Disclaimer: This is a fanfiction dedicated to the anime/manga Naruto, I do not own Naruto.

Hidden Seed

Written by: Wa, edited & revised by: Ai

Chapter 3: Hidden Seed no jutsu

Sakura woke up in her room. She held up her arm and saw that the bracelet was still here. She knew that it was not a dream. Everything was true; her real name was Chiba Sakura. After she was done cleaning up, she packed her belongings and went to meet her team.

Sasuke and Naruto were already there waiting for Kakashi. Sakura walked up to Naruto and Sasuke and did her greetings. Then Naruto noticed something shiny on Sakura's arm.

"Sakura-chan, what's that? I don't recall you wearing that yesterday." Naruto asked.

"Oh it's just a new bracelet that I got from shopping yesterday. Isn't it pretty?"

"OF COURSE!" Naruto yelled. Sasuke who was standing beside them just kept his cool and watched.

"Hello everybody, are you already for your mission?" Kakashi sensei finally decided to show up.

"Yes I'm already!" Naruto yelled.

They arrived at the Hidden Seed Headquarters, there they found the Minister of Hidden Seed standing there holding a wooded craved box.

"You must be the ninjas from Hidden Leaf. Here's what I need you four to escort. This used to belong to our high priestess Hanae. It was said that this bracelet contains a powerful weapon, so many enemies are after it. After speaking with the Hokage, our village thinks that it's best to put it under the protection of the Hidden Leaf." The Minister's eyes widened when he saw Sakura.

The bracelet of Hanae…then what is that on my hand?

"Oh so that Hanae person is a priestess after all. I still think that Ninjas are more cool!" Naruto talked to himself.

"Child, may I know your name please?" The Minister suddenly asked, directing the question to Sakura. She already knew that was coming.

"I'm Haruno, how do you do?" She bowed.

"What is your whole name?" He spotted the bracelet on her arm.

"Haruno Sakura." She looked up.

"………." Minister was still staring at her.

"What's the matter Old man?" Naruto asked. Kakashi and Sasuke were just staring.

"Nothing, it's just that she looks like someone that I knew who disappeared a long time ago."

After they said their good byes to the minister, they started going home.

"This village is so weird, they must have bad memories for recognizing people." Naruto complained.

"It's okay Naruto…" Sakura said. I can understand why. But I can't figure out why Kicha gave me the bracelet, and then the Minister gave us another one. If it's an important thing, shouldn't it be kept carefully? Or maybe they want to make a decoy out of it?

They continued on with their journey, it wasn't until midnight that enemies started attacking. Sakura and her team immediately jumped up from their sleeping bags and searched for their kunais before standing together to form their attacking formation. The enemies looked like they were ninjas from another country. Sakura couldn't tell since they were all masked. They started attacking them. Kakashi took one down easily, but there were five more to go. Naruto used his shadow clone, Sasuke was using his sharigan and Sakura was standing behind them. She was being protected.

However, the enemies broke their standing formation and now Sakura is alone facing an enemy. Her teammates were busy fighting the other enemies. She shot a death glare to the masked enemy, her enemy struck, and she held out her kunais trying to block the attack.

"You are the ones who are after the bracelet!?" Naruto asked.

"Not quite." The dark masked man who was standing in front of Sakura replied him.

"Then why are you after us? From what I've seen, you guys are not ninjas nor shinobin." Kakashi sensei said.

"They are not?" Sakura asked.

"Even if they are dressed up like one, you can tell from their jutsu…" Kakashi said, then Sakura turned to see the man in front of her starting to perform a hand seal. She read it slowly and she recognized the sequence of it, Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Akasha.

"They are priests!" Sakura said. Then Naruto and Sasuke turned to look at Sakura.

"We are after the Hidden Seed, from the order of the minister, we've come to destroy you." The masked man said.

The hidden seed…? Do they mean the one who can perform the hidden seed no jutsu? Sakura thought.

"The minister!? I thought that old man was a good guy!" Naruto yelled, he was being tied up because of that priest jutsu he was not familiar with.

"Naruto!" Sakura shouted.

"If you don't want your comrades to die, put down your weapons."

They did as the priest said.

Why didn't Kakashi sensei fight back? Does this mean that he doesn't know how to fight a priest jutsu? In this case…Sakura gulped and glared at the masked man. And the minister, he is after me…

They were all tied down to a tree and couldn't move because of the priest jutsu. The masked man used the element of Earth to tie them up to the tree. The tree branches formed a rope and they were stuck.

"Now I'll finish things off." The masked man held out his rod and in a position close to hitting Sakura on the head.

Then suddenly lighting struck the masked man's rod and injured the masked priest. A woman jumped down from the tree and walked towards them. Everything was dark but Sakura could see her hair, it was pink just like hers. Sakura stared at her, and she stared back at Sakura but she turned around when the masked priest was trying to stand up.

"Hanae, you are finally back."

Hanae turned and faced the priest. She was a very beautiful woman with long hair tied up in a long ponytail. Her eyes though, were blue and they were cold. She was tall, wearing a top that looked a bit like a kimono but it was sleeveless. And she was wearing a red dress. She looked just like a priestess.

"You were the one who killed my husband during his mission." Hanae said coldly. Sakura was surprised to hear that. She thought that her real father died because of an accident during his mission. So the priest was the one who killed him… how could they do that? They are priests, they are supposed to protect people, not kill them. Sadness flowed in Sakura's eyes, she had never thought of things being this complicated.

"He was the sin who tainted you, that's why the ministry wanted him dead." The masked man smirked.

"Sakura, come up here." Hanae said to Sakura.

She nodded. Remembering the lesson from Kicha, she broke the priest jutsu of the earth element rope. Sakura freed herself and her teammates.

"What was that, the thing you did Sakura-chan?" Naruto was very confused.

