Furukawa Shizuka awoke to the sound of screaming and the searing heat of flames licking the left wall of her room. She sucked in a sharp breath, only to choke and cough as smoke entered her lungs.

What?

Throwing her blanket aside, she hastily scrambled out of the door half crawling, half running. Sweat trickled down her back as the temperature increased with every second. The ceiling had caught on fire by the time she skidded into the hallway.

Her little sister. She had to get her out of here. Were her parents still inside?

"Natsumi!"

Her voice came out scratchy and cracked as she suppressed a dry cough, the smoke irritating her airways with every breath she took. She pulled the front of her nightgown over her mouth.

"Shizu!"

The shrill sound of her little sister guided her into the room besides her. Shizuka let out a small breath of relief as she saw her four year old sister hunkering in the corner of her room, teddy bear clutched in her arms tightly.

The fire hadn't reached this side of their house yet and the smoke wasn't as thick as out in the hallway. She frantically scrambled towards Natsumi, picking her up.

"W-what's happening?"

Shizuka tightened her grip, feeling her little sister trembling against her. The slowly increasing wet patch on the front of her nightgown along with the quickening of Natsumi's breathing alerted her to her sister's growing hysteria.

"It's... it's a game we're playing. We have to get out of the house before the fire reaches us."

"I don't like this game."

She couldn't find it in herself to reply to that, instead focusing on putting one foot in front of the other as she entered the hallway, air thick with smoke.

Their parents slept in the room opposite of Shizuka's so that was her next destination, shoving the sliding door open. The crackling of the flames crawling across the walls, across the floor was so loud. And the smell.

Oh god the smell.

The sharp and putrid scent of burned flesh made Shizuka choke and dry heave.

"Mama?" Natsumi's voice was small as she stared at the far left corner of the room.

Her older sister quickly followed her gaze to see flames licking on the bright purple fabric of her mother's nightgown. She choked down a sob at the blackened and cracking legs that stuck out of the clothing. Her gaze then moved to where what remained of her father was lying face down over her mothers upper body.

Shizuka was pulled out her shocked daze as her little sister started wailing loudly.

"Shhh, Natsu, don't look."

Gritting her teeth, she spun around. They had to get out. She had to get Natsumi outside.

A sharp crack, made her look up. Her eyes widened at the sight of one of the beams supporting the ceiling came down. Shizuka had just enough time to turn her back to it, hunching down protectively over her siblings trembling frame.

The burning wood landed on her shoulder with a force so heavy it pushed the oh so precious oxygen out of her lungs. And then the pain hit.

Searing heat.

It hurt it hurt it hurt ithurthurthurthurt

A wrangled scream escaped her throat as she was forced lower and lower to the floor until the wooden beam hit the wall in front of her, allowing her to duck out under it. Her back ached fiercely as she righted herself, leaning against the wall for support as she blindly stumbled towards the exit, mumbling empty reassurances to her crying sister.

After what felt like an eternity but what couldn't have been more than two minutes, Shizuka finally stumbled outside, the cold ground greeting her feet, and she gratefully took in heaps of clean air, her lungs were aching as she coughed up a wad of black slime onto her sleeve.

They were out.

Nothing could have prepared Shizuka for the chaos that greeted her outside.

Fire was everywhere. All the houses she could see of her small village were ablaze, people stumbling around as screams filled the air. The sound of metal clashing against metal drew her eyes to the middle of the street.

What could only be shinobi were clashing against each other violently. They moved with speeds that were hard to follow for her civilian eyes as they jumped around the street, leaving death and destruction in their wake.

Not safe.

She had to get them out of here, out of the village.

Turning around, Shizuka hobbled back down the street, tightly clutching Natsumi to her chest as she bit down on her tongue to keep from crying out as her back pulled painfully with each step.

She nearly tripped over the corpse of fallen shinobi, the green flak jacket paired with the Konoha symbol etched into his forehead protector left no doubt of who half of the shinobi were fighting for. Not far from him, another body lay unmoving, face down on the street, with a pool of red surrounding the woman.

Grass.

That was the other side of the battle.

Shizuka's village was small, not even a hundred people lived there, and was close to the border between Fire and Grass. Some shinobi must have snuck over the border but were found by some kind of border patrol.

Natsumi wailed loudly as several leaf shinobi appeared from a neighbouring street. They spared the two sisters barely a glance before engaging three sand shinobi as they skidded to a stop in front of them. The sound of metal on metal resumed loudly as Shizuka veered to the side of the street clumsily. She was so close to the forest edge now, there they could hide it out.

The squelch of a body being pierced was deafening and entirely too close. Natsumi's sobs ceased. A sticky liquid dripped down her arms and chest slowly at first, but then rapidly.

Shizuka stumbled to a halt behind the first tree she could find before putting her sibling down on the forest floor. Her heart paused as she registered the piece of metal sticking out of her little sisters throat. Natsumi's blue eyes were open wide, her mouth opened in a scream that never left her body. Blood trickled down the corner of her mouth slowly.

