Chapter Text
Sakura was 7 when she first realized parents shouldn’t slap or break you emotionally. It was the first time she felt a familial bond.
While she was waiting for the rain to stop after the end of her lessons, she saw Sasuke-Kun running for his "Aniki". Their expressions of affection seemed out of this world to her. Sasuke-Kun wasn’t stressed by his brother. That was news to her too. She watched a movie about family and how to act that night. However, she couldn’t even reach them to ask, she wasn't supposed to get wet, so there would be consequences. She didn’t want them.
She then learned, at the age of 8, that Sasuke-Kun’s brother killed his entire family. That brought questions to her. to her home life. Every moment that she thought her parents were not right, that they shouldn’t have slapped her, shouted at her and made her do relentless tasks even though she had condition training the next day. The reason she was sent to the academy was also them. They told her that she would be an adult by the time she was out of the academy. And they needed her gone as fast as possible.
Her academy life was no different. Her family taught her how to act. She got it, at the least possible time, thinking it would please her parents. They weren’t pleased, though they never were. It made her numb. She had forgotten how to be herself again. Her brain fabricated a suppressed entity just to cope. Inner, she named her. Inner was her ego at the end, nothing more, nothing less. She was Sakura, sakura was her. They were one, yet separate. No one questioned her with the smile she had. With the attention, she tried to gather, her fangirling was just a persona. Of course, when she was little, she adored Sasuke's bond with his brother. That, with time, also turned out to be just a mistake, maybe another act like hers. She aced the theory, not because of studying but because of Inner. Inner photographed everything and showed her when it was time. For her part, she studied and ran just to get her mind off things.
She studied politics and strategy. She discovered some not-so-well guarded "secrets". In her defense, they were quite easy to see through. Like how Naruto had Kyubii in him and was also Lord Forth’s son, How there was another reason, something deep, at the back of the Uchiha massacre. Lord Third had devolved into nothing more than a figure. How he was controlled. How the ninja business worked for clanless children. How they were just cannon folders. How the promising ones always disappear.
She was also observant, and cautious. Her chakra control made her a decent sensor, and Anbu trailing Naruto didn't conceal themselves. She noticed every time Naruto entered somewhere he got stares. How he would come to lessons and look like no one taught her the alphabet. How they showed him the faulty stances. She noticed the Nara, of course. He was the prodigy's heir, and he was one himself. And wasn't that ironic. Just because his clan was smart meant that it wasn't unusual for them. Even though they called her smart, in the end, it didn't matter what she observed; she was just cannon fodder. She never felt anything about it. She was fabricated by her parents.
She was numb until she wasn’t. With the last year of the academy, her mask started to fall. Her parents were relentless in waiting for a child. They weren’t happy. They weren’t also allowed to get an abortion. So, it would be her problem.