Six

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


A week later Zeko found himself spending time with the street kids once again but this time Yami wasn't anywhere around, for just a moment the boy considered she went back to the red light district but he quickly squished the idea considering what happened a week ago. The boy didn't let those thoughts distract him from what was going on at that moment and decided to focus once again on their current task.

"Make sure you don't make it too obvious Ai-chan." Nobu was the one giving instructions and their goal was to grab any unsuspecting wallets from their pockets. "Stealing might get you beat by the police force if you get caught, so best thing is don't get caught." A sharp sound behind them made them turn to see that Kei was holding his cheek while Asa looked less than pleased.

She clenched her fist tightly as a tick mark pulsed on her forehead. "Quit being gross!" Kei stopped rubbing his cheek only to smirk at her anger.

"Someday you'll return the love I show you Asa-chan. Your love taps will turn to kisses sooner or later." This only earned him another slap to the same cheek.

Nobu turned back towards the street they were looking at from their alleyway and pointed at a man with a bag in his right hand. "He's gotta have something in his pockets and he's not paying much attention. Go for it Ai-chan."

Ai walked out of the alleyway and into the street which was neither full nor empty. There were some people walking on the street along with the targeted man but only enough to barely cover the child moving closer to him. Once Ai was right behind him a hand was extended but at that moment a breeze made the child's cloak blow upwards and make a sound. "What the?" The man turned his neck to see nothing there but in doing so bumped into someone. "Oh sorry about that little girl." He made sure the girl he bumped into was alright and then went on his merry way, little did he know said girl was not only a boy but also the one who just managed to get a silver pendant from his pocket.

Ai rushed back to Nobu and saw that in the few minutes it took to get the jewelry Asa finally calmed down from her temper but Kei resembled a balloon with how swollen his face was. "I got this necklace from his pocket."

Nobu grinned from the look of the pendant, easily seeing why it wouldn't be in plain display or in the bag he was carrying. "Not bad Ai-chan." He extended a hand and waited for the piece of jewelry to be in his palm.

"Why can't I keep it? I'm the one who got it away from him." Ai saw how Asa and Kei shrank back when Nobu clenched his hand to the point where a vein in his arm throbbed. He pulled his arm back and a dark look went across his face.

Nobu put a hand behind himself and lowered himself to Ai's height. "Don't forget Ai-chan… I took you under my wing and I can take it all back." Faster than the two cowering kids could see, Nobu had a pocketknife against Ai's neck. "So give me the necklace and I'll forget you did this, okay?" His hand was extended once again in wait for the piece of jewelry to wind up in his grasp. Ai held the necklace out right over Nobu's hand, it started to fall and the boy closed his hand.

Nobu grabbed a fistful of air since Ai was now wearing the necklace around her neck and smiling at the boy while waving her index finger. "Gomen, but a threat won't work on me Nobu-kun." The boy's right eye twitched and he looked like he had something to say but no words came from his mouth. Nobu's body acted and his hand moved but Ai moved back faster than he could swipe his weapon.

He was confused at how the girl managed to slip away so quickly but he decided to lunge forward to stab her, and he was sidestepped by the nimble child. "Eh?" He recovered and craned his head to see the taunting smile of the girl and his anger doubled. He went to slash at the still smiling Ai but his attacks came up just short of even scratching his target.

The song and dance kept up for a few minutes, Nobu would struggle to even come close to doing any harm while Ai evaded each strike that came her way. Nobu thrust his weapon at Ai's stomach and felt his motion stop entirely, the boy was panting heavily due to all of the effort he had to put into trying to harm the younger thief. "It was fun senpai but I gotta go see another friend."

Nobu's exhausted mind processed the statement and made him crane his neck to see that his wrist was caught in a deceptively strong grip. He tried to pull his arm back but made no progress in his struggling and his mind started to panic at how someone so small was managing to stop him from moving away. Faster than he could realize he found that Ai was walking past him with her cloak billowing in the gently flowing air, he turned to attack again but he had to stop once he felt his side flare in pain. Nobu passed out when he saw his own knife stabbed into his side. Kei and Asa watched Ai walk out of the alley as if she hadn't just stabbed their de facto leader, at least they knew the directions to a hospital.


A white haired youth walked the above ground of Sunagakure once again but his simple wandering was brought to a halt by the sound of laughter and overall cheer. Zeko turned a corner to see a gaggle of students a little older than him gathered outside of a small restaurant. The boy looked at the group and saw that it mostly consisted of boys that looked like they were all focused on something. 'What's so interesting over there?' He looked harder and saw that a girl with blonde hair was on a seat… being held up by three boys on their hands and knees, yet they were smiling happily.

