Everyone was in shock. Poor, weak, little Sakura was fighting tooth and nail against the person who even the strongest shinobi in the village were hesitant to fight. What on earth was happening?
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The village had collectively ignored Sakura when they realised she wasn’t backed by her legendary sensei anymore. She was pushed towards the bottom of the rungs when they realised not even that not even ‘friend killer Kakashi’ could stand her.
The fact she was civilian born was enough to ruffle the majority of the shinobi ranks feathers, but the blatant disrespect to their profession in her ‘undying love’ ripped her of any dignity that even the other civilian shinobi could spare her.
The civilians weren’t much better. They hated shinobi on a normal basis, and the fact one of their own had decided to become one? It was horrendous and a major disrespect to their culture as a whole. After all, why would someone who had the perfect life become a shinobi unless it was to inconvenience their parents.
The poor Haruno couple, the civilians thought. Their daughter had betrayed them by choosing to ignore the merchant business that they had worked so hard to build so that their precious little Sakura could have a life with no worries.
In actuality, it wasn’t as if Sakura was welcome in her own house either way. Her father was so disappointed that she was a girl that he gave her two alternatives. One, marry whoever he chose, or two, get kicked out.
Being a shinobi allowed one to work as young as 12 years old. It would allow her a steady income until her parents inevitably kick her out. Civilians were only allowed to start working when they turned 16 and by then she would for sure be either kicked out or engaged.
Sakura knew how people thought that her following Sasuke like a puppy was pathetic, they talked about how a civilian born child would become a shinobi for a boy.
The civilians thought that was acceptable, it was probably the only acceptable thing about the entire situation. They hated the fact that the girl would become a shinobi, but she would get a husband in the end. When she got a husband she would quit, right?
The shinobi thought Sakura was delusional. Why would she become a shinobi for a boy? How pathetic, she would just give up as soon as he advanced out of her team and became chunin. Sakura would probably stay a genin for her entire life, or she would quit.
But the thing the entire village collectively agreed on was the fact that Sakura would amount to nothing, and that she looked stupid chasing after a boy like that.
They would talk about her stupid infatuation with the last Uchiha and how dumb it was, despite the fact many other clan children chased after him. But no, they were clan children and could do no wrong, she was just a stupid little girl playing kunoichi.
Ah, that loathsome term, ‘kunoichi’. It was infuriating to be constantly reminded that she was less. She was clanless and a women, there was little she could do in the shinobi world with the amount of discrimination that came because of that.
Sakura knew all this, yet she still acted like a lost puppy, she still acted as if she didn’t hear everyone talking about her. Because there was nothing she could do. It wasn’t as if she actually liked Sasuke, oh god not. She just had to pretend to in order to get her mother off her back.
Her mother used to go on and on about how if Sakura ‘secured’ the last Uchiha then she would live well for the rest of her life. Her, as in Sakura's mother. It got tiring hearing her mother continuously saying to go talk to Sasuke, so she just pretended to like him.
When she realised Kakshi was just going to ignore her until Naruto inevitably returned, she went to Lady Tsunade and asked to be her apprentice. The rejection she faced was humiliating, especially when the rest of the shinobi ranks found out.
Sakura was left to the genin corps, the place where no one ever advanced. She was collectively shunned there due to her bad reputation. It was a good thing she was a visual learner.
She picked up on the stuff that her comrades did, imitating it until she was perfect at it, not just being okay at it, but fine tuning it. She turned the little things into weapons that she wielded with expert use. Her name grew to be known throughout the genin corps.
She couldn’t do anything fancy, just a couple of lower rank genjutsu in the beginning and some jutsus with her meagre chakra reserves. But this meagre chakra reserves grew every time she exhausted them, which mind you was a lot.
Eventually Sakura started experimenting with the jutsu, like one did when making new ones. She reverse engineered the ones she did know, she worked through them making small alterations to them until they eventually became entirely new ones.
Then she started on medical ninjutsu. Being a genin she did not have much access to a lot of the jutsus in the shinobi library, but contrary to common belief, medical ninjutsu books and records of cases were practically all in the genin section.
Sakura knew she had good chakra control, it was probably the only thing her old sensei had ever complimented her on, even if the compliment was technically used to rile up the male components of her former genin team.
She took to medical ninjutsu like a fish to water. She started mystic palm after three days of trial and error and a lot of dead fish. But one thing that particularly called to her was the use of poison.
Eventually she started experimenting with the poisons. She built up intolerances to arsenic and cyanide and so much more. She wore belladonna on her lips, had a flower crown made up of daffodils and wrapped poison ivy around her legs.
She grew to know poison like the back of her hand, she knew the effects and the antidotes, she learnt how to remove poison from one's system with medical ninjutsu. She fully delved into the world of poisons.
But soon she realised this was useless in a fight, so she worked on her aim. She spent hours with kunai and shuriken at the target range. She aimed from the trees, upside down, whilst walking on water.
Once she perfected her aim, she started on senbon, the weapons Haku used had always fascinated her. They were finicky and different from the kunai and shuriken. She had no idea how to use them, so she went to the library.
Sakura read books upon books on the proper stance and wrist position and such and she practised. She adjusted and she adapted. She developed her own way of using the senbon.
Then she realised that she couldn’t use that in close combat. She needed something that was easier to use closer. So she bought a katana. This one she actually had a start on seeing as her father constantly used one himself and preached about her samurai heritage.
She wacked her head trying to remember what he had said about it and went back to the library. She spent all her free time from missions reading for a week before attempting to replicate the directions in the books.
She went on c ranks, and practised her sword skills on the unsuspecting bandits. Her first kill was long behind her on her third mission in the genin corps.
She trained and grew and learned, all on her own. So when Pain attacked she came at him with a surprising fever for the people who had yet observed her new fighting style.
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The village was shocked, watching the pink haired girl attacking Pain’s Deva path with little regard towards her own safety. She kept at him, slicing with her blade and launching senbon.
By the time Naruto had arrived, Pain was starting to feel the effects of the poison. Naruto started attacking Pain, disregarding Sakura and effectively kicking her out of the fight. And when Naruto convinced Pain to surrender he was seconds away from succumbing to the poison.
The village successfully forgot about Sakura's part in the battle. They celebrated Naruto’s defeat of Pain, never realising that it was actually the pink haired kunoichi that killed him, once again disregarding Sakura for her teammates.
Everyone forgot, well almost everyone.