p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"On nights like these especially, she likes to keep the window open. The air is cool and a breeze might come by and send her rose petal curtains fluttering into pretty shadows. Sakura likes leaving windows open and doors unlocked—it's an invitation to those who think they can hurt her. Land a hit, she dares the world./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She decided to live on her own when she looked around her home and could find nothing other than walls full of dusty frames, a sad father, and a dead mother. Nothing bright could live there any longer. But Sakura was luminous. She was bright like fires and opals and sea glass—so she left./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She'd seen it done so many times before, her mother when she was ten and her teammates when she was twelve. It was as easy as breathing. Only this time she was not being left behind./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Sakura was leaving. Sakura was going. Sakura found something better. An apartment on her own with clean white walls where she pinned up pictures of her new life. She and Ino in front of her family's flower shop with arms full of sunflowers. Sakura holding a cat between Sasuke and Naruto when they were only a few months out of the academy. Sakura and her family smiling during a spring festival. Team seven sparring on a training field that clung closely to the dense forest./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She didn't need the things that hurt her./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She felt like her wings were stretching for the first time since leaving a translucent cocoon. She wouldn't be a creature defined by loss. (She never could wrestle off desire. Wanting a boy, wanting a friend, wanting a teacher...it never leaves her alone. They haunt her heart with potent precision.)/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She didn't need the things that hurt her./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She could look back at her happiest times and know there were more moving forward. Everyone who had left her didn't matter anymore because she'd found someone to follow who wanted her to be there./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Tsunade crashed into her life with the force of a thousand floods. Sakura was desolated and rebuilt-but not in one day. She spent early mornings beating her fists bloody and bench pressing boulders. She spent nights with her mind entirely occupied in anatomy books, medical texts, and apothecary collections. She could name every plant that grows in the woods around her village by sight, smell, and texture. (Still, she felt like the boulders never left her chest and breathed only through their heavy weight. She felt like nothing. When she looked at her pictures pinned to her new wall she felt shame. She could not meet her mother's picture in the eyes. She felt empty. She felt like air. Like not good enough. Like why would Tsunade even bother? Like being left unconscious on a bench after abandoning her home and principals for a boy who-)/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She didn't need the things that hurt her./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She finally let her anxiety spill from her mouth one day after training. She'd spent hours lifting boulders and burning under the hot summer sun. Tsunade was there every minute barking at her to push harder—to do better. She watched the orange sun sink below the green hills. She didn't know why but it made her think of Naruto and Sauske—she felt sick./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Why'd you even choose me?" She asked. It sounded like an accusation. Like she suspected Tsunade to be playing an elaborate prank by taking her on as a pupil./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""What's that supposed to mean, brat?" Tsunade huffed. This only made Sakura feel sicker—her stomach was in painful knots and her heart thrummed with enough anxious energy to given an entire army a panic attack./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""I know I came to you…asked you to train me. But, I'm not from a clan—you gain no political favors from taking me on. My only friend isn't speaking to me—I'm not charming or even that likable. My parents are both unremarkable ninja. Why me?" She felt stupid—backed into a corner of self-hatred. She didn't want to be saying any of this./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""If you don't believe in yourself no one will, Sakura." Her teacher sat beside her, clean and glowing—bright and pale as a star. Sakura was covered in dirt and sweat. Her muscles ached and she knew she would be covered in bruises. She felt like crying because-who would ever believe in her? She was no one, she came from no one, and at that moment she couldn't feel any less insignificant./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""I know," Sakura muttered pathetically. She was sitting up at least, with her knees drawn to her chest. There was a pregnant silence before her sensei spoke again./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""I don't think you do." Sakura could tell Tsunade was becoming irritate. "I think you're lost, I think you've been lost for a while now. And that ends now, you are my student, Sakura Harnuo and I do not tolerate weakness." The sharp way her sensei punctuated the word made Sakura's skin erupt in chills./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She remembered then being ten years old at her mother's funeral. It was only a few years after the Uchiha massacre and the village was still reeling from the loss. No one wanted to talk about death. No one else came to watch her mother (what was left of her) go like a seed into the earth. She'd died on an espionage mission—that was all Sakura and her father were allowed to know. She didn't know if her mother had suffered or if she was alone when she died—or even the day that she died. But, for a long time, Sakura resented her mother for dying—for not being strong enough to come home. And then her father for not being strong enough to save her mother or even himself after her mother died. He was a shell. Sakura saw loss render her father useless. Sakura was not a shell./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She didn't need the things that hurt her./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""I am not weak!" Sakura was at least a head shorter than Tsunade, and scrawny, but she sounded serious enough when she yelled. She was standing now, fists clenched and eyes red from the sheer willpower of not crying./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Then prove it." Tsunade's voice was firm and matched her student's volume. "If you fight for nothing you become nothing. I will not train you to become nothing, Sakura. What do you fight for?"