Haruno Sakura || A Facility Application
OOC Information:
Name: Ishmael.
Age: 22.
AIM: shadhahvar.
MSN: kage_zuki@msn.com
Y!M: neophobic_dragon
E-MAIL: ashenpaw@gmail.com
IC Information:
Name: Haruno Sakura | Sakura Haruno
Fandom: Naruto Manga.
Timeline: Chapter 454.
Age: 16.
Appearance:
Manga Image Reference.
Full Image Reference.
Antagonistic Image Reference.
Casual Image Reference.
Sakura stands at about 5'3", or 161cm, tall. Her hair is undeniably pink, and her eyes green. She's built like a fighter for her world.
Abilities:
Martial Artist: Even ignoring all her other skills, Sakura has been specifically trained to excel in hand-to-hand combat, and other forms of unarmed combat. Her body is a weapon, so to speak, and she's well toned, agile, flexible, and stronger than most women her size.
Chakra Enhancements: Chakra allows Sakura to move faster than a human being ought, walk and climb on walls and ceilings as well as water and the like, and utilize all the basic techniques on her world. (Clones, shadow clones, etc.) She additionally has perfect control of her chakra, to the point where she doesn't waste chakra unless she absolutely has to. Her overall reserves are greater than most shinobi, but sadly still far less than Naruto, and unknown (but probably less) than her age Sasuke.
Subset - Super Stregth: Training with Tsunade has perfected Sakura's chakra release. She can use chakra to capitalize on single points of contact, a sort of KO style of fighting. These massive releases are capable of causing spontaneous fracturing of the ground for a significant distance and depth, shocking even Kakashi and Naruto into realizing just how dead they'd be with one direct intentional hit from Sakura.
Medical Training: Sakura can heal almost anything, as long as she's not being asked to heal on a cellular level. (This she just can't do - encouraging cells to regrow, yes, or flesh to reknit, but she cannot mend individual cell walls. See this as explained after Naruto uses his new technique on Kakuzu, I think.) She's skilled at making antidotes, has presumably extensive herbal knowledge, and well. It's magic. Healing's not explained very well in series. She can't bring people back from death, that much is clear, so if you lose too much blood and there's no instant donor around, you're S.O.L. She's expected to surpass Tsunade, at some point. Canon makes that trend blatantly obvious.
Genjutsu and Sakura: Unclear to what extent she knows or practices genjutsu. She still appears to be able to dispel genjutsu, or at least detect genjutsu, at a level beyond most shinobi. What this means is negligible, since the only obvious references in canon are when she's 13, and include her being able to withstand a high level sleep inducement on her lonesome. Presumably if she trains in this, and she really should have at least trained to recognize it (for the sake of not getting tricked by Sasuke's eyes, so to speak), Sakura would be a formidable genjutsu user. As it stands, there is no clear evidence of how much she does or doesn't know. She presumably has enough control of her chakra to break most hlds used by genjutsu users - she can surge through her own brain so that their manipulation is broken. Theoretically, which I can't stress enough. We just don't know.
Personality:
Sakura is an intelligent, sometimes preachy (to those she knows and/or finds clueless about a given subject she is knowledgeable about), caring young woman. She takes her job as a medical shinobi seriously, and this seriousness is displayed in how she handles any work assigned to her. Sakura likes to be thorough, complete, and as close to perfect as possible. Be this in her written reports, her abilities, her training, or any other aspect of her life. She's also neat, from what little can be seen of her home.
Her tendency to follow the rules also lends itself to her having little patience for people acting perverted - especially when "people" includes Uzumaki Naruto. As a twist, Sakura herself is a closet yaoi fan. Most her attempts to flirt fail, or end in her punching guys in the face. She does not like people implying she's flat-chested. She's not as sensitive about her appearance as she once was, but making an issue of it with her is asking for retribution.
Sakura is determined to achieve her goals, and achieve them well. She has a good grasp of tactics and a good mind for cryptology and research. Her memory is very good, and her detail recall is high, but not infallible. Sakura is also tenacious in her resolve. She is far less judgmental than she was as a pre-teen, and is far more likely to forgive (if not forget) people's minor indiscretions. (Or major ones, as in the case of Sai.) She holds teamwork as incredibly important, and still respects the opinions of her elders enough to listen to them when they give advice. Most the time, anyway.
Sakura is honest, even to the point of bluntness (though she has decent helpings of tact, so she's usually only blunt to those she knows well, or who she requires certain standards from), and has been known to overreact to people, particularly with irritation and anger and outrage. What used to be repressed and relieved through "Inner-Sakura" is now more freely expressed to the world - not that it's always appreciated. She's the sort of person who could be talked into a challenge, even if she wouldn't blindly accept one (taking on challenges in even those things she's not so good at, due to a competitive spirit). Sakura hates losing, and giving up got written out of her dictionary years ago.
She is confident in her skills and abilities, if not to a point where she doesn't feel the need to re-evaluate and take a look at herself from time to time. Her resolve to improve makes her a harsh taskmistress on herself, in order to make sure that she's able to stand equal with Naruto, Sasuke, Sai, Kakashi - everyone important to her - and not end up on the sidelines, unable to help. Perhaps her greatest fears and failures come from feeling inadequate in the face of her important people; being unable to help them would drive her up a wall.
