Sakura Haruno (Naruto)

Sakura Haruno (春野 サクラ Haruno Sakura?) is a fictional character in the Naruto manga and anime series created by Masashi Kishimoto. She is a Chunin-level kunoichi of Konohagakure, a medical-nin, and a member of Team Kakashi.


Facts about Sakura Haruno :
Age : 12 -13
PartII: 15-16
Birthdate : March 28
Blood type : O
Classification : Medical-nin
Gender : Female
Height : 150.1 cm
PartII: 161cm
Loyalty : Konohagakure
Ninja Rank : Genin , and Chunin
Weight : 35.9 kg
PartII: 45.4kg

Background
During her early years in the Ninja Academy, Sakura was frequently bullied by others due to her large forehead. To try and combat this, Sakura used her bangs to hide her forehead, fueling the other kids' teasing by indicating she was sensitive about it. Ino Yamanaka, realizing this, helped Sakura by giving her a ribbon that she used as a way of drawing attention to the cuter features of her forehead, which helped Sakura overcome her phobia. The two became good friends and Sakura grew more confident, developing her own unique personality under Ino's guidance. Despite this, Sakura felt that she was living in Ino's shadow and longed to prove herself as Ino's equal. Later, when the two girls eventually realized that they were both infatuated with Sasuke, Sakura ended their friendship so that they could properly compete for Sasuke's affection, thus beginning a bitter rivalry between the two.

Personality
At the start of the series, Sakura had a deep infatuation for Sasuke Uchiha, rooted primarily in his good looks, cunning, cool attitude, and prodigious talents. For that reason, many of Sakura's early appearances are dedicated to her continuing efforts to win his affection. As the story progresses, she begins to recognize that Sasuke is a real person with imperfections, and develops a more sincere desire to be there for him. Sakura also becomes concerned that Sasuke will someday abandon her and the rest of Konohagakure in his quest for power. When her fears come true at the end of Part I, Sakura does all that she can to stop Sasuke from leaving, such as professing her love for him and offering to join him. Though touched by her words, they do not stop Sasuke from defecting from Konoha.

Since then, Sakura has made her personal goal to bring Sasuke home, which becomes a recurring component of her role in Part II. Although she still worries about his well-being, Sakura is willing to attack him if it means returning him to Konoha. As time goes on and Sasuke becomes an increasingly more dangerous criminal, Sakura recognizes that Sasuke must be stopped at all costs. She also tells Naruto that she no longer has any feelings for Sasuke since he just keeps breaking her heart.

Sakura's relationship with Naruto Uzumaki, like with Sasuke, also changes throughout the series. When first teamed up together, Sakura viewed Naruto as a talentless idiot who deliberately tried to ruin her life, the result of Naruto's efforts to win her heart interfering with her similar efforts with Sasuke. However, as the story progresses and Naruto continuously shows his worth as a ninja as well as his dedication to his teammates, Sakura realizes that her initial perceptions of him were wrong. After Sasuke defects from Konoha, Sakura pleads to Naruto, believing him to be the only one capable of bringing Sasuke back. Although Naruto fails and is left in the hospital afterwards, he vows to someday complete the task she has given him. Realizing the lengths Naruto will go to for her, Sakura spends the next three years training with Tsunade so that in the future she can join Naruto in his quest to bring Sasuke back.

In Part II, Sakura learns of the various hardships Naruto faces: the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox and Akatsuki. Saddened by the impact both forces have had on his life, Sakura becomes protective of Naruto and tries to do whatever she can to help him overcome these obstacles. Sakura develops a deep friendship with Naruto, due to their spending a lot of time together. After Sai tells her about Naruto's love for her and the pain that trying to fulfill his promise causes, Sakura is filled with guilt. Soon afterwards she tells Naruto that she loves him and tries to get him to give up on his promise, but he does not believe her and tells her she is lying to herself. Despite this, Yamato and Sai have suggested that Sakura's feelings for Naruto are more than mere friendship.

