A/N: This chapter will be beginning the preliminary matches. I'll be skimming over the unimportant fights (Ino vs Sakura, Shino vs Zaku to an extent, Kankuro vs that sound guy I can't remember off the top of my head). I'll also be doing an outside commentary of Lee vs Gaara, with characters narrating it rather than playing it from Lee or Gaara's perspective.

I'll also be changing the order of matches a bit. Hope this all doesn't bother you guys a ton. It just has to be done for the sake of Satsuki vs Yoroi specifically.

Time for Chapter 27

Enjoy!


Shikamaru shook his head in exasperation as he looked up at the screen. In a group of roughly twenty people, he happened to be unfortunate enough to be chosen first. No warmup, no observation. He was up first. To him, being the curtain-jerker was perhaps the most unpleasant role he could have asked for. He would be setting the bar, whether he liked it or not. Beyond that, there was another aspect of his situation that simply added to his misfortune.

"Of course, I'm fighting a chick." he grumbled as his teammates both looked on with amusement at his displeasure. Satsuki gave him a skeptical look upon learning of his grievance.

"You spar with me all the time. Not sure why gender is an issue here." she pointed out. Shikamaru shook his head and stretched his legs individually.

"It's not the same thing. You're different." he said nonchalantly. The Uchiha girl prickled at his words and frowned.

"What the hell's that supposed to mean?" she questioned. Ignoring her for the time being, the Nara boy fixed his eyes on his opponent as the rest of the genin rushed up to the balcony. Some took the stairs, others simply jumped up over the railing. His own team was the final group to exit what essentially amounted to the arena, with Naruto pulling a still-indignant Satsuki up the stairs.

With Team Seven up on the balcony, the only people remaining on the ground floor were Shikamaru, Kin, and Hayate, who gestured for the pair of genin to meet in the middle of the floor.

"The rules for this match are as follows: No outside help of any kind is permitted, and violation will result in disqualification. Tools such as kunai, shuriken, and other conventional weapons are allowed, as are ninken and things of that sort." the proctor began, periodically looking at both teens on either side as he spoke.

"Matches are won by incapacitating your opponent, or by forcing them to surrender. As with the second phase, murder is allowed, but we don't encourage it." he concluded, shooting a glance up to the balcony behind him.

"I hope you were all paying attention, because that's the only explanation of the rules I'll be giving today." he called up to the observing genin. He then returned his attention to the two competitors and raised his arm above his head.

"If you're both ready…" he began. Shikamaru shelved his distaste for the matchup and refocused himself on the girl in front of him as Hayate prepared to start up the preliminary round in earnest.

"...you may begin!" the proctor announced. Immediately upon being given permission to act, Kin leapt back several meters, landing smoothly on her feet. Having taken note of the dimensions of the room during Hayate's speech, Shikamaru began a slow stroll toward her.

"You know, I could have killed you in the forest, but decided against it. If you wanted to show me some gratitude, you could surrender. I don't feel like beating up a girl." the Nara boy suggested to her as he advanced. Kin folded her arms in response, rapidly unfurling them a split second later to reveal both of her hands loaded with senbon needles.

"Stand still, and you won't even have to lay a hand on me." she said confidently. Shikamaru's mind instinctively flashed back to the bridge, and the endless storms of senbon his teammates had endured at the hands of Haku Yuki.

'This is gonna suck.' he thought to himself as he prepared himself to evade what he could only assume was an inevitable onslaught. As his intuition had dictated, Kin quickly launched her handful of needles in his direction. Diving to his left, Shikamaru managed to avoid all but two of the sharp projectiles, both of which lodged into his calf. Wincing as he rolled through into a stable stance, the Nara boy quickly picked them out of his skin.

'Why did I let Sensei sign me up for this?' he thought to himself as he took stock of the speed of the senbon that had been thrown his way.

'Knowing where she likes to aim would be handy. It'll require me to let her tee off on me, though.' he mentally pondered. Steeling himself for the unpleasant approach to analysis he had selected, Shikamaru rose up to his feet. As he had expected, Kin quickly reloaded her hands with needles.

"Standing in front of me is gonna get you hurt." Kin said goadingly. Shikamaru shrugged his shoulders and bent his knees to put himself in an athletic stance.

