Sakura Haruno

Sakura Haruno is one of the main characters of the Naruto anime and manga.

Sakura is a kunoichi of Konohagakure. When assigned to Team 7, Sakura quickly finds herself ill-prepared for the duties of a shinobi. However, after training under the Sannin Tsunade, she overcomes this, and becomes recognised as one of the greatest medical-nin in the world.

In the AWA fics, Sakura is a student at the AWA Academy.

Appearance
Sakura has fair skin, green eyes, and pink hair. In her youth, she wore her hair as bangs in order to cover her large forehead and fend off her classmates' calling her "Forehead Girl". Ino encouraged her not to do this and wear her hair back instead, so that others could see her face. Later in her Academy career she let her hair get longer because of rumours that Sasuke was attracted to girls with long hair. When, during Part I, she realises that long hair is a vulnerability in combat situations, she cuts her hair and keeps it under shoulder-length from that point onward, which she sometimes pins up in a ponytail while working. As Sakura gets older, she is noted to become very attractive, with Jiraiya likening her looks to Tsunade's own.

Sakura wears a red qipao dress — at various times either with or without short sleeves — with slits along the sides accompanied by a zipper and white circular designs. She also wears tight dark green bike shorts with a shuriken holster around her right thigh, blue sandals, and the standard Konoha forehead protector worn as a hairband. Colour illustrations from the manga tend to depict her using nail polish and eye-shadow in Part I, both of which are not present in the anime. In Part II, Sakura's typical outfit consists of a red top with the same design as the upper-half of her Part I outfit. Accompanying this are black gloves, low-heel, knee-high boots, black shorts underneath a short grey apron skirt, and grey elbow protectors (her skirt and elbow protectors are pink in the anime). The cloth of her forehead protector is changed to red and she starts carrying a medical pouch. Sakura wears the standard Konoha infantry flak jacket and assorted clothing during the Fourth Shinobi World War. She also gains the Strength of a Hundred Seal — in the shape of a violet rhombus — on her forehead, which remains visible thereafter.

Two years after the Fourth Shinobi World War, Sakura wears a sleeveless red qipao dress that reaches her upper thighs, with white trimmings and a white circular design on the back similar to her Part I attire; it is tied with a black obi. She wears black shorts underneath the dress, black gloves, and grey elbow and knee protectors. She has also changed her previous boots to regular black, high heeled ninja sandals.

Personality
As a child, Sakura was insecure and highly self-conscious about her large forehead; covering it with her bangs. It was not until she met Ino, whom defended her from bullies and became her friend, did she become more self-confident. At the start of Part I, Sakura typically gives the outward impression of being polite to her superiors, considerate of her peers, and confident in herself. She has occasional moments of bashfulness around Sasuke and competitiveness around Ino, but otherwise appears quite collected. This reservation, though never disingenuous, frequently masks how Sakura really feels: in certain situations she has pronounced feelings of delinquency, jealousy, and anger. Rather than display these emotions to others, she projects them inward, allowing a manifestation of who she truly is — what is labelled "Inner Sakura" — to have the opinions Sakura wants to keep to herself. Inner Sakura, whose appearances are marked by an exclamation of "Shannarō!", is in a sense a personality separate from Sakura herself, a fact that allows her to overcome the Mind Body Switch Technique.[At other times, Sakura and Inner Sakura are indistinguishable from each other, usually with regards to Naruto; if Naruto says or does something that annoys or upsets her, Sakura responds with violence, a reaction that under other circumstances would be delegated to Inner Sakura.

Sakura is increasingly exposed to the realities of the world, difficulties for which she cannot rely upon Inner Sakura to cope with. As an Academy student, Sakura succeeded through studying alone to the point of pride, able to avoid physical trials and thus allowing her to focus on her physical appearance in a bid to appeal to Sasuke. As a shinobi, however, this is insufficient: the long hair she puts so much effort into is a liability that opponents can use against her; missions cannot be completed with mere book smarts and it is necessary to be able to fight so that other shinobi will not kill her or her teammates. The latter makes Sakura particularly disappointed in herself, as she is unable to contribute much in battle and must rely on Naruto and Sasuke to save her. She sets out to change this about herself, dedicating nearly three years of training to making herself as capable as Naruto and Sasuke; in the meantime, she becomes willing to sacrifice herself to protect them, coming to value them both very deeply. She looks to Naruto as a model for this goal, inspired by his rapid growth and his determination to be there for her and all those he held dear. When Sakura realises that she is as rude to Naruto as Sasuke usually is to her at his urging, she starts treating him better, cheering for his accomplishments and confiding her hopes and fears with him.

