Karin sat in the room in which the first phase of the Chunin Exams was to take place, barely containing her nervousness. She had been sick twice the night before, and had been unable to eat breakfast. It was quite the contrast from the excitement that had carried her all the way to Konoha from Kusagakure.

All of a sudden, the blond in orange who looked small enough to be mistaken for a ten year-old, and probably was one now that she thought about it started claiming to be an Uzumaki.

That was too much. She who was amongst the last of the Uzumaki wouldn't let this little liar claim to be a member of that great clan, and therefore family to her. It was clear as the hair on the brat's head that he wasn't an Uzumaki. All Uzumaki were red-heads. It was a trait that was strangely dominant in all Uzumaki/non-Uzumaki pairings despite the fact that red hair was usually a recessive trait. If the brat wanted to claim to belong to one of the Great Clans, he may as well claim to be a Uchiha, as that claim had equal chances of being true, meaning none at all.

She wouldn't sit still for this.

"LIAR!" she yelled, catching the attention of the entire room as she stormed towards the boy, prepared to kill him for his insult. "I will not let a little blond loudmouthed shrimp like you sully my clan's name by claiming it for your own!"

It was at that point in which Uchiha Sasuke, who if he'd kept his mouth shut and saved her from a bear in the forest later in the Exam would have earned her undying love and gratitude, put his foot in his mouth and earned something else entirely.

"You mean there's an entire CLAN of you morons? !" Sasuke yelled.

As Karin stood there looking back and forth between the false Uzumaki and the dark haired punk who was obviously his teammate trying to decide which one to kill first the proctors appeared.

"Settle down!" the lead proctor barked. Unfortunately, the entire room which had been stirred up by the claim of name theft, wasn't in the mood to settle since there was most likely going to be a killing soon. Name theft was one of the lowest acts one could commit in the Shinobi world, and clans tended to deal harshly with those who tried to use their name when they weren't entitled to it.

"I said settle down!" the lead proctor roared.

"Internal clan matters take precedent to all others within the village walls. It's in the founding charter." Hyuuga Neji spoke up.

"Yes. And, that means that the members of said clan can get the hell out of here!" the lead proctor said, before turning and throwing out as an afterthought. "Their teams too."

"Great going Naruto. If you hadn't tried to show off we'd be taking the Exam right now." Uchiha Sasuke snarled at his teammate as the team from Konoha and the team from Grass filed out of the room grumbling over the actions of their respective teammates.

As Karin was gearing up to fight and kill the blonde fake on the lawn of Konoha's Ninja Academy, the Copy nin Hatake Kakashi who she'd read about when she stole her sensei's Bingo Book arrived, presumably to have a word with his students who had just been thrown out of the Exam.

"What's going on here?" the Hatake asked as he took in the impending duel.

"The red-haired girl here is claiming that Naruto committed an act of name theft." the pink haired female on the fake and the Uchiha punk's team said, looking as if she wouldn't put it past the fake.

"Oh, who was he claiming to be related to?" the Hatake asked, looking at the fake sternly.

"My clan!" she roared as she lunged towards the boy only to be restrained by the Hatake. "There's no way in hell that this blonde shrimp is an Uzumaki!"

"There's unimpeachable proof of Naruto's lineage going back several generations." the Hatake said coldly. "What proof do you offer for your claim that you are Uzumaki?"

"But, but, he's blond. No Uzumaki are blonde." she said weakly as the Hatake loosened his grip on her upon realizing the fight had just gone out of her.

"His father's genes turned out to be more dominant in some areas. He's got the Habanero's personality though, much to my regret." the Hatake said as he released her.

She ended up sitting down hard when he did. She had family in Konoha.

She had family in a freaking foreign country.

As she sat there dumbly staring off into space as the realization sank in, the blonde who had a round face that she realized was similar to those of some of her relatives, and her own to a degree now that she got a closer look and had time to take it in walked up to her, studying her with a strange intensity.

"I have family." the boy whispered almost in awe.

"So, are you like a cousin or something?" the boy asked as he sat down next to her.

Both Genin started talking to each-other, completely oblivious to exactly how far they had just derailed Orochimaru's plans, and to the fact that Karin's life had just completely changed.

&!&!&!&!&

Author's Note: This story is an off branching of Karin and the Other Uzumaki that was created because PsyckoSama wanted to see a story where Karin and Naruto meet while Karin is still a Kusagakure Genin, and not yet loyal to Orochimaru since that apparently was the case when Karin took the Chunin Exams according to him and a couple others.