Why do I have a feeling that this is going to hurt? Naruto asked himself as he stared across the arena at his opponent. Oh, yeah…probably because it will.

Ino grinned back at him, a predatory glimmer in her eyes. He found it monumentally ironic that he would have to fight—and most likely beat—her barely minutes after she declared her intention to win the tournament, but he had to admit that he was looking forward to the fight itself. They were well matched for the most part; though he was somewhat better overall, there were no glaring disparities in their skill levels, and based on their academy sparring matches, she would be able to give him a good match—which led back to his initial thought.

Unlike when he sparred with Hinata, whose fighting style revolved around speed and precision rather than strength, Naruto had a feeling he would be walking away from this with more than a few nasty bruises. Ino was strong by kunoichi standards—or even male standards, probably an artifact of her large chakra reserves—and she didn't hesitate to take advantage of that when sparring. In this fight, where anything was allowed except instantly lethal attacks, according to the examiner, he doubted she would hold back at all; of course, he had no plans to do so either, which was part of what made the whole thing so fun.

The moment the examiner's hand dropped, Naruto dove to the side, just as Ino leapt into sudden motion. As he had expected, she chose to begin with a direct attack—one that likely would have caught him off guard, he had to admit, if he had not been prepared for it. He was, though, and he cleanly evaded her, following up with a kick that grazed the side of her leg.

Ino tucked herself into a crouch, turning the momentum of her initial strike into a spinning leg sweep that Naruto managed to jump over. As he backpedaled to put some distance between them, he reached into his kunai holster and, when she had committed herself to another straight-line attack, threw several of the knives at her in such a way that no matter how she dodged, she would leave herself open to his counterattack. To his surprise and dismay, though, she just crossed her arms in front of herself and kept coming; only then did he notice the armored bracers she was wearing on her forearms, which quite capably deflected his kunai.

Naruto's surprise left him open for a split second, which Ino took advantage of by rocking him backwards with a short, powerful kick just below his ribs. Despite the pain spiking through him from the hit, he was able to weave around her follow-up strike, though she in turn dodged his counter and nearly succeeded in trapping his arm in what he recognized as a pain-hold that would have led to a particularly unpleasant throw.

I have to open the range, he thought. He and Ino were too closely matched in taijutsu, something on which she was clearly counting, as she was making every effort to keep him close. If he could get away from her, though, he would be able to bring ninjutsu into play, and he definitely outclassed her there. It would be simple if only there were any nearby objects he could use as substitutes for kawarimi, but the arena floor was barren of anything like that.

Then Naruto noticed the kunai from his previous attack lying scattered on the ground. While he had never tried switching with something so small before now, it was worth an attempt; he was fairly certain he could eventually manage to beat Ino even if he remained in close-combat range, but it would be much closer—not to mention more painful—than he liked. Deliberately leaving himself open after a high block in order to draw her attention away from his hands, he formed the technique's hand seal and focused his chakra into it.

A disconcerting stretching sensation filled him as he felt it activate, quite unlike any other time he had used it, and he staggered briefly as a huge portion of his chakra was consumed. It worked, though, and he spun in place to see Ino with her foot extended in what would have been a straight kick directly to the center of his chest. She recovered quickly and turned to see where Naruto had gone, but he was already weaving his hands through the seals for a second technique, one that would hopefully end the fight.

"Raiton: Rakurai no Jutsu!" he called out, squeezing his eyes tightly shut as he formed the final hand seal. It would be less effective in the brightly lit arena than it had been against Sasuke the night of their first exercise with the other teams, but the Lightning Flash technique his mother had taught him should still be more than sufficient to blind Ino temporarily.

Success! he thought, hearing her pained cry. While the technique wasn't physically damaging, it was extremely unpleasant to be subjected to, and he felt a moment of sympathy for his friend—though that quickly vanished when a slight movement drew his attention to the various bruises she had inflicted on him since the fight began. Opening his eyes, he saw she had already begun to adjust to her temporary blindness, a single powerful jump taking her out of range of anything he might do to immediately attack her. Her eyes were watering freely, though, and he could tell by the way she looked near him rather than directly at him that he had all but won already.

