Naruto: Sakura's Story (Naruto Secret Chronicles)

Sakura's Story: Love Riding the Spring Breeze

The third book in the Secret Chronicles is Sakura’s Story: Love Riding the Spring Breeze. This is by far my favorite of the three books in the Secret Chronicles. Sakura is my all-time favorite Naruto character. I had high hopes for this book because I wanted to know how Sakura and Sasuke ended up together. It was super frustrating to end Naruto: Shippuden with Sasuke poking Sakura’s head and saying, “See you soon.” Fans wanted to see how they ended up together, but Masashi Kishimoto kept avoiding the subject. Maybe a fan will create a story on how they could have ended up together and had Sarada as their child.

Sakura’s story was mostly about her solving a mystery about a fake Sasuke meeting with terrorists and threatening to destroy the leaf village. It was also heavily revolved around love, more specifically Ino and Sai. Fans had a feeling these two might become a thing because Sai always called Ino beautiful for her pet name. The thing you had to understand about Sai was that he was trained to not express or feel emotion as a former anbu black ops member. He didn’t understand the pet names Sakura gave Naruto which was dummy or knucklehead or Ino gave Sakura which is billboard brow. Sai would call Sakura ugly and she’d pound him for it. So, he called Ino beautiful to avoid being pounded when he first met her thinking all girls acted this way. Sai's very blatant but I truly believe he thinks Ino is beautiful. They’re an odd pair but it sort of works. Ino is very in touch with her inner emotions even if she’s not as smart as Sakura. While Sai has little idea about emotions because they were wiped clean from his mind, heart, and soul but wants to learn about human emotions and social interactions . It was fun seeing them battle together in this book because it’s a rare moment. Ino is almost always with her original team with Choji and Shikamaru while Sai is with Naruto and Sakura.

I had very high hopes that Sasuke would somehow make an appearance at least by the end of this book, but he didn’t. Maybe in Sasuke’s story he had occasional thoughts of Sakura which would be some reassurance that Sakura was too love drunk on Sasuke. I love Sakura, but sometimes I question her love for Sasuke. It was almost like the Joker and Harley Quinn. The fans knew it was unhealthy because the Joker constantly abused Harley Quinn emotionally and mentally sometimes physically. Sasuke was so cut off emotionally it drove Sakura insane. She loved him with all her heart and he pretty much treated her indifferently . He was not a heartless person. He just was not into relationships and romances. But, Sasuke was and still is Sakura’s deepest desire and everyone knew it. She’d wait eternity for him which was exactly where the book ended. She caught a small nanosecond glimpse of him outside the village, and she was happy with that. Since Sasuke was on a journey of atonement, she wouldn't see him for a long time which made this scene that much more reassuring that he had some feelings for her because he had taken down the men that hurt Sakura during the story.

If this was the last book in the secret chronicles, then it was a good send off because we got to read our favorite characters finally getting together. We even get a mention about Naruto and Hinata’s wedding. In the credits for The Last: Naruto the Movie, there’s art work of the wedding with all the main characters there. I don’t recall Sasuke being there even though I doubt Naruto would allow his best man not to be there. But, it was a great tie-in for the movie.

I believe the Secret Chronicles have this title because it was missing information that would not found in the manga or the anime. So, it was neat to read about how our favorite characters started dating and witnessing Kakashi becoming Hokage. The True Chronicles might be about everything that has been established in the Manga and Anime but told through prose format and character perspective.

I adored this book and highly encourage Naruto fans to read it especially if they ever wanted to witness how Ino and Sai got together to have a child that would later appear in Boruto: The Next Generation.