Disclaimer: I own nothing from Naruto. This is to challenge myself as a writer, and for other peoples' amusement.
Summary: What if there had been no Ino that fateful day in the park? What if Sakura is mercilessly bullied until one day she is pushed to her breaking point, with surprising results?
Inspired by: A Japanese anti-bully commercial that had me and my sister in tears with laughter. The little girl just out of nowhere goes violent and beats up her bullies, it was great. (Not that I'm promoting anyone using violent to beat up their bullies. Violence should always be a last resort!)
This one shot is not connected to "The Monster Sleep" nor "For Want of Freedom". All are standalone oneshots with different background for Sakura and how that could have affected her character development.
How a Fire is Born
By ThroughtheMirrorDarkly
Haruno Sakura dreamed that of a friend that swoop in and scare her bullies away, but no such dream came true, and over the years the taunts and bullying only escalated. She was shoved around in the hallways, her precious books and scrolls ruined and the slurs sent her way became crueler and more ugly. She endured, reciting the "Will of Fire" inside the back of her mind like the most precious of litanies. It wasn't easy to go unnoticed or fade into the background, with her pastel pink hair and jade green eyes that made her stand out in the class. Her intelligence and grades also seemed to set her apart from her peers, isolating her even further from the rest of the civilian kids hoping to become ninjas. The civilian kids were separated from the clan kids for the first three of years of the Academy, until both classes could merge once enough children had either failed to make the grade or dropped out altogether.
She just had two more years to go, but the joy she found in learning and expanding her knowledge was slowly being crushed underneath the heel of it all. She found no support at home. Her father was constantly away on business trips and her mother had died all those years in childbirth. Sometimes, she thinks that her father spends so much time away from the village, and her, because it hurts to look at her. She thinks he sees her, and sees the reason his wife is no longer here. The fact that he couldn't love her more than his grief was like a knife buried in her chest, and her grandmother's utter apathy towards her only increased her suspicions. When her father was gone, Sakura was left in the not-so-loving care of her grandmother, Katou Itsuki.
"What do I care if you want to play ninja and get yourself killed?" The older woman with sagging and wrinkly face, with a yellowed and crooked smile. She puffed greedily on the smelly cigarette, blowing the smoke viciously in Sakura's face. Honestly, Sakura could not see any family resemblance between her and her grandmother. "If you died, my son would be free from you and your mother's sullied past. Why he ever agreed to raise a child that was not his blood, I will never understand. I would put your squalling red face in a sack and threw you in the river to drown if it was up to me, but no, Kizashi is too kind hearted for his own good. That's what I get for spoiling him."
The implications of that conversation weren't lost on Sakura. She may be only eight years old, but she was smart for her age. It was another level of despair on her shoulder, and not even Inner—the voice that sprung out of the wounds of her mind—could bring her solace with all her angry quips and images of beating up the "bad guys" who made Sakura's life hell. Still, her grandmother had carelessly signed the slip of permission for her to enter the Academy, even if the Itsuki's vindictive smile looked like she anticipating planning Sakura's funeral. So there was no room at home to hide or find comfort from the daily dose of bitterness.
Today…today had to be one of the worst days.
Carved into the old rickety desk were all kinds of nasty names and slurs that hadn't been there the day before. Paper ninja. Forehead. Pinky, were the mildest ones and she felt tears well into her eyes at the very ugliest ones there. Whore, had been written in jagged and angrily scratches. She didn't understand the word, not fully in its context. She just knew it meant something very, very bad given the nasty tone her grandmother used it to speak about her deceased mother. She knew that this recent turn in the bullying was because the other day she had been running from Ami and her two little pals, only to trip and fall. She scrapped up her knee badly, but a bystander stepped in to help her.
Uchiha Itachi. With his medical skills, he had healed her knee while his little brother, Sasuke—the object of many fangirls affection—stood by, giving the girls that had been the cause of her injury the stink eye. The pair had walked her home and she remembered stuttering out her thanks, but the next day at school had been like walking on eggshells. Vile whispers and rumors emerged, so bad that Sakura had gone to the teacher to speak about it.
"No one likes a tattletale, Sakura," the teacher had replied. "You and the other children will have to learn to work out your differences, okay?"
Any faith in authority figures that Sakura had was completely demolished.
Sakura sniffed, tears rolling down her cheeks when a shadow fell over her desk. She didn't need to look up to know Ami was smiling at her nastily, with her two little friends flanking her. Inner was boiling hot with angry, stomping around the grounds of her mind and imaging all kinds of new ways to inflict pain on Ami and her gang. Sakura, on the other hand, sat there quietly with her face bowed and resigned to her torment.
"Do you like our artwork?" Ami cooed, with a sneer. "We made it especially for you, whore."
Sakura said nothing. Inner increased her struggles.
"What's the matter? Lost your voice, st—tutter?" Ami mocked, hatefully. Her little cohorts cackled behind her, and Sakura felt her hands clench into fists in her lap. "Why are you such a freak? Didn't you mommy ever teach you how to be normal?"
There was only so much that a person could take before they broke, and in that moment, something inside of Sakura snapped. It shattered into a million pieces, but in the next breath, healed. Her mindscape was like kintsugi, the art of precious scars where all the cracks and scars in her mind were filled or covered over in liquid gold and silver chakra. Her chakra thrummed in a way that she had never experienced before and she felt Inner rush across the distance in her mind, before both Sakura and Inner were pressed together. At first, it hurt very badly like she was being squeezed into a body that was too sizes too small, and then she was one, she was whole, and it felt wondrous.
"Did you hear me, you little—ahh!"
