AN: Hey y'all, I'm gonna try do more chapter notes to interact with my readers more and let you all know how I'm going! Please feel free to leave comments/reviews so I can interact with you 3

Apologies, the posting may be a bit inconsistent for a while because I have uni and work and all of that, but know that this story isn't going to disappear any time soon, I have several major arcs planned that reach the point of some of my main cast even becoming jonin sensei!

Upon Obito's return to the spectator stands, Hinata insisted on taking a look at the quickly forming bruise on his thigh. Unsurprisingly, releasing that blunt force blast directly on his leg had negative consequences, and Obito was lucky to be free from fractures. The healing didn't take long, and Obito directed his attention to the following matches. But half of his mind decided to split away and contemplate the strange feelings he'd been noticing over the last couple of weeks.

It seemed like every time Obito looked at himself, he couldn't recognise his own reflection. He remembered being jealous of Haku's appearance. Not to mention the discomfort about how Yume addressed him barely a few minutes ago. Thinking it through more deliberately, Obito began to garner an idea of what was going on in his brain. And if he was right, this was the wrong time to continue exploring such thoughts. After the preliminary exams, when he had some space to himself, Obito could test this new hypothesis. With that decision made, he turned his attention back to the ongoing fights just in time to see the red haired Suna shinobi, Gaara, enclose an Amegakure shinobi's entire body in sand. Hayate shouted for Gaara to let go, and the Amegakure shinobi's body fell to the ground. He looked weak, but he was breathing.

A team of Konoha medics quickly rushed away Gaara's victim and made way for the next match to begin. At the same time, Hinata pulled Obito aside to whisper into his ear. "Gaara… He's like you and Naruto."

The next match was between Nara Shikamaru and his older cousin Nara Kaya. It didn't take very long. Being from the same clan, the two had remarkably similar fighting styles. They both controlled their own shadows in what seemed like an elaborate game of Shogi to manipulate one another towards certain physical spaces. But after a couple of slow-passing minutes, Kaya amped up the pressure on her younger cousin. Which evoked an immediate response of "I surrender" from the younger Nara. Obito sighed, almost disappointed that Shikamaru was exhibiting his usual behaviour of giving up at the slightest bit of trouble. Kaya seemed especially unimpressed by this, insisting that as the clan heir it was Shikamaru's duty to do better than this. Shikamaru was unfazed, and simply ignored his cousin. Once again, the signboard began to flicker as it made the selection for the fourth match.

"Haruno Sakura and Yamanaka Ino, please come down to the arena," Hayate requested.

"YOSH! IT IS FINALLY TIME FOR ONE OF MY YOUTHFUL STUDENTS TO TAKE THE WORLD BY STORM!" Guy screamed at the top of his lungs. Naruto and Lee joined in, loudly voicing their support for Sakura. The kunoichi in question yelled at them to shut up before jogging down the steps. She went and took her place on the floor, a couple of metres away from Ino. The two friends faced each other, a silent communication clearly passing between them as they locked eyes.

"No holding back, right?" Ino asked, a confident smirk painted across her face.

Sakura returned a grin. "You'd better not, otherwise I'm not sure I'll be able to stitch you up after!"

"Ha!" Ino laughed. "That's a funny joke, Forehead! Let me show you how the Top Kunoichi fights!"

"Well then, it looks like you two are ready to go," Hayate's lips curved upwards ever so slightly. "You may begin!"

Ino formed a Hare seal with her hands. She closed her eyes for a single moment, grinning widely. Ino knew that Sakura would go on the defense first, which bought her the time she needed to get her signature technique started. After molding her chakra as thoroughly as she could, Ino called out "Lightning Release: Full Body Shroud!"

Electricity emerged from Ino's skin and began to dance around her body, producing a steady crackling sound. She slid one foot backwards, bracing against the ground, and leapt forward. Lightning guided her body and boosted her movements, and Ino soared through the air, and went straight past Sakura's left side. Twisting her abdominal muscles, Ino pivoted midair into a kick aimed straight for Sakura's head. To show any mercy would be to spit in the face of their friendship.

Sakura's arm shot up, blocking the incoming strike. There was a sound of her grunting, as electricity shot through her arm at the point of impact, and then nothing. Sakura was gone, only empty air in her place. Ino landed with a spinning motion, slamming a hand to the ground to use as a counterbalance. A strike came from behind her, and Ino was able to twist with the blow at the last moment, so that it struck the edge of her hip, rather than over one of her internal organs. Ino felt the skin where she'd been hit bruise deeply, but pushing through the pain she rolled forward and out of the way.

