Whatever Happened to Sakura after Naruto Ended?

Haruno Sakura is a notable character in Naruto. To be exact, she was a member of Team 7, meaning that she was one of the three Genin taught by Hatake Kakashi. Of course, the other two Genin would be Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke. As such, it seems reasonable to state that Sakura was a member of the main cast on Naruto, though she might have been the last important of the lot. Role-wise, Sakura was the normal one on Team 7. This can be seen in how she received a normal upbringing as the only child of Haruno Kizashi and Mebuki, who might have been ninja but seemed to have led much less dramatic lives than a lot of their counterparts. Meanwhile, every other member of Team 7 had a tragic background. For example, Naruto was the orphan who hosted the Nine-Tailed Fox, with the result that he was ostracized throughout his childhood. Similarly, Sasuke was the sole survivor of the once-powerful and prestigious Uchiha clan, which had been massacred by his once-beloved brother. As for Kakashi, he was a child soldier who went on to lose his father, his teacher, and both of his team-mates, which doesn’t seem to have put him in the best mental state by the start of the series.

Still, it would be a serious mistake to say that Sakura was average in every respect, particularly since she did have certain quirks of her own. Personality-wise, she started out as someone who tried to behave in a polite, confident, and considerate manner. However, it should come as no surprise to learn that Sakura wasn’t always those things. Instead, her outward behavior was often a mask for her inner thoughts, which could be much more honest. That isn’t very strange on its own. After all, it is normal for people to behave in a way that doesn’t match how we feel about things for one reason or another. What makes Sakura’s inner thoughts unusual is that they seemed a lot like a separate personality in their own right because they enabled her to overcome the Mind Body Switch Technique. Still, those inner thoughts eventually stopped showing up because Sakura became capable of expressing her true self, which was an excellent indication of her personal growth over the course of the series. As for Sakura’s skill-set, well, she didn’t start out in the best of positions. She was an excellent student. However, Sakura’s focus on academics meant that she wasn’t particularly good with any kind of combat skill, with the result that she didn’t come off looking very good in a series focused on ninja combat. Still, she did have some strong fundamentals, with an excellent example being her excellent control over her chakra. As a result, Sakura was able to grow a great deal over the course of the series.

How Did Haruno Sakura Fare in Naruto?

A lot of people were less than impressed by Sakura’s experiences in Naruto. She was a notable character in the series. However, she was never as important as either Naruto or Sasuke, who took up the overwhelming majority of focus. For that matter, it can be argued that Sakura wasn’t even as important as Kakashi, if only because the latter’s background meant that he was so connected to wider events over the course of the series. Still, she did have her moments of focus in the story.

To name an example, Sakura had some notable moments in the Chunin Exams arc. The first stage of the exam consisted of a written test, which was designed to be too difficult for most Genin to solve on their own for the purpose of encouraging said individuals to steal the answers from others. Amusingly, Sakura didn’t need to do that because she was one of the rare Genin who was capable of solving everything on her own. In any case, she did have an interesting moment when it came to the final question of test, which the examiners said would make a Genin ineligible to take the Chunin Exams ever again if they got it wrong. Sakura was concerned that Naruto would be too proud to quit, which would destroy his dream of becoming the Hokage because he was more-or-less guaranteed to get it wrong. As a result, she was prepared to forfeit, thus making it clear that she did care for said team-mate to some extent in spite of her frequent annoyance at his antics. Later on, Sakura also had an interesting moment during the second stage defending her team-mates from Team Dosu, which was out to kill them. She didn’t succeed on her own. However, Sakura did show considerable determination and remarkable preparation while fighting in defense of her team-mates. Something that irked a fair number of fans who felt that those things were never properly followed up upon. In any case, when the first part of Naruto came to an end, Sakura was like her other team-mates in that she became a student of one of the Sannin. Specifically, she apprenticed under Tsunade, whose skills and reputation had made her the best choice to become the Fifth Hokage. Thanks to that, Sakura picked up Tsunade’s medical skills, Tsunade’s super strength, and more besides.

