Hikari bid Kakashi farewell as he left. How was she supposed to take care of herself? She was barely six years old. She was afraid and she wanted to cry as the images of her parents bodies flashes into her mind and she shook her head vigorously, as if to chase them away. Was Arashi really dead? She couldn't deny that her parents were, she had seen them with her own eyes, and she would never forget what she had seen. Arashi, however, she had not seen. Even though she knew it was far more likely that he was simply among those bodies that were burnt beyond recognition, she had to hope he was alive. She needed some kind of hope, something to hold on to. She dared not wonder why this had happened, she was too afraid of the answer, and wondering where no answers could be found was pointless.<br/><br/>She looked up from her own thoughts to see the boy, only a few years older than herself, watching from the shadows of the doorway. She was young, but she was already skilled and on track to graduate the academy next year, if she was lucky, so finding him wasn't so difficult a task as one might expect. She didn't recognize him. She found herself wondering if he was even from Konoha. "Hello." she greeted him, her voice soft and low. She did her best to keep the sadness from her voice, but her appearance was somber nonetheless. "I'm Hikari. What's your name?" she asked the boy as she stood in her own doorway across the hall. She was a small child now, her appearance not at all intimidating, yet unmistakable. Her hair, white as snow, fell to her lower back, and her eyes were pale blue as eye, piercing through the darkness.<br/><br/><div style="text-align: center;">~*~*~</div><br/><br/>Ten years had passed since that wretched night. The scars had begun to heal, and the pain eased as the years passed. Hikari had graduated that next year, as she had been on track to, and she had been placed into a squad with Shizuka Arishima and Daichi Tanaka, the boy she had met in the hospital all those years ago. She had been promoted to Chunin the following year, and recently she had received a promotion to Jonin. Much had happened for the young girl, but one thing was still left, looming over her head. She still had no answers to why her clan had been slaughtered, or whether or not her brother lived. She now knew who it was that had slaughtered them, and she had a guess now at why, but until she found him, there would be no closure. She had come to terms with the fact that she might never find her brother, that he may very well have died that night, and truthfully, that answer would almost be easier now than if he was alive. Because if he were alive, he had left her alone and in all this time he'd never reached out to her. If he still lived, she was almost afraid to know why he hadn't come back.<br/><br/>"Shizuka, Daichi, let's go!" she called to her teammates, waving to them as she leaned against the wall. She was no longer the small child she had once been. She was taller now, taller than most of the other girls in the village and even than many of the boys. Her white hair was now cut short, falling an inch above her shoulders, but her eyes remained the same blue they had always been, only now they held a secret, the secret of her clan. They had just returned from a mission and she was eager to get something to eat. Shizuka dropped out of a tree, landing not far from where Hikari now rested. "I'm actually going to have dinner with my family tonight. Not that I don't love you guys, but we've been gone for nearly a week and..." Shizuka began and Hikari stopped her, waving a hand to indicate that she didn't need to explain. "It's fine, don't worry about it. Go enjoy your family. You see us all the time and you don't see much of them anymore, I get it. Just because we don't have families doesn't mean you can't see yours." Hikari gave her an understanding smile and Shizuka nodded thankfully. "Okay. Well, I'll see you two tomorrow, okay?" she gave them a wave and headed off.<br/><br/>"Looks like it's just you and me again." Hikari started walking through the gates to the village, casting a glance over her shoulder at Daichi. "What shall we have tonight?" she smiled a little and continued walking, even if she didn't know exactly where they were going. "Ramen? Or would you rather have something else?" she asked before changing her gaze to focus on where she was going. She was too tired tonight to even consider cooking. She just wanted to sit, eat, and relax.