned to her resting bitch face once Zeko responded.

"The wild water wave and mud wall jutsu."

"Good." She said before turning back and resuming her lesson, most of the class looked back to the front while some eyes stayed on Zeko. For another half hour their sensei taught them until she turned around to dismiss them for lunch, the younger grades being done with their lunch period.

The class emptied quickly as the students scurried for the yard outside. Zeko at at the end of one of the three tables that were available and opened his bento. "Hey midget!" The same puke green haired boy came up to Zeko. "Whatcha got in there?" He eyed the younger boy's food and saw something he wanted. "Daifuku, thanks midget!" He took the rice ball and had a bite of it before Zeko could react.

"Nata-kun." A voice rang out to the bully, and when he turned there was a girl with dirt brown hair. "Leave him alone." Zeko looked to the girl and almost smiled at her coming to his aid. "I don't want you getting in trouble when he starts crying." He was immediately disheartened once she finished her sentence.

"Don't bother telling Rozu-sensei, she won't care if you can't fend for yourself." Nata and the girl walked away and left Zeko alone, the lunch period went by quickly as he finished the rest of his food.

Back in the classroom their lessons continued until they were dismissed for the day. Zeko spared no time in leaving the class and heading back home where his mother was first to greet him. "Zeko! How was school today?" She stopped reading her book and swept her son into a hug.

"I got moved up two years." Yokano hugged him tighter, proud that her son was advancing faster than expected.

"Well that's good, I wanted to take you out to train today."

Zeko paused and his face went from being downtrodden to fully excited. "Really kaa-chan?!" Hearing that he'd get to be trained would already excite the boy but finding out that his mother would be the one teaching him? He was nothing short of elated even as they left the house and found themselves in the same empty part of the desert where Akira usually takes them.

Yokano sat down in front of her son and picked up a handful of sand. "Now I'm gonna teach you how to protect yourself today since I don't want you getting bullied in class." Zeko's expression faltered for a split second and the woman's eyes narrowed in maternal fury. "Who?" She questioned with a tone that left no room to debate or hide that Zeko had to tell the truth.

"A boy with green hair. He took the daifuku you made me kaa-chan." Yokano was seething, the sand around her moving like boneless limbs.

'Reminds me why I liked her.'

Zeko looked around to find the mysterious voice but saw nobody around aside from his furious mother, it had been months since he last heard the voice and now it spoke again. "He said sensei wouldn't care if I told her."

Yokano calmed down and smiled. "So she's one of them? Well first let's focus on defending yourself with sand." Zeko raised an eyebrow but his mother continued. "You know you can do it too, you'd learn it in school but they don't really teach like I can."

Yokano sat her son down and explained how sand is one of the best defensive materials to use and that most shinobi of Suna learn to use it somehow, but not as well as she can. She taught her son to feed his chakra to it directly and from there it was all up to imagination on how to protect yourself or your allies. As Zeko watched the wisps of sand move through the air he felt like it was natural, as if it was right for him to be in direct control of it. He sat down and watched as his mother stood up and prepared a kunai. "I have to stop it with the sand don't I?" She nodded and threw the tool and watched as a small barrier formed around it before it hit her son.

"That's all I have to teach ya!" She said as she sat down again, Zeko however did not match her joyful tone and was disappointed in his training only lasting ten minutes.

"Kaa-chan... that sucks."

Yokano smiled again but this time it was a disturbing one. "Well now I'll teach you about something Suna is well known for so your little bully doesn't bother you anymore..."


A week went by where Zeko balanced going to school with training with his father and mother on alternate days. He would work on the jutsu he knew with his father and practice his katas while his mother would instruct him on Suna's specialties such as puppetry, fans, and sand. The next Monday Zeko would go to school with a plan to stop being bothered by Nata for good. Upon walking into the class Zeko was stopped by a girl that stood half a head taller than he did. "I've seen you get bullied by Nata-kun and that troublesome Nami-chan."

'So you saw and didn't help?' Zeko thought as he comically frowned at the girl.

"It's okay because I'm going to help you with them." She closed her eyes as she grinned and pointed her thumb at her chest. "In exchange I want you to be my underling." By the time she opened her eyes she saw that Zeko was out of her sight and was seated.

