Karin sat in the room in which the first phase of the Chunin Exams was to take place, unable to believe her luck. She had been on one of the teams that had been selected by Orochimaru-sama to take part in the Exams. As she waited for the Exams to start, she idly watched as Konoha's rookies walked in with the boy Orochimaru-sama was targeting.

All of a sudden, the blond in orange who was on the Uchiha's team started claiming to be an Uzumaki.

That was too much. She who was amongst the last of the Uzumaki, who had all of her family die on her, wouldn't let this little liar claim to be a member of that great clan, and therefore family. 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 recessive. 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 Uchiha 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 second Sound team 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 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'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.

She had family.

As she sat there dumbly staring off into space as the realization sank in as well as the realization that she and what could possibly be her only living relative were soon to be on opposite sides of the war, the blonde who had a round face that she realized was similar to some of her long-dead relatives 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, oblivious to the fact of exactly how far the results of their outbursts had derailed Orochimaru-sama's plans.

&!&!&!&!&

Author's Note: this story was written at the request of Requiem the Relentless. Hopefully, it is as good as he or she expected.