Chapter Text
Growing up civilian with parents who were constantly worried about their small business and how to put food on the table, Sakura was never expected to get into the academy. Her parents had no idea where she had gotten that idea from and truth be told, neither did Sakura. She didn’t have any shinobi in the family, she had never been saved or inspired by one, she had never had any contact with one beyond helping her mom sell her baked goods to them.
Besides, seeing shinobi jumping from one rooftop to another or listening to hardcore trainings and jutsus popping off while crossing through the training grounds was just as common as the giant faces carved in the mountain overlooking their village or the farmers’ market that happened every Tuesday a couple of streets down from her house, so Sakura couldn’t really pinpoint the moment she decided she wanted to be one of those people. The ones who could walk and run on unbelievable surfaces, that could breathe fire, yield lightning with their bare hands and create illusions with just a few simple signs.
Maybe it had been the fairy tales that inspired her.
No one stopped her from trying, even if many rolled their eyes and muttered how she wouldn’t last long behind her back. The girls bullied her for her colorful appearance, her perfectly normal forehead and her clanless background. No one incentivized her either, not a single praise was given, and no acknowledgement came her way.
Sakura lived in the background, had a single friend that dragged her up and down while she watched people dotting over Ino like she was a princess. To Sakura, being strong, beautiful and the heiress of such a famous clan was as good as having a princess title and Ino was all that and more. Her friend liked to talk about her clan’s abilities and how she was the youngest Yamanaka to be able to perform it, how her dad was teaching her advanced techniques and how she was already starting to train with Shikamaru and Choji because of course they’d be placed in the same team. It was tradition. It was also new information to a civilian like Sakura, and a big source of curiousness.
Who were those boys? Why would she be paired up with them? Why them?
Ino was more than happy to babble for hours about how their clans had worked in tandem for generations, how each of their techniques complemented the other. Sakura was kind of jealous of Ino’s certainty about her future, the security she had in her abilities as well as Shikamaru’s and Choji’s even before graduating as a genin.
So, after her talk with Ino, Sakura had come up with a good plan, at least in her head it was. Her best friend’s team needed to be comprised of people who yielded the Yamanaka, Nara and Akimichi’s techniques. Someone who’d dominate in close range and hand-to-hand combat, someone who’d stay in the back waiting for the opportunity to seal the deal with a well-aimed mind transfer and someone who’d coordinate the whole thing from the middle, helping on both fronts and controlling the battlefield by controlling the enemy.
Sakura, even young, was a realist when it came to her abilities and the truth was that she couldn’t hold her own in taijutsu, not even against Ami. No, she was the weakest in her class in that subject. Beyond that, her objective was to be in Ino’s team, so there was only another slot possible, and truthfully the only one she was actually suited for: the strategist. Her grades were the best in the class, she had a perfect memory, no difficulty with math or physics or even chemistry. She dominated anything theoretical, and the second place wasn’t even close to her.
To be placed in Ino’s team Sakura needed to have an ability that would complement her friend’s and besides the Akimichi, she only knew of one other: the Nara’s Kagemane-no-jutsu. Ino had said again and again about how the three clans taught their signature jutsus to their kids, so Sakura knew that it was something she didn’t need to be born with to be able to use, like Hinata’s Byakugan. It was something she could use her brain to pick apart and reproduce.
Maybe.
See, being raised civilian and deciding to become a kunoichi was a tricky situation in many aspects but the top three, for Sakura, were: having no knowledge of chakra; no previous training or fitness regime; lastly, and the one that eventually caused all her problems, Sakura had no idea about proper shinobi etiquette. She hadn’t known that clans with hidden techniques guarded their secrets as tightly as any other with a bloodline limit. She had no clue that recreating one of their jutsus would be considered disrespectful.
Etiquette, to her, was related to posture, the cadence of one’s voice, how one ate and knowing when to talk or to listen. It was, more or less, what they learnt in kunoichi class. Never, not in any class or with any sensei, had someone ever talked about etiquette applied to interclan relationships.
