The following fights, with a few exceptions, were mostly unremarkable and didn't take all that long. Abumi Zaku fought against a Konoha genin by the name of Minoji. The Sound nin didn't waste any time, blasting his opponent into a wall almost as soon as the fight began. The other boy was apparently so terrified that he didn't even try to escape and simply gave up.
It was much the same for the other two Leaf genin from his team. One admitted defeat after Naruto filled the arena with Shadow Clones and the other when Sai created two big lion-dogs out of ink. Haruka seriously wondered how they had even gotten through the forest with that attitude.
The other unknown team that had passed the second stage was the one from Ame. All three of the genin looked and fought pretty much the same. They wore yellow jumpsuits that were stitched up the middle, as well as rebreathers and a white piece of cloth over their eyes. The only visual difference between them was their hair and the number of eyes that were uncovered, namely zero, one and two. As for their abilities, they all seemed to specialize in genjutsu, poisonous gas and clone techniques, which would have probably worked a lot better against opponents other than Haruka, Kiba and Shino.
The Aburame had simply drained his opponents chakra using his kikaichu, while staying out of range to avoid being poisoned. The bugs were neither affected by genjutsu nor could they be fooled by simple clones.
Kiba had taken the opposite approach. Instead of waiting the Ame genin out he and the dog, Akamaru, had used some kind of combination attack called Fang Over Fang. It basically turned both of them into spinning projectiles that moved at high speeds, could change direction mid air and resulted in a lot of destruction when they hit. The wind caused by the technique had easily dissipated the cloud of poison, while the speed and flexibility allowed them to strike at every clone until they found the original in mere seconds. As scent trackers they could also break regular visual genjutsu without trouble because the differences between what they saw and smelled were immediately obvious.
Haruka had the easiest time with her opponent though. She'd used a Body Flicker to get behind him, pressed a kunai to his throat and then given him the count of ten to give up or die. He'd waited until she reached nine before he admitted defeat, desperately waiting for either the poison or his genjutsu to take effect. She hadn't explained why that was a futile hope, no reason to give her future opponents any free information. Of course Shikamaru guessed that she was practically immune to both anyway, but at least he did it quietly. It was better if people thought she was using some kind of jutsu to protect herself and wasted their time trying to figure it out.
The Nara's own fight was against Tsuchi Kin, the Sound team's kunoichi. She was still angry about Team 10's interference in the forest and she also had the added advantage of already having seen Shikamaru's signature technique. Kin on the other hand had been so cut up by Haruka's traps that she hadn't done much of anything during that fight so the Nara had no idea what she could do.
He still tried to open the fight with a Shadow Binding, but she easily dodged and threw a handful of senbon at him. They didn't get anywhere close to hitting their target though. While senbon were generally hard to see, the little bells attached to the ends of these made avoiding them easy enough. Shikamaru also guessed that the next attack would include senbon with and without bells to distract him, but Kin wasn't quite that obvious. Instead she had strings attached to the needles already stuck in the wall behind him and used it to ring the bells. While he turned around she peppered him with regular senbon.
As Haruka had already noticed though, her accuracy wasn't nearly as good as Haku's. The girl had to have some other trick because killing someone like that or even incapacitating them would take ages. But then the Sound nin had bigger problems. While she had been busy gloating, Shikamaru had stretched his shadow to capture hers. She hadn't even noticed that the thin, barely visible strings in her hand shouldn't have had a shadow at the height she was holding them. Then it was Shikamaru's turn to mock her, but he didn't waste too much time on it. Instead he threw a shuriken at her head. She of course was forced to copy the move, so when the Nara dodged the projectile by bowing backwards, so did she. Of course she also stood a lot closer to the wall than him and ended up knocking herself out.
Choji and Ino were in high spirits when Shikamaru made his way back onto the balcony. It was a little unexpected, seeing as Ino had been devastated after losing her match earlier. The Yamanaka had to go up against Sakura, who had apparently been her childhood friend until both of them started to fancy Sasuke.