As Ino stood up, she saw Sakura wearing a victorious grin. "Now now, don't get presumptuous, my friend!" Ino chided at the pink-haired girl across from her. "You've gotta do way better than that!"

"That won't be a problem," Sakura locked eyes with Ino as she spoke. "Earth Release: Stone Arena!"

Sakura slammed her palms to the ground, and a small army of boulders burst upwards. Each was of a similar size, nearly spherical and about half a metre in diameter. Once they had emerged, the rocks lay motionless.

"Was that supposed to do something? C'mon! The Sakura I know wouldn't fuck up a jutsu of her own elemental affinity, especially in a fight," Ino taunted, almost confused.

"Exactly," Sakura confirmed with a cheeky wink. Without wasting any more time, Sakura formed a couple seals and encased her hands and forearms in stone. Then, she charged towards Ino. The blonde welcomed the advance, letting loose an incredibly fast jab to Sakura's gut as soon as she was within range.

Ino's fist connected with a boulder, and broke through it like butter. At the same time, she let out a yelp as a heavy blow connected with her left shoulder blade. Still, Ino didn't let this put her at a disadvantage. Hissing through the pain, she spun, letting loose a kick towards where Sakura should have been - but wasn't.

So you want to play a game of tag, huh? Ino thought to herself as she looked around. Sakura was standing across the room, waggling a finger tauntingly. Ino dashed towards Sakura, her speed still boosted by the lightning coursing through her body. When she'd closed just over half the distance, Ino directed most of the lightning temporarily into her legs, and vaulted over Sakura at twice her earlier speed. Using the wall behind Sakura as a springboard, Ino shot like a missile towards her friend, swinging an elbow into the side of her ribcage. This one connected, and Ino heard a small crack. A couple of ribs had probably been fractured, but not an injury serious enough to take her opponent out of the battle... yet.

Sakura grunted as she was pushed to the ground, and then her body disappeared - replace with another boulder. Ino looked to the other side of the room, almost predictably finding the girl nursing her wounds there. From across the room, Ino could see the green hue of the Mystical Palm Technique. Of all the students who had been granted the opportunity to take classes in healing from Tsunade back at the academy, Sakura was undoubtedly the most talented. She wouldn't be able to fully heal the fractures mid combat, but certainly do enough of the work to prevent the injury from getting in the way. Ino needed to prevent that. She moved the lightning to her legs again, and sprung towards her opponent as quickly as possible, but arrived too late. Sakura was gone, and Ino's flying kick crushed through yet another boulder.

Yet again, Sakura was on the other side of the room. Ino should have seen it at the first moment - the barren arena had nothing designed for use with the Substitution technique, so Sakura created objects of a similar mass to herself. And with a field set up like this, there was no value to be gained by destroying all of the boulders. Not only would it take too long, Sakura could probably just make more. No, Ino would have to get used to her opponent's patterns of movement, and predict what she would do.

Ino realised that Sakura wasn't watching her - she was looking up at the stands. At Guy-sensei.

"MY YOUTHFUL STUDENT, I PERMIT IT!" Guy exclaimed, loud as per usual.

This just made Ino realise something else she should have taken note of from the very beginning. How could she expect to deserve a promotion to chunin if she couldn't even notice something as important as the weights strapped around Sakura's legs. Sakura reached down and unstrapped them, allowing them to drop to the ground with a scarily loud thud.

Oh, shit, Ino thought, as Sakura sped towards her, conviction clear in her eyes. Ino was forced onto the defensive as Sakura let out a flurry of punches and kicks. Sakura was still slower than Ino, but the gap was far less noticeable - and that was with Ino's lightning shroud. Ino was forced to focus on blocking strikes, trying to push Sakura away and create openings. Neither was able to fully defend against the other - each got a small handful of strikes in. Ino was gaining a slight advantage, being able to land more hits than Sakura could. Though they were weaker, they came with the jolts of electricity that surely numbed Sakura's flesh and caused a different kind of pain.

All the same, it was clear that Sakura won out in the stamina department. As much as Ino could recall countless times when her friend complained about Guy's hellish training regime, it obviously worked. Sakura, the girl who once claimed that she didn't need to spend much time on taijutsu because her other strengths would compensate, had spent the last few months training under Konoha's greatest taijutsu master. Ino had to up her game if she wanted to come away with this victory. And that meant bringing out the big guns.

"Well then. You've taken off your restraints, so I guess it's only polite for me to bring out my true weapon, huh?" Ino reached into her pouch, and grasped around two pieces of cold metal. She pulled them out, and slipped her fingers through the perfectly sized holes. Ino clenched her fists, and allowed her flowing chakra shroud to extend into the cold metal chakra blades - bladed knuckle dusters - in her hands. A gift to her from Asuma-sensei, as a reward for the hard work that she put into her training every day.