"Guess I'm a sucker for pain, then." he replied dryly. The Oto kunoichi responded predictably, by launching her new set of needles straight at him. Focusing his vision as best he could, Shikamaru took careful note of the trajectory of the mass of senbon. Leaving himself only a brief moment, the shadow user dropped low to the ground, allowing the swarm to fly right over him.

'Neck and chest, mostly. She's playing for keeps.' Shikamaru thought to himself. The information he had gathered presented a number of pros and cons. On the positive end of things, Kin largely aiming high up on his body meant that he could likely side-step a good majority of her leading offense, but at the same time, mistakes were not forgivable. She also seemed poised to keep consistent pressure on him, which would make it rather difficult for the Nara boy to perform his jutsu.

Opting to test out his choices, Shikamaru put his hands together to form a hand sign and gather his chakra. The instant he did so, another salvo of needles came forth from Kin's hands. Leaning hard to his left, Shikamaru managed to narrowly avoid being punctured by any of the senbon, though he was grazed on the cheek by the tip of one of them. If nothing else, consistent drilling and sparring sessions had sharpened his reflexes. Unfortunately, despite having succeeded defensively, Shikamaru lost his focus in regards to his chakra.

'I need her to miss me entirely to have any shot at getting my shadow into play.' he thought to himself, working to form a plan of attack around that single maxim. Reaching into his pouch and producing a smoke bomb, Shikamaru smirked.

"Your aim isn't great to begin with, so I honestly feel a little bad about making this even harder for you." he said, tossing the bomb into the space between them. When it burst, visibility was completely destroyed for both genin. Shikamaru then made a sign with his hands, but not for his shadow possession.

As the smoke slowly cleared, and Kin fired senbon seemingly at random, Shikamaru filled the space around him with clones. While one of the most basic jutsu one could utilize, it had its utility. Especially for the sake of deception. Once visibility had fully returned, and the Oto genin was fully in sight, Shikamaru ceased creating clones.

"I invited some friends, if you don't mind." the Nara boy called out to her. Kin narrowed her eyes and studied the new situation before her carefully.

"I don't really see the point." she said honestly. Shikamaru shrugged his shoulders and began walking forward, with his clones mimicking his movements perfectly. He was not leading them, as such a position would be an obvious one to take. He had shuffled himself into the group.

"You had trouble hitting me clean when there was one of me. I failed a lot of tests back in the academy, but I was always pretty great at clones." he said calmly. Kin, who's eyes had been wide and assessing since the clearing of the smoke, cracked a smile.

"Great, but not perfect." she said vaguely. Ignoring her retort, Shikamaru made a sign with his hands and began to manipulate his shadow once again. Before he could fully complete the brief process, however, he was nailed between the eyes with a senbon that snapped his head back. The needle did not pierce all the way through the bone, but it sunk in deep enough to send blood streaming down the bridge of his nose and into one of his eyes.

'How did she…?' he thought to himself in mild frustration. Before he could complete the thought, he was forced to dodge five more needles, all of which were aimed squarely at his real body. Sensing that his tactic no longer held water, Shikamaru allowed his clones to dissipate. Now alone and exposed once again, the Nara boy scowled at his foe as he pulled the needle out of his face.

"Either you're just a freakishly good shot, or you're insanely lucky." he said, blinking blood out of his left eye as the small puncture wound just above his nose leaked. Kin grinned and drew yet more senbon.

"That first part is true, but you actually gave me a pretty easy target." she said, tapping on her right ear. Though it took him a moment to catch on, when Shikamaru felt his own right ear, he realized what his error had been. Clones were formed from both a control of one's chakra, and a mental image.

"Not really sure where that hole in your ear came from, but all of your clones were missing it, except for you." Kin said. Kicking himself internally for such an avoidable mistake, Shikamaru took a deep breath to calm himself.

'I'll just find another way in, then.'


Naruto gripped the railing tightly as he watched his teammate duck and dodge his way around the undersized battlefield. He was on the defensive, though he rarely took a backward step. It was stressful to watch. While Shikamaru had not taken any severe damage, every time Kin launched another volley in the Nara boy's direction, there was the off-chance that she struck true.

"She's giving him a ton of trouble." Naruto commented aloud. Satsuki, who stood leaning on the rail to the blonde's left, tilted her head a bit as she analyzed the combat taking place down below.

