"Take care of the idiot, will you Lee?" Neji asked as he stared at Sasuke, leaves falling between them. "I guess that leaves me pinky here then." Tenten said with a sigh, drawing her favorite sickle from it's sheathe and stepping towards Sakura. "I'm not an idiot, dattebayo!" Naruto shouted, glaring at Neji while Lee got into position across from him. "Shut up dobe; concentrate on beating thick brows and leave the freak to me." Sasuke said as he sneered at Neji, drawing a kunai with his right hand and filling his left with shuriken. Neji activated his byakugen, and Sasuke did the same with his sharigan, and the two flew at one another.
Sasuke threw the shuriken when they were within three feet of each other, forcing Neji to duck and open his back to Sasuke's attempted downward stab. Neji allowed himself to continue to drop down to the ground, grabbing Sasuke's ankles before the kunai could reach his back and pulling them out from beneath him. Neji thrust himself up into the air with his legs, spinning as he soared over the falling Uchiha. Neji's hands struck into Sasuke's shoulders, blue chakra flowing into the younger boys body. He flew past and rolled as he hit the ground, coming up and turning around to face the rising Uchiha. Sasuke was panting, with small holes in his shirt where Neji had blasted him. Sasuke brought his hands together and used a fire release: giant fireball to force the Hyuuga back and gain himself some space. As Neji flew back to avoid the fire ball Sasuke took out his largest shuriken, and quickly tied several wires to them. Forcing all of his chakra into his feet he propelled himself into the air, and threw the three massive shuriken in a flat line from himself so that they would pass by Neji. Neji began to dash towards Sasuke, his index and middle fingers extended so that he could stab Sasuke's points. Sasuke landed and pulled back on the wires, throwing a wide kick to keep Neji back while the shuriken whistled back towards them. Neji caught his leg with one leg while stabbing the point that would prevent Sasuke from releasing chakra from his foot with his hand. There would be no more dashing around for the Uchiha. He saw the shuriken flying towards him at the moment his fingers bit into Sasuke's leg, and began to whirl towards them while praying he could catch them all.
Sakura knew she was no match for Tenten. She had entered this exam knowing that she wasn't going to pass; she hadn't even wanted to enter at first. But she wouldn't get better without trying, and Sakura knew now what her role in the group was. Keep the other's safe and don't be a burden on them. She had to get stronger to protect them, and she had to fight intelligently so as not to burden them. Which meant, in this case, she had to hold out until the other's had won their fights before she lost. Tenten wasn't a match for either Naruto or Sasuke; but she was more then capable of turning a fight to her teams advantage by joining in with either Neji or Lee. So Sakura had to hold her here; and the easiest way to do that was… clones. Her clones weren't shadow clones like Naruto's, and had a tendency to flicker, but they would keep her from getting directly attacked. As her group of four clones charged at Tenten, Sakura pulled an explosive note from her bag and gathered her chakra to her feet. Tenten took Sakura's left handed punch straight to the jaw, but she caught Sakura's hand as she fell back, and quickly slashed the inside of Sakura's left arm with her sickle. Sakura cried out, tears welling in her eyes as blood gushed from the long wound. She opened her left hand and attached the burning exploding note to Tenten's right arm, which was holding Sakura's left. The explosion threw the two of them apart, and both of them lay on the ground for a moment stunned by the sound and impact. Tenten got up first, her right arm covered in burns. She looked at Sakura for a moment in silence, and then pulled out a small scroll with her left hand. She drew her thumb across her right arm to pick up blood, and then dragged the blood in a line across the scroll's five symbols. Each of the symbols released 10 small shuriken tied to a small metal ring by very long slender wires. Tenten put her fingers through the rings, and threw the shuriken by holding the wires tight with her hand and swinging them like a sling over her head, letting go at the right moment to send them flying at Sakura, who was now standing holding her arm and inching away. Sakura managed to dodge the fifty shuriken while only taking minor gashes, but Tenten grasped the wires with her hand and began to swing the shuriken in a wide arc, pulling them closer when they had come around towards Sakura again, and wider out on the rest of their orbit. Sakura threw herself to ground in the hopes that Tenten wouldn't be able to hit her with the arc. Tenten smirked, leaping high into the air and pulling the shuriken up with her. She threw them down in a hail towards the prone Sakura, who had no room to maneuver on the ground. She pulled herself into a ball and screamed as several shuriken buried themselves into her body. Tenten took the rings off of her left hand and began to look for the others.
Elsewhere in the Forest of Death, Naruto and Lee were fighting a very brutal close range battle. Naruto had given most of his chakra to clones, and they were busy attempting to beat Lee to death while Lee destroyed them one by one looking for Naruto's real body. This was difficult, as Naruto's real body had been henged into a kunai that was currently being held by a clone. There had been close to 100 clones at the beginning of the fight, the last thirty were all that was left. Naruto used the best strategy available to him, he had the clone throw him at Lee and unhenged himself at the last moment, kicking Lee in the back of the head. Lee only fell to his knees, but the clones moved in kicking and punching. "Forgive me Gai Sensei, I have to disobey you" Lee thought as he opened the first gate. He swiftly killed the remaining clones, but missed Naruto who had henged back into a kunai and had one of his clones throw him into the air to avoid Lee's counterattack. Unhenging again at tree top level, he looked down at the rapidly approaching streak that was the leaping Lee. He used the very last of his chakra to create two clones, which he had throw him down at high speed at Lee. The two of them impacted hard, sending a wave of wind and leaves out from them. Both of them fell unconscious to the hard forest floor; Naruto had elbowed dropped Lee's forehead at the same time Lee had had punched into his stomach.
Sasuke set fire to the wire's as Neji turned his back, catching Neji in a trap from both sides. Neji saw the hand signs, but continued to turn, hoping that the fire would be less devastating then the oversized shuriken. He caught two of the shuriken with his hands, and kicked the last one up so that it was no longer racing towards him. The fire caught his shirt on fire, but he ripped his coat off as he stepped back, minimizing the damage. The burns were bad, there was no doubt about that, but the area burned was only a small circle on his back. Neji and Sasuke stared at each other, red eyes meeting white ones, as they gauged which one of them was going to have the greatest difficulty going on with the fight. Sasuke couldn't move as fast as before, but his fire techniques had proven effective, while Neji hadn't done much damage but was still mostly mobile. Neji smirked, filling his hands with all of the energy he could, and attacked the spot most likely to defeat the Uchiha. Sasuke caught his left hand, but the right passed by and slammed into the area over his heart. "No!..." Sasuke got out before the blue chakra flashed through his body and out his back, cutting him off with searing pain. He lay on the ground, staring up at the trees as he lost consciousness.