The chakra blades crackled, and the lightning grew. Though the metal blade itself was small - only a few inches longer than her hand was wide, the blade of lightning extending out of it was twice that. Now Ino had a potent combination of speed, power and range; Sakura was toast. Ino danced towards Sakura, who was also pulling something out of her own pouch.

"Not a chance!" Ino shouted as she slashed towards Sakura's hand. Her opponent fumbled, and whatever she was holding fell to the ground, getting crushed beneath Sakura's foot as she stood to defend. Once again, Sakura disappeared, only to be replaced by a boulder. Where the previous boulders had all been crushed by the force of Ino's enhanced strikes, this one was sliced through as easily as a blade cut through paper. The edges where the stone had been exposed to the chakra blade glowed red from the heat.

Ino turned, and dashed once again towards Sakura. She'd come to see the pattern in Sakura's movements, finally. Although Sakura, like most of their academy classmates, could execute the Substitution technique both wordlessly and without hand seals, she had a tell. She always looked towards the boulder she was swapping places with. If Ino followed Sakura's eyes, she could see where Sakura would land and race her there. Ready to finally get in a decisive blow that would end the match, Ino put a burst of chakra into her legs. She was starting to run low - after winning this, she would need to truly rest just in case she was selected for a second match.

Ino sliced towards Sakura's left bicep with her right blade, holding the left one defensively. Sakura was able to swat it away with stone-covered hands, though the stone did crumble on contact with Ino's lightning shroud. But Ino was ready. With her left hand, she swung an uppercut. Sakura would have no choice but to substitute away if she didn't want a deep gash across her chest. Ino watched her eyes, and saw them flicker towards her left. In the same moment Sakura disappeared, Ino turned and raced to her opponents landing spot. She had called it correctly, but didn't expect Sakura to substitute again immediately, this time with a Dog and Snake seal. With the hand seals, Sakura had no need for the tell. Still, it came with the cost that hand seals ate up time. Ino's premeditated slash cut clean through the boulder that took Sakura's place, sizzling from the heat of the lightning once again.

Ino turned to find her opponent, but the rightward movement of her head somehow felt over-exaggerated. Though not at all her intention, her whole body swung further than planned, and lost balance. Ino had to throw her weight in the other direction just to avoid falling over. And then she realised that she had already lost. Everything in front of her moved slowly. Too slowly. Sakura's fist struck into her solar plexus, and Ino gasped desperately as the air was knocked out of her lungs.

"...How?" Ino wheezed, looking up at Sakura, whose form had already become blurry.

"A colourless, odourless, gaseous poison, hidden within a stone that you so conveniently sliced open for me. Remember that vial that you thought you made me drop out of my hands? Well, I didn't drop it. But damn, girl! When did you get so fast?" Sakura extended her hands, placing them over Ino's lungs.

Ino vaguely heard Hayate declare Sakura the victor, but couldn't make much sense of the words with the poison distorting her senses more and more. She felt Sakura's hands press over her chest, accompanied by a soothing warmth. Slowly, the world around her came back into clearer view, and Ino felt herself breathing more easily. When she tried to get up, Sakura put a hand on her shoulder to keep her seated.

"Stay, let me get this out of your system. Open up," Sakura instructed, and Ino opened her mouth. She felt a pellet of some kind on her tongue, and swallowed. "You should be fine in a couple minutes, it wasn't a very long-acting poison."

Ino said a word of thanks, and cautiously pushed herself up. She reached out a hand to Sakura, and they shook. Applause erupted from the stands - and it wasn't only from her friends. All three of the shinobi from Tsukigakure clapped. The one with the giant blade strapped to his back let loose a cheerful whistle, until Hayate raised a hand to call for silence.

"If you wouldn't mind returning to the stands, we must carry on with the remaining matches. Before you go, though, I want to commend you both. That was one of the most impressive matches I've seen from genin, and you should both be proud of your skill in battle." Hayate presented a small congratulatory smile.

Ino put an arm over Sakura's shoulder, and let her friend support her weight as they made their way up the stairs and back to the stands. They were both greeted by their friends, who openly expressed how amazed they were by that fight.

"That was so cool! I thought Ino had completely won until that last moment!" Naruto exclaimed, flapping his hands excitedly with clenched fists . "That was insane!"

"So youthful!" Lee added passionately, pumping a fist in the air in front of him.

Ino rested her head on Sakura's shoulder, allowing her sore muscles to rest on her friend for support. "That was a damn good fight, wasn't it?"

"Yeah."