This time both combatants arrived to the stage at the same time and promptly. It was the last match in the preliminaries. Gaara stood there stoic, crossing his arms as usual. Shino eyed his opponent and was intrigued by the potential for this match. He hoped this one wouldn't be over as quickly as some of the others.
Sakura watched alongside the jounin in the stands. Neji had re entered the arena as well, now dog piss free. "Who do you think will win?" she asked the others.
Shikamaru looked at her "Gaara obviously. Shino will put up a good fight, but I doubt it will be enough to win." Everyone nodded in agreement with the chunin's words. Shino may be smart and have his own capabilities, but they all knew what Gaara of the Desert was able to do with that sand of his. They didn't think he would try to kill his opponent like the last time they were all in this room together because Gaara was substantially more mentally stable, generally more sane.
Shino's bugs started to swarm, some forming a large mass while others just flew about the room, making that harmonic buzzing sound of theirs. The large mass of bugs formed an insect clone and Shino opened with a taijutsu attack from both sides. It was a strange decision since Gaara couldn't be touched by that sort of approach and he knew it. The bug clone dissipated and Shino fell back. The bugs continues to swarm around the red head sand nin in attempt to find an opening in which the attach themselves to feed on his chakra.
The sand flew up faster than Shino's bugs could move. Eventually the sand was surrounding a good amount of Gaara, leaving enough for him to see.
Gaara looked to his opponent, considering the odd approach he took especially considering he knew the sand jinjuriki's abilities and jutsu set relatively well. It wasn't like that had changed all that much since the last time they met. Since then Gaara had worked some on taijutsu and weapon use so that he wouldn't have to rely on the sand as much and had a backup if it were to somehow fail. Right now though, he was just letting his ultimate defense have its way while he watched the insect nin across from him formulate attacks that never made it to the target.
Then Gaara heard something, movement among the grains of sand that was not being cause by him. The sand began to make cracking sounds. It was burrowing through the sand. He looked to the interior of his shield and saw some beetles breaking through and heaving themselves out of the tightly packed grains. Gaara clenched his fist, causing the sand to compress further and squish any and all unwanted inhabitants.
Sakura looked to the stage "I don't get it, how did Shino get bugs into the sand?"
Shikamaru sighed, "That bug clone earlier dissipated much too soon for him to have been planning an all out taijutsu attack. My guess is that they slipped in then, not that it did much good."
Gaara was getting tired of this and just wanted the match to end. His sand rushed forward toward Shino and Shino attempted to fall back before getting ensnared in it. Gaara slowly but gently increased the pressure. "Please withdraw." He stated, sand defense dropping and him walking over to the captured insect. At first Shino resisted and some of his insects started to break through the grainy trap. Gaara crushed them and continued to increase the pressure "I won't say it again."
It was obvious that Shino wouldn't dare give up, so the sand shot up and covered his mouth and nose. He couldn't breathe and began to suffocate. Once unconscious from oxygen deprivation Gaara released him and the proctor announced him as the victor.
The preliminaries were over and now all the winners of this phase had one month to prepare for the coming battles in the finals. As it stood now, those who were to participate were Temari, Kyro, Choji, Ino, Neji, Sakura, Toru, and Gaara. They would rest and train until the set date for them to battle it out and maybe they would learn more about the mysterious intruders.
Author's Note: Ok, so the preliminaries are finally over, we have an even number of participants and a month until finals. I just realized that I didn't have any Ino commentary on Sakura's fight. Should I go back an add that?