Even with her more emotionally "open" personality, Sakura has displayed excellent bedside manner, doubtlessly invaluable in her profession. Her kindness towards others, including Naruto, and her ability to relate has improved with time. She does practice more restraint than she's probably given credit for by those in her own generation. She's also willing to pass off the things she's done if it avoids an explanation of what she found stupid in the moment it was uttered - telling Kakashi it was nothing when both Sai and Naruto had fat cheeks visiting him in the hospital.
Sakura is not above gossiping, though she keeps it to a minimum. She doesn't appear to talk about herself or her feelings often, presumably because she doesn't want to burden others and prefers to deal with them head on. Then again, most the time she reads like an open book. Some of her compatriots are simply too thick headed, or too disinvolved, to notice.
History:
[ For a more in-depth and kind of ridiculously long history, please see what I've written up previously here. A brief update to that would include: Sakura knows Naruto is alive, believes Kakashi and Shizune to be dead, saw Hinata defend Naruto from Pain despite the fact she stood little chance to do anything more than delay the inevitable, has continued to help save those she can in the ruins, and in general has managed to look disheveled and worry about where the hell Naruto ran off to when he led Pain back out of the village proper.
For a shorter, to the point summary: ]
At the age of six-eight, Haruno Sakura was an insecure, self-aware, shy child teased by the other kids and prone to crying alone. This changed when Ino, one of her peers, took a shine to the young girl and started building her confidence. It worked! By giving Sakura a ribbon for her hair, along with a pep talk involving flowers, Sakura started becoming more assertive and less timid. She found Ino to be her best friend, and very excitedly informed her of her first crush: on a little boy named Uchiha Sasuke.
Sadly, that's when her friendship with Ino turned into a years-long rivalry in romance.
In the meantime, Sakura excelled in school, one of the two most intelligent when it came to book smarts, if not the most apt at putting theory into practice. (Sasuke was far better at doing this.) She had a know-it-all, better-than-you attitude that only took back seat when she was trying to pander to Sasuke, just like every other girl who wasn't Hinata. To her surprise and jpy, she ended up being on his team -- along with the Number Zero, Uzumaki Naruto.
Her genin team marked the beginning of Sakura's change in character. Her initial bias toward Sasuke and irritation with all things Naruto ended up getting her in trouble with her teacher, Hatake Kakashi, as well as her teammates. She had to learn tolerance and understanding, and as she watched the boys out-compete each other, she came to realize knowing the theories wasn't enough. She felt she was dragging the team down, falling behind even the supposed zero that was Naruto (who by then she felt was less of a zero, and more of an unknown), to the point where she hesitated to sign up for the chuunin exam with her teammates. Ultimately, Sasuke knowingly (Naruto unknowingly) get her to go forward with the test, showing she did have strengths... they were just under-developed.
The chuunin exam brought this into sharp relief when she not only temporarily lost a teammate, but she ended up having to stand guard over both boys when they were knocked unconscious by Orochimaru's efforts. For the first time it wasn't an option of failing. She didn't have anyone to come and protect her; they were both unconscious behind her. She does initially get some unexpected help from Rock Lee, but even that's not enough when she's facing the three sound genin Orochimaru signed up for the exam. She feels even worse when she's allowed Lee to also get hurt. Sakura couldn't afford to hold on to her ideas of what being a shinobi was, or to the goals of impressing Sasuke according to the myth-factory she held dear back in Konoha. In a gesture which means far more to people who know Sakura well (primarily Ino, who was watching with her genin team at the time, initially hoping to steal all the scrolls from the two teams fighting while they were distracted), she cut off her hair and took to an all-out brawl approach. She would fight to the death to protect what was hers -- and to protect those who would protect her. Before she's completely knocked out, Ino steps in with her team. The confrontation escalates until Sasuke wakes up, the curse seal Orochimaru had placed on him activating for the first time when he asks Sakura who injured her. It ultimately takes a crying Sakura tackling Sasuke from behind to get him to calm down .
The next few stages of the exam bring Sakura into further realizations. She fights to a stalemate with Ino, in a situation where everyone other than Naruto was expecting her to lose. Naruto calling out prompted Sakura into overpowering Ino's mental jutsu, though in the end they knocked each other out rather than have one decisive winner. Thus she's only watching from the sidelines for the last part of the exam, when those who passed the first round of one on one fights face their second challenger. She's nervous, and Kakashi does manage to alleviate some of that nervousness, but given that it's based on Sasuke's well being it doesn't entirely go away.
Orochimaru attacks the town during this exam, having killed the Kazekage and taken to parading around as him. He has a mass genjutsu placed over the stadium, where Sakura is one of the few to avoid falling under it's effect. (Kakashi notices this, prompting a second mention of Sakura's natural affinity for/against genjutsu.) She ends up being sent out with an awakened Naruto to track down Sasuke, who had in turn taken off after the Sand Siblings. She's knocked out fairly early in the fight, so her story picks up again when she has to deal with the fact her team is starting to fall apart and there's nothing she can do. Sasuke is frothing at the bit to get stronger due to a combination of factors -- Itachi stopping by town for Naruto, judging Sasuke not worth his time; Naruto clearly progressing at an amazing speed and taking on enemies Sasuke had trouble with -- that cumulates with first a fight on the hospital roof, and then the inevitable defection. Sakura figures out Sasuke's intent, and meets him on the road out of town. Despite declaring her love for him and her intention to follow him where-ever he goes, for which she receives a "Thank you" and a bout of unconsciousness, she's unable to change his mind. She wakes up the next morning... and basically puts the burden on Naruto's shoulders to bring Sasuke back. She's disallowed from the mission trying to retrieve him -- even if only genin are being sent out -- and so starts her second act of transformation. The next time, she won't let herself be the weak point, and she won't let Naruto do this alone. She apprentices herself to Tsunade by directly confronting the Hokage, and is accepted.