Unconsciously Zeko found himself walking towards the odd sight and as he grew closer he could see a faint golden glow around the girl's skin, as if her very soul radiated purity to the point where her body had to glow to show it. Upon closer inspection Zeko could see that not only had he seen this girl before but she was in his class, he just never paid her any mind since she always had a flock of other boys around her. "Stop right there." Speaking of which one boy with caramel brown hair stopped him from getting any closer to the pedestal but since he was only a few meters away it made no difference to him. "You have to be in the Tsuchika Asui fan club to be this close-" The older boy stopped as he looked over Zeko. "You're the runt who moved up two years." The boy fist pumped once he finished his sentence and looked back to Zeko with stars in his eyes, he turned to pat another boy on the shoulder to get his attention.

"What is it?" This boy looked like he was the oldest in the group that still surrounded their elevated queen.

"Ibino-san the kid wants to join the club! Even a runt knows it's worth it to pledge himself to Hachi-sama!" Both boys looked excited now even as Zeko was more confused than an ant lion underwater.

Ibino looked Zeko over and nodded before speaking again. "It's good that you want to be apart of Hachi-sama's fan club, but first I need to make sure you-"

"No thanks."

The sound of gears grinding amplified and it sounded like it came from Ibino's own head. "Excuse me?"

"I don't wanna join her club, she's annoying." Heads turned and looked at Zeko as if he just slapped each of them in the face with a fish, Ibino seemed most confused at how the platinum blonde ahead of him just rejected the idea of joining the group that revered their queen, no, their living goddess.

"The hell'd you say?" Another member of the fan club brazenly stated. As the group honed in on Zeko a small crowd started to form around to see the altercation. "Hachi-sama is a blessing to the village and you don't want to be in her club?!"

"Nope!" Zeko responded with a grin even as a hand shot towards his cloak.

Another hand came out to intercept the fanboy's and the two locked each other away. "He said he doesn't wanna be in your stupid group, leave him alone." Familiar faces were everywhere today because the hand belonged to Rei and right next to him was Ran. Rei pushed the hand out of his grasp and stood on the other side of his friend.

Ibino let out a simple, "Tch!" And put a hand to his chin in thought, the crowd around them starting to grow with other kids their age as well as the few adults and occasional shinobi who were watching. 'Of course his friends had to show up. Maybe I can trick them all to join…' He snapped his fingers and cracked a smile at his idea. "How about we make a bet? You can be the leader of the fan club and do what you want IF you beat our best fighter. Baki!" One of the boys who was holding the chair up switched out with another, their queen taking no notice of anything going on and remained talking to her servants that weren't involved.

The boy that came from the chair had an aura like that of a snake ready to strike at anything that came too close but the trio that defied the group was undaunted, even Zeko who was a foot and a half smaller. Baki put up the seal of confrontation and eyed the twins having expected them to fight for Zeko but to the surprise of even their audience they stepped back as Zeko returned the seal with his own.

The first move was Baki's and he used it to drive his elbow at Zeko in a strike that was as fast as it would've hurt but the younger boy was faster and the only thing Baki managed to hit was a veil of sand. 'Kawarimi!' Baki spun to block a knee from Zeko that was aimed right at his kidney. Baki used his size and threw the boy off balance before slamming a fist into his stomach and earned a satisfying sound of the boy purging his lungs of air.

Baki wasn't ready for Zeko grabbing his arm and wrapping his legs around it to bring him to the both of them to the ground where Zeko managed to get above Baki with his elder's wrist in his grasp and being turned to the point where Baki yelled in pain. "I quit! I quit! You win!" Zeko let go and stood up without any delay while Baki gripped his wrist on the ground, the fanboys were nervous since their member who was the best fighter they had was just taken down in a matter of seconds. The crowd broke down and left just the twins and the fanboys once the fight was fully finished.

The group of nervous boys split down the middle to let Zeko straight to their queen who finally noticed what'd been occurring and turned towards him.

'Aww he really did everything to hurt Baki-san just to get closer to me, I mean why wouldn't he want to be closer to my perfect beauty?' Of course the girl's inner thoughts didn't match her appearance, not only was she uncaring over one of her loyal fans being injured but she saw it as necessary for the newcomer to have been smitten by her enough to have tried. "Hello! You worked very hard just to see me." She ended her sentence with a smile that made everyone who was looking at her blush, even Ran and Rei. Hachi looked at Zeko and expected a blush even greater but the only problem was that his face was unchanged and that made her nervous. 'W-Was my beauty too much for him? I know I'm a gift to the world but did he really break from-'

Zeko was now a foot away from her elevated chair and the looks of envy he was receiving only increased as he'd gotten that close to Hachi, he hummed to himself as Hachi grew more and more nervous about why he wasn't flustered. Ibino managed to work his way to her side and whisper into her ear and then proceeded to bow to her. "Oh you're just shy about being the leader now, don't worry you'll do just-"

"I don't wanna be in your group." Every single one of the fanboys blanched while Hachi's golden aura dimmed and her very face was the embodiment of shock. "You're all really annoying, bye!" With that the boy turned and walked off with his friends while Hachi and her group were left in shock at being turned down.

'T-That's not- He can't just- I'm a perfect- Nobody can say-' Her thoughts shot around her head as her pedestal fell to the ground and her lackeys beneath her came out of their sheer surprise. For the first time in her life Hachi was essentially told "No" and she was taking it as well as someone would expect a girl so pampered would… Not well at all, and her utter surprise was a hilarious image that Zeko wanted to keep in mind for days to come.

"Fanboys are really annoying but fangirls aren't any better." Rei mentioned as the three boys walked away from the scene, Zeko raised an eyebrow to the younger twins' words. "A boy can have fangirls too Zeko-chan."

"Tou-chan told me that any girl wasting that time isn't worth it, good thing I don't have to deal with that." Both twins looked at their white haired kouhai and snickered. "What's so funny?" The twins repressed their laughter and waved it off entirely, and against his better judgment Zeko decided to accept it as unrelated.

They aimlessly walked around for an hour and at the end of it decided to go their separate ways to get ready for the festival that would start that night.


"Zeko-chan you're adorable!" That evening came faster than expected and it started with Zeko being hugged by his always affectionate mother. Zeko managed to break free of the hold and fix his kimono while Akira was ahead of them clad in a light blue kimono with black spirals adorning it. Yokano was in a deep red kimono that had a yellow sash around her waist. Zeko was in a lavender purple kimono decorated with black spirals like his father's. The family went into the streets and encountered a number of faces that Akira and Yokano knew.

"Oi Akira-san!" Both platinum blondes turned their heads to see a man that matched Akira in size approach them with a familiar face at his side.

"Toshiki-san!" The man and Akira approached each other and grinned. Toshiki was first to slide the top of his kimono off his shoulders and reveal his muscular form, the calm only lasted a second before he immediately clasped his hands together and flexed every muscle in his upper body.

"Hmph!" Akira raised his head to his friend and removed the top of his kimono from his shoulders to reveal his upper body, he too clasped his hands and flexed just as hard if not harder. During this interaction Zeko stared at the girl beside Toshiki as he pieced together who she was.

"You're the girl who wanted me to be her goon!" Zeko exclaimed while the girl looked at him with an equal level of surprise

"You're the boy that poisoned Natamura-san!" She said aloud, letting pride cross the boy's face even if just for a moment.

They both were pointing at each other accusingly even as Yokano decided to introduce Zeko since her husband was busy in his… competition. "Zeko-chan this is Tsume-san and her daughter Erumi-chan." Yokano gestures to the woman with short black hair that came behind Toshiki and shook her head at him. "I saw Touka-chan up ahead, go spend some time with her." Zeko was about to interrupt when his mother put a finger to his mouth and pointed at Akira, who was still making fierce eye contact with Toshiki. "They aren't going to stop this for a while so you should just go ahead." Her lips pecked his forehead and she stood back up and gestured him off.

The boy smiled as he walked forward and quickly eyed his favorite, and only, rival. She waved him down quickly and he ran up to her. "Good to see you Zeko-kun."

"Nice to see you too Touka-chan. Tou-chan's busy so Kaa-chan sent me ahead, where's your mom?" The girl visibly deflated at the question. Even with the other people walking around having a good time chatting or getting food Zeko could tell that Yuno wasn't among them. "She couldn't make it huh? Well that doesn't matter, we can still have fun!"

"Zeko-kun!" The boy's neck turned quickly at the unfamiliar voice and he immediately saw a girl approach him and hold a paper bag out while mumbling but he didn't pick up what she said since she turned and retreated to a group of girls that were giggling and looking at him.

