Chapter 10: Kunoichi Battle: Sakura's New Strength!

Sakura Haruno

Vs

Ino Yamanaka

And immediate hush fell about the arena, almost as tense and stifling as when Hinata fought her sister in the first match. Sakura looked up from tending to Kiba and saw the names on the board, her expression unreadable. She looked to Hinata, who smiled lightly and said, "Go ahead, I'll finish fixing up Kiba-kun."

Sakura stood up once again and looked down to the arena, already seeing Ino there. She made to leap down, but felt a hand on her shoulder hold her back. She turned to find Naruto grinning widely at her. "Don't look so serious; consider this your tiebreaker from the Chuunin Exams."

Sakura smiled back at him and nodded, leaping down into the arena and facing Ino.

Ino didn't seem to have outwardly changed much during Naruto's absence, he noted. Her hair was cut and up in a bun like when she was a genin, but she retained her two piece purple ninja outfit from her first years as a chuunin. The only thing that seemed to change was that her headband, which she usually never had on her anymore, was tied around her left arm.

"Never would've guessed I'd be facing you again, Sakura."

"Neither did I, Ino…"

Sakura reached back into a pouch on her belt, and pulled out two black gloves, slipping them on her hands with a bit of a flourish. Ino snorted and grinned, "Are those some sort of secret weapon?" Sakura just smiled as she zipped up her pouch again, looking back to Ino. Neji gave the two opponents one more glance, and then yelled out, "BEGIN!!"

Ino took off like a rocket, kunai drawn, and swung at Sakura's knees. Sakura leapt quickly, feet landing on Ino's back. She kicked off again, pushing Ino to the ground as she landed on the other side of the arena. Ino jumped back to her feet and charged again, letting loose a flurry of shuriken. Sakura took out a kunai of her own and wove between the oncoming projectiles, occasionally striking one away with her blade. Almost by instinct, she ducked as Ino appeared behind her, the blonde's roundhouse kick floating above her head.

Ino growled and kept on lashing out with punches and kicks so fast that even Lee might've taken notice had he been there. And yet Sakura deflected and dodged every strike with grace, speed, and calm. "Dammit, she keeps worming around! Since when could she dodge so well!?" Ino knew this wasn't going to get her anywhere, so she leapt back, becoming even more confused as to why Sakura didn't follow her; she just stood where Ino had attacked her before.

Sakura could see the apparent confusion on her face. She chuckled to herself a little, if Ino only knew…

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

"I cannot hold back, Sakura-chan, fight me seriously now!"

"I AM YOU JUMP SUITED TWIT!"

Sakura put her hands up in time to fail in blocking Lee's strike. She fell on her back, once again, and looked up at the sky in defeated misery, once again.

Lee sighed and smiled nonetheless, helping his wife back to her feet. "That was a good round nevertheless; we were going for a good seven minutes there." Sakura snorted and looked away, "Yeah, it would've been half that if you hadn't been holding back…" Lee seemed to stumble on his words for a minute, but smiled sheepishly and admitted, "I see subtlety is not a strong suit of mine…"

"How do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"I don't know… ALL OF IT!"

Lee laughed despite his wife's apparent bad mood. "Sakura-chan, I never said this would be easy…"

"I know, I know… but it's like I'm not doing something, like there's this little thing that's keeping my feet rooted to the ground almost… you're always so much faster, more flexible, more powerful…" Lee considered his wife for a moment, and thought out his words carefully. He knew what a demon Sakura could be if provoked, and that was the last thing he needed after a hard day's training.

"Sakura-chan… tell me again, what did Tsunade-sama tell you the most important skill a medic nin needed in battle?"

Sakura recited it as if she were a human textbook. "A good medic nin needs to know how to avoid offensive maneuvers to avoid becoming injured and therefore not being able to treat his/her teammates…"

"There you go. You've been so focused on trying to hurt me as badly as possible that you've refused to allow yourself to give a little ground. You need to learn to give ground to allow yourself to dodge moves, and strike when it becomes necessary or when the best opportunity arises."

Sakura looked at Lee for a long time, and smiled in spite of herself, they kept on walking to their home at the outskirts of the village…

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

Sakura stood her ground as Ino began making hand seals. If she knew Ino, it would no doubt be a jutsu that would somehow mess with her mind patterns… suddenly, an idea popped into her head that made her grin with an almost evil giggle…

"NINJA ART, MIND DISTURBANCE JUTSU!"

For a second everyone had thought it connected, that jutsu was faster than the mind transfer move after all. But when Sakura disappeared amidst a cloud of smoke and nothing but a single kunai was left, Ino knew she was in trouble.

"NOT THIS TIME, INO!"

By the time Ino knew she was there, it was too late. Sakura smacked the back of Ino's neck with nothing but two fingers, and still enough power to toss Ino to the other side of the ring. She made to stand up, but every time she tried to move her legs… her arms moved instead. Ino began panicking; she had completely lost control of her limbs and how they were supposed to move, until she finally stopped moving, trying to comprehend her situation."Dammit… what the hell did you do to me?!"

"That blow you took did the most damage to your spinal cord… Important body parts disturbance…" Sakura said simply. "Basically, I've temporarily crossed the wires in your brain. Whenever you try to move a limb, its opposite will move instead. For example, you try to move your left leg, and your right arm will move instead."

Sakura walked on up to Ino and pointed a kunai at her throat. "Don't be difficult, you know what you need to do."

Ino scowled at her for a second and said, "Why should I?" Sakura chuckled and said, "Because if you don't, then I'll just knock you out while you're unable to move properly and win anyway. You lost Ino, now save your dignity and do it."

She glared at Sakura for a moment, before a small smile graced her lips. "Not bad Sakura… apparently Tsunade-sama managed to teach you something after all."

She shouted to the arena. "I SURRENDER!"

Neji nodded and yelled, "THIS MATCH IS OVER, THE WINNER IS SAKURA HARUNO!"

A/N: I know it was short, but I don't wanna give too much of anybody's abilities away. Sakura seems to have taken a few things from Lee and Tsunade, but just how much has she, or anyone, for that matter, learned? And what about Tsunade's plan, now that the preliminaries are almost over, what will she do next? Who knows? Not me. XD Stay tuned for the next episode "The Preliminaries End: Chouji's Breaking Fist!"