elmagio

 

okay...so how long have I been a fan of NS? like forever?!? yeah.... I swear I thought this was a fan made holiday. What was I thinking?

 

From the 2010 Shounen Jump Calendar: "April 3: The Day Naruto fell in love with Sakura-chan."

   

You know, despite how pathetically it was brought up I could maybe, in time, have dealt with Naruto ending up with Hinata and not Sakura (her ending up with a guy who tried to kill her multiple times, however, is a different story). But Kishimoto retconning Naruto's long-held feelings for Sakura as not-real and purely a byproduct of his rivalry with Sasuke... Seriously screw that noise. 

Happy belated NaruSaku day, and a huge thank you to everyone here who has written/drawn/... anything that gives proper respect to those characters, which Kishi couldn't be arsed to do.

Always great to hear that Voice is the Wind is still in the works ! But I have one question:

Lastly, eventually Voice in the Wind will become its own original fic. So I see this as one big rough draft that's just open to the public. So yeah, still writing.

Do you mean that you plan to eventually make a version of Voice in the Wind that is not set in the Narutoverse or featuring Naruto characters? I'd wager that would mean something much different than just the same story with a few name changes, right?

I definitely timed my re-reading of A Voice in the Wind's previously released chapters well, considering I had just finished it 2 weeks ago ! Definitely think anyone reading the new chapter should at least refresh their memories by skipping through the previous chapters.

PS: Now I'm wondering if I have superpowers and if I should start re-reading your other stories to trigger their next releases. Just have to figure out which story I want to use my powers on.

Thanks so much! I'm so glad you liked it! Yeah, this story has shined a hard light on Naruto. But he can be really immature in the story, so I wanted to focus in on that, and how much he would have to change if he wanted to achieve his personal goals. He sort of swoops in and adopts everyone else problems as his own, but he doesn't really look at himself. So this story revolves around his growth, in the face of everyone else moving on after the war. 

 

To answer the bolded part....

So, it's a little of both. I did have the idea for Naruto and Sakura's growth and choosing one another even though they had lots of other options before the manga ending. There was always going to be a handsome doctor to turn Sakura's eye, and there was always going to be a bit about Naruto's adventures and what goes into making him a good Hokage. 

 

Those were the two points the story turned on: 

 

1. What would happen if there was another person in the mix of Team 7 for Sakura to choose from? One that was in the middle of the spectrum between Naruto and Sasuke and combined their good parts? So Akira was highly intelligent and nice, he was skilled in Sakura's field and he recognized her as a brilliant in her own right. How would this change Sakura? And if she had other choices, would she still choose Naruto? What makes Naruto and Sakura soulmate material, when they only have shared experiences and not much else? Would she still choose Naruto over someone who was seems like the perfect match from ninjaMatch.com?

 

2. How would Naruto let go of his childhood ways and moved on to his adulthood goals, but doing it his own way as he has always said he would? What would his journey to Hokage include, what would he keep and what would he leave behind? And exactly how would he be the same goofball person but be someone who would make a good Hokage? And with this big shift in his life to maturity, would his childhood infatuation of Sakura stand the test of time? Would they still be a good match, or is there someone else out there better suited to his rambunctious personality?? 

 

So, those points were always there. I spent more time on Sakura because I felt like she had a more important story to tell as she was the one who was always the third wheel in the manga. She became a shinobi and understood Naruto and Sasuke's world, but they made no attempt to understand hers. So I wanted to tell that story. I figured I'd spend a little time on Naruto but not as much because he got a whole manga dedicated to his goals, and everyone already knows his story, motivation, etc.

 

But when Kishimoto imploded the manga, I realized there was a lot more about Naruto that needed to be told. And I really spent a lot of time thinking about why I was dissatisfied with the ending, what wasn't there, and what should've been. So as a result, Naruto's side of the story, in this fic, got a big injection. More characters, more plot, etc. 

 

So it's a bit of both. All of my stories have already been written to completion (although in really, really rough draft form). I won't post it publicly unless I know how it's going to end. But after the ending of the manga, and after the letdown that followed when I wasn't sure if I could go on, I realized that I really needed to keep writing because I don't feel like the manga is finished. I feel like it just broke off at the end, and they glued a different ending on. So more than ever, I needed to finish all my fics so that I created the ending I didn't get to see in the manga. Kishimoto could screw up his work, but that didn't mean I had to screw up mine!!

 

Hope that answers your question, and I hope I didn't spoil anything!!

