#But Sarada being Sarada and existing is a matter of course i love her character it's only when i think about her parents smh

[thevenerableme]

🤭

Same. 💅

But I always thought they looked good together, but that was just a passing thought, bc back then she was the heroine and main fl of the series.

If you looked 12 year old me dead in the eyes and told me that Sasuke gives Sakura a ring and screams for her because he can’t find her or sense her chakra, I would have told you that you’re delusional.

12 year old me would not believe the preview for Boruto 286 is real.

[fireblight]

basil, gardenia, salvia

basil :   does your muse have a love - hate relationship with anyone or anything ?

Suigetsu, for sure. Karin can't stand Suigetsu on the best of daysー he agitates her, knows how to push her buttons, somehow stupidly manages to point out things she's determined to hide ( like her crush on Sasuke, but then again who didn't clock onto that except for Sasuke ). That being said, he is one of her truest, most reliable friends ( and occasionally more than that, depending on the 'verse / partner ), and his lack of standard intelligence is actually part of what endears her to him. She's very prone to over-thinking, over-analyzing, moral conundrums, self-loathing yada yada, but Suigetsu isn't that... introspective or penetrating that she feels overly vulnerable around him when she doesn't want to be, and he has such a simple way of approaching things that actually help snap her out of a funk. It's hard to hate hate him since he doesn't actually do anything except wind her up.

gardenia :   is your muse one to confess romantic feelings early on ,   or to conceal them for long periods of time ?

Conceal! She can't always help her physical or emotional reactions ( at least in her youth, growing up wizens her a bit and gives her more control, but she'll always get flustered / flirty with someone she's interested in ) but confession wise she is more of a "confess by action" than "confess by words". Like, I don't even think she tells Sasuke. Canonically speaking, she would never interfere with his reunification with Konoha and it doesn't take long for him to get marriedー by which point she would never threaten or upset that, instead content to conceal her feelings until she or he dies, whichever comes first. It's actually hard for her to be so... verbally open, she feels a bit vivisected, and it puts her at the risk of being rejected. Again, super low self-esteem.

Besides, for her romantic feelings / feelings of love are not a selfish thing, even if she can be selfish in a lot of other areas of her life. Her feelings do not exist to be validated or to achieve something from the object of her affectionー they just are, and although of course she would love to be with the person she desires, she doesn't expect it to come to fruition. Unless she thinks it will actually help them, she keeps her feelings to herself as to not inconvenience them or to make herself prone to rejection.

She'll return the feelings if presented to her, but probably not immediately unless she feels very comfortable.

salvia :   is your muse possessive over people or things that matter a lot to them ? how do they express that possessiveness ,   or lack thereof ?

A little, to be honest. She has latent possessive traitsーborne out of insecurity / fear of abandonment / fear of loss ( who can blame her )ーbut is actually very conscious to manage them. Again, her love is very potent and character-defining, but it is also a very freeing and gracious love at its heart; her sole canonical love interest was defined by her desire to see him happy regardless if it was with her or otherwise, so ultimately she will repress / manage any possessive traits unless coaxed / encouraged, and likewise can be drawn to possessive natures. Her possessive nature ( healthily channelled ) comes through a protection of things "sacred" between the two, as seen when she dislikes people other than Sasuke biting her. This is a layered example as it also involves her personal autonomy and having the ability to govern what happens to her body and when, but it is also significant to her relationship with Sasuke and she dislikes having to spare that sacredness ( because it really is an intimate act, even disregarding Karin's... reactions to it ) unless someone has equal importance to her ( such as Sarada ) and she's very protective of their marks.

In place of possessiveness, she can become incredibly protective instead, willing to sacrifice her life for their sake.

[whenthemarshmallowmettheslayer]

Could you do a Naruto fanfiction recommendation? I loved your Sakura one but I was curious if you would do one in general for the series?

1.) serendipity by stirringwinds. On ao3. Rated T. Summary: Sasuke had never known Senju Hashirama in person, of course. But he had grown up hearing stories about the First Hokage at his mother’s knee—about the legend who had defeated the most powerful member of their own clan. Enough stories to recognise what he was seeing—and to know he was witnessing his teammate perform the impossible. Or, in the fight against Gaara during Suna’s attempted invasion of Konoha, the Ichibi’s attempt to kill Sakura awakens an unexpected power. It changes the destiny of Team Seven forever.

Yes, this is about Mokuton!Sakura but this is in Sasuke’s pov and, oh boy, is it so interesting in his point of view. There’s not only world building but nods to real life history that makes in the (casual) history nerd in me get really excited. So far we’ve only seen Uchiha clan politics that Sasuke remembers from when his family arrived but if this is ever continued the current politics is one of the main things  I look forward too.

2.) These Moments We Take for Granted by Applepie. On ao3. Rated T. Summary: Kakashi dies to Pain’s attack and wakes up in another world. It’s a world where Kakashi hadn’t failed Obito’s final wish and sacrificed himself for Rin’s sake instead. It’s a Konoha too similar, yet so different that Kakashi can’t bear to impose. So he doesn’t – not as ‘Kakashi’, at least.

I’m dying for the next chapter of this. The cliff hanger is partially why the other reason is the story is just that good. 

3.) Yes, my weird depressed half-tree uncle by Aesoleucian. On ao3. Rated G. Summary: Sarada is such a lonely kid, and Sakura has such a dissociative disorder. Where are Sakura's parents? Where is the support? Being a single mom is hard and therefore I crafted this AU where Obito survives the war and retires to help restore his clan which he helped murder. 

A good way to get me to love any fic: let characters who go through traumatic situations actually show they’re not okay afterwards. 

4.) your skeleton will carry by theformerone. On ao3. Rated E. Summary: He doesn't want to have children for the clan that murdered his father, or for the village that let it happen.

Neji and Sasuke discover that they are more alike than they think.

I’m so glad the author tagged this Anti Sandaime. That tag is the reason why I found this beautiful fic. 

5.) Just the Usual Habits by Applepie. On ao3. Rated G. Summary: Sakumo has no idea where all of these habits of Kakashi's are coming from. In which five-year-old Kakashi forgets the existence of his left eye, loses his ability to lie believably, and is a little too knowledgeable about the Birds and Bees. Still, no matter what oddities went on in Kakashi's head, one thing is certain – the boy will always love his father, through thick and thin.

6.) Get Shisui by DoodlesOfTheMind. On ao3. Rated T. Summary: Get Shisui. It was a common refrain throughout the Uchiha compound, though its meaning had shifted a number of times over the years.

Both beautiful and heartbreaking. 

7.) a beating heart of stone by FantasyDeath. On ao3. Rated Not Rated. Summary: During Iruka's first year teaching — on his own, because apparently there is a severe lack of teachers — he loses his curriculum, gets into a low-key fight with Shimura Danzo and accidentally creates an army. To be fair, none of this was planned.

8.) In Sound Judgement by NegativeAperture. On ao3. Rated T. Summary: The main question, she thinks, isn’t her chance at survival or whether she’ll stick to the plot. No, it’s whether she should change the inherently flawed system that has caused every single problem ever. Arguably, she’s in the best position to fix it. People are certainly more willing to listen to you when you threaten them with the giant fox demon in your gut. But what would the cost be? Her morals? Her humanity?

The road to hell is paved with good intentions after all. (In which a human rights lawyer is reincarnated into a world without morality, without logic, and most of all, without laws. Helping the world was easier when people weren’t ninjas.)

Even if self inserts or ocs are not your thing I still strongly suggest you read this.

9.) Mirage by xantissa. On ao3. Rated G. Summary: Can be read as stand alone. Itachi's ANBU exam through Kakashi's eyes. Kakashi knew something wasn't right with the whole thing, he just couldn't put his finger on what exactly.

