Game On! 4.0

Chapter 5: Waves In Sand

"Ladies and gentleman, welcome..."
Naruto was the first to fight – they had researched all the other genin in the tournament and so he knew the basis about the stout Suna genin in front of him – Arata was a taijutsu specialist, but he also apparently was rather good at traps, something he'd heard the other brag about with his team-mates. It was only his bad luck that the brunette boy was against Uzumaki Naruto, self-proclaimed king of pranks!

"Fight!"
Naruto jumped back, throwing a smoke pellet before making a clone while the other couldn't see and making it shift to a beetle with a henge.
He dodged the kunai thrown from the smoke easily, answering by his own one – with an explosive tag on it. The other was lucky enough to realize, and dodged out of the cloud a second before the tag detonated, leaving a rather large area of destruction behind.
Arata whistled when seeing this, impressed by the size of the explosion, but was already going on the offensive, with like expected a strong taijutsu style – but while Naruto got hit more often than usual against the unknown style, he was adapting himself with each hit, and used enough to take hits that he could afford it.

In the mean time, his clone had circled the Suna genin and dropped his henge, sending a wind blade toward the other's back. Clearly – there was a reason why Arata was in these Exams, as he felt the attack a moment before it hit, partially avoiding it.
Still, the wound was enough to weaken him, and while he did successfully use some steel wire to trip Naruto, the blond didn't let the fall stop him, instead sending another wind technique toward the other genin as he was leveled to his knees.
This time, with one leg all but useless, Arata gave up, and the proctor called Naruto's victory, before making them evacuate the arena, the blond Konoha nin helping his adversary to the medic-nin waiting by the side.

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Next was Sakura's match against another Suna shinobi – Chie was a petite dark red-haired girl that looked very self assured.
Despite making a good showing, the difference in skill was soon clear, the specialist in bukijutsu able to enhance her weapons with wind chakra. While the pink-haired genin had made tremendous progress in her physical abilities and as such was able to evade quite a few of the incoming attack, she soon realized the other was far too fast for her to be able to counteract effectively.
After making one attempt, which earned her a nasty gash on the shoulder, she forfeited.

Surprisingly for the rather brash girl, she shook her hand "When I saw you I thought you were one of those useless fan-girls, but you do have some skill." Chie commended "Your genjutsu nearly got me, and if I wasn't that used to them because of my team-mate I wouldn't have broken it in time." a smile "It was the bad luck of the draw!"
"I was a fan-girl." Sakura admitted as they left the arena, hand glowing green as she started to heal her wounds "I've learned better... But clearly, I've still got some work ahead!"
"Well clearly, you've woken up well!" the other winked "I've tried my hands at medical-jutsu, but I just can't get the hang of it!" she admitted with a small pout

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The next match was the first with an Iwa genin.
Suzume, the lone girl of the team, was a kenjutsu specialist who also boasted a very good Earth defense jutsu – Neji had lucked out on this match, as he soon realized.
The dark-haired girl elegantly danced between the attacks of the rather stiff Hyuuga taijutsu style, and while the boy himself could protect himself thanks to his mastery of the Hakkeshou Kaiten, a defensive technique supposedly only taught to the clan heir, it was all he could do – Neji maybe rather stiff and cold he was also very intelligent, and had learned himself the secret move that was serving him so well after observing his uncle, Hinata's father using it.
Still – as impressive the technique was, especially given how young he was, it still used both chakra and physical stamina, and so he soon realized he couldn't hold it indefinitely. Suzume, on the other side was practicing a style base on speed rather than strength and was growing tired fast.