Age 7
Haruka was by herself, in a field, wandering around. She was only 7 years old, and she was running through the flowers with nobody around her. She should have known better, but she wasn't thinking at all, being all alone. She was laughing playfully, smiling as she looked at the beautiful lotuses by the waterside of a small pond. She reached over to touch one, and as if having been pulled in, she found herself in the water. She had no idea how to swim, and the bottom of the lake wasn't able to be seen. The lake was over 100 feet deep, and she was beneath the surface, flailing around, trying madly to get to the top. She couldn't breathe, and she was quickly running out of air. "Is this...it? This can't be it...No...I won't die...not now..." She thought, slowly rising to the surface, her flailing having some effect on the rate of rising. She was about a foot from the surface, and she was out of air. He extended her arm, grabbing a lotus flower from the side of the water, grabbing it by the stem and pulling, in an attempt to get herself out of the water. She opened her mouth to scream, her head beneath the surface, but she was out of air, and she made no sound. And even if she had, she was alone. Nobody could hear her, and she was about a mile from the village, off a side road, rarely traveled by anybody but her. She was completely alone. She closed her eyes, and yanked one final time on the plant, which was caught under a rock, and wasn't being pulled from the ground.

Her head pierced through the surface of the water, and she ended up on the shore, gasping for air, with water in her lungs. She went into a coughing fit, a world of pain, completely unable to breath, all breath inhaled, exhaled tenfold by her coughing. Within a few moments, she fell into the bliss of unconsciousness, the lotus still in her hand. A few hours later, she woke up, scared. It was dark, and she couldn't see anything, and she was soaked. She got up, on trembling legs, whimpering. She was scared and alone. She had never been to this place in the dark, and felt lost. She may as well have been in a completely different village, or lost in a cavern. She sat down and the tears began to freely fall from her eyes. She crawled to a standing position, and began to wander the fields. The lotuses were bright and colorful, even though it was dark. She began to smile, following the field back to the village, where she was finally safe. She made her way back to her house, tears staining her cheeks. She was cold, hungry, and tired. She was traumatized by her near death experience, and realized at that moment, she was alone. She was by herself in this world, and she knew that she had to learn to make it on her own. She could be trusted by others, but would trust almost nobody, as nobody was there for her when she needed it. She knew there wouldn't always be somebody there for her, and in the end, the only thing that she truly had, was the beauty of the lotuses on her side.



Age 9
She had been training every day, for two years. Training to use her chakra, training to use her abilities in combat, and training to be self sufficient. She could fight better than most of the kids at school, who had been pampered by the aid and assistance of others. She was alone, and she knew it. She had her parents, but even at the young age she was, she knew they wouldn't always be there, and she trained as such. She made sure she trained every day, not wanting ever to be under-prepared for anything. She knew what it was like to be helpless, and hated the feeling, and because of this, she made sure she was never helpless, that there was always something she could do.