Not to beat a dead horse but imagine Sakura saving Karin in 484 instead of Naruto saving her. Under the cut because it is GAY and LONG and also SAKUKARI heavy
SPECIFICALLY imagine instead of having Sakura hesitate and Sasuke getting the jump on her, picture her jumping into action from the get go when she sees an injured girl just lying on the floor covered in blood and, as Sasuke is now made aware that the rest of team 7 are nearby and he might have to put up a fight, he goes to bite Karin again, gingerly picking up her wrist and...you know...
BUT WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW!!!
Sakura seeing her teammate, so far removed, that she LEAPS into action and grabs Karin from him. As she takes Karin back to her side, making the same sinister eye contact with Sasuke that Naruto had in his place, no man coming to save them!! She so softly places a tiny Katsuyu on Karin after examining her wounds, making a very shounen hero™ promise to finish her healing personally ( yes she is holding her flexed muscle, you don’t even need to ask ). Sakura, already aware that she’ll be forced to fight Sasuke now or risk feeling guilt over his future actions later knowing she could have subdued him, feels a small ‘annoying’ slip past her lips as Sasuke advances towards her. She doesn’t even give him the CHANCE to choke her, grabbing his wrist and flinging him as she puts up such a good fight.
A Sakura so sure of herself she can punch a dent into his susanoo and make a small opening (even if she can’t break it- yet ). Much more matured, she uses her knowledge of Konoha’s Great Clans Techniques on the battlefield ( even if previously everyone around her had tried to convince her that book smarts meant nothing if you had brawn ) and pinpoints the weaknesses in Sasuke’s sharingan, and his character, calling him out the same way he had done her when she misstepped as a child. She grieves for that detached young boy she thought she truly loved, but now she’s older, and she so selfishly feels the need to take on the burdens of the people Sasuke’s hurt (Naruto, the Raikage, Karin, who knows how many else while they’ve been apart?) and make amends.
Showing off her near masterful manipulation of her chakra (cuz hello they’re fighting on water duh ) and Sakura being allowed to show her progress by actually exchanging blows and landing her own. She continues beating down the restored Sasuke who KEEPS doubting her and her skill as they do a GREAT amount of damage to each other ( cuz let team 7 be equal challenge ). It only comes to an end- despite how short their actual fight is, it feels like hours to her- as a concerned Obito kamui’s Sasuke away, recognizing the same bone breaking, skull shattering techniques that only her master could have taught her ( even if the force of her punches are much more denser and heavier than Tsunade’s ).
She never hesitates to save Karin, she still cries for her all the same, her warm tears mixing with the blood on Karin’s cheek. Instead of Kakashi, she carries the young woman back to Konoha, all the way making such natural conversation to break down such a sad girl’s exterior. This time, she so kindly talks to Karin, refuting any claims that her actions were unnecessary or the insistence that Sakura at least bite Karin to repay her debt for saving her from Sasuke. A subtle apology at the way Karin’s been deceiving the earnest, naive and unbearably brash girl. Sakura, as stubborn as she is, can’t begin to imagine the idea of another shinobi owing her anything when she performs her duty as not only a medical-nin, but as a girl who can’t bear to see another girl hurt. ( Yes in the gay way. )
Karin, an equally stubborn girl, can’t help but think of how she is undeserving to bask in the soft, ticklish, but eroded with hard edges hidden beneath a light pink chakra of somebody she can’t even begin to be honest with. She wonders if she can tell Sakura her ulterior motive for joining Sasuke’s ‘team’, she refers to it sarcastically. She notes the way her, Juugo and Suigetsu were disregarded for Sasuke to reach his true goal. Not that hers were innocent, of course. She had planned to do just the same as soon as she reached hers as well. So in that regard, maybe her alliance with Sasuke was some sort of divine punishment?
But as she sat, arguing with such a childish kunoichi back to her run down village and slyly absorbing her abundance of chakra ( and charming wink, even if it’s just to assure her the village is close and she can get a proper check up ), Karin has to think: why dwell on a distant past when a pleasant future is just within reach? That is, if she’s as deserving as the rosette keeps insisting.
...
In a quiet little moment alone in her hospital bed, a few rooms down from Karin (who she cannot stop visiting, despite Shizune’s protests), Sakura is allowed introspection away from Naruto’s remorseful eye. Although she still cries for Sasuke, she realizes that being a shinobi isn’t about waiting for the higher ups to assign a mission and completing it to task like mundane paperwork, never expressing doubt with the system. It’s challenging it at every step and being the hero (you) your friends need, because that’s what a good hero does, not a shinobi. And those terms are not synonymous.
