"Uzumaki... Naruto?"
Karin's eyes widened slightly. The name seemed to carry a strange magic, gently stirring the deepest longing in her heart.
A fellow clan member.
She had once dreamed that someone from her clan would come one day and rescue her and her mother from the hell that was Kusagakure.
She had never imagined she would meet one here.
Looking at the boy before her, whose blond hair shone like sunlight, Karin instinctively felt a flicker of doubt.
Didn't everyone in the Uzumaki Clan have red hair, like me and the mother I remember?
Why is his hair blond...?
But the thought passed in an instant, quickly eclipsed by another, more immediate and powerful feeling.
His chakra... it's so warm.
It was unlike the cold, brutal, or predatory chakra of the ninja in Kusagakure.
Even the faint traces of chakra escaping from this boy who called himself Naruto Uzumaki felt like winter sunshine, brimming with vitality and a comforting sense of acceptance.
That warmth reached her faintly through the air, and even her cold, rigid body seemed to relax a little.
And he bore her no ill will.
Karin had grown up surrounded by malice and bullying, leaving her with an almost instinctive sensitivity to emotions.
She could clearly tell that this boy's eyes held none of the greed, disgust, or utter indifference with which the Kusagakure ninja looked at her.
Those clear blue eyes held concern, curiosity, and something she could not quite understand, yet made her heart grow warm... a sense of kinship?
It was like suddenly spotting a small but steadily burning flame in the midst of a long, freezing night.
A faint but unmistakable light involuntarily flickered in Karin's violet-red eyes, dulled by years of malnutrition and fear.
It was the light of hope, the