Years pass, Sakura trains hard and long, and Naruto comes back home. They're called to Sand as backup when the Kazekage, who is now Gaara, is kidnapped by the Akatsuki. Sakura reveals she knows what is sealed in Naruto now, as well as what and who Sasuke's brother is. Being with the Hokage allowed her access to unlimited documents, outside of those, you know, simply forbidden things. Her concern for Naruto has escalated over the years, along with her determination to help him bring Sasuke home.
First, Sakura is charged with helping heal Kankurou, who had been poisoned in a conflict related to his brother's kidnapping. When the two Akatsuki members responsible for taking Gaara are located, Sakura is left with Chiyo, the woman who had sealed Shukaku into Gaara years on years ago, to take on Sasori, a once shinobi of the Sand. Sakura is used as a veritable puppet by Chiyo during the fight, capitalizing on her own physical strengths to help destroy Sasori's puppets, and at one point using an exploding tag on herself to escape a poisonous cloud of gas. Sakura proves the level of her training reached when she proceeds to put herself into the fight while getting stabbed through the stomach and healing the wound as it's occurring. Seriously. She heals the wound caused by a sword in her stomach while the sword is still there.
Chiyo and Sakura set Sasori up in an on-the-spot trap which ultimately gets him killed... and which prior to being inacted, almost killed Sakura. Chiyo used her life-force to keep Sakura from dying, and then the story was moot as Sasori sent in his resignation notice on life.
Sakura helped Chiyo catch up with the team pursuing Gaara's body, witnessed Kakashi's badass new jutsu sending things to other dimensions, and then watched in sadness as Chiyo gave all the rest of her life-force to Gaara, bringing him back to life.
Back at home, Kakashi is out of commission from his new jutsu, and there are leads to follow on Sasuke. A new team is formed, called Team Yamato, and Sakura gets to deal with all the joy of an antagonistic new teammate as well as a strangely frightening and yet strangely not Captain. Her relationship with Sai is very strained, off and on, particularly in relation to anything Sasuke. After some time spent together relaxing before taking off to meet Sasori's Orochimaru contact, Sakura seems to be doing better. Then they find out the contact is Kabuto, Kabuto is a double agent, and she gets knocked out on a bridge and has to be saved by Yamato. She wakes up in his arms, sort of watches the ensuing 4-Tails vs Orochimaru fight, and is injured by Naruto when he's in that form. She laments not being able to do more while healing Naruto moments later (she herself had been healed by Kabuto, of all people, since the Kyuubi had essentially chakra-poisoned her) and Yamato makes a reference to how much she cares for Naruto. Life is fine and dandy, they learn Sai was another double agent, and they set off to find the snake at his lair.
They do find the lair, take Sai back into custody, temporarily kidnap Kabuto, and then have a run-in with Sasuke that shakes the foundations of what their lives have been for the last few years. Sakura is prevented from joining combat by her Captain, and ends up the only one not electrocuted by Sasuke. Before Sasuke can use a finishing jutsu on his former teammates, Orochimaru stops him, and they disappear. Sakura promises Naruto he won't be doing this alone, and that she will get stronger yet. They will bring Sasuke home.
In the series, Naruto is doing training montages and all we know of Sakura's activities are that she now lives alone, shops at odd hours of the night, and she's remarkably restrained in how she cries. It hurts, knowing she's still not strong enough. She appears to be working at the hospital until the point where Pain attacks the village, where then she's working on healing everyone in the damage.
Then there's Kakuzu and Hidan. Sakura is part of the back-up in taking them down, though she really just ends up getting to play with Kakuzu (sorta) gien that Shikamaru takes Hidan down on his own. Sakura also participates in the Itachi Finding Party, in which they witness Deidara's death explosion, and are called back to town before they can actually find Sasuke. (This does, however, point out to them Sasuke is alive and on the move. Sadly, close after they also learn from the Hokage that Itachi has been killed by Sasuke... and that Sasuke was not on his way back to Konoha. They won't know why that is until later.)
At this point, Naruto was off in Sage Training, and she wonders where the hell he is (my lifeline! my teammate! my crazy ass friend with way too much power!) while coming to reluctant terms with the people who've been dying trying to prevent Pain from killing everything. She's told when Naruto arrives, witnessing a fight between Naruto and Pain that looks like it will end up being one-sided until Hinata jumps in and causes Naruto to go into a tailed form. Naruto and Pain move out of town, Naruto almost hits nine-tails form -- and then she feels the chakra change, and is told he's under control.
She heals Hinata, and when everyone is revived by Naruto's ability to talk to Nagoto, she's among the masses waiting for his return. The whole village turns out to recognize him, and she hits him over the head and gives him a bear hug. She doesn't want him making her worry that much again.
Unfortunately, she then learns Tsunade is in a coma, but instead of being comforted by anyone, she ends up comforting Naruto over the same fact. She's proud of him again as he handles the topic of Sasuke's being out of Konoha with old acquaintances, and then is confronted with information that no one ever wanted to hear: Danzo was the new Hokage. She's outraged (for a variety of reasons, including "Danzo has done many shady things and that's my mentor you're talking about"), but Kakashi manages to forestall her doing anything blatantly stupid (along with Naruto), and instead she takes a walk with Sai and Naruto to calm down. Only the contingent sent out by the Raikage appears and decides to present them with even more information: Uchiha Sasuke had joined the Akatsuki, and had killed the 8-Tails. (Naruto lets them know the 8-tails may actually be alive, because extraction requires them to be.) They demand information from Naruto and Sakura, who both resist, and Sakura breaks down in tears because it's just too damn much, too damn fast, and she can't do a damn thing about any of it. (She can't seem to answer the foreign shinobi's question on what exactly Uchiha Sasuke is to her.)
Roleplay Sample - Log:
She first registered white. More than a color, it defined that moment between slumber and wakefulness; an omnipresent, antiseptic reality.
In many ways, a hospital. Sakura's mind caught up with her eyes, the gap in memory between where she'd been sitting on the embankment, trying to deal with the emotional pain that had hit far too close on the heels of another one, and having more difficulty than she was expecting. Naruto had gone off with the three shinobi from Lightning, and Sai had been at her back.
Then why was she here? She sat up, not recognizing the room. A frustrated sound choked in her throat, and she shook it off as she took in her surroundings. Yamato had been working on reconstruction; perhaps she was in oe of the new facilities, even if the choice in decoration reminded her of a hospital room. Then again, the layout was a bit more permanent -- there was a possibility that this was another facility in Konoha, one perhaps meant to act as a standing barracks.
"I..." she trailed off, lips twitching into a frown. "Did Sai bring me here?" The thought was uncomfortable, for several reasons, the most prominent her gap in memory. She pulled the blanket closer, feeling the standard-issue grade of the fabric. It was an oddly jarring sensation.
She tossed the blanket off of herself, swinging her legs around to stand. "Where'd they go?" She figured no one would conveniently answer, but the hurt and sadness was boiling over into frustration. She didn't want to be on the sidelines, unable to help Naruto or her other teammates because she was too caught up in her own reactions to the world. "We need to figure out what we're doing about Danzo, not shove me in a corner just because --"
Just because of Sasuke. She rubbed at her eyes, the memory of tears recently shed making her certain her eyes were an unattractive, puffy red. Damnit! Sakura stood, willing herself into a greater sense of calm. "I can't believe he'd do something so stupid." The Akatsuki. The organization which was hunting down Naruto, and everyone else. What's more, Sasuke had taken down the only other remaining jinchiruuki not in the possession of the Akatsuki. That left Naruto -- Naruto -- as the final target. "Sasuke, just what the hell are you thinking?" Sakura certainly had no idea anymore.
Just in a day, and so many things were changing. When Pain had attacked, for a moment, she'd thought that was the worst that could happen. Here was the epitome of the Akatsuki, destroying Konoha, killing people she cared deeply for, and intent to take away one of the people she cared most for in the world. She'd wanted Naruto back, because he was her fail-safe, her constant, at the same time she'd wanted him nowhere nearby. A little selfish side-thought that hadn't lasted, because she had faith he wouldn't die. There was nothing to worry about. It was Naruto.
She had worried, in between saving the lives she could in the wreckage of the village she had grown up in. When she'd felt the sting of the Kyuubi's chakra, she remembered all the warnings. Her arm ached in a remembrance of what Naruto suffered every time the transformation started. In the moment she felt him escalate -- and when she heard that he'd stopped the transformation -- she breathed easier. He was going to come back. She knew it.
As did everyone else, in the end. But her prediction for the day was wrong. Tsunade had fallen into a coma protecting the lives of the villagers. Danzo had been put in place as the Hokage, pending a meeting of the jounins. That meeting couldn't even happen, with the Raikage's notice, and the notification that Sasuke was officially listed as a missing-nin. Free game, for the hunter nins of Konoha. To then hear Sasuke had joined... "First shishou, then Danzo, and now this? Naruto, you better be where I can find you." She stalked toward the door, pulling herself together, focusing on the sense of purpose and cool anger. A thought struck her, almost out of the blue. Her frown intensified, then faded as her voice lowered. "If you, Sai, or Kakashi do something without me... I'm kicking all of your asses."
That was one promise she'd have no trouble following up on.
Roleplay Sample - Journal:
[ The camera records an absolutely scintillating minute of someone sleeping. The most action in this shot appears to be the rise and fall of the blankets as they breathe -- and then a sudden flurry of movement as a disheveled looking Sakura sits up with a cry. ]
No!
[ She seems to realize this isn't where she expects to be; in fact, Sakura looks a bit confused as she takes in the room as a whole. ]
I... Did Sai bring me here? [ She pulls the blanket closer to her, then frowns and tosses it away. ] Where'd they go? We need to figure out what we're doing about Danzo, not shove me in a corner just because --
[ Augh, and she remembers, rubbing furiously at her eyes before forcing herself out of bed. ] I can't believe he'd do something so stupid. Sasuke, just what the hell are you thinking?
[ Pain's evident in her voice, along with anger and disbelief. ]
First shishou, then Danzo, and now this? Naruto, you better be where I can find you. If you, Sai, or Kakashi do something without me...
[ Her frown speaks volumes. What she next says comes out more subdued than she otherwise looks. ]
I'm kicking all of your asses.
Questions? Comments? Crazed and creative statements? Those go here.
...The history section was totally shorter and more to the point. 8|; As a side note, I wrote both the 3rd and 1st person samples using the same idea; I'd be open to doing another version (or linking to other samples) for the 3rd person sample if you'd like.
