Watching Sakura has been a pastime of Ino for as long as she can remember. The pink-haired girl has always been incredibly different, and she noticed it from moment one. She can still remember the first time they met. Spotting Ami, Kasumi and Fuki cornering the girl during a Kunoichi lesson was an event that would change her life, but in different ways than she would have ever expected.
"Your forehead is so huge! I'd drop dead if I was caught looking like that!" Ami taunted, and Sakura shrugged.
"Drop dead then. We all look weird, we're kids." Sakura hadn't even looked up from her Gameboy, a little green device with strange buttons and lights held in her hands. She'd waved the girl off and continued without a single care.
She'd watched Ami deck her and had the urge to get involved and put a stop to that before it got serious, but something stopped her. Specifically, the mellow, bored look on Sakura's face even as her lip split open, stopped her. She should stand for those that can't defend themselves but what about those that just didn't feel like it?
Sakura didn't care. She took the blows and didn't even bother to fight back, she set her Gameboy under her to protect it, laid back and yawned, and let them hurt her, and when it was over, they looked more disturbed by the act than she did.
It wasn't until they left that she approached, finding Sakura picking her Gameboy back up while her forehead bled. "Are you okay?" Ino asked, kneeling beside the downed girl and digging into her pack for some of the medical supplies they'd all been assigned for practicing with. "You should tend to your wounds before you get back to playing."
"Why?" It was a question that opened Ino's eyes in several ways. It was absurd, strange, and somehow managed to create a crack in her reality that would one day become both admiration and adoration. "It doesn't hurt much, the academy pain training is a lot worse."
"Uh… what uh, pain training?" Ino's senses tingled in a lot of ways, not liking any of them.
"The one Mizuki runs." Sakura raised a brow at her. "You know, with all the pins and stuff."
Ino would later refer to this as her first 'what the fuck' even though she didn't know the words.
As Ino would find out the following day from her parents, pain resistance training is a legitimate part of the curriculum for every student, it starts out with little things and slowly progresses. It's assigned by teachers on an individual basis when they deem that person ready, and while it does get rather crazy it doesn't tend to until the final year of the academy for even the most die-hard, super talented students who might benefit from an even greater edge.
Sakura starting so early and so extremely had Ino asking a lot of questions, and the answer to those questions largely brought her to one conclusion.
Mizuki picked Sakura because it'd be okay to abuse her. She wouldn't say much because it was framed in an educational way and for her benefit, and he wasn't so much hitting her as causing systematic pain so she wouldn't register it under conventional rules as scary or harmful. The concept of abuse isn't particularly well defined in Konoha, and rules aren't set up very firmly in place around them. What you're doing is either messed up enough the enforcement of Ninja law gets involved or it doesn't so it's fine. He wasn't doing anything illegal, and she couldn't do anything to stop it, Sakura would probably be a better ninja for it one day and to rob her of that would be treachery in the eyes of the masses. Ninja skills are worshiped, suffering is glorified, and dignity is swept under the rug the moment it can be discarded. It was enough to leave her a bit disheartened, and woefully pissed off.
What this meant is that Mizuki had entered her shit list, even before she called it a shit list. He was the first person properly there, and she wasn't even completely sure why. Conflicting emotions raged within her, and that caused problems. As a little girl, Ino wasn't particularly good or skilled in any way to get back at the man, but she knew who was, and it turned out after a little observation that he was hurting Naruto too so the boy had a lot of reason to screw him over.
"Naruto." She'd poked his shoulder one morning during class, slipping him a note while Iruka spoke. The boy read it quickly, proving he could read, it was something she was slightly worried about. Reading isn't required until the second to last year in the Academy, and orphans frequently lacked skills like that. He looked back at her and nodded, giving her a thumbs up, and she smiled right back.
Their plan was set in motion, it was that simple. Naruto would figure something out, and she'd support him in making Mizuki regret his actions enough he'd cool it with her new friend Sakura and her possibly new friend Naruto.
