Sorry this took so long. Like you all know i don't own Naruto...too blond for my tastes. ; ) j/k.

The next day and a half rushed by Team Seven in a blur of travel, action, and hard work. After the defeat of the Sound ninja the team had taken a brief rest near one of the rivers. It was while they were there that a familiar figure had appeared among them. Kabuto's appearance had both surprised and delighted Sakura but the two boys were more skeptical. What they gathered from the older silver haired ninja was that he had gotten separated from his squad some time ago and was on his way to meet back up with them at the central tower. In the process of telling them this however Sasuke picked up on something that the older ninja wasn't saying.

"You're scared...aren't you?" he asked when Kabuto was finished. The older boy grinned sheepishly.

"A bit. But rightfully so," he answered.

"Did you try to go off and get a scroll on your own?" Naruto asked, ignoring Sasuke's comment. His eyes narrowed suddenly. "Or are you after ours?"

Kabuto smiled and shook his head. "No, I don't need yours. See." He produced a matching pair of scrolls, one of heaven and one of earth.

After a bit of jaw hanging from Naruto and Sakura Sasuke questioned the older boy further on why he had said he was scared.

Kabuto just chuckled a bit and turned away, gesturing for team seven to follow. "Lets talk while we walk. I sense the woods could have ears."

Kabuto explained how best to fight in the woods and how to out think your enemies under the conditions of the exam. Surprisingly it wasn't Sakura or Sasuke that contributed most to the talk. Naruto seemed to grasp what the older nin was saying and even added ideas and thoughts to the boy's three part observation.

Sasuke glanced at Naruto through the darkness that was now falling all around them. The guy seemed to be showing new sides of his personality every few hours. 'I've taken him too lightly till now,' Sasuke thought. 'I never expected him to have a good grasp of tactics and strategy especially after that first drill with Kakashi-sensei.'

Sakura plucked the half formed question from Sasuke's mind before he could even open his mouth to voice it. "How do you know so much about tactics Naruto?"

The blond boy grinned over his shoulