Installment #2. I'll get to the end of this eventually.

I was going to criticize you for having everyone speak too much during
the battles.

Then I remembered the source material. Now I have to criticize you for
far too few and short flashbacks (For instance, there is no excuse for 
not turning Midori's past into at least a 5000 word interlude) and 
barely even a token effort at spectator commentary. There must have been 
dozens of characters who commented on only half the fights- or less! 
Totally broke my suspension of disbelief that I was watching the Naruto 
anime.

***********************************************************************

        Judging that the time was right, Anko activated a technique to
amplify her voice so that it could be heard throughout the arena, even
though she spoke only slightly more loudly than usual.  "The first
match," she stated, then waited a moment for the echoes to die down.  In
an instant, the crowd hushed itself almost completely.  "The Hidden
Mist's Haruno Midori against the Hidden Leaf's Mitokado Fuki... begin!"

Anko is surprisingly subdued about needling the genin throughout the
entire chapter. I suppose enough of an audience will sober even her.

        The crowd roared and silenced itself once more, but neither
fighter stirred.  Anko nodded slightly to herself.  They were both
playing it safe, searching for any weaknesses in the other's stance
rather than blindly charging in.  She'd thought her sister's student had
seemed overconfident enough to play into Fuki's hands like that, but
Midori was proving to have at least a little caution despite her
bravado.
        Slowly, taking advantage of Fuki's slightly averted gaze, Midori
began to surreptitiously ready shuriken in one hand.  A shifting of
Fuki's feet betrayed the fact that she noticed, even as behind her back
the Leaf kunoichi prepared her own weapons.  As though they had been
signaled, the fighters simultaneously released their shuriken, then
leapt away from their opponent's attack.

As an 'if you ever do a rewrite' comment, some of the fights switch at
random between omniscient observer and the perspective of the fighters
or a spectator. It works, but I think choosing one nearly-omniscient
observer (Anko might be the best choice- she's good enough to catch
pretty much everything, and caustic and biased enough to be interesting 
and funny) as viewpoint for most of the fights, with occasional 
sidelines to Tsunade and Sakura for their conversations, might be 
better. You skip in and out of Anko's viewpoint in this first battle, 
then mostly abandon Anko's viewpoint for the rest of the chapter. For 
rather more work, you could have it be the viewpoint from the peanut 
gallery (the waiting genin) to give Sakura more screen time and preserve 
some surprises that Anko would have seen coming.

        As she landed, Midori pulled out a kunai, charging before Fuki
could prepare any defense.  Fuki flipped away from the green-eyed girl,
throwing a handful of smoke bombs to hide her retreat.  As Midori burst
from the clouds of thick black smoke, a trio of kunai flew at her.
Midori expertly parried each of them, then tossed her own kunai at Fuki.
The blade pierced her chest, then she vanished in a puff of smoke.
        "Replication Technique," Midori snarled.  "Where are you, then?"
It took her only moments to locate her opponent, perched in one of the
cluster of trees near one the far wall of the arena.  "Hiding won't help
you," the Mist kunoichi stated as she slowly advanced.
        "Who said I was hiding?" Fuki returned, reaching up to pull down
a handful of green leaves from the tree.
        Midori stopped, falling rapidly into a defensive stance.  "What
are you up to?"
        Fuki released the leaves, which began to flutter slowly to the
ground.  Her hands flickered through seals.  "Leaf Shuriken Technique!"
she shouted, and the falling leaves suddenly began to fly through the
air as straight and true as any real shuriken.  Midori darted and
weaved, a kunai appearing in her hands and shredding a number of leaves
that came too close, yet one leaf managed to penetrate her defense,
leaving a crimson line across one cheek.  "That's what I'm up to," Fuki
stated as she reached for another handful of leaves.
        The watching crowd erupted into loud cheers.  No surprise, Anko
thought.  While there were likely a handful of visitors from farther
away, the vast majority of the crowd were from the Leaf Village and most
of the rest from the other allied nations.  All of those would be
rooting against the Mist kunoichi.  While they weren't at war at the
moment, all the allied nations had fought the Mist in living memory.

THAT's what's missing. Personalized Cheers. ("NEJI, NEJI, he's our man.
If he can't see it, no one can!") Parking lot brawls. Post-match
interviews. Lee groupies!