Zeko shook his head as the girl looked at him and she was surprisingly upset to the point where a dark aura surrounded her as her head dropped, and she went to her own seat. Their sensei came in and they started their lessons once again. Again Nata made snide remarks over Zeko's age and height while their teacher remained either unaware or completely apathetic. For around two hours their lessons were based upon chakra control and its application to performing jutsu until their sensei decided to throw a curveball to her class.

"Everyone get up and follow me, we're gonna have some fun today." The class rose from their seats and followed their sensei through the hallways and reached a door that led to a large room with a circle drawn on the floor. "This is the sparring room... If you can't figure out why we're here then I'm concerned over your choice in a future." She began to call out the names of two students at a time and they would perform the seal of confrontation before charging at each other recklessly.

Time after time Zeko saw things that his father would've corrected him on, being too predictable, drawing back too far, and not hitting hard enough when you could. "Ran and Zeko." Zeko walked into the circle with the older of the two twins and the two made the seal.

"Begin." Ran moved forward and went for a jab but Zeko used his smaller size and went under the strike returning with a knee into Ran's stomach and an elbow to his side. The snow haired boy jumped back as Ran recovered and swept his leg under where he'd been standing, Zeko moved forward and feinted for a knee but tried to punch Ran in the neck. The taller boy caught the strike and swept his foot under Zeko's sending him back first to the ground where he dodged an elbow aimed at his chest, then he grabbed the arm holding his fist and locked his legs around Ran's upper chest to bring him down with him.

A few moments of squeezing later made the older boy tap the ground which told Zeko to let him go. They got up and performed the seal of reconciliation before going outside of the ring again. "That was a good move back there, didn't think you'd get me in that hold." Ran's compliment to Zeko rose his spirits up even as he rubbed his back.

"Thanks. I wish I rolled when you knocked me down like that, the floor is pretty hard." A sound made them turn and see Nata snickering to himself.

"Not bad for a midget and a civilian I guess, but just cause you two can beat each other doesn't make you worth anything." The cocky boy grinned and shook his head at what he saw as pathetic shinobi-wannabes.

"Natamura and Nami." The green haired boy stopped his taunting and looked at the same girl who would taunt Zeko at his side. The two went into the ring and made their seals.

"Begin."


An hour later into the day the class was outside for their lunch period. The sparring was a hot topic among the class, a majority of them not having been placed against someone at their age. The most talked about match was with Natamura and Nami. "I still can't believe he went so hard on her." Zeko heard Rei talking to someone at the other end of the long table. "Weren't they a couple?"

Zeko recalled that between his two harassers he'd felt less irritated towards Nami. Nata-kun held nothing back once their sensei started their match, none of his punches were pulled towards his supposed girlfriend and she wound up needing to go to the infirmary from her bruises. Of course the outcome of that match led to Natamura being feared for his brutality against anyone, they figured if he'd go that far against a girlfriend then how far could he go against anyone he didn't like?

Zeko opened his bento and right on cue. "Well midget I'm really hungry today so hand-" He was cut off by Zeko handing over his snack without saying anything. Natamura had a shit eating grin on his face as he took the snack and bit into it. "Guess you know the food chain now." He chewed the daifuku and his grin faded to a confused expression, he looked at the ball of rice and sweet filling that was... bitter. "Doesn't taste as good as usual." He begrudgingly swallowed what was in his mouth before throwing the rest at Zeko's abdomen length cloak. "Fix that by tomorrow."

As Natamura walked away he heard Zeko say something that flew over his head entirely. "Tomorrow will be your new leaf." He didn't bother turning back to question the boy and instead continued walking forward to bother anyone else he could.

The lunch period dragged on for Zeko and his two elder friends but a break is only temporary and they had to go back to class. Rozu-sensei wasted no time before resuming the current lesson. "Now Suna is known for three elemental kekkei genkai which are the scorch release, crystal release, and the magnetism release. They say that the only better release than magnetism is wood due to it suppressing chakra, but if you negate that then the two are on completely equal standing in terms of application."