"Sort of. She's keeping him from setting up, but she's also wasting supplies and giving him tons to read. It also looks like she's unaware of where she is on the battlefield." the Uchiha girl said. Naruto narrowed his eyes and focused more carefully in order to see what his teammate was seeing.

"He's backing her up to the wall. Not all that fast, but he's pressuring her." he said, having caught on to Shikamaru's underlying strategy. Satsuki nodded and made a pained face as Shikamaru was stuck in the arms with several needles.

"He's tried a few different things to throw her off, but most of it is being stifled. He has to constantly adjust his position unless he wants to get lit up. Still, though. He's distracting her from that slow pressure you mentioned." she said.

"Mixed bag so far, huh?"

Both Naruto and Satsuki glanced back over their shoulders, catching sight of Kakashi, who had arrived in a puff of smoke alongside several other Jonin. As the other adults distributed to the other groups on the balcony, the Copy Ninja joined Team Seven on the railing.

"We had a briefing. Sorry for the wait." the older Ninja explained as he looked down to observe his student's match with Kin.

"How's he been doing so far?" he asked. Naruto shrugged and leaned his cheek on the heel of his palm.

"Fine, I guess. I think this might take a little while." he said honestly. Kakashi studied the ongoing conflict for several moments before shaking his head.

"This girl's a tough matchup for him. She's just smart enough to not get thrown for a loop, and she's constantly keeping him off balance. I only caught the end of your conversation, but even if he does get her to the wall, he still has to find an opening to get something going." he pointed out. Naruto winced. It was a fair piece of analysis.

"Do you think he'll win?" the blonde asked. Kakashi's response was quick and concise, and it held not a shred of doubt.

"Oh yeah, he'll win. Just not easily." he clarified. Satsuki then frowned, turning her ear toward the battle below. Naruto gave her a skeptical look.

"What's up?" he asked. Before the raven-haired girl could answer him, the Jinchuuriki learned the answer.

Echoing through the enormous room was the sound of bells.


One's senses being on high alert was an interesting sensation, especially when the reason behind such elevated awareness was the presence of great danger. In his current situation, Shikamaru was tightly wound and high-wired. Every slight twitch of Kin's body could, and often did, imply that he would be forced to duck, roll, and dodge. As such, the introduction of a foreign sound to the equation was highly suspect to the shadow user.

With his eyes darting around the room to find the source of the sound, Shikamaru quickly located the culprit. Stuck into the solid wall a fair few meters behind him were a group of senbon that he had avoided moments prior. Hanging from roughly half of them were bells. Upon further inspection, nearly invisible lines of wire were attached to them. Tracing the wire back to the source, Shikamaru pieced together a coherent picture.

"I'm not all that musical, but I think your bells are out of tune." he joked as Kin made a small tug on one of the wires she was holding. The Oto genin smirked at his humor.

"Keep on listening. It gets better. I promise." she replied. Before the Nara boy could consider her words, his world began to become quite fuzzy. His hearing dulled, his vision blurred, and vertigo kicked in.

"What…" he started, trailing off as he dropped to a knee in order to avoid falling flat on his face. Kin's smirk only strengthened as she jingled the bells several more times.

"I didn't think I'd have to resort to it, but you're slippery." she said, not bothering to explain herself. While he had not been provided any answers directly, Shikamaru quickly deduced what he was being assaulted by.

'Auditory genjutsu.' he thought to himself, gritting his teeth as Kin seemed to multiply in front of him. Soon enough, there were a dozen copies of the Oto Kunoichi standing in front of him, all with a handful of senbon. He was in dire straits. Incapacitated, in range, and very vulnerable. Thinking as quickly as he could, the Nara boy spotted one single lifeline.

'It probably won't work, but…' he thought to himself, bringing his hands together and bracing himself. As Kin launched her senbon, Shikamaru forced his chakra into play, extending his shadow. The maneuver left him immobile, and resulted in him being littered with eight different senbon all across his body. Despite the pain in every one of his limbs, Shikamaru's mouth pulled into a smirk.

"Checkmate." he said through clenched teeth, standing up straight again as Kin's doppelgangers vanished. The Oto kunoichi's eyes widened as she found that she could no longer move.

"I'm guessing you wanna know how I did it?" Shikamaru asked, picking needles out of his body as he spoke. Though Kin did not affirm her desire for answers, the Nara boy provided them regardless.

