Chapter 70: More Preliminaries

Chapter 70: More Preliminaries

Disclaimer: Naruto and all of its characters belong to Shueisha and Masashi Kishimoto. I own nothing but the original characters I create.

"Dialogue"

'Thoughts'

-Author notes-

Chapter 70: More Preliminaries

Ino was still unconscious when the medics took her away.

But she was in much better shape than her opponent, who had to be rushed to the hospital for intense care.

The next match was then announced...

"Yoroi Akado vs. Kankuro of the Sand!"

Yoroi was the last remaining member of Kabuto's team, and his specialty was stealing chakra through physical contact.

An ability that was promptly shown to be useless when the 'Kankuro' they had all seen, was revealed to be a wooden puppet, while the real one had remained hidden behind the puppet's back.

The match ended very quickly after that, leaving Kankuro as the clear winner.

"Sakura Haruno vs. Temari of the Sand!" Hayate announced next.

"It's my turn!" Sakura said, her voice tinged with evident nervousness.

"Wish me luck, Sasuke!" She exclaimed before rushing down the stairs.

"Hmph...." That was all Sasuke said to her.

"She has no chance," Naruto commented.

"Naruto...." Kakashi gave him a look of disapproval.

"You should be cheering for your teammate."

"Do you disagree?" Naruto glanced at his sensei. "That girl from the Sand Village looks very tough."

"I mean..." Kakashi also thought that Sakura had no chance, but as her sensei, he couldn't say that.

He then gave Naruto a glare that seemed to convey a, 'You better not lose like that,' feeling.

Over the next hour, several more matches went by.

TenTen put up a good fight against Aburame Shino, but she was unable to stop the mass of insects with her weapons and lost.

Shikamaru had to deal with Tsuchi Kin, another member of the Sound Village.

She fought using senbons, which reminded Naruto of that ninja he met at Wave.

Although, she was nowhere near as strong.

Shikamaru still had to put in a lot of effort to defeat her. The match lasted for thirty minutes, making it the longest one so far.

It took a while until Shikamaru was finally able to trap Kin with his shadow jutsu, but once he did that... the fight was over.

Next was Choji vs. Kiba.

This was the most direct fight of the preliminaries since both ninjas were specialists in frontal assaults.

Choji used his large body and tremendous strength while Kiba relied more on speed and coordinated attacks with his dog companion.

Ultimately, Kiba won the match because Choji refused to make use of the Three Colored Pills. That secret medicine from his clan was only meant to be used in life-or-death situations.

Then came the match between Hyuga Hinata and her cousin Neji... this was a very one-sided fight.

Neji was clearly not just a genius in name, and his skills far surpassed those of Hinata.

As Naruto watched, he got the feeling that she was holding back for some reason.

He also got the feeling that the Hyuga house had some serious internal problems.

Neji showed his cousin no mercy, and in the end, he had to be stopped by the referee and several of the jonin present before he could cause irreparable damage to her.

'Something is going on between those two...' Naruto wondered if this was something he could use to his advantage.

Internal problems were not rare in big clans, but to show them so publicly... they must be very serious.

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