(Little disclaimer I'm gonna skip naruko and neji's fight because I honestly don't see the fight change to much yes I made naruko smarter, stronger, and faster I mean I can see naruko land a couple of hits on neji and dodging a couple of his attacks but like I said I don't see the fight change all that much so I'm just gonna skip that part now enough of my babbling and let's get on with the chapter.)

Standing over an unconscious neji, naruko couldn't believe it. She actually won. She managed to beat neji. Naruko snapped back to reality when she heard the people who were watching the fight cheering. Not knowing what to do, naruko stood still without making a sound.

"You did it!" Sakura shouted while everyone else was clapping and cheering. Naruko managed to muster up the strength to smile and take a bow. 'Naruko just keeps getting stronger' sakura thought. "Wow she did it she won the fight." Hearing this sakura looked over and saw two boys talking to one another. "Yeah she did it. Seems like she's on the path to success." "And she's pretty cute too." Sakura sighed and looked back over at naruko. 'I hate to admit it naruko but I envy you. Watching your battle has made me realize that I have to work really hard too or I'll never get anywhere' sakura thought.

Naruko went to the stands while neji was taken to the infirmary. Sasuke was supposed to fight in the next match but do to him not being there his match was postponed. The next match ended up being shikamaru vs temari.

"Go for it shikamaru. Use a super ultimate technique on her and take that bitch down!" Ino shouted. Then suddenly ino heard someone say "yo is this seat taken?" Ino looked over and saw choji. "I thought you were in the hospital. Your stomach's ok now?" Ino said. Choji nodded his head, sat down next to ino and said "what's up? I thought sasuke's match was supposed to be next."

Stunned ino looked at sakura and said "oh I'm sure sasuke's fine. He'll be here any minute now." 'Man you'd think her puppy died or something' ino thought. "I never expected to see shikamaru in the final, weird" choji said. Ino looked over at choji and said "what do you mean? Come on shikamaru may not have as much fighting spirit as some other people and ok his technique is pretty lousy but he's strong at strategy. So strong in fact that without him we might not have gotten though the preliminary round." "Maybe" choji said. Ino looked back at the arena and said "what's more, you should have seen how he threw himself into the arena. I'm telling you choji he seems unusually aggressive. I think he's gonna show us his passionate side today." Ino stood up with her fist in the air and shouted "go shikamaru!" The fight went on for a bit and it looked like shikamaru had the upper hand but in the end shikamaru ended up forfeiting.

With shikamaru and temari's match over, the next match was sasuke vs gaara. Just as the match between sasuke and gaara was about to begin there was a problem. Sasuke hadn't shown up and if he didn't show up by the time the match began sasuke would have to forfeit.

This caused both naruko and sakura to be worried. 'What is taking him so long? This isn't like him. He wouldn't miss something like this. He even told us how important this is to him so where is he?' Naruko thought. 'Hurry sasuke hurry' sakura thought.

Time was running out. It looked like sasuke wasn't gonna make it. Just as the proctor was about to declare that sasuke forfeited the match, at the last second kakashi appeared with sasuke standing next to him.

Upon seeing sasuke had finally made it for his match, this brought a big smile to sakura's face. "Well looks like you finally came. For a second I thought that you've chickened out" naruko said joking. Sasuke looked away and said "shut up." Kakashi laughed for a bit and said "judging by your spirit I take it that you won." Naruko smiled and nodded her head.

While kakashi was congratulating her, sasuke looked away and smirked. Even though sasuke wasn't one to admit it, it was nice to see naruko again since he hadn't seen her in a long time. Naruko remembered what she wanted to say. Naruko had a serious expression on her face and walked over to sasuke invading his personal space, cupped his face and made him look at her. This took sasuke by surprise and earned quite the reaction from everyone.

"Look teme that gaara guy is no joke. You have to be careful around him because if you're not he'll kill you. Bushy-brow got lucky that he was just sent to the hospital after him and gaara fought but you may not be so lucky." The expression on naruko's face changed from serious to worried earning a weird reaction from sasuke who was frighting himself from blushing and his heart was beating fast. "So please just be careful" naruko said.

She then let go of sasuke and walked over to the stands. Sasuke was trying to remain calm all while trying to keep himself from blushing, let his heart rate slow down, and try to comprehend what just happened. Kakashi was standing on the sidelines watching the whole thing.

Kakashi was one of the few people who knew about sasuke's feels towards naruko. When they first became a team he didn't know about it at first but after watching them closely he eventually figured it out.

It seems like sasuke may still be blind to his feelings. Kakashi giggled a bit. "Young love" kakashi muttered. Shikamaru scoffed and muttered "troublesome idiots." Meanwhile, over in the stands ino was ranting on how naruko invaded sasuke's personal space and how she cupped his face looking like she was going to kiss him.

Ino then noticed that for some reason sakura wasn't mad. "Sakura! Why are you not mad? That idiot just made a move on sasuke!" Ino shouted. "I guess it's because naruko isn't in love with sasuke like we are. She only sees him as a rival" sakura said calmly making ino feel kind of foolish that she reacted the way she did. Ino sighed and said "y'now sakura your actions towards naruko has really changed." Sakura giggled and said "yeah they've have."

The match between sasuke and gaara had began. While the battle went down naruko put on a brave face and cheered for sasuke but in reality naruko was worried for him. She knew how dangerous gaara was and she can see in gaara's eyes that he intends on killing sasuke. Unlike hinata's match with neji, she couldn't stop it. Even if she could she would most likely die.

Even though she vowed that she wouldn't stand by and watch someone she cares about get killed, in this situation she couldn't do anything. All she could do is stand by and hope that sasuke would be ok.

The battle was normal until sasuke managed to damage gaara's shoulder with a chidori. Gaara freaked out from seeing his blood for the first time. Kankuro and temari went over to gaara. Then their sensei ordered them to escort him back to suna but sasuke followed them.

Everyone in the crowd was put to sleep by a genjutsu. The only who wasn't was sakura. Kakashi then ordered sakura to release the genjutsu on naruko and shikamaru and then go after sasuke. After sakura release naruko from the genjutsu she went over to shikamaru to do the same but it turns out that shikamaru wasn't under the genjutsu.

After a bit shikamaru, sakura, and naruko left the building to go after sasuke along with the help of a talking dog named pakkun that kakashi summoned to help them track sasuke's scent. Along the way when sakura and shikamaru weren't looking naruko took out a kunai and cut the word 'blood' into the back of her hand allowing her to use her blood jutsus because she thought that she was gonna need it…