A weird noise awoke the sleeping child. She stumbled out of her bed and in a tired daze, wandered to the window. She thought of a few things as she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. Gramps and Gran weren't related to her, yet they treated her like family. Maybe waking her up at the crack of dawn was the way they treated family in this foreign village. She turned her head back to the window and looked out to a dark sky. It wasn't dawn after all.

She scanned the horizon for something that could have made that noise. Lights flickered on in other houses. They must've been awoken by the noise too. She kept searching. Another noise boomed, only this time she could have sworn that the house shook with it. Her door flew open and an older version of herself entered. The woman had apple green eyes and soft blonde hair. She wore a worried expression as she gathered a knapsack of clothes. The last time she had done this was the time when they left the Hidden Sand.

The child turned back to the window, as if to take in a last glimpse of this temporary home. Instead she looked upon a glowing white figure. It was at least as big as the Mizukage's office, if not bigger. Ten tails danced around uncontrollably. It seemed to be fighting something.

The woman muttered something louder than she wanted to, "Why here? Why now? Can that man not leave us alone?"

"That man," it was a phrase commonly used when the child's mother spoke of her biological father. She didn't understand why her mother harbored such feelings toward her father, but all she knew about him was, "he's a really bad man." But just how bad was "bad?" Was it rotten sushi bad, or was it evil bad? She didn't know, and no one bothered to tell her.

Gran ran into the room. "Eri, we need to leave now. It's getting too close."

The girl's mother sighed and ran toward her. "Hikari, I need you to take this and get as far away from here as possible. Can you do that for mommy?"

The girl nodded, but she didn't understand. How far was "far away?" They were surrounded by water, but she knew better than to argue. Mother was in her shinobi clothes which meant that she was going to fight. She grabbed the bag that her mother had packed and ran. She got to the outside door when she felt it, the sudden urge to disappear. She ran, and ran, not looking back. The terror began as soon as she got to the Mizukage's office.

She could hear the sounds of panic and destruction, but she kept her eyes forward. She was still running when she heard it. "My baby!"

This was typical of a situation as dire as this. She couldn't keep running. She turned and saw just how terrible the village looked. She saw the woman in terror and, as if in slow motion, dove for the carriage. Her seven year old body wasn't trained for actions such as this, but her adrenaline told her mind just what to tell her body to do. She leapt over the carriage and grabbed the crying child just as the house to her right was destroyed by the towering step of a monster.

She felt the wood pierce her leg, but that wouldn't stop her descent. She landed and stood just the same, not bothering to pull out the massive sliver. The woman was dead. A metal fork meant for embers in a fire was embedded in her chest. Hikari adjusted the crying baggage and resumed running. Explosions quickly froze as the temperature descended. Snow began falling in the middle of this crisis. She limped badly as her leg began to bleed uncontrollably. She reached in her bag and pulled out a shirt. She stopped for a moment and put the baby down. She tore up the shirt and wrapped it around the object protruding from her leg.

With her leg bandaged, Hikari grabbed the child and began running once again. She saw a boatman and yelled for his attention. Even in the commotion he heeded her call.

"Take this child with you." She begged.

He looked at the sobbing babe and nodded. Then he assessed the damage that Hikari had taken. "You need a doctor."

"Just get the baby OUT OF HERE!" She commanded. "I'll be fine, no go." A command given by a seven year old had never been followed so quickly before or again.

Hikari dropped as the boatman ran for the docks. She had lost a fair amount of blood, and she was quickly fading. She laid down in the rubble and looked up. The white figure caught her eye once more. It was a wolf, her favorite animal. It was if in her dying moments, someone wanted her to smile, something in which she had never done before. The wolf looked down and made eye contact. Hikari looked into its deep azure eye and smiled her first and last smile.

Hikari woke in the rubble of the village she had once called home. She stood and looked around. She strained to remember the last few moments. She remembered a noise and then her mother came in yelling. That's right! She was supposed to be dead! She looked at her hands. They were definitely there, but something was off. There was writing all over her arm. "Seal" over and over again. She took a moment to process this.

After she decided that there was no possible way that any of her questions could be answered at this time, she began wandering the remains of the village. The Mizukage's office was still standing but not much else. She still wandered. She felt compelled toward one place. Her senses said "go," but her conscience said, "Turn away now." Soon she wished she had listened to her conscience. Her mother laid in a pile of wood gasping for breath.

