Haruno Sakura

Sakura Haruno (春野サクラ, Haruno Sakura) is one of the main characters in the series. She is a chūnin-level kunoichi of Konohagakure, a talented medical-nin, and a member of Team Kakashi.

Background
During her early years in the Academy, Sakura was frequently bullied by others due to her large forehead. To try and combat this, Sakura used her bangs to hide her forehead, fuelling the other kids' teasing by indicating she was sensitive about it. Ino Yamanaka, realising this, helped Sakura by giving her a red ribbon that she used as a way of drawing attention to the cuter features of her forehead, which helped Sakura overcome her insecurity. The two became best friends and Sakura grew more confident, developing her own unique personality under Ino's guidance. Despite this, Sakura felt that she was living in Ino's shadow and longed to prove herself as Ino's equal. Later, when Sakura found out that Ino also had a crush on Sasuke Uchiha, Sakura ended their friendship so that they could compete for Sasuke's love, thus beginning a bitter rivalry between the two.

Personality
Sakura is naturally hot-headed, overbearing, stern and irritable, and because of that temperamental mindset, she tends hit people out of explosive anger and rage on more than one occasion (the victim usually being Naruto Uzumaki, Rock Lee when he flirts, and Sai), and somewhat hypercritical, along with being easily impulsive and stubborn, but most of the time, she is relatively kind, cheerful, and rational. In the anime, Sakura has been shown to be a bit of a flirt and uses this to her advantage: with one such case being when Naruto asked her out for dinner, though she only agreed if he paid for her half as well. She also prefers to speak formally, very reliant on approaches of theory and principle and tends to be a heavy and calculating thinker when it comes to details on almost any matter and very analytic when on or off the job, but she is also capable of being very naive and narrow-minded on certain matters such as Naruto's feelings for her, which went unnoticed until Sai stated it to her or when she tried to force herself to kill Sasuke twice, despite the fact that her heart wouldn't allow her to do it, leaving her vulnerable for Sasuke's attempts on her life, even her attempt to lie to Naruto about loving him instead of Sasuke, ignorant of the fact that Naruto personally witnesses Sakura's most extreme and inimitable signs of love for Sasuke.

Sakura has shown to be strong-willed and determined, not one to lose or give up in a fight easily most prominently seen during her fight with Sasori where despite being told to run by Chiyo, she stayed and fought, thought she even admitted that she pales severely in this aspect in comparison to Naruto, which is why she decided to leave the situation with Sasuke solely up to him after failing at it herself. In addition, she has a very strong need to be useful, and is often easily frustrated with herself for being a burden and not being helpful, often having to rely on either Naruto and Sasuke for help in Part I. One of her greatest regrets was relying solely on Naruto to bring Sasuke back, burdening him with the promise while she couldn't do anything but cry. It was with that resolve that she sought apprenticeship from Tsunade and since training with her, Sakura has improved, but still frets over her ability to only help others in one way.

Unlike the rest of Team 7, Sakura has not suffered any great losses during her childhood. Therefore, Sakura took for granted things that her team-mates desired such as family, friends — and especially in Naruto's case — recognition. However, when she was chided for this by Sasuke, she began attempting to be more understanding of Naruto especially, and the way he acted.

At the start of the series, Sakura had a deep infatuation for Sasuke Uchiha, rooted in his good looks, cunning, cool attitude, and prodigious talents. For that reason, many of Sakura's early appearances were dedicated to her continuing efforts to win his affection. As the story progressed, she began to recognise Sasuke as a real person with imperfections, and developed a more sincere desire to be there for him and later fell in love with him. Sakura also became concerned that Sasuke will someday abandon her and the rest of Konoha in his quest for power. When her fears came true at the end of Part I, Sakura did all that she could to stop Sasuke from leaving, such as professing her love for him and offering to join him. Despite thanking her and sounding grateful, Sasuke knocked Sakura unconscious and left the village.

Since then, Sakura has made it her personal goal to bring Sasuke home. Although she still worries about his well-being, Sakura is willing to attack him if it means returning him to Konoha, however, as time goes on and Sasuke becomes an increasingly more dangerous criminal, Sakura recognises that Sasuke must be stopped at all costs. Despite agreeing that they had no choice but to kill Sasuke themselves to prevent Konoha from being involved in a war by his criminal actions or his death at a foreign country's hand, Sakura was immensely saddened and distraught at the notion nonetheless to the point where it drove her into trying to take care of the Sasuke situation by herself, showing with her making the rest of Konoha 11 promise to let her be the only one who talks to Naruto while it was her plan from the start to not tell him, along with planning to knockout her hunt group when getting close to Sasuke despite promising that they would do it together. Later on, she told Naruto that she no longer has any feelings for Sasuke since he just keeps breaking her heart and states that she loves him instead, though Naruto and most of the observers knew that she was lying and suspected that Sakura was hiding something. Her team-mate Sai at the time even commented that she was still in love with Sasuke, which is later proven to be true, and that she wants to kill him by herself so that he does not sink any lower.Upon meeting Sasuke once again, Sakura becomes upset by how corrupted Sasuke has become and tries to kill him. She ultimately cannot bring herself to do so, being brought to tears as she started remembering all they went through together as members of Team 7 which caused herself to be left wide open for Sasuke's nearly successful and fatal counterattacks. She has since come to accept that Naruto is the only one who can do anything about Sasuke with a stable, strong and clear resolve. Though she is deeply saddened by what Sasuke has become, it is shown when he is mentioned that she is still in love with him nonetheless. undefined

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