Surprisingly, however, she began to form a series of hand seals, causing Naruto to wonder what she could be doing. Though they were too far apart for it to be any kind of direct attack ninjutsu he was aware of, that didn't mean he intended to stand around and wait for her to do whatever it was she was doing. He ran towards her in a wide arc that would hopefully allow him to flank her, taking advantage of the fact that she could have only a rough idea of his position, but she noticeably flinched and stumbled backwards before he could get close enough to use a technique of his own.

What was that? he wondered, not missing the almost frightened expression on Ino's face. Perhaps she had attempted to use a genjutsu technique on him but had it backfire on her. There was no time to consider the question further, though, as he was now in range to attack her. She was already beginning to recover from whatever had affected her, as well as from the blindness caused by his earlier technique, and he knew his window of opportunity would not last long.

"Fuuton: Renkuudan!" he shouted, thrusting his hands forward as he formed the final seal. He wished he could use something stronger, but he found himself in the highly unusual—at least for him—position of being close to exhausting his chakra reserves. He had already been tired coming into the fight, and trying to use kawarimi with such a small replacement object had drained him even further.

The small sphere of chakra-charged air that shot towards Ino proved to be enough, though, striking her heavily in the stomach and causing her to collapse to her knees. Before she could stand again, Naruto closed the distance between them and held a kunai to her throat. Though he doubted she could see anything more than a smear of colors yet, there was no way she could mistake the feel of the knife edge against her skin.

"I concede," Ino called out, more than a hint of bitterness in her voice. Naruto was surprised, as he had sparred with her many times before, and she almost always took her losses with good grace. That, even more than her not-insignificant skill, was part of why he enjoyed matches with her; while he knew Sasuke would provide more of a challenge, the other boy took everything much too seriously for Naruto's tastes. Ino, at least, enjoyed the fights for their own sake instead of obsessing over winning all the time.

As if she knew what he was thinking, she murmured more quietly to him, "It's not you. I'll tell you once we sit down."

Before he could say anything in response, the jounin refereeing the matches—not the same as the one who had given the initial talk—walked into the arena. "The winner of the first match is Kazama Naruto," he confirmed, speaking loudly enough that the other genin could hear him. "The next match will be between Hyuuga Neji and Inuzuka Kiba. Please clear the floor."

Naruto slipped his kunai back into its holster and let Ino go, then took her arm when she wobbled slightly. He should have realized she would need help to get out of the arena, since he doubted she would be able to see clearly enough to walk unaided for at least another minute or so. As they headed up to join the other genin, the adrenaline rush of the fight began to wear off and he winced as he realized she had left more bruises on him than he had thought at first. He would definitely have to remember to ask Hinata for some of the ointment she kept on hand for situations like this, assuming she had even had time to make any given how busy their schedule had been recently.

"Are you two okay?" Hinata asked as he and Ino sat down next to her and the rest of their friends, though she kept her eyes trained on the figure of her cousin, who had walked out into the arena with Kiba. Naruto wasn't sure why she still cared so much about Neji, but he had long since realized that that was simply part of her nature.

"Fine, now that I can almost see right again," Ino replied, giving a sort of half-smile that fooled nobody. As if she knew that, she confessed, "Okay, maybe not. I was going to use Shintenshin to give me a way of seeing for a little bit, since my spirit body doesn't exactly have real eyes, but I just…couldn't. When I tried, I kept thinking of all the things Orochimaru showed me when I used it on him, and it…I don't know. I need to talk to my dad, I think."

