Naruto: Ren the Sealmaster

The two girls came to the arena, and Sakura instantly pointed at Ino as she confidently exclaimed, "Give up, Ino-pig! You can never defeat me! I trained with Sasuke-kun for over a year now!" She proudly raised her nose into the air, making Ino give her a baffled look.

But Ino shook her surprise quickly enough and ruefully chuckled in response, "I'll admit that getting through that heavy-duty shield you call your forehead is going to be challenging, Sakura, but I don't foresee anything else being a problem for me."

Sakura scoffed, inwardly unhappy that Ino went against the usual script their arguments followed. "I am no longer that little girl who could be cowed by a pathetic insult like that, piggy." She shook her head in pity at the weak attempt of her former friend.

Seeing Sakura's reaction, Ino sadly sighed and mournfully spoke, "Sigh. I guess I will have to use that, then." She gave Sakura a pitying look. One that made the pinkette feel a bad premonition.

Because of that, she blurted out, "That?" before she realised it and inwardly cursed, admonishing herself for being swept by Ino's tempo.

Ino beamed at the question. "The power of friendship, of course!" She happily informed Sakura of her master plan, causing the pinkette to deadpan at her while the amused proctor walked to his usual position and raised his arm.

Glancing at both girls, he started the match and jumped back. He honestly expected them to banter more. These girls looked like quintessential fangirls, and he didn't expect the fight to be anything spectacular. So, the least they could do would be to make at least the trash talk fun.

Sadly, it was not to be as Sakura instantly dashed at Ino, desiring to surprise her with her aggression.

She had trained under Gai-sensei! She had trained under Kakashi-sensei! She had trained with Sasuke-kun!!!!

She was going to beat Ino senseless!

Sakura quickly neared Ino, who was giving her a blank look, clearly shocked at her master plan. She pulled her arm back in preparation to deliver a powerful haymaker straight to the Ino-pig's face, a loud Shannarooo already on her tongue just as Gai-sensei taught her!

She swung her fist, putting her entire weight into it!

Only to trip over her own foot.

As she was falling down, Ino's fist found itself as an obstacle blocking the path of Sakura's face, causing it to ram straight into it. Gravity battled with the momentum of the punch while Ino's fist was burying itself into Sakura's face with a loud crunch belonging to Sakura's poor nose, until the momentum won, and Sakura's fall was negated. Instead of falling forward, Sakura was sent flying back a couple of feet, blood spurting into the air from her nose, until her back painfully hit the ground, her vision swimming.

Ino blankly stared at the pinkette as she fainted, inwardly sighing to herself as she wondered what the hell that was.

Sakura completely underestimated her.

Sure, Ino had to admit she had never really shown off properly during the academy. But to not even pull out a kunai? Ino felt somewhat insulted by Sakura, so she decided to humiliate her a bit.

She had used a Yin clone, implanting it into Sakura's mind, and just for a split second, she had it mess with Sakura's movement to make her trip.

"The power of friendship?" The proctor mirthfully asked with a raised eyebrow after he declared Ino the winner, feeling immensely disappointed at the match that lasted barely ten seconds.

"Hey! I can name my fist however I wish." Ino insisted with an offended tilt to her tone, forcing Hayate to cover his laugh with a small cough.

"Of course." He sagely nodded in order to placate the girl.

Ren, who was watching the interaction from the balcony, facepalmed. He was starting to regret telling Ino the stories about Garp and his Fist of Love.

Especially since everybody was looking at her as if she were insane. Everyone bar Gai and Lee, that is. Those two whipped out notebooks and started furiously scribbling, muttering to themselves between loud exclamations of 'Such Yoooouuuuuth!' while tears streamed down their cheeks.

Ignoring them, Ren turned back to Ino as she appeared next to him with a body flicker.

"Couldn't you at least let the girl show off a bit?" He asked, making sure his tone was light and casual to show he didn't really care. Still, Sakura was Ino's former friend, and he expected Ino to pull her punches somewhat.

Ino gave him a weird look at that question. "I wanted to!" The girl admitted with a small grumble. "She just surprised me, alright? Hinata told me how Sakura valiantly fought against these Sound chumps in the Forest and how she was very helpful in the fight against Kumo Jonins. I thought I should take her seriously." Ino huffed. "But she only rushed me as if we were still the same immature girls in the academy."

