Red Lights, Bloody Nights

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


Zeko rarely ever took the time to walk around Sunagakure on his own and he decided that it was worth it for him to explore the village. Two weeks had passed since his loss against Touka and the being inside of him made no effort to do anything other than taunt him whenever they were both awake. The boy used his skills in deduction to figure out that whenever the beast in him was asleep he would fall asleep shortly after, and when he was awake Zeko could not sleep. On its own Zeko could've handled this way of living but he also found that whatever was in his mind was something of a night owl more often than not so in the end the boy was, more often than not, sleep deprived.

Sleep deprived or not the boy wanted to spend his break doing a little more than training so he decided to take to exploring the village. Suna was very unique as a village since it was in a desert the heat and dry winds would affect anything on the surface, while some shops residential buildings and businesses were above ground a great deal of the marketplace and districts were below ground level and were accessible through buildings that lead to the cool subterranean tunnels and chambers.

It was still early in the morning when Zeko found himself discovering what was under his village and discover he did, the moment he walked into the underground through a wide tunnel he was amazed at how large the cavern was. He made sure to use the henge jutsu that his father taught him a week prior to turn his hair to a normal shade of brown so he could blend in, his outfit and his cloak not needing any adjustment. He found himself agreeing with his mother in preference of shopping in the underground since his father greatly preferred to stay above ground when going to shop.

A red ball rolled past and a voice called out. "Hey can you pass that back?" Zeko turned to see kids his age and older dressed in… rags to say the least. He stopped the ball with his foot and immediately kicked it back, an older girl had to move fast to stop it from flying off again. The boy who called out stepped up and sized Zeko up, the group of five behind him watched carefully. "Never seen you around before. I'm Nobu, what's your name?" He pointed a thumb to himself before asking.

The first thing that popped into Zeko's mind was what he said and he regretted it immediately. "Ai... my name is Ai."

The boy pointed back to his friend group and from left to right there were three boys and two girls. He counted off the names as he pointed. The next tallest boy after Nobu was Kei, the next was named Gin, and the one that stood just a bit taller than "Ai" was Yuya. The older girl was named Yami while the one beside her was Asa. Each of them had the same bland brown hair color that Zeko had and their outfits, if they could be called that, were dirty and filled with holes. "You wanna join our group? It'd be nice to have three boys and three girls."

Those words stabbed Zeko through his heart but he couldn't show how much it hurt that he was mistaken for a girl. He could admit that he didn't look the most rugged despite his physical training but never did he think he'd be mistaken for a girl but the idea of finally having a friend group let him nod vigorously. They immediately started kicking the ball around without any particular game in mind and after a while shifted their focus to swindling random adults in street games with cups and coins. Zeko managed to piece together that Ai had just become a street rat… he shrugged it off and enjoyed the feeling of interacting with other kids since he never did so in or outside of school. No wary or disdainful looks went his way as far as he could see.

Before they knew it they were in an alcove behind some buildings, the entrance being covered by a dumpster that they moved as to get in. While going into the humble hideaway, Zeko saw and grabbed a book from between some clay bricks. 'Being a Temptress?' The title read. Yami was at his side once she saw him holding it.

"That's mine but you can read it if you want." She said as her and Nobu went over their earnings.

Zeko opened the book and proceeded to read through it with his natural speed-reading skill that he bragged to nobody about. A few pages into the book and the boy was blushing at the content that he knew he wasn't meant to see at his age but he couldn't stop reading, how to entice and arouse, how to lull a man into being more talkative, and what really turned his face into a tomato. "B-Bedroom techniques?" He said quietly as he, against his better judgment, continued to read. He was shaking by the time Yami came back.

"Ai-chan?" There was no response until she took the book away and saw that her new acquaintance was flushed from the reading. "Never read anything like this huh? It taught me everything I know for when I work in the yūkaku."

Ai was losing her blush slowly as her mind came back into focus. "Why do you need to do things like that? It's so… dirty."

Yami only chuckled and sat down beside Ai. "I knew you weren't exactly like us, you've gotta have parents at least. We're orphans who do whatever we can for money, I just do… adult things for my share." She pat Ai on the back as she spoke before gently turning the younger child's head to face her. "I don't like doing it but I do like having the money. I wish I didn't have to be thirteen doing it but that's life."

"So adults pay you to do those things?" Yami nodded. "But what if they want to hurt you?"

The adolescent girl shrugged. "I have to hope they don't want to."

Ai was no longer blushing but now looked upset. "If you're going to do that tonight then I'm coming with you to keep you safe!"

Yami laughed at the proclamation and decided to nod, even though somewhere in her mind she could feel that she would be a little safer with Ai nearby she ignored it and remembered that she was noticeably older than her acquaintance.

