Chapter Text
Sakura came to a morbid realization the same moment she heard her name in the same sentence as Uchiha Sasuke’s and Uzumaki Naruto’s.
She was placed on that team to die.
Sasuke was the last Uchiha of a dead clan. Naruto was familiar with the Hokage in a way that went past standard leader and subordinate. He called him ji-chan, for goodness sake’s!
She stared agape up at Iruka-sensei. She knew it wasn’t his fault; that the decision wasn’t up to him but the Hokage.
It wasn’t his fault she was merely a civilian child playing ninja. A girl who valued beauty and smarts above brawn and power. Who, in the eyes of everyone who knew her, practically prioritized vain things over her life.
Sakura thinks back to her second year in the academy, back to the lesson about the first and second shinobi war. The casualties.
She remembers the whispers and giggles aimed at her and the other civilian children still left afterwards. She didn’t realize it at first. And she didn’t realize it until much later when an Inuzuka had pushed past her whilst whispering meatshield that it was the civilians, those with no clan to back them up, who were sent to the frontlines because they were expendable.
They were meant to be the shields that ensured the swords survived to finish the job. A mere distraction before the real thing appeared to end the enemies lives.
She knows everyone else knows she’s meant to be the cannon fodder for team 7. That she is meant to die so they can live.
Sakura laid awake that night, recounting how uninterested her new Jounin-sensei had been in her, his eyes sliding past her without so much as a second glance to land on the two beside her.
Surely, he must know it too then. Her hands begin to shake, gripping her blanket to pull it up and over her head, cocooning her alone with her thoughts and fears.
She suspects the test to decide whether they become ninja or not is a farce meant for her. It is a ploy to get her to already understand her place in the future, to already begin preparing her on what she must do, where she must be. Not alongside the boys but in front of them, taking the hit.
Her eyes burn as tears begin to slide down her cheeks, her breaths getting faster and faster. The heat and enclosed space beneath the blanket does not help her hyperventilating and for a moment she wonders if it would be better to just suffocate to death now in her bed peacefully than on the field murderously.
An animal instinct of panic rises up in her as her chest gets tighter and tighter and she emerges from beneath the blanket with a wet gasp.
Sakura knows then that she is a coward for wanting to live when she knows she is only meant to die.
A good shinobi would understand what they must do for the village and follow through without protest.
Sakura doesn’t think she wants to be a good shinobi.
Kakashi had said not to eat, but Sakura, consumed by the fear and anxiety that’s recently taken root within her, does anyway. It is at this point that she can’t bring herself to care about that stupid diet; she can’t even care to brush her hair and soothe her usual oils through it to get it to its usual shine.
She doesn’t put makeup on, and she forgoes her picao dress, opting to wear a large oversized t-shirt she’d raided from her dad’s closet and spandex shorts from the depths of her own.
Her heart is rabbiting in her chest, her throat tight as she forces herself to swallow down the bento she hurriedly made despite it being only 4 in the morning, having not been able to sleep after the nightmare she had that had ended with her death and subsequently with her waking up screaming.
Thankfully, no one had heard her, she was alone in the house, her parents having been away on a trip for months.
Sakura wonders if, in actuality, she should be happy to be so readily given the opportunity to die for her village. Since the age of five, all she’s heard is good shinobi are the ones that put the village before themselves.
Sakura knows soon that everyone will know that she isn’t a good shinobi.
She will die either way.
A few tears slip out of her eyes and she sniffles, quickly shoving the remaining grains of rice in her mouth before washing the bowl to put away at the sink. She exhales shakily, and filled with a sudden sense of urgency, rushes to the door to slip on her sandals.
She takes a bag with her too before she makes her way out, wiping her arm across her face as she does so, her eyes puffy and pink.
The sky is still dark when she steps outside, the streets void of people save for early risen shop owners preparing for the day ahead and the shinobi soaring stealthily across the rooftops.
Sakura keeps her head down and her legs quick, finding herself entering the library in no time.
Sakura bows to the ninja on duty, who merely blinks tiredly in her direction, before quickly getting to business.
She grabs anything she finds even remotely useful, scrolls mostly pertaining to medical chakra, taijutsu, anatomy, injutsu, plants, and poisons. She even picks up a scroll on different weapons in relation to kenjutsu for kunoichi in training.
