Hey guys, thanks for all the reviews last chapter! Umm I'm no good with fighting scenes, so bear me here. I'm not going to go into detail with some of these fights because I'm guessing most of you have watched the anime/read the manga, so it would be pointless for you to read what you already know. I will, however, go into detail with the new matchups I do. Some I'll be leaving the same as canon because I think they're especially important for canon character development (Hinata vs. Neji, Sakura vs. Ino, etc).

Just to let you all know, to clear up any confusion, I purposely left out the Sound team from the preliminaries. By that time in the anime, they're not important anymore, so I replaced them with Karin's team.

So yeah, enjoy.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

(A/N: Sorry to start this off with an Author's note, but I made an important change to the last chapter. Instead of Sasuke vs. Yoroi, it will now be Sasuke vs. Karin. I've decided to change things up a little.)

Sasuke Uchiha vs. Karin

"The first two participants are Karin and Uchiha Sasuke." Hayate looked between the two of them. "Are you ready?"

Sasuke looked at Karin and resisted the urge to smirk. Too easy... He couldn't help but think. "Yeah," was all he said. Karin could only nod in reply as butterflies made themselves known in her stomach. He was handsome, she had to admit, but that wasn't what was making her nervous. The Uchihas were a renowned clan, even in the small village of Kusagakure. She didn't know how long she would last against him if the stories were true about the Uchihas legendary abilities.

Everyone was instructed to go up the stairs on the sides and look over from the balcony part of the arena, except for Sasuke and Karin. Naruto became suddenly nervous. He didn't know who to cheer for. He knew the obvious choice should be Sasuke because they're teammates and all, but he didn't want any harm to come to Karin. He wasn't sure if Sasuke would go easy on her. To Naruto, she looked delicate to him, like she had to be protected.

He could only hope that Sasuke didn't hurt her too badly.

Before everyone went to the upper level, a silver haired man walked past Sasuke and stopped behind him. It was probably his sensei. He whispered to Sasuke, but Karin didn't quite catch what he said. All she could make out was "Sharingan."

But from what she could tell, it must have been not that good, judging by Sasuke's expression changing from confident to surprised. He clutched his neck briefly before he noticed Karin watching him with intrigue. He quickly took the hand off his neck as that cocky expression returned to his face.

Hayate took a step back. "Now, please begin."

Before she could even prepare herself, Sasuke dropped down and swung his foot out, trying to kick her. She dodged that and took a kunai out of her pouch and threw it at him. It missed as he wasted no time at coming at her. He almost landed a punch on her but she blocked it with her arms raised in front of her. Before he could draw his arm back, she grabbed his arm and did an uppercut punch from underneath his chin.

Sasuke slid backwards slightly and wiped the blood that was already coming out of his mouth. "Tch," he said.

Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu! He performed a set of hand signs as a giant ball of fire burst from his mouth. Karin wasn't expecting that, but she managed to dodge it, unfortunately not without getting slightly singed within the process.

The Uchiha charged at her while she was trying to quickly recover and kicked her square in the chest. She hit the cement wall hard.

Sasuke took a moment to analyze her abilities before she got up. From what he could tell, her speed was about average, nothing amazing. Her taijutsu was weak, but good enough where she could land a punch on him and draw blood. But her ninjutsu and genjutsu... That he didn't know.

Karin stood on her feet, her back aching from hitting the wall. That's definitely gonna bruise, she thought.

From up, Naruto watched, his eyes never leaving the fight between his teammate and the girl he has just recently befriended.

"GO SASUKE-KUN!" Sakura yelled from behind him. For once, Sakura was actually getting on his nerves. He turned around and glared at her. The pink-haired stopped her cheering from the unusual response she was getting from her teammate. Satisfied at shutting her up, Naruto turned around to continue observing the fight.

Karin took some shuriken from her pouch and threw it Sasuke. She had enhanced the shuriken with her chakra to make it even more deadly. He avoided most of them, but hissed in pain as one of the shuriken came into contact with his leg. He quickly moved to pull it out from his now bleeding leg, but was forced to look up as a swift kick to his face was delivered to him.

He flew a couple feet back away with a loud thud. This should have been already over with, he thought. He wanted so badly to use his Sharingan, but according to Kakashi that was a bad idea.