He opened the bag to see a few dango sticks in it and he smiled at the treats. 'Free snack!' He pulled one out and stripped it clean in one bite and drag. "Here Touka-chan, the night's already going good." He held another stick of dango out to the blue haired girl even as she looked him in the eye and shook her head.

"Your fangirls wouldn't be happy if I ate any of it." Her words were very simple and terse but they made Zeko freeze from how much weight they came with to him.

Fan...girls… Fangirls… His fangirls… Something wasn't right here and it made the boy screech everything in his head to a halt. "Wait my what?! How do I have fangirls?!"

Touka chuckled at the question even as Zeko's confusion grew. "Well people in the academy have seen you fight, how you throw kunai and shuriken and…" She blushed lightly before she spoke again. "You're a cute boy."

"Wha-" Zeko's mind was sputtering again. The next words that came out of his mouth needed to be better explained, he knew exactly what he meant but in the heat of the moment he didn't know that his mouth would warp his thoughts in such a way once he decided to let them out of himself. "But I don't even like girls that way!" He was only turning eight the next month so of course he knew he was too young to think about a relationship, but the girls all gained an aura of sadness over them while a few nearby adults looked at the boy and laughed openly at the declaration. Zeko himself took a few moments to realize what he meant and covered his mouth even as Touka blushed even heavier in front of him. He held up the bag and let her take dango from it wordlessly, his face being drained of color and his body language showing that he wanted to crawl into a hole and stay there.

An hour later Akira and Yokano finally regrouped with the two kids after the competition of masculinity was concluded with a tie as usual. "I still don't get why ya have to get caught up with that every time you see each other."

"You wouldn't get it, you aren't built like us." Akira defended the odd behavior with that simple line which only caused his wife to mutter something about being all brawn and no brain.

"Zeko-chan! Have you and your husband been doing well?!" Zeko's already embarrassed mind decided to not have him respond to the question and only curl into his position more as he and Touka sat on a bench. "The fireworks should be going off any minute now." Yokano looked at Touka who was still chuckling at her friend but also seemed upset over the lack of her mother being with her. "It's okay Touka-chan we're here with you and I might as well be your aunt." Yokano smiled at the girl who cheered up some, she still had a type of family to celebrate with and at the end of the day it was much better than nothing.

The fireworks started and the night sky was being lit into so many different colors and patterns that Zeko got mesmerized by. The boy turned his head to see that Touka was looking at him directly, she didn't say anything but even the platinum blonde with all his social awkwardness could tell that she was silently thanking him for including her with his family for the celebration.

The night shone beautifully as explosions went off in it for some time, everyone basking in the display of light as long as it went on. A good end to a somewhat weird day Zeko thought, and he decided that he might like it this feeling of allowing his odd days to close out in a peaceful manner. Ironic since the sound of clashing iron was the sound echoing and the two kids were only sharpening their rivalry with each other.


"So…" Rei looked at his Kouhai as he moved a wooden snake around with threads of chakra coming from his fingertips.

Zeko looked at him as he tried his best to form the same threads but every time they only wound up bursting out and breaking the doll he was using apart. "So?" He couldn't limit the amount of chakra he was pushing through his fingertips and where Rei described it as a needle through skin, Zeko could only call what he was doing pushing a kunai into an eyeball.

Rei made the serpent coil and dance as if it was really alive, puppetry really was the ideal field for the boy after all. "Rumor has it…" Zeko pieced the figure he was using back together bit by bit as Rei kept ending his sentences early.

"What do they have?" Zeko once again tried to create chakra threads but again he sent too much chakra and destroyed the figure for the sixth time that morning.

"Word is you're gay." Ran came from nowhere and bluntly stated which only made Zeko do his best to retreat into a nonexistent shell as he curled into fetal position onto the sandstone.

"I didn't meant it like that, I meant cause-" He cut himself off since he knew that there was no point in explaining once the two broke down into the deepest laughter Zeko had ever heard them go through.

'At least it's not true brat, unless it is and you only told me now.'

For the second time in a twenty four hour timespan Zeko truly felt like he would die from embarrassment, and more would be to come since his outburst was a funny topic among so many in such a short period of time. 'I hate this, and I will take this out on something later.' He swore his revenge and the sand itself shook in either fear or respect but it did shake that much was clear and why it shook wasn't something you needed to be a genius to know but Zeko would wait to return the kindness of the rumor in full to whoever started in in due time.


Author's Notes: This was really just fluff cause of what happened last chapter but now that its out of the way we can resume our business as usual. Review, favorite, or don't. See ya