189. Unlucky
As Tomoka walked up the wall she kept her hearing on the medics tending Lee. Unfortunately Lee hadn’t been spared from the side effects of opening the gates. His muscles and ligaments had suffered quite a bit of damage. Most of his bones had suffered fissures while his right arm had suffered multiple fractures. The good news though is that unlike cannon his injuries weren’t crippling. A good four or so months of rehab would have him back in top condition.
Tomoka would have healed or rather she would have found the way to heal Lee should his injuries be crippling. She had enjoyed the match thoroughly despite holding back so much. She wouldn’t let Lee become a cripple though to her desire for a good slugfest.
“Congratulation Tomoka.” As she jumped over the guardrail the first one to congratulate her was her sensei. She decided to just nod and smile. There wasn’t much she wanted to say anyway and saying just thanks felt like a waste of effort anyway.
“You look tired.” Nozomi said with a small smile that hid the slightest hint of mockery.
“I am. Not physically mind you but keeping track of his speed plus my strength to match his was much more of a mental strain than I expected.” If she had unleashed her full physical power Lee would have more things to worry about than just fissures, fractures and torn ligaments, and muscles.
“Come here.” Tomoka didn’t bother to say anything else before settling her face against Hinata’s developing breasts. The girl had offered and who was she to reject such a wonderful offer.
A moment later the next match was decided. Surprisingly it was Chouji against the sound chick, the one Shikamaru should have fought against. Unfortunately for him the chick was an even worse matchup than the other dude he had fought in canon. The match was a one sided beatdown as Chouji became a pin cushion by the end of it. He had been placed in a genjutsu early in the match.
Some matches seemed to be prone to change while others seemed to be set by fate. Nothing made that more obvious than the next match where Tenten got wrecked by Temari in just the exact same way as in cannon. Tomoka didn’t hold any pity for Tenten, after all, the height of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.
“She should have closed the distance and engaged her in a close quarters fight.” Nozomi was the first one to put out her opinion to which the other two just nodded.
“I don’t understand her thought process. How could adding more projectiles help when it was obvious Temari’s technique covers a wide enough area.” Hinata looked both confused and annoyed at the espectacle.
“If she wanted to continue with her weapon bombardment she should have at least tried to make it an omnidirectional attack so it would be harder to just blow away like that. Not like I think it would work anyway.” Finally Tomoka added her two scents about the disappointing fight. Seeing all these lackluster fights she understood why the preliminaries took place.
Once again the screen began going through names until it settled on two. Suddenly every single person present felt a thick killing intent flooding the entire place. It made every single shinobi raise their guard to the max, taking out kunais as they looked towards the origin of the killing intent.
Tomoka’s dilated pupils stared at the screen like it had just killed her loved ones. She was staring at it so hard her Kinagan activated by itself and revealed a new ability as the screen began to creak and crack as if someone was exerting pressure on it.
“I forfeit.” Those words were enough to shake Tomoka out of her stupor. The next moment a massive headache assaulted her brain. Though she had been working on regaining control over her dojutsu she wasn’t there just yet.
“Are you sure?” Hinata asked the girl on the other side of Tomoka. That’s right, the screen had just shown Hinata’s name as well as Nozomi’s. This is the reason behind Tomoka’s sudden burst of killing intent.
“Yeah, I much rather not fight and let you hide your strengths for the actual third part of the exam. Not to mention that I don’t care all that much about the promotion. You on the other hand…” Nozomi didn’t say anything else and instead opted to look at a certain Hyuga.
“I understand… Tomoka, are you alright?” Though the two had a rather calm chat they still worried about Tomoka.
“I am fine, I just gave myself the mother of all headaches with that little stunt… Hinata~ please kiss my headache away~” Tomoka said while diving into Hinata’s chest.
“Only Hinata? I am feeling neglected.”
“Nyooo~! Nozomi come kiss my boo boo away too.” Everybody just ignored the trio’s playfulness while waiting for the next match.