Maybe that was also why no one even noticed what she was doing. Everyone just took her as a curious child, which wasn’t false, but wasn’t the whole truth either.
So, whenever Shikamaru was placed in a spar, or when Ino invited her over to the Yamanaka compound and he was there to train with the blond, Sakura watched. The boy was lazier than her dad on a Sunday morning, so Sakura had few chances to see the jutsu in action, but every time she did, it caught her breath in her throat.
She memorized the hand signs, where his eyes would stray to when he focused on his jutsu, how his shadow moved and the vibrations of his chakra. She wasn’t a skilled sensor like her best friend, but she was decent and besides, if she was going to be in Ino’s team, she didn’t have to worry about being a good sensor, did she?
Working to reverse-engineer a jutsu she had no theoretical idea of how it worked and was only going based on observational evidence was hard beyond belief. First Sakura had to read a ton of books on chakra theory to understand how it worked and to grasp how to use her own, which she had no clue or previous knowledge. It got her sidetracked for a while, the subject was so rich and interesting. Then she studied they types of elemental chakra, followed by yin and yang, and how they were connected to the Nara’s kagemane, but also to genjutsu and medical ninjutsu.
After saving for months, she scrapped enough to buy a box of chakra papers to test her affinities. Each of them tested for a specific element between fire, earth, lightning, water and wind. Because Ino seemed sure that Sakura`s affinity would be water or fire, she had fully expected that, but instead she got earth. The papers to test yin and yang chakras had been the most expensive ones as people didn’t usually focused on specializing in those types because they were thought to be weaker. They also reacted differently in testing: if you had affinity to yang chakra, the paper would grow in proportion, while if you had yin affinity, it would create a brief illusory clone of it. Much to her absolute delight, she had both affinities.
Sakura was disappointed when Ino seemed annoyed at her for not having the affinities either of them expected. She had no clue what to do with any of that knowledge either. So she turned to Ino, who she knew had Yin affinity, to help her. The blond was suddenly beyond happy to be placed in the position of the one who held all the knowledge and promptly agreed to ‘tutor’ her. Of course, her way of teaching Sakura was to have the girl sit tight and watch her ‘being awesome’. Neither complained about the silly arrangement.
Sakura studied, trained whatever she could on her own and improved. Soon enough she wasn’t dead-last in their taijutsu lessons anymore and though Sasuke started to close the gap between their scores in theorical classes, she was still way far ahead. Her obsession with recreating the kagemane never wavered, but it did take a solid hit when the graduation day arrived, and she hadn’t made enough progress with it to warrant a place in Ino’s team. Not that she had shown her meagre progress to anyone yet, because all she could do by then was create some ripples in her own shadow.
It was with a heavy heart that she saw her best friend be placed in the very team Ino had always expected to be in, while Sakura got the angsty and rude Uchiha, as well as the loud, but likable Uzumaki. Of course their sensei was one of Konoha’s most infamous shinobi according to the library books and of course he didn’t spare her a second glance after she stuttered her greetings.
Sakura spent team 7’s training either watching Naruto and Sasuke spar or being told to practice the academy’s basic katas. To her it was ridiculous that Kakashi would loudly preach about teamwork and then proceed to ignore her in favor of the boys, especially Sasuke.
She knew she wasn’t on their level in taijutsu or any other practical subject, but how was she supposed to get better if he never trained her? He knew she was a genjutsu type and that she had phenomenal chakra control and yet, every time she requested to be taught something along those lines, Kakashi would hum, say that it was a good idea and that after Sasuke’s training they could do it. Still, he always seemed to forget and would leave soon after the boys’ training ended.
Sakura had always known she would have to fight for her space as a civilian born kunoichi, but damn, how much could she do if even her own sensei refused to properly teach her? Naruto, for all his boisterous appreciation of her, didn’t take it seriously the one and only time she vented to him about it. He simply said something like:
“Don’t worry, Sakura-chan! I’m always gonna protect you and I’ll become Hokage one day, believe it!”
