I froze, feeling an usual coldness leech the joy out from the air. Trying to appear casual, I turned and faced the direction from which the chill had come. My eyes landed on someone as young as I was, about six, with blood red hair and emotionless eyes. He was cute, but scary and intimidating.

"Hello," I waved.

He simply stared, his hands clinching into fists by his sides. Automatically, I took a step back and eased my kunai out of their pouch on my thigh. Those emotionless eyes of his lingered on the hitai-ate that I wore around my torso, seemingly glaring at the symbol, as sand began to trickle out of the large gourd which hung from his back. In his fisted hands I spied a teddy bear, but then he and the bear were blocked from my sight as a tall wall of sand formed between us. The edges began curving, forming a circular barrier around me. At that time, I was a student at the Sunagakure Ninja Academy and nobody had thought that training me for something like this would help me survive the hostile desert.

"This doesn't scare me," I scoffed, feeling sweat drip from my brow as I bit my lip.

My prison started to shrink at that point, closing in around me so tightly that I eventually began to inhale more sand than air. The pain in my lungs and chest felt nearly paralysing, but I resisted the notion that I'd die that nyght. So, I slashed at the walls of suffocating sand. I screamed like a banshee, wailing as I continuously drew my kunai along the trembling grains. But then it the walls were so close together that I couldn't move, couldn't breathe. Keeping my eyes open had been a mistake, as they were filled with sand and tears. I was choking on the sand in my mouth when another voice seeped through the darkness of my constricted tomb.

"Gaara, let her go!" it was a young girl's voice.

Gaara? As in, Suna no Gaara?

I was amazed by the ability to think when I had so little oxygen in my lungs.

"Gaara, that's Kuro Fuyu!" now I heard a boy's voice.

At this, I blacked out and fell unconscious. When I came to, the Kazekage frowned down upon me and I knew that I had just altered my fate in a very powerful way when I had bid his youngest child hello.