Shizuka sank down to her hands and knees and heaved harshly until bile burned its way up her throat and she threw up violently. Her throat burned and so did her eyes. A stinging pain came from her eyes, hurting more and more.

And then it stopped.

A red hue covered the forest around her eerily. Shizuka blinked and her sight went back to normal as she dissolved into sobs that wrecked her body. Crawling forwards, she took Natsumi's rapidly cooling body onto her lap, uncaring of the cold blood soaking into her formerly white but now red and black nightgown.

She must have sat there for hours. Her tears had run out a while ago, leaving streaks in her soot covered face. The cold had seeped into her bones and she was shivering relentlessly.

The sound of a branch snapping finally made her look up. A Konoha shinobi stood a few metres away from her illuminated by the glow of the dying fires, he had dark hair tied up into a ponytail, and his equally dark eyes were underlined with thick eyeliner.

Shizuka numbly apprehended him as he slowly approached her, hands held open in front of him to display he was unarmed and meant no harm. Though, the blood stains splattered over his standard Konoha clothing certainly had the opposite effect on her.

"Hey kid" His voice was surprisingly deep. "You're from the village here?"

She nodded once, not taking her eyes off of him as he approached her like one would a startled deer. He came to a halt in front of her and crouched down, something like regret and pure exhaustion flickering across his eyes as he took in Natsumi's bloodied figure.

"Shit" The middle aged man raked a hand down his face before gesturing to her nightgown. "Is that your blood?"

Shizuka shook her head, clutching Natsumi's cold so cold hand tight enough to stop her own from shivering.

"Okay, good. It's cold out tonight, let's get you somewhere warm okay?" She stared at the man unblinkingly, not really registering what he wanted from her.

Sighing, the shinobi tried again.

"I need you to stand up. Can you do that for me?"

Oh. She could do that.

Very slowly she moved her by now numb feet under her, moving to stand up while still keeping her grip on her sister's hand. Her back muscles contracted painfully during the movement, making her wince sharply.

Instantly, the man stood up and stepped behind her. She heard him suck in a sharp breath as he took in the no doubt gruesome sight of her mutilated back. He whistled sharply and a second shinobi popped up swiftly.

"We've got a civilian child, injured and probably hypothermic. I need help carrying her sister back to camp."

Then, the man was back beside her, crouched down. Ever so slowly, as if she would startle if he moved too fast, he reached his hands out to her. His skin felt almost uncomfortably warm against her too cold skin as his body heat bled through her nightgown. As soon as he understood she wasn't going to bolt, he picked her up carefully to not jostle her back too much.

He stalled at the sight of her still clamping to Natsumi's hand, exchanging a look with the other shinobi, a blond man she registered blearily, crouched down in front of her, reaching out to Natsumi.

"You need to let go now, sweetie."

Shizuka started struggling weakly. No no no she couldn't let go of her sister. Who else did she have? Eventually, the blonde had to force her hand out of her sister's. She let out a whine unbefitting a newly twelve year old as she glared at him angrily.

A pin prick of pain and her vision was again tinted red. The man let out a low whistle as they made eye contact.

"A kekkei genkai? I thought this was a civilian village."

It was true, Hoai did not boast any shinobi, too far out from any hidden village. They mainly made their living by trading various goods. Her parents for example dead dead dead dead were tailors and her neighbour, Tajima, was a carpenter.

The Furukawa family had lived in Hoai for three generations now. Her mother dead dead dead had told her once that her grandmother came out of some shinobi family but had hopelessly fallen in love with her grandfather, a civilian tailor, and had given up the lifestyle.

Shizuka only ceased her glaring at the blonde, who had gotten more and more unnerved by her relentless stare by the second, when the man carrying her set her down on a tree log in the middle of a small Konoha camp site. Her vision stopped being red after her next blink. She nearly whined from the loss of warmth as he pulled back from her.

A friendly looking lady crouched down in front of her, setting down some bandages and salves next to her.

"Hey there, my name is Naori Rin and I'm a medic. Will you let me look at your back?"

Shizuka nodded once, following every movement Rin made as she slowly moved behind her. She hissed sharply as Rin started peeling parts of her nightgown out of the drying blisters littering her back.

The medic paused for a moment, holding a cup out to her as she stepped back in front of Shizuka.

"Drink this. It will help with the pain."

Shizuka's hands trembled so violently she couldn't bring the cup to her mouth herself, needing Rin to help her. The liquid was cold and bitter and she nearly choked on it, coughing for a moment.

Her eyes flitted around her nervously.

"Where did you bring Na-" Her voice slurred as a wave of exhaustion hit her. "Natsumi?"

"She's just on the other side of the clearing, sweetie."

Warm hands took a hold of her shoulders as she struggled to stay awake, her eyes feeling so very heavy. Gods, she was tired.

"It's okay, sleep."

And so she did.