Sakura's hand, moved like lightning, upward and she grasped Ami's long purple hair and slammed her face straight into the desk. Ami's little friends stepped backwards, eyes widen with fright at the sudden burst of rage. Ami let out a shriek of pain, tears spring to her eyes and Sakura felt a surge of dark satisfaction burn up within her heart. A snarl curled upon her upper lip and she shoved Ami with a surprising strength, sending the girl flying backwards and rolling down the few steps.
The pink haired girl rose out of the chair, with a surprising grace and a dark aura leaked off of her. A nearby boy stalked over—a boy that often tormented her alongside of Ami—with his fist drawn back, but everything was happening in slow motion, she dodged out of the way. She retaliated by wrapping her hand around his throat and lifting him off the ground like he weighed nothing.
Sakura could feel it—the chakra flowing through her body through all the pathways, humming happily alongside of her blood. Another boy tried to stop her, but she whipped her other arm out, holding him a headlock. There were shouts of "fight, fight, fight" that echoed through the room while Ami was sobbing loudly, and that's how the teacher found them alongside of Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Sandaime Hokage who had come to inspect the quality of the Academy after having a couple of complaints.
It was a turning point no one could have predicted.
Hiruzen was immediately swept back in time, seeing a mixture of ghosts laid on top of the pink haired girl in the form of Uzumaki Kushina and Senju Tsunade—one that was buried in the crowd, and one that was good as gone for she swore never to return to the village. Stroking his beard while watching the teacher having trouble to subdue the girl, Sarutobi planned and plotted.
Hours later, he would be seated in the Haruno family home across from the young child's grandparent. It was obvious the hostile tension in the air, so much so that his ANBU were one sneeze away from taking the old and frigid woman out right then and there. Still while the woman held contempt for her granddaughter, Sarutobi could see the gleam of greed and he knew how to deal with greedy and power hungry people. He would have the old woman running in circles, all the while securing the young kunoichi's bright future.
Within the next week, Sakura was transferred to the clan's classes and occasionally training with the Hokage to hone her perfect chakra control into brute strength. One could ask why Hiruzen took such an interest in the fate of Haruno Sakura, and some would speculate in time that it was because the girl was an unexpected prodigy thus a good tool for their military ranks.
The truth was Hiruzen was sentimental and training the girl felt like healing a great wound on the past.
It had been four years since she stepped into the clan classes with her head held high, a pink haired girl who now idolized the Hokage and declared with a certainty that she would be the next one in line to lead the village. Four years since she simultaneously stole the heart of a blond boy and became a rival for his ambitions, as Uzumaki Naruto, too, wished to be Hokage someday. Four years since she had earned the ire of a young Uchiha Sasuke by always being neck and neck with him for the highest tests scores. So maybe it was fitting that they were all on a team where they could challenge each other further, but—
Sakura didn't have much faith in their chosen sensei. The pink haired girl admitted her biased, coming to see the Hokage as a grandfatherly figure as much as the blond boy to her left did in the passing years. No jonin-sensei was really going to compare right away, but the way the man flickered his gaze over her like she was just a speck of dust made her grit her teeth together. She knew what it said in her file. She was seemingly average with only her intelligence and natural genjutsu skills as her shining pride, because sadly with her strength—and her instinct to use it in combat that she couldn't quite manage still, she couldn't take the taijutsu part of the test. All she was graded on was her kata forms, and the Hokage had managed to work out the rest. So on paper she still appeared unassuming and little genin that would end up in the Genin Corps at a dead end joy.
She smiled, guilelessly at the silver haired man while inwardly fuming. I'll show him.
The next day during the bell test as soon as Hatake Kakashi said start, his dark eye widened in surprise when the pink haired kunoichi pushed her two teammates behind her and took two steps forward before slamming her fist into the ground. A quip was on the tip of his tongue until he watched in growing horror as the ground rumbled with the force of an earthquake and gave away beneath his feet. He found himself buried neck down in a pile of rubble, completely shocked.
He saw the proud smile crossed Sakura's features.
She had certainly made an impression that Kakashi wouldn't soon forget, and now the silver haired man knew exactly why the Hokage's eyes had bit alit with mirth when he had been handed his team assignment. It hadn't been the scowling avenger or the loud blond knucklehead, Kakashi would have to worry about. It was the girl with a smile as sweet as spring, but could crush a person's bones to dust with a single finger.
Kakashi wondered if it wasn't too late to retire all together.
END OF ONE SHOT!
Author's Note: Whether Sakura strength or snapped moment is part of a blood limit, I'll leave you to decide. Personally, I think that the merger of Sakura and Inner gave her a strength that she couldn't have with them apart. Originally I was going to have Itachi be the one who noticed Sakura's strength, but even as I wrote it out, it just felt stunted. I wasn't satisfied with the ending. I think if this hadn't been a one shot where I could have built or went further in depth with things, I probably would have stuck with Itachi. However, given the size limit, I didn't really have time to go into why Itachi would spare time on Sakura, even though I had a good plan to explain it. It just would have ended up more about Itachi when it should have been more about Sakura. So the Third Hokage became the replacement because I could see him taking an interest in Sakura, because for all his faults—he is sentimental and having this young girl remind him of two people who were close to him, he would want to take her under his wing. It felt right for this one shot, and I think sets up a three way friendship rivalry between Sakura, Naruto, Sasuke where they all push each other to get stronger, instead of Sakura falling to the background due to poor character development. Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed! (If anyone likes this one shot and would like to adopt the idea to make a longer story, just comment below and we can work out details.)
***I HOPE YOU ALL ENJOYED THIS ONE SHOT! Please leave reviews!