Desert Flower

End of the Second Exam

"Are these clones? There's a lot of them." Sasuke murmured.

"You're trapped like rats." The rain ninja spoke.

"Shut up!" Naruto charged to throw a punch at the shinobi, but he phased right through him. "What?!" Naruto fell to the ground and the shinobi clone, started to heal himself when another one came out of the hole that Naruto had punched through him. The second ninja was about to throw a kunai at Naruto, just as he was getting back up.

"Naruto!" Sasuke shouted. He threw some shurikens striking the rain ninja in his arm, destroying his arm. The shinobi regrew his arm and threw a double edge kunai at Sasuke.

"Sasuke!" Naruto cried out. But Sasuke, didn't move from his spot. Yuri frowned, wondering why wasn't moving out of the way. The kunai almost reached him.

"Get down!" Yuri quickly grabbed Sasuke, bending him over and she ducked and the kunai flew past. It nicked Yuri on her shoulder, cutting it and lodged itself in a tree. She glanced down at Sasuke, angrily.

"Why didn't you move?!"

"I couldn't!" Sasuke hissed.

"Sasuke!" Sakura cried out in worry.

"Yuri, are you alright!?" Naruto shouted.

"I'm fine, it's just a scratch." Yuri told him and pulled Sasuke and herself back up again. Then Yuri glanced over at Sasuke's neck, staring at the curse mark in concern. "What's going on with Sasuke's body?!"

More rain shinobi clones appeared and started to surround them. "Give us your scroll."

"If Yuri got hurt does that mean they're shadow clones? But shadow clones disappear when they receive a direct hit. But these didn't. So which is it? Is this genjutsu?" Naruto questioned, getting more frustrated. Then Naruto tried to throw several kunais at the ninjas. "Damn it!"

"Don't! It's useless!" Sasuke shouted at Naruto.

"They are illusions. This is the enemies genjutsu." Kabuto spoke.

"But Yuri's injury is real." Sakura said.

"The real ones are hiding somewhere. They use their clones to attack as a distraction and fire kunais from where they're really hiding at." Yuri told them.

"Then let's find the one's throwing kunais and kick their asses!" Naruto shouted.

"But we don't know where they are throwing it from. Their type prefer these kind of attacks and are weak at Taijutsu and close fighting. The real enemy won't reveal themselves until we can no longer move." Kabuto explained. "All we can do is dodge their attacks for now."

"If that's their plan..." Naruto frowned, staring at the shinobi.

"You got something, Naruto?" Yuri asked.

"Maybe."

The rain ninjas attacked throwing kunais at the group. Naruto, Yuri, Sakura, Sasuke and Kabuto tried to fend them off, blocking the weapons and throwing their own into the trees. They were getting more and more tired and scratched up. Sakura screamed in frustration.

"There's no end to this!"

"Leave it to me!" Naruto began to perform a hand sign.

"Stop, Naruto! Don't waste your chakra! It's pointless attacking them like this!" Kabuto spoke.

"If we defeat all the illusions at once, then while they're returning to normal, the enemies can't throw kunais because they will be found!" Naruto told him. "Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Naruto made many clones and charged at the shinobis, punching and slamming through them, destroying the clones, while several of Naruto clones were destroyed as well. Just as Naruto finished off the last one, more rain ninjas slowly rose out from the ground.