Inner Sakura makes one appearance at the very start of Part II and then is never seen again. This is because Sakura is finally in touch with her feelings and is willing to express what she's thinking, a self-comfort she picked up during her training with Tsunade, though this has made her more emotional and impulsive at times, which due to her desire to catch up in strength with Naruto and Sasuke, her over-protectiveness of them, and her need to prove her worthiness as a ninja, often leads her to impulsively attack her opponents and get rescued by her comrades. Her violent and/or loud outbursts are, as in Part I, uncontrolled and often directed at Naruto, usually as a reaction to his variations of the Sexy Technique, whenever he asks her out on a date or anything she feels is out of line, along with when anybody does something to offends her. Sakura no longer thinks poorly of Naruto despite thinking he is an idiot and her earlier stern disparaging opinion of him that flares at times. She now holds his abilities in high regard, yet is ever-worrying for his safety and well-being to the point of easily feeling unbearable guilt, and values him as one of her closest friends. Despite criticizing Naruto for his perverted nature, Sakura herself has a perverted side, enjoying something even Naruto thought was disgusting. Sai eventually points out that he believes Naruto knows Sakura too well for his own good, constantly placing himself in personal peril out of his feelings for her so that Sakura will be happy. Sakura is moved to tears by this, feeling unbearably guilty for what she feels she had put Naruto through; and despite her attempts to take responsibility for herself during the Summit by trying to deal with Sasuke herself, she still finds herself relying on him due to her own shaky resolve nearly costing Sakura her life. She ultimately settles for doing whatever she can for him, trying to do more in supporting him and his decisions concerning Sasuke, trying to do more to help him bear the challenges of being a jinchūriki, and fighting at his side whenever possible. She is helped in this goal by Tsunade's influence, who trained her to have a contempt for losing and an unbending will; she will place herself at risk so that others don't need to and to assure her allies' victory.

Sakura has been in love with Sasuke since childhood and initially focuses on getting his attention above everything else. Her initial infatuation for him was rooted from his good looks and calm, collecting attitude and his rejections failed to deter her. After becoming teammates, Sakura realised Sasuke's imperfections and suffering, and her desire shifted to helping him as much as she can, which caused that the two of them became closer and protective towards each other and that her feelings could develop into true love. Despite being grateful of her loving him after she confesses to stop him from defecting from Konoha, Sasuke rejects her but thanks her before leaving. This rejection deeply upsets Sakura, driving her to plea for Naruto to bring Sasuke home and, when Naruto fails, motivating her to become stronger so that she can bring Sasuke back herself. Sasuke, however, is colder to both Sakura and Naruto in Part II: he showed indifference to them when they meet after more than two years and, in moments of intense hatred while trying to cut his bonds with anyone, has even tried to kill them. She tries to separate herself from her feelings when Sasuke becomes an international criminal, attempting to kill him in order to prevent a war, but her love for him proved to be too great for her to harm him. Even at the end of the Fourth Shinobi World War, Sakura holds out hope that she may mean something to him. Despite Sasuke's crimes, Sakura was able to forgive him after he sincerely apologized to her for how much he hurt her. She was also surprised when he exhibited a much softer point with her and began poking her on the forehead, an affectionate gesture he picked up from his brother.

Abilities
As a genin, due to her focus on her studies, Sakura lacked any particular combat skill, other than the basic skills she learned in the Academy. This greatly limited her role in missions, to the point where she frequently noted how much she relied on her teammates, Sasuke and Naruto. Determined to change herself, she undergoes intense training with Tsunade for two-and-a-half years. Following in her master's footsteps, others remarked that Sakura would inevitably surpass Tsunade, which became even more apparent when she formed the Strength of a Hundred Seal during the Fourth Shinobi World War. Two years later, she rises to the rank of jōnin, and was capable of single-handily defeating Kido Tsumiki despite the Anbu being empowered by a Tailed Beast Drug. As an adult, Boruto remarked that she was a suitable replacement for Naruto as Hokage.