        Breathing heavily, Midori pulled out a small flask of water.
"You aren't the only one with that sort of technique," she observed as
she opened the flask and flung it spinning into the air, spraying water.
As soon as the container left her hands, they began to form seals.
"Water Shuriken Technique!"  Bullets of water formed in midair, flying
straight at Fuki.
        The other kunoichi once more released her leaves, this time
forming a longer sequence of seals.  "Shield of Leaves!"  More leaves
fell from the tree to join the ones Fuki had thrown, formed a whirling
barrier that perfectly blocked Midori's attack.  As the leaves once more
began to fall naturally, Fuki scanned the arena floor for her opponent.
"Where are you?" she muttered.
        "Right here," Midori answered as she landed behind Fuki on the
tree branch.  

Why does everyone ANSWER that question?!? It must be some kind of
instinctive genjutsu.

        Then, Anko grinned.  An instant later, a massive explosion
engulfed the tree Midori was standing on as she stepped too close to the
explosive tag Fuki had placed.  Fuki had decided that she couldn't see
through Midori's genjutsu, so instead she had maneuvered Midori into a
trap by presenting a too-tempting vulnerability.  Unfortunately, it
seemed Midori had noticed the tag quickly enough to use the Replacement
Technique to escape the explosion, but now her cloaking technique was
disrupted.  She stood, plainly visible, on the ground facing the trees.

This paragraph is the worst example of the viewpoint switching in the
chapter, and the only one I think really needs to be cleaned up.

        Anko let her hand rest on Fuki's shoulder.  "Don't worry about
it," she told the young kunoichi.  "You did really well, particularly
for a rookie.  You probably won't make chuunin this time, but I expect
you'll manage it within a year."  When Fuki didn't say anything, she
continued.  "You can go back to the waiting room to stay with your team
or leave now, whichever you want."

Ahah. Now it makes sense. Tsunade lost faith in Anko and ordered Iruka
to use the transformation jutsu to take her place for the tournament!

        Fuki nodded.  "Thank you," she whispered, then she followed
Midori's trail back to the waiting room.  When they arrived, both
fighters rejoined their teams, the trio of Mist ninja pointedly ignoring
the quiet hostility of the others as Saburo loudly celebrated Midori's
victory.  The green-eyed kunoichi herself didn't say anything, settling
for just giving Neji an evil grin.  The Hyuuga prodigy didn't dignify
her with a response.
        Not far away, Sakura had finished giving her condolences to Fuki
and walked over to her rival.  "You're up next, Ino-pig," she said.

I'd actually kind of have wanted to hear that conversation.

        "I know that, Forehead," Ino muttered.
        "Remember what I told you," Sakura said quietly, "and don't
lose."
        Ino grinned widely at her.  "I told you before, Forehead, I'm
not going to lose.  Worry about your own fight."  With that, she
casually jumped from the waiting room to the arena floor.  Sakura
grimaced as she stared after her and remembered...

Yeh, flashback!
Not very far back, though. And only one? Where are all the revelations
of the childhood traumas of people we didn't care about before and won't
hear much about again? I mean, Midori's rant is good and all, but we 
don't even get to see her heart-breaking beating by her fellow villages 
or hear the taunting voices of the village bullies.

***********************************************************************

        "The third exam's less than a week away."

Good job. I could literally hear their dub voices as I read the scene.
Maybe a little too heavy on the insults, though. Sakura could be a bit
more wheedling, or maybe have a moment of "crap, maybe I shouldn't have
said that to the person I need to tell me classified information."

***********************************************************************

        Yamanaka Ino landed lightly on the arena floor.  She took a
moment to stare up at the stands.  They looked so much bigger from down
here than they did when you were in them.  For an instant, a hint of
nervousness paralyzed her, then she forced herself to straighten and
walk toward the center of the arena, where Mitarashi Anko stood
impatiently.

It struck me a moment ago. Something important is missing here.

What are Ino and Sakura wearing?

Yeah, it's petty. But come on, they're on display in front of all of
Konoha and a lot of what, three other villages? Can you see either of
them not agonizing over that decision for hours?

        "I yield," Ren stated cheerfully.
        "Right."  There was more than a little sarcasm in Anko's voice.
"Just for the record, who is yielding now?"
        Ren grinned.  "Why, me, Shimano Ren, of course!"