Concerned, Naruto turned away from the fight in progress below—he had no doubts about who would win, in any event—to look at her. For her to say something like that, the experience must have shaken her up quite a lot; Ino was many things, but forthright about admitting weakness was not one of them. At least that explained her displeasure at the end of the fight—not because she lost, but because she had been defeated by herself and her memories rather than by her opponent.

"Was it really so bad, Ino-chan?" Hinata quietly asked her. All three of them had given up any pretense of watching the match in the arena, though the occasional glance showed Naruto that Neji was systematically taking Kiba apart—metaphorically, for the most part—as expected.

Ino gave a convulsive, full-body shudder. "He's sick," she said, unconsciously crossing her arms over her chest. "I don't even want to think about it, but I can't help it. Please, I just want to try to forget everything I saw, so can we not talk about it?"

Her voice was surprisingly calm, but Naruto could hear the underlying tension in it, fear mingling with remembered revulsion. More than anything, that convinced him that she was most definitely not all right, and he cursed Orochimaru for what seemed like the hundredth time that day. Sakura had nearly died, and now Ino was suffering as well. What had happened to force a handful of genin to face the infamous Snake Sannin alone, with none of the assistance they had been promised?

- - -

"Have the ANBU training standards really suffered so much since I left?" Kakashi asked the man sitting across from him. To anyone else, it would have seemed an idle, even bored question, but that was far from the truth. Based on the reports he had heard by taking shameless advantage of his past position as an ANBU squad captain, it seemed that the only reason his genin were still alive was Orochimaru's whim, and that bothered him greatly.

Even the good news that the traitor within the Leaf—or, at least, one of them—had been found out and eliminated was tainted by other concerns. With the enemy agent dead, there would be no way of learning if he had been acting alone or the true extent of the Sound plans, two things that were vitally important if they hoped to successfully counter whatever Orochimaru had in mind. That aside, he also found himself faced with a much more human concern for one of his genin; already mistrusted, he had no doubt that Sakura would be under more suspicion than ever now that she was known to have killed, even in her teammates' and friends' defense.

Kakashi was sure the Hokage knew all of this as well, but none of it showed in the older man's face as he looked up from the papers he had been examining. "Two full squads were assigned to that section of the forest," he said. "That should theoretically have been sufficient, even against my old student, but he was apparently able to separate them and destroy them in detail."

"Only two?" Kakashi asked. He had not been directly involved in that stage of the planning, but he thought he remembered significantly more resources being allocated to the forest operation, including several more ANBU teams.

The Hokage nodded, a shadow of anger passing over his face. "The on-site commander decided to assign the teams equally to all sections of the forest rather than concentrate them in the southern region. I have instructed Morino-san to determine if he is in Sound employ or merely incompetent."

Good, Kakashi thought. Perhaps it might have seemed a bit harsh, but all of the unit commanders involved in preparing for the possible attacks had been given the information Kakashi's team had learned from the Sound ninja who attacked them, as well as what the reconnaissance teams had discovered afterwards. They knew Orochimaru had expressed special interest in at least three of the genin assigned to the southern starting location, not to mention that the Sound genin team was in that area as well. Whoever was responsible for the decision not to assign more squads to that part of the forest had been criminally stupid—or perhaps only criminal.

"And the decision made to eliminate one of my genin from the exam process?" he asked after a moment's thought. "Given the circumstances, anyone else would have received a warning at most." He thought he knew what the Hokage would say, but he wanted to confirm it for himself.

"In that particular war, I must choose which battles are worth fighting," the Hokage answered heavily, causing Kakashi to nod his agreement; that was what he had expected to hear. "According to the medic-nins who examined her, Sakura is not expected to wake for at least another day, making her elimination a certainty in any event.

"I could overturn the examiner's ruling, yes, but doing so would only add to the resentment felt towards her while making no practical difference in the outcome—and, despite what some might think, my influence only stretches so far. Better to wait and conserve my efforts for a time when they would actually matter."