What she didn't know at the time, was just how far Naruto was going to go with this. In hindsight, mentioning Sakura was also a victim probably wasn't very smart of her.
She still didn't know what Naruto's plan was even when they met after school. The boy was just rubbing his hands together while menacingly chortling. She knew he'd set something in play, but she was afraid to ask what. She knew Naruto was a trap mastermind, he did some kind of crazy nonsense almost every single day. She'd been the victim of a few of his pranks, nothing major, just small things that added up to create some annoyance at the boy. She still checked her seat every day to ensure she didn't end up with itching powder where she absolutely did not want itching powder.
She wouldn't say she deserved his wrath at any given point, but at their age he was still lashing out at random for attention, and she could understand that in her own way. She once ruined a batch of flowers because her father was giving it more attention than her…
"Do you think he'll learn?" Ino asked.
"Mmhmm, just um, here." He handed her a slip of paper, which she read over slowly.
`I totally helped plan this awesome prank and am equally responsible.` There was even a place to sign. "Naruto, why do you know how to make this?" It wasn't a complex legal document or anything, several of the words were misspelled even if she could easily tell what they were, and whether a 'contract' written in marker was valid was dubious at best, but she probably wouldn't have done much better in his place at her age. "Better yet why did you make this?"
"Because this is going to be really, really big." Naruto explained, using his hands to mime a huge explosion. "And if it falls entirely on me I'll be in really, really, really big trouble."
"But as a clan heiress, I can take some of the brunt." She realized, looking down at it. "Okie." With a quick scribble of her name, she handed it back, smiling brightly. "He needs this, so, what's the plan?"
"Oh, um-"
Boooooooom!
An entire classroom exploded behind him, paint flowed out the windows, chalk dust spread into the sky, and that was before she heard it, springs activated, and metal pings started flying in all directions around the room leaving holes in the wall that she could see from here.
"Narutooooo!" She was not ready for their teacher to jump out of the room colored like the rainbow, bleeding from several holes in his torso and holding a kunai in his hands. His eyes were bloodshot and filled with rage, and he was approaching with murderous intent she could feel.
"Run?" Naruto asked.
"Run." She agreed, and together they took off running, barely dodging a kunai thrown at him that missed due to Mizuki's mixed vision, one that almost hit her right in the eye instead.
"For attempted murder of a clan heiress, not to be forgotten that said heiress is your student, you're stripped of your rank and position at the academy, and will be under watch when within Konoha proper for the next ten years." He hadn't stopped at one kunai, and it had become really clear, really fast, that he had snapped and was fully intending to at least kill Naruto over it. "The extenuating circumstances have been noted, and taken into consideration to ease your sentence, but should you approach the Academy, or her home, or interact with any child within that time frame outside of the basics of politeness, you will be immediately persecuted to the fullest extent of the Yamanaka's discretion."
She hadn't expected that prank or what happened after, but if Mizuki was really brutal with his efforts, it made sense that Naruto might go farther than normal, and someone who could willingly abuse his position like that wasn't too far off from snapping. It made sense, looking back, but at the time it felt crazy and random. Like an event that happened to her instead of one she orchestrated. She wanted to teach the man a lesson, not ruin his life…
And yet, grown ups that know better decided for her. Ino stood tall for her age next to her father while in the court, and she'd given her tale of events. She'd even done Naruto a real favor, and left him out of it.
It'd entirely fall on her, the time Ino pranked a school teacher so hard he tried to kill her.
Her father, and the Hokage, had both agreed that it was best if she was willing to do it, and uh…
She was, so she did.
Years later the Hokage would pull Naruto aside and hand him a Jutsu scroll he'd copied some important notes onto, including the Shadow clone so he could pass his exam with a clone Jutsu. Ino would never know she'd solved a treason before it happened. And Sakura, having forgotten all about this, would ask the very same questions Ino did but with Kakashi, coming to a very different answer.
![Sakura Haruno The Gaming Addict, and Her Gamified Life [Naruto]](/data/threadmark-index-icons/l/73/73915.jpg?1714737265){kind=icon}
