Not Just A Pretty Girl by A Vampires Butterfly
Summary: She was always just a pretty girl. Never anything else. She was taught to gather flowers, not throw kunai. But what if she wanted to be more than just a pretty girl?
Categories: General Fiction Characters: Sakura Haruno
Genres: Angst, General, Parody
Warnings: None
Challenges: None
Series: None
Chapters: 1 Completed: Yes Word count: 2873 Read: 2262 Published: 02/08/07 Updated: 02/08/07
Not A Pretty Girl by A Vampires Butterfly
Author's Notes:
Hi there. I am a horrible, horrible person. I am just a horrible person with no sense of morals. I'm really sorry and I don't deserve your forgiveness. But I beg you all to not hate me forever. I have been busy, and unable to update, or read your updates, even reviewing. So beg for your forgiveness, even though I don't deserve it. This is song fic of the song, Not A Pretty Girl by Ani Difranco. I love her songs. Enjoy! With much love, A Vampires Butterfly ^.^
I am not a pretty girl
That is not what I do


Sakura despised when people called her pretty. A pretty young girl, they said. The perfect girl to settle down with, they said. A good wife and a perfect girlfriend, they said. So very pretty, they said.

But she didn’t want to be just pretty. She didn’t want to just settle down and be a good little wife that stayed home, waiting for her husband to get home from long tough missions, always waiting at home, cleaning and cooking, being pretty.

She didn’t want to be just pretty. She didn’t want to wait for her husband while he risked his life. She didn’t want to be picking flowers for him as he lay in the hospital. She wanted to be by his side in a mission, fighting for the village just like him. No matter if she was pretty or not.

I ain't no damsel in distress
And I don't need to be rescued


She was not weak. No, how many times did she have to prove that? Sure, she wasn’t the strongest on her team, but the boys on her team were hard to compete with. One being the great Uchiha, strong, determined and naturally talented at everything he did. The other was determined to be better than everyone, and always trained and had almost unlimited chakra. So she couldn’t really be good in that team besides standing on the sidelines and being a good medic.

But she was not weak. She didn’t need to be rescued from every mission they did. She could hold her own if she had to. She could fight! And she could win! So why were people always trying to protect her? Always saying a pretty girl like her shouldn’t have to fight?

So put me down punk.
Maybe you'd prefer a maiden fair.


Sakura hated Rock Lee. She would never ever even consider going out with him. Never. Ever. And not for his looks. Oh no. She would never go out with him because he was always calling her pretty. Beautiful Sakura-chan. Dazzling Sakura-chan. Pretty Sakura-chan. He was always vowing to protect her with his life.

But why did she need protecting?

Why didn’t he think she could take care of herself? Just because she was pretty? Just because she looked good? She couldn’t protect herself? She needed an older, stronger boy to save the day? Save her from the dangerous world full of sharp knives, hard criminals, and the occasional broken nail? Save her from a world where mean and ugly people crushed pretty flowers like her? She could take care of herself. She wanted him to just leave her alone. Let her face the world without a protector. Without a boy or a man to save her day. She wanted to save the day. She wanted to show him, show everyone that she was more than a pretty girl.

Isn't there a kitten stuck up a tree somewhere?

If people really wanted to save her, just because she was pretty, why did the other girls make fun of her for it? They laughed at her ambition. They laughed at her when ever she trained. They laughed at her every time she asked the teacher,

“Why do I have to gather flowers when the boys get to throw kunai?”

They always laughed even harder when the teacher gave her the answer.

“Because one day you will have to take care of your boy teammates in the hospital and you will have to know which flowers to give them. Don’t you want to pick pretty flowers instead of throw those dangerous weapons?”

She had never answered back, the other girl’s laughter echoing in her ears. She never did learn which flowers were best to give for the hospital.

I am not an angry girl
But it seems like I've got everyone fooled


Sakura never really got mad at anything. She liked to keep her anger under control. But it seemed people were convinced she couldn’t. That she was a pretty and feisty girl. A girl that you had to tame. A girl you had to take home and keep her home. Keep her locked up. Since she was so pretty that she just didn’t know how dangerous it was being angry in the big bad world. It would do her good to be locked away in a house for the rest of her life, making more ninjas, cooking, and cleaning. Like a good pretty girl.