Ai decided to stand up and look at the exit to the alcove. Nobody stopped "her" from leaving or followed as she went into an adjacent alleyway where the guise of being Ai could drop. Zeko closed his eyes and remembered his newest favorite lesson that his mother taught him, how he and her were more in tune with the sand than most others to the point where fighting them on it was a guaranteed loss. He felt himself melt into the very ground as he thought of his home and mere seconds later rose back up right outside of the front door, he could see that it was now early in the afternoon. He dropped to his knees to shake off the nausea from traveling so fast, the world around him spinning.

Once he recuperated he went inside and saw his father reading a newspaper in his chair. Before Akira could greet his son he had to do a double take at the brown haired child at his foyer. "Uhm Zeko?" His son's hair slowly turned back into its white color. "Never mind. How has your day been?"

"Tou-chan. What's a yūkaku?"

The sound of the newspaper moving away from Akira's surprised face was the only response Zeko had. The man was up from the table and kneeling in front of his son in no time. "Where did you hear that word?" Zeko went on to explain his exploits of that day and got various reactions from his father, from joy over his son finding friends, to rage over what his son found out his new friend had to do for money. "Zeko as your father I've never wanted to stray you in any path other than what you wanted to take."

"I know, you always tell me to find my own way." The boy said happily despite the serious tone Akira had.

"I would've waited to tell you about this but you're already so close to it so I might as well." Akira looked around before speaking again. "It's a place where people go to have sex." He held up a hand before his son could interrupt. "I know I've told you what sex is but that's with love… What happens there is the bad kind." Zeko raised an eyebrow. "Sometimes it's between a man or woman who's trying to earn money, but other times…" His entire demeanor changed from being only a father teaching his son to a man describing something abhorrent. "It's between a monster and a victim. The people who pay your friend are monsters. They should not be having sex with her, do you understand? They're hurting her and getting away with it."

Zeko's mind shifted for a moment and as if he wasn't himself he pictured Yami, a girl he just befriended, being hurt in any way and a scowl crossed his face. "I understand Tou-chan." Akira could see the look in his son's eyes and shook him gently.

"Zeko. Just know that whatever you do knowing this, your mother and I will support it." Zeko nodded and went to his room without another word.

He sat on the foot of his bed and stared at a kunai embedded in his wall, feeling the same pull that anything iron gave him. He held a hand out and watched as the tool wiggled back and forth slowly. He pulled his hand and watched as the kunai came towards his palm and landed softly in his hand, he looked it over as his mind made itself up. He felt drowsy all of a sudden and quickly changed into his sleepwear. As he got beneath his blanket he heard the being in his mind speak. 'Don't let them get away with it brat.'


When Zeko woke up he saw that his clock read that it was ten until ten and he bolted out of his bed and dressed in his normal attire again. Before he could leave his room he eyed the kunai he left on his desk and decided to leave it there. He left his room and glanced down the hallway to the open door of his parent's bedroom before putting his sandals on at the foyer and leaving. Again he closed his eyes and focused on the same alleyway that he'd traveled from earlier, seconds later he rose from the ground in the underground once more. He quickly changed his hair color and made for the alcove hideout where it was unsurprisingly empty.

The boy decided to close his eyes and follow his instincts to search for Yami. He made his way through mostly clear streets until he could feel that he was getting closer, the streetlights changing from bright white to a more calming yellow and some buildings had light cases with red bulbs inside of them. He followed the feeling and avoided getting in the way of random adults as he quickly made his way to where the feeling lead him.

He ended up standing before a building that had one of the red lamps in front of it and from there he snuck behind it and closed an eye. Sand gathered inside of the building above a desk in front and formed into an eye with a black pupil, the eye moved around and landed on a book that had names next to room numbers and he scanned it until he found Yami's next to room thirteen. The eye disintegrated and reformed in the above floor and scanned the hallway, seeing a few different men go into separate rooms. It landed its gaze onto room thirteen before the sand that composed it moved through the gap above the door.

The eye formed again and saw Yami sitting on a bed, dressed in a yukata while applying makeup from a handheld mirror. Zeko watched as she got up and walked to the door, once she opened it a large man walked inside of the room. Immediately Zeko's young mind could tell that this wasn't a man but a monster as his father stated, the fact that his father was a tall and well kept man while this was a rotund and vile being only helped his reasoning. He had to recall his eye before he did any damage to it but the last thing he'd seen was the man flash a smile that sent a chill down his spine.

The boy realized that his friend was in the room with a monster and that nothing good would come of it if he didn't do anything. Anger went through his body and his blood was boiling, he tried to calm down but couldn't as he thought of Yami being at the mercy of a monster. He sank into the ground only to resurface through the floor of room thirteen directly in front of the bed. He realized that he spent at least a minute trying to calm down since he was greeted by the bare skin of the blob-like creature, the sound of strikes and whimpers reaching his ears.

