Another Nine-Tails?!

Trapped Like Mice

"That's a lot of them." Kabuto assessed the large group surrounding his own small one.

Laughing came from somewhere in the group. "You're all trapped like mice!"

"Shut up!!" Naruto shouted, rushing to where the voice came from. As he landed a hit, his hand slid right through the guy like he was just walking mud. "Huh?!" He slid across the ground behind the guy he just attacked.

Sasuke scanned the group surrounding him, seeing one of them had a kunai aimed at his blonde teammate. He threw a handful of shuriken at him. But just like before, the weapons slid through the arm. The knife he had was thrown back at the Uchiha. But he froze in the moment.

"What are you doing!?" Kabuto tackled the boy to the ground, effectively getting him out of the way. The kunai meant for the younger boy got his shoulder. He jumped back a few feet, landing beside Uta. "Uhn..!"

The red-haired girl knelt beside the medic, trying to remove his hand from his wound. "Let me see." He winced in pain, ignoring her second attempt at removing his hand.

"It's fine. I've had worse." An idea popped into his head. "Can you search for the real one?"

"The blade was - yes, I can." She shook her head. "The blade was solid though."

"Yeah. It's real, and not just an illusion."

"Surrender your scroll!" A shout came from the group.

"Go to hell!" There was a few chuckles at the blue-eyed girls shout. As she looked around, she noticed that none of the people surrounding them had a pulse. "These- these people aren't real!"

"What!?" Naruto whipped around, looking at her.

"But- but Kabuto's wound is real." Sakura looked at the older boy worriedly, rubbing her hands together.

"I never said that the weapon wasn't real. I said they aren't."

"She's right. They're all just illusions. The ones, or ones, making them are somewhere close by and watching. They're synchronizing a real, physical attack with the movements of the enemies we think we're seeing. It enhances our perception that the shadow shinobi we're fighting are real." Kabuto explained, Uta helping him to stand up.

"So I'll hunt down the coward who's throwing kunai from behind the scenes and kick his ass!!" Naruto growled, looking around.

"No, it'd be pointless. As good as he is, he can convince us to believe that the kunai are coming from any direction he wants us to. We'll never find him that way but he's hoping we'll try. Based on my experience, his type are pretty much wimps when it comes to Taijutsu. The actual, physical foe won't come out to face us until we're completely worn out and helpless." He pushed Uta behind him and stood up straight, removing his hand from his wound. "Right now, our only option is to keep moving and avoid their attacks."

The small group fought for a while, none of them really knowing how long. They're chakra was spent, weakening them a substantial amount. Uta stood in front of her group, watching as Naruto got knocked back.

"Heh... I think that's enough, Mubi." The guy who seemed to be their leader, ordered.

"It'll be dawn soon. A good time for a hunt."

One of them laughed. "We've been hounding their brains all night! All that remains their bodies. Easy prey." All of their clones disappeared.

"You assholes haven't weakened me!" Uta yelled at the opposing trio.

"And what is a weak Leaf genin gonna do about it?" One of them threatened her.

"Oh, I know you." The first one who spoke grumbled at Sasuke. "You're the one who maimed my shoulder! And here you are again. Making us work hard all night. I'm so glad there's time for a little payback." All of a sudden, the group behind the red-head stopped moving and she just smirked.