“Both contestants step forward.” Hayate called out as Shinku and Choji climbed down and faced each other in front of him. “We’ll now begin the third match.” He said before stepping backwards “Please begin.”

“Choji… Can’t you just do me a favor and give up?”

“Free yakiniku is on the line for me in this match! I can’t give up so easily!” He called out, more enthusiastically about something other than eating than Shinku had ever heard him. Did this even count as something other than eating if he was motivated for the yakiniku part? Shinku guessed it could be seen both ways. Choji made the ram seal and then slapped his hands together. “Multi-size Jutsu!” he called out before his body puffed out into a ball shape. His head arms, and legs all somehow retracted, to where, Shinku didn’t know and honestly didn’t think he wanted to know.

He had his sharingan active. He saw what the technique was and how it was performed. He had confidence that he could do it himself. The Akimichi clan have chakra concerns that don’t apply to him due to his enormous chakra reserves, so he doesn’t even need the technique to convert his fat into chakra. He could just do it… but did he want to? The answer was no. Not… because of how the technique would make him look. The technique just wasn’t suited to his less… enthusiastic eating habits. Plus, he didn’t have the confidence that he would be able to beat out a regular user of the technique on his first try with it. Yes, that was the problem. It was definitely not that he would feel incredibly embarrassed using it.

“Konoha-style taijutsu!” Choji called out again “Human Bullet Tank!” He started spinning forward towards Shinku. Shinku jumped backwards, putting his back against the wall. As Choji was about to strike him he jumped up and attached himself to the underside of the observation platform, Choji impacting the wall and getting stuck inside it. His legs appeared again and he tried to pull himself out. Shinku looked over to the judge.

“Um… I don’t really want to hurt him. Can we just call that my win since he’s stuck?” Hayate shook his head, causing Shinku to sigh. He looked down at Choji, still trying to get himself out of the wall. ‘What do I do about this…? I guess I’ll use that. Hopefully it doesn’t hurt too bad. Sasuke didn’t scream when the guy wasn’t holding his head.’ Shinku jumped down next to Choji.

“Well… Forgive me Choji.” He first made two shadow clones, then with all of them, made the ram seal, their right hands becoming covered in chakra. They placed their hands on Choji and started draining his physical and mental energy. He had to admit. It felt good. Almost like he was being filled with strength. The fact that strength was someone else’s was somewhat disconcerting though. He wondered if he could modify the technique to only suck out physical energy at some point. Choji eventually shrunk down to his normal size, Shinku’s two shadow clones instantly putting him in a hold he couldn’t escape, keeping him from forming signs to use jutsu as well.

All three continued sucking out his strength, until he felt Choji relax himself completely, getting his hands off him and releasing him. Choji couldn’t move anymore. Hayate and Shinku waited to see if he would manage to stand up, but he failed, Hayate eventually announcing Shinku’s victory. Shinku crouched next to Choji and put his hands together with his head bowed slightly.

“Sorry buddy. I’ll treat you to some pork ramen as an apology later.” He said before standing up as the medical team came in, climbing up to the observation platform as they took Choji away. The next two names appeared on the screen after some shuffling

Haruno Sakura

vs

Yamanaka Ino

Sakura and Ino climbed down in front of Hayate as he called out for them and before long he announced the beginning of the fight. Shinku had the feeling that the fight was extremely emotionally meaningful from how the two looked at each other and how they put their headbands on properly, as if it had some meaning only they understood. They were rivals he guessed. Though he had no idea why. From what he remembered they got along wonderfully in the first one or two years of the academy. He wondered what happened.

The fight started out lightly. The two were obviously feeling reluctant about it and were pulling their punches, probably instinctively. Sakura used clones to distract ino and with build-up and release of chakra to increase her speed, she managed to get the better of Ino in that regard a few times. Their shurikenjutsu was about equal so they could never hit each other with them. Meanwhile, Ino couldn’t use her Yamanaka clan’s jutsu since it wasn’t really meant for combat purposes.