Hauling everything to the counter, the shinobi behind it blinks at her with concealed bewilderment at her stack that consisted of at least 15 books.
Sakura cannot meet his eyes, her face burning and her fingers trembling alongside her sides. She knows he is wondering why a meatshield like her is bothering to learn anything when they all know she is only going to-
“Well, little lady, looks like you have quite the day ahead of you,” the man says, writing down the list of books under ‘occupied’ before looking up at her in question. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”
Sakura grips the hem of her shirt. She wishes her hair were down so she could hide her face, her hair up in a bun atop her head exposing the flush that runs up her neck.
She feels like the little girl she’d been before Ino.
“Sakura Haruno, sir.” Sakura bows once again. She hopes he doesn’t notice the quiver in her voice. Her heart a fast drum in her chest.
The man waves his hand, the sharp stick in his mouth rolling smoothly across his lips. “No need for the formalities, kid. You fresh from the academy?”
Sakura startles, wondering if her greenness was that obvious, before she realizes herself and bites the inside of her cheek. Of course it was obvious. She had never before seriously trained a day in her life, too focused on gaining the attention of a boy who’d never looked at her and now whose life lay before her own.
The flush creeped up to her cheeks, humiliating. How naive she had been.
Despite the assurance to drop the formalities, the animal beating in her chest and throat disagreed. “Yes, sir.”
The man hums, his attention on the books as he writes her name down in temporary ownership of them. He eyes one in particular, the one about poisons, thoughtfully.
He looks up at her. “The name’s Genma, pinky. Shiranui Genma, but you can just call me Genma.” He grinned, placing her books inside her bag.
Sakura nods, a little hesitant and unsure, but mostly confused. Why was someone like him talking to her? Even introducing himself? He was a Jonin, judging by the vest he wore. Surely he knows she won’t be around for much longer.
Her throat clicks as she swallows. Sakura doesn’t think she’ll ever be ready to die.
Which is why she must begin training because the timespan of how long she has left depends on it.
…Surely, it doesn’t matter how long she is kept around, so long as she still lives after taking the blows meant for her teammates… right?
If she doesn’t die and proves herself to be useful enough to survive each and every time shielding them… then surely it will be fine for her to stay alive a little longer?
What use is a once and done shield afterall? She will just have to be strong enough to handle any injuries so her life isn’t thrown away meaninglessly. Her eyes glance at the bag, the medical books contained inside.
“Thank you, Genma-san.” Sakura bows once again in thanks, before taking the bag, struggling a bit with the heavy weight. Suddenly, she is filled with self-loathing.
Genma waves her out with a two finger salute.
Sakura pretends the prickling on the back of her neck means nothing and quickens her pace.
For the next two hours, Sakura devours her new scrolls, mind eager to retain the knowledge that will give her a fighting chance.
Her brain soaks up the information like a sponge, a reason why her head was always seen buried within books as a child.
She reads through the scrolls once and then twice and then three times, just so she’s sure she won’t miss anything.
Due to her low chakra reserves, Sakura knows she will need to use jutsus sparingly, and just enough chakra needed to complete it.
Her eyes pause for the third time on the kenjutsu scroll for young kunoichi in training. Her mind flashes back to the Jonin she had met earlier, more specifically to the needle he’d been rolling around in his mouth.
She bites her lip as she rereads the section on senbon once again.
“While the katana commands brute force, the Senbon demands ultimate precision, making it an essential instrument for the developing ninja of Konohagakure. Unlike broader weaponry, these slender, double-pointed steel needles carry minimal lethal mass on their own. Instead, their true power lies in the user's mastery of human anatomy and stealth. Training with senbon forces a young shinobi to study the precise placement of vital organs, nerve clusters, and chakra pathways (tenketsu). A well-placed needle can instantly paralyze a target, induce temporary death-like slumber, or disrupt an enemy's jutsu mid-cast without making a sound. For a ninja in the field, senbon are lightweight, easily concealed, and highly efficient. They teach the valuable lesson that true shinobi victory relies on surgical accuracy and strategic intellect rather than destructive destruction.”
Sakura rolls the scroll back up, her mind racing alongside her heart in her chest.