Kakashi had a somewhat different opinion, mostly revolving around the concern that this created a precedent that it was acceptable for Sakura to be held to different standards than her peers, but he was also forced to admit that that precedent had been established years ago already and was perhaps impossible to change now. The Hokage was correct, too, about the ultimate irrelevance of any protest; in a normal year, she might have been permitted to continue despite the state in which she finished the second part, but the preliminary elimination round made that impossible.

In all honesty, he had a feeling Sakura herself would not mind her removal all that much. He had overheard her talking with Naruto and Hinata about the exams on several occasions, and she had been quite dismissive of her chances in the combat trials, assuming they all made it that far. No doubt she would simply accept the examiner's decision and quite happily spend somewhere else the time she would otherwise have used in preparing for the final part of the exams. By now, he had noticed, she seemed almost indifferent to the biased treatment shown to her simply because of who she was, though he felt certain that was only an act.

Whether that was true or not, though, Sakura's elimination on such a flimsy pretense would raise questions among the other genin—questions which, by law, could not be answered, and while some of them might accept that, Kakashi doubted they all would. During the joint exercises between the three rookie teams, he had noticed that several of them were almost frighteningly perceptive, and he would not be surprised if they were able to put together the pieces of the puzzle on their own.

Consideration of that would have to wait for another time, though. Right now, he was in the Hokage's office not as the leader of Team Seven but as a former ANBU captain and perhaps the Leaf's most skilled living jounin, and he had a decision to make. The abrupt removal of one of the senior ANBU commanders—for reasons he now knew and wholly approved of—left a hole in the organization's leadership, and the Hokage wanted him to fill it temporarily. At first, he had intended to refuse, but all indications were that his team had managed to survive the truly dangerous part of the exams.

"Who will train Naruto or Hinata for the third part of the exams if they make it past the elimination round?" he asked, appreciating the irony of the question. He had gone full-circle from hoping never to have to lead a genin team all the way around to actually worrying about them. If he thought anyone outside of this room had any idea he felt this way, he probably would have been appalled; fortunately, he knew he could trust the Hokage to keep a secret.

The Hokage gave him a small smile around the stem of his pipe. "That has been taken care of," he said. "I assume this means you intend to accept?"

Kakashi nodded. The deliberate non-answer to his question managed to pique his curiosity, but he had known the old man long enough to realize that he would learn no more about that subject today.

"Excellent." The Hokage leaned forward across his desk and handed a thick sheaf of papers to Kakashi. "Very well, Hatake-taichou, here are the profiles of your new team members. I intend to assign you to the security detail responsible for the Kazekage, so you have some time to familiarize yourself with them before he arrives."

Kakashi stood after taking the papers from him. A glance through them revealed he would have three full squads under his command, which seemed somewhat excessive for a simple security force, especially when the Kazekage would no doubt bring bodyguards of his own. His visible eye narrowed as he considered the implications of such a show of force, one of which in particular stood out.

"You don't trust him, do you?" he asked. "You think the Sand are allied with Orochimaru, or at least you suspect it."

The Hokage's face went perfectly still. "I knew you were the right choice for this," he said a moment later. "Yes, without going into details, suffice it to say that it is a possibility. Of course, you realize you must not speak of this to anyone, including your new team. The diplomatic repercussions would be disastrous if I am wrong."

That would make things more difficult, but Kakashi could understand why the Hokage had said it. After the last major war, the Leaf had a very uneasy, very tentative truce with the Rock and Cloud, and one of the main things keeping it that way was the military alliance with the Sand. Upsetting that could have any number of unpleasant consequences, perhaps even a renewal of the war, this time with all three of the other major land-based ninja powers united against the Leaf.

"Understood," Kakashi said, then turned to leave. He had a great deal of work to do all of a sudden, it seemed.

- - -

"Thank you, Satoshi-san," Hinata said quietly, bowing to the man in front of her. "You'll come get me when my match has been announced?"