Simply wow ! Amazing to have such insight on all the thought process that comes into your fics, it really shows in how well everything ties together... If Kishimoto had only given half as much thought to his story as you did, Naruto would have ended up being ten times better and so much more coherent as well, and I'm not even taking the trainwreck that was the ending into account...

Thank you very much for your detailed answer and looking forward to reading more of your works !

So yeah, I've never posted before, as you may notice.

But though NaruSaku won't be cannon (all hope is lost, quite clearly), I just want to say that at this point, I don't really care. Props to SS and NH fans, great for them.

But what brought me to the pairing between the blonde and the rose in the first place, all those extremely long years ago, had nothing to do with cannon or non-cannon. It was a matter of "Who SHOULD they be with?". If someone read through the 692 first chapters of this tale with no spoilers about the last 8, no gathering of opinions from the internet or any other mean, nothing of the sort, just pure unalduterated and objective reading of the manga, they would come out saying NS makes the most sense, that it was probably gonna happen, I have no doubts about it.

When this forum was founded 10 years ago, there was no guarantee of NS being cannon. Most of the hints hadn't even been dropped yet, if my memory doesn't fail me, and it was so far from the end that it was almost wishful thinking.
Did that matter? Nope. Those who came here ten years ago didn't care and still rooted for the one pairing that makes sense in this mess of a Shonen. And whatever Kishi does doesn't take anything away from the pairing.

My second favorite pairing (of those including Naruto) in the manga is NaruIno, and it never stood a chance in hell. But I like it because I think the two are compatible and stuff like that.
Well no characters in the manga are more compatible than Naruto and Sakura (OK, maybe ShikaTem), they ARE meant to be, whatever the hell Kishimoto says.
What NaruSaku had that NaruIno didn't is a shot (the best one) at becoming cannon, and for that reason it's disappointing that it won't end that way, but at the same time we shouldn't care.

NS was, is and will forever be the one Naruto pairing that was compatible with both character's development, whose 2 characters were not only compatible (Hinata and Naruto just DON'T make sense, she's the exact kind of girl that shouldn't be with a guy like Naruto !) but also completed each other (Heaven and Earth forevah) and that was hinted throughout the whole manga.

The messages we can take out of Naruto the manga's romance with that ending are:

From Sasuke's point of view: Yeah, just keep being a kittening arse towards that girl, not only will she keep caring for you but she'll also open her legs as wide as she can as soon as you give her the order.
 

From Sakura's: You're a strong willed girl? Your entire life has been directed towards becoming independent, stronger and to protect those you love? You've spent the last few years of your life trying to do everything possible to be closer to that guy who was always there for you?
Well throw all that useless stuff away, that guy you had a crush when you were a kid said something nice to you. Why be a great ninja that can keep up with her teammates like you always wanted, when you can go back to watching their backs while taking care of the kids of said crush? And do that with a big smile on your face, because since when are women supposed to keep up with guys anyways, amirite?

From Naruto's: You were there for her. You protected her yet were always proud of her accomplishments. You did everything you could to make her fall for you without forcing anything on her. You never gave up on her. You kept your promise to her. You loved her unconditionnally. She seemed to reciprocate those feelings towards you. Most people seemed to think you were/should be together, including your parents.
Well you dun goofed ! She'll still date the douche, and now you are in a relationship with that girl you barely interacted with and who you're pretty sure has been stalking you since you were kids. BUT WAIT ! You'd completely forgotten you had met her in some place with snow at some point. That changes everything, and it's totally the happy ending a good guy/the hero deserves. Now step down from that chair and away from that rope please.

I'd say something about Hinata, but since her character is basically about loving Naruto, it actually makes sense for her. Just not for any other character involved.

Something tells me that's the messages you should get from ANY romance ever. But whatever, Kishi.

May have seemed like an angry rant, may kinda have been one, but I really am OK with this. I'll just try to enjoy the ending tomorrow for everything that's not about relationships in it, and then I'll never look back on it, simply because there are thousands of better ending to Naruto's story in the form of Fanfictions.
Some (most) with NaruSaku, but I've read SasuSaku and even NaruHina fics that actually effing made sense. Kishimoto simply couldn't make sense.

The only thing that actually makes me angry is the treatment that Sakura has been through, this whole redemption she went through in Shippuden made worthless by the writer for no apparent reason. If you wanted her to be a useless character, why portray her as the badass she's been in hundreds of chapters? If you wanted her to just be another fangirl, why would you make her ponder on her feelings for years?
I just can't accept the fact that a character as amazing as Sakura has in the end been built up to nothingness. She basically went from Kage level to Hinata level in the last straight of the story.

On that note I'll go back to re-(re-re-re-)reading myself some Digifruit.