[Haruno†Sakura]

General Stuff

Sakura is on the same team as Naruto and Sasuke, so another one of Kakashi's students. Altough she's one of the main characters in the series, she plays a more supportive part in the beginning. When we see her, basically things get focused on her love for Sasuke. But as the storylines continues she adventually gets strongers too. She's a very smart student, and graduated from the academy with top grades. She has a perfect control over her Chakra, but lacks the will to become an excellent ninja. She has no unique skills, nor do we see her do any training in the series. But Kakashi do said that she has some skill in genjutsu. So if we would have to expect Sakura learning new skills, it'll probably be in that area.

She has quite a history with Ino too. Sakura is somebody who got picked on because of here wide forehead when she was little. Ino was one of her first friends, and said if she didn't hide her forehead so much, she wouldn't get picked on whole the time. She also said 'Sakura, you will bloom into a beautiful flower one day.'. From that day on, they became best friends.But the day Sakura told Ino she was in love with Sasuke too, she also said to Ino that from that day on they couldn't be friends anymore. Now they're rivals who compete over Sasuke's attention and love. Now when Sakura meets Ino, it's more like 'Ah, Ino-Pig...'. But as the series continues, Sakura undergoes some changes. Her obsession on Sasuke will lessen, and her respect towords the "not-so-cool" group like Naruto and Lee will grow. But not only will she gain some some respect towards other people. She also gets a little envious, and remembers that she should also try her best, too.

But Sakura does become a good kunoichi, after the Chuunin exams, Tsunade's Teaching. >>

Through The Chuunin Exam

Sakura's true nature leaps in maturity and the depth of her relationship with Naruto, Sasuke and Ino start in the Chuunin exam. In the first stage, which is a written test - which she, herself, knows the answers to despite it being designed specifically to be so difficult for Genin to accomplish that they would have to cheat, a testimony to her intelligence - the teams are eventually presented with the mysterious "tenth question", where they are given a choice of whether to take it or not. The examiner tells them that not taking it fails your whole team immediately, but taking it but failing to answer correctly prevents you from becoming a chuunin forever. Sakura, who initially scorned Naruto and his foolish dream of becoming Hokage, comes inches close to actually raising her own hand to spare him from the chance of seeing his dream go to waste (she is stopped by him raising his hand to proclaim that he doesn't care if he becomes a chuunin or not, because he'll will himself to be hokage even if he stays a genin forever).

Sakura's shining moment comes in the second stage, set in the Forest of Death. With Sasuke feverish and unconscious on the floor after being branded with Orochimaru's curse seal and Naruto similarly knocked out from the battle, Sakura finds herself the one in charge of protecting both of them from attacking sound-nin. As Kin Tsuchi grabs her by her long hair and immobilises her, commenting that if she's had that much time to spend on her appearance perhaps she should have spent it training. Sakura happens to have grown her hair long because it was "known" (or rather believed by the girls) that Sasuke liked girls with long hair (given Sasuke's disposition, this rumor is unlikely to have been true); taking her Kunai out, Sakura cuts her own hair, setting herself free in more ways than one. Ino's team arrives just in time to witness this, which changes Ino's outlook on Sakura. Later, when they tie on their battle in the third stage preliminaries, Ino tells Sakura that she finally had blossomed, and- each acknowledging the other as her equal- they become friends again, although they snap into (mild) rivalry mode again whenever Sasuke is mentioned.

The aforementioned battle with the sound-nin terminates not by the intervention of Ino's team (though they make a laudable effort) or even the two other members of Rock Lee's team, who come searching for him seeing as he came to Sakura's aid earlier. It is Sasuke, finally awakening, engulfed by Orochimaru's cursed seal, who inquires about who is responsible for Sakura's wounds and consequently comes close to killing them. Before he does, however, Sakura - who knows that the Sasuke she knew would never go on a pointless killing spree - catches him in a hug from behind, begging him to stop, and the curse seal recedes. After that incident, Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto managed to use teamwork to pass the second test. In the preliminaries, Sakura fought against Ino. Naruto cheered Sakura on, and it inspired her to fight harder. In the end, the fight between Sakura and Ino ended as a draw