The older man, who wore a chuunin's utility vest over his medical uniform, bowed deeply in response. His pale eyes were cast downward in respect, but his voice was strong and confident—though not entirely free of doubt—as he replied, "Of course, Hinata-sama."

Hinata could tell that her kinsman was uncomfortable with the idea of allowing the heir to the family to be alone with someone so 'dangerous' as Sakura, even if the latter was soundly unconscious, and she fought the urge to snap at him. That would do no good, though; he would simply bow and mouth agreement as was expected of him, but nothing would change in his opinion of her friend. It wasn't fair, not after what Sakura had done that day, but Hinata had been taught very early in her life that fairness and reality often had little to do with each other—and never was that so apparent as in Sakura's case. That didn't mean she had to like it, though.

Not bothering to dismiss Satoshi, she turned and walked into the room where her friend lay on a narrow cot and sat down next to her. Asleep, Sakura seemed somehow younger, many of the marks etched on her face and in her bearing by years of loneliness and mistreatment smoothing out. Her hair, unbound from the braid she typically wore it in, fanned out across her pillow like a spray of cherry blossoms in spring, and Hinata laughed quietly to herself as she thought about how appropriate Sakura's name was for her.

What failed to show in her sleep, though, was the core of stubborn determination that lay beneath that quiet exterior. It didn't reveal itself often, even when she was awake, but Hinata knew it was more than a match for even Naruto's or Ino's under the right circumstances. Knowing that made it even harder to stay quiet when she heard the ugly things people would say—or leave unsaid, yet obviously implied—about her friend.

"Hello, Sakura-chan," she murmured, after what felt like a long time spent simply watching the other girl breathe. "Everyone made it here. We're all fine, even Ino, though she's still a little shaken up by what happened to her. I wish you were with us, since maybe you would have an idea why Orochimaru just let us go like that."

Maybe you could tell me I'm wrong, Hinata thought but could not manage to make herself say, not even to the unconscious form of one of her closest friends. She knew, somewhere in the coldly logical part of her mind that her training as a ninja and her family's heir had cultivated, exactly why the Snake Sannin had left them alive. The idea that he wanted her and Sasuke both as his followers was terrifying, all the more so because he might very well have some way of forcing them into it.

At least for the moment, though, he seemed to want them to come to him of their own free will, but she wondered what he would do when he realized she—and, she assumed, Sasuke as well—had no intention of doing so. The offer he had made was tempting in a way, but for all of his reputed intelligence, he seemed not to understand that there were some prices Hinata was unwilling to pay for the realization of her dreams. It was partially a matter of principle, but the future leader in her also recognized it for the devil's deal it undoubtedly was.

Abruptly, she shook herself. She was here for her friend right now, not for herself, even if Sakura wasn't aware of her presence at the moment. "It's too bad you're not awake. You're missing some really great matches, you know," she said, trying to summon a more light-hearted tone. "He may not be all that nice a person most of the time, but I have to admit Sasuke is an incredible fighter, especially now that he's got his sharingan."

There was no response from Sakura, as Hinata had known there would not be, but she continued anyways. "Shikamaru was happy too, since Kabuto-san forfeited right away. I think I'd have been a little disappointed, but he certainly didn't seem to mind—not that that's much of a surprise."

Giggling a little as she recalled Shikamaru's surprise that anyone could possibly be upset about being handed a victory without having to fight for it, she smiled down at Sakura. Almost without thinking, she activated her byakugan, her smile growing larger at the sight of the thin traceries of her friend's chakra coils shimmering with their own soft, cool light—dim at the moment, yet slowly growing brighter even as she watched.

The seal containing the Nine-Tails was barely visible against the backdrop of the chakra coils running through Sakura's abdomen, dark where they were light, yet the gradation was so subtle that Hinata would never have noticed it if she had not already been aware of its presence. Even more telling, at least in her opinion, was the fact that while several minor coils twined around the seal and fed into it, no chakra whatsoever flowed out of it. How any Hyuuga—anyone at all, really, but especially anyone who shared her own blood gift—could look at Sakura and see her as a monster was beyond Hinata.