It was purely out of etiquette that she smiled at him and thanked the boy for being a good friend. Sasuke either didn’t notice their sensei not teaching her, or more likely, didn’t care, because he was benefitting from it. Whatever it was, Sakura was on her own.
That was when she took refuge in what she was best at: being a nerd. The librarian, Mrs. Takeshi, an old lady blind in one eye, began calling Sakura by her first name and even granting limited access to higher level of texts and tomes, especially when she noticed the direction of Sakura’s studies: genjutsu, medical jutsu, chakra theory and anything yin-yang chakra related. Things young girls would be relatively safe learning about, or so the old lady told Sakura.
Mrs. Takeshi’s grandson was a nurse in Konoha’s Hospital and even scored her a part-time internship to learn the very basics of healing. Her team hardly noticed when she started to skip some of their trainings or leave early, mainly just Naruto and he wouldn’t bother her too much if she agreed to go eat ramen with him every once in a while. Ino stopped inviting Sakura to watch her team training after Asuma hinted that he’d have to explain to the previous Ino-Shika-Cho why their heirs’ training was being watched by a civilian girl.
It hurt her feelings when Ino didn’t stand up for her, but Sakura had convinced herself that all would be pardoned when she finally showed her friend how she cracked the kagemane, though that was still a far-fetched dream. She had been ignoring that project in order to study medical ninjutsu, after all, Sakura needed something to help keep herself alive in a team that was not worried about training her.
But she hadn’t forgotten about it, and by now she could freely move her own shadow but hadn’t quite cracked how to unstick it from the ground yet, nor did she know how to control other things’ shadows. She could hold a little bird still for about 20 seconds and a mouse for 10.
Not great, but better.
She was progressing, even if slowly.
☁☁☁
She had built up courage to approach Yuuhi Kurenai, a known genjutsu specialist, to ask for help or at least a couple of tips and pointers on the art of creating illusions, but then she bumped into the woman and Ino’s sensei on the market one night. They were carrying a single basket of produce, which was interesting. She politely greeted them as they passed by her mother’s baked goods, moving to tell her mom she’d be back in just a second and turning to follow them, so she could ask the woman. However, once she got close enough, Sakura heard Asuma’s voice.
“Yeah, she’s the one I told you about.” The man had sighed “The girl who was around for my team’s training a couple of times. She would distract Ino, so I had to kick her out.”
“Poor soul.” She heard Kurenai say, placing a beautiful orange in their basket “Why isn’t Kakashi teaching her?”
“Said she doesn’t have potential to be in the field.”
“So he’ll just let her wander around until she has a proper scare on a mission and decide to become a paper ninja?” she scoffed, picking a tray of strawberries.
“I think she reminds him of Rin and he’d rather make her give up being a kunoichi altogether.” Asuma shrugged and Sakura bolted, aggressively wiping away her tears and trying her best not to make any sound.
She could feel a gaping wound opening in her chest, one that got bigger whenever her team brushed her off, whenever Ino would boast about how she was improving with her teammates and ignore Sakura’s complaints about her own. However, it became a proper blackhole in their mission to the Land of Waves.
Sakura had, indeed, been scared out of her mind with the whole thing, seeing just how large the gap between her teammates and her had been, how little respect her sensei paid her and how cruel the shinobi world could be. She remembered Kurenai and Asuma’s talk when they returned to Konoha and Kakashi finally began to keep an eye on her. He didn’t make a move to help her get stronger, so the attention was simply annoying.
It was the moment she’d have to decide whether she’d leave her teammates to become a paper genin or remain in her team and try to be something more on her own. She didn’t have to think much at all.
Sakura hated that this was why he was finally looking at her but decided to use it for her own agenda. If he thought she could be useful, Kakashi wouldn’t bother her to give up on her career, so she convinced him to grant her jonin level of access in the library under the guise of wanting to get to know other career paths.
