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What makes a family a clan?
Age?
There have been Haruno in Konohagakure since it was founded. In the Land of Fire even longer. They never claimed to trace their roots to the Sage of Six Paths, but they went back to his era.
Size?
There are a few dozen Haruno cousins. Most of them aren't in Konoha, though there's a second house here that one of the families will move into some generations, Father says.
Bloodline?
The Haruno bloodline runs strong in everyone. Most of my cousins don't have enough chakra to make much use of it, but the basics don't need more than civilian talent. We don't talk about it - even as civilians, the minor talent is useful in business, and the second best way to protect your bloodline from thieves, after strength, is obscurity.
Chakra?
We're civilians, almost all of us, but we have more chakra than most of them.
But we're not a clan. Because we're not ninja.
My mother didn't want me to be a ninja because it's dangerous. Deadly. She doesn't want to bury me and grieve me. Like any civilian mother.
My father didn't want me to be a ninja because Haruno ninja are unhappy people.
The bloodline of the Haruno is Truth. We can sense lies. Deception. And the more chakra you have, the more chakra you build, the more detail you get. But also the harder it is to turn it off. You can see through genjutsu; if you're strong, you can even recognize sharingan effects for what they are. But you can't ignore all the other lies. "This is for the good of the Land of Fire." "I trust you." "He's a mad dog who's earned death." "I took a vacation last week." "I'm fine." "I'm okay." "No regrets."
The price of seeing truth, is seeing the whole truth.
My father, Kizashi, had unusually large chakra reserves for the son of civilians, and so he stayed in Konoha, in the house of Haruno, like his mother, and when he was a child he was next to a cousin of the previous generation who'd been born in Tonika village but moved to the hidden village like most who had the chakra reserves to be ninja if they chose.
But Haruno Kizashi did not attend the Academy, did not study with a ninja, and did not become one. Because he could see the lies, and didn't want to swim in them. He trained enough to strengthen the Haruno gift, and then had to suppress it. Mother calls him a joker and incapable of taking anything seriously. He told me, when I was going through the Academy, that she was right.
The part of him that takes things seriously had to be buried, to deal with being a ninja-potential Haruno in a hidden village. Buried with the sight of truth.
I was as strong when I was seven as he was at fifteen. I saw so much. And it was painful, but it made it clear to me when ninja really did do what was needed for the village, the country, and their people. Anbu protecting people. Ninja who told students "He threatened us, and the world is better off without him," and meant it. Civilians distrusting ninja as unnecessarily violent, but knowing, deeper down, that they were wrong. I knew I would be a ninja; I couldn't bear not to.
But I couldn't do it all the time.
And so, I went a little crazy. Like my father before me, and many cousins before him. The truth-sayer, the Haruno Sakura who couldn't ignore lies, who couldn't bear to lie herself, hid, deeper in my mind. Inner Sakura was always listening, always watching. And on the outside, I set that aside, most of the time, ignoring the lies people tell themselves and only noticing the twinges of broken truth when they were pointed straight at me.
(In retrospect, I don't think I could have done it if I was older. Children don't lie to themselves nearly so much as adults, even ninja children. They believe their own strange ideas. And teachers, even among ninja, prefer to work with them that way. The big lies the adults around me said, or pretended to believe, were limited.)
I hadn't guessed how angry Inner Sakura would get. Father's suppressed truth was very serious, very grim. It was visible when he let it out, like when he tried to teach me. But it wasn't dramatic; it was Dad, only grim.
By the time I graduated the Academy, Inner Sakura had been stewing in lies I never responded to, barely let myself notice. She couldn't let them go, couldn't ignore them. No wonder she got angry at everything, lies and not.
But I was a ninja. Small reserves, and proudly civilian-born, but my control was excellent, my sense for genjutsu nearly perfect, and my academic studies flawless. I was recommended for training in using genjutsu, but I turned it down, telling my instructor that the other ninjas in my father's family weren't capable of effective genjutsu creation. He didn't try very long to teach me, when I showed my control went extremely wobbly even for the basics.
But despite the shortcomings I was incredibly useful on a team. Genjutsu kais were trivial. Checking seals for flaws was much easier. And everything else with precision.
I was a genin. And a good one.