✿*: ･ﾟ 𝚂𝙿𝚁𝙸𝙽𝙶.

her whole childhood, she was bullied ruthlessly for having a big forehead, hence her meekness as a little kid. it wasn't until i.no came along that she began feeling just slightly more confident, but ultimately she has fallen into a vicious cycle of self-deprecating herself:

it's because of i.no's friendship that she began to like herself more, thus inspiring her wishing to stand as equals, not in i.no's shadow anymore. i'd like to add my own two cents that the crush on s.asuke is actually very relevant towards s.akura's personal character development in both a) using love as a goal to motivate herself in trying to make her 'unattractive' trait, her forehead, into something that would appeal to someone else, and b) using it as a way of kickstarting her true motive of breaking away from i.no's shadow. disclaimer that s.asusaku is indeed my most favorite saku ship; they are too important to me for many reasons, but out of respect towards those who do not like this ship, i shall keep ship ramblings to a minimum on my blog.

anyway i digressed a bit, but i would like to reiterate point a of using love as a goal to motivate herself / s.akura is still shameful of her forehead, fearing that s.asuke will not like that trait of hers:

she straight-up admits that she's self-conscious of it / one argument that saku haters tend to say is that she's so 'stupid' or such a 'selfish bitch always thinking about s.asuke and does nothing but cry' BLAH, BLAH, BLAH ... she cries because she has her own fears and doubts that scare her. she cries because she's human. they completely missed the memo that kishi created s.akura as a character who is supposed to act human because she is human. in his design notes for her, he literally says that he is fond of her character because of her humanity:

the core of s.akura's character, imo, is the theme of love: love for s.asuke that lasts for years, filled with dedication and patience despite all the hurt and obstacles she went through, but the love i'm mainly referring to is specifically self-love; self-appreciation. it's not just about her forehead. it's not just about the crush on s.asuke. it's about the inferiority complex she has with i.no, n.aruto, and s.asuke. it's about how she can't seem to love and appreciate herself. through all of part one, she's constantly comparing herself with everyone and seems to bring herself down often. she is aware of her own limitations and weaknesses. she knows. even k.akashi knew before she was even aware of it, as early as the chunin exams arc:

wanting to be mentally strong like i.no, n.aruto, and s.asuke ( + lee ) ...

but s.akura hiden reveals that she became the most popular and well-loved medic in the entire village. everyone adores her by the time of her novel, no matter if she has a big forehead or not. they love her because she is compassionate and kind. she is someone from a completely normal civilian family who had to earn everything. she didn't have any special jutsu or kekkei genkai like her teammates. you don't need all of that to be genuinely kind.

if i had to sum up the entirety of part one towards s.akura's personal character growth, it'd be the concept of self-love like what i had said before. her insecurities over her forehead + rivalry with i.no were settled during the chunin exams, and part two covers the other half of it, which is her self-esteem over her own skills——what she's capable of——greatly inspired by her love for s.asuke. this panel from the manga seems to be the point when she ultimately makes the decision to become a medic nin, a desire stemmed from her wanting to be of help to her loved ones and out of love for her teammates, not just s.asuke:

everything about s.akura has to do with love. i personally think the clinic she opens with i.no in the s.akura hiden novels is also a place where she has plenty of patients who have/had problems like her, which again, reiterates my point that she is beloved by the entire village at that point of the timeline because she's a very loving person full of love. no matter if you ship s.asusaku or not, it is very hard to deny that s.asuke is an extremely pivotal aspect of s.akura's character growth; a lot of her love stems from loving him. no matter how far he fell into his personal darkness, she still loves him. i do not mean in a romantic light, but love in general. her love for him is very intertwined into her own desire to grow stronger and improve herself, and bringing him back to konoha was the catalyst for that——because it stemmed from a promise with n.aruto, but she doesn't want to keep burdening n.aruto, so she's going to train herself to bring back s.asuke together out of love for team 7. again, it doesn't matter if you interpret it as romantic or not, team 7 is a very important thing in s.akura's life, so that's why she's trying so hard to piece them back together in part two.

she loves team 7, she loves her friends, she loves konoha, she loves all of her patients, and even though their relationship is strained, i think s.akura still loves her parents. that's why she is able to cry, because she loves so much.

she cries because she feels that she is always burdening n.aruto with everything due to her own inability to do what he can do. she is always frustrated with herself despite all of the training she's been doing because even though she's literally saved the life of g.aara's brother, she still views herself as a burden to others because she still cannot bring back the one person who completes team 7 and cannot seem to do more for n.aruto as it is:

and when it comes to s.asuke, that's where the strength of her love shines. she could've loved someone else the way she loves him, but she still picked him even though he has fallen so deep into darkness. i know this is steered towards romantic love within the context of this scene, but it does not erase the fact that she loves deeply:

kishi was right about her character having lots of humanity because the sheer willpower to patiently love someone so much for so long even though everyone else knows she could've picked someone else better is truly remarkable. she is someone who loves because she loves them. i'm not saying that's mentally healthy for her 💀, but it does show how tenacious she can be when it comes to love and doing things out of love for love.