Her thoughts kept going over those words, those tiny specific words.
“—relies on… accuracy and strategic intellect rather than destructive destruction…”
A tentative seed of hope began to bud within her, her hands clenching into fists.
The marks left by her nails embedding into her skin stung as she unraveled the scrolls to read again.
Sakura walked to the training ground her sensei had told the three of them to meet yesterday for the test that determined their future as genin.
Sakura doesn’t need a test to know what her future will be like.
Between reading her books until she could recite them from memory, she’d thought of what tests her potential sensei would thrust upon them. Upon her.
Sakura knew that her teammates would undoubtedly pass, there was no other option for someone like them. The Hokage would simply not allow for anything else.
Her hands shook before she forcibly put a stop to it, the nails that dug into the skin of her palms grounding her.
The closer she came to the training ground—the closer she came to facing the people she’d be forced to give her life for—the more her palms stung, the harder her nails dug.
Spying a shock of familiar black hair in the distance, her steps slowed, her pulse pounding in her ears.
She tried to distract herself from the animal feeling of fear rising in her throat by averting her eyes to the cloudless sky above.
She looked at the position of the sun and determined the time was 7 am.
She recited the lines in her books from memory.
She clenched her fists and forced herself to continue walking, keeping her mind faraway.
Sasuke looks up as she approaches, the crunch of grass beneath her feet giving her away. For a moment, their gazes lock and her heart rises to her throat.
She hurriedly looked down, down to the broken blades of grass, to the shattered remains of her pride at her feet.
Sakura knows she is trembling.
Can she really do this? She begins to doubt.
Her throat tightens and her teeth come down onto her lip.
She thinks about the flash of surprise she’d seen cross Sasuke’s eyes as he took in her appearance. The prick at her nape that tells her she is still being watched.
She doesn’t want to die.
She has to try.
A voice in her whispers that she can always just give up now. No one would blame her for it. In fact, they expect it of her.
Maybe get a local job at some store, settle down, marry, have kids.
Something in her chest revolts and she swallows down bile.
It’s then that she knows she can’t.
She won’t.
Sakura picks up her feet and sits down at the base of one of the trees a few feet away, slightly trembling at the stare Sasuke still has trained on her.
She ignores the heat that rises to her face as she closes her eyes, settling into a lotus position.
Her hands grip her knees as she exhales, reciting the book she’d read on chakra control and healing.
"Chakra is not a reservoir to be emptied, but a current to be directed. To master the fine arts of medical application, the shinobi must cease pushing the energy from within, and instead entice it to flow. A single drop of perfectly molded chakra will heal a laceration; a tidal wave of raw energy will only rupture the surrounding pathways."
Sakura begins to carefully look within, the world around her fading away. She finds her pool of chakra, though it feels more like a large puddle than anything impressive. She frowns, beginning to tentatively guide her chakra along her pathways.
It’s slow-going and the effort it takes to get it to cooperate smoothly has her feeling sweat begin to bead at her hairline, the little hairs at the nape of her neck beginning to stick.
She remembers the book telling her to breathe slowly, to empty one's mind of thoughts.
Her brow furrows in concentration as she breathes in, holding it for a heartbeat that beats in her ears.
"The secret to meticulous control lies in the subconscious rhythm of the body. Do not fight the heartbeat—mold your spiritual energy to match its pulse. When your physical stamina and mental focus achieve perfect synchronicity, the chakra network opens smoothly, dropping resistance at the tenketsu points to absolute zero."
She exhales, shoulders dropping. The thread of chakra she tugs feels as though she is tugging at a bull.
Slowly, she begins to make that bull see red.
Soon her chakra flows smoothly to her command and she is able to make a full route that turns into two.
Then three.
Four.
Five.
"Most fools think more chakra equals more power. They are wrong. It is a simple matter of math: a ninja who uses a hundred units of chakra to cast a fireball that only requires ten is not powerful—they are inefficient, and on a long mission, inefficiency is a death sentence. True control is the art of giving a jutsu exactly what it asks for, down to the last spark, and not a single drop more."
She does not use more than what’s needed, than what’s necessary. She cannot afford to.
