Eimii wrote:

For instance, i felt obliged to mention that this is not a Naruto x
Sasuke
or Kakashi x Iruka yaoi/slashfic, because that's _all there was_ on
fanfiction.net at the time.

Ew.  At least things are a little better now.  Though in all honesty,
I
could also do without the hordes of poorly written Random Male
Character
x Random Female Character "romances" littering the section now.

I haven't read anything in the Naruto section in nearly a year, since
about the time that i got blocked on Suiren >_<;...

I also pointed out that this is a
Sakura-centric fic; this one may still carry some weight, as there
are
doubtless still tons of Sakura-haters out there. This may not be for
you
folks- but hey, you never know...

I think we can rest assured that I am not among them.  :)

Yay!

P.S.: Though i'll be posting all 20 chapters of Suiren to the FFML in
preparation to post the _new_ chapter i'm working on (provided anyone
here
actually reads these first few),  the existing chapters are all still
available at www.fanfiction.net/~eimii... Just, so- you know... If
anyone
here likes it, and wants to read more... (I can dream, can't i?)

*salivates at the thought of a new chapter*

I've gone through one complete rewrite of chapter 21 so far, but i think
i should have a list-ready version in less than two weeks... though i
may or may not actually _post_ it to the list then, if i haven't
finished revising and posting chapters 4-20... If you want to have a
prereader copy of it though, you're welcome to it ^_^.

If only she'd really defeated Ino! Then she'd... what? Train by
herself?
Would Kakashi-sensei have found someone to help her prepare for the
third
exam? He complimented her often enough about how sharp she was, but
he
never really took any interest in her otherwise. He was always
watching
Sasuke and Naruto though, giving them appraising looks that he never
cast
her way. They were strong, and they would only become stronger, while
she
seemed doomed to mediocrity.

One of my favorite parts of the post-timeskip manga was Kakashi at
least
sort of getting some come-uppance for his non-interest in Sakura.  (It
really says something how surprised he was by her growth, considering
that _she_ wasn't the one he hadn't seen in almost three years.)

Pity that Sakura's strength and medical training really haven't availed
her much; she's good at curing poisons, yes, and that _is_ a very useful
ability. But all of the Naruto uber-villains rely on obscene amounts of
brute force, which poor Sakura-chan is ill-equipped to handle...

"If you say so, crazy forehead girl," the other girl quipped, not
sounding
convinced.

Knowing what happens later thanks to Anko, I can't help chortling at
this bit.  Poor Sakura-chan.

Shhh! Keep it a surprise ^_^;;...

It's too bad that Kishimoto didn't think to give her some more
opportunity to show that off usefully in canon.  It wouldn't have been
hard to have her recognize some techniques from what she'd read (say
against the Rain team in the Forest of Death) and that kind of thing
could have gone a long way toward derailing the anti-Sakura bandwagon.
Ah well.

Well, Kishimoto has openly admitted that right from the start, he wanted
Sakura to be an unlikable character. Couple that with the tendency in
shounen manga for the leads to completely outshine everyone else and
it's little surprise that Sakura gets neglected...

That was what she was counting on now. Talking with Lee about his
training- it was a subject they kept drifting back to, so anxious was
he
to return to it -Sakura had realized that in some ways they were a
lot
alike. Despite the fact that she could figure things out faster than
most,
Sakura was no more a 'Sasuke' or a 'Neji' than he was. They were both
'hard working' types, as Lee put it, he with his body and she with
her
brain.

From Kakashi's comments, Sakura does have an extraordinary natural
talent for chakra control, though, so she's not entirely on the 'hard
work' side of things.

There's not much evidence that she's really aware of this to any real
extent, though, so her thoughts still work.

True; according to the Naruto character book, Sakura has greater
genjutsu ability and chakra control than any other 'true' genin heading
into the chuunin exam (this, despite the fact that she's apparently had
_no_ training whatsoever in genjutsu O_o;). Her raw chakra control at
the start of the series is roughly chuunin level already... but without
any techniques that take good advantage of this, she ends up seeming
pretty useless, since the majority of Naruto ninja battles come down to
'whoever has the biggest stick wins.'

Once she became a genin, however, it'd felt like all the studying
she'd
done had been pointless; the real world was vastly different the
classroom. When they'd been ambushed them on the way to the Wave
Country,
Sasuke was the only one of them who had kept his head. She and Naruto
had
been paralyzed with fear at the first sign of a real fight, and while
Naruto had recovered with a vengeance, she had only fallen further
behind
with time, always hiding in her teammates' shadows just like she had
been
sheltered by Ino's shadow before.

Hmm.  It has been a while since I watched the scene, but I seem to
recall that Sakura didn't really freeze in it - she moved to protect
Tazuna, but was just completely outclassed by the attacker and
wouldn't
have been able to block his attack if Sasuke hadn't intervened.

Will look into that; really need to re-read the early manga.

Orochimaru's attack had been a rude awakening for her. Caught in the
open,
unprotected, it had taken harsh words and painful choices to make her
remember who she was. She wasn't Ino's sidekick, always trailing half
a
step behind, not Sasuke and Naruto's delicate princess, basking in
their
triumphs and weeping at their defeats. She was Haruno Sakura, and she
was
a ninja of the Hidden Leaf. A sharp mind filled with knowledge beyond
her
years was her weapon of choice, and it was about time that she
started
using it.

Shouldn't it be the Sound trio's attack that was the rude awakening?
(In a way, I suppose that was also Orochimaru's attack, though.)

Well, orochimaru kicked it all off when he attacked them. Naruto and
Sasuke could at least do _something_, but Sakura was totally helpless.

Unsurprisingly, the chuunin at the gate did demand that she drop her
illusion and take off the mask, but a wry grin crossed his lips as he
checked over her ID. "Not bad at all," he noted, sounding genuinely
impressed. "Don't see a lot of kids your age with the patience to
learn
genjutsu."

"Really?" Sakura wondered, blushing at the compliment.

"Yeah; guess it's not as 'cool' as ninjutsu or taijutsu," the guard
mused
with a chuckle.

After all the build-up, it had _better_ be cool when Kishimoto finally
lets Sakura learn some genjutsu....

Given how stupid a lot of the current techniques he's coming up with
are, i'm not gonna hold my breath ^_^;...

~Eimii


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