#deidarasakura

[catkogin]

Yes, deisaku

[catkogin]

deidara, Sakura and Sasori

[catkogin]

happy birthday sakura!

[catkogin]

[catkogin]

Yes, yes, deisaku again.

[ficgarden]

In order to cement a truce between the two villages, Konoha and Iwa exchange recently graduated academy students. Fortunately, if anything were to go wrong, Haruno Sakura was just average enough to risk losing.

Main characters: Haruno Sakura, Deidara, Team 7, Yamanaka Ino, others Pairings: DeidaraSakura Word count: 255000 Rated: M Warnings: violence, mostly

This hits every spot.  It is a powerful sort of rewrite that takes a what-if situation—what if Sakura was sent to Iwa on exchange—throws in pre-Akatsuki Deidara, refuses to believe that females are inherently weaker and more useless despite the fact that chakra exists (Ino in this fic!!!), and genuinely considers the repercussions of Sakura having confidence and power and a loyal, mutual connection with Deidara.

With impeccable syntax and a just-descriptive-enough narration, this fic shoved and pushed its way up into my “favourite DeiSaku” list. Authors will often sacrifice facets of Deidara’s character when writing any sort of romance for him, the facets that endeared me to him in the first place; I truly feel that this fic does none of that. When you consider the character growth that must have occurred, Deidara and Sakura stay true to themselves.  Read to the end—you’ll see what I mean.

My only criticism was on certain plans and actions of Sakura, before I remembered that she was still about 13 at the time.  It’s easy to forget that when reading canon-verse Naruto.