10.) Catch Me (If You Can) by BasicallyAnIdiot. On ao3. Rated G. Summary: Five times the ANBU tried to catch Uzumaki Naruto (and that one time someone else did).

Why you should read this: “Knowing Naruto-kun,” Itachi interrupted from his locker as he checked his arm bracers, “If he had more than a hour, the traps were at least 2 layers deep.” He closed the locker door firmly, mask in hand, “But he can be caught.”

“Lies and hearsay.” Neko’s muffled offer came from the women’s shower area. 

“Impossible. Never happened.”

A delicate brow arched, and Itachi continued. “There is one person in the village who can successfully catch Uzumaki Naruto whenever he feels inclined to.”

Inu sat up like a shot, unheeding the bag of ice dropping to his lap with a thud. 

“Who? Is it the Commander? Hokage-sama?”

Shisui snorted, and transitioned smoothly to a new pose, “He means the only chunin in the history of chunin to turn down a full position in ANBU corps, complete with no probation and instant pay raise.”

Inu was silent for a moment. Then he declared, “I will find this chunin and make him my teacher.”

11.) Fish Stew by Masu_Trout. On ao3. Rated T. Summary: There was a bowl of stew in Kisame's lap, a cup of tea on the ground next to him, and a small blank-eyed teenager staring at him from over the rim of his own teacup.

Kisame's new partner is one of the strangest people he's ever met, and that's coming from a man with gills on his face.

12.) What A Big Heart You Have by LullabyKnell. On ao3. Rated T. Summary: In which a little red fox saves the big white wolf.

Bless this fic. 

In which Hatake Sakumo lives.

13): Autonomy by beetlebee. On ao3. Rated T. Summary: "But this Not-Sensei soulmate guy could be anybody," Naruto whines.

Sasuke narrows his eyes. "No. He tried to act like Kakashi, use his techniques. He must be familiar with him already..."

"They could be childhood friends!" Sakura gasps.

"Sensei has friends?" Naruto asks, squinting at Obito.

"Or he's a stalker." Sasuke grips the kunai he still hasn't put away.

"I'm not a stalker," Obito lies, pushing away the kunai edging towards him.

----

(A soulmate bodyswap AU)

I would kill to read a sequel of this where we see Kakashi’s in Obito’s body.

14.) Written with Heart by Brookelocks. On ao3. Rated G. Summary: "Sometimes just sharing your opinion or a conversation about something someone else enjoys, even if you have to grit your teeth through it, can be the little push of support that makes them keep pursuing their passion."

or Kakashi has a strange way of showing his support, Jiraiya doesn't mind.

15.) The Good Life by orphan_account. On ao3. Rated T. Summary: There had to be protocol for this. They were shinobi in a hidden village; there was protocol for everything. Sadly, the authors of the Konoha Mission Administration Office Employee Handbook had committed the potentially fatal oversight of not dedicating a single paragraph to the now more than hypothetical situation of your current Hokage starting a mostly one-sided screaming match with your former Hokage in front of your very desk.

16.) these chains on me won't let me be pg13. On ao3. Rated T. Summary: The first time you ever feel like a shinobi, you are ugly and messy and scared out of your mind and not even wearing your hitai-ate. — implied sakura/ino

Out of all the Sakura centric fics I’ve read - trust me I have read a lot - this is till one of my favorites.

17.) got a boy in the war by Lisse. On ao3. Rated G. Summary: Naruto's parents don't so much fall in love as accidentally trip over it.

18.) sabotage by stirringwinds. On ao3. Rated T. Summary: “Itachi,” His mentor and commanding officer says grimly, his single visible eye angry, the line of his jaw tense under the black of his mask. “You forget that I was the Yondaime’s student. I may not be as politically influential as those old codgers sitting on the council, but there is plenty I can do to try and stop this shitshow.”

The horrible, cold feeling in the pit of his stomach hasn't vanished. But, staring at the firm, unflinching expression on his captain’s face, he feels the tiniest flicker of…hope.

Or: In another universe, Itachi breaks down and ends up spilling the beans to Hatake Kakashi.

Honestly, damn it why couldn’t this have happened? 

20.) Nothing like the storm by Aesoleucian. On ao3. Rated Not Rated. Summary: There's a girl in Kushina's class at the academy, with perfect hair and perfect poise. She's nothing like loud, angry Kushina, but she's not exactly shy either.

21.) Shine Bright, Shine Far, (Oh Sun of Mine) by Applepie. On ao3. Rated G. Summary: This Konoha is not the one Himawari knows; everything is wrong, and everyone is gone. A strange man who's not Papa is claiming to be the Hokage.

22.) i have a girlfriend!? by chadsuke. On ao3. Rated G. Summary: ino wants training from the best genin kunoichi - naturally, that means tracking down tenten.

23.) Eyestealer by nirejseki, robininthelabyrinth (nirejseki). On ao3. Rated Summary: Hashirama really doesn't approve of the thoughtful way his father looks at his younger brother's bright red eyes. He's sure it doesn't mean anything good for anyone.

He's right.

I just binge read this today (I haven’t even bookmarked it yet) and now I’m left wanting for more darker than canon Hashirama.

24.) Unison by Laylah. On ao3. Rated M. Summary: Kakashi knows damn well that it isn't a healthy coping mechanism.

Do read the warnings at the top of the author’s notes. 

25.) Got Nothing to Prove (but I'ma show you how I do) by GuardianMars. On ao3. Rated T. Summary: Civilians and orphans are always used as cannon fodder. Sakura’s not sure where she first came by this phrase. Whether she heard it or read it, she can’t quite remember, but it stuck in her head and it stays in the back of her mind whenever Team 7 takes a mission.

When Sakura and Tenten get placed on a temporary team looking into a series of kidnappings of local village girls, Sakura is naturally worried. She doesn't want to be cannon fodder. When the mission goes to pot, Sakura and Tenten find themselves far away from home and with only each other to rely on. As it turns out being cannon fodder is the least of their worries.

26.) Once Again by pupeez4eva. On ao3. Rated T. Summary: If you asked anyone what they thought of Sasuke Uchiha, they'd say that he was cheerful, overly-hyper, and loved glitter and sweaters WAY too much.

(Mabel Pines is reborn as Sasuke Uchiha. Unsurprisingly, this changes things a lot).

27.) Blame it on the Moon by Tozette. On ao3 (you can only see this if you have logged-in ). Rated G. Summary: Itachi likes cats. In hindsight, that's probably his first mistake.

* * *

Really? Thought Itachi dubiously. He did it anyway. "For love and justice," he deadpanned flatly.

28.) Adoption by Defenestration; or, A Family Can Be A Fox Demon, Its Jinchuuriki, and Three Dozen Highly-Trained Assassins elumish. On ao3. Rated T. Summary: He will not be the ANBU who let the jinchuuriki plummet to his death out a fourth story window. Let that be another ANBU’s legacy.

[kuriquinn]

An Inch of Gold [29/?]

Author's Note: As usual, unedited. And it's a little shorter than the other chapters, but I'm sure I'll fix that when I come through with the final edits. For now, just enjoy! (Woot, my November Nano Challenge to finish IOG is shaping up well!)

Estimated Time To End of Fic: 4-5 Chapters

Posted to FF.Net / Ao3 / Wattpad

Sarada’s fist connects with the wall, the power of her tightly controlled chakra surging out of her with purpose. Sweat beads upon her forehead as she concentrates all of her being on maintaining a constant force, of hitting that one spot in the wall just the right way.