Name: Ishmael.
Age: 22.
AIM: shadhahvar.
MSN: kage_zuki@msn.com
Y!M: neophobic_dragon
E-MAIL: ashenpaw@gmail.com
IC Information:
Name: Haruno Sakura | Sakura Haruno
Fandom: Naruto Manga.
Timeline: Chapter 454.
Age: 16.
Appearance:
Manga Image Reference.
Full Image Reference.
Antagonistic Image Reference.
Casual Image Reference.
Sakura stands at about 5'3", or 161cm, tall. Her hair is undeniably pink, and her eyes green. She's built like a fighter for her world.
Abilities:
Martial Artist: Even ignoring all her other skills, Sakura has been specifically trained to excel in hand-to-hand combat, and other forms of unarmed combat. Her body is a weapon, so to speak, and she's well toned, agile, flexible, and stronger than most women her size.
Chakra Enhancements: Chakra allows Sakura to move faster than a human being ought, walk and climb on walls and ceilings as well as water and the like, and utilize all the basic techniques on her world. (Clones, shadow clones, etc.) She additionally has perfect control of her chakra, to the point where she doesn't waste chakra unless she absolutely has to. Her overall reserves are greater than most shinobi, but sadly still far less than Naruto, and unknown (but probably less) than her age Sasuke.
Subset - Super Stregth: Training with Tsunade has perfected Sakura's chakra release. She can use chakra to capitalize on single points of contact, a sort of KO style of fighting. These massive releases are capable of causing spontaneous fracturing of the ground for a significant distance and depth, shocking even Kakashi and Naruto into realizing just how dead they'd be with one direct intentional hit from Sakura.
Medical Training: Sakura can heal almost anything, as long as she's not being asked to heal on a cellular level. (This she just can't do - encouraging cells to regrow, yes, or flesh to reknit, but she cannot mend individual cell walls. See this as explained after Naruto uses his new technique on Kakuzu, I think.) She's skilled at making antidotes, has presumably extensive herbal knowledge, and well. It's magic. Healing's not explained very well in series. She can't bring people back from death, that much is clear, so if you lose too much blood and there's no instant donor around, you're S.O.L. She's expected to surpass Tsunade, at some point. Canon makes that trend blatantly obvious.
Genjutsu and Sakura: Unclear to what extent she knows or practices genjutsu. She still appears to be able to dispel genjutsu, or at least detect genjutsu, at a level beyond most shinobi. What this means is negligible, since the only obvious references in canon are when she's 13, and include her being able to withstand a high level sleep inducement on her lonesome. Presumably if she trains in this, and she really should have at least trained to recognize it (for the sake of not getting tricked by Sasuke's eyes, so to speak), Sakura would be a formidable genjutsu user. As it stands, there is no clear evidence of how much she does or doesn't know. She presumably has enough control of her chakra to break most hlds used by genjutsu users - she can surge through her own brain so that their manipulation is broken. Theoretically, which I can't stress enough. We just don't know.
Personality:
Sakura is an intelligent, sometimes preachy (to those she knows and/or finds clueless about a given subject she is knowledgeable about), caring young woman. She takes her job as a medical shinobi seriously, and this seriousness is displayed in how she handles any work assigned to her. Sakura likes to be thorough, complete, and as close to perfect as possible. Be this in her written reports, her abilities, her training, or any other aspect of her life. She's also neat, from what little can be seen of her home.
Her tendency to follow the rules also lends itself to her having little patience for people acting perverted - especially when "people" includes Uzumaki Naruto. As a twist, Sakura herself is a closet yaoi fan. Most her attempts to flirt fail, or end in her punching guys in the face. She does not like people implying she's flat-chested. She's not as sensitive about her appearance as she once was, but making an issue of it with her is asking for retribution.
Sakura is determined to achieve her goals, and achieve them well. She has a good grasp of tactics and a good mind for cryptology and research. Her memory is very good, and her detail recall is high, but not infallible. Sakura is also tenacious in her resolve. She is far less judgmental than she was as a pre-teen, and is far more likely to forgive (if not forget) people's minor indiscretions. (Or major ones, as in the case of Sai.) She holds teamwork as incredibly important, and still respects the opinions of her elders enough to listen to them when they give advice. Most the time, anyway.
Sakura is honest, even to the point of bluntness (though she has decent helpings of tact, so she's usually only blunt to those she knows well, or who she requires certain standards from), and has been known to overreact to people, particularly with irritation and anger and outrage. What used to be repressed and relieved through "Inner-Sakura" is now more freely expressed to the world - not that it's always appreciated. She's the sort of person who could be talked into a challenge, even if she wouldn't blindly accept one (taking on challenges in even those things she's not so good at, due to a competitive spirit). Sakura hates losing, and giving up got written out of her dictionary years ago.
She is confident in her skills and abilities, if not to a point where she doesn't feel the need to re-evaluate and take a look at herself from time to time. Her resolve to improve makes her a harsh taskmistress on herself, in order to make sure that she's able to stand equal with Naruto, Sasuke, Sai, Kakashi - everyone important to her - and not end up on the sidelines, unable to help. Perhaps her greatest fears and failures come from feeling inadequate in the face of her important people; being unable to help them would drive her up a wall.