The false-man turned and saw the boy standing there and cracked a smarmy grin, his moving allowed Zeko to see Yami with a bruise on her face and tears running from her eyes. "Oh they sent me a younger treat? I didn't even have to pay. Don't worry sweetie I'll deal with you in a bit."

Yami managed to lift her head to see Ai standing there with a hollow expression and more tears started to fall once she saw how the man licked his lips when he was done talking to her. He reared a fist back to hit her again but he couldn't move his arm an inch. He panicked and looked to see that sand was slowly encasing the limb. He moved but fell off the bed in a loud thud and the first thing his eyes landed on was the little girl that he promised to violate next standing there with one arm extended, she clenched her hand and excruciating pain shot through his arm.

The false-man writhed on the floor both nude and pathetic in his whimpering. Yami sat up and wiped her eyes as she watched her friend clutch her own head. The sand whipped around aggressively as Zeko tried to find it in himself to finish the job but no matter how he looked at it… this monster was still another human in his eyes. Once he stopped clutching his head Yami could see that her friend's right eye was a four pointed star with four dots around it.

'Kill him! Kill him! Kill him! Give the bastard everything he deserves!' The child heard in his head before he focused on the worm trying to crawl for the door, and he raised his arm to direct sand to encase his entire body. The man pleading and begging to be spared as it did.

"No please! I can pay you anything you want! I'll get your family out of the slums! I'll make your-" He stopped as his face was covered.

"Sabaku kyū." Yami looked on as the pillar of sand that her friend was somehow controlling raised off of the floor. "Sabaku sōsō!" A fist clenched and the pillar imploded causing sand to shoot all over the room as the monster inside was stripped from the world without a trace. The last thing Yami saw was more sand heading her way before she blacked out.

Zeko wasn't present at that moment and instead there was partially him and partially what else was in his mind, whatever the boy could be called grabbed his sand encased friend and sank into the floor again. Unfortunately the boy wound up outside of the village instead of near or at his own home, and even worse was that he was surrounded by a dozen shinobi wearing white masks. One of them was sitting in front of a large urn with the kanji for one written onto it. A thin layer of sand crept along Zeko's skin in anticipation as the masked shinobi wordlessly took out senbon. Even as the child's right arm coated with sand and grew larger than his body both he and the unfamiliar shinobi stood still.

'KILL THEM!'

Zeko lunged right as the masked group let a volley of senbon loose towards him and once they were about to puncture his skin they completely lost their momentum and stopped midair only to fall to the ground. One of the unnamed shinobi gasped as Zeko bore down on him with his giant arm outstretched. The shinobi stopped the onslaught of the child by sidestepping the arm and stabbing a senbon into Zeko's neck. There's a saying about poking a sleeping bear and the look of fury that radiated from Zeko told the shinobi that he'd just made a grievous mistake and the massive claw coming towards him was testament to the force he'd set off.

The remaining shinobi watched their ally crumple against the massive sand claw like paper in the wind and his body careened across the ground and came to a stop forming a mound of sand. "One down! Keep it at a distance, if it gets too close you're done!" One of the shinobi said as they prepared a jutsu. "Doton: Doryūsō." The ground around Zeko cracked to let spears of sandstone break through, they headed for his body but he leapt away from them even as they continued to breach the ground in pursuit of him.

The sand arm fell away from its owner right as it was impaled by six earth spears and Zeko brought his hands together. "Futon: Daitoppa!" A blast of air hit the earth jutsu caster square in the chest and the spears stopped chasing Zeko at that moment. The boy back flipped to dodge the new volley of electrified kunai from his left but one scraped his side and made him look at where blood was now staining his black shirt. Oncehe landed on the ground he was grabbed into a full nelson from behind.

"Got him!" His captor said. The remainder of the group moved closer warily but they were allayed when Zeko was hit in the head with the end of a kunai and his head fell. "Is Daichi dead?"

One of his comrades assessed their fallen ally and they shook their head to the question. "Only unconscious, mission success."

Zeko dropped unceremoniously to the ground when his captor let him go. "To think the magnet release kid was also a jinchūriki… Think we're gonna get paid more?"

The one known as Daichi was now over the shoulder of what was possibly the group medic and they gave their input. "It's a double bonus in getting this kekkei genkai for Kiri and having a jinchūriki. What should we do about his friend?" They gestured to the sand container that was halfway dissolved revealing Yami's form.

"Kill her, she wasn't part of the job." The only black masked shinobi coldly stated. One of the grunts walked closer to the unconscious child but stopped dead in their tracks. "You wanna tell me why you stopped?" Only when their comrade fell backwards clutching their stomach could the rest of them see the arm sized spire of sand through their stomach.

"Don't fight a sand user-" Pillars of sand thrust into six of the masked shinobi, the black masked one jumped away before they were hit. "In a desert." Zeko stood back up, sand falling from where he was hit. He looked at black mask with an expression of anger much like what he had only fifteen minutes prior. Before he could do anything they decided enough was enough.