No rules against lying in this exam!

        Sakura shook her head as she watched the end of Ino's fight.  It
seemed to her that Ino had taken an awful risk.  What if Ren had chosen
to use some other water element technique?  Still, she had to admit it
had worked, and she was glad, however sympathetic she felt toward Ren -
watching Ino puppet Ren's body and force her to "concede" brought up too
many bad memories. 

She should say this to someone. Choji, probably.

        She took another step forward, and realized that she was still
wearing the weights Gai had given her.  She glanced down at the
atrocious orange leg warmers that hid them - she kept on forgetting to
get around to purchasing something less ugly - and considered taking
them off.  

See, this alone could have been cause for a panic attack in the morning 
and maybe a snide comment or two from Ino, or even better Ami, right 
before the match. Sakura's going to be remembered forever now (at least 
in her own mind) as the only female genin in the tournament to utterly 
lack a sense of fashion.

        Sakura didn't respond, instead imitating Ino and starting to
stretch.  "I'm ready whenever you are, Mitarashi-sensei," she stated.
The thought struck her that Anko and Ami looked sort of similar, and she
idly wondered whether there was some connection between the Mitarashi
and the Uzuki.  She shook her head slightly.  This wasn't the time for
that sort of thought.

Is this foreshadowing, or just an observation from Ami's very brief 
appearences the anime?

        Before Ami could attack, all three remaining Sakura exploded
into smoke.  "You should think again," the real Sakura stated from
behind Ami.  The purple-haired girl managed to flip out of the way of
the trio of kunai that flew at her back, twisting in midair to face her
opponent.  Sakura grinned.  She should have thought of combining
deliberately poor ordinary replications with the Perfect Replication
Technique that way a long time ago.

Again, hit first. THEN gloat.

        Ami grimaced, sheathing her sword.  "I was hoping to save this
for another fight," she commented.  Her hands formed seals, ending on
one that left her hands clasped together.  Flames began to gather above
them, condensing into a small, painfully bright sphere.  "Katon: Fire
Soul!"  Still locked into the seal, Ami's hands thrust forward, loosing
the sphere.

At least she didn't pose.

        Sakura darted aside, but the ball of flame slowly twisted in
midair to follow her.  Thinking quickly, Sakura realized that Ami's
hands still formed that last seal.  Breaking into a run to stay away
from the technique, Sakura hurled shuriken at Ami, who didn't move until
the last moment, when she was forced to break the seal and jump away.

Huh. If it's that slow, it's not really much use.

        Moments before it would have struck Sakura, the ball of flame
stopped and pulsed.  Eyes widening, Sakura flung herself to the ground
as Ami's technique exploded behind her.  When the dust faded, there was
a shallow crater near where she had been standing, and Sakura gulped as
she realized what might have happened if that attack had hit her.  Not
wasting any more time, she regained her feet, keeping her eyes on Ami.

Ok, so you decided to plagarize a DnD spell and give it a name from 
Sailor Moon? Have you no shame, man?

        Anko appeared in front of the two fighters, sighing.  "I can't
do anything just yet," she stated.  She glanced at Ami.  "You going to
do the smart thing?"  Ami just snarled at her.
        Sakura guessed the meaning behind Anko's words, and she pressed
her blade harder against Ami's throat.  It still took her a moment to
work up the courage to actually try to cut it.  Before she could do more
then scratch her opponent, her weapon went spinning out of her hand and
Ami was stumbling forward.
        "That's enough," Anko stated, grinning widely.  "No need for
unnecessary deaths."  She once more raised her hand.  "Haruno Sakura
wins the third match!"

Funny how the rules changed when it was Sakura in danger. You'd almost 
suspect someone cared.

***********************************************************************

        "Good girl," Tsunade breathed as Anko announced her soon-to-be
apprentice's victory.  She was honestly impressed.  She'd read Sakura's
records when the young kunoichi had first approached her, and it was
hard to believe that she had been watching that then-unimpressive ninja.
Sakura certainly had come a long way in the past months.  She glanced
sideways at Mitokado Homura, who was smiling.

This match is a good example of keeping everything from a single 
perspective, rather than skipping around mid match. Also a good way to 
plausibly shorten the match by skipping all that obligatory ninja combat 
dialogue.

***********************************************************************

William

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