Cracks spiderweb outward, tearing across the uneven stone and rippling across floor and ceiling. The solid layers of stone beneath bend and strain against the pressure exerted by her strike, and finally give.

Cracks split open, slicing through the seals upon the vortices of the ward circle on the ceiling and floor. The intricate characters vanish at the same time as the barrier is broken.

Boruto tosses a shuriken into the space once occupied by the circle, and it bounces to the ground without a scratch.

The disintegration field is turned off.

“Nice!” Boruto cries, and immediately starts toward the cage. “Alright, let’s blow this thing!” Again, wind gathers in his palm, preparing to hurl one of his vanishing projectiles, but Sarada stops him.

“Don’t just destroy it,” she says.

“What? Are you kidding me?! That’s the whole reason we came down here!”

“You can only destroy it once. What happens if the whole thing has become self-sustaining, or there’s a back-up that can only be turned off by the main computer? Then it won’t matter if you destroy this machine! Let’s try turning it off before we blow it up.”

“We don’t have time for this!”

“Actually, I think time has become completely irrelevant,” Mitsuki remarks.

“Fine. Time issues aside, I like existing. What happens if you destroy it and we get ripped apart by some kind of fallout?”

This causes Mitsuki to pause. “That makes sense. It might be, this machine acts like a giant magnet. Suddenly reversing the poles of a magnet can cause attraction and pull them together—possibly causing them to crash into each other.”

“And we don’t want anything crashing or exploding into us! What if the machine suddenly stops pushing the paradox outward? It might contract in on us. But maybe if we slowly turn it off, the damage could be lessened.”

“Even if that were the case, none of us are exactly geniuses with computers,” Boruto points out in irritation. “Without someone like Denki, we could stand here pressing buttons for ages.”

“I believe I could figure it out,” Mitsuki volunteers.

“Huh? You?”

“I grew up surrounded by computers. And this model looks familiar. I suspect it even runs on the same operating system. I could probably find a function that allows for a slow decrease of power-levels.”

Boruto doesn’t look entirely convinced, and Sarada finds her suspicions about Mitsuki’s background swimming to the forefront of her mind just then.

We don’t have time for that conversation.

“I still think we should blow it up,” Boruto mutters, but he approaches the cage around the terminal and begins to pick the lock on it.

“We can still do that if Mitsuki doesn’t figure out another way,” Sarada insists.

The pale boy takes up a position in front of the terminal, studying the small, bright green digital characters. A beat later, his fingers begin to fly across the key-pad beneath the screen. Boruto and Sarada position themselves in front of the entrance, in case any other unwanted guests burst in on them.

Their caution seems justified when they hear the clank noise of movement on the metal scaffolding outside, growing louder and closer with every second. Sarada cracks her knuckles, the Sharingan activating so she can track whatever threat comes at them. Boruto’s fingers spark with yellow electricity, not wanting to risk the destruction on the cavern that a wind-based attack might cause.

And then the entrance darkens with the shapes of three figures, but they are not the curse-seal creatures. Mama, Konohamaru and—

“Mom?!” Boruto yelps in shock, taking in the startling figure that is his mother. Only she barely resembles her: blood has slicked her hair to her neck and head, though some effort has been made to clean up, and her clothing is likewise drenched. “What happened?! Are you okay?”

He darts forward, attack forgotten, and Sarada relaxes as well as the adults duck into the grotto with them.

“I’m fine,” Aunt Hinata insists. “There was…a bit of a mess.”

“No kidding!”

“At any rate, we’re done with all those curse marked monsters,” Konohamaru says. “So let’s hear it for small victories, hey?”

“What’s going on here?” Mama asks. “I thought you three went after Naruto and Sasuke?”

“We did,” Boruto said. “But when we got up there, that Teisoko creep had them frozen in a pocket of time! It’s like a sphere all the way around her, and if we tried to get in, we would have been frozen too!”

“So I figured it might be a better idea to stop whatever power source is allowing her to maintain that time field. Then we can free Papa and Uncle Naruto and they can deal with her and Jikken!”

“But how are you intending to stop it?” Konohamaru asks, glancing over at Mitsuki.

“I’m trying to find the proper command for a gradual shutdown, instead of a forced shutdown,” Mitsuki says.

“We’re worried doing that might cause a rebound of some kind,” Sarada explains.

“Yeah, well, I’m more worried that Jikken and Teisoko are going to make mincemeat out of Mom and Dad’s past-selves, but then I was overruled—”

“What did you say?” Mama interrupts Boruto, eyes wide in disbelief.

“Oh, yeah, your past-selves got the brilliant idea to use Teisoko’s portal opening and Old Man Kakashi’s Sharingan to stick themselves right in the middle of everything,” Boruto complains. “I don’t know what they did, but it knocked Kakashi out, and—”

“They’ll be killed!” Hinata gasps.

“Probably,” Mitsuki says, still frowning at the tiny screen. “Since everyone is still here, it hasn’t happened yet, however the odds are not favorable.”

“Then we don’t have time,” Mama says. “That machine has to stop, and it has to stop now.”

“But…” Sarada begins.

“Normally I’d agree that the careful approach is best, Sarada, but right now, every second counts. If we don’t act now, our past selves and Kakashi-sensei are dead.”

“But what I we all explode?”

“Winking out of existence quietly or in an explosion, it’s the same result. If I had to gamble on what course of action is most likely to save everyone…” Mama shakes her head. “Mitsuki, please move aside while I deal with this.”

“Yes! Aunt Sakura rocks!” Boruto cheers, while Mitsuki shrugs and moves away. Whatever happened to him during his captivity, he has recovered himself enough that his temperate and agreeable nature has returned. And more than happy to once again align himself with Boruto.

Sarada is still hesitant about the whole thing, but she lets Aunt Hinata move her and the rest of the team out of the cavern. From a safe distance, they watch as Mama strides forward and bends the bars around the computer terminal with ease. Then, she shoves her fists into the computer.

Circuits fry and crackle around her, and smoke spews from the broken terminal, but she doesn’t stop, reaching further in and parting metal and wire as if its were cottage cheese. Then with a yank, she pulls the whole thing out of the wall—along with a significant portion of thick, black metal piping.

The cables within the pipe are as thick as Sarada’s thigh, and lead upward through the stone, radiating electricity and a familiar golden chakra. Once Mama yanks the computer terminal away, though, the bright energy fizzles and disappears.

Silence echoes all around them, and Sarada’s ears pop, the omnipresent hum she barely noticed before now gone.

Then, something begins to rumble.

It starts within the room where Mama continues to stand, and the ceiling starts to crack and crumble in earnest, the gap where the giant pipes were laid folding in on itself.

“Move!” Mama yells, and drops the terminal to one side, before diving from the cavern, just in time to avoid the little room collapsing in on her.

The movement doesn’t stop there, however, and before their eyes, an entire section of the rotunda begins to cave in on itself. The scaffolding they stand on churns and twists, and they are forced to make a run for it, jumping from stairs and platforms that crumble beneath their feet.

As they reach the bottom once more, stumbling over the unmoving bodies of the curse-mark creatures, the entire scaffolding disintegrates before their eyes.

Far at the top of the dome, they watch as an eerie gold light emanating from Teisoko’s grotto, winks out.

“We stopped it!” Boruto cheers.

“You think?” Sarada asks, not entirely sure.

“Your mothers are both still here,” Mitsuki points out.

Which is true, but…

It’s too quiet up top, which could mean the cavern collapsed in on itself the minute the time pocket disappeared. And while she’s sure Papa would be able to get everyone out before they got squished…

The fact that he hasn’t yet makes her worry.