Every time I say something they find hard to hear
They chalk it up to my anger
And never to their own fear


She rebelled against everyone. Against her pretty girl title. Against the flowers. Against her protectors. Against everyone who called her a pretty girl. She voiced her thoughts on how she was as tough as the boys. How she could handle any mission her teammates got. How she wasn’t just a pretty girl.

But people around her just laughed, saying she should calm down and maybe visit her teammates in the hospital. They would probably love some pretty flowers from such a pretty girl. She would just glare and stalk off to the training grounds, determined to become stronger, to get better, to never be just a pretty girl again.

And imagine you're a girl
Just trying to finally come clean
Knowing full well they'd prefer you
Were dirty and smiling


Sakura was always trying to make herself better. A better ninja. A better medic. A better person. But people were always trying to push her down. Discouraging her from going to the training grounds to practice, instead telling her that the flower shop was looking for another employee. On her birthday instead of kunai and weapons, or even maybe a medic book or two they bought her make up, hair brushes, and dresses, telling her how pretty she would look with them.

It was like everyone around her, everyone who knew her, was always trying to keep her as just a pretty girl. A nice and pretty girl, who smiled in photos, dressed in skirts and dresses even if they did get in the way of training, who wore pink and red, just because it went so well with her eyes and hair, who gathered flowers in the field and knew everything about the damn plants.

Everyone wanted her to be pretty. Everyone wanted her to be just a pretty girl.

And I am sorry
I am not a maiden fair
And I am not a kitten stuck up a tree somewhere


Sakura loved Sasuke. And not for regular reasons. She knew he would never love her back. Actually she counted on it. She loved him, she was in love with him, because for the simple fact that he didn’t think she was just a pretty girl. He didn’t see her as anything but a teammate. Someone to train with, someone to fight with, someone who was just there to make the team stronger. He was one of the reasons she never stopped training, no matter how much she was discouraged. He told her she was weak, weaker than even Naruto, and that she needed to get stronger or to just give up. She considered his words to be tough love, a way to motivate her.

She trained herself to be stronger, so that she could prove herself to everyone, become a great ninja so maybe Sasuke would change his mind about her, but she mostly trained just to show everyone that had ever told her she was pretty, that she was beautiful, that ever told her anything about flowers, that she was more than that. That she had always been more than that.

And generally my generation
Wouldn't be caught dead working for the man
And generally I agree with them


Sakura hated training under her first two teachers.

Iruka-sensai was always handing off his girl students to the flower teacher, while he taught the boys how to handle kunai, and other weapons, how to do jutsus, how to be a ninja. But Sakura always tried to catch a glance at his teachings and practiced throwing kunai, read books on jutsus, and tried her hardest to be a real ninja. She always imagined the day that Iruka-sensai would look down at her, smile, and nod, saying she was doing a great job, like he did with Naruto and the other boys. When ever she got caught though they always just shook their head and smiled, taking away her kunai, her book, taking her hand and leading her away from the training grounds, always saying,

“What is a pretty girl like you doing with that?”

Then there was Kakashi-sensai. He was always paying attention to Naruto and Sasuke. Mostly Sasuke though. He barely trained with her, always making her guard on missions, telling her to stand back and let Sasuke or Naruto fight the battle. She was never allowed to truly fight. And she was never trained on how to really fight. She was the one most discouraged to not enter the exams because of how she was just a pretty girl; she didn’t need to take some silly, dangerous exam. She remembered that day when Kakashi had given them the sheet they had to fill out to be in the exams. He had taken her away from Sasuke and Naruto for a bit and asked her seriously if she really wanted to take the exam. He said that he had been hesitant when recommending her for it because she hadn’t shown any true signs of being ready. He had said this seriously, looking at her with his one visible eye, but Sakura had only heard what she had been hearing her whole life.

“A pretty girl like you can’t do it and shouldn’t do it.”

She told him she wanted to take the exams.

Trouble is you gotta have yourself an alternate plan
And I have earned my disillusionment
I have been working all of my life


It seemed she was always the one that needed to be protected by her teammates. Even when both of her teammates were unconscious and unable to fight, Rock Lee still tried to save her. Because a beautiful flower such as herself couldn’t possibly protect her teammates by herself. But he had lost too. And then it was only her. Only her with her hair grasped in that damn girl’s hand. And it was just too much when she saw Sasuke and Naruto about to die. Once again her pretty hair was holding her back from becoming a strong and great ninja. She didn’t give it a second thought before cutting it off with a kunai, the same weapon so many people had told her she was too pretty to use.