Unlike the rest of Team 7, Sakura is the only one of the four members who has not suffered any heavy losses. Therefore, things that her teammates desire, such as family and friends, Sakura took for granted. Also, Sakura is quite outspoken, as when she doesn't understand something or if it bothers her, she tends to practically yell out in questioning or complaining to someone. However, all of this seemed to change by Part II, as she becomes more knowledgeable towards Naruto and Sasuke's sufferings, and tries to ease them. As her personality matures, she also shouts less, but still questions unknown situations plenty.

Inner Sakura.
Within Sakura resides "Inner Sakura" (内なるサクラ, Uchi Naru Sakura), a manifestation of her inner emotions. In addition to comic relief, Inner Sakura represents Sakura's actual opinion on things when she outwardly displays something opposite. Inner Sakura's appearances are typically marked by an exclamation of "Shānnarō!" (しゃーんなろー). The phrase has no literal meaning, but is usually translated as "Hell yeah!", "Hell no!", or "Damn it!", depending on the situation. The English anime, for censorship reasons, replaced the aforementioned phrases with a forceful "Cha!". Inner Sakura is unique as it is in a way a second will within Sakura's mind. When Ino used the Mind Body Switch Technique on her, Inner Sakura was able to repel the user from her body, suggesting that Inner Sakura is a split personality. Although she appears quite frequently at the start of the series, Inner Sakura all but disappears midway through Part I, her only other subsequent appearance being at the start of Part II. Sakura, likewise, now performs the emotional, violent outbursts she once relied on Inner Sakura for, much to the dismay of those who are around her at the time.

Abilities
At the start of the series, Sakura's only defining characteristic was her intelligence, largely due to her interest in memorizing things and her success with taking quizzes while in the Academy. Because of this, Sakura was shown to have very keen talent for observation and analyzing. Through this, she could easily see through most basic deceptions an opponent may use on her.

Because she had focused so much on her book studies, it greatly affected her physical performance. While in the Academy, she excelled in basic practice of ninjutsu and kunoichi training, but her prowess in combat was much weaker. Her stamina and fighting skills were below average, making her not very helpful during battles. However, in Part II, after receiving two and a half years of training from Tsunade, Sakura's abilities have greatly increased, to the point where she was able to hold her own against powerful enemies such as Sasori.

Sakura has been noted to have a natural affinity for genjutsu, though her only experience with genjutsu is dispelling it.

Chakra Control
Soon after the start of her first mission, Sakura discovered that she had an excellent control over her chakra, and as such she had an innate ability to use jutsu to their maximum efficiency without wasting any chakra. While this particular ability was never put to great use in Part I, her chakra control became a focal point of Sakura's fighting style in Part II, as it helped her to concentrate chakra to her fists to reduce things to rubble by a simple punch.

Medical Training
Sakura's natural control of her chakra had been taken to new heights over the time skip, an ability utilized to its fullest by the training she had done with Tsunade. With her excellent chakra control, Sakura had turned into an excellent combat medical-nin, and had shown herself to be able to heal fatal injuries with relatively little effort, even when more experienced medics would deem it a lost cause.

In her training to become a medic-nin, Sakura had also acquired the ability to pick up on an enemy's movements in a short period of time, as a good field medic needs to be able to do to survive a battle and avoid injury if he or she is to fulfill his or her purpose and heal other members of his or her team. This ability allowed her to predict what attack an opponent would use seconds before an attack and then dodge it quickly and easily.

Taijutsu
In close combat, Sakura's taijutsu skills have seen tremendous growth thanks to Tsunade's constant battle drills to better protect herself should she find it impossible to avoid battle. To further aid her in that situation, she can rely on the super strength taught to her by Tsunade.

By building up and releasing her chakra with precise timing, Sakura could easily decimate any obstacle and turn it to rubble. An opponent struck by her full strength could suffer from anything ranging from instant death, broken bones, ruptured organs, or any other wound associated with intense blunt force trauma.

Over time and through repeated use, Sakura had become able to use this strength instinctively and did not need to put any effort into using it. Her strength, coupled with her medical expertise and the beauty she gained over the time skip, had caused many to see Sakura as another Tsunade, or someone who could even surpass Tsunade.