“Place a single leaf upon each of your primary tenketsu points. Do not force them to stay with an aggressive grip. Instead, extend your will just beyond the skin, creating a microscopic vortex of smoothly flowing energy beneath each stem. The leaves should spin, rise, and fall in perfect synchronization with your breath. When you can make a dozen leaves dance across your skin without a single muscle twitching, your chakra is no longer a tool you are using—it is an extension of your very soul."
It’s on her tenth rotation that she comes back to herself at the sound of movement and a body settling close enough to feel heat off of.
She blinks, before immediately stilling at the sight of blonde hair in front of her.
Naruto. Her heart beats in her ears. Her throat tightens. Her hands clench into fists.
She wills herself to calm down, but she is confused as to why he is sitting cross-legged in front of her, being uncharacteristically quiet as he pulls out blades of grass in front of him.
He must feel her startled gaze because he suddenly pauses before he looks up, ocean eyes locking onto her moss green. It has her soul threatening to leave her body, pulse racing beneath her skin.
“Oh!” He perks up, a grin soon splitting his face before he scoots closer until his knees brush against her own. She resists the urge to pull back, to make herself smaller, invisible. “Are you done with your move thingy, Sakura-chan?” He asks.
Sakura can’t force herself to answer, frozen silent. How can he look her in the eye knowing what she’s there for?
How can she?
Do not cry. Do not cry. Do not cry—
“Sakura-chan?” Naruto’s head tilts, his voice a little quieter. His mouth twitches into some semblance of a frown before she blinks and it's a smile.
But she saw that crack. The tenseness to his shoulders, the way his hands grip at the dirt too hard.
Sakura knows where she’s seen that before.
Afterall, she’s found herself doing it often now.
He’s bracing for rejection.
Her hands shake before she digs her nails into them.
She should keep her distance. They both know… he has to know she won’t be around for much longer. That she is going to die protecting one of them eventually.
She is nothing more than a shield.
Cannon fodder, she hears that inuzuka whisper in her ear.
She swallows, her throat dry but her eyes wet.
You can do this.
She makes sure to not look him in the eyes again.
“Y-yes,” her voice is too quiet as it breaks and she feels that familiar flush of heat creeping up her neck. More than anything, she wants the bun on top of her head down, covering her face, to allow her to disappear.
Naruto doesn’t seem to notice or maybe he just doesn’t care because he immediately brightens at the response. The tension she saw is gone, as though it were never there.
“You seemed really focused! I even tried calling your name a few times but it’s like you weren’t even here!” Naruto exclaims, before he’s leaning closer and Sakura is leaning away, her back flush against the tree behind her. “What were you doing, Sakura-chan? I felt your chaky thing moving inside you so I guess you were mediating or something, right?” He squints his eyes in thought.
Sakura cannot concentrate on what he is asking her because he is too close. Her eyes are squeezed shut and she can feel her heart beating like a drum inside her chest.
Naruto hums before she hears him suddenly gasp. “Sakura-chan! You look different than usual today! Your hair is up and you’re not wearing your dress!” He exclaims in shock.
Sakura opens her eyes, willing herself to stop shaking.
You are not going to die right now. Calm. Down.
“I decided that some changes were needed,” she says quietly, nails digging until red crescent marks are left stark against the pale of her skin. “Since I—“ her voice breaks off and she swallows. “I don't want to die,” she finishes.
Silence. Naruto freezes, his smile dropping. “Why would you die, Sakura-chan?” He asks quietly, a feat Sakura had no idea he was even capable of.
Sakura can’t do this.
“N-nevermind!” She exclaims, pushing herself up. Naruto yelps at the sudden movement, falling back on his butt. He looks up at her, an unreadable look crossing his face.
“I-it’s nothing, Naruto. Really.” Her face feels hot, as she reaches up to tighten her bun.
She can tell Naruto is not convinced but before he can say anything, the wind shifts and suddenly Kakashi-sensei is there, hands in his pockets as he peers at them.
She’s frozen as Naruto scrambles up to point an indignant finger at him and scream at him for being late. Sasuke calmly walked up beside him, though anyone could see the thin veneer of frustration clinging to his shoulders as he scowled up at their potential teacher.
Sakura knows now that any moment of weakness is over.
Her hands tremble at her sides.
It’s time for her to be a good shinobi.