She stopped coming to team 7’s trainings and spent all her time in the library, the hospital or training on her own. And fuck if she wasn’t improving more than she expected. In the hospital she was already at the same level as the doctor mentoring her, so she knew that soon enough the internship would either finish or she’d be invited to work there full-time.
It was in that very hospital that she met Lee, another genin that was a constant presence there, frequently needing to replenish fluids and electrolytes. He invited her to his team’s training and she consistently turned it down, scared to get herself into another team 10 situation. That was until a copy of Lee, but older, showed up at the hospital with the boy and another two in tow to basically kidnap her. Lee was extra cheerful, and his sensei matched his humor which led Sakura to relax a little. The other two seemed unaffected by the strangeness of it all, Tenten, sounded happy just to have another girl to talk to and Neji ignored them all.
Never before had Sakura taken such a beating. Team Gai was entirely made of beasts, and Sakura was as in awe as she was terrified of them. She had been sore for a couple of days, even with her knowledge of medical ninjutsu. They ended up kidnaping her a few more times before she made the deal to show up for their training once a week.
“I’ve never seen Lee so quiet before.” She whispered to Tenten one day “What’s he doing?”
The brunette chuckled, not stopping the careful sharpening of her weapons as she answered Sakura.
“That’s the only time he’s silent.” Her smile turned serious “Lee can’t use chakra.”
The gasp almost escaped Sakura’s mouth, but she managed to keep it locked in, it would’ve been rude. Tenten didn’t seem to take offence of her startled expression.
“He has chakra, he just can’t use it like we can, it’s sort of a mental block apparently.” She shrugged “He only graduated because he was given a different test. Took him almost a year to learn how to tree and water-walk, so Gai-sensei decided to teach him a different way to use his chakra.”
Sakura nodded, thinking that she wished Gai had been her sensei too.
“Sensei called it chakra gates, but I’m not sure what it is.” Tenten placed her sharpened kunai atop a scroll and quickly sealed them away, eyes then hovering towards the boy in question “It’s supposed to be a strong technique, but a dangerous one that has too many drawbacks afterwards. Lee had to promise sensei that he’d only use it if he was with the team, so we can have his back once the side effects begin to pop up.”
“He’s lucky to have you three.” Sakura smiled at Tenten who watched her with sad eyes.
After that day Sakura didn’t train with them anymore, not because they didn’t invite her, but because the chunin exams were approaching and each team began focusing on getting ready for it, which meant not sharing knowledge of their plans to a genin from a different team.
The first part of the exam couldn’t have been easier for Sakura, her teammates managed to pass, and they moved to the second part, which had been a whole shitshow. Naruto had been knocked out by a giant snake, Sasuke had been bitten by a random man who had been disguised as a genin girl and Sakura was left to protect them. How ironic that the survival of Kakashi’s precious boys had fallen in the lap of the one genin he had repeatedly refused to teach.
When faced with three shinobi from Otogakure, Sakura did her best, and as much as she had evolved on her own, she was no match for the three together. It had been almost a divine intervention when Lee showed up to help her, though he soon had to leave as well. Somehow, she managed to get the boys to the tower in time, only to be left behind with no appreciation or acknowledgment of what she had accomplished.
None of them showed up until the matches began.
Naruto was pretending nothing had happened, only worried about Sasuke’s bite. The brunet was tightlipped and quieter than normal. Sakura didn’t even attempt to speak to them. Sasuke’s fight was brutal but to Sakura, who had been on the sidelines watching him for a long time, she could tell he was holding back, being careful.
Kakashi never once said anything about it even if Naruto tried to bug him with many questions and remained in silence when the blond was called to fight Kiba, a match he managed to win by farting and overwhelming the Inuzuka’s senses. It was stupid beyond belief, but also surprisingly resourceful, everyone recognized that he wouldn’t have won otherwise.
Their sensei had barely even looked at Sakura beyond a quizzical gaze when her name showed up in the prompt next to Ino’s. Her heart had stopped, as this was not the scenario she had envisioned for their showdown. Logically, Sakura knew that, to earn Ino’s respect as a fellow kunoichi and not just a friend who followed her like a little puppy, they would have to fight, so Sakura could show the blond just how far she had come and how she now could complement Ino as a possible future partner.