"I really didn't want to do it this way, but you didn't give me a lot to work with. I noticed it after the second or third time you threw those needles at me. It's faint, but they make a shadow when thrown as a group. The issue was, you tended to move right after throwing." he explained, reveling in the feeling of finally being able to completely control a person after having been unable to do so in the forest.

"I sat still for too long when I used my genjutsu." Kin hissed, struggling uselessly against Shikamaru's iron grip. The shadow user nodded and strolled closer to her, prompting the girl to follow suit against her will.

"It was still a gamble, because I had to time my jutsu to be able to catch that shadow midway. The fact that I got it on my first try is really just bad luck on your part." Shikamaru said. Once they were toe-to-toe, he began to manipulate his shadow once more.

"What I wanted to do originally was trap you against the wall and work from there, but you caught me in your genjutsu before I could. Plan B has worked out pretty well, though." the Nara boy said as a shadowy hand began to creep up Kin's body. Within seconds, despite all of her struggles and effort, the Oto Kunoichi's throat was seized by the shadow.

"I haven't gotten to use this one head-to-head before, so tell me how it feels." Shikamaru joked as Kin was strangled by his shadow with a quickness. Inside of a minute, Kin slumped forward, unconscious from the loss of blood flow to her brain.

Stepping back so as not to have to support her weight, Shikamaru released his jutsu. The girl fell face-first to the concrete with a rough 'thud'. She was out cold. Jogging over to the pair, Hayate quickly checked on the fallen Kunoichi before nodding. He then brought Shikamaru out to the center of the lower floor and raised his arm by the wrist.

"Kin Tsuchi is unable to continue! Shikamaru Nara is the winner!" he announced, earning a fair few cheers from his fellow Konoha genin. Blinking blood from the wound between his eyes away, Shikamaru made his way to the stairs and ascended them. When he reached the top, Naruto was waiting for him with a raised hand.

"Not really sure what you did to catch her, but that was sick." he complimented, slapping a loud high-five with the Nara boy. Shikamaru shrugged his shoulders and joined the rest of his team on the railing of the balcony.

"That wasn't really my first choice, but it worked out alright." he said casually. Satsuki gave an approving nod and picked a needle he had missed out of his left arm.

"I didn't know you could choke people with your shadow." she commented. Shikamaru scratched his cheek absently and turned his attention up to the screen.

"I can do a few different things with it, but I haven't had the chance. Combat-specific techniques are pretty narrow in application." he explained. Before the genin could discuss the match any further, Kakashi cleared his throat to snap them to attention. Names were flashing across the screen again. After a moment or two, the roulette settled.

"That's just depressing." Satsuki laughed as the two names glowed from the screen for all to see.

"Next up, Sakura Haruno of Konoha will face Ino Yamanaka, also of Konoha!"


Kakashi fought back the urge to sigh as he watched the second match of the preliminary round. Sakura Haruno and Ino Yamanaka had both been amongst the highest-scoring of the newest crop of genin. Their test results had been incredibly promising. Especially in Sakura's case. Most of his fellow Jonin had scrambled for the opportunity to take one or both of them under their wing as a student. Kakashi, however, had flatly ignored them when selecting his preferred genin.

'Academics don't translate to the field. I thought that much should have been obvious.' the Copy Ninja thought to himself as Sakura and Ino participated in painfully repetitive, unstructured exchanges of taijutsu. His intuition was being proven uncomfortably correct. Neither of them had any natural feel for combat. Ino was slightly sharper, but it was a negligible difference. The sight of such mediocrity drew a gaze toward his own team.

'I get frustrated with them sometimes, but I really couldn't have asked for a better group of kids.' he thought to himself as his genin cracked jokes at the expense of the two brawling kunoichi.

"Throw a left hook, like, once." Satsuki grumbled as Sakura and Ino whiffed simultaneously on overextended punches. Naruto snickered and cracked his neck.

"They'd spin themselves around and fall on their asses." he said only half-jokingly. Kakashi shook his head and kept on watching. They were certainly being quite mean-spirited, which was hardly a good thing, but it also showed a point of pride in their own skills, which was certainly good. Even Shikamaru, who disliked taijutsu, was in on the deprecating humor.

"Take a shot every time they butt heads by accident." he said dryly. Satsuki raised an eyebrow and cracked a smile.