She thought for sure that that act would get people to stop thinking of her as just a pretty flower to protect. That she could do anything any boy could do. She had cut her pretty pink hair with a dangerous weapon. What more did she have to do to prove herself? What more did she have to do to show these people that she was more than a pretty girl?

But when she came back, she was still a pretty girl. Just with a cute haircut.

And I am a patriot
I have been fighting the good fight.


So Sakura still had to fight with everyone she knew. She still had to fight her friends, her teammates, her teachers, just to prove to them she was more than a pretty girl. That she wanted to crush flowers and then pin them to trees with kunai. Which she did, often, to practice. But it was not enough, her anger grew when ever she saw Rock Lee. Or when Naruto asked her out, because she knew he just liked her because she was pretty, he didn’t really admire her skills, not that she ever got to show them. She fought good, showing with every chance that she was more than a pretty girl.

But they never noticed.

And what if there are no damsels in distress
What if I knew that and I called your bluff?


The other girls loved picking flowers and such. Her best friend at the time, Ino shared her ideas though. She agreed that the girls should be able to throw kunai and often went with Sakura to practice throwing kunai, and even suggested some jutsu books for her to read. Soon Ino was a better ninja than Sakura, but they both kept training with each other, even though Sakura felt she was some what in Ino’s shadow, they were both pretty girls in everyone else’s eyes, and they were both trying to rise above their looks.

But then Ino fell in love with Sasuke, not for the same reason Sakura did, no she just liked his looks. Ino soon gave up trying to be a ninja, to prove herself for being more than a pretty girl. Instead she tried everything she could be prettier, so that Sasuke would see her. She used her looks to get her way. She stopped training with Sakura. And Sakura just trained alone, not giving up, even when Ino left her.

She told Ino that they couldn’t be friends. She didn’t want to be friends with a pretty girl. And soon they were rivals. But not just for Sasuke, no they were both against each other. Ino trying to prove that pretty girls with their looks and flowers were better than dirty ugly girls with their kunais. Sakura wanted to prove that pretty girls could still be pretty, even with kunais instead of flowers. That a girl could still be tough and yet beautiful at the same time.

Neither of them have really won yet.

Don't you think every kitten figures out how to get down
Whether or not you ever show up


Sasuke left the village. And Sakura had hated it. He was her motivation to get stronger. He was the biggest reason she needed to prove herself. She had offered anything for him to stay. She told him she loved him. She said she would go with him. But she was so weak and useless that he just knocked her out and left her on a bench, leaving for what seemed like forever. She didn’t know what to do. She wanted to follow him, train harder to find him and bring him back herself.

But Naruto beat her to the punch. He promised her he would bring Sasuke back for her. No matter what. And she hated him for it. She was too much of a pretty girl to even go after her love for herself. She didn’t find out till months after that Sasuke was both of their loves, and after that she wasn’t too mad at him for stealing her moment, but before then she was furious. How dare Naruto think he was so much better than her that he was the only one who would bring Sasuke back? The only one that could? She vowed that she would be the one who brought Sasuke back, not Naruto. She would not be just a good little pretty girl that stayed home and did nothing but watch others fight!

Naruto was the one who finally did bring Sasuke back.

I am not a pretty girl
I don't want to be a pretty girl


It was months after when Sakura finally met someone who could help her. Someone who could help her prove herself. Help her be more than a pretty girl. Or at least show everyone else that she was already.

Tsunade, one of the great Sannin. A woman who had proved to the world that girls didn’t just pick flowers and bring them to the hospital. No, she proved that women could be the best. Could be the Hokage if they wanted. As soon as Sakura had seen her heal Sasuke she had known that she needed to be trained by this woman, not Kakashi or Iruka, and never that flower teacher, no she needed Tsunade to teach her and teach her well.

She had been fighting everyone she knew for far too long and finally it looked like she would finally win this long battle. She learned many things from Tsunade. She got great medic skills and amazing strength. She was proving to everyone that she was more than a pretty girl. She was much, much more than a pretty girl that needed rescuing. She didn’t need Rock Lee to risk his life for her. She didn’t need Ino to be with her. She didn’t need Sasuke to motivate her. She didn’t need her looks either. She just needed her mind and her skills. And Tsunade helped her prove that to everyone. Helped her prove that she was and had always been,

More than a pretty girl.

No, I want to be more than a pretty girl
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