She opened her mouth, about to tell Sakura about the fight between Ino and Naruto, when a sudden commotion from outside drew her attention. Her byakugan were still active, and a quick look around showed a number of people, likely medic-nins, running down the hallway. Several went into the room next to Sakura's, and while she couldn't tell what they were doing, their hurried movements only fueled her growing concern. What had happened down in the arena while she sat with Sakura?

"Sorry, Sakura-chan," she called over her shoulder as she hurried to the door. "I'll come back later, but I have to go see what's happened." Thoughts of Naruto or her other friends injured severely enough to warrant such a reaction by the medic-nins filled her mind, and she desperately hoped nothing serious had happened, even while she knew it was a foolish hope.

- - -

Naruto was a trained ninja, and he had seen a number of gruesome things during the course of his training as well as in the months since he had graduated and become a genin, yet the spectacle on the arena floor still managed to sicken him. Physically, what the Sand genin had done to his opponent was nothing compared to the way he had seen Sakura kill the Sound ninja who attacked them; it was the fact that the red-haired boy seemed to have enjoyed hurting Lee—one of Hinata's cousin's teammates, apparently, though Naruto didn't think they had ever met—that made Naruto feel ill. What he had done was entirely legal, but that didn't make it right.

Even now, as a team of medic-nins carried Lee away, strapped tightly to a stretcher in order to keep him from thrashing around and aggravating his injuries, the Sand boy simply shrugged off the two jounin holding him back and went up to sit next to his teammates, not even sparing a passing glance in his former opponent's direction. Apparently, he had recovered already from the momentary paralysis inflicted by Lee's attack—not that that had stopped him from crushing the other boy's arm, leg, and possibly even part of his torso with some sort of ninjutsu. Almost clinically, Naruto began to catalog the list of injuries Lee had likely received, and he wondered if the older Leaf genin would ever be able to fight again.

His thoughts were interrupted when Hinata slid into her seat next to him, hissing, "What happened? I was sitting with Sakura when everything started to go insane up there! I didn't even know there were that many medic-nins in this whole building."

"They must have been assigned here just in case something like this happened," Naruto grimly replied. "You remember that Sand genin Sakura told us about? I guess she was right about him being someone to watch out for."

Quickly, he filled Hinata in on what had happened while she was up with Sakura, and by the end of his story she looked much the same way he felt. "Poor Lee," she said sadly. "He's a little…strange, I guess, but he's really nice too. I guess his rivalry with Neji is over, at least for a while."

Before Naruto could ask her what she meant by that, she frowned and turned away from the arena to look at him. "What about the other matches I missed?" she asked.

"Nothing all that exciting," Naruto replied, only too happy to change the subject. "Shino beat Chouji by draining him after he used that special Akimichi clan enlargement technique, so that's why Ino and Shikamaru aren't here. They took him into the room we were waiting in earlier, but Shino said he'll be fine after he wakes up.

"Oh, but that Sand kunoichi was really good! I wonder if she might want to trade techniques with me," he added. Then his face fell as he remembered what Sakura had said about how all three of the Sand genin were siblings; he wasn't sure he wanted to try talking with her if the redheaded boy was her brother. While she hadn't seemed to act deliberately cruel in her fight with Neji's other teammate—beyond knocking her unconscious when she was already subdued, at least—he now found himself wondering if that was because she hadn't wanted to, or if she simply hadn't had the opportunity.

"Anyways," he said, shaking off that concern for the moment, "yours is the only fight left. Well, assuming they're still going to have it after what just happened."

Hinata looked like she still wanted to ask him several—or perhaps several hundred—questions, but before she could do more than open her mouth, the jounin refereeing the matches stepped into the arena. "The winner of the match is Sabaku no Gaara," he announced. "The final match of the preliminary round will be between Hyuuga Hinata and Sabaku no Kankuro."

