Land of Grass, Kusagakure.
Karin curled up in the corner of a room, her hands tightly gripping a Kunai. Her wrists and forearms were covered in overlapping bite marks, both old and new.
The room where she was locked up was very small, containing only a wooden bed and a dilapidated cabinet. This room was the very same one her mother had lived in.
The same four walls, the same window, the same decaying smell, and the same mouths that would push open the door and enter every few days.
Ever since Karin returned to Kusagakure with the teammates who had left her to a bear, Karin had been locked in this room. No one asked if she was willing, and no one told her how long she would be locked up.
To her, Kusagakure had never been any kind of home. Her mother had been bitten to death here, and she had inherited her mother's "job" here.
When the ninjas of Kusagakure were injured on missions, they didn't need the Medical Team or hemostatic medicine. They only needed to walk into this room and bite her arm. No matter how severe the injury, as long as they could get a single bite of her, they would live.
She was the most efficient medical resource in Kusagakure, and also the cheapest painkiller.
After the Konoha Crush Plan, the situation on the border of the Land of Fire grew tense.
Although the major powers had not yet openly declared war, the small buffer nations caught in the middle had already begun to be affected.
As a small ninja village bordering the Land of Fire, Kusagakure's frequency of friction had skyrocketed recently, and the number of injured ninjas had multiplied. And the more injured ninjas there were, the more people knocked on her door.
Today's group was the fourth batch of people to come since Karin returned to Kusagakure. On average, it was three batches a day—once each in the morning, afternoon, and evening.
Karin looked down at the Kunai in her hand and gritted her teeth, channeling her Chakra into it. Naruto had said that as long as she channeled Chakra into it, he would come. Karin wasn't sure if those words were true.
She had only known Naruto for a single night. She had never seen him again after that night, but she had kept that Kunai in her Ninja tool pouch.
When she was bitten during the day, she would grit her teeth and remain silent, only taking it out when she was curled up alone in the corner at night.
Just then, a chaotic sound of footsteps and clashing metal echoed from outside the door.
"Karin shouldn't be asleep yet, she never sleeps at night. Just one bite is all it takes. Last time, my femoral artery was slashed by a Wind Release, and the bleeding stopped as soon as I took a bite of her." A raspy male voice spoke.
"Stop talking nonsense and hurry up. The wound on my shoulder has been infected for two days. If we drag this out any longer, my entire arm will be ruined."
"We really have to thank Karin this time. With her around, our Kusagakure doesn't even need a Medical Team." A young voice chimed in, his tone taking it completely for granted.
"I say, what are you two in such a rush for? She's in the room and can't run away. Anyway, she doesn't know how to do anything else besides being bitten. Her mother went through the same thing back then, and her physique is even better than her mother's. She is a precious asset of our Kusagakure, hahahaha..."
One of the voices laughed loudly and banged a fist against the door.
Listening to the conversation outside, Karin bit her lip, drawing blood but she couldn't feel the pain.
She looked down at the Kunai in her hands, she didn't want to be bitten as a blood bag anymore.
In the past, she could still numb herself, thinking that this was what her mother had done, that there was no other way, that this was her only value, and that being bitten was better than dying on the battlefield.
But now, she didn't want to anymore. The words Naruto had spoken to her by the campfire were like a seed buried in the soil.
After she returned to Kusagakure, not only did they not wither, but they had grown wildly, watered by loneliness and fear during these days of confinement.
"If you don't want to keep being locked up in that room, come to Konoha in a while. You can choose to be a ninja, or you can choose to be an ordinary civilian, and do whatever you want to do. We are both of the Uzumaki clan, so it's only right that we look out for each other."
Karin gripped the Kunai tightly, channeled the very last trace of her Chakra into it, and then closed her eyes.
Clang, clang, clang...
The door was opened from the outside, emitting a sharp screech as it was pushed open.
Just as Karin fell into despair—
Whoosh!
Naruto's figure appeared in the room.
"Karin!"
Naruto looked down at the red-haired girl curled up in the corner. His gaze swept over the layers of bite marks on her arms, and the warmth in his eyes instantly dropped by several degrees.
Karin looked up, and the moment she saw Naruto, the tightly wound fear on her face erupted all at once.
She lunged from the corner to hug Naruto's waist, burying her face in his chest, her shoulders trembling as tears rolled down from behind her glasses.
"Naruto... Naruto, you finally came!" Karin's voice was muffled against Naruto's clothes.
"It's alright, Karin. Don't be afraid, I'm here." Naruto patted Karin's back while raising his head to scan their surroundings.
Over a dozen Chakras were rapidly approaching this room from different directions, with at least three of them reaching the Jonin level. The fastest one was already less than twenty meters away from the door.
***
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