cerrada

I’m not even going to talk about Sakura’s amazing development because this moment was the ultimate proof of that. It was Sakura choosing her loyalty to the village and her friends over a boy she once would have followed everywhere.

Because Sakura knew Naruto needed to live in order to achieve great things. And she knew he would never forgive himself for killing his best friend. But she didn’t want to live in a world without Sasuke either way so she chose to take this responsibility from her best friend’s hands and go down with the only boy she ever loved.

I bet it seemed fair to her.

And yet, even if she tried, really tried, she couldn’t go through it. Because damn, she still loved that boy with her whole being and deep down she wasn’t giving up on him. Not then, not ever.

And it always crushes my heart how when Sasuke was about to deliver the final blow, she didn’t try to protect herself. She didn’t even make a sound. And I think it’s because she believed she deserved that. Because it wasn’t Sasuke who betrayed her. She did it to him first.

Didn’t she promise to love him forever?

And if there’s a climax to that story, I believe this is one. It’s Sasuke learning the truth about Itachi and Uchiha Massacre, and slowly descending into madness. Because sooner or later it had to happen. That was the only way he could finally recover and find his peace in the end.

And what was Kishimoto’s way of showing us how low he had fallen? That his sanity was slipping away? It was Sasuke trying to hurt one person he always protected, one person he never wanted to hurt. Sakura.

Because Sasuke in his right mind would have never attacked her. The need to protect Sakura lies at the very core of his being and that’s something we witnessed many times in the manga, both before and after the Land of Iron incident.