“There’s a suspicious lack of mayhem for a place where both our husbands are,” Mama says. “Hinata and I will look into it. And Konohamaru—this time I mean it. Take the kids and—”

“Sarada! Watch out!”

Aunt Hinata, whose back was turned to her, suddenly whirls around and reaches out to her, alarmed. As everyone else turns to her, a hand reaches out behind her, grasping her by the neck and dragging her backward.

She can only gape as the images of her loved ones vanish in a flash of golden light.

ナルト

Itachi Uchiha is a sociopath.

That thought is the clearest one Sakura can muster just then,

She kneels, her entire body trembling from shock and pain and confusion, and her stomach is turning in on itself, and she wants to throw up, because somewhere, an entire crow just burst out of her mouth—

Her vision blurs, reality bending around her, and she thinks she can hear his voice again, chillingly soft and measured.

….Protect Sasuke…tell him…

But she can’t quite get the words into focus.

There’s no time to dwell, anyhow. Teisoko is motionless before her, staring at the body of her lackey in disbelief, and that’s probably why she hasn’t made a countermove yet.

Assets, Sakura prompts herself, trying to shock her mind back into working. What assets do I have?

None, it seems.

Sasuke lies upon the ground, staring at her in shock, unable to pull himself to his feet, whether from lack of chakra or lack of strength. Probably both. Kakashi is still unconscious, and Orochimaru is barely out of toddlerhood, scared and huddled behind her. And Naruto is gone, too, trapped in the same time bubble as his and Sasuke’s future selves.

And Teisoko is moving again.

Free of her cables, she has very little strength beyond standing, but her Sharingan remains active.

There has to be a way to distort her gaze, to get past her.

Her body is so frail—almost that of a mobile skeleton—that someone of Sakura’s relative weakness should be able to take her in a straight-up fight, even as bruised and battered as she is now. It’s the dōjutsu that adds the danger element.

Even as she considers it, her muscles throb in protest and her vision swims with black spots.

Teisoko bears her teeth at Sakura, who averts her gaze, and then looks toward Sasuke. He flinches as her ruined mouth pulls into a perversion of a smile, and then returns her attention to Sakura.

“Give me the child,” she rasps, “and I will spare you in your last moments. You can hold your love for what remains of your existence.”

There is no doubt in her voice that the end of everything is close, and it terrifies Sakura.

This is not the usual fear that hits her during a dangerous mission, the kind that can be pushed off and talked away, with the distant hope of ‘some way we’ll pull this off!’ that always lingers at the back of her mind. Truthfully, the only time she ever feels like that is when Naruto makes one of his impassioned speeches.

She flicks her eyes to where her friend if frozen now.

“My name is Naruto Uzumaki! And my future dream…is to surpass the Hokage! And so, I’m going to get the entire village to acknowledge my existence!”

But this isn’t the Forest of Death, where Team Ten and Team Gai wait in the wings to help her until her boys wake up. She is literally facing off against death on her own, with no question that she will die.

Her inner self even wonders if it might not be better to agree to Teisoko’s terms. To go hold on to Sasuke for a few final moments. It would be fitting…

“I’m Sakura Haruno! What I like…I mean, who I like is… And my hobby is… My future dream is…”

Sasuke meets her eyes, furious and frustrated and trying to think around this latest obstacle. His face pulls into a snarl of defiance in the face of death, but as he meets Sakura’s gaze, there’s a momentary flicker.

He can tell what’s going through her mind, can see her temptation to give in. And he doesn’t even blame her for it because…he’s so tired. He doesn’t remember a time when he wasn’t fighting, and right now, he’s at his limit.

My name’s…Sasuke Uchiha…I have an ambition…to restore my clan…

He is bruised and bleeding and about to die, but in this one instant, that ambition is not what comes through in his gaze. All his thoughts and attention lock on her, waiting.

Sakura’s lips part in astonishment.

This is the boy she loves.

This is the person who has had her heart by inches since she was six years old, and who will always have it. And right then, in that infinitesimal short moment, she understands without question—the same way she knew she had to save Sarada before she even knew the girl was her future child—she knows that even if Sasuke doesn’t show it or properly acknowledge it himself, she has his heart, too.

And she’s not about to betray that for momentary comfort.

Sakura struggles to her feet, half-expecting muscles and bone to snap beneath her from sheer exhaustion.

“Sakura!” Sasuke bites out, an effortful warning or plea.

It doesn’t matter.

Sasuke can still save the Uchiha, and restore them…even without her.

Right now, if the choice is between both of them dying or just her, there is no choice. Maybe there’s no guarantee that Sarada’s mother has to be her, maybe Sasuke can find a chance at happiness if she succeeds.

And I would give anything to protect your happiness, she remembers saying as she moves her body into a crouch. She draws out her last cherry blossom tag. “Because you…are the person…that is most precious…to me!”

She charges Teisoko.

The emaciated woman snarls, preparing in her own way for the attack, her Sharingan the ever-present threat.

“Sakura!”

But she is already vaulting through the air, gaze fixed just below Teisoko’s eyes, concentrating all effort and awareness on trying to sense where the next assault will come from. She dodges explosions and time portals left to right, and notes with a boost of confidence that they are coming much slower now. Fast enough to dodge with relative ease.

Teisoko is weakened too, whatever threat she still possesses, and Sakura does not intend to waste that.

As she enters into Teisoko’s immediate range, the place where the ancient Uchiha has more control, Sakura throws her last bomb directly at the woman’s face and prays that despite the fifty-fifty chance she has—

Teisoko detonates the explosive with the spin of her Mangekyo Sharingan, and Sakura laughs in triumph. Caution and self-preservation thrown to the wind, she vaults directly into the path of the explosion, bursting through the flame with her right arm raised and screaming.

“SHAN-NA-ROOOOO!”

Her fist connects with Teisoko’s sternum, and she feels it shatter beneath her knuckles, the fore of her chakra rending surrounding ribs and muscle, and in that moment—

Her eyes meet Teisoko’s scarlet gaze.

The black wheel in the iris contracts in pain and rage, and Sakura knows what’s about to happen, but there’s no course-correcting now.

Sound and heat explodes around her, followed by a searing pain, and then nothing.

Sakura’s body is thrown backward from the force, and unlike the first time, when she saved Sasuke from suffering the same fate, she doesn’t get up again.

Sasuke doesn’t realise he’s screaming until the last remnants of the explosion clears the air, leaving a heavy silence within the pocket of time. Sakura’s body twitches in pain, the only indication that she’s still alive. Her entire front is a mass of blood and bone and blackened blisters; her left eye, the one that remains unruined, stares up at him emptily.

Teisoko clutches at the wall, trying to stand while glaring down at Sakura’s body. She coughs, blood drippling down her lips, and then begins to laugh, a dry and heaving sound.

“I’m…still…standing, girl,” she hisses. “And now…no one…can stop…me!”

She turns her back on the ruined remnants of Team 7, and lurches toward Orochimaru. The tiny boy is crying and scrambling, trying to push himself further into the equipment but having nowhere to go.

“You…are mine…filth!”

She reaches out a spindly hand to pull him toward her.

A flat plane of violet chakra erupts between Orochimaru and Teisoko, throwing her back before she can touch the boy. It’s a shapeless slab in the air, resembling a large human rib.

Sasuke’s head feels like it’s on fire, like a switch has been flipped in his brain, and whatever strength remains in his body now bleeds into his eyes. They burn, and every other cell in his body burns right along with them.

Teisoko recoils. “Susanoo…no…that can’t…be…”

She turns to Sasuke, who stumbles to his feet.

With every movement, he can feel the life leaving his body. With his chakra exhausted from the curse-seal, he thinks he might just be burning through his own life force to keep that shield—the same one his older self used—between Teisoko and Orochimaru. He has no other goal now other than to continue the protection that Sakura offered before sacrificing herself.

