A new story! This is a KakaSakuMina seal-powered time travelling fic. Kinda. You'll see. ;)

Disclaimer that I don't own. And review please! :)

Unbalanced

The First Seal

She was being chased through the woods.

Haruno Sakura was trying to make a strategic retreat, but her enemy didn't seem to want to let her. As fast as she ran, they matched her, up to the point that they were slowly gaining on her. Her mind worked furiously as she tried to come up with a plan to either lose them, or defeat them. And yet, her orders hadn't been to engage, though it hadn't been her choice to disregard them. She'd been discovered as she'd attempted to leave the enemy base.

Gritting her teeth, Sakura found herself wishing that she had a summons that could get her out of here, like Naruto's toads, or heck, even Sasuke's creepy snakes. All she had was Katsuyu, and quite frankly, as powerful and wise as the slug was, she wasn't going to be winning many races any time soon. That meant that for Sakura, there was really only one choice. She was going to have to fight.

A quick check of her inventory, and Sakura slowed her step, not bothering to hide that fact since she knew the enemy nin already had her tracked. When he appeared, it was with a maniacal grin on his face. Sakura made a disgusted expression at the look of him, already searching him out for his weak points.

"Finally decided to stop running, 'ey?" he leered at her. "Oh, but you're a pretty one. Almost a shame that I'm gonna hafta wreck that face of yours. You woulda fetched a nice high price on the market."

Right. Human trafficking. That was one of the things the gang this guy ran with was involved in. Human trafficking, drug trading, illegal arms dealing, you name it, they likely did it. Konoha was interested in shutting them down, once it was discovered they'd started operating in Fire Country recently. Before that, they'd been Kumo's problem.

"Too bad for you, you're not going to live long enough to do that," Sakura said, then attacked.

The fight was relatively easy, he went down to her taijutsu style, thanks mostly in part to her enhanced strength. Sakura didn't come out of it unscathed, though, and had to spend chakra to heal herself. Searching him, she found nothing of real interest, other than a weird kunai that she disregarded as useless. She threw it to the side, then yelped in surprise when she realised that it landed at the feet of another enemy that she'd had no idea was also following her.

Situational awareness, Sakura! she chastised herself.

Leaping up and instantly on guard, Sakura watched the guy calmly bend down to pick the kunai up, examining it critically as he straightened. He eyed her then, assessing her, and Sakura felt that this guy was likely on a whole different level from the other one.

"You know," he said, his voice a drawl, "as useless as Manabu was, he was still one of my men. I'm afraid I can't just let you get away with killing him."

He threw the kunai at her and Sakura dodged, but he was suddenly behind her, kunai back in hand, stabbing her in the back, perilously close to her spine. She spun and threw a chakra enhanced punch at him, hitting his arm. She heard it break even as he swore and moved away from her. Reaching behind her, she yanked the kunai out, already sending healing chakra to mend the wound.

The fight from there on was brutal, both of them using heavy hitting attacks. She had her enhanced strength, and he apparently had a kanabo. As good at evading as Sakura was, this guy was fast, even with his heavy weapon, and he got several hits in on her. She was constantly healing, releasing enough chakra to keep herself from being overwhelmed by her injuries.

Eventually it turned into a battle of attrition, who would outlast the other. In the end, Sakura managed to get a hit on the side of his head. It was barely a graze, but it was enough to scramble his brains and win the fight for herself. As he slumped to the ground, Sakura repeated the process of searching him, this time keeping an eye out in case someone else was following also. She was exhausted, and didn't want another repeat performance.

That kunai she'd been stabbed with… Something had happened when the second guy had stabbed her with it. Still not seeing anything of worth in it, Sakura pocketed it and resolved to see if an analysis team could figure it out. All she knew was that she'd felt a sliver of chakra enter her with the blade, even though that could have just been the guy she was fighting. Checking it over again with her chakra, she still couldn't feel anything, but she would get shishou, or Shizune to look it over for her when she got home.

The trip back to Konoha was uneventful from there on out. Sakura passed through the gates with no problem, waving cheerfully at Izumo and Kotetsu, who greeted her just as cheerily. She headed straight up to the Hokage's office, where her old sensei should be, but she'd see when she got there… Ah, good, he was still in.

"Hokage-sama," she greeted him with a short bow, and he gave her a 'look' and an exasperated sigh.

"How many times have I told you not to call me that, Sakura?" he asked.