Even with her more emotionally "open" personality, Sakura has displayed excellent bedside manner, doubtlessly invaluable in her profession. Her kindness towards others, including Naruto, and her ability to relate has improved with time. She does practice more restraint than she's probably given credit for by those in her own generation. She's also willing to pass off the things she's done if it avoids an explanation of what she found stupid in the moment it was uttered - telling Kakashi it was nothing when both Sai and Naruto had fat cheeks visiting him in the hospital.
Sakura is not above gossiping, though she keeps it to a minimum. She doesn't appear to talk about herself or her feelings often, presumably because she doesn't want to burden others and prefers to deal with them head on. Then again, most the time she reads like an open book. Some of her compatriots are simply too thick headed, or too disinvolved, to notice.
History:
[ For a more in-depth and kind of ridiculously long history, please see what I've written up previously here. A brief update to that would include: Sakura knows Naruto is alive, believes Kakashi and Shizune to be dead, saw Hinata defend Naruto from Pain despite the fact she stood little chance to do anything more than delay the inevitable, has continued to help save those she can in the ruins, and in general has managed to look disheveled and worry about where the hell Naruto ran off to when he led Pain back out of the village proper.
For a shorter, to the point summary: ]
At the age of six-eight, Haruno Sakura was an insecure, self-aware, shy child teased by the other kids and prone to crying alone. This changed when Ino, one of her peers, took a shine to the young girl and started building her confidence. It worked! By giving Sakura a ribbon for her hair, along with a pep talk involving flowers, Sakura started becoming more assertive and less timid. She found Ino to be her best friend, and very excitedly informed her of her first crush: on a little boy named Uchiha Sasuke.
Sadly, that's when her friendship with Ino turned into a years-long rivalry in romance.
In the meantime, Sakura excelled in school, one of the two most intelligent when it came to book smarts, if not the most apt at putting theory into practice. (Sasuke was far better at doing this.) She had a know-it-all, better-than-you attitude that only took back seat when she was trying to pander to Sasuke, just like every other girl who wasn't Hinata. To her surprise and jpy, she ended up being on his team -- along with the Number Zero, Uzumaki Naruto.
Her genin team marked the beginning of Sakura's change in character. Her initial bias toward Sasuke and irritation with all things Naruto ended up getting her in trouble with her teacher, Hatake Kakashi, as well as her teammates. She had to learn tolerance and understanding, and as she watched the boys out-compete each other, she came to realize knowing the theories wasn't enough. She felt she was dragging the team down, falling behind even the supposed zero that was Naruto (who by then she felt was less of a zero, and more of an unknown), to the point where she hesitated to sign up for the chuunin exam with her teammates. Ultimately, Sasuke knowingly (Naruto unknowingly) get her to go forward with the test, showing she did have strengths... they were just under-developed.
The chuunin exam brought this into sharp relief when she not only temporarily lost a teammate, but she ended up having to stand guard over both boys when they were knocked unconscious by Orochimaru's efforts. For the first time it wasn't an option of failing. She didn't have anyone to come and protect her; they were both unconscious behind her. She does initially get some unexpected help from Rock Lee, but even that's not enough when she's facing the three sound genin Orochimaru signed up for the exam. She feels even worse when she's allowed Lee to also get hurt. Sakura couldn't afford to hold on to her ideas of what being a shinobi was, or to the goals of impressing Sasuke according to the myth-factory she held dear back in Konoha. In a gesture which means far more to people who know Sakura well (primarily Ino, who was watching with her genin team at the time, initially hoping to steal all the scrolls from the two teams fighting while they were distracted), she cut off her hair and took to an all-out brawl approach. She would fight to the death to protect what was hers -- and to protect those who would protect her. Before she's completely knocked out, Ino steps in with her team. The confrontation escalates until Sasuke wakes up, the curse seal Orochimaru had placed on him activating for the first time when he asks Sakura who injured her. It ultimately takes a crying Sakura tackling Sasuke from behind to get him to calm down .
The next few stages of the exam bring Sakura into further realizations. She fights to a stalemate with Ino, in a situation where everyone other than Naruto was expecting her to lose. Naruto calling out prompted Sakura into overpowering Ino's mental jutsu, though in the end they knocked each other out rather than have one decisive winner. Thus she's only watching from the sidelines for the last part of the exam, when those who passed the first round of one on one fights face their second challenger. She's nervous, and Kakashi does manage to alleviate some of that nervousness, but given that it's based on Sasuke's well being it doesn't entirely go away.
Orochimaru attacks the town during this exam, having killed the Kazekage and taken to parading around as him. He has a mass genjutsu placed over the stadium, where Sakura is one of the few to avoid falling under it's effect. (Kakashi notices this, prompting a second mention of Sakura's natural affinity for/against genjutsu.) She ends up being sent out with an awakened Naruto to track down Sasuke, who had in turn taken off after the Sand Siblings. She's knocked out fairly early in the fight, so her story picks up again when she has to deal with the fact her team is starting to fall apart and there's nothing she can do. Sasuke is frothing at the bit to get stronger due to a combination of factors -- Itachi stopping by town for Naruto, judging Sasuke not worth his time; Naruto clearly progressing at an amazing speed and taking on enemies Sasuke had trouble with -- that cumulates with first a fight on the hospital roof, and then the inevitable defection. Sakura figures out Sasuke's intent, and meets him on the road out of town. Despite declaring her love for him and her intention to follow him where-ever he goes, for which she receives a "Thank you" and a bout of unconsciousness, she's unable to change his mind. She wakes up the next morning... and basically puts the burden on Naruto's shoulders to bring Sasuke back. She's disallowed from the mission trying to retrieve him -- even if only genin are being sent out -- and so starts her second act of transformation. The next time, she won't let herself be the weak point, and she won't let Naruto do this alone. She apprentices herself to Tsunade by directly confronting the Hokage, and is accepted.
