"Next fights: Uzumaki Naruto versus Inuzuka Kiba, and Nara Shikamaru versus Temari," Genma announced to half-hearted cheers from the audience.
Naruto and Kiba practically had to drag Shikamaru into the arena. Haruka was pretty sure the Nara would have simply forfeit if the threat of having to face his mother's and Ino's wrath hadn't been hanging over his head. She really wondered what Konoha would have looked like with a clan of geniuses that didn't also suffer from terminal laziness. They didn't have any crazy kekkei genkai like the Byakugan or Sharingan, but she was willing to bet they could have easily become the shinobi world's bogeyman if they'd tried.
Instead they got Shikamaru, who seemed so bored that just looking at him made Haruka yawn. Naruto and Kiba were the exact opposite. Both nearly bursting with energy, and happily trash talking to each other.
With the way Genma had split the arena a little less than one third of each side lay completely in shadow. Of course that was the area Shikamaru stayed in to give his clan jutsu a distance boost, but Temari wasn't stupid. She quickly figured out just how far she had to stay away so his shadow couldn't reach her. She was a long range fighter, and her wind attacks were more than powerful enough that Shikamaru couldn't escape them no matter where he went.
It was already afternoon, so in a regular fight he could have just evaded her until the sun was low enough to give him more reach, but with the ten minute time limit that wasn't an option. Yet, all he seemed to be doing was hide and dodge. He never even tried to use his shadow, merely throwing the occasional kunai or shuriken in Temari's general direction. Some of the audience members were actually booing.
On the other side of the arena, Kiba and Akamaru were using the Fang Over Fang jutsu to rip through Shadow Clone after Shadow Clone. They were also inflicting incredible damage to the arena itself, but never even got close to the real Naruto, who constantly stayed at the back. He used the Replacement jutsu to switch places with one of his clones whenever he was in danger of getting hit, which also served to confuse his opponents' sense of smell.
Haruka wondered whether that was deliberate or just a happy coincidence, and what exactly he was trying to achieve. As far as she could tell he was trying to surround Kiba with his clones, but he'd also summoned three tadpoles for some reason. And then after seven minutes or so they started an impromptu shouting match. Kiba was frustrated because Naruto kept running instead of fighting him head on, and Naruto because the summoning jutsu he kept using didn't work the way he wanted it to.
"Don't underestimate me!" The blond yelled at the audience when they began booing that match as well. Then there was suddenly a massive spike in his chakra, loosely forming tails behind him for a moment. The clones began to pile onto Kiba, and a giant form appeared out of nowhere squashing them and the Inuzuka. Confused silence reigned for a few seconds until the chakra smoke lifted and then the audience roared with laughter.
Haruka put her head into her hands and groaned. Of course her teammate would win by having a frog sit on his opponent.
"Unconventional, but effective," Sai commented, practical as ever. Sometimes it made her want to hit him.
She glanced back to the other side of the arena in hopes of escaping the sheer ridiculousness of Naruto's tactic, but Shikamaru was still just dodging and half-heartedly throwing shuriken.
Then Temari suddenly stopped dead in her tracks. The audience went silent once more.
While nobody had been paying attention the Nara had looped his shadow all the way around to the other side of the arena by taking advantage of the deep groves Kiba's jutsu had carved into the ground. His random attacks weren't random at all. They had served to herd Temari to the seemingly safe part of their battle field, far away from Shikamaru and the wall's shadow, and closer towards the trees on the opposite side and the destruction Kiba had caused. It was a brilliant game, every move leading up to that final one, and all the while keeping everyone under the impression that he wasn't even trying.
Haruka could practically taste the anticipation that permeated the air. Each move the Nara made, his opponent would copy, and everyone wanted to know how he'd end the fight. Temari closed her eyes, expecting the worst when he raised his hand. They snapped back open a second later.
"I give up," Shikamaru said, rubbing his shoulder and complaining about how tired he was.
"What?" Naruto shouted, bounding over to yell at the other boy. Haruka couldn't decide whether laughing or banging her head into a wall would be more appropriate, instead she settled for pretending she didn't know any of them.
The blond was making so much of a fuss that Anko had to drag him back into the waiting room, while Genma announced the final match of the first round.