"Whatever, I don't need it to be able to win against this girl... He got on to all fours before standing up on his own two feet. His damaged leg was shaky, but he controlled it so he didn't appear that he was weak.

Karin this time pulled out a kunai, only this time an explosive tag was attachted to it. She threw it in his direction as it exploded at the contact. There was smoke around the arena, and Sasuke use this to his advantage. It didn't hit him, but he was going to let her think it did. He quickly teleported behind her through the smoke and was about to make a move on her.

He's right behind me, I can sense his chakra! She ducked down as he moved to strike her with his arm. She swung her leg down on the floor and tripped him as landed on the ground.

How did she know I was there...?!

The smoke cleared up as she got up on top of him yet another kunai to his throat.

No, he wasn't going to lose like this!

He overpowered her as he pushed her over so that their positions were switched. The kunai fell to her side as he wrapped his fingers around her throat. She opened her bright red eyes as she struggled for air. On his neck was a tattoo of sorts, and it was spreading at a rapid rate from his neck to the side of his face.

She brought her hands up to try to pry his own hands off her neck but to no avail.

Just what is that tattoo?! She could feel her consciousness begin to fade as the need for air became so great.

"KARIN!" She heard someone distantly scream her name as her eyes began to close slowly.

Is that... Naruto...?

All of a sudden, she could breathe again, but she lost consciousness right afterwards. Hayate and Kakashi appeared behind Sasuke and pulled him off the now passed out girl.

The marks from his face began to retreat back from its place of origin.

"Someone get a medic!" Hayate yelled.

A pair of medics quickly ran over to them with a stretcher for just in case. They inspected her sustained injuries to see if taking her to the hospital would be necessary. There was minor bruising on her neck, slight burns, and her back would be pretty banged up for a while. They decided to put her on the stretcher and carried her away out of the arena and presumably to the hospital.

Hayate stood up from his spot on the floor before announcing, "Karin is unable to continue the battle. The winner of the first match is Uchiha Sasuke!" He eyed the Uchiha with distate briefly before he turned to look at the electronic scoreboard.

Meanwhile, Kakashi lead Sasuke back up the stairs to go stand with the rest of his team. He was met with a pissed off Naruto and a praising Sakura.

"What the hell, teme!" Naruto got in Sasuke's face, glaring harshly at him almost as if he wished he could fight him right there and then. "Why were you choking Karin? You could have killed her, you know!"

"Hn." Sasuke pushed him away and gave him a glare of his own. "Why do you even care? I'm your teammate."

In response, Naruto's face was splattered with a light blush. "Um..."

"Sasuke-kun, you did such a great job!" Sakura cooed. She jumped into Sasuke's unexpecting arms as she giggled. He pushed her away, annoyed with her embarrasing behavior. "Get off me," he grunted out.

The pink-haired kunoichi did as she was told and smiled at him. She knew she was being annoying, but she couldn't help but be happy and show him her affection. She didn't see him use the curse mark, and for that she was glad. She didn't want him to suffer at all.

"Sasuke, come over here for a second." Kakashi gestured with his head to an area a bit further away from Naruto and Sakura. Sasuke obeyed and followed the silver-haired jounin a little further away from the other two. They stopped when they were some distance away.

"You need to control that curse mark. You almost killed that Kusa kunoichi." Kakashi's onyx eyes hardened slightly as he looked down at his pupil.

Sasuke openly glared at him. "I know, and I tried. It was hard..." He almost regretted what he did to that Karin girl, but in the end, he won, and that was all that mattered to him. As long as it was another step to his goal of killing Itachi, he didn't care.

Kakashi watched as emotions were displayed across the Uchiha's face. That was all he needed to know. "I'm taking you to the back to seal up that curse mark."

Sasuke looked up at him and could only nod in reply. "Hn."

Naruto eyed his teammate and sensei. Something was going on with Sasuke, but he couldn't figure out what it was. He glanced at Sakura as he focused on her short hair. Something happened to both Sasuke and Sakura in the Forest of Death. Something on Sasuke's neck and Sakura's now cropped hair. He would get to the bottom of this.

"Sakura," he turned to his female companion. "Did you see anything weird on Sasuke's neck during the match?" He asked, hoping to get an answer from his brutally honest pink-haired teammate.

"Um... I also don't know." Her green eyes were casted downward as she tried to avoid looking into Naruto's eyes.