Their fight hadn't been particularly interesting to watch. Both kunoichi were smart, but they also spent more time on their appearance than on their fighting skills. Sakura's advantage was incredible chakra control and Ino had her clan training to fall back on, but physically they were both weak and had little stamina. According to Shikamaru they had resolved their personal rivalry during the fight. However, all Haruka saw were two below average genin knocking each other out.
A kunoichi that was a lot more interesting was Temari from the Suna team. Her fight had been against Sai's other teammate, Subaru. The boy relied on explosives to a ridiculous degree, and Temari's tendency to simply blow projectiles away with her giant fan had caused some interesting situations. The fight itself hadn't lasted all that long because Subaru was idiot enough not to have a way to disable some of his own explosives and had given up after one had blown his right leg off. The problematic part had been protecting the audience from stray projectiles without influencing the fight. Haruka had seen some of the jonin snatch a few out of the air and throw them out of various windows, while she herself had once again formed a chakra barrier in front of her group. Panda Eyes had caught the ones that flew in his general direction with sand, but keeping anyone else safe by doing so had purely been coincidence as far as she could tell.
Kankuro's match against Tsurugi Misumi had also been on the shorter side. The puppeteer had hidden himself in the bandages he usually wore on his back, and had let the puppet fight for him. That turned out to be a really good decision moments after the fight started. Misumi could apparently use his arms and legs like ropes. He'd slithered them around his opponent's body and broken the fake Kankuro's neck easily enough. Of course the puppet still worked perfectly fine and the real Kankuro had used the distraction to finish the match.
Though by far the scariest of the Sand team was Panda Eyes. For the first few minutes of his fight against Lee he didn't even move. His sand surrounded him like a living thing, blocking each and every attack. Lee was undoubtedly strong and fast, even more so without the weights that were hidden under his leg warmers, but all he really managed to do was amuse Gaara.
The redhead could apparently protect himself with an additional layer of sand that acted like a second skin, so the two hits Lee managed to land didn't do any actual damage. Haruka did note, however, that this sand armor, unlike the sand shield, didn't seem to act on its own and actively used up chakra.
Lee attacked Gaara with the same Lotus combination he had used against Sasuke, only this time there was no turtle to stop him and he destroyed a good chunk of the floor. The problem was that all he achieved was to shatter a hollow sand clone, while the real Gaara rose from the sand behind him. Lee should have given up then because the Lotus technique damaged not only the one it was used against, but also its user, which meant he was no longer fast enough to dodge the sand.
Instead he started opening five of the Eight Celestial Gates and uselessly batted Panda Eyes around the room. It looked impressive because the sand shield was far too slow to keep up with Lee's new speed, but the sand armor still surrounded Gaara, which meant none of the attacks actually did any significant amount of damage.
When the sand armor finally started to come undone the redhead decided he was done playing games. He turned the gourd on his back into sand as well, and used that to crush Lee's left arm and leg, making them completely useless. If Gai hadn't interfered a second later he'd have killed his opponent using the same method to crush the rest of his body. Gaara stopped when Hayate called the match, but he seemed incredibly disappointed, as if a fight wasn't worth fighting unless someone died.
Hyuga Neji was apparently operating with a similar mindset during his fight against his cousin Hinata. He was a lot stronger than her, but because their fathers were twins and Hinata's had been born first, she was part of the main house and heir to the clan, whereas Neji was a branded member of the branch house.
The Hyuga had some very old fashioned rules that seemed barbaric to Haruka, especially the seals they placed on their branch members. The things essentially allowed any member of the main house to inflict torture or even death whenever they chose, making the branch house nothing more than glorified slaves. Haruka very much understood Neji's resentment against the practice and the main family as a whole, but the hate he harbored for his cousin was ridiculous in her opinion. Hinata was a kind girl. She hadn't created the seal, hadn't even branded anyone with it, and judging by what Haruka had seen of her character so far, she certainly hadn't used the foul thing on anyone.