Tenten seemed pretty resigned before the fight even started, and the reason became clear after only a few seconds. She was a mid to long range weapons specialist, with an impressive arsenal of projectiles at her disposal, and near perfect accuracy. But that was all she was, and Neji had, just like Hinata had predicted, mastered the Eight Trigrams: Palm Rotation, which meant he could deflect whatever his teammate threw at him. The technique required a lot of chakra, but then he only needed to use it once before he managed to close the distance and Tenten was forced to give up or suffer the consequences. She wisely chose the former, which concluded the first round of the tournament.
𖦹𖦹𖦹
There was a five minute break before the second round was supposed to start, during which the audience got rather restless because Sasuke still hadn't shown his face. Genma was halfway through announcing that Shino won his match by default when a whirlwind of leaves suddenly erupted in the middle of the arena. At its center Sasuke and Kakashi stood back to back, looking as if they were posing for some movie poster.
"Why are all of my teammates dramatic idiots?" Haruka complained. Sai elected not to answer, which was probably a good choice, given what she had planned for Neji.
Naruto was grinning like an idiot when the fight finally started, and actually shouting encouragement instead of insults. Not that Sasuke needed them. The training with Kakashi had made him fast, and he just about torched every single one of Shino's kikaichu. It was a rather anticlimactic match after such a flashy entrance.
"Orders?" Sai asked turning towards Haruka, when his fight against Gaara was announced. She stared at him. He usually did whatever she told him to do, which was why she always carefully thought about how to formulate each and every request she made of him, but he'd never outright asked her for orders. There wasn't really time to analyze the change in behavior. Asking what he wanted to do, and trying to figure it out from what would likely be a very vague non-answer was out for the same reason.
"Don't die or get yourself maimed," she told him instead.
Haruka kind of expected him to just forfeit the fight, and he did, but he made Gaara work for it first. Sai practically soaked the redhead's sand in ink, making it slower as well as harder to control by diluting it and adding weight. It was a good tactic, especially because it greatly weakened his opponent's ability to shield himself. It might even have worked, had Gaara not simply used his own sand to grind the dirt that served as the arena's floor into a miniature desert. The fact that taking his sand out didn't stop him because he could simply create more was just one more thing on the long list that made him terrifying.
Next it was Naruto's turn to fight Temari. Haruka missed most of it because she took the time to praise Sai's tactic and his judgment on how far to take the battle. It seemed silly, seeing as they were both genin, but he'd asked her for orders, and that made her feel responsible for his actions. Sai listened attentively while she spoke, not voicing an opinion of his own unless specifically asked. It frustrated Haruka to no end, but then Naruto's sheer stamina—and a myriad of Shadow Clones—won out over Temari's wind and depleted reserves.
"The final match of the second round," Genma announced. "Haruka versus Neji Hyuga."
Kakashi was standing outside of the waiting room, raising his one visible eyebrow at her. Haruka patted his shoulder and then told him in a mock patronizing tone: "Don't worry old man, I'm going to earn you a fortune."
Neji, already in the arena, scoffed at her when she joined him.
"Don't think training with someone as pathetic as Hinata could give you the means to defeat me. You should give up while you still can, my victory is fated."
"Poor little bird," she smiled. "So wrapped up in chains of your own making that you can't even see the sky anymore."
Neji immediately struck at her when Genma told them to begin, and he kept striking, while Haruka closed her eyes and danced with him. No matter what he did there were always precisely two centimeters between his hands and her body.
Neji's form was perfect, so perfect in fact that Haruka knew exactly what he would do next. The Gentle Fist was an incredibly powerful taijutsu style that could kill in a single blow without even leaving any visible marks, but it was also rigid. In any given situation there was precisely one best move, which made it incredibly predictable to someone who knew all of them.
Hinata might be a timid girl that shied away from confrontations, but she was also studious. There was nothing she didn't know about the Gentle Fist, even if she couldn't—or wouldn't—apply all of that knowledge. The girl was a deadly taijutsu master held back by nothing but her own desire not to inflict pain on others, and she'd spent the past thirty days teaching Haruka.
"For a clan in possession of one of the most coveted dojutsu the Hyuga are ironically blind," she singsonged, earning herself a snarl from Neji.
