Memory 15 // Significant Negative

[medpacksapunch]

Significant Negative: Sai tells Sakura Naruto loves her (pg 13-16)
Green Knight(Loser) Game // Day 143, evening
Form: a ribbon in your team colors. Tie it around your arm to view the memory.
Shareable: yes; 5/5

Summary:
Sai comes to Sakura to give her updates on the situation; while there, he tells her that even though he doesn't understand people well and is new to the team, it's still really obvious to him that Naruto loves Sakura. He says whatever promise Sakura has from Naruto, and Naruto's feelings for her, are clearly binding and painful; and while Sasuke clearly causes Naruto pain, Sai believes Sakura does, too.

Effects:
...Thanks, Sai. Thanks a lot for just digging right in there to the heart of my insecurity. For a guy who doesn't understand people, you did a pretty good job of finding the most painful and motivating thing to say. Sort of tragically hilarious here that this is Sakura's first memory of Sai; it somewhat lessens the impact, actually, because Sai is clearly upset in this memory -- he's angry. Sai spends most of his time either trollishly bland and mildly-to-extremely offensive, or endearingly clueless but well-meaning... Sai angry is alarming enough in itself to give this memory an overlaid sense of something is wrong; it's unsettling and upsetting. Besides that, Tsunade -- who Sakura has remembered quite a lot of and is attached to -- is in a coma here, so there is that worry and anxiety, plus a general unease from a source she can't identify yet, without context.

As for the actual content of the memory -- that Naruto loves her will almost get entirely overshadowed by the guilt the rest of that statement brings. Sakura's first signeg primed her excellently for this, and informs a lot of her determination in aather-- namely that naruto is suffering/has suffered because she asked him to do something that she was too weak to do herself. This memory more or less grinds salt into that wound by adding the fact that Naruto does it out of love for her, fully knowing and expressing that Sakura is in love with Sasuke (tangentially -- Sakura had not actually been aware until now that she was 'in love' with Sasuke. 11 year old her obviously had a crush on him, but she hadn't extended that out to the older version of herself. So that's... a fun way to find that out, I guess). She's also perfectly aware of what she had Naruto promise, so... guilt! Whee.

This memory will... make her less likely to ask for help in things, especially difficult things, but in general, Sakura is not very self-sacrificing -- she will throw herself into harms way very readily, but it's the shounen type of human shielding; she never acts as though she expects to lose. So while she will be more prone to trying to tackle things on her own, it won't be... as self-destructive as that implies. I mean she might powercap herself training again but better/faster/stronger/harder is good right, right. Sasuke, in particular, is a problem she will do her best to address by herself. In the past she's mostly left that to Itachi/Lloyd/Mithos and just... kind of hands-off until normalcy is restored. But clearly this isn't really fair to other people at all.

Tiny things she will pick up here will be things like Sai having replaced Sasuke -- before she knew that she and Naruto were on a team, later in life, but Sasuke was obviously absent -- and, despite the feelings-punch, some general affection for Sai. Which will also give her bonus point affection with Rolo because they are sometimes very similar, just in the way Sakura has to approach them. Not that she needed a lot of help feeling affectionate about her turqmates.