"Sounds like alcohol poisoning." she shot back. The entire group burst out laughing, including a few genin from other teams. Kakashi gave Asuma, who looked rather perturbed, an apologetic look.

'It's hard enough that two of his own students are fighting. Even worse that they both look mediocre.' the Copy Ninja thought to himself. For a number of minutes, the mundane taijutsu match continued, with plenty more jokes at the expense of Ino and Sakura. After a time, however, something of note happened.

"Why'd Sakura freeze up? They're in the middle of a fight." Naruto pondered aloud. Indeed, Sakura had halted in place, and appeared to be in some sort of trance. Kakashi promptly uncovered his left eye, now invested in the mystery. After a brief observation, he discovered the culprit behind Sakura's odd behavior.

"Mind Transfer. A Yamanaka Clan specialty." he reported, earning a collective look of recollection from his team.

"Shikamaru mentioned that jutsu last month. Isn't it some kind of mind control?" Satsuki asked. Kakashi shook his head and pointed to Ino, who was also immobile.

"Not quite. While it does allow its caster to enter the mind of their target, they themselves are vulnerable while they do so. They also have to overpower their opponent mentally. Once they do so, they gain control of their body." he explained. Shikamaru nodded in confirmation.

"It's also very temporary. Ino is trying to win this all at once. My guess is that she'll use Sakura's body to surrender." he added. Naruto frowned at the Nara boy's prediction.

"Wouldn't that still count as a loss for Ino? I get that it would be Sakura's body, but it wouldn't be her surrendering." he pointed out. Satsuki rubbed her temples.

"Yeah, that's gonna be a headache to officiate. Glad I'm not a referee." she said. Kakashi chuckled a bit. It was a fair point. It would indeed be tremendously funny if Ino were to quite literally throw away her own win condition on a technicality. Intriguingly, however, those in attendance did not learn the answer to such a stipulation of the rules, as Sakura soon began to move again, with Ino dropping to her knees in exhaustion.

"She broke out of it? She's weak for the most part, but that's seriously impressive." Satsuki said, her tone holding a slight flavor of admiration. Kakashi, despite his near-endless criticism of the girl's capabilities as a fighter in broad strokes, couldn't help but agree with the sentiment. Unfortunately, very little else impressive happened for the remainder of the match, as the two girls had resumed trading ugly punches and kicks mere moments after Ino's Mind Transfer had failed.

Eventually, after nearly five painful minutes of mindless slugging, the match came to an anticlimactic conclusion. Swinging with inaccurate right hands, both Ino and Sakura returned with their opposite hands for a simultaneous collision upon missing their first attempts to strike one another. On contact, both were knocked out cold.

"Hey, they threw left hooks, Satsuki." Naruto said humorously. The Uchiha girl stifled a laugh at the circumstantial hilarity of the outcome. Shikamaru furrowed his brow as he looked down on the aftermath of the match.

"So, wait, that's a draw. Do they both advance? Or are they both out?" he asked. Kakashi put a finger to his lips and gestured down to Hayate, who was standing between the two unconscious kunoichi.

"Neither Sakura Haruno nor Ino Yamanaka are able to continue! As a result, this match ends in a draw, and both will be eliminated from the bracket!" the proctor announced to the group on the balcony. Naruto whistled.

"Damn, that's cutthroat." he said as Ino and Sakura were both carried up the stairs by Asuma, who had leapt down over the railing after the result had been announced. Once both girls were situated against the back wall of the balcony, Hayate cleared his throat.

"Alright, we're gonna keep things moving. Turn your attention to the screen, please." he called up to the genin. For the third time that hour, names began to fly by on either side of the screen. As with before, the names gradually slowed to a stop, leaving two opposing one another.

"The third match of the preliminary round will be Temari of the Sand versus Tenten of Konoha!"


A/N: Alright, so I tried to put a different spin on Shikamaru vs Kin. Not sure if I succeeded in making it better or more fun, but hey, trial and error. The next few chapters will be rather formulaic, but Naruto's, Satsuki's, and Gaara's matches will be essential reading.

ALSO: ONE OF YOU MADE A REDDIT APPRECIATION POST ABOUT ME! THANK YOU SO MUCH 333

Please leave a review if you enjoyed this chapter. It really motivates me to keep this schedule for you all :)

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