I ain't never seen Two pretty best friends - Sakura vs. Ino // Sai's SAVAGE moments
During their childhood, Ino was very popular and talented among the academy students. Meanwhile, Sakura was a shy, timid girl who was often teased about her large forehead. She lacked any self-esteem and grew out long bangs to cover her forehead, although it did little to stop the teasing.
Ino met Sakura one day while Sakura was hunched over, crying from being bullied again. Ino poked her forehead and introduced herself, saying that she had heard of a girl who had a huge forehead and noting that it was obvious why Sakura wore her bangs that way. Ino told Sakura to embrace her forehead instead of covering it up like that in order to become more confident and stop others from teasing her. As a show of their new friendship and to help Sakura follow Ino's advice, Ino gave her a red ribbon and tired back her hair for her.
Ino gives Sakura a ribbon.
The two became best friends, and Sakura was able to gain self-confidence because of Ino's encouragement.
Sakura came to greatly love and admire Ino as her best friend, sticking close to her and looking for her for guidance, and Ino protected Sakura until the bullies were discouraged completely from messing with her. There were multiple times were Ino went as far as picking a fight with people who bullied or upset Sakura, earning even more of Sakura admiration in the process. At one point, when a group of girls were picking on Sakura, Ino threw poisonous flowers into their mouths with perfect accuracy and warned them that they had better go focus on handling that instead of bothering Sakura. Another time, Ino stood between Sakura and a group of bullies and physically prevented them from attacking her.
Sakura becomes attached to Ino.
Ino introduced Sakura to more friends and helped guide her into coming into her own as a person, telling Sakura that she truly looked forward to seeing what sort of flower she would blossom into when she became stronger. Ino compared Sakura to cosmos and assured the girl that she would bloom into something beautiful and powerful one day. The more Sakura saw Ino as amazing and perfect, the more Sakura compared herself to Ino. Sakura considered Ino to be beautiful, cute, friendly, and fashionable, and she considered Ino the smartest and most capable ninja in training in their class with already outstanding skills with ninjutsu and shuriken.
Ino assures Sakura that she is beautiful, like a cosmos flower.
Compared to Ino, in Sakura's mind, Sakura lacked in all these aspects greatly. Ino notices Sakura's insecurity and repeatedly tells her how great she is and gets her to open herself up to others more and more, but Sakura continues to trail behind Ino, somewhat. During a class on floral arrangement, Ino teaches Sakura that the cosmos is cherry blossom of autumn, and that a flower as vivid as that would need to be surrounded by flowers that stand out less as decoration. Ino takes one of the flowers that Sakura has picked, holds it up in her hair, and asks Sakura if she looks cute with a wink. After a pause to admire Ino, Sakura shyly answers that yes, she does, then giggles as Ino playfully teases her.
Sakura compares herself to Ino.
Bullies come over and mock Sakura, calling her "Billboard Brow" and telling her not to get full of herself.
Ino grins and assures Sakura that she is still a bud, waiting to bloom into the beautiful flower that she is meant to be. Although it's meant as encouragement, it makes Sakura feel even more insecure about herself.
Ino expresses her anger and annoyance with Sasuke when she learns of Sakura's crush.
Sakura asks Ino why she gave Sakura the red ribbon. Ino answers that she thought it would be a waste if Sakura just wilted away as the bud she was. Sakura blushes as Ino says that a flower that didn't bloom didn't have any meaning. Ino says that for all they know, Sakura might bloom to become a flower more beautiful than any other. Sakura is deeply moved to tears.
After the class, Ino is praised for her floral arrangement, and everyone claps. Sakura is then praised for hers as well, and Sakura blushes and smiles as Ino claps beside her.
Sakura breaks off the friendship and declares that Ino is her rival.
Later, Sakura told her group of friends that she'd finally found a boy she liked and was surprised when they correctly guessed Sasuke Uchiha. Hearing about Sakura's crush on Sasuke, Ino became noticeably displeased, saying she didn't understand what Sakura would like about Sasuke in the first place, insulting how stuck-up he was and implying she wasn't impressed with Sasuke.
At some point, Sakura heard a rumor that Ino had a crush on Sasuke, and chose to believe the rumor without further investigation. She confronted Ino, telling Ino that she knew about her crush on Sasuke, and that she was breaking their friendship at that point. From that point on, according to Sakura, they were no longer friends, but instead rivals.