While Sakura has rarely been seen using taijutsu in Part I, she was able to hold her own against Ino, one of the top students in her class. After Tsunade's training, Sakura's taijutsu improved to the point that she could easily destroy several of Sasori's hundred puppets. As an adult, she could go toe to toe with a Mangekyō Sharingan wielding opponent like Shin Uchiha. In Part I, despite not being known for her strength, she was able to uproot a mast from a ship and use it as a weapon. She has proven to be quick on her feet, evidenced when she grabbed Obito and got one another to safety just as the dimension he opened released acid.

As seen in Part I, Sakura's most defining skill was her proficiency in chakra control. Such exact use of her chakra allows her to perform a jutsu with maximum efficiency without wasting much chakra. Due to this, Kakashi Hatake noted that she is well-suited for genjutsu. While never actually seen using genjutsu, she is frequently been shown to quickly identify when it is being used, and release herself or others from it.

After training under Tsunade for over two years, her chakra control increased tremendously, becoming a vital part to many of her abilities. By building up chakra into her fists (and infrequently her feet) and releasing it on contact with a target, it grants her what Naruto constantly refers to as "monstrous strength". Sakura's strength is enough to destroy buildings or upend the earth. Furthermore, she can send chakra throughout her entire body to lift greater mass, and improve her ability to withstand crushing blows.

Another objective of Tsunade's training was to increase Sakura's available chakra supply to complete the Strength of a Hundred Seal, something that took three years to accomplish. When the seal is released, Sakura has access to all the accumulated chakra, allowing her to perform techniques of a greater scale than she is normally able to. Among other things, her physical attacks are also enhanced to the point that she could damage Kaguya with one blow, breaking one of her horns off. She can also transfer this chakra to others.

Sakura could use the Summoning Technique, and like Tsunade, summon the giant slug, Katsuyu. By having Katsuyu split apart and attach itself to others, Sakura could remotelymonitor many allies at once, healing them and replenishing their chakra as needed. Sakura could also use Earth, Water, Yin, and Yang Release.

The main purpose of Tsunade's training was to teach Sakura medical ninjutsu, which demanded Sakura's refined chakra control. As such, Sakura can heal even the most fatal of injuries. Tsunade remarks that her proficiency for healing are exceptionally rare. When dealing with an enemy with an extremely resistant body, she could combine her chakra-enhanced fists with her medical ninjutsu to heal the resulting damage, eventually killing the affected cells from over-replication. By releasing the Strength of a Hundred Seal, Sakura can put her body in a state in which it heals itself so that she doesn't need to stop to treat herself or even be fazed by injury. In the anime, she could perform a highly difficult operation alone to regenerate a missing section of a person's body.

If healing proves ineffective, Sakura can make incisions in her patients to try and directly treat her patients' vital organs. She can also cure those who have been poisoned by extracting the poison from their bodies, while simultaneously repairing the damage — something which even poison-experts like Chiyo cannot do. To ensure a complete recovery, Sakura can create an effective antidote after analysing the poison's contents, even for poisons that Sasori did not believe anyone but himself could make antidotes for.

Her medical expertise extends to more standard medicine as well, enabling her to perform autopsies and examine cells with a knowledge of genetics. She was taught by Tsunade how to make fast-acting sleeping gas, and was taught by Shizune on how to concoct poisons that, when coated on weapons, could debilitate or paralyse a person with a single scratch. In the anime, Sakura even created her own version of Military Rations Pills, intended to have more medicinal purposes and be easier to consume.

Trivia

 * The name "Sakura" literally means "cherry blossom", a flower which is cherished in Japan due to its beauty and its almost-tragically short life span (cherry blossoms have historically been associated with the samurai). It also serves as the national flower for the nation of Japan. Her family name "Haruno" means "spring field". In Japanese, her full name can be interpreted as "spring field of cherry blossoms". Sakura's name can also be a reference to a suit of cards used in the Hanafuda card game.


 * Sakura's hobbies are playing trivia games and memorising new material for her medical studies.
 * Sakura wishes for a rematch with Ino.
 * Sakura's favourite foods are syrup-coated anko dumplings, umeboshi, and anmitsu, while her least favourites are anything spicy.
 * Sakura has completed 34 official missions in total: 12 D-rank, 9 C-rank, 6 B-rank, 7 A-rank, 0 S-rank.