"Well, I guess that answers that question," Hinata muttered as she stood up. Naruto was surprised at how calm the jounin had sounded, as though he had not just had to physically restrain the winner of the match from killing the loser, and he hoped Hinata's opponent would not be as bloodthirsty as his teammate.

"Good luck, Hinata-chan," he said, grinning at her. "After all of the training we've been doing, there's no way you're going to lose."

For a moment, Hinata's face froze into the arrogant, coldly superior expression Naruto had seen on her father so many times, and she loftily replied, "A Hyuuga doesn't need to rely on such things as luck."

Then, just when Naruto was beginning to wonder if she might actually be serious, she spoiled the image by giggling helplessly and poking his shoulder. "Or, at least, that's what Father would say," she added. "I'd better get down there now, though, but thanks."

With a backwards wave, she headed down to the arena floor, leaving Naruto to wonder what had come over her. Usually, she wasn't so playful about the way she was expected to behave as the heir of her family, and as much as he enjoyed seeing her like this, he had a feeling it was mostly a nervous reaction to the fact that she would have to fight the brother of the boy who had perhaps permanently crippled his opponent.

You can do it, Hinata-chan, he thought, offering her a reassuring smile as she entered the arena, even though she couldn't see it. He might tease her about it, but there were a number of very good reasons for the arrogance many Hyuuga exhibited.

- - -

Hinata took a deep breath as she faced her opponent. The odd paint on his face somewhat resembled that worn by the actors from the traditional plays her father sometimes insisted she attend with him, yet on him it only made him look sinister. He had removed the bundle from his back, holding it next to him with one hand, and she wondered what he intended to do with it. Part of her was nervous, but the greater part was too upset about what she had heard from Naruto to dwell on that nervousness.

While it was true that contestants did become injured during the combat trials, sometimes seriously, it sounded like the other Sand genin had hurt Lee simply because he could, not because he had to in order to win. Hinata could have understood the latter—she was hardly naïve enough to think that all of the fights would end as cleanly as the one between Naruto and Ino—but she could not bring herself to forgive the former. Perhaps that was simply how the Sand trained their ninja, but if so, she would be only too happy to demonstrate the superiority of her own style. The jyuuken might not be as 'gentle' as its name implied, but she could and would defeat her opponent without inflicting unnecessary harm upon him.

"Ready? Begin!" the presiding jounin called out, stepping back and out of the arena. Immediately, Hinata began to form hand seals, smiling to herself as she wondered how her cousin would react to her opening move. While he was a great believer in the ideal of a Hyuuga needing nothing but the jyuuken in order to triumph, she had a feeling even he would appreciate the advantages this technique offered.

"Kirigakure no Jutsu," she murmured, focusing her chakra outwards as a dense fog began to enshroud the arena floor. She might not want to physically harm her opponent more than she had to, but by the end of the match, she was determined that he would know he was completely at her mercy, and this was a perfect first step in that process. One unfortunate side effect, of course, was that the other genin watching would not have a very good view of the fight, but that couldn't be helped.

As she had predicted, she saw the Sand genin freeze in place for a moment, then quickly run to the side—a good tactic if she had simply been using the fog as a momentary cover for a direct attack, but nothing could be further from the truth. Swiftly, using the peculiar noiseless, shuffling gait she had spent long hours perfecting, she began to move towards him, tracking him by the glow of his chakra through the opaque mists. He was close enough to the center of the arena that she would be able to circle around and come up behind him, at which point the fight would be over.

To her surprise, though, Hinata saw his silhouette double, one copy moving away while the second remained in place—but the truly interesting thing was that while both forms appeared solid, only one was generating chakra. Normal bunshin showed up as nothing but hazy outlines when viewed with the byakugan, while the kage bunshin Kakashi had demonstrated for her once had been impossible to tell apart from real humans; this lay somewhere in between the two. She paused her approach for a moment and looked more closely, trying to determine if her opponent had somehow trapped her in a genjutsu or if what she was seeing was real.

