Ino's foot knocked him off the floor he and flew twoards a sandwich with turky, lettuce, tomato, cheese, mayonnaise, mustard, and ketchup on white. And Naruto had the misfourtuine of landing in it. The angle had it so he ended up zooming and landing between the slices of bread and ending tucked into the sandwich horizontally like the rest of the ingreadiance. However, before he could get out, Sakura's door opened and Karin walked in.

Her look had somewhat changed. She no longer wore her lavender coat, the one she now wore was similar to her old in design, but now entirely black. On the back was the red spiral symbol on Jounin vests. The symbol of 'Uzushiogakure', the land of whirlpools, along with the new coat was a matching pair of black shorts while she'd kept her long black thigh-high stockings and black ninja sandals, a black hair-tie bound her hair into a ponytail as she'd done once before after fighting the eight-tails. Along with that was a new pair of unscuffed glasses with a red, squared frame. A Konoha forehead protector was tied around her thigh, the leg of her shorts down a bit to cover all but the metal plate on the front of it and the fabric behind the metal was orange.

"Hey Karin, how are you doing?" Ino asked as the girls stopped dancing to welcome the new arrival.

"Ugh...Ibiki's been keeping me busy as heck since he found out that my sensory ability could see chakra itself and use any fluctuations or changes to determine the emotions, mental state, and physical condition of the person I'm sensing. So I'm pretty tired right now. Just though I'd say hi before getting home."

Nearly a week had passed since she arrived in Konoha. Karin had decided that she liked it here, though originally claiming to have not been given much of a choice. Naruto had been the one to break that excuse apart quickly by asking: "Well, where would you go if you could choose?" When her answer had inevitably (after much stalling) been 'nowhere', Naruto had coaxed it out of her to admit she liked the place.

He had been with her for much of the week, showing her around, taking her to eat ramen too many times, and introducing her to people. At first she'd complained, but when she realized that getting a friendly introduction from the local hero would ease the process of making friends, she had relented. A lot of Naruto's friends welcomed her with the phrase: "A friend of Naruto's is a friend of ours… after we get to know you better." It had made her giggle. Apparently they trusted Naruto's instinct more than his wisdom and intelligence. Which was, in her opinion, fair enough.

All in all, Karin found herself enjoying Konoha more and more. This was what she'd been missing all those years without ever realizing it. An actual life…not always on the run from someone or something. Not always under the watchful eyes of cruel superiors or being stared up at by eyes begging for mercy she could never grant. Control of her life was back in her hands…mostly.

The other girls nodded. The ANBU Black Ops head of interigation was the type to keep you working hard. The Yamanaka clan often had to work with the man due to their mind-scanning jutsu and were more that willing to confess the man was a borderline slavedriver with how he worked others. Karin's sensory ability and the fact that all togeather, she'd compleated 25 D-rank, 16 C-rank, 7 B-rank, 2 A-rank, 0 S-rank to give her a total of fifty missions under her belt while she was a Genin-level shinobi of Konoha since joining Konoha's ranks had helped him ensure she'd been pushed hard.

"Well at least grab a sandwhich before you go then." TenTen pipped up.

"Thanks." Karin said, grabbing Naruto's eatable prison and vanishing in a swirl of wind and leaves.

She reappeared at her place, small apartment complex. She slid the key into the door on the top floor and slowly turned the key and walked inside.

It was just a small one-room apartment with a bathroom. She walked around, slowly touching the various parts of the room such as the dresser or the bed, setting down the box she carried in front of the mirror as she went. She sighed quietly and walked towards the double-window on the side of the room.

Propping herself in a chair, Karin felt her thoughts turn to the one, whom, due to everything about him, being so bright, had secreatly nicknamed him "Sunshine".

She smiled and could feel the overwhelmingly warm and positive chakra pouring off of him just from imagining he was there...it even FELT at though he were right in front of her. She didn't have to close her eyes or focus to sense it, but decided to do it anyway to let it warm her soul even more than it already did. When she focused on him though, that terrible darkness again was there. This time, she stared at it for a moment until she 'felt' it roar. It was a primal, terrifying roar full of hatred and destruction like she'd never felt before… except once. It was nearly the same as Sasuke's chakra when he'd fully awakened that awful power of his when fighting his old teacher, that brief surge of absolute evil. The only difference was that this felt more wild, more unfocused. Whereas Sasuke was pure darkness and evil, this felt more of rage and hatred.

She wondered what that was... What is that? Did he have the same evil potential as Sasuke? Could he possibly go down that path as well? Is that what was waiting if he fails to save his friends? Naruto… had Sasuke's darkness infected him…?

She shivered at the thought before pushing it away when her stomach growled rather loudly. She turned to he sandwhich she'd gotten from Sakura's and raised it twoards her mouth.

Naruto, who had hes head sticking out of the front of the sandwhich, felt his blood freeze over as his prison was raised to the redhead's waiting maw. The details of what would end his life if she failed to notice him terrifingly clear to him. He could see the snarp, flat teeth waiting to tear him apart, the long muscle of her toungh snaking out of her mouth and siliva pooling off of it as it beconed him to his doom, the soft interior of the cheeks, the ridges along the roof of the mouth, the dangeling uvula that seemed to welcome him into the mouth as her breathing caused it to move, and the dark cavern that he'd vanish down, never to return that lead down her throat.

NO! He wasn't going to die that way! He wasn't goint to be desolved by stomach acids and absorbed by the cells of her body! He couldn't! He found it almost funny in a way,he could face the most psychotic, brutal shinobi in battle without any fear or doubt, yet hear he was terror-stricken of a girl that just wanted lunch. The humor would have been better if HE wasn't on the menu though.

With the way Karin was holding the sandwhich, her fingers were pressing down on hin too tightly for him to cry out to tell her he was there, his only hope was that she'd pick up his chakra before he got chewed to bits. Sure he was more than lickly to spend the rest of his life as Karin's pet or toy if she DID notice him, but it was better than getting chewed to pices, desolved, absorbed, and what was left of your remains ending up flushed down a toilet.