Even though he was facing directly away from her, he could 
see
Midori's smirk.  "Good counting, freak," she said.  "Too bad for you
that isn't all the clones I could make."  Her hands flickered, then 
the
circle of clones doubled and redoubled.  Twenty clones charged Neji 
from
all directions.

I'm a little surprised. As I understand it, that's a lot of chakra. 
I'd
think a water clone costs nearly as much as a Kage-bunshin, and people
were surprised Naruto can manage even a dozen.

It might depend on how powerful the clones are made to be; we've been 
told in canon that the Kagebunshin always divides the chakra of the 
creator evenly among all the clones he creates (one of the reasons why 
it's a forbidden technique; it can very easily drive a ninja to 
exhaustion in a very short period of time), but it might be possible to 
create a mizubinshin with only slightly more substance than a regular 
bunshin, to use as a distraction. >>         Sakura nodded politely at 
him.  "How did you?" she asked

curiously, and after a moment the slightly older ninja curtly 
explained
his method.  Sakura grimaced to herself.  It was just like what her
research on the counter to those chakra threads that Fuuma ninja in 
Rice
Field Country had used had turned up.  Was every counter-technique 
she
wanted to learn going to require the Byakugan?

Good thing this isn't Suiren, or somebody would be "donating" an eye 
soon.

Hey, the Sakura in Suiren isn't _that_ much like her 'teacher'! ^_^;...

still would have been wisest to avoid the confrontation at all, but 
no
matter.

Yeah, Sakura is developing a definate bloodlust issue. She makes the
same mistake again against Neji, something I hope gets pointed out to
her later.

For the irony value, have Anko say it first.

Hmm... in this case, i would say it's more a matter of wanting closure 
with Ino almost as much as she wants to win. They both this to be a 
fight where they give it their all, and the easiest way they can express 
that with their bodies is a direct confrontation; they're essentially 
having a 'Naruto' moment ^_^;...

 If Hyuuga

Hinata had been terrible opponent for her, it didn't leave words in 
her
rather broad vocabulary to describe just how awful a match-up her 
cousin
was.

Be fair. Except for his out of place sense of Chivalry, Lee would have
been just as bad. Sure, he could be fooled by Genjutsu, but Sakura
wouldn't ever had a prayer of getting off most of her techniques.

A weakness to genjutsu shouldn't be underestimated, especially when the 
genjutsu user is ruthless enough to use explosion notes on her 
friends...

        Once more she charged, but this time she stopped before Neji
struck, darting to his side and almost managed to land a blow before 
he
sent her flying with two Gentle Fist strikes.  This time, though, 
she'd
managed to shield her tenketsu, and she smiled as she landed near 
where
she'd been standing when the match had begun.  All the pieces were in
place.

I swear she's a masochist. There had to be a less damaging way to drop
those tags, and I have no idea why Neji didn't see her doing it.

Well, it has to look convincingly like her intent was to attack him from 
concealment. Neji can read her tells almost telepathically because of 
his Byakugan, which means that she has to make it really look like she 
wasn't expecting him to see through her genjutsu. Otherwise, he might be 
on the lookout for her doing odd, suspicious things with her hands as 
she stumbles away, injured. Sakura's strategy also plays to Neji's 
abundant sense of superiority; by making herself appear more inferior 
than she really is, she invites Neji to let his guard down...

        Neji flew away from her but Sakura only snarled, "I'm not 
done
yet," thrusting one arm toward him.  Repressing a shudder at the
crawling sensation under her arm, she shouted, "Hidden Snake Hands!"

This really should have been the first thing she did after exploding 
the
tags. Strike two of closing prematurely.

Hmm... Sakura's enhanced speed might make closing to striking distance 
faster than the 'draw time' on the Hidden Snake Hands; one _does_ get 
the impression that she is now possibly the second-fastest genin in the 
leaf, with how she's described as moving right here...

burnt log Neji had used a moment before.  "Too slow," he declared as 
he
pivoted in place to meet Sakura's counter-attack from above and 
below.
"Four strikes!"

Strike three. Sakura had no reason not to force Neji to play tag 
across
the arena. Her situation could only improve with some time.

This would be true if it weren't for the fact that she's described as 
almost completely drained at this point, while Neji is still mostly 
fresh; her poison does not seem to be fast-acting, so he might have had 
enough time to run her to ground before it really kicked in...

- Wearing the weights.

She didn't lose anything for it in this case, though; her fights with 
Ami and Ino would have been resolved more quickly if she'd simply 
blitzed them with her superior speed, but neither fight really wore her 
down much at all, and she didn't really show _any_ of her new cards 
until the Neji fight because of this (even if Neji was prepared for the 
speed specifically).

- Excessive, repetative agression. In both the Ino and Neji fights, 
she
closed to close combat when she would have been better off wearing an
opponent down. She'll need to be broken of the habit, especially if 
she
is going to become a medinin (just look at the post-timeskip manga to
see similar behavior getting her into major trouble).

Well, she _is_ only thirteen, and has been having some very emotional 
issues thrown at her lately ^_^;... also, see my arguments above...

In the analysis, she earned the Chuunin promotion, but may not (and 
I'd
personally prefer not) get it. Apprenticeship under the Hokage is
promotion enough.

I see Neji, Lee, and the Mist genin being promoted, with Tenten as a
longshot. Only one of the two girls will be promoted, to allow for an
intact team with Ino and Choji in the next Chuunin exams.

Hmm... by your own assessment criteria, both Neji and Lee should fail. 
Neither of them took most of their fights seriously; Lee wore his 
weights all the way up to the end, while Neji _consistently_ let himself 
be baited into bad situations by overestimating his own abilities and 
underestimating those of his opponents. Lee is still stuck in an 
immature state of wanting to 'test' himself at every opportunity when it 
would be better to just get the job done, while Neji's overconfidence 
makes him slopier than a good ninja should be...

Just playing devil's advocate a bit ^_^;...

~Eimii 


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