Sasuke can see the damage to Teisoko’s body, and if he can get to her—

Blood drains down his face from both eyes, tear tracks that mirror those of the woman before him. Sensation in his extremities disappears—toes and fingers, then calves and forearms, and he pitches to his knees.

If he has to fucking crawl he’s going to do it.

The world flickers, narrowing to dim grey shades, and he’s dying, he knows it. Sakura’s dying, Kakashi might already be dead, and Naruto is frozen in time, and Sarada…

Sarada will never exist.

He’s dying, but he’ll be damned if he isn’t taking the monster in front of him out too—

The golden wall of chakra around them ripples, once—then twice in quick succession, and then the earth begins to rumble beneath them. They shouldn’t be able to feel that, trapped in the bubble of time as they are, but the more the golden chakra begins to wane, the more the world shakes.

Crevices split into the walls beyond the time pocket, and Teisoko stumbles back against the wall where she was secured. Gravity pulls Sasuke downward, and he falls weakly onto Sakura, sprawled across her.

The world edges away, and somehow his left hand falls into her right, and he thinks now there’s nothing else, now he can sleep.

But the earth is shaking too much and the time bubble is vibrating, and he thinks he sees his future self’s fingers begin to twitch—

Searing hot, golden light pulses and then explodes outward, blanketing everything. Sasuke has the impression of a rubber band suddenly contracting in on itself, before it pulls inward, jettisoning toward Teisoko.

There’s an instant where it passes over him and he is nothing.

No sight, no sound, no movement…no sensation. He ceases to exist.

Awareness returns with a roar, and he watches as the golden band wall that passed over him slams into Teisoko, flattening her against the wall, before she falls face-down on the ground.

She doesn’t move.

And Sasuke can notice all of this because suddenly he can feel again!

There’s no pain anymore, he realises as he pushes himself up, staring at his hands. They are devoid of any bruising or telltale signs of scuffle. Turning his head to the right, he gapes at Sakura, who blinks up at him in confusion from two perfectly whole seafoam eyes. Her face is restored, and her skin no longer hands in blistered shreds.

“Sasuke?” she asks, bewildered, and his chest constricts with disbelief and respite because she is not dead. “Sasuke!”

Then she is throwing herself forward, wrapping her arms around his neck despite the awkward angle, and her grip his suffocating, but he doesn’t push her away. He’s too stunned at their wholeness, the fact they are both completely intact, so much so that even their clothing is mended. Somehow, Sasuke is wearing his high-collared blue shirt again, and Sakura’s tunic is its full length, and Naruto—

He whips his head around, watching as his teammate and their future selves stumble as if taking a wobbly step forward. They all seem mildly confused, except for Adult Sasuke, whose gaze is locked on something behind Sasuke. He discovers what when another body knocks into his, and looking down, the child Orochimaru has grabbed on to Sakura’s free arm, clutching at her like a lifeline.

In this bizarre place, she must, and Sasuke can’t even blame him for it because something in him thinks the exact same thing.

“What the hell just happened?!” Naruto demands, gazing around at the cavern that is no longer taken up by the thick, curved wall of chakra. “How’d I get here?”

“You entered the time field just as we did,” Sasuke’s future self says. “While you were in it, you were frozen, but something disrupted it and it rebounded on its creator.”

“And in the process, it appears to have returned us to the condition we were in before we encountered this paradox,” a voice adds, and they all glance over to where Kakashi is getting to his feet. There is no hint of blood in his mask, no clawing shreds across his chest from Mumyōi.

“Kakashi-sensei!” Naruto and Sakura whoop, and she lets go of Sasuke to get to her feet. Orochimaru buries his face in her hip, and despite her bemused look, she allows it.

Sasuke tamps down the inexplicable and unwanted glimmer of annoyance at that, and looks away pointedly. His gaze falls upon the still unmoving corpse of Jikken. “If time reset us all, why didn’t Jikken come back to life?”

Not that he’s complaining, but…

“He was dead,” Sasuke’s future self says simply.

“And the chakra sigil binding him to Teisoko was severed,” the future Naruto says. “That was the only thing that was keeping him reanimating. I imagine he’s been dead for a long time.”

“As for the rest of us, none of us were dead,” Future Sasuke continues. “Cells frozen in time are different from those that have expired.”

He is watching Sakura with a set to his jaw and Sasuke knows exactly what he’s feeling.

She was never dead.

He holds one hand out in front of him, calling upon his Sharingan and finding that it is no effort to do so. The strange burning sensation from earlier is gone, and he wonders for a moment if what happened to him moments earlier meant that he briefly, very briefly, possessed the same eyes as his brother.

Because of Sakura.

No, he tells himself, very firmly. It wasn’t that.

It’s not a strong denial, but it’s enough for now.

“But wait a minute,” Naruto says, frowning. “How the heck did Jikken die? One second, I was fighting him and then…bam! I’m here.”

“It was Sakura,” Future Sasuke says. “With a little help.”

She looks up in surprise. “How do you know that? You were frozen.”

“The Rinnegan allows me to see beyond time. While I was trapped, I was still aware of what was going on.” Future Sasuke scowls at them all now, before his eyes rest on Kakashi. “You were all reckless coming here. It almost killed you, and us.”

“Puh-lease, asshole,” Naruto snorts. “You’d still be a timesicle if it weren’t for us showing up.”

“Speaking of,” his future self says, “this isn’t over.”

“No, it’s not,” a cold voice interrupts, and everyone stills. The voice is new, and yet not, and when they all look over, they stare in horror at a standing Teisoko.

Only it’s not the chilling, living dead goddess they all battled until the point of death. A woman, barely out of her teens, stands before them. She looks uncomfortably like Sarada, only her eyes are slits of red anger, and her mouth is twisted into a cruel smile.

The time bubble rebounded on her as well, and instead of destroying her, it seems to have reset her to the way she once was, too.

Adult Sasuke twitches, like he’s about to move, but Teisoko’s Sharingan is back to its full power as well, and she freezes him in place once more.

“I might not be able to change time from outside my personal timeline the way I planned, but my abilities remain otherwise intact,” she sneers. “In fact, they are stronger than they ever were. All that chakra I gathered? Its in me now! And none of you will be able to stop me from going back and ending this hell of a world before it begins.”

“That’s what you think,” Adult Naruto says, and his fiery chakra flames to life.

“Oh, I do not think. I know. Because the larger paradox is retracting, too. As it builds speed, it will erase everything out of its proper temporal location,” she drawls. Her Sharingan flicks to one side, and a portal opens. She reaches into it, and then yanks her arm back, dragging a stunned Sarada back to her by the throat. “And you will all be far too busy looking for this one to escape it!”

And with a final sneer, she opens a second portal and charges toward it, yanking Sarada along with her.

つづく

Soooo. Better or worse than the Itachi-related cliffhangers?

Everyone’s been dying for mini-Sakura being badass and having mini-Sasuke actually see it, so here you go! And yes, Sasuke briefly awakened his Mangekyo Sharingan for Sakura’s sake…but since the time pocket rebounded, he was also “reset to factory settings” like everyone else. Which means his Sharingan was too :P Don’t y’all just love timey-wimey stuff?

栗

[unknown-de-mordor-blog]

My (terrible, no good, very bad) NARUTO headcanons

These are mostly my thoughts after reading Gaiden. And I can tell you that you’re not going to like them no matter whom you ship or who your favourite character in the series is.

