Hi all! note: My gram might be not that good, but I'm Dutch so please don't blame me too much for it.

The Third Round.

Shikamaru was very relieved when he heard that Ino survived the second exam. The past five days he had been tearing his hair out and he had neglected his work a little. Unluckily for him Tsunade-sama had noticed this and asked him what was wrong. He said that it was nothing but he knew she was suspicious about him. After the conversation with the Hokage he had been very careful not making more people suspicious.

So when he saw Ino without serious wounds he really wanted to hug her, but all he could do is say: Hi, you made it! well done. He knew he couldn't continue like this forever. One day he had to explain his feelings to her, and than she would laugh because of him and say that there was no way he could compete with her precious Sasuke. But somewhere deep inside him there was a little hope that she might love him as well. He knew this was impossible but still he wanted to believe it. He didn't had much to believe in, just his future as an average Shinobi with an average life, so he loved to dream about how life would be if Ino was his girlfriend. But it never went further than dreaming for him.

"Shikamaru the matches are coming, prepare yourself." said one of the other Chuunins who were watching the exam.

"Yeah I'm coming." he replied.

'This all is much too troublesome!' he thought as he walked towards the battlefield.

"First match begin!" announced the examiner.

The first match was Kiba against a rookie. The rookie was strong and it was a long battle, but Kiba was the winner. He and Akamaru did a great a job against the rookie.

Next was Naruto VS Tenten this was also a long battle but the number one hyper active ninja won. 'Pity, I had loved to see his face if he'd lost from a girl.' she thought.

'I hope I win, I really don't want to lose. It will be a disgrace if I lose my match and Sakura wins hers.'

Because she was so busy thinking about when she would lose, she didn't notice that it was her turn to fight.

Shikamaru was really bored, the first two matches were impressive with a lot of dazzling moves etc. but they wouldn't become a Chuunin if they kept fighting like that.

So he lay back against the wall waiting for the next match to be announced. He just lay comfortably against the wall when he saw that Ino had to fight. He nearly got a heart attack when he saw against which person she had to fight.

"Next match: Yamanaka Ino VS Uchiha Sasuke." the examiner announced.

It couldn't get any worse, Ino was with no doubt the strongest female Shinobi here, but there was no way she could win from the Uchiha. Shikamaru felt absolutely miserable. Ino had trained so hard to become a Chuunin and now she was going to be defeated by her 'precious' Sasuke. He also knew that she wouldn't fight on her best because she fancied him. But the worst of all was that Sasuke would beat her KO without any mercy. And maybe.. in the worst situation he would kill her. That thought made him terrible angry, all the time she was busy with making herself beautiful and strong for him. She was doing to this because maybe one day he would notice her and love her, that was she wanted. And now at this very moment that 'dreamboy' of hers was going to beat the hell out of her and maybe kill her.

Shikamaru knew that he had to do something. But even his brilliant mind didn't know a solution to this situation.

Ino nearly fainted when Kiba told her that it was her turn to fight. 'Sasuke watch me!' she thought happily.

But when she saw that she had to fight against Sasuke her happiness disappeared immediately.

She looked at Shikamaru, with eyes filled of despair. She could see the same despair in his eyes.

She walked towards the battlefield with mixed emotions, fear, despair and many other.

She wanted to turn around and run away but then everyone here would laugh and Sakura would tease her a life time with that moment. No way she couldn't turn around.

Shikamaru really hoped that she would turn around, run towards him and say please help me Shikamaru I don't want to fight him, then he could convince her not to fight. But he knew she wasn't going to do that. Not with Sakura in the room.

So all he could do was watch how Ino walked towards the Uchiha, the one who would defeat her, the one who would beat the hell out of her, and maybe the one who would kill her.

"Let the third match begin!" said the examiner.

There was a stifling pressure around the battle field. Everyone was astonished with the match-up.

Ino didn't know what to do, attack him or give up. She fancied him and didn't want to make him hate her because she haddefeated him, but she also didn't wan to lose because she'd trained so hard to get here.

She decided to wait a bit longer and see what would happen.

Sasuke attacked, he forgot the fact that she fancied him and attacked at full strength.

Ino could dodge the first and second attack but the third hit her. She fell on the ground where she could just dodge the fourth attack. She couldn't use any of her jutsu's because none of them would hithim because he moved too fast.

Another attack hit her and this timehe also threw a Kunai.TheKunai hit herand Ino could feela burning pain in her leg.

She looked at his eyes, they showed no signof emotion, no love ,no hate ,no mercy.

Her love for him disappeared and fear came into it's place.

'Shikamaru would never do this to me.' she thought. 'He would have let me go.' He wasneverunkind to her, he never hurt her, he was always there for her, no matter how much she bossed him around.

She decided to give up, Sakura could think what she wanted.

She tried to raise her hand, but she was too late, Sasuke was already running towards her for his next attack.

She saw coming him closer and raising his fist to hit her....

Shikamaru looked at the battle with horror.

Sasuke really didn't care about Ino and he beat the hell out of her.

Every time he hit her he could feel the fury insidehim become bigger and bigger.

When his kunai hit her in her leg he nearly couldn't bridle the desire to jump into the field and kill the Uchiha.

"God no, not that attack Sasuke." said Naruto.

"What attack?" Shikamaru asked.

"He's going to use the Lion Combo." Naruto answered.

Sasuke attacked her with the full combo and Ino hit the ground with a loud smash.

Though he used the full combo Ino was still able to stand up a little.

'She's though.' thought Sasuke. 'I'll finish her with my kunai.'

He took a kunai from his pocket and started running towards her at high speed.

This was the point Shikamaru could no longer control his anger.

"You bastard stop it!" he shouted.

Sasuke stopped and turned around to look at him, an angry Shikamaru was really rare.

"You still don't get it, do you?" Shikamaru continued. "All you feel is hate, hatefor your brother who murdered your clan. The only reason for you to become stronger is so you can murder you brother and avenge your family. But you can't kill your brother with hate alone, he told you that himself but you still don't get it." Shikamaru took a pause to breath and than continued. "You will never become strong enough if you will only feel hate, the thing you need is love, because if you love someone you want to protecthim no matter what, you want to be there for that person when he needs you. The persons in this world who grew strong by the love of protecting someone or something they really loved became the strongest. And you did love your clan, I know you did, so stop hating and start loving. There are so many person here that love you, but you don't love them back. Think about that." said Shikamaru.

Everyone in the room wassilent and looked with surprised eyes to Shikamaru.

Sasuke stood still in the middle of the battle field, he knew it was true what Shikamaru said. And herealized that Sakura, Naruto and Kakashi had been always therefor him. 'That explains why Naruto became sostrong, hetrained with love notwith hate.' he thought. He also realized that Tsunade-sama would never let him become a Chuunin if he didn't realize this. He looked at Ino, she was covered with blood and looked at him with her eyes filled with fear. 'She used to love me too, but know I've done this to her she hates me. My hate only makes other people hate me.' he thought.

After Sasuke realized this he did something no one would expect from him to do, he smiled, raised his hand into the air and said "I, Uchiha Sasuke will give up." 'I'll train with love and take the Chuunin exam again.' he thought.

The crowd was amazed by the reaction of Sasuke from Shikamaru's speech, and discussing loud.

"Winner: Yamanaka Ino." said the examiner.