"So, you punched her in the face." Hinata nodded in an understanding that went right over Ren's head.

"So, I punched her in the face." Ino proudly confirmed with her own nod.

"With the power of friendship." Ren snickered, causing the two girls to grin. 

"It was for her own educational purposes." Ino joked, much to Ren and Hinata's amusement.

From the sounds he was hearing, even the remaining members of Ino and Hinata's teams, who were eavesdropping on them, found it funny.

Deciding that it was not his business how Ino dealt with her former friend, he turned his gaze back toward the match-making randomizer.

He wondered what the next rigged match would be like.

The matches so far have been fairly quick because, when you pit a clan kid against a civilian-born kid, it's just not fair. At least, in canon, the odds were somewhat evened out because of the fact that the kids were younger, and therefore, the clan kids hadn't gone through so much additional training back then.

Here, they had three more years of it.

The speed at which the matches ended showed plenty enough why that might be a factor. But at the end of the day, it didn't matter. Fairness wasn't the name of the game here. The ninja world was not fair. It never has been and never will be.

And the sooner the kids learned that, the better.

Ninja fights were not supposed to last long anyway. They usually ended very quickly unless two very experienced ninjas fought each other, finding it tricky to dispatch the other.

The next match was Shigure versus Choji, and the Akimichi boy looked a bit nervous going into the arena. But Ino's work was effective, and it was obvious he was ready to give the fight his all despite his misgivings.

Ren couldn't help but throw Ino a proud look, one she happily basked in.

Then, Shigure, the Ame ninja, had the brilliant idea to call Choji 'fatass' to his face.

What happened next didn't need a long description.

Choji got triggered. The match started. Shigure threw his umbrellas into the air, causing the needles to rain down just as Choji turned into the meat tank and started rolling his way to Shigure with shocking speed.

The needles harmlessly bounced off of Choji's quickly spinning form, making Shigure bewildered, staring at Choji like an idiot. Which caused him to fail dodging on time and so, he experienced how it felt to be run over by Choji's chakra-hardened meaty, spinning ass. 

His bones went pop. His neck made a crackling sound. One that made it obvious the Amegakure ninja would not be walking out of the arena in anything but a coffin.

The distraught Akimichi boy was declared a winner when Shigure's death was confirmed, and the match was over within the first minute.

Ino worriedly glanced at Ren, who nudged her while sending her a telepathic message, gesturing at the glum Choji with his head. 'Go. He needs your help.'

Nodding, Ino released her hold on Ren and walked off to try and cheer Choji up.

The poor boy obviously had not intended to participate in a manslaughter during this nice day, but it was an occupational hazard.

The following match was decided. Omoi from Kumo was going to face Kankuro from Suna, and Ren blinked. That... was rather smart and devious from the match-makers.

If these two fought Konoha ninjas, there would be a chance that they both could advance to the last part. But now, no matter what, only one of them would be there, and nobody could accuse Konoha of favoritism.

It also meant there is a bigger chance for one more Konoha ninja to possibly advance if they won their match. But somehow, Ren didn't think that would be a huge problem. So far, there has not been even one match that hasn't been rigged in some manner in this competition. Clearly, everything went according to somebody's plan.

Ren had to admit, he didn't exactly pay much attention to that particular match, too preoccupied with cuddling the overly eager Hinata.

Omoi excelled at swordsmanship and lightning release. He coated his sword with lightning chakra and started swinging around in the usual Kumo manner.

Kankuro was a puppet user who showed himself to be very tricky. He could already control the three puppets he had in canon, each loaded with loads of hidden weaponry.

The match lasted the longest so far as the two 'genin' fought, Kankuro trying to nail Omoi with at least one of his poisoned hidden weapons while Omoi tried to slice the Suna ninja or his puppets to bits.

There was banter. There was ridicule. There was a bit of drama.

But Hinata was a very naughty, naughty girl, and Ren missed all of that when she decided it was a good time to kiss him now that Ino was busy comforting Choji.

Frankly? Ren couldn't care less about the match when he had Hinata's soft lips pressed against his.