They continued to pummel each other over and over. Sakura had a slight advantage over Ino, but she was also more exhausted from before the fight started. Naruto cheered for Sakura the entire time through, but they were obviously evenly matched. The fight took quite a while, but eventually the two each hit each other simultaneously, sending each other flying so hard their headbands fell off. Both attempted to get up, but Sakura had used up too much chakra. Moreso than Ino had since the start of the fight and she was more exhausted to start with. Because of that, she fell back down, while Ino managed to get up. Hayate announced Ino’s victory and as soon as he did, her legs seemed to give out on her. Kakashi and Asuma body flickered into the arena and picked them up, then jumped back up to the observation area and laid them down to rest.

The screen shuffled names again and the next fight came up.

Tenten

vs

Temari

The two went down and before long Hayate begun the fight. Tenten instantly jumped back, taking her distance from her opponent, intending to observe her first. Temari provoked her about it, which caused Tenten to throw a group of shuriken at Temari, though they were easily knocked away with a fast swing, one Tenten missed, allowing Temari to provoke her further.

Shikamaru predicted victory for the sand. Naruto failed to understand, but Shinku knew what he meant. The Tenten girl’s opponent was completely controlling the flow of the battle. Tenten could still recover, but Shinku didn’t see it happening. The girl was already being caught up completely in Temari’s flow.

Tenten measured the distance between her and Temari before running around her, probably to attempt and confuse her. It was useless. She jumped up and took out a scroll spinning it around herself in mid-air and summoning the weapons sealed inside as projectiles, but with a swing of Temari’s not even-half-opened fan, they were all knocked to the ground. Their match-up was too bad. A ranged wind release user and a ranged weapon user. It was almost as if somebody had set the match up for Tenten to lose.

That didn’t mean she would go down without a fight. She took out two scrolls this time, setting them on the floor, she formed a few handseals, before the area was covered in smoke, the two scrolls erupting from within it, spinning around each other, Tenten jumping up in-between them as the smoke cleared up. Just like before she started summoning the weapons sealed inside and throwing them at Temari, but simply increasing how much she threw wasn’t going to be enough as Temari opened her fan a bit more and knocked them all away with another gust of wind.

As Tenten landed she jumped back up again, the weapons starting to lift off the ground and Tenten pulling them up, controlling them all with metal wire, and throwing them back down at Temari. Temari feigned surprise for a moment, before smirking as she fully opened her fan and flapped it, the strongest gust of wind yet, knocking the weapons and Tenten to the ground.

As Tenten stood up, Temari readied her fan again. “Ninja Art…” She started saying “Sickle Weasel Jutsu!” She finished as she flapped her fan down and then instantly back up, creating a tornado-like gust of wind around Tenten, which started cutting her up. AS the wind faded and Tenten started falling, Temari folded her fan and rested it against the ground, Tenten falling on top of it with her back first, almost looking like she would snap in two. Shinku winced. ‘That could have broken her spine. Fuck. That Temari lady is vicious.’ She swung Tenten off her fan throwing her across the arena. Shinku was tempted to jump down and catch her, but he let Lee do so instead, sure that she would be happier being saved by a teammate than some random guy that could have been her enemy.

With Lee and Temari arguing, Shinku could see Lee was being provoked just like Tenten was. Getting caught up in Temari’s pace. ‘That’s one seriously bad personality, woman.’ He spoke to no one inside his head, before jumping down and putting a hand on Lee’s shoulder right as he was about to rush forward.

“Calm down. Even if you fight right now it won’t accomplish anything. Rather than fighting shouldn’t you make sure your teammate’s taken care of?” He attempted to calm Lee down. Lee looked back at him, surprised.

“Ah. Y-Yes.” He said, hanging his head, seeming ashamed of himself.

“Hmph. And here I was starting to think that every shinobi from the leaf is just an idiot.” Temari provoked again.

“What was that?!” Naruto called out from the platform.

“Shut up, Naruto!” Shinku yelled out, getting irritated at how easily provoked everyone was. He turned to Temari and smiled. “You’ll have to excuse them. Here in Konoha we have a lot of emotional and passionate people. You can’t blame them if they can’t be emotionally challenged like you guys from the sand apparently are.”

Temari’s eyes narrowed in irritation before she turned around with a “Humph.” And climbed back up to her team. The medical team arrived afterwards, Lee helping them get Tenten on a stretcher, before they carried her off and he climbed back up to the platform with Shinku. The screen soon started shuffling trough names again and in a second the next participants had been decided.

Nara Shikamaru

vs

Kankuro