(A/N) Prelims!

He woke up in the medical room, immediately bringing an arm up to shield his eyes.

"Oh, you're awake!" One of the medics said, coming over immediately.

Sasuke groaned, not bothering to remove the arm over his eyes. "H-How long have I been out?" It must have been a while, because his voice was raspy with a lack of water and some disuse.

"Almost two days. You're lucky, you woke up just in time for the preliminaries."

"My teammates?" Sasuke managed to ask after he'd gotten a cup of water.

"Both are doing fine. Sakura managed a spinal fracture and will be taking it easy for at least a month, and Naruto is mostly uninjured. They're both in the main room right now, are you strong enough to meet them?"

Sasuke nodded, wincing slightly as the bite mark on his shoulder flared painfully. Nothing like the original crippling pain, but still painful.

Sasuke waved off the worried medic, limping slightly to the room he was directed towards.

"If any of you wish to give up here, this part is no longer team based. If you leave, your team will be unaffected," the sickly looking proctor coughed right after, giving the impression that really, it was him that should be walking out.

"I give up," a silver haired genin spoke, raising his hand. "I'm too low on chakra to continue."

Sasuke snuck a glance at Sakura, who was on crutches, but she remained resolute, not raising her hand, or saying she withdrew. Sasuke assumed she had a plan, and didn't bring it up with her.

Sakura did indeed have a plan. Hinging on the assumption she got a Konoha Shinobi. The chances were very good that she could bluff her way out of a match using one of the many seals she had stored away in her pouch. She may not be able to move too well, but she could manage without her crutches for a short time, hopefully long enough to bluff her way out of the match, or loose completely.

With no one else leaving, they were dismissed to go up to the balconies until they were selected.

"Are you alright, Sakura?" Kakashi asked, sounding only slightly worried.

Sakura nodded, handing her crutches to him and leaning heavily on the railing. "I'm fine, just really sore. It'll take a bit for my back to heal me, but should I survive this round, I'll be fine by the time the finals roll around. I'll have to take it a bit easy, and really, depending on who does move on, I'm not really expecting to get past the first round of the finals."

"I'm sure you'll do great Sakura-chan!" Naruto declared, puffing up his chest. "And I'll take revenge on whoever knocks you out!"

"If I don't get to them first," Sasuke countered.

"If it's one of you two that finally knocks me out, you do not have permission to beat each other into a bloody pulp," Sakura sighed, looping an arm around Sasuke's neck and using him to remain standing up.

"I second that," Kakashi agreed, placing a firm hand on Naruto's head.

"Oh, look Sasuke, you're up," Sakura said, swapping to using Naruto as her crutch. Kakashi tried to offer her the crutches she'd handed him earlier, but she waved him off.

Sasuke vaulted over the railing, landing on the floor across from his opponent, one of the silver haired genin's teammates.

"Begin," the proctor, Hayate Gekko, coughed. Sakura had looked up his records once, purely because she was curious if there were any crippled shinobi. He wasn't exactly crippled, but his illness, a chronic cough, kept him from ever reaching his peak. Which was unfortunate.

The other genin leaped at Sasuke, his hands lighting up blue.

It wasn't medical chakra, so it couldn't be chakra scalpels, and it wasn't Akiko-sensei's lightning hands technique, so why were his hands glowing with chakra?

Sasuke was barely brushed against, and he staggered slightly, pulling out a seal tag immediately. Oh. He could drain chakra. Sasuke needed to finish up quickly, he still wasn't fully recovered from the whole forest thing. Naruto was the only one that had, and Sakura was fairly sure she had the Kyuubi to thank for that. Just gave him one more advantage in the long run. And besides, they would both be mostly if not fully recovered by the time the finals rolled around, so that was a good thing.

The other guy got zapped, and fell over, chakra hands deactivating as he toppled, smoking slightly. Sasuke trotted back up to them.

"Stupid chakra draining hands," he said immediately, leaning against Kakashi.

"It looked annoying," Sakura agreed sympathetically as the next match started.

"Sasuke, what's that on your neck?" Kakashi asked, looking slightly worried as he pulled Sasuke's collar out of the way slightly to get a better look.

"Huh? A bite mark? The snake idiot left it."

"The marking," Kakashi corrected.

Naruto poked his head over, examining the three tomoe just visible on Sasuke's neck. "It looks like a seal! But who applies a seal by biting someone?! So unhygenic. Eww."

"I highly doubt the snake cares about hygiene," Sakura noted, rolling her eyes.

Sasuke snorted. "Probably not."

"Eww," Naruto repeated, poking the seal.

"Ow, watch it!" Sasuke snapped, whacking Naruto's arm.

"But I have to examine it to seal it," Naruto replied reasonably.

Sasuke frowned. "Fine."

"How quickly can you seal it?" Sakura asked, distractedly noting another match's passage.

"10 minutes maybe? Including writing out a sequence."

"Wait until after then," Kakashi said. "You can manage to suppress the seal for a while longer, right Sasuke?"

Sasuke nodded. "So does it do anything besides look annoying?"

Sakura snorted as her name was called. "Probably something weird. I'll see you guys in a moment, excuse me."

She walked down to the floor, facing Ino. "Ino."

"Sakura," Ino greeted.

"Begin," Hayate said, bringing his hand down, and leaping away.

Sakura smirked, and pulled out a tag. Ino backed up slightly. "Forfeit and I won't set the tag on you."

Ino lunged forward for an attack, which Sakura barely avoided, slapping the tag down in the middle of Ino's back and moving backwards as fast as she could, which really wasn't much.

"I repeat. Forfeit, and I won't activate the tag. I believe it's a lightning seal, but you never know with the boys."

Ino paled drastically, and forfeited. Sakura limped back to her team, removing the tag from Ino as she went, and checking what it was.

She snorted as she approached the boys. "I defeated her with a water seal."

Ino squawked in outrage as she overheard Sakura.

(A/N) Certainly an interesting way to win a match, no? Especially when physically impaired. If you haven't already, I have a poll up, so go vote.