Naruto has been never interested in Sakura romantically. He wanted to be her friend, and he admired her hard work and the fact that she was a great student despite not being from a shinobi clan. But because he had no one to show him how to befriend the opposite sex, he took cues from the (terrible) romantic script from whatever media he had been consuming and executed them badly. (Not saying that the media dictates what we do, but it probably influences neglected children more than any other group because that’s going to be their primary way of understanding human interactions.)

Naruto hadn’t been interested in Sasuke beyond their rivalry when he was young. That’s why there’s an inconsistency between the apathy Naruto showed towards Sasuke at the very beginning and how he talked about it later. The way he tells it actually fits with how people who have known each other for a long time and are deeply in love talk about their past -- as if they have had this intense emotional connection right from the beginning even though they didn’t.

Sasuke, on the other hand, shows attentiveness right from the start. He’s actually the one who got interested first but he was unable to process the emotion due to his childhood upbringing, trauma, and his focus on revenge.

Even though Naruto and Sasuke end up in love with each other, they cannot be together, at least not as young adults. Sasuke’s too traumatized to love properly, and Naruto doesn’t understand how to care for a person who’s damaged and in pain in front of him instead of being a tragic figure he pines for at a distance. If they were to get together at that age, it would become a destructive relationship that destroyed both of them.

Not to mention that Naruto hasn’t quite fully formed his bi identity yet. Konoha seems very conservative about the expression of gender and sexuality. Jiraiya, the closest thing Naruto has to a consistent father figure, seems to fit the macho heteronormative idea of a guy to the tee. And since Naruto has terrible responses to Sai’s (unintentionally/jokingly) coming on to him but hadn’t been bothered by Haku, I can only conclude that Jiraiya had been a bad influence on that. There’s a possibility that at that age, Naruto has internalized the disapproval from his father figure and so never explores his feeling for Sasuke as deeply as he should have.

Naruto ends up with Hinata because she is safe. She is stable. She is available. She is a woman, which means Naruto knows how their relationship should go. She is patient with him and, sadly, also let him walk all over her more than she should. He does have feelings for her, which was born from friendship and familiarity, but it’s much paler than what he has for Sasuke.

Hinata has never been a stalker. F-U, Studio Pierrot.

Hinata knows about Naruto’s feelings for Sasuke. She accepts the fact that he is going to prioritize Konoha and Sasuke over her. It’s a result of her being treated as second best all her life. She might not have endured physical abuses, but the persistent putdowns mean she is aching for some kind of acceptance, and that’s pretty much the reason she is drawn to him in the first place. So, she’s willing to have this pale love than no love at all.

So, no, Naruto and Hinata’s relationship isn’t exactly healthy. It’s badly damaged and only exists because they both are damaged by the people who should have loved them. But since it’s better than what both of them have had, they stay together at least for the time being.

I really want someone to come along and show Hinata how being loved and respected properly actually looks like. I want her to not be treated as second best for a change.

Sakura and Sasuke’s marriage wasn’t actually born of romantic love but a deal Sasuke made with her. Sasuke wanted an heir to continue his bloodline, and so he asked the woman he trusts most to carry the child. Sakura’s status as his wife makes Sarada the legitimate heir and allows Sakura to be the primary caretaker of their daughter and his estate while Sasuke does pretty much fuck-all.

The proposal might have been a response to Naruto getting married. I couldn’t imagine how it would have felt like for Sasuke to watch that happen since he’s the more self-aware of the two.

I’m not saying that Sasuke took advantage of Sakura’s affection for him or her taking advantage of his need to her end. I think Sakura feels for Sasuke more like a family by the end of the War, and because of that, she feels for his loneliness and wants to help him build something for himself. Of course, she totally miscalculated how much Sasuke’s still a prick and how that decision is going to end up derailing the rest of her life.

Tsunade and Shizune suspected something was up when Sakura told them she was going to get married, but Sakura never told them anything.

Karin is the only other person who knows Sakura worked out a deal with Sasuke and supports her and Sarada where she can because she knows Sasuke makes for a shitty husband, even a mostly pretended one.

Sakura might have tried to have it all at first, but the reality of single-motherhood probably gets to her. Juggling that with working as a regular doctor at the hospital is probably too much for her health, so she chooses her daughter and becomes a stay-at-home mom. Sasuke’s inheritance is more than enough to keep the family going anyway if she spends them well.

Sakura still complains about her life choices every time Karin comes by for a drink. Except for Sarada. She regrets nothing about Sarada.

Sakura tries her best to keep Sarada from learning about the deal and tries to put up a charade of a romantic relationship in front of their daughter. Sasuke, of course, doesn’t understand this since he doesn’t subscribe to the same idea of family as Sakura or Sarada.

Naruto couldn’t have been a good father. He only knows how not to be abusive but in no way does he know how to connect to and treat children well. This is because he didn’t have consistent role models as a child, especially one who doesn’t also treat him as a shinobi. He was probably an okay dad when his children are young, but as he gets busier and they grow older, his prioritization becomes horribly off and he sees them more as shinobi just as everyone else has seen him. That’s why he asks them to tolerate his absence for the greater good instead of making rooms for them in his increasingly crazy life.

[kopfkinoes]

I’ve been a Naruto fan for like 13 years now but after the manga ended I pretty much left the fandom because I anticipated the vitriol that was going to follow after the ending. Every once in a while I stumbled upon a Naruto post that made me realize I had been right and I didn’t interact. But at the end of 2017 I came back and…nothing has changed. I honestly think this is one of the worst, most immature fandoms out there. I feel like so many of the people in the fandom are perpetual twelve year olds. And it kind of bothers me that Sasuke and Sakura, my absolute favourites since day one, are still disrespected as fuck. Now, mind you, I’m not talking about the ship, I’m talking about them as individual characters although I do ship them. I’ve multishipped for a long, long time but not anymore.

They are the first ones I shipped because I had a feeling stuff was bound to happen between them but then I discovered the wonders of the web and instantly moved to ship Naruto and Sasuke. I never once hated Sakura and Hinata though and even in the later years when “feminist” rhetoric moved into fandoms, I took the “these women are strong and powerful and I love them, they don’t need no man” thing to be good. But after the ending, and now seeing how many of the people who ship Naruto and Sasuke are downright anti-Sakura and insult and disrespect her in so many ways I realized “Wow! I had been an idiot all along. These people never gave a shit about Sakura, they were saying all of that stuff to get her out of the way.” I don’t see people talking about how Naruto and Sasuke’s bond diminishes their battle abilities, I see none of the shippers implying that their development would be flushed down the drain if they ended up in a relationship. Yet, that is apparently true for the women. Right.

Sasuke is a character with a lot of potential. But he was never able to evolve. And do you know why? Because of Naruto. Sasuke was created in order to be the opposite of Naruto and, for the most part, that is all remains to be. I’ve been staning Sasuke forever but this is the truth. He exists in order to be Naruto’s rival and in order to be pissed that he, a guy coming from a clan of prodigies, keeps falling behind the class clown and loser (who is anything but that when you think of it, Minato was anything but a weak guy and Kushina, while we don’t get a good look at her abilities, has loads of stamina and healing powers and her abilities were considered exceptional even among the Uzumaki, not to mention how easily Naruto masters everything new he tries). In the end, he is subdued by Naruto and the Will of Fire.

Even after all of this, he is still not allowed to be around his family. Why? Simply because he needs to be the opposite of Naruto. He needed to point a sword at his own daughter and it was Naruto who had to comfort and reassure her. Sasuke will never be an overly affectionate person, I don’t think he will ever realistically go back to his pre-massacre personality (he wasn’t exactly super bubbly as a child either, he was reserved around other people but very happy around his family) and frankly, he doesn’t need to. He wouldn’t ever be a husband who does grand romantic gestures or a super cuddly father but he’s loyal and devoted and these things shouldn’t be brushed away for some mission or for creating angst just to prove that Naruto is a better, more understanding person that he’ll ever be, even when it comes to Sarada. Like, for fuck’s sake, does everything Sasuke does need to happen right before Naruto waltzes in and puts him in his place by being a better person? Can Sasuke not be a person in his own right without the constant comparisons to Naruto?