"That was the priest jutsu of the earth element. By using the Fire element, I neuturalized the jutsu and freed us." Sakura said.

"What are you hiding from us, Sakura." Sasuke couldn't stand that he was confused since the beginning, and frustrated that he couldn't get rid of the tree branches tying them up.

"……" Sakura looked at Sasuke. She didn't know how to answer his question, but they should know soon enough.

"Sasuke-kun…" she started. "You wanted to kill your brother because he killed your clan right? I'm doing the same thing right now."

Sasuke thought all along that taking revenge was the right thing for him. At first he didn't want people to stop him when it was time to kill Itachi. However, when he heard those words coming out from Sakura, he felt something strange.

Then she left them there without saying a word or looking back at them.

She went over to her mother's side and death glared at the masked man.

"This is the man who killed Chiba. Now listen, do the level one seal and attack him, I want to see what you can do." Hanae said.

Sakura gulped. This was like an order telling her to kill someone, but she did it anyway. She did the Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Akasha seal on her hand once. And suddenly the ground started shaking as one of the tree roots came out of the ground and caught the masked priest. Her team was shocked, and her mother was amazed. Although without her supervising, Sakura was able to perform the powerful level one hand seal.

"I see, so the Hidden Seed knows the jutsu already. It must that old Kicha who taught her how to do it. But you know what kid? I know how to do it too" The Priest stood up with his injuries and threw a fireball towards Sakura.

However, he was surprised to see that he only hit a piece of wood. Sakura used the kawarimi no jutsu on the priest.

"Oh did you forget something? My daughter is a Ninja, just like her father!" Hanae smirked at him and stood in front of her daughter.

Sakura's tears started to form in her eyes. She was so glad that she was recognized as a ninja by her mother. Sakura looked up to her mother since she was little. Sakura felt so proud that she could make connection with her real father as a ninja. With all those years of separation from her mother, Sakura was worried that she wouldn't know how to act in front of her, but now all the problems seemed to fade away.

"I have no time to waste on you." The masked priest started to perform the forth hidden seed no jutsu hand seal. Sakura and her team could feel his chakra raising.

Suddenly he screamed in pain and blood came out from his mouth.

"Argh… what the!?"

"You must have stolen the bracelet from the minister and practiced the hidden seed no jutsu right?"

He stared at her.

"But the priest symbol you see in the bracelet is not the real seal. Only the person who is related by blood to me can see those words. The ones you've seen are just seals that I've made up. You might feel your power increased after practicing those seals, but that's only because your chakra is running everywhere in your body."

"When you are practicing the fake seal, it requires you to mold your chakra to flow in a different direction. Just like the blood stream that runs through your body. And guess what would happen if your blood stream suddenly flow in another direction? It will hit the blood that is coming from the opposite direction, and you'll die." Hanae said coldly.

But he was unable to hear the last part of it, his breathing stopped. Hanae turned to Sakura.

"That priest… I've been searching for years for them. They were hiding from place to place. They were always after you as well Sakura. That's why I put you in Konoha, I'm sorry if…" Hanae stopped.

Sakura just nodded, she understood what she meant.

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto ran to Sakura, he was relieved that she wasn't hurt. The rest of the team followed Naruto and went to Sakura.

"So who is this person beside you? She said something about your father being dead? But isn't your father in Konoha right now?" Naruto was totally confused about it. But Sakura smiled at him.

"She is Chiba Hanae, the strongest priestess in Hidden Seed. She is my mother." Sakura said. Sasuke and her teacher were shocked to hear that, except for Naruto.

"Your mother? But I thought that your mother is in Hidden Leaf, and your last name is Haruno when did it changed to Chiba?" Naruto eyes turned into two lines, he was thinking deep, but he still couldn't get it.

"Chiba is my real family name…I was adopted by the Harunos." Sakura said.

Naruto was shocked to hear that, but his confusion started to fade. He started to see the whole picture.

"I'm sorry Sakura." Naruto said. The rest of her felt it too, but they just kept quiet about it. They always saw Sakura as a happy child, always cheerful in front of Sasuke. But no one knew that she hid her feelings. She turned to her mother.

"I will go back to Hidden Leaf, are you going to come with me?"

Hanae shook her head.

"I've left Hidden Seed for so long, so it's time for me to take my position and protect the village again." Hanae said, Sakura must have inherited her personality from her, because Hanae was trying to hide her feelings too.

"I will come visit you during the weekends. Then you can meet my mother…" Sakura stopped. She felt uneasiness saying this in front of Hanae.

"Sakura!" Hanae couldn't help but hold her in her arms. Sakura felt the warmth from her mother. She had wished for this to happen for so long…to see her real mother again, and smell her scent.

"Mom." The tears kept on falling down Sakura's face.

After they left Hanae, it was already morning and they were tired, but they carried on traveling back to Konoha. They arrived there finally during the afternoon. After they reported back to the Hokage, they started leaving the building.

"Are you going to be okay, Sakura-chan?" Naruto was worried.

"It's okay, I'm not sad about it. After all, I'm not like people who have no past at all." Sakura said, smiling to Naruto. She didn't want anyone to worry about her.

Then Naruto remembered how he hasn't seen his parents before. He turned his head and found Sasuke standing there with his head down looking at the ground. And that jerk there, his family were all killed by his brother. Naruto turned his back to Sakura.

"I understand. Do you want to go to the Ramen store with me?" Naruto asked. He wanted a date with Sakura.

"Haha no, I'd rather go home and get some sleep. See you tomorrow!" With that, she left.

TBC…

Author Notes: That is almost the end of the story, but then I kept on having more ideas to put into this fanfic. Well I'll see what I can do, please review if you have any comments? Hehe give yourself credit again if you read my author notes *clapping*