Devotion
It used to be that everywhere that Ino went Sakura was sure to follow. When Ino went to the fields, Sakura would trail behind, blurting out everything and anything that she thought might entertain or impress her goddess friend. When Ino stayed indoors and looked after her parents' shop, Sakura danced among the trapped flowers, capering with her book-learnt knowledge of all things floral.
"And I looked up what you said about the cosmos, and then I found this scroll on lilies and so I looked into that as well and then-" Freed from the oppression of expectation, Sakura twirled around her celestial idol. She was but a pale imitation of Ino: she spoke like her and learnt her tricks, she stood behind her and practiced her smile and looked at boys only when they looked at Ino. And so many boys did, because Ino was perfect and kind and beautiful and strong and smart and pretty and smelled nice and sometimes let Sakura braid her short hair. And when they slept over at each others' houses and raided the old scrolls for horror stories sometimes Ino would have a nightmare about her parents dying and then Sakura got to hold her and comfort her and then Sakura was Ino for a short dizzying time.
But by morning Ino was always back to being Ino, and Sakura was once again Sakura, following ever after. And slowly the other Sakura stared whispering discontent, and noticing every time Ino failed or fell or just wasn't perfect enough. And outer Sakura screamed back at inner Sakura, and told her how wonderful and perfect and lovely Ino was, and that she was everything Sakura wanted to be and was everything anyone wanted to be, and how she was so high above both inner and outer Sakura that…that…that….
'She will never see you eye to eye.' Inner Sakura finished. 'She will never acknowledge you as her equal.' And outer Sakura, sick with the weight of truth, knew that she was right.
And then she found out that Ino liked Sasuke.
Inner Sakura won that fight, and took outer Sakura to a bench and made her walk away from her blindingly beautiful light. Inner Sakura took her to the dark, ugly places where Sasuke and Naruto dwelt, and when the borrowed light of Ino ran out, dragged out the weaker light of Sakura. She burnt herself up, then found that there was more fuel underneath.
"I won't lose to you." She said to Ino, and knew what she had to do. Rather than drag her goddess down she would build herself up, and up, and up, until Ino would at last see her, eye to eye.