What I also find interesting is how often I see Sasuke becoming completely OOC when paired with Naruto. Of course everybody says Sasuke is OOC when paired with Sakura but frankly I’ve rarely seen Sasuke presented as lovey dovey around Sakura, people usually want him to be proud of her but he stays his usual tepid self. Because that’s Sasuke’s personality, he’s not a conventionally affectionate person and there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s why it bothers me when I see Sasuke made to be a soft, sensitive, pastel boy aesthetic. He’s not that and he wouldn’t be that even if he were gay. I mean, I understand headcanons but don’t root them in the “seme and uke” dynamics, please.

Moving on, I have a particular kind of contempt for people suggesting Sasuke cheated on Sakura with Karin. It makes absolutely no sense character-wise and it just shits all over Sasuke by assuming he’s a disgusting fucker who would cheat. Are you telling me that the dude who didn’t even consider taking advantage of even a single one of the girls who were fawning over him would have a face-heel turn and cheat? Yeah, right. I don’t understand how you can call yourself a Sasuke fan and genuinely support cheating. Why would Sasuke wait to be with Sakura in order to have sex with Karin when he and Karin had so many opportunities to bang prior to this while they were travelling together as a team? Why would he have a child with Karin and just dump the child on Sakura’s head? I don’t even want to hear superiority arguments that go along the lines of “Karin is an Uzumaki so she has superior genes compared to Sakura who doesn’t come from a clan” because…arguments like these are disgusting. I don’t think it was ever even slightly implied that Sasuke (or the Uchiha for that matter) held beliefs like this. If anything, these guys didn’t like being othered and set apart from the rest of the village. I don’t think Sasuke ever implied that he believes some vaginas are not genetically pure enough for him to get into so please don’t put these shitty beliefs on him. Sasuke was described as “pure”. It’s simply the way he is. I really don’t care that you think he’s not a “True Hetero Guy” unless he cheats and/or has sex with loads of women.

I always see people saying fans who ship Sasuke and Sakura are “disgusted” by the thought of Sasuke having sex with someone else. But do you know how many people I’ve seen saying how grossed out Sasuke must be by being around pussy (specifically Sakura’s) and how he probably cries and is traumatized by the experience? I’ve yet to see people talking about how Sasuke must be super disgusted by dick.

Moving on to Sakura, pretty much 100% of the vitriol I’ve seen thrown at her comes from misogyny. People always like to say it’s not misogyny and yet it always is. It comes from Kishimoto himself and his ideas of women. He constantly described Sakura as “not cute” and “a hard woman”. And it’s true, Sakura’s not demure or submissive and doesn’t appear to be very suited for domesticity.  I don’t believe that just because she is loud and outspoken she would make a dreadful wife and mother. She was very shy as a child (mostly because she was insecure) but she grew into herself. About her not being cute, I’d say that’s debatable. Kishimoto said she’s not cute in the beginning and I see a lot of haters talking about “that ugly bitch Sakura” but let me tell you this, Naruto and Rock Lee had pretty intense crushes on her and Jiraiya compared her appearance to Tsunade’s (although the man’s trash when it comes to women but you get my point). What do people base their opinions on when they say she’s ugly? On her exaggerated anger expressions? Because Sakura is not drawn as prettier or uglier than any of the other female characters. Is it based on the fact that people love to bring up time and time again, that she doesn’t have big breasts? Yeah, she doesn’t have breasts as big as Tsunade’s or Hinata’s or even Ino’s but what does that have to do with anything? Nope, this is rooted in misogyny because, just like in real life, when you don’t like a woman you insult her based on her body and appearance because you believe that’s where all the worth of a woman is. Besides, don’t you think there something wrong with focusing so much on the body type of a girl aged 12 to 17? Because I think there is.

I always feel like laughing at people who call her stupid because Sakura is a nerd. This is why she was paired with the more battle prone Naruto and Sasuke because she was too much brains and not enough brawn. I know that it was Ino, Shino and Sasuke that graduated top of the class but, according to the Databooks, none of them beat Sakura in intelligence, she is equal to Shino and higher than Ino and Sasuke. People love to say that her being able to do the written part of the Chunin Exam all by herself doesn’t prove that she’s actually smart, buddy, it does. The fact that she’s smart doesn’t make the rest of the students who cheated idiots. That was the point of the test, the questions were too difficult for 12 year old genin to answer. The fact that Sakura could, however, isn’t bullshit. You wouldn’t call an exceptionally gifted kid who can answer really advanced academic questions “not that smart really, it doesn’t prove anything”. Freaking Sasuke commented on her analytical abilities, she’s an extremely skilled med-nin, she is able to put pieces of information she’s previously learnt together in order to form a present opinion, her hobbies are trivia games and memorizing medical ninjutsu material for God’s sake.

I definitely don’t think comparing her to Hinata achieves anything. Hinata does represent the ideas Kishimoto seems to have about women. She is soft-spoken, she is never confrontational, she never wants to offend anybody. Sure, Hinata also has her insecurities and doesn’t place much value on herself (we have her father to thank for that) but even after getting out of that shell and discovering she has some iron at her core, she is still mostly soft. That’s not a bad thing at all, it’s simply who she is as a person and it doesn’t make her better or worse than Sakura. I know that Sakura fans have always been bullied online, from forums to YouTube to tumblr to any other comment section of blogs and stuff, people have always thrown shit at Sakura, saying she’s useless, a whore, an idiot. The amount of times I’ve seen people wish violent, horrible deaths on Sakura (for the sole reason that she didn’t spread her legs for Naruto being the catalyst in pretty much 100% of the cases) is immense. The amount of times I’ve seen people wishing Hinata would kill Sakura “for what she did to Naruto” is huge. So based on this, I understand why Sakura fans feel the need to get defensive. I don’t agree with putting Hinata down but I understand why some people might do it. I’ll never put down someone’s fav (especially when the fav is as unproblematic as Hinata who honestly did nothing wrong) but I definitely understand why some people will do it.

Naruto is a shonen, battle manga. We will never get 100% healthy relationships in this because the manga is not focused on romance. It is why the relationships between Sasuke and Sakura and Naruto and Hinata were not greatly developed and why there was an overemphasis on Naruto and Sasuke’s bond which is basically “we’re forever competing to see who’s better”. Kishimoto based it on his relationship with his brother but I’m pretty sure he took it up to eleven in the manga. Because Naruto is a manga for whom the target audience is boys, female characters will never be 100% appreciated. Most of the boys watching identify with the downtrodden outcast, guys such as Lee or Naruto. It’s a thing, associated with the stereotype of the Western man who watches anime, a stereotype that is proved to be correct in most cases, sadly. How many of these guys think they’re gems, that they’re precious souls to have around and girls just don’t see them for what they are? Both Naruto and Lee are very loved among male fans and they are both rejected by Sakura. (I could also say something about the stereotypes Western anime watching men place on Japanese women, namely “the pliant, submissive wife, who would do house chores all day, would never say no to sex and worship them as the much better versions of Japanese men that they are” but I’m not going there.) Never cruelly though, she remains friendly with both of them. Her bond with Naruto is very strong and they’re actually a pretty rare example of a good male and female friendship (the violence that is played for laughs doesn’t really mean much to me).

