A/N: Hey all, this is my very first fanfic and it's definitely a work in progress. Currently I have no idea where I'm exactly going with this story so suggestions do help. Thanks!

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any of the characters! Just my own characters.

Chapter One: Lost

A thousand tears poured on the sand as her heart cried for the freedom from the burden of living in such a world that could destroy everything so easily. Every part of her body cried in rebellion, anger, frustration, denial, everything. How could her life come to this? Everything she worked so hard for vanished like her tears into the sand.

Nothing was permanent in life and she knew it all too well, but she had hoped that just this once her hard work would have paid off. She just felt so utterly useless once again. She wanted to have some kind of meaning in her life. She wanted to have done something with herself and to be useful. She wanted to be able to at least protect her family or at least die trying. However, even that plan failed. She was of no use. She no longer had any purpose.

What was the point of life if you had no purpose and no reason for being needed? Not having a purpose made her feel even more useless than before. She wanted to be free of the horrible feeling of uselessness and apathy. She became even more angry for despairing and not even trying to be hopeful. She angrily punched the cold sand as she finally gave into her exhaustion.

Previously...

Her entire village and family lay in ruin and she was utterly helpless to stop it. Her father was murdered right before her eyes while her mother was raped mercilessly in front of him. The horror within both her parents eyes made her shudder and yet she could do nothing. As she watched the horrors in front of her, all she could do was sob and hang her head low in an attempt to block out the scene before her.

She had looked up to the yelp of her sister. Her screaming younger sister fought with all her might against her captors as she tried to run back to her father and mother. Even she seemed to be trying to do something in the hopeless situation. Then they gave her sister a hard blow to the head rendering her unconscious or even dead. She cried out in terror as her beloved sister's body fell the floor with a thud.

They then headed for her and all she could think to do was run and leave her family behind. Even now, as her treasured sister's body was being dragged away, all she could think about was escape. All her body would allow her to do was to try to flee from the horrid events. When she had managed to struggle free from the ropes binding her, she ran as far and as fast as she could.

She traveled far through a thick forest for some time while never even looking back once. While her body kept moving, her soul started to weep. Before she knew it, she was wet from her tears and drenched from head to toe from the sad little storm cloud above her. She kept moving quickly through the forest with the strange storm cloud until she finally stumbled into the desert. Even then she kept willing her body to move as far out into the desert as she could.

When she did finally stop from exhaustion, she had no idea as to where she was. She didn't care how lost she was though. She had given up. In that lone, unforgiving desert night she collapsed into what she thought would ultimately be her grave.

Kankuro roamed lazily in the desert on his morning patrol. He had always loved the morning patrols because the desert wasn't quite hot enough to scorch your skin, but it was still warm and beautiful. He was a man of the desert, born and raised. The desert was his home and would always be a place of beauty.

He sighed blissfully as he scanned the desert horizon in all it's beauty. Then he saw a strange sight from afar. Randomly in the remoteness of the desert was a small rain cloud hovering over a slumped figure. Talk about having a cloud over you heard, Kankuro thought to himself slightly amused as he cautiously approached the lone figure.

Once he was twenty or so feet away, he realized that the figure was girl, battered and bruised. She lay almost broken-looking in a messy, bloody heap; not to mention that the rain cloud still hovered oddly over her. He puzzled over the strange sight before moving even closer to the girl.

When Kankuro reached the girl's side, he saw her shivering and immediately tried to remove her from the strange rain cloud's reach because he realized how close to death she was. Oddly enough, the rain cloud followed her. Kankuro pondered over this strange cloud for a bit because he knew he had to get her out of the rain since she felt like she was on fire.

Again he tried to remove her from the rain cloud's shadow by carrying her to an even further distance. Still, it was to no avail. He sighed in defeat as he picked up the girl once more and headed into the direction of Suna with the rain cloud in tow. Since it would be a bit of a long trek back, he decided to curiously examine the girl in his arms.

She had dark, nearly black long hair that, at this moment, was messily soaked and cloaking her face. As far as he could tell, she was in her late teens although she looked fairly young. The only indication of her true age was the few lines of worry that faintly lined her face.

Upon closer inspection, Kankuro could see that she was at least a little beautiful despite her matted and bloodied hair across her face. He wondered what her eyes looked like under her closed and worried looking lids.

He suddenly felt a pang of sympathy for the girl. She must have gone through some terrible ordeal to be found unconscious in the middle of the desert with a rain cloud of all things trailing her.

Kankuro looked up at the suspicious rain cloud as he thought this. He needed to figure out why it was following her and what to do with it when he got to Suna. It never left her so it obviously had to do something with her specifically. Perhaps she was a powerful shinobi who could control the rain clouds even in unconscious exhaustion. He wondered if it could be some kind of strange trap by an enemy, but quickly dismissed it as he once again looked fondly at the girl.

Something about her moved him sympathy and even fondness. He felt this was strange because he hadn't even technically met her. He just felt so protective of her because she looked so helpless out there. She was so fragile looking and so sad. She looked almost as sad as his brother Gaara did when he found out his uncle was trying to assassinate him as a child. The difference being here was that Gaara wasn't ever helpless like she was now.

He looked upon the girl once again and could only sigh at his odd affection for her. This girl was definitely going to be an interesting ordeal for him once he got to Suna seeing as how he was already growing a bit attached. Kankuro was also a bit worried about what would happen to her in Suna. He was sure Gaara wouldn't be too pleased with him for bringing some foreign possible threat right into the city.

Kankuro could only sigh at all the difficulties would arise from him bringing her to Suna. He could only hope for the best as he neared Suna with the girl and strange storm cloud in tow.