"Tch! Retreat! Pick up our fallen and fall back!" The remaining shinobi dropped smoke pellets that burned Zeko's eyes but he wasn't letting them all get away just like that.

'Slaughter them before they get away. They won't bother you again if they're dead!' Both of Zeko's arms coated with sand and extended to grab two of the masked shinobi, the one who sat by the urn, and black mask. He pulled them back as the smoke started to dissipate which allowed him to see the rest of them fleeing the scene.

Unfortunately it was at this moment that Zeko's eye changed back to normal and the sand that made up his elongated claws fell to the ground with himself following. "Guess even a kid jinchūriki is still a kid. Kinro, knock him out." The white mask wearer moved closer with the large urn tucked under his arm. Zeko's child mind realized how much danger he was in and yet managed to keep a solid face of anger towards the two figures.

Right when Kinro reached for the boy he found that his hand was not only grabbed but broken in a split second. Before them was a scowling Akira and behind them were two ANBU. Akira was cloaked in softly crackling lightning as he raised the masked man's hand back to eye level. "Don't touch my son…" With strength that Zeko usually hadn't seen he flung the man behind the ANBU who quickly grabbed him.

"If you think you're taking me then-" Black mask was on his back before he finished his sentence and Akira stood with his foot on his chest. He tried to sit up and bring his hands together only to be pushed back down.

"Don't move." Akira said with a low tone as he looked back to his son. "Zeko what happened?"

The boy shakily stood up. "I tried to sand swim back home but something pulled me here and they were around me, I fought them and they ran but I grabbed these two. They said something about my-"

Akira slammed his palm into the ground and made a deep crater beside the head of black mask. "I'm already pissed that you tried to kidnap my son so I'll say it again, don't fucking move." He couldn't see past the mask but he could tell that the shinobi was too afraid to even nod with knowing how close he was to losing his head.

When Akira looked back he could see his son swaying and he could only watch him fall down but he didn't smack against the ground as he should've, no, the sand moved up to catch him gently and set him down. "Akira-san we've detained the other one."

"Good. Take them to T.I so we can find out what their goal was, I'll get these kids to the hospital."


When Yami woke up she was in a clean room and in a clean bed with a clean patient's outfit. She looked around only to see that the closed blinds held back the bright morning sun. She looked to the door when it opened and saw a nurse at the door who brought a tray with breakfast food on it, they had a silent exchange of it and the nurse left without any words. The food was bland but she was glad to have a consistent meal for once, she saw a note on top of a pile of fresh clothes along with an envelope. She reached over and grabbed it.

I told you I'd protect you Yami-nee! I had my dad write a check for you so you could eat for the next week without having to… yeah. I'll see you around the underground, maybe next time I can show you how to handle a kunai!

-"Ai"

She finally brought her mind back to last night and remembered how Ai was there with whipping sand at her back. She smiled and held the note close to her chest. "Thank you so much Ai-chan…"


"How many of them were there at first?" Akira sat beside his son at a white table with a woman across from them holding a clipboard.

"About twelve."

"How'd they manage to end up with two of them here? Did you kill the rest?"

Zeko shook his head. "They threw down smoke pellets and ran I don't know how i caught those two, but the black masked one was the leader I think."

The woman took notes on the clipboard as Akira looked at his son with a mixture of pride and some disappointment. The pride was from the fact that he managed to capture two of his attackers and would-be kidnappers, but the disappointment came from the fact that his son let most of them escape to lick their wounds. He couldn't blame the boy for it since he was not only a child but he also wasn't a Suna-nin yet and hadn't learned the importance of not letting your enemy escape unintentionally. "It's not good that they got away Zeko, did you take any of them down first?"

Another shake of the boy's head. The woman asked a few more questions about what they'd said or done that the child answered and sent them on their way. Outside of the T.I building Zeko looked up to his father. "Tou-chan did I do something bad? I don't know what happened but I felt like I wasn't me last night." Akira listened on as he put his son onto his back. "It started when I saw Yami-nee being hurt and I couldn't finish the monster off, then something else took over…"

It's just as Akira thought, his son couldn't dissociate himself from the target and he had to finish the job… He didn't want to do it but with what happened he might have to. "Zeko our training tomorrow is going to be different, just know that you should prepare yourself."

"Ok! I'm ready for anything Tou-chan!"

Akira could only hope his son was telling the truth with that statement since he knew what The Pit could do, worst case, but he could only hope it won't go that way for his son.


Author's notes: There's an M rating for a reason and this is the first example of why. My friend made a cover for this that's on my Instagram under the same name as here so feel free to check it out. I put a link on the image as well so if you're here from instagram then welcome. Had to re-upload since the site was being wonky. See ya next time