Temari waited for her opponent to do something, as she knew, from the preliminary match, that Shikamaru could only manipulate his own shadow, so long as there was enough light to differentiate between what is shadow and what is not...or so she thought. She was therefore surprised into inaction when he speared her feet with the shadow he'd sent underground, where there was always shadow to be manipulated. Temari sent another Kamaitachi at Shikamaru, causing him to lose his concentration, releasing his jutsu, freeing Temari to continue on with the fight the way that it did in the anime.

XXXXXXX

Genma, in a rather melodramatic fashion, announced, "Due to the fact that there is an odd number of participants this year, Uchiha Sasuke was unable to draw an opponent for the first round. As such we will be progressing on to the second round immediately." A lot of the crowd was disappointed, having come to the stadium especially to watch the last Uchiha's match. "Now, the first battle of the second round is between Uzumaki Akiko and Sabaku no Gaara. Will both combatants come to the battlefield." Even as he was talking he thought, 'Although it would be better if Akiko forfeited the match now, since despite somehow learning her mother's style of taijutsu, right now her muscular structure isn't capable of handling it for an extended period.' But he wasn't the least bit surprised to see Akiko jump down to the stadium grounds, rushing to stand by him.

As Akiko waited for Gaara to appear, the Suna-nin took his time walking down the stairs, hoping to increase the fear that he had implanted in the, now, kunoichi of Konoha. Akiko, though, had gotten over her fear over the month-long break. When Gaara got to the field Genma asked for any comments. Gaara didn't offer any. Akiko did. She declared, "Alright you sand-bastard, I'm gonna beat the hell outta you for what you did to bushy-brow!"

"That isn't possible," Gaara said.

"I'll show you what is possible Dattebayo!"

Gaara sighed and said, "The only one that interests me is Sasuke."

"Sasuke, Sasuke, bloody Sasuke! That's all anyone wants to hear about. How he lost his family early on in his life. Well I lost mine the day I was born, so what about me?" A slight tremor of guilt rushed through a lot of the civilians, despite their ridiculous beliefs.

"I don't care. I only care about those that are strong enough to prove my existence, which you are not."

"Let's find out!" Akiko declared, fed up with the conversation, allowing Genma to start the match. Akiko disappeared from the sight of most of the audience as she had done against Neji, reappearing behind Gaara, spinning on her right foot, kicking at Gaara's back with he left. Her kick was met with sand. She kicked her left foot backwards, letting the force flip her as she spun to the right, bringing her right foot around to kick at Gaara's head, which was also blocked by his sand. She planted her hand on the ground, channelling chakra to her hand and using it to spin her body on the spot, kicking at Gaara's feet in an attempt to, literally, sweep him off his feet.

Genma thought, 'She's not using her mother's taijutsu. She must have realised that it placed a greater amount of strain on her than normal and so is using her own style instead. It must have been a move born of desperation on the Kyūbi's behalf. After all, in a taijutsu match like the last one, not being able to move as you normally would is too much of a disadvantage. But it looks like normal taijutsu will not be enough against Gaara,' as he saw Gaara's sand once again defend against Akiko's attack.

Akiko used her chakra to spin away from the suna-nin's leg, pushing herself away from him in order to avoid being captured by his sand as Lee and Dosu had been, dodging streams of rapidly moving sand as she did so, even managing to push off of one of them as it was about to slam into her. Akiko thought, 'Damn! That Sand Shield is tough. Nothing I threw at it worked...and I don't want to use that weird taijutsu that the Kyūbi gave me, it puts too much stress on my muscles. Wait a sec...' Akiko smirked, coming up with a plan. She said, "Alright you freak! I'm going to cut through that sand in three moves."

In the competitor's box Shikamaru thought, 'Three moves? What could she...wait...cut...?' as he remembers Akiko's earlier use of Fūton: Shinkūjin.

Akiko knelt to the ground, grabbed some dirt and said, "Henge!" transforming the dirt into a bar of some kind of black material. This confused many in the crowd, who couldn't see the transformed bar, laughing as a result, including Sasuke whom had only just appeared alongside Kakashi, who immediately used Shunshin to seemingly teleport away, in the competitor's box. Shikamaru called him an idiot, not bothering to explain why when ordered to by the arrogant Uchiha.

Akiko then used a Substitution jutsu, garnering more laughter from the crowd when she didn't move an inch, assuming that she had just failed in two successive academy level jutsu. Genma though, wasn't impressed as his Senbon got switched with Akiko's bar, disintegrating back into dirt in his mouth, causing him to cough in disgust. Gaara looked at the instructor and thought, 'Where did that...' But he didn't have time to finish as he felt pain tear through his arm, courtesy of the senbon that Akiko had thrown, having enhanced it with her wind natured chakra.

Genma thought, 'Smart,' even as he reprimanded himself for letting Akiko get away with such a trick.

XXXXXX

In the stands, Kakashi glared at Akiko as he demanded, "Gai, what happened," having activated his Sharingan when he saw Akiko out on the field.

Gai said, "If you had gotten here on time like the rest of the competitors, then you'd already know."