She walked down the stairs leading to the fight stage, chakra buzzing with anticipation, heart galloping in her chest.
“You better give up already, I don’t want to hurt you.” Ino had told her so nonchalantly, Sakura was taken aback.
Did her friend not want to see how they matched up? Did she not want to prove to one another their abilities? Their growth? Sakura frowned.
“I’m going for the win, Ino-chan.” She informed her friend with a quiet, but strong voice. She even attempted a small smile.
Ino scoffed.
“You can’t win, Bilboardbrow!” then the blond cackled “You and I both know you haven’t got a single ace up your sleeve.” She opened her arms, gesturing to where the genin teams watched the matches “Everyone knows your sensei didn’t teach you shit.”
All eyes seemed to glue to her back and face, Sakura felt blood rushing to pool on her cheeks. Why was Ino saying that? Why was she using the information against her? Sakura had cried about it while venting to Ino, but she never thought the blond would-
No. Ino wasn’t heartless.
She said it herself, right? She didn’t want to hurt Sakura and the only way she knew how to do that was to convince the Haruno to give up the fight because Ino didn’t know she had been training on her own!
Yes, that made more sense.
Sakura shook her head.
“I’m gonna prove to you I have what it takes for us to work together one day.” She vowed and didn’t react further when Ino frowned.
They got ready and when the proctor gave the go sign, the girls flew to one another to trade blows. Ino was aggressive and Sakura determined. The fight went on until Ino, tired and bruised, decided it was time to end it and formed the mind-switching sign. Sakura, who had spent some chakra healing herself and was just as tired, acted instinctively. Had she given it a single second more in thought, she would’ve recognized how bad of an idea it was, but alas she just reacted to Ino’s clear intention to finish the fight.
The lighting in the stage was good enough to project Sakura’s shadow more than halfway towards Ino and, panickily she formed the sign she had memorized back in the academy days, prompting her shadow to move forward in a second and attempting to bind Ino before she could complete the mind-switch. She heard a couple of gasps and chatter in the background but all her concentration vanished when Ino’s jutsu made it through just as her body was bound.
The standoff didn’t last long. Somehow, surely out of pure panic, Sakura managed to push Ino out of her mind and before the girl had time to get her bearings again, she reconnected their shadow, panting with the effort. Sakura walked forth, Ino forced to mimic the movement, and grabbed a kunai from a pouch on the side Ino didn’t have one and pointed it to her throat.
The proctor declared her the winner and Sakura promptly fell to her knees, letting go of the jutsu. She looked up to Ino, a tired but satisfied smile on her face, ready to be acknowledged but all she was met with was sharp eyes of betrayal that were quickly replaced by a raging jonin appearing in front of her and grabbing her by the collar.
“How dare you?” Asuma breathed in her face a clear mask of anger coating his features.
From then on things happened way too fast for Sakura to properly keep track in the haze she was left in. While the other fights went on, Sakura was taken to a cell, accused of treason for having stolen the Nara Clan’s hidden jutsu. She tried to argue but no one listened to her.
Naruto stopped by at night with Kakashi. The man looked at her with undisguised disappointment and only told her the elders were discussing her fate, that stealing a clan’s hidden jutsu was, indeed, treason and that she would be charged with it. When he left Naruto kept her company for a moment longer, babbling about his fight and how he had, somehow, already found a sensei to teach him before the final matches and then left.
“Don’t worry, Sakura-chan! Old man Hiruzen will let you go with a slap on the wrist. I used to get in trouble with him all the time and that’s how it always went.” He grinned at her and she dared to hope.
Of course, none of that happened. No one believed that she had reverse-engineered the kagemane-no-jutsu. She was found guilty of treason in less than an hour, though her sentencing wouldn’t come for a few days because of the attack from Orochimaru. Even from the cell she heard the news that their Hokage had died sealing the sanin.