The students were taking notes as their teacher spoke, however Natamura was doing his best to calm himself down. Ten minutes into the lesson over their village's top bloodline limits and the boy was incredibly unstable with his heart was racing so fast that it felt like his chest would explode, and he felt like he'd be sick entirely. He couldn't take it anymore and prepared to raise his hand but all that happened was him ending up on the floor. "Sensei! Something's wrong with Nata-kun!" The girl that sat to the incapacitated boy's right called out.

Rozu-sensei was in the row in the blink of an eye to see her student violently spasming on the floor, his eyes bulging out of his head while foam frothed at the corners of his mouth. Rozu only shook her head and told the girl to sit him up while someone got a nurse.

Nata was sat up against the desks of the row behind his as his wide, frantic eyes landed on Zeko... who had a bemused smirk on his young face.

"Sunagakure has a lot in terms of herbs and poisons, some things we grow ain't even native to the desert but we got 'em. My favorite is poison hemlock."

"Hemlock?" Zeko questioned.

Yokano smiled as she pointed her gloved finger to a plant with a green stem that had red splotches along it. "It's so dangerous that even one flower can kill someone. They'll have heart and lung problems til they die from not breathing, but we want to teach Nata-kun a lesson right?" Zeko nodded as he helped his mom put the single flower into a sealed bag before leaving the greenhouse.

"A flower'll make you turn a new leaf Nata-kun." Zeko turned his head left, away from the door to the classroom as Natamura broke into another bout of seizures while a pair of nurses carried him out of the class on a stretcher.

Rozu-sensei cleared her throat. "That's enough of that, unless you want to wind up like him you better be paying attention again." The entire class wavered and brought their attention back to the board with apprehension for their own well being. Rozu stopped her scanning of the room once she came across a smiling Zeko. She scanned him before smirking herself and resuming the lesson.

The end of the day came a few hours later and the class was dismissed. "You think that was karma for what he did to Nami-san?" A boy asked his friends, what happened to Natamura being the first topic that was brought up. Zeko could only smile more as he thought of the help he'd gotten from his mother over his bully issue, but once he saw Rozu sensei smirking and gesturing for him to come to her desk with one finger he knew he was in big trouble.

'Good thing kaa-chan said she'd take the blame if I got caught.' Zeko descended the stairway to his sensei's desk as she stood there with her hands on her hips.

"So what was it?" Zeko paused at the question. "I might just be a chunin but I can tell poison when I see it, so what'd you use?"

The boy rubbed the back of his neck as he nervously answered the question. "H-Hemlock sensei."

Rozu thought for a second before throwing a shuriken towards her student, reflexively Zeko shielded his neck and stomach but once he realized he didn't feel the pain of anything hitting him he opened his eyes. "Holy shit..." The shuriken was floating to Zeko's left, it's trajectory meant to miss entirely. "I knew there was only one person who loved that plant in this village but to think she-"

"Uhm... Rozu-sensei? Why is-" In an instant Rozu had her hands on Zeko's shoulders. The shuriken had fallen to the floor and was completely forgotten in the ensuing statement. Rozu looked all around the room before turning her attention back to Zeko

"Listen Zeko-san and listen closely. Go home and tell your parents what happened but do not tell anyone else. That's a direct order from me, do you understand?" Zeko nodded and hurried out of the classroom, through the halls, down the stairs, and through the main hall and out of the academy. Unfortunately even the best laid plans go awry and there were other eyes who'd seen what happened with the iron ninja tool.


"All right brats it's the weekend as of now so stay out of my sight until Monday." It was the very next end of the school day where Zeko would report back to Rozu-sensei. "Did you tell your parents what happened?"

"Yes sensei."

She exhaled a breath and almost smiled. "Rou-nee wasn't lying when she said you were something else, but I didn't think you'd-"

"Rou-nee? You know Rou-sensei?!" Zeko excitedly interrupted his teacher who sat at her desk.

"She's my older sister." She looked back at the snow haired youth and saw that his bright aura was suddenly gone as his mind tried to keep up with the information he'd just been given. "Yeah, Ran and Rei aren't the only twins in the whole village kid."

Even more shock went to Zeko's young mind as he looked over Rozu's more... rough features and the occasional scar on her face but as he focused more he could see a slight resemblance between the two. "You don't look exactly alike sensei."

