Bubble: This chapter is going to be readers going into a time machine!

Natsumi: The past. Just say the past, Bubble.

Illumi: How Natsumi met Hisoka...

Hisoka: *randomly having a laughing fit in his emo corner*

All: ...WTF (o-o)

Killua: Fridgethatbubblegum does NOT own HunterxHunter!

Gon: Please R&R!

*Flashback*

I was happy nonetheless, I was so lucky to have such good friends. When I thanked them, they all just laughed.

*End Flashback*

Chapter. 10 Bright and Sparkly fire

Natsumi's POV

I ran and ran, tripping over my feet as I sped through the misty forest.

Yes, I was in the Hunter Exams, at the second phase, "Swindlers Swamp".

I was desperate, too. I had lost sight of the instructor long ago. My only hope was a trail of ash that I left behind like crumbs of bread, and the fire I was using to burn down the trees which barred my way. Nobody else had the trait of a lumberjack, nobody took shortcuts but me - not that there were any shortcuts.

I just wanted to hold on to the smidgen of hope that there were no traps within the forests, that there was some sort of quick and lucky way to go through the foggy maze.

I was covered in sweat and misty water. I couldn't see well anymore.

I tripped. A vine had been able to grasp my ankle. I blew it off with fire, leaving a cackling mess as I sped on.

More vines lurched at me, almost as if they were alive.

With horrifying realization a few seconds later, I found out they were alive.

Mentally slapping myself for not thinking straight, I ground my teeth together, creating a spark and the ashes I had been trailing lit fire and exploded behind me in a long line, all the way back to the start of the trail, back at the first phrase. The "running like mad until you pass out" phase.

I only barely managed that, and now I have to run from vines?

I was too preoccupied to notice the blur of flaming hair and a light blue jester costume pass my path of complete nothingness.

I had cleared all of the trees and anything else behind me. All that was left was the end of the path located... somewhere in front of me.

I sighed and decided to sit down for one second, exhausted.

"Tired, are we?" a voice said from behind me.

I jumped up, startled to see a man dressed as a jester right behind me, literally talking to my ear.

As soon as my heart stopped beating from shock, it started beating harder because of something else.

I didn't need this thought now.

I stood tall, distaste radiating from me. "What do you want?" I asked, willing my voice not to quiver as I dimly realized the weird guy standing in front of me had a horrific amount of Nen - much stronger, and stranger than mine.

Weirdly familiar, too.

"Just a casual chat with an old friend, Natsumi-chan," he replied.

My heart almost stopped.

"Hisoka?"

Why would he want to talk to me? After all those years...?

I knew him from my childhood, he is but a shadow of his past self now. He bullied me a lot back then, but when that passed, we had something else.

"You disappeared, I didn't want to know you were still alive," I said, my voice shrinking to a quiver.

"I even wished you were dead, too."

Third Person POV:

13 years ago

Natsumi, at the age of four, barely had any friends. In fact, she didn't even have one.

Despite the fact that there were only a small number of children in her village, she had a reputation between the mothers, that she had no parents because they committed suicide together.

"That's not true!" Natsumi would scream in a small, childish voice, tears streaming from her eyes. "Mummy and Daddy saved me! When my house was on fire I-"

"Shut up, you twit!" a small red haired boy interrupted, leaving Natsumi in shock.

To the little girl, the tiny insult sounded like a death sentence.

"Your Mummy and Daddy didn't want you! That's why they killed themselves because they didn't want to see you ever again!" Hisoka, aged 14, should know better, but apparently didn't when he continuously insulted Natsumi for a long time. Using the words 'Mummy' and 'Daddy' instead of 'parents' or 'mother' just to rub in how young she was, still using 'kiddie' words, as he called them.

Even then, Hisoka had the best reputation, with well combed hair (tamed down instead of the signature spiky style) and a physique well-built for his age. All of the mothers called him a genius. Had the best grades, was the best sportsman, and most of all, attractive.

Natsumi would probably be the only one not 'oooh-ing' and 'aaw-ing' when he walked through the small village she had grown to hate.

Once, Hisoka had struck a match in front of Natsumi's nose. At the sight of fire she cowered, screaming for it to be put out, as the trauma of seeing her whole family burnt alive in front of her very eyes clouded her mind. She hid in a corner, shaking as the villagers bellowed with laughter.

Natsumi lived alone. The mayor had lent her a tiny hut out of pity. She hated that, but it wasn't like she could do anything about it.

