A/N: Written for the /r/NarutoFanfiction writing prompt challenge #5 (you can see the other entries at redd dot it slash 4rl8xt). "Any ninja from anywhere is in a different clan from anywhere."

These one-shots are posted in the order I wrote them. Later ones will generally be better than earlier ones, as I practice and gain experience. Also, if you have a prompt you'd like me to write a one-shot for (up to 2k words) let me know, as long as it's not angst, slash or hurt/comfort.

The board flickered through name combinations until it settled on...

Neji Nara vs Gaara Sabaku

The room fell silent. Gaara started walking down to the arena floor, face impassive. Neji's teammates were whispering furiously at him, trying to come up with a strategy or guess at what was in the big gourd Gaara was carrying.

"I forfeit," Neji interrupted. "It's fate that I should not advance further, so why would I bother with a dangerous and exhausting fight?"

Kidoumaru faced the squad of Konoha genin and chunin that were pursuing Sasuke. The tall one with long dark hair had trapped him in some sort of body bind technique, but his lower pairs of arms were unaffected. He quickly spat out four projectiles and hurled them at the enemy ninja, but his own arms countered him and knocked his lower arms off aim, mimicking perfectly what the enemy who'd trapped him was making his own arms do. The Konoha ninja ran after the rest of the Sound Four – now Sound Two – with only the tall one staying behind to stop him.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

"Neji Nara," came the lazy voice. "And this is a real pain, you know? You're fated to lose, but you won't believe me and we'll have to have an exhausting fight. Can't you just surrender to me, and then we can watch the clouds for a bit, and then I'll escort you to Konoha?" Neji stuck a kunai into the trunk of the tree he was next to, at roughly head height. His lower half was obscured by the undergrowth. "I don't want to have to skulk around and then bait you into a trap, and I'm sure you don't want to die."

Kidoumaru didn't even dignify that with a response. He felt the bind break, and leapt to the side. Glancing down, he spotted the shadow that must have been the cause of the paralysis – of course; the child's name was Nara – and sent out a probing wave of golden weapons. One at the head, one at the neck, three at the torso and one to the side not blocked by a tree, in case the target happened to dodge that way.

Neji silently dropped to the ground on his back, hidden from view by the small cluster of brambles and weeds around him, as the projectiles passed over his head. Wary of a trap, Kidoumaru moved closer at an angle, until it became clear that Neji was looking at the sky, not moving.

With a puff, the clone of Neji disappeared to reveal a wide, deep hole in the ground under where his body had been. Kidoumaru ran in, trying to spot where the tunnel went, when an explosion rocked the ground. Specifically, the ground around the tunnel, the entrance of which had now collapsed.

A sudden motion of the darkness to his left made Kidoumaru leap back and throw another six fistfuls of his golden knives. The shadow withdrew again, occasionally probing forwards and trying to bait out an attack. Where was Neji? The thicket that the shadow was coming out of was too obvious, as were the treetops next to it. Maybe the dense bushes off to the side? Kidoumaru launched another attack at it, but nothing happened. He was fighting at his favourite range, around fifty to a hundred feet.

He stepped back and set up his bow, keeping a careful eye on the shadow, but it had withdrawn again. He was close to the original tunnel now, and decided that it was worth looking for anything the Nara might have left behind. Kidoumaru walked up to the kunai in the tree, then looked down at where the ground was disturbed. He realised something was wrong – if there had been a tunnel, then more of the earth would have fallen inwards. This looked more like a shallow hole had been dug. But then where was –

The kunai on the tree was raised by a hand made of living shadow and plunged into Kidoumaru's head, entering almost to the hilt and instantly dropping him. Neji, who had barely moved the whole time, lowered himself from the tree he'd been hiding in, right over where he'd started the fight.

"Only a fool would explain their plan until after they'd already won. The hole was just bait, and I knew you'd never expect me to stay near where I'd planted the explosives. Plus, I didn't reveal the technique I used for the kill until the very end. After all, it was fate that I would win – I just picked the easiest path."