"I don't have time to deal with your attitude while some imposter is standing on the field there."

"There's no imposter Kakashi. You should know, after all, that is the daughter of your sensei."

"Daughter?"

"Uzumaki Akiko. Apparently some kind of seal was put on her right after she was born. It was supposedly put on there to protect her, but they managed to seal off all of her yin chakra."

"Her..." Kakashi said as he thought, 'So that's what happened.'

"What I want to know is what kind of training did you give her?"

"Me? I pawned Naruto off to Ebisu so that I could get Sasuke ready to look after Naruto and Sakura if I'm unable to." Kakashi felt a wave of killing intent from nearby wash over him that he hadn't felt since the Third Great Shinobi War. 'That's...!'

"Kakashi," a female voice said.

"What are you doing here I saw you die?"

"I'm not aligned with the Sound village if that's what you are thinking. You should know why I am here. But I must admit, I am shocked...no...horrified by what you did. Minato-sensei always made room for all of us. I mean...what were you thinking focusing on only one of your students?"

"Rin...I..." Kakashi started to say before being overcome by Rin's powerful killer intent, her hair starting to fly around, like Akiko's had earlier, her eyes taking on a black glow.

Gai raised his hands in front of him and said, "Look Rin, I know what Kakashi has done is unforgivable, but you can't just kill him!"

"Why not?" Rin asked, her righteous fury reflected in her tone. For added effect she let her chakra flicker around her, instead of keeping it within her chakra coils as she does when using her taijutsu style, Sōshiken. As she did her hair settled down some, but not a lot. Kakashi felt a sense of relief when Rin dropped her killing intent. However a sense of dread, unrelated to his old teammate settled itself over him when he felt a feeling that was similar to that which he had felt on the Great Naruto Bridge when Akiko, then Naruto, accessed the Kyūbi's power for the first time. It was similar, yet distinctly different. The reason for which was revealed to him when he joined Gai and Rin at the railing.

XXXXX

While Rin had, rightfully, been taking her anger out on Kakashi Akiko hadn't been sitting around. As Gaara's sand kept after her she jumped back, doing handseals before breathing out a powerful vortex of wind, announcing, "Fūton: Ressenpū." The wind collided with the sand, pushing through the sand, forcing it aside, as it shot towards Gaara. Gaara's sand rushed to coalesce at one point in order to create a protective shield. It successfully stopped the stream of wind, but couldn't stop the kunai coated in wind that stuck into Gaara's right arm.

Gaara screamed, feeling physical pain for what seemed like the first time in his life. Then he started to break into a manic laughter. He growled, "Akikko..." as his sand covered half of his face, surrounding his arm and half of his back. He also now had a sandy tail. His manic laughter died down, being replaced by a mere smile that was indication enough of his insanity. Gaara announced "You're dead!" as he propelled himself towards Akiko with first his tail, then his arm.

Akiko quickly thought, 'No time for half-assed tricks,' her hair starting to flay wildly about. Gaara brought his sand-encrusted arm on Akiko, trying to slap her into submission, still having doubts about her ability to prove his existence. Akiko merely ducked, spinning in a crouched position as she drew a kunai and slashed through Gaara's sand arm, not bothering to announce the name of her attack. She then quickly backed away, having no desire to engage in a close quarters match against a monster like that. Even so, she kept up her Sōshiken mode. She thought, 'Okay, so that thing is really fast, plus with that arm it'll have some power in it too...what the hell can I do against that? Although my wind style does seem to be effec...'

'Brat!' Akiko heard in her mind.

'Is that you Kyūbi?' Akiko thought, reasoning that if the Kyūbi could mind-talk to her, she should be able to do the same.

'Who else would it be?' Kyubi didn't wait for an answer. 'That brat from Sunagakure has an Ichibi sealed inside it.'

"An Ichibi?"

'Yes. Some of the summoning clans have, within their ranks, levels derived from the number of tails that they possess. We of the Kitsune are one of the clans that do. Kitsune are considered fire elementals within the tailed beast clans. The Racoon's are aligned with the sand element.'

'Then...'

'Yeah. That brat has one of the Racoon's Ichibi sealed inside him.'

'Well that's just great. Unlike my seal it seems that Gaara's lets him take on the form of the Ichibi sealed in it.'

'It seems so. It gets even worse when you take that into account.'

'That? What is 'that'?'

'Typically most Ichibi level summons have little control over their powers...although the same could be said of the Racoon's in general. I would take care of this myself, but from in here I can't really do much of anything.'

'Then I'll just have to think of something myself,' Akiko said to the Kyubi sealed in her. Gaara propelled himself towards her once again. She spun around him as he passed by her. After Gaara had shot past Akiko, and was somewhere in the range of ten to fifteen metres away from her, he planted his sand arm on the ground, manipulating it so that he was now flying back at her as she finished her spin, standing still, staring at him, without even a hint that she was going to give up. She thought, 'Okay, so his movements are really linear. That means that I can dodge him easily. Well, at least until he finds a way around it. So...hm...that could work,' Akiko said, "Alright Gaara. Bring it."