Prologue
My name is Haruno Sakura, and my life is a nightmare. I live in Konoha, the Village Hidden in the Leaves as a ninja training under the Hokage, Tsunade. I have no other choice.
As a child I believed with all my heart that the path of the ninja was one of honour and courage. One that would make my family proud. I was raised believing that ninja were the protectors of a life I wanted to preserve. This was until I was twelve years old.
I’d been training in the academy for a while by this point. I was malleable and adaptable. I was a teacher’s pet. I was perfect. When I was put into a team alongside Naruto and Sasuke, I did my very best. As naive as it was, I cared about them.
Sure, I thought Naruto was annoying. I thought Sasuke was perfect. My inner voice screamed in frustration with their rivalry. But being in a team alongside them was different than just being their classmates. We worked hard together. Fought for our lives together.
When I was twelve years old, I took the Chunin exam. The first stage was easy enough, a test with some underlying message about teamwork and perseverance. An attempt to trick everybody into giving up and dragging our teammates down with us. I think it was then that I realized why Naruto was so annoying to me. Beyond his voice, I mean.
Naruto was a rebel. Naruto knew what he wanted, and he’d butt heads with any authority figure who stood in his way. He was loud and convicted and it infuriated me to no end. I couldn’t count the times I found myself thinking, ‘if Naruto just listened and did what he was told we wouldn’t be in this mess.’ I didn’t have the same thoughts on Sasuke.
I was in love with Sasuke. In my eyes, he could do no wrong. For a lot of my childhood, I made my decisions trying to get his attention. Before I knew it, I had been suppressing myself. A screaming inner voice would come to me, begging for action I’d never take. I’d grow my hair long. I’d leave the only friend I’d ever known for his sake.
I was the perfect victim of a system destined to fail me. To rip my team apart. To chew apart my friends and spit them out again.
The second part of our exam was, again, a lesson in teamwork. We were taken to a dangerous forest and told to collect scrolls from other teams to bring to a tower. By passing this exam, we’d fail the other teams. I had no qualms. This was the forest where I cut my hair to escape an enemy. Where I decided that there were more important things than changing yourself for love.
It was when my team passed this second part of the exam that something changed.
Too many of the teams had passed the second part of the exam. The instructors opted to add a third obstacle. To just cut out the middleman and have us fight each other directly.
I think it was seeing Lee fight that changed everything.
Lee was a good kid and a better student. Sure, he was scary at first. It was because he obviously liked me, and frankly I wasn’t interested in the slightest. He came on too strong, but I can’t hold that against him. It’s just his way.
I’d already been in my own fight by the time Lee’s name was called. I’d fought Ino, who was my only friend as a child. I left her behind when I decided to pursue Sasuke. This choice led to us becoming bitter rivals. I hadn’t had a real friend before, or since.
Our fight had ended in a double knock-out. It wasn’t until several other fights had ended that I woke up again. But I remember thinking of approaching Ino. She wasn’t awake yet. In the meantime, Lee was called to fight Gaara.
I was confident that Lee could hold his own. I’d never seen Gaara fight before, but I had it in my head that there was nobody here stronger than Sasuke.
Gaara destroyed Lee’s body in that fight. He crushed two of his limbs, an arm and a leg. Pulverizing his bones and nerves. And the instructors, they let it happen.
Lee never fully recovered from that fight. He tried like Hell. Pushing himself to the brink in the hope that his body would get the hint and someday he’d be able to fight again. As far as I know, that never happened.
I never stuck around long enough to find out.
Either way, the final part of our Chunin exam was interrupted by the invasion staged by Orochimaru. The third Hokage was killed then. I remember feeling sad. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have wasted my tears. Tsunade, my future mentor, took his place.
I watched my village struggle to repair itself in the wake of the attack. Even Naruto, who wanted so badly to become Hokage, was rattled. So many were dead.
It was this, coupled with Lee’s injuries, that formed the first doubts in my mind.
After all, Lee was so young. Too young to have experienced something so horrible. As time went on, I learned he wasn’t the only one. Both of my teammates had gone through something terrible. Naruto had no family. He was a vessel for a demon. And Sasuke had nobody either, because his own brother had slain them all.
I became fixated on this torment that surrounded me. We were all so young.
We were too young. And it wasn’t fair.
It wasn’t our fault, either. But it had to be somebody’s.
When Sasuke left, the village became a monument to the life I never wanted. A life without him. Where no matter how I begged and pleaded he didn’t have a second thought about leaving us all behind. About leaving me.
A part of me resented him. My inner voice screamed for blood. The rest of me was still hopelessly infatuated. Hanging onto a prayer that maybe he’d return someday. That he’d realize he was wrong. That the outside world was dangerous and cruel, and the village was our haven.
And then I’d remember what it had done to Lee.
Before long, Naruto was leaving as well to further his training. And for the first time since I’d been assigned to my team, I was truly alone. My mentor was strict and stubborn and a drunk. Tsunade was a valuable teacher, but never anything more.
Naruto changed when he returned. He wasn’t as much of a rebel anymore. He wasn’t as rude, as aggressive. Like the light he’d held was smothered. I couldn’t help but look at him with disappointment. He wasn’t the same. I could hardly look him in the eye.
Turns out while we were playing tag with Kakashi, the Akatsuki had kidnapped Gaara. He’d since become the Kazekage. We were sent on our way to Sunagakure to help free him. Though, I have another mission in mind.
I don't plan to return to the Hidden Leaf Village.
It isn't a life I find worth living. The hope has been crushed from me. The purpose I once found in the path of becoming a ninja has been sharpened into spite. Simmering hatred for the adults around me who doomed me into becoming just another weapon. But by taking that weapon away, at least I'm doing something.
I'm using the opportunity given by this mission to disappear at nightfall. With any luck, the others will just assume it was the work of the Akatsuki. That I’ve been taken instead of having just left. It would save them the heartache. Besides, maybe I could find Sasuke myself.