Starting over

#56 Strategy

Naruto POV

Temari hugged Gaara before he went down. I smiled at him and gave him a thumbs up as he disappeared in a cloud of sand. Temari looked at me smiling, pecking me on the lips, taking my hand and pulling me to the railing. I got dirty looks from the Konoha genin that were with us on the balcony but I didn't care. Tenten had went down into the staircase after I had stepped out of it and was now coming into the arena. Gaara had already appeared next to Shizune, slightly startling the girl.

I put my arms around Temari's waist and watched as Gaara let his sand drop onto the ground. I heard a few comments about what the use of this sand would be from the stands over us and smiled seeing that a bit of the sand went underground and was probably working on creating even more sand. Shizune jumped away, starting the match. Tenten immediately took out a scroll from her pockets and pushed chakra into the seal, summoning a lot of kunai which shot at Gaara. The redhead looked at this incoming Attack with a raised brow, not moving at all. Just as the attack was about to hit him, a sand shield shot out if the ground and intercepted the incoming kunai. Gaara smiled as a clone of himself materialized behind his brown haired opponent. Tenten was just taking another scroll out of her pockets as Gaara's clone put a kunai to her throat. Shizune jumped down and ended the match, causing the clone to dissolve into sand. Tenten went up into the stands and sat down next to her sensei and her teammate, since she wasn't injured at all, while Gaara appeared next to Temari and me, smiling. The next match was between Shino Aburame and Shikamaru Nara. Both contestants went over the railing, although Shikamaru had to be thrown over by Hinata since he didn't want to go down. Shino landed with little effort while Shikamaru came down struggling but managed to land on his feet. Shizune started the third match and jumped away, as Shino raised his arms and let out a bunch of bugs which quickly flew towards Shikamaru. The lazy shinobi looked at the cloud of bugs taking out a few kunai. He threw one at the cloud of bugs, which first seemed to go through the bugs without harming them, but then I saw the explosive tag that Shikamaru had apparently fixed on the kunai. Just then the kunai exploded, dispersing the bugs, killing a lot of them. From my position over the battle I could see, how Shikamaru threw kunai behind him on the ground, while the smoke from the explosion prevented the bug user from observing his actions. When the smoke disappeared Shino threw a few kunai at Shikamaru forcing him to dodge. The shadow user jumped to his right. After he had landed, he formed a hand sign. His shadow started to stretch towards Shino, who jumped back evading the shadow, until the shadow stopped. The bug user stopped jumping back and raised his arms again. Another cloud of bugs flew out, but didn't go straight for Shikamaru. Shino took out another set of kunai, before his bugs flew towards his opponent. Shikamaru again took out a kunai with an explosive tag and threw it at the cloud of bugs. Before it could explode however, Shino threw his kunai and deflected Shikamaru’s explosive kunai, causing it to explode outside of the bug of cloud, only incinerating a few of the bugs.  The bugs flew ahead, forcing Shikamaru to jump back, right past the kunai he had placed earlier. He put a bit of distance between himself and his attackers before reaching into his kunai pouch and taking out his third explosive kunai. Throwing it at the bugs he quickly reached into his pouch again and threw a set of kunai after it, deflecting the kunai that Shino had thrown to block his attack on the bugs. The explosive kunai exploded right in the center of the bugs and again incinerated almost all of them. Shino meanwhile had went after the retreating shinobi, always watching his distance to his opponent, staying out of range if the shadow possession jutsu.

Shikamaru grinned as he put his hands into his signature hand sign and his shadow extended itself towards the bug user. Shino only watched as the shadow came towards him, thinking that he was out of range of the jutsu. Sure enough, the shadow stopped about a foot in front of him. But as Shino tried to move he found himself unable to do so. Shikamaru grinned wider and went down on one knee, forcing Shino to mirror him. Then he turned his head and let Shino see, how he had sent out a second shadow, connecting with the shadows of the kunai and trapping Shino from behind. He then called out for the proctor, forfeiting. The audience was stunned, Shikamaru explained to Shizune why he forfeited and went up into the stands. Shino looked puzzled but smiled and went up to us onto the balcony, since he had technically won the fight. I was amazed by the level of strategy and foresight that Shikamaru had displayed. “For the next fight, would Sasuke Uchiha and Temari Sabaku please come down into the arena.”, Shizune called out for the next contestants. Temari smiled at me giving me a quick kiss. “Have fun, Tema.”, I said smiling as she jumped over the railing, opening her fan. She landed gracefully waiting for Sasuke to come down.