/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""I don't know, I don't know!" She was so frustrated and tired and not thinking straight. She wanted a new skin. She wanted a come and go as she pleased—to wander and to grow. She wanted to stay and have deep roots as deep as the forest. She wanted to never be left behind again./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Sakura found herself hungry. (Not for pomegranate seeds or orange slices-but something heavy and gamy) Sakura has no clan blood in her, she never learns of things like dignity and pride, honor and duty—she is free to eat and leave as she warrants. And so she does./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"It started with cutting. She'd already cut her hair and of course Ino took it as something superficial—but it was darker. It was worthy of blood. It was survival. Something deep within her that wanted her to become her monsters. Something strong and terrible like her teacher./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Sakura embraces the indulgent nature of slugs who never deprive themselves of water, shade, or sweet fruit. Crawling, on moonlit nights with bare midriffs on mud and moss through thick, thick fog—like tongues on skin—slug girls come slow but deadly—they eat nightshade like candy. No protective shell is needed—their backs are bare and their slime is an ointment. They leave trails like sinking sand and her path back home is no less treacherous should she follow the shining residue of her own travels./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Sakura learns to be grateful for the trail because she's been lost before: in bogs and forests filled with raven haired boys with stolen hearts, and silver wizards who refuse to give her answers, and hero boys who set themselves on fire flying to close to the sun. Sakura drinks the poison waters of remembrance and watches them slip between her palms as she leaves behind what haunts her./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She is everything that hurt her./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She becomes pink hair falling, and green eyes darkening, and pale fists clenched in deadly accuracy. She is her mother's death, her father's grief, Ino's rivalry, Kakashi's absence, Sasuke's abandonment, Naruto's promise, and her sensei's choice./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""No apologies—this is me." She murmurs into her pillow and turns her back to the window as a cool breeze moves her rose curtains./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She decided to live on her own when she looked around her home and could find nothing other than walls full of dusty frames, a sad father, and a dead mother. Nothing bright could live there any longer. But Sakura was luminous. She was bright like fires and opals and sea glass—so she left./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She'd seen it done so many times before, her mother when she was ten and her teammates when she was twelve. It was as easy as breathing. Only this time she was not being left behind./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Sakura was leaving. Sakura was going. Sakura found something better. An apartment on her own with clean white walls where she pinned up pictures of her new life. She and Ino in front of her family's flower shop with arms full of sunflowers. Sakura holding a cat between Sasuke and Naruto when they were only a few months out of the academy. Sakura and her family smiling during a spring festival. Team seven sparring on a training field that clung closely to the dense forest./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She didn't need the things that hurt her./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She felt like her wings were stretching for the first time since leaving a translucent cocoon. She wouldn't be a creature defined by loss. (She never could wrestle off desire. Wanting a boy, wanting a friend, wanting a teacher...it never leaves her alone. They haunt her heart with potent precision.)/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She didn't need the things that hurt her./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She could look back at her happiest times and know there were more moving forward. Everyone who had left her didn't matter anymore because she'd found someone to follow who wanted her to be there./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Tsunade crashed into her life with the force of a thousand floods. Sakura was desolated and rebuilt-but not in one day. She spent early mornings beating her fists bloody and bench pressing boulders. She spent nights with her mind entirely occupied in anatomy books, medical texts, and apothecary collections. She could name every plant that grows in the woods around her village by sight, smell, and texture. (Still, she felt like the boulders never left her chest and breathed only through their heavy weight. She felt like nothing. When she looked at her pictures pinned to her new wall she felt shame. She could not meet her mother's picture in the eyes. She felt empty. She felt like air. Like not good enough. Like why would Tsunade even bother? Like being left unconscious on a bench after abandoning her home and principals for a boy who-)/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She didn't need the things that hurt her./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She