Ah…I see it, she thought, nodding slightly. Faintly glowing lines of chakra connected the two figures, and as she watched, she saw the chakra-dark one move in time with the twitching of the 'strings.' Somehow, the Sand genin was controlling a double of himself—probably physical, though she supposed it could be a bunshin of some sort—like a marionette, and if she had not been able to see the difference between their chakra levels, she had to admit she probably would have been fooled. As it was, though, this just offered her another opportunity to disable him. Disrupting chakra flows was what the jyuuken did best, after all.

Hinata's first strike cut through half of the glowing strings, causing the entire left side of the puppet to go limp. She heard her opponent's short exclamation of surprise, oddly distorted due to some property of the mists enveloping them, and cursed to herself when the strings reappeared a moment later. Ducking a clumsy, unaimed strike that nevertheless came annoyingly close to hitting her, she then frowned as she retreated slightly. Perhaps this would not be as simple as she had thought; a more pressing concern, though, was the continuous chakra drain caused by her Mist Concealment technique. The air in the arena must have been fairly dry, as maintaining it at this level was exhausting her reserves faster than she had expected.

With a wide, arcing swipe, she severed all of the chakra strings linking the Sand genin to his puppet, then turned and ran towards him as quickly as she could. As she had hoped, the sound of the puppet clattering to the ground must have covered up the noise she was making, because he was completely unprepared for her attack. Guessing that he needed to use his hands to create the chakra strings that would let him control his puppet, she brushed her fingers along the tenketsu in his arms, then struck several nerve clusters in his shoulders. The combined effects of the damage to both his chakra coils and nervous system were enough to completely paralyze his arms.

To his credit, the Sand genin did not simply stand in place and let Hinata disable him, even after the shock of having his arms rendered limp and useless. She hopped over a quick leg sweep, then slid around what she assumed was an attempt to head-butt her, but the fight was all but over. With his arms disabled for the moment, he could neither control his puppet nor use any ninjutsu or genjutsu, and he had to have known it. To drive her point home, though, she retreated back into the concealing fog, then came up from behind him while he was still trying to track her.

One soft, exquisitely precise blow to the base of his spine was enough to interrupt the chakra flowing to his legs—only for an instant, but an instant was all she needed, as he pitched forward onto the ground and, without the support and balance provided by his arms, was unable to rise again. Breathing a deep sigh of relief, she released the mist-generating technique she had been maintaining throughout the fight, then staggered as a rush of lightheadedness hit her. She had almost cut things too close, and she was very thankful she would have a chance to rest after this.

As the fog dissipated, she saw the Sand genin had managed to struggle to his knees, and she frowned. Despite her anger at what his teammate had done, she really didn't want to hurt him, or even fully disable him, but it looked like she would have to. To her surprise, though, he shook his head at her and called out his forfeit of the match to the overseeing jounin.

"I know when I'm beaten," he said, though the nasty smirk he gave her seemed at odds with his words. Somehow, despite his apparently willing surrender, she had a feeling she had made an enemy that day.

- - -

Author's Notes: Well, I've been trying to get this up since last Wednesday, but the site wouldn't let me upload anything at all--not even a completely blank plain-text document--and the support website I was directed to apparently doesn't exist. Regardless, things seem to be working again now, so that's good. In any event, thank you all for your reviews of the previous chapter, and I hope you enjoyed this one as well.

If anyone is curious, here is a complete list of the preliminary matches and their winners, though I believe all are at least mentioned in passing: Naruto(W)/Ino, Neji(W)/Kiba, Sasuke(W)/Yoroi, Shikamaru(W)/Kabuto, Shino(W)/Chouji, Temari(W)/Tenten, Gaara(W)/Lee, Hinata(W)/Kankuro.