And what’s really important, and it’s the problem SS still has to this day, is what that murderous intent is directed toward and what Sasuke is really looking at in that last panel.
It’s very similar to the look given here.
Sasuke isn’t looking at Sakura. He’s looking through her. His smacks the apples out of her hands and immediately turns on Naruto wanting to fight him. In the first panels shown in this post he’s numb, he’s in shock, he’s nearly catatonic. He’s just had an encounter with Itachi, the person who caused him so much pain and took everything and everyone he loved away from him. He’s still processing all of that, he’s been broken down all over again.
And after he’s collected himself, realized the source of his pain was right in front of him and he wasn’t strong enough to face it, and worst of all he was so insignificant in Itachi’s eyes he wasn’t even his target - Naruto was. So all that’s left in him is hate and anger. Hate and anger directed at Itachi. Anger at himself for not being strong enough. And resentment toward Naruto for stealing Itachi’s attention away.
Notice something? I haven’t mentioned Sakura for like a paragraph and a half. That’s because Sakura doesn’t figure it to all this at all. She is nothing to Sasuke at this point. He doesn’t care about her or her fucking apples, they’re in his way. He doesn’t hate Sakura, he…feels nothing about her. In that moment with the apples, he looks through her and sees only his ambitions and the source of his rage. And that’s a huge problem with SS because this is consistent throughout the rest of the manga. Sasuke doesn’t see Sakura, he doesn’t need Sakura, he doesn’t care about Sakura. Be it in his moments of rage or moments of desperation to protect people he cares about, she doesn’t factor in for him. In the first reunion he doesn’t bother looking at Sakura. In the second reunion he doesn’t hesitate to try and kill Sakura when he perceives her as a threat or obstacle. In the war he doesn’t hesitate to save Naruto and leave Sakura to fall into lava and possibly die. He doesn’t care about her. She is nothing to him. Even in Gaiden when Sakura shows up Sasuke shows little to no concern for her when she’s kidnapped, he cares more about the enemy he just faced and their power.
Sasuke never saw Sakura. Naruto fought to be held in Sasuke’s sights, fought to be seen. And he eventually won that privilege. Sakura only briefly holds Sasuke’s attention, and not because he actually wants to give it but because he’s forced into corners where he has to give it. Naruto is the only one aside from Itachi that truly earned Sasuke’s attention. Sakura is a non-factor in Sasuke’s life and always will be. And that’s the primary problem with SS as a relationship and a pairing.
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