Years pass, Sakura trains hard and long, and Naruto comes back home. They're called to Sand as backup when the Kazekage, who is now Gaara, is kidnapped by the Akatsuki. Sakura reveals she knows what is sealed in Naruto now, as well as what and who Sasuke's brother is. Being with the Hokage allowed her access to unlimited documents, outside of those, you know, simply forbidden things. Her concern for Naruto has escalated over the years, along with her determination to help him bring Sasuke home.
First, Sakura is charged with helping heal Kankurou, who had been poisoned in a conflict related to his brother's kidnapping. When the two Akatsuki members responsible for taking Gaara are located, Sakura is left with Chiyo, the woman who had sealed Shukaku into Gaara years on years ago, to take on Sasori, a once shinobi of the Sand. Sakura is used as a veritable puppet by Chiyo during the fight, capitalizing on her own physical strengths to help destroy Sasori's puppets, and at one point using an exploding tag on herself to escape a poisonous cloud of gas. Sakura proves the level of her training reached when she proceeds to put herself into the fight while getting stabbed through the stomach and healing the wound as it's occurring. Seriously. She heals the wound caused by a sword in her stomach while the sword is still there.
Chiyo and Sakura set Sasori up in an on-the-spot trap which ultimately gets him killed... and which prior to being inacted, almost killed Sakura. Chiyo used her life-force to keep Sakura from dying, and then the story was moot as Sasori sent in his resignation notice on life.
Sakura helped Chiyo catch up with the team pursuing Gaara's body, witnessed Kakashi's badass new jutsu sending things to other dimensions, and then watched in sadness as Chiyo gave all the rest of her life-force to Gaara, bringing him back to life.
Back at home, Kakashi is out of commission from his new jutsu, and there are leads to follow on Sasuke. A new team is formed, called Team Yamato, and Sakura gets to deal with all the joy of an antagonistic new teammate as well as a strangely frightening and yet strangely not Captain. Her relationship with Sai is very strained, off and on, particularly in relation to anything Sasuke. After some time spent together relaxing before taking off to meet Sasori's Orochimaru contact, Sakura seems to be doing better. Then they find out the contact is Kabuto, Kabuto is a double agent, and she gets knocked out on a bridge and has to be saved by Yamato. She wakes up in his arms, sort of watches the ensuing 4-Tails vs Orochimaru fight, and is injured by Naruto when he's in that form. She laments not being able to do more while healing Naruto moments later (she herself had been healed by Kabuto, of all people, since the Kyuubi had essentially chakra-poisoned her) and Yamato makes a reference to how much she cares for Naruto. Life is fine and dandy, they learn Sai was another double agent, and they set off to find the snake at his lair.
They do find the lair, take Sai back into custody, temporarily kidnap Kabuto, and then have a run-in with Sasuke that shakes the foundations of what their lives have been for the last few years. Sakura is prevented from joining combat by her Captain, and ends up the only one not electrocuted by Sasuke. Before Sasuke can use a finishing jutsu on his former teammates, Orochimaru stops him, and they disappear. Sakura promises Naruto he won't be doing this alone, and that she will get stronger yet. They will bring Sasuke home.
In the series, Naruto is doing training montages and all we know of Sakura's activities are that she now lives alone, shops at odd hours of the night, and she's remarkably restrained in how she cries. It hurts, knowing she's still not strong enough. She appears to be working at the hospital until the point where Pain attacks the village, where then she's working on healing everyone in the damage.
Then there's Kakuzu and Hidan. Sakura is part of the back-up in taking them down, though she really just ends up getting to play with Kakuzu (sorta) gien that Shikamaru takes Hidan down on his own. Sakura also participates in the Itachi Finding Party, in which they witness Deidara's death explosion, and are called back to town before they can actually find Sasuke. (This does, however, point out to them Sasuke is alive and on the move. Sadly, close after they also learn from the Hokage that Itachi has been killed by Sasuke... and that Sasuke was not on his way back to Konoha. They won't know why that is until later.)
At this point, Naruto was off in Sage Training, and she wonders where the hell he is (my lifeline! my teammate! my crazy ass friend with way too much power!) while coming to reluctant terms with the people who've been dying trying to prevent Pain from killing everything. She's told when Naruto arrives, witnessing a fight between Naruto and Pain that looks like it will end up being one-sided until Hinata jumps in and causes Naruto to go into a tailed form. Naruto and Pain move out of town, Naruto almost hits nine-tails form -- and then she feels the chakra change, and is told he's under control.
She heals Hinata, and when everyone is revived by Naruto's ability to talk to Nagoto, she's among the masses waiting for his return. The whole village turns out to recognize him, and she hits him over the head and gives him a bear hug. She doesn't want him making her worry that much again.