finally let her anxiety spill from her mouth one day after training. She'd spent hours lifting boulders and burning under the hot summer sun. Tsunade was there every minute barking at her to push harder—to do better. She watched the orange sun sink below the green hills. She didn't know why but it made her think of Naruto and Sauske—she felt sick./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Why'd you even choose me?" She asked. It sounded like an accusation. Like she suspected Tsunade to be playing an elaborate prank by taking her on as a pupil./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""What's that supposed to mean, brat?" Tsunade huffed. This only made Sakura feel sicker—her stomach was in painful knots and her heart thrummed with enough anxious energy to given an entire army a panic attack./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""I know I came to you…asked you to train me. But, I'm not from a clan—you gain no political favors from taking me on. My only friend isn't speaking to me—I'm not charming or even that likable. My parents are both unremarkable ninja. Why me?" She felt stupid—backed into a corner of self-hatred. She didn't want to be saying any of this./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""If you don't believe in yourself no one will, Sakura." Her teacher sat beside her, clean and glowing—bright and pale as a star. Sakura was covered in dirt and sweat. Her muscles ached and she knew she would be covered in bruises. She felt like crying because-who would ever believe in her? She was no one, she came from no one, and at that moment she couldn't feel any less insignificant./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""I know," Sakura muttered pathetically. She was sitting up at least, with her knees drawn to her chest. There was a pregnant silence before her sensei spoke again./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""I don't think you do." Sakura could tell Tsunade was becoming irritate. "I think you're lost, I think you've been lost for a while now. And that ends now, you are my student, Sakura Harnuo and I do not tolerate weakness." The sharp way her sensei punctuated the word made Sakura's skin erupt in chills./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She remembered then being ten years old at her mother's funeral. It was only a few years after the Uchiha massacre and the village was still reeling from the loss. No one wanted to talk about death. No one else came to watch her mother (what was left of her) go like a seed into the earth. She'd died on an espionage mission—that was all Sakura and her father were allowed to know. She didn't know if her mother had suffered or if she was alone when she died—or even the day that she died. But, for a long time, Sakura resented her mother for dying—for not being strong enough to come home. And then her father for not being strong enough to save her mother or even himself after her mother died. He was a shell. Sakura saw loss render her father useless. Sakura was not a shell./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She didn't need the things that hurt her./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""I am not weak!" Sakura was at least a head shorter than Tsunade, and scrawny, but she sounded serious enough when she yelled. She was standing now, fists clenched and eyes red from the sheer willpower of not crying./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Then prove it." Tsunade's voice was firm and matched her student's volume. "If you fight for nothing you become nothing. I will not train you to become nothing, Sakura. What do you fight for?"/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""I don't know, I don't know!" She was so frustrated and tired and not thinking straight. She wanted a new skin. She wanted a come and go as she pleased—to wander and to grow. She wanted to stay and have deep roots as deep as the forest. She wanted to never be left behind again./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Sakura found herself hungry. (Not for pomegranate seeds or orange slices-but something heavy and gamy) Sakura has no clan blood in her, she never learns of things like dignity and pride, honor and duty—she is free to eat and leave as she warrants. And so she does./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"It started with cutting. She'd already cut her hair and of course Ino took it as something superficial—but it was darker. It was worthy of blood. It was survival. Something deep within her that wanted her to become her monsters. Something strong and terrible like her teacher./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Sakura embraces the indulgent nature of slugs who never deprive themselves of water, shade, or sweet fruit. Crawling, on moonlit nights with bare midriffs on mud and moss through thick, thick fog—like tongues on skin—slug girls come slow but deadly—they eat nightshade like candy. No protective shell is needed—their backs are bare and their slime is an ointment. They leave trails like sinking sand and her path back home is no less treacherous should she follow the shining residue of her own travels./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Sakura learns to be grateful for the trail because she's been lost before: in bogs and forests filled with raven haired boys with stolen hearts, and silver wizards who refuse to give her answers, and hero boys who set themselves on fire flying to close to the sun. Sakura drinks the poison waters of remembrance and watches them slip between her palms as she leaves behind what haunts her./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She is everything that hurt her./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She becomes pink hair falling, and green eyes darkening, and pale fists clenched in deadly accuracy. She is her mother's death, her father's grief, Ino's rivalry, Kakashi's absence, Sasuke's abandonment, Naruto's promise, and her sensei's choice./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""No apologies—this is me." She murmurs into her pillow and turns her back to the window as a cool breeze moves her rose curtains./p