"I'll gladly be more informal when we're not in your office, Hokage-sama," she told him with a teasing smirk.

Kakashi sighed once more, then seemed to notice the state she was in. Though knowing him, he'd probably sensed the scent of battle on her with his heightened sense of smell.

"So, how did the mission go?"

Sakura gave him a run-down of what had happened, from the moment she'd come across the base, to the end of her second fight on the way back. She handed over the kunai dutifully when he asked for it, waiting as he examined it for himself.

"This looks a little familiar," he mused, and Sakura perked up at that. "I think there's… Ah! Here we are."

Sakura leaned forward to see the spot he indicated, but was at a loss as to what he'd seen. "What is it?" she asked, and he sighed at her.

"Sakura, I know you never really studied it other than for your yin seal, but surely you recognise fuinjutsu when you see it?" he said.

"What? Those scratches are fuinjutsu?" she asked. "But they don't match anything I've seen on seals."

"It's chicken scratch, in sealing terms," Kakashi said. "But this is definitely fuinjutsu, and since you were stabbed with this…"

Sakura stiffened at the connotations. "How bad is it?" she asked.

Kakashi sighed. "Because the fuinjustu is so poor, I'd say it's pretty darn bad," he said. "We need to get you checked out for any seals this may have placed on you."

Sakura was feeling more than a little panicked at the idea of an unknown jutsu, of any sort, invading her body, and she nodded rather sharply. "Who can we get to look at it?" she asked. "Konoha's last, great fuinjutsu master died years ago, and I don't think Jiraiya-sama taught Naruto anything much on it."

"Maa, you're underestimating Naruto, Sakura," Kakashi told her. "And you're also forgetting that you're standing in front of the student of the Yondaime Hokage, one of Konoha's finest in fuinjutsu."

"Are you saying you know fuinjutsu?" Sakura asked.

"I'm no master in the way he was, but I did pick up quite a bit from sensei and Jiraiya," he told her. "Still, I want you to head straight over to the hospital, get Tsunade to check you over. Make sure nothing happened."

Sakura nodded, then turned to leave to head to the hospital, only for Kakashi to call her name to stop her. Turning back, she saw that he'd gotten out of his chair and was headed straight for her.

"Your back's bleeding," he told her, and sure enough, when Sakura reached around to brush her fingers over the back of her shirt, they came back bloodied.

"But I healed everything," Sakura said, confused.

"Here, give me a look," Kakashi said, and she let him pull up the back of her shirt to see.

His fingers trailing over her exposed back gave her tingly goosebumps. At the sound of him sucking in a breath, Sakura demanded, "What? What is it?"

"There's no sign of injury," he told her, "but… A seal has formed."

Sakura's eyes widened. "What kind of seal?" she asked.

"I have no idea," Kakashi admitted, "but it's expanding outwards. It's.. ah!"

"What is it?"

Kakashi sighed and lowered her shirt, allowing her to turn to look at him and see the worry in his eyes. "It's feeding on your chakra," he told her, and her eyes widened even further. "From what I know of seals, it likely activated as soon as you used chakra once you were stabbed."

"So… don't use chakra for awhile then?" Sakura guessed, and he nodded.

"It won't stop it from growing, but hopefully we can stunt it until we can figure out how to remove it," he told her. "Go straight over to Tsunade. The sooner we get this sorted, the better."

Sakura nodded and headed off.

The trip to the hospital where her shishou should be wasn't that long, despite the fact that she had to do it without utilising her chakra over the rooftops. Along the way, though, she ran into Lee, who seemed to have just come from his most recent bout of training. The moment he saw her, he naturally made a bee-line for her.

"Sakura-chan!" he greeted her, thumbs up with a sparkling smile. "It is so good to see you returned from your mission! Where are you headed now, my delicate Spring Flower!?"

Sakura smiled indulgently at him. "The hospital," she told him. "I have to check in with Tsunade-shishou about an injury I received."

"Then I shall accompany you!" Lee decided, and Sakura allowed him to.

They were almost there when all of a sudden, the seal on her back flared painfully. Sakura cried out with the pain, causing Lee to stop the chatter he'd been aiming her way, even as her legs buckled under her.

"Sakura-chan! Sakura-chan!" Lee cried. "What is wrong? How can I help!?"

"Get me to Tsunade!" Sakura gritted out between clenched teeth, before the pain became too much, and she passed out right there and then on the ground.

So what did you think? Review please! :)

Kanabo: A large, metal bo, or Japanese staff.