Due to that, Sakura got a chance to show off during the Kazekage Rescue Mission when she and the Sand Village elder Chiyo went up against Chiyo’s grandson Sasori. Sakura’s skills made her an unusually good choice for countering Sasori’s specialties. Her super-strength enabled her to smash her enemy’s puppets, which included the best of the best in his collection. Simultaneously, Sakura’s medical skills enabled her to survive Sasori’s deadliest poisons. Something that most other characters in the series would have succumbed to. Still, she did have an issue in that she wasn’t skilled enough to actually outfight Sasori plus the numbers that Sasori could call upon. Fortunately, Chiyo was able to make up for that skill gap with her puppeting technique. Other than that, Sakura wasn’t particularly involved in the major fights that received so much focus in the second part of Naruto. Certainly, she was in a number of them. However, it was rare for her to play the most important role in any of them. Still, Sakura consistently contributed, with the result that she was one of the characters who faced off against Otsutsuki Kaguya (https://naruto.fandom.com/wiki/Kaguya_%C5%8Ctsutsuki) towards the very end. Unfortunately, her role wasn’t particularly impressive after that, seeing as how she was knocked out by Sasuke’s genjutsu while Naruto and Sasuke went off to have their big fight to determine whose view would prevail in the end.

In any case, Sakura was very much involved in the shipping wars that dominated a good chunk of the Naruto fandom. For those who are unfamiliar, people enjoy romance, which is why it is extremely common for people to become very invested in the romantic relationships of fictional characters. Sometimes, these pairings have some basis in the source material. Other times, well, suffice to say that these pairings can be much more unusual. For a long time, a fair number of fans joked about Naruto being paired up with Sasuke. To be fair, Naruto did show a great deal of care for his team-mate, so much so that he was the one who made the most effort to convince his one-time team-mate to return home. Still, a romantic relationship between the two was never going to happen in one of the most popular shounen series of its time. As a result, the likeliest pairings for Naruto were either Naruto and Sakura or Naruto and Hinata. There were a lot of arguments being tossed back and forth between the supporters of these different pairings. For example, much was made about the fact that Naruto started out being interested in Sakura, Sakura started out being interested in Sasuke, and Hinata started out being interested in Naruto. Similarly, there were discussions about whether Sakura’s personality or Hinata’s personality was more compatible with Naruto and so on and so forth. Fortunately, the end of Naruto produced a very clear answer to this particular question because Naruto was paired off with Hinata while Sakura was paired off with Sasuke.

What Happened to Haruno Sakura After Naruto’s Ending?

Granted, the start of Sakura’s romantic relationship with Sasuke wasn’t exactly the most promising in Naruto. After all, she did get knocked out by Sasuke before Naruto and Sasuke had their big fight that ended with both individuals losing an arm. On top of that, while Sakura made an offer to join Sasuke while the latter wandered around on a journey of atonement, she got rejected because the latter believed that she should have no part in that. Still, he did promise that they would meet up again, so it was still better than nothing. Following that point, Sakura continued being involved in various matters. Some of these were of a peaceful nature. Others, not so much. Eventually, Sakura and Sasuke managed to get together, though it is clear that Sasuke spent a lot of time away. This can be seen in how their daughter Sarada didn’t have a lot of memories of Sasuke because he had headed off to investigate Kaguya. Something that didn’t exactly do wonders for Sarada’s relationship with her father. Boruto makes it clear that Sakura did her best to answer Sarada’s questions about her father while also reassuring her that her father cared about them. Unfortunately, this was nowhere near enough. Moreover, this actually damaged Sarada’s relationship with Sakura after what was apparently years of this going on. Still, in the end, everything managed to work out well enough with some assistance from Naruto. Besides this, it is worth mentioning that Sakura didn’t just give up her career to be a single mother for a good portion of Sarada’s childhood. Instead, she actually made a fair amount of progress in that regard, as shown by how she winded up becoming the director of the Medical Clinic. Something that tends to mean a fair amount of influence over the running of what is depicted as being a rather important institution. Moreover, Sakura has been shown to teach medical techniques to Genin from time to time, which suggests a rather remarkable level of time management skills.

Further Considerations

In any case, it should be mentioned that Sakura’s story isn’t over. After Naruto, she managed to get married to Sasuke, with whom she had a daughter named Sarada. However, Boruto is now focusing on the next generation, which includes Sarada as a major character. Naturally, this means that the previous generation with Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke remains somewhat important, with the result that it isn’t uncommon for them to show up for one reason or another. On the whole, Boruto has a very different setting from Naruto. This makes sense because the major powers are now at peace for the most part. Something that was very much not the case in the original series. Thanks to that, the setting seems to have seen a technological transformation as well, though to be fair, the setting has always shown signs of surprisingly advanced technologies that were unevenly distributed. Something that might be explained by the sheer devastation that is known to have been caused by generation after generation of powerful ninja fighting one another. Having said that, while Boruto has a much-changed setting, there are still major threats running around. As a result, interested individuals might want to keep a watchful eye on the series because it could wind up affecting the overall stories of the characters from Naruto.