However, for the male fans that is never enough. How many times did I see stuff like “She chose Sasuke although Naruto never left the village” or “Naruto did so many things for her yet she still chose Sasuke”. Dude, there was never a competition. Sakura loves Sasuke, plain and simple. You can disagree with that if you want, you can disagree with how she expresses her love for him but there was never competition. Sakura has always loved Sasuke, what she feels for him is true love. Many people don’t believe it exists but it is what it is. I find it funny (and by funny I mean idiotic to the heavens) that people always say her development was crushed because she didn’t give up on Sasuke but Naruto’s was improved by not giving up on Sasuke. This is bias and misogyny at its finest. Sasuke is not just a crush to Sakura. People always want to say Sakura was a fangirl to Sasuke and nothing more and that she simply needed to get over her obsessive crush. She wouldn’t have said all she wanted was for him to acknowledge her if he were just a crush, she wouldn’t have suffered so badly over him. Many of the village girls had a thing for Sasuke and I doubt all of them cried over Sasuke at night after he left. Only Sakura anticipated when he was going to leave. People always say that Sakura maturing would have meant her understanding that her and Sasuke are just not meant to be a thing. The thing is, she wasn’t holding on to the idea that her and Sasuke would be “a thing”. Kakashi made it pretty clear (to Sasuke and to all fans who just can’t get it in their heads) that Sakura only wanted to help him, not to get into his pants.

People are also super quick to judge the relationship between Sasuke and Sakura as abusive. Why though? All the times they were violent towards each other (and there weren’t even that many times) they weren’t dating, they were combatants on opposite sides of battle. There is nobody in this series that Sasuke is more violent towards than Naruto and yet I never see this relationship classified as abusive, instead it is considered romantic and heartfelt that he wanted to sever his bonds with Naruto in order to make a martyr out of himself and be consumed by darkness. Like, yeah, that’s super healthy. I see the same thing being said with Karin, that Sasuke impaled her simply because he wanted to cut all of his bonds, not because he actually wanted to kill her. Which is…stupid to say the least. Like, cool story, still murder. He knew that impaling her would result in killing her but damn, was he willing to make that sacrifice. The reasons why Sasuke wanted to murder the people in his life are not important. In truth, all the murder he wanted to commit was because people were getting in the way of killing Itachi and, after killing Itachi, people were getting in the way of his goal to be completely alone in order to destroy/reform Konoha. Sasuke is not a psychopath who murders for fun but that doesn’t mean he was in a good place.

I shipped Sasuke with Karin but I never saw their bond as overly emotional or true love. I’m not saying Karin doesn’t care about him but I do think her feelings for him are more in the realm of sexual than the romantic. She does care for his well-being, she wants him to be happy, she is impressed by him and wants to be around him but it’s not romantic. Does she suffer when she thinks he’s dead? Naturally. Because she cares about him and she does love him but, again, not romantically. Karin’s sexual feelings for Sasuke are not bad, they don’t make her a whore or whatever. But it’s quite silly in my opinion to mistake them for some sort of pure, true love. They’re not that and it’s fine that they’re not. We see Sakura wanting to be alone with Sasuke but she never thinks of how she’s so excited she can barely stand it and how she wants to “ravage Sasuke like crazy”. We don’t see Sakura’s reaction, upon seeing Sasuke arrive on the battlefield to be “I want to lick Sasuke all over right now”.

People always like to remind everyone that Sakura ended her friendship with Ino over Sasuke. However, we never see Sakura and Ino be hostile to each other. Compare their rivalry to the one between Sasuke and Naruto to understand what I’m saying. They had a mild dislike going on but we see them quickly overcome it in the Chunin Exams. Sakura and Ino never really gave up on their friendship, their rivalry was mostly played for laughs, I never took it seriously because I don’t think it was presented in a way that was saying “you need to take this seriously, this is the real deal”. Mostly because it dealt with who has prettier hair and who can get the seat next to Sasuke first. Nope, not serious.

Back to Hinata, this is the reason why so many of the fanboys prefer her. Look at the opinions Shikamaru, another character the fanboys adore, has about women. He is downright misogynistic but that gets overlooked in fandom time after time because of his 200 IQ. Instead, I see people saying it is Sasuke who hates women when there is no indication of that, except, you know, people who think he’s gay and because he’s gay he MUST hate all women and consider them absolutely gross (except for the, sometimes OC, self-insert in fanfiction). Just like his father, Shikamaru has this thing that women should be sweet, soft and tender not headstrong, demanding and even harsh (women like his mother, Yoshino, Ino, Temari, Tayuya). He hates receiving help from women, he is frustrated when he has to fight women. He sums up his views of women himself by saying “C'mon. You know what they’re like. You can never figure them out. You never know where you could stand with them. The smallest things could put you in their bad side. Always playing little mind games with you. Trying to make you do what they want. They’re just a big pain basically.”

For the most part, many fans linked Sakura to Kushina because of her fiery personality. Minato kinda sealed this comparison when saying Sakura reminded him of Kushina. So a lot of people, while calling Sakura an ugly bitch and a whore who needs to be raped and die, still wanted her for Naruto and believed she will ultimately change her mind and go for Naruto. Personally, I don’t care about that because so many characters in Naruto are carbon copies of people who came before them, enough similarities are enough. This idea that a guy should marry a woman just like his mother is weird for many reasons to me. It’s only men that have unhealthy relationships with their mothers that want a woman exactly like their mothers. Then the ending came so Hinata, being the embodiment of what a woman “should be” became more appropriate for Naruto in the eyes of so many fans. The fact that she fits these patterns doesn’t take away or add to Hinata’s character in any way. It just is. However, fanboys will use it in a sexist way. I definitely don’t agree with the criticism for Hinata that it’s wrong her motivation for becoming strong is Naruto. The motivation of pretty much all characters in becoming stronger is in order to protect others and there's nothing wrong with wanting to improve yourself because you feel that would put you on more equal grounds with the one you love. This manga places great value on the power of unity and community and people who seek power for power’s sake, for revenge or for evil don’t do well. They are either defeated or they change their minds. Great emphasis is placed on the “you only become strong when you have someone you need to protect” mentality. And women are allowed to make connections in this life, they don’t have to live “lone wolf” lives in order to be “truly strong”. Loneliness is an enemy in and of itself in Naruto.

Kishimoto’s views on women are not necessarily progressive but they’re not exactly bad in my opinion. It all has to do with how fanboys twist his ideas and make them bad. Because I don’t think he ever blamed Sakura for not hooking up with Naruto. I know there are people who believe that he’s holding onto the belief that people (and women especially) must forever be with their first love. I think it just so happens that Naruto and Sasuke were Hinata’s and Sakura’s first loves but, more important, they are their true loves. Ino moved on and I see people saying she shouldn’t have. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t I guess. To sum up, I’ve yet to see dislike for Sakura that’s not misogynistic. I’m not even talking about people who think she’s weak. She is the only one who’s not from a clan and yet she managed to surpass Tsunade, a Sannin. She was impaled by Madara and shook it off immediately, she saved Naruto’s, Kankuro’s, Hinata’s and Karin’s lives, she saved Sasuke from an infinte desert, she saved Obito from a sea of acid, she punched an alien all-powerful goddess in the face.

People saying shipping Sakura and Hinata with the guys they’re canonically in love with proves their fans are selfish because they just want them to look cute next to Sasuke and Naruto amuse me. That if you really cared about them you’d ship them with guys who “actually” care about them like Lee or Kiba or whatever. Dude, people love who they love. And a woman has no obligation to be with a man who was friendly and nice to her, not even a man who has a crush on her if she’s not attracted to him or doesn’t love him.