When the cousins had fought their motions had almost been mirror images of each other, the only difference being Hinata's more fluid style and Neji's superior speed. Haruka would never be able to use the Gentle Fist herself, at least not the way they did, but she'd learned almost everything Hinata knew about it. Unlike the other girl, she was also faster than Neji, dancing out of the way at the last moment to make it seem as if he needed to push just a little harder, and every time he did she matched his speed, laughing and offering insincere encouragement.
Haruka hadn't tried to attack him even once, but she made sure to keep her hands up at all times, palms open. That too had been Hinata's idea and it worked like a charm. Neji knew how to fight against the Gentle Fist and with the constant threat that Haruka might be able to use it hovering over him he had to concentrate on his defense as much as on his offense, whereas all she had to do was not get hit.
It still took a lot of concentration, which was why she kept her eyes closed and had practiced her mocking banter beforehand. Haruka knew every move Neji did and she could sense his chakra well enough that actually seeing him would have been more distracting than helpful. Of course not looking also had the added benefit of making him furious because it seemed as if she was barely paying attention at all and still so much better that she could afford to play with him.
After ten minutes he was panting, and as riled up as he was likely to get. Neji was a prodigy. He expected to be the best at what he did, and that arrogance and pride would be his downfall. If he'd been thinking clearly he'd have switched tactics long ago, but he needed to prove that he was better than her. That an outsider who had learned from someone he didn't respect and had already beaten wasn't better at his clan's signature style than him.
He never even noticed that all Haruka really did was evade and provoke, but then that was the whole point of this game. To take all of his strengths and turn them into weaknesses. And then, the second he started to doubt himself and his form was off just by the slightest margin, she struck. She turned into a ghost, using each and every stealth technique she'd learned at exactly the same time, body flickered behind him, and hit the back of his head hard enough to knock him out.
It had taken her a full week to perfect just that one move, and she could still only completely ghost for a maximum of two seconds. It didn't even fool the Byakugan because the concentration of chakra, even if it perfectly matched the environment in any other aspect, would always be different and shaped like a human. Still, when one was focused on a flesh and blood opponent that suddenly vanished, finding that little giveaway took time, especially when one was furious and not paying enough attention.
Haruka owed Hinata a lot for sacrificing almost all of her free time, but the stunned look on Kakashi's face as she walked back towards the waiting room was completely worth it. Now she only needed to hope that preparing for nothing but that one match wouldn't put her at too much of a disadvantage against her blond teammate. She didn't really have a way to deal with dozens of clones and giant frogs that fell out of the sky without warning.
Gaara was already in the long corridor that led towards the arena when she entered it. Two grass shinobi were leaning against the wall to either side in front of him.
"These low level tournaments are great for betting. Many of the ministers are only here for that," one started.
"So this fight, could you lose it?" The other finished.
Gaara gave them a mad grin. Sand rushed out of his gourd and a moment later the corridor was spattered in blood, two mangled corpses lying on the ground. He hadn't given them any kind of warning, not even hesitated, and he was walking straight towards her.
Haruka held his gaze, but she also moved out of the way. Slow, deliberate steps that put her back to the wall and left no doubt about the fact that she was not here to fight him. Gaara didn't say anything when he stopped right next to her, just stared. He was waiting for her to flinch, and the second she did he would kill her as well. Actually, considering how volatile he was, he might just get bored and kill her regardless.
"You always make such a mess Panda Eyes," Haruka told him, deciding that reacting the way he expected her to was too dangerous. She might have tried for fond, if she thought she could have pulled it off, but instead her voice was flat, almost bored. It didn't shake though, and that was the important part. "Go on, you can kill me another time. Right now you have a match to get to."
Gaara stared at her for a long time before he moved. Haruka slid down the wall the second his chakra was far enough away for her to be sure he wouldn't turn around. She hadn't even noticed that she'd been holding her breath until her lungs started to burn, desperately demanding air.
Naruto almost barreled her over when she finally made it into the waiting room.
"Oh my god, Haruka-chan! That was so awesome!" He shouted. Sasuke gave her a speculative look as he passed them on his way into the arena.
"Be careful," Haruka told him. She didn't explain that Gaara seemed more unstable than usual, which was saying something. He'd see the corpses soon enough.