AN

I have a new blog on Blogspot, at GemKnight(dot)blogspot(dot)com

DarkRavie: thx as usual- sorry it took so long… vacations seems to be murder on my muse… must be hard for her to keep up with my location swapping xD

IsabelCortez: Well, I like going through almost the full spectrum in Temari- I've just begun… mind you it's mostly a distraction from the tournament- since the whole tourney isn't such a big thing aside from how it relates the subplot going on in rain country. As for poor Ino, she and Temari have something in common, Shika has grown on them, and they're both just deciding where he fits in in their worlds. Sad and funny is I just found a slideshow AMV to sk8ter boi that deals with the Ino-Shika-Temari relationship almost exactly as how I see it, xD

Kind of sad- I go more than three weeks and only get a page written- and in one night I finished a chapter and am most of the way through the next- having written 7 pages or so in one night, plus two entries in my blog...

GAH! Creaping ever closer to 25k hits… less than 300 to go…

End AN

Gaara stepped back into the room with the other leaders of countries; the table had been replaced, this time with a solid stone table with a number of posts to support its weight. Gaara almost smirked when he realized why. Gaara had put the sand armor back on once he'd been informed Matsuri was fine. It was time for the second round to begin.

naNAnaNAna

'One down, now let's see what this next one has to cut loose with.'

Celene came across the field where Naruto a ref to announce the fight waits. "Well, that was a bit of a wait, all rested up I take it?"

"Well, it wasn't my idea, if that's what you think?"

"More likely Lyle's if either of you, but no, I don't think it was you, you're too confident for that."

"I don't see that having an abundance of confidence has ever been that much of a disadvantage for me, how's it working for you?" Naruto tilted his head as if really expecting a response, but turned instead in time to listen as he announced the start of the battle.

Jumping back, the first thing Celene did was reach into her bag and pick up what looks a little bit like needles, only much thicker than the normal needles used by medic-nin, and with what looked like seals etched into them, she held four in one hand, and with her other hand made seals for a wind technique, the threw the needles into the ground and continued making seals, now with both hands.

Once Celene stopped making seals, the earth gave a little tremble, then from the holes where her seeking needle had gone into the ground- erupted four geysers of water.

"Great- first fire now water," Naruto grumbled as he jumped back.

"Mizu Bushin no Jutsu!" Celene touched the water and from each rising fountain stepped a water clone. Each reached into their bags and pulled out more normal seeming needles.

Naruto smirked and shot over the clones strait for the original, keeping a deal of chakara in his feet, he pushes off the water, running over it without sinking into it. He takes a kunai and uses it to parry a fistful of needles, and blows by, knocking Celene into her own water and causing her to dismiss the water clones. Celene grabs Naruto and rolls them both into the water…

teTEteTEte

Temari sighs in boredom as she walks to somewhere where she can actually see the fight. She looked out from one of the stadium seating exits-

"Hey- Temari," Ino called over from a nearby seat, she got to her feet and headed over, lowering her voice as she got closer, "I was hoping to have a little private chat with you."

Temari looked right at Ino, but it was a moment later when she suddenly recognized her, she made sure not to show it though. "Sure I suppose, lead the way…"

When the two were out of obvious hearing range Ino turned back towards Temari, "Look ah, this isn't easy to ask, but I was just kinda wondering something. I realize it's kind of personal too, but," Ino took a breath to figure out how to phrase her question, "What are you feelings towards Shikamaru?"

Temari took a step back- "I-"

Temari turned around to conceal a subtle blush to her face, after half a moment she turned back with her face back to normal, "What do you mean?"

Ino blushed back this time, only raising a hand defensively to cover her face, "That- I mean, well, he kind of grows onto you, you know- and- when I saw you take his hand- I kinda realized how I really feel about him…" Barely finishing her sentence she reached the point of being unable to say any more for a while, overcome by her blushing.

Temari's vindictive side took this moment to resurface as she allowed a smirk to cross her face, "You mean you got jealous."

Ino's eyes went wide, and in an indignant tone she responded, "WELL!"