She opened the small wooden door. It was falling off its hinges. Most of the hut was broken. A small cloudy window was situated on the right side of the building. It only fit a tiny bed and a dusty cupboard. Then there was no space left after that.

Every night she would shiver in the cold. The thin roof was like a shed's roof - the worst quality steel, about to tear off with even the slightest of wind. When she was lucky, the wind wasn't so strong. Even so, she felt all of the tiniest gusts of ice-cold wind through every tiny hole the bugs had gotten to.

One night, she was shivering in the small space of the bed, covered in such a thin blanket, it may as well not be there at all.

Natsumi heard a quiet knock on the door.

The room was so small the door was only an arm's reach. As she peeked out, the cold air hit her, followed by a gust of wind.

She didn't see much at first, only the warm light which illuminated from the inside of all of the villagers' houses. She envied them, greatly.

Then she saw something huge cover her, roll her into a ball, and carry her back into her hut.

She struggled slightly. "Wh-what?!" she called, her voice muffled by the massive object that had just wrapped her up.

When she eventually fought herself to the surface, she realized someone had wrapped a thick blanket around her, making it look like she was the inside of some kind of sushi roll. Natsumi poked her head out of it, so just her hands and face were visible.

She was very warm too. She had never been so warm in her life, other than the time when her house had burned down. Instant fear gripped her at the memory, but left her when she heard a faint chuckle in front of her.

"Hey," the voice said.

Her emotions soared when she heard his voice. The voice of Hisoka, the boy who had bullied Natsumi her whole life. The boy who she had unknowingly fallen for. Her face didn't give any emotion, afraid that if she glared or smiled at him, he would say something insulting.

But her eyes showed it all.

Her bright emerald eyes, shining like a cat's in the dark, were now filled with not only tiredness, sadness, happiness and love, but as Hisoka noticed, was also filled with a terrifying amount of hatred.

"Do you want me to train you?" Hisoka smirked.

Natsumi blinked, the emotions never leaving her eyes.

"Okay then," he replied, giving her a small packet of something that looked like gum. Bungee Gum, Hisoka's favourite. "We'll start tomorrow," Hisoka continued. "Sleep now."

Natsumi didn't need to be told twice. The warmth within the blanket had given her enough safety that she drifted into a carefree dream, about her mother and father, sitting around a fire and eating a nice, warm meal.

Four years later, everything had barely changed.

The village still whispered as the 8-year-old Natsumi walked through the village to her small house.

But this time, it was worse.

Thanks to Hisoka's hard training, Natsumi had become an exceptional Nen User. Nobody liked that.

She suspected it was because she had become more dangerous, but actually, it was much more than that.

"Look at her! And Hisoka-san wanted to train her? What a waste of time!" was what most of the mothers said.

"What's so good about her? Why did Hisoka-sama choose her and not me?" the girls screeched. Every one of them were jealous.

Natsumi's POV

Yes, that's it. They didn't care about me. All they cared for was that Hisoka had trained me. Hisoka was the one who saw and talked to me every day. Hisoka had wasted these four years on me, training me to become the best fire user in history.

"What ability do you want to have?" Hisoka had asked me.

He knew what I wanted to do, he saw it in my eyes at the very start.

"Fire," I had said, meeting his bright yellow eyes squarely.

His eyes had narrowed. "Revenge will destroy you," A sly expression had crossed his face.

Bring it. My eyes were saying to him.

Fire... which had caused me so much grief, and put me in this mess in the first place.

"I'm going to bend fire to my own will this time, and it won't affect me."

Fire, burning, flickering, bright and sparkly.

Sparks and flames, smoke billowing from every rooftop of the village I hated.

Everybody screaming, everybody catching on fire. There was not one who had not put me through even the slightest of humiliation in my life.

It was my time to pay them back.

I'm going to do everything in my ability, use as many people as I want, to become the one who isn't always whispered about, hated, and humiliated.

I stood on the balcony of the village hall looking down at the burning village. The wind gushed around my hair, blowing it in all directions.

I had splayed ashes and all over the place, lining every building and connecting them with a path of ashes. I did the hall last, so I could watch the Mayor mourn, then knock him out and set him on fire too.

I didn't particularly enjoy the villagers suffering.

I didn't want to hurt anyone.

I wanted them to suffer, and regret what they did, sure, but it wasn't like this.

When I think about it, it was a wonder how I got away with it.

A tiny 8 year old girl burned down the whole village in one night.

I bit the air and the whole thing exploded.

Tears streamed from my eyes as I saw, and lost, the last of my home town in a burning, flickering, bright and sparkly fire.