Unfortunately, she then learns Tsunade is in a coma, but instead of being comforted by anyone, she ends up comforting Naruto over the same fact. She's proud of him again as he handles the topic of Sasuke's being out of Konoha with old acquaintances, and then is confronted with information that no one ever wanted to hear: Danzo was the new Hokage. She's outraged (for a variety of reasons, including "Danzo has done many shady things and that's my mentor you're talking about"), but Kakashi manages to forestall her doing anything blatantly stupid (along with Naruto), and instead she takes a walk with Sai and Naruto to calm down. Only the contingent sent out by the Raikage appears and decides to present them with even more information: Uchiha Sasuke had joined the Akatsuki, and had killed the 8-Tails. (Naruto lets them know the 8-tails may actually be alive, because extraction requires them to be.) They demand information from Naruto and Sakura, who both resist, and Sakura breaks down in tears because it's just too damn much, too damn fast, and she can't do a damn thing about any of it. (She can't seem to answer the foreign shinobi's question on what exactly Uchiha Sasuke is to her.)
Roleplay Sample - Log:
She first registered white. More than a color, it defined that moment between slumber and wakefulness; an omnipresent, antiseptic reality.
In many ways, a hospital. Sakura's mind caught up with her eyes, the gap in memory between where she'd been sitting on the embankment, trying to deal with the emotional pain that had hit far too close on the heels of another one, and having more difficulty than she was expecting. Naruto had gone off with the three shinobi from Lightning, and Sai had been at her back.
Then why was she here? She sat up, not recognizing the room. A frustrated sound choked in her throat, and she shook it off as she took in her surroundings. Yamato had been working on reconstruction; perhaps she was in oe of the new facilities, even if the choice in decoration reminded her of a hospital room. Then again, the layout was a bit more permanent -- there was a possibility that this was another facility in Konoha, one perhaps meant to act as a standing barracks.
"I..." she trailed off, lips twitching into a frown. "Did Sai bring me here?" The thought was uncomfortable, for several reasons, the most prominent her gap in memory. She pulled the blanket closer, feeling the standard-issue grade of the fabric. It was an oddly jarring sensation.
She tossed the blanket off of herself, swinging her legs around to stand. "Where'd they go?" She figured no one would conveniently answer, but the hurt and sadness was boiling over into frustration. She didn't want to be on the sidelines, unable to help Naruto or her other teammates because she was too caught up in her own reactions to the world. "We need to figure out what we're doing about Danzo, not shove me in a corner just because --"
Just because of Sasuke. She rubbed at her eyes, the memory of tears recently shed making her certain her eyes were an unattractive, puffy red. Damnit! Sakura stood, willing herself into a greater sense of calm. "I can't believe he'd do something so stupid." The Akatsuki. The organization which was hunting down Naruto, and everyone else. What's more, Sasuke had taken down the only other remaining jinchiruuki not in the possession of the Akatsuki. That left Naruto -- Naruto -- as the final target. "Sasuke, just what the hell are you thinking?" Sakura certainly had no idea anymore.
Just in a day, and so many things were changing. When Pain had attacked, for a moment, she'd thought that was the worst that could happen. Here was the epitome of the Akatsuki, destroying Konoha, killing people she cared deeply for, and intent to take away one of the people she cared most for in the world. She'd wanted Naruto back, because he was her fail-safe, her constant, at the same time she'd wanted him nowhere nearby. A little selfish side-thought that hadn't lasted, because she had faith he wouldn't die. There was nothing to worry about. It was Naruto.
She had worried, in between saving the lives she could in the wreckage of the village she had grown up in. When she'd felt the sting of the Kyuubi's chakra, she remembered all the warnings. Her arm ached in a remembrance of what Naruto suffered every time the transformation started. In the moment she felt him escalate -- and when she heard that he'd stopped the transformation -- she breathed easier. He was going to come back. She knew it.
As did everyone else, in the end. But her prediction for the day was wrong. Tsunade had fallen into a coma protecting the lives of the villagers. Danzo had been put in place as the Hokage, pending a meeting of the jounins. That meeting couldn't even happen, with the Raikage's notice, and the notification that Sasuke was officially listed as a missing-nin. Free game, for the hunter nins of Konoha. To then hear Sasuke had joined... "First shishou, then Danzo, and now this? Naruto, you better be where I can find you." She stalked toward the door, pulling herself together, focusing on the sense of purpose and cool anger. A thought struck her, almost out of the blue. Her frown intensified, then faded as her voice lowered. "If you, Sai, or Kakashi do something without me... I'm kicking all of your asses."
That was one promise she'd have no trouble following up on.
Roleplay Sample - Journal:
[ The camera records an absolutely scintillating minute of someone sleeping. The most action in this shot appears to be the rise and fall of the blankets as they breathe -- and then a sudden flurry of movement as a disheveled looking Sakura sits up with a cry. ]
No!
[ She seems to realize this isn't where she expects to be; in fact, Sakura looks a bit confused as she takes in the room as a whole. ]
I... Did Sai bring me here? [ She pulls the blanket closer to her, then frowns and tosses it away. ] Where'd they go? We need to figure out what we're doing about Danzo, not shove me in a corner just because --
[ Augh, and she remembers, rubbing furiously at her eyes before forcing herself out of bed. ] I can't believe he'd do something so stupid. Sasuke, just what the hell are you thinking?
[ Pain's evident in her voice, along with anger and disbelief. ]
First shishou, then Danzo, and now this? Naruto, you better be where I can find you. If you, Sai, or Kakashi do something without me...
[ Her frown speaks volumes. What she next says comes out more subdued than she otherwise looks. ]
I'm kicking all of your asses.
Questions? Comments? Crazed and creative statements? Those go here.
...The history section was totally shorter and more to the point. 8|; As a side note, I wrote both the 3rd and 1st person samples using the same idea; I'd be open to doing another version (or linking to other samples) for the 3rd person sample if you'd like.