By then the only ones who visited her were Naruto and Tenten. The first one showed up, sad and distant to tell her that he was going to leave the village for a few weeks with his new teacher and to assure her that all would be fine, that the newly appointed Hokage would pardon her. Tenten heard her side of the story and though she couldn’t help, she kept Sakura sane when she wasn’t taking care of Lee in the hospital.
In a week her sentencing came: Exile.
She cried and begged and promised to never use the kagemane again, but nothing made a difference. The new Hokage, Danzo, was stricter than Hiruzen and she got caught in a political move to curry the favor of the village’s clans. She was escorted to the gates with no one at her side. Her parents, she was informed, had been killed during Orochimaru’s invasion. Sakura was given a backpack with whatever money her parents had to their names, water, some rations and a jacket. There was a kunai, no shuriken or paper-bombs and no other weapons for her to protect herself with.
Kakashi didn’t show up.
Neither did Sasuke.
Nor Ino.
Sakura had to be pushed out of the gates, which were then closed behind her with a loud snap. For minutes she stood there trying to grasp all that had happened and what the fuck she should do. By then the moon was well up in the sky, the only audience to her misery. Or so she thought, because a few meters ahead a familiar figure was leaning on a tree, watching her with guarded expression.
“Shikamaru?” Sakura couldn’t help the startled question.
“I’m-” he hesitated “I’m sorry this happened.”
She didn’t know what to say. The hole in her chest far too big with sorrow for her to catch a proper breath.
“I tried to talk with my dad, but then the other clan heads got word of what happened and they-” he interrupted himself with a long sigh.
“They’re scared I’ll come for their hidden jutsus too.” She heard herself say, voice lifeless, matter of fact.
Shikamaru nodded.
“Yes.”
“I see.” What else could she say?
Shikamaru dragged a hand over his face with another sigh, then pushed from the tree and approached her, extending a small and ornate scroll. She didn’t take it.
“I know you didn’t steal our kagemane.” He told her, and Sakura had to bite her lip not let it wobble too much “I should’ve explained to you how this shit works when I noticed your curiosity.” He frowned “But I didn’t think-” he pursed his lips “Right now, this is the best I can do.” He took a step closer, taking her hand and placing the scroll in it “These are my notes on the kagemane from when I was younger. There isn’t anything advanced, but it could be enough to help you-” survive “get by.”
She exhaled a shuddering breath.
“What if it falls into someone else’s hands?” she found herself asking, fingers clutching at the scroll like it was her lifeline.
“The scroll was my grandma’s, from back when Uzushio was still standing. It only opens for two chakra signatures at any given time. My gandma gave it to me when I turned 8 and after she died her chakra disappeared and…”
“And you’re giving it to me? Why?” she shook her head in confusion, some warm tears finally rolling down her cheeks.
Once more he hesitated, scratching the back of his head.
“I feel responsible.”
“But you’re not.”
“Yeah, but I also know you didn’t do it, and still I wasn’t able to convince anyone. I tried making a plan to fix the situation, but this is all I’ve got.” He huffed, closing his eyes in a deep frown before taking a calming breath and focusing on Sakura again.
“I-” she started but had nothing to say.
“I know.” He nodded “Just push some chakra here.” He pointed to her where a little flower had been drawn next to a deer antler “And only me or you will ever be able to open the scroll and access the notes.”
Sakura nodded again, words being drowned by her escaping tears. Silently she moved her chakra to the little flower and felt it be absorbed. When she looked up again, he had placed his hands in his pants’ pockets, though she could tell they were balled into fists.
“Again, I’m sorry for my clan’s reaction.” Shikamaru told her with a full bow, then straightened his spine and looked back at the village “I should go before my mom notices I’m gone, she can be such a drag.”
Just like that, between one breath and another Sakura was left alone again. The world, too big in front of her and the home she had ever known, closed and unreachable behind her, while the people in it turned their backs on her.
“Fuck!” Sakura cursed at the wind.
What now?