"Oh... okay." He didn't believe her, but for now he would accept that answer. He would find out sooner or later, right? He then turned his attention to get a better look at Karin's teammates.

He looked across the room and quickly spotted Karin's teammates. They were unfamiliar to him, therefore they were easy to find. They seemed unfazed about what happened to Karin. It was like they didn't even care about her wellbeing. Naruto gripped the balcony bars hard as anger flowed through him. How couldn't they care about her? What kind of teammates were they?

"Umm, we will now start the next match!"

The electronic scoreboard began searching through names as they flashed from one name to another. It finally stopped on the next two names after a couple seconds.

Aburame Shino vs. Idane Genjiro

Shino walked down to the first floor to where Hayate was at and waited for his opponent to come down from the second floor. Genjiro was soon standing in front of Shino.

Genjiro had dark green hair tied in a high pony tail, his hair falling to the middle of his back. His hitai-ate was placed on his forehead as some of his bangs covered the Kusagakure symbol. His brown eyes were set in determination as he gazed at his opponent. He wore a red vest with a black long sleeved shirt underneath it. His pants were also black like his under shirt. On his feet were the standard shinobi sandals, his color being blue. He adorned black fingerless gloves on his hand. On his neck appeared to be dogtags.

"Now we will begin the second match..." Hayate eyed both genin standing in front of him before saying, "...Please begin." He quickly stepped back to let the two genin begin their match.

Genjiro swiftly made the first move as he tried to punch Shino. The Aburame blocked it and pushed the green-haired male back. Genjiro performed a set of hand seals and slammed his hands on to the floor. Rūto Chikyū no Jutsu!A crack erupted from where his hands were as it started to tear down the middle of the floor towards Shino. From the large crack sprang forward what appeared to be roots that reached out at Shino and tried to grab him.

One root was successful in grabbing him and tried to pull him down into the enormous fissure in the floor. All of a sudden, what appeared to be tiny bugs started crawling down from Shino's arm and out his coat sleeve as they started pouring down on to the root. The root started to retreat back into the fissure as the bugs began to cosume the chakra from the roots.

"What?!" Genjiro's eyes widened in disbelief at what he saw. The chakra that was controlling his roots was being depleted by bugs! Suddenly he felt something crawling up his legs as he looked down to see what it was. More of the Aburame's bugs were making their way up his legs. There must have been thousands of them!

Then they were suddenly on his arms. The green-haired genin tried shaking his arms and legs to rid himself of the pests. He felt his chakra leaving him as the disgusting bugs kept continuing to invade his entire body. He was shortly reduced to his knees as he felt himself growing weaker with each passing second. By this time, his root jutsu was completely rendered useless. All the remained of his jutsu was the crack in the ground, the roots gone from sight.

Hayate stepped forward, feeling that the match was already over with. "Idane Genjiro is unable to battle," he declared, looking from Shino to Genjiro. "Aburame Shino is the winner!"

Shino's bugs withdrew in a blink of the eye as he already made his way up the stairs to the upper level. Kiba and Hinata both congradulated him as soon as he was near them.

"Hey, great job." Kiba grinned toothily at him.

"Shino-kun... Congradulations..." Hinata nervously said with a small smile of her own.

"Yeah, I'm counting on you guys too," Shino simply said.

In the meantime, Karin's other teammate and sensei helped Genjiro off his knees and back up to the upper level. He wasn't injured, so he didn't require medical attention. All he had sustained was chakra depletion, but nothing too severe.

From where Team 7 was standing, Naruto had an uncharacteristic smirk on his face. Karin's teammate, Genjiro, got what he deserved, in the jinchuuriki's opinion. He didn't seem to care if Karin got hurt, so why should Naruto care if he got hurt? He deserved it. Karin seemed like such a nice girl, it was in his instincts to be protective over her, just like he was with Sakura.

After a few minutes, the next two names were already on the scoreboard.

Misumi Tsurugi vs. Kankuro

Well, what do you think? I'm not too good with fighting scenes, but I thought they turned out okay. Yeah, I know Shino's fight with Genjiro seemed to be rather quick, but Shino's original fight with Zaku also happened to be quite short.

So yeah, Idane Genjiro and Karin's other teammate are OCs of mine. They're not canon. Perhaps if I ever have time I'll draw pictures of them as references for them.

Sooo yeah, please review, they would be greatly appreciated.