Neji was more proficient at the Hyuga's taijutsu style than Hinata, and even though she put up a good fight, he almost killed her. In fact several jonin had to stop him after Hayate called the fight because he didn't abort his final attack. The boy was strong, but he was also blinded by hate and bound himself in the chains of fate and destiny, believing that no one could escape from their set path in life. It made Haruka think of her Uchiha teammate, who thought that there was nothing for him, no path to take other than the one that led to vengeance.
The way Lee had thrown away his potential for one fight, and the Hyuga's personal tragedy were kind of sad in an abstract sort of way. Naruto had even sworn to take down Neji for what he had done to his cousin, but the only fight that actually made Haruka feel like she should do something about it was the one between Choji and Dosu, the third member of the Sound team.
All the people she personally cared about had gotten through their fights without a problem, except for the Akimichi. Just like with Shikamaru, she and Choji had developed a weird kind of friendship that mostly just consisted of silently being in each other's company. While she lost round after round of shogi against the Nara, Choji would usually sit nearby and munch on chips, occasionally offering them one. He didn't look it, but the boy was incredibly kind and sensitive at heart. He hated conflict, but would protect his friends at all costs. He also implicitly trusted Shikamaru, which meant the moment the Nara had decided that Haruka was okay, so had Choji.
In an effort to avoid Dosu's sound attacks the Akimichi had used one of his clan techniques and turned himself into an oversized human cannonball, effectively protecting his ears from sound waves. Or so he thought. The Oto shinobi smashed him into a wall and then, instead of using the air as a medium, had the sound waves travel through the very water in Choji's body.
He also did a lot more damage than was necessary to just win the fight, presumably to take revenge for Team 10's interference in the forest. Choji would live, but both his eardrums had burst, there was blood streaming out of his nose, and according to the medics his bones and organs were littered with tiny fractures and rips. It had been excessive force plain and simple. There was no doubt in Haruka's mind that Dosu had tried to kill Choji, even though he hadn't needed to by any stretch of the imagination.
"I should have just slit their throats when I had the chance," she hissed as Hayate called the fight and declared the preliminaries over.
"Why didn't you?" Sai asked and she sighed.
"A friend once told me that all life is precious, even that of an enemy, and that I should never be afraid to show mercy for fear of future pain. Of course that same friend also has more blood on his hands than almost anyone else I know, so maybe the real lesson is that one needs to decide which lives to protect no matter the cost." She still hadn't figured out who Itachi had been protecting when he had killed his clan though. The active shinobi were one thing, but who did old people and infants pose a threat to?
Judging by the looks they shot her, Sai knew exactly who she was talking about, but Shikamaru seemed to be considering just what kind of friends Haruka had and how to avoid meeting them.
The arena was mostly destroyed by the time all fights were over, but the Hokage looked happy enough. Hayate again congratulated those that had won, and then the Sandaime explained the rules for the third stage of the exam. They would have one month to prepare and rest before the tournament began. They would also be drawing pieces of paper from a box to see who they would be fighting against, but of course these matchups weren't any more random than the preliminary's had been.
Since there were still more combatants than there ideally should have been, the tournament would have four rounds instead of the usual three. To compensate, two matches would be fought at the same time during the first round, and there would be a time limit of ten minutes after which the referee would call the match no matter what.
Due to Ino's and Sakura's double knock out both Gaara and Sasuke would advance to the second round of the tournament without having to fight anyone, which left six actual matches for the first round:
Uchiha Sasuke vs. -
Abumi Zaku vs. Shino Aburame
Gaara vs. -
Sai vs. Kankuro
Inuzuka Kiba vs. Uzumaki Naruto
Temari vs. Nara Shikamaru
Haruka vs. Kinuta Dosu
Tenten vs. Hyuga Neji