"Fraternal Zeko-san. Also I found out that Natamura-san won't ever be a shinobi." Both she and Zeko smiled. "Never could stand him, but I decided to let something else deal with him. Apparently he lost some brain cells since he couldn't breathe... he'll be lucky to ever walk again." She expected a look of regret or even doubt to cross the child's face and she wasn't surprised when he seemed sorry for what he'd done. "Don't feel bad for him, if he was that much of an ass to his own classmates then why would he be a good ally in battle?"

Zeko started to clear his regretful expression and remembered how much he was harassed and bullied over the course of a week alone, and that Natamura more than likely did the same if not worse to others. "You're right sensei."

"Of course I'm right, now you should be going. I'm sure your parents have to talk to you about what happened with the shuriken if they already haven't." Zeko nodded and walked out of class and as he left the academy and started his walk home he could help but escape the tingly feeling creeping down his back, as if something or someone was keeping an eye on him... and they weren't friendly.

He shook it off and made his way home where he found both of his parents seated at their dinner table waiting for him. Their looks were serious as he sat down with them. Akira was the first to speak up. "I hear that one of your classmates is in the hospital from hemlock poisoning..."

"It's true tou-chan he must've taken something that wasn't his and got what he deserved." Zeko shrugged his shoulders as his mother began to smile widely, she held a hand towards his father who quickly put a few hundred ryō into it.

"That's my son!" Yokano cheered for her son's retribution while Akira remained serious. Yokano quickly remembered the other important matter and regained her composure. "Zeko-chan, is it true what you told us yesterday? How you stopped the shuriken in the air?" Zeko only could nod as his father decided to take the reigns from there.

"Zeko..." Both the snow haired child and his crimson haired mother listened attentively. "Last year when I let you use that chakra paper it showed you had two affinities... and it looks like you have magnetism release."

Yokoano decided to take the conversation from there. "It skipped me but it looks like you managed to get it after all. I'm proud that you got my kekkei genkai!"

Akira only rolled his eyes. "It doesn't mean he won't get mine, he just got yours first." She smirked at him as if to emphasize the word first.

The gears in Zeko's head were grinding quickly as he drew on his lessons in his classes. "But don't people who were in the Kazekage family have the magnetism release? How could I get it from kaa-chan if-" Realization flashed over his eyes as they they widened. "B-but if... T-Then why aren't-"

"I have a friend who was better for it than I was, and the system where only a family could be Kazekage was stupid."

Akira cleared his throat. "That aside, Zeko things are only going to be harder for you now. There are very bad people who want you for your kekkei genkai so now you need to train even harder to be able to stay safe. Can you promise me that you will do everything you can to be stronger- No, better than you were every single day?"

His father's words struck a chord within the boy and of course he nodded with a fire behind his eyes, his determination only being increased in his goal of being the strongest of Suna. He made his way up to his room and began to meditate while practicing keeping grains of sand on his fingers, having finally moved on from leaves. 'I'll make you proud Tou-chan!'

Zeko calmly sat in his room until he felt his joints lock and stiffen, needing to be popped. He made no effort to move as much as he did focus while his large reserve of chakra was trained more and more, unfortunately he had no way of knowing he was still below average in terms of control but he wouldn't have done anything other than continue in that case.

As he sat still he felt as if the world around him was being pulled away and like he was being moved from his jade carpet, only a few minutes later did he decide to open his eyes and see that he was no longer in his room but was now somewhere else entirely. The ground being covered in water ankle high while the walls were made of grayish mortar and ahead of him were large iron bars with a spiral in the middle, the darkness beyond them almost seemed to shift as he stepped closer. "H-Hello?" Once the word was in the air a massive shape moved past the cage, still being hidden by the darkness. It came closer to the bars and stared down at the boy. The atmosphere was so tense that a fingernail could've sliced right through it, and right as Zeko mustered the courage to ask another question.

"About damn time you got here."


Author's notes: Eh nobody really commented but yep the signs were all there of Zeko having magnet release, my favorite bloodline ability. Where is our young protagonist? Who is he speaking to? Find out next time on- Wait that's the wrong anime. See ya next time