"You are," she pressed back, "You always figured you could take your time to decide how you felt about him because he always comes off as a worthless lazy bum. But we both know that Lazy is the only part of that that's true, and even then, he knows what needs to be done and does it. He's actually the complete opposite, a brilliant tactician- AND strategist, and believe me there is a difference… But you had him in this nice comfortable place where he was available to you and you were in no hurry to change that-"

"Wait a minute!"

"No, it's true, you were comfortable with him, and now you're not so comfortable because he may not be in your reach after all. I'm right and you know it, you got jealous- admittedly for almost no reason-"

"Aha!"

"Almost," she stressed, "you're worried he might be taking an interest in me, and you won't have him anymore. Well, to be frank I haven't decided yet either- if that relieves you any- or rather- hadn't decided yet, actually I think I'm rather certain now, becoming an aunt and all very soon, makes me think Shikamaru might just the right guy, a bit of a chauvinist, but that just gives him a little more attitude to bark from, since he means well enough by it."

"I-" Ino tried to find the words again, but suddenly she found herself getting angry again. "You-…"

"Yes?"

And as the only thing possible to make the situation worse, Shikamaru ended up picking that moment to poke his head around the corner, "Hey ah-" he started to talk to Temari, but stopped when he say Ino. "That is- I thought you- ah- might like to know, Matsuri's awake now."

Temari smirked, "Well, Garra will be glad to know that- though it's probably not the time to tell him."

"Yeah, I suppose not, ah so what were you two just-" Shikamaru stopped, and realized he didn't actually want to know the answer to that question, either it was none of his business, or it was about him, and neither were things he wanted to hear… "Nevermind."

"Say," Temari stepped a little closer, raising several red flags, "We're not really needed for anything else right now, what say we go to that other restaurant you were telling me about," she quickly took hold of one of his arms.

Ino fumed, but for less than a second before she moved over too, "Food sound great to me," she firmly took Shikamaru's other arm.

"But- wait- what if- there could be… they could need us…" Shikamaru's protests fell on deaf ears as the two women manhandled him out of the stadium…

shSHshSHsh

Shirei looked out at the crowd from the stands. She was amused that only one person in the tournament was even close to chuunin level, all the others were well beyond it in scope of power. After the Matsuri and Lyle fight she began to suspect why Sakura had been amused when Naruto had said that Gaara and Matsuri may have been more than student and teacher. Added to the rumors already flying around that Gaara had rushed out of the room he and the other leaders we watching from soon after Matsuri's battle. A lot of people were confused, some wanted to think that maybe he was a soft leader, but a lot of people in the stands had been here when Naruto was last here, and had stories of what a vicious monster Gaara was- well- certainly more to look into. He definitely didn't fit the monster peg when Matsuri was curled into his lap in Klien's cabin…

Shirei turned her attention back to the fight at hand. Celene had pretty much flooded the whole fighting zone. Naruto was quickly moving from one place to the next. Not surprising since he said he'd faced Haku and Zabuza before, he was doubtlessly aware of the water prison technique. There were no longer any tree's to seek reprieve from, because of the fight with Nora where she's scorched the whole field. Celene hadn't really bothered with water clones since Naruto ignored them and went straight for her every time- that could be dangerous if she changed tactics again and starts using them more discreetly such that Naruto can't tell which one is her. Naruto's obscene abundance of chakara was giving him a large advantage though, because both of them were using chakara exhaustive moves.

Naruto stopped for a moment, letting himself sink into the water. Celene quickly moved in on what looked like an opportunity. She sealed Naruto into a water prison. However when she started making a couple water clones to finish the match she paused when she saw the huge smirk on Naruto's face-

Everyone was shocked when Naruto did the seal for his Kage Bushin no Jutsu, and the sphere holding him simply exploded open with thousands of clones ripping out, almost as soon as he was out he dismissed the majority of them but still had more than a dozen clones that leapt out from where the sphere had been and lunged onto Celene from the short distance between them.

Shirei chuckled for a moment, "Only someone with that much Chakara could pull a stupid stunt like that and get away with it," she mused. Celene was quickly overwhelmed and subdued by Naruto's new tactic. She took down a couple of the clones before she went down, but she didn't find the orginal before she'd gotten herself firmly pinned in place, with several other Naruto's standing by to finish her, in reality waiting for either her or the referee to tell him he'd won.