She nods.

The next match is Waterfall versus Grass. It seems like the strongest member of the Grass team was the one to face Chihiro, and the Waterfall boy takes a win. After that, the last member of the Waterfall team goes up against Yamanaka Ino, who without support, can't get the breathing room to perform her clan's signature technique and doesn't have the taijutsu skills to last long.

The final match pits the two Hyuuga, Neji and Hinata, against each other.

Naruto cheers for Hinata!

Neji is apparently a branch Hyuuga, and not of the main family, like Hinata. He treats this like a grudge match, and has contempt for Hinata's apparent weakness and uncertainty.

That definitely pisses Naruto off. He encourages Hinata when she falters, and seems to otherwise be growing increasingly incensed at how Neji's acting.

Neji is a much better fighter than she is. He takes the time to block her chakra system's pressure points one by one, unleashing multiple flurries of Gentle Fist attacks, but Hinata takes strength from Naruto's encouragement, and doesn't give up. Neji continues the assault until Hinata collapses.

"He doesn't have to be an asshole about it," Naruto grumbles, glaring at Neji. "Seriously, what's his problem?"

Neji glares right back at Naruto, his eerie Byakugan eyes narrowed with the same anger he had towards Hinata.

"Though they usually attempt to present a monolithic front to outsiders, the Hyuga branch family and main family do not always see eye-to-eye."

Naruto grumbles something angry under his breath. "That's dumb. They're family."

He's going to stick his nose in this, see if he doesn't.

"Family's sometimes full of assholes."

"There was an incident some years back that resulted in one of the branch family having to sacrifice himself so that the clan head could live. That was Neji's father and Hinata's father, respectively. He may be holding resentment from that."

Naruto makes a complicated face. "Maybe an excuse to punch Hinata's father; not an excuse to take it out on Hinata. She's nice."

(He's fortunately talking a bit more quietly than is his norm, so people would have to be paying decently close attention to overhear him.)

"Clans are complicated."

" - I'm going to have to figure out so much to not have shit to step in there..." he mumbles. "I wanna help Hinata, and I guess Neji if he feels like stopping being an asshole, but..."

The proctor calls everyone down to the floor, now that the final fight is over. He says that the third and final exam will begin in thirty days, to allow their guests time to travel here to watch it. They will announce the first round of matchups now, so that the genin can use the time to train and prepare, if they wish. The left bracket's first round will be Shikamaru and Shino of Konoha, Sen of Waterfall and Lee of Konoha, and Kankuro of Suna and Tenten of Konoha, with Elieyha of Suna having a bye. The right bracket's first round will be Neji and Naruto of Konoha, and Miki of Waterfall and Sasuke of Konoha, with Chihiro of Konoha and Temari of Suna having a bye.

Oh he is so gonna beat Neji.

How's the second round gonna work out - he knows they don't know who'll win what fight, but how're the brackets merging?

Elieyha will fight the winner of Shikarmaru and Shino. Chihiro will fight the winner of Neji and Naruto. Temari will fight the winner of Miki and Sasuke.

He nods, and starts thinking through that quietly - so on his side, he'll be fighting Chihiro, then whichever of him or Chihiro wins will be fighting Sasuke, then the strongest person on the other side is that Elieyha so whichever of their team wins the right bracket's gonna face her...

Team Seven needs to get a plan together.

(They're all gonna pass, of course.)

- Do they need to pass the entire tournament to be promoted, or is it more of an evaluating their performance during thing?

The latter.

Cool.

He fidgets a bit until they're dismissed, mentally running through everything he knows about the people his team's likely to face.

Sugira's doing the same, though he's remaining still and quiet.

The genin are dismissed, and the various jounin round up their teams.

"So you three have had a lot of fun these past few days, but I think it's time we head home, yeah?"

"Seriously. Medical attention, find that Jiraiya guy, and sleep in my own bed... Don't mind waiting until tomorrow to start working on our match-ups..."

"Sounds like a plan."

Getting out of the forest is much easier than getting in to the tower was. Their first stop is the hospital, where their various bangs and scrapes are tended to with chakra healing.

Sugira pays close attention, asks the medics a few questions about where it'd be best for him to learn at least the theory behind chakra healing. (He's figuring some of the basics might translate interestingly to healing magic, which he should already have a leg up on anyways since healing and teleports are both under conjuration for complicated arcana reasons.)

There are biweekly classes he can sign up for if he's interested, or his jounin instructor can check some books out from the library for him.