Edit 05.24.13: I've fixed this up a lot, since I was tired while writing; just wanted to make a note of it. c:
HAHAHA WHO NEEDS CANON. Anyways, I do think I like this piece. Don't particularly love the title, but it's all I could come up with, so oh well. I changed some things—for one, Karin isn't absolutely in love with Sasuke; two, they never joined up with the Akatsuki, though Tobi did still tell him everything about Itachi; and three, Sasuke doesn't want to destroy Konoha, only kill Danzo. That is all. Enjoy. c:
Disclaimer: While I am the proud new owner of a pretty blink-182 shirt, I do not own Naruto.
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It's been ages since Karin had a family.
Ten years—that's how long it's been since her old life came to an end, and her new one, this one, began. Ten years since she was living in a small house in Kusagakure with her mother, since her life was as normal as it's ever been.
To this day she's still not too sure what happened—she thinks she blocked it out somehow, and as such she only remembers snatches of everything. Men, ones she didn't know from the village, breaking into their home; her mother, helping her out the window with a quickly packed bag of her belongings, telling her to run and hide and don't look back; hearing her mother scream as the men inevitably broke past the barricade that her mother had put up to slow them, but still never looking back, even as she heard male voices yelling after her.
Karin had picked up her pace then, heading straight for the forest, blood-red hair swinging in her face and bulky bag bouncing against her back.
After that, she remembers running into a tall man, white skin and black hair and golden eyes with purple at the edges—Orochimaru. He'd offered her a place, a pseudo-home; and she'd gone with him. That's how she had ended up guarding a prison on his orders, using her sensor abilities to keep the prisoners in check.
That's how she'd lived for years, until Sasuke, with his dark hair and darker eyes, showed up, Suigetsu at his side with a sword slung over his back and drink in his belt; Suigetsu had smirked at her, and Sasuke had remained emotionless, as he had always been. He'd asked her to come with him—and she'd accepted, after a while, after thinking it over. Then the three of them had travelled to collect Juugo from his secluded prison, and then they'd all been on their way.
In the beginning, the four of them were just a team, nothing more—an Uchiha, a sensor, the original carrier of the curse mark, a talented swordsman. They were a good one, too, despite their many issues—Juugo going on near unstoppable rampages at the oddest times, Sasuke the only one able to pause him in his tracks; Suigetsu, with his odd obsession of collecting the swords of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist and restarting the group, which occasionally throws them off track and always leads to long, loud arguments between he and Sasuke; Sasuke himself, with his long-held goal of vengeance against his brother; and her, with no particular goal, no superb issue like Sasuke or Juugo (though, Suigetsu didn't have any issues near as bad as theirs either, so she's at least not alone in that), though she does have trust issues, after Kabuto and Orochimaru, after learning the truth of everything that had led her to this and their role in it.
After Sasuke's brother died, after all that followed that intense battle, that's when it really started to change—Sasuke had a new goal, to kill Danzo, the one who was responsible for it all, and the three of them were just following along, like they had before—they all tell themselves (or at least Karin does, but she heavily suspects that the other two and probably Sasuke as well are telling themselves something similar), at first, that it's only because that's how it's been for so long and it would be odd to separate. Karin knew, though, that something was different; they weren't just a team anymore, they were something different—something like a family, in the way they supported each other, tried as a group to fix Sasuke, utterly broken after learning the truth.
Karin supposes, in some odd way, they were a family now, though a truly messed up one. They're not normal; they're not settled in some house, with a garden and home-cooked meals and soft beds; actually, they're on the run, seeing as how the masked man who had retrieved Sasuke after his fight with Itachi, whoever he was, seemed set on having not only Sasuke but all four of them in his grasp, whether they were willing to be there or not. They've been on the run ever since she and Suigetsu and Juugo regrouped and broke him out, staying in little non-shinobi towns and camping in woods as they evade him and the remaining Akatsuki and help Sasuke plan his second revenge—this one is different, though; they're all more invested by this point, and that changes everything. Karin doesn't particularly think that they would fit in a house with beds and proper meals, though; when she tries to picture it in her head, it just doesn't work. They make more sense like this, on the run, sleeping in crummy beds and sleeping rolls.
It's family, though, however dysfunctional and insane the four of them are, and it's the first she's had since she was six (because Kabuto and Orochimaru, with visits every two or so months that always left her rubbing at her arm or leg where she'd received a shot of something that was probably experimental, definitely didn't count as any sort of family); and, though Karin would never admit it to any of them, she rather likes it.