"Hi—Hikari? Wh—What are you -?" She stopped due to a sudden spike in pain.

"Mommy? You'll be okay right? You won't be like daddy, right?" The memory of her father's cruel murder was vivid in her mind. She had watched her father die, two years ago. The trauma alone was enough to make her smile disappear.

"I don't know sweetie." The older blonde gasped.

Hikari began crying. "I don't want to be alone."

"Be brave," her mother said quickly. "You are my little trooper, remember? You are my Hi-." Her words trailed off. Hikari's last living relative, to her knowledge, had just died in front of her eyes.

Hikari sat down next to her dead mother. Her tears stopped flowing soon as she sat there pondering what to do next. Her first thought was to commit suicide, which was harshly thrown into the trash bin. Her next idea was almost as insane, go home. She didn't mean search through the rubble until she found her Gramps and Gran's house. She meant, go home, back to the Hidden Sand.

How long had Hikari been walking. She found a small boat and had rowed all the way back to the other shore. She then filled her small canteen and began walking. She felt lost in the huge forest. A few times she could have sworn that she had seen a wall, but she convinced herself it was just a hallucination. Later she finally found sand and thus began her journey to the Sand.

She began having conversations with the voice in her head who told her to call it Ookami-san. At first she thought she was going insane, but she soon found that it was in fact the same monster that had attacked the village. It had decided to spare her because she was the first human to smile at it, even in the face of death. It was hard to believe that a monster as big as Ookami-san was able to smash itself into a seven year old.

Ookami-san was helpful in the fact that it was an ice type demon and it could create water in this heat. It taught her the hand signs to make an icicle and then Hikari could munch on it as she walked. Hikari also found that her body temperature had dropped by nearly twenty degrees and any higher was deadly. This walk was getting very informative. Soon she found a large sand castle, or so she thought. It was actually the gate to the Hidden Sand. She wandered around to the entrance and spoke with the guards. They were actually quite reasonable when you spoke like a little kid that was just lost.

Now that she was in the village it was near sunset. She kept walking, never had she ever done this much walking in one day. She found a small park with a swing set and sat down. She began looking around and surveying the surrounding area. She looked at a group of kids about her age and older playing with a leather ball. One kicked it too high, and it got caught on a ledge. Just as they turned to walk away, a small sand storm brought the ball into the hands of a small red headed kid. He couldn't have been any older than Hikari. She thought that this act was sweet, but the other children seemed scared.

She stood. Ookami-san was prompting her forward. He began to get angry. The sand seemed to react to his emotions. Hikari grabbed his arm and grabbed the ball. She threw it at the terrified children.

"Play nice or don't play at all." She said defiantly. "He was just being nice, and you guys treated him like a monster."

"He is a monster!" A child yelled.

"Then I'm going to play with a monster. Come on, they don't understand what they're missing." Hikari continued holding the boy's wrist and pulled him to the swings. She maneuvered him in order to make him sit on the swing. She then pulled on the ropes and proceeded pushing him.

"They're right you know." The boy said shyly.

"Right about what?" Hikari pouted.

"I am a monster."

"Really? I just see a boy who needs a friend. I see someone like me."

"I doubt that."

She stopped the swing, and walked around to the other side. "Take a closer look dummy. We may be more similar than you might think."

The boy looked at her arms and his eyes widened. "You've got a monster in you too?"

"I don't call it a monster; I call it Ookami-san. It's a lot nicer than you may think, and if you learn how to control your demon's power, maybe it will understand just how nice you are, erm…"

"Gaara."

"Gaara, I'm Hikari, Yukimura Hikari."

"Do you really mean it?"

"Mean what?"

"That I'm nice?" He seemed shyer than any time before that moment.

"Only kind people can be shy. That's what my Gran always told me."

The boy didn't know what to say. He didn't have a chance anyway. After Hikari said her philosophy someone called for Gaara. He jumped off the swing.

"Will I see you again?"

"I don't know."

"Then here." He held out a bag on a necklace. "I'm Gaara of the Sand, I control sand. In this bag is a little bit of sand with my chakra infused in it. If it becomes heavy, I'm dead."

Hikari took the bag and put it around her neck. She then grabbed Gaara's hand. She blew on it creating a pendant of ice. "This will only melt when I die. This way we can know that the other is alive and well." She then smiled for the second time. Hikari finally knew her character. She wasn't the emotionless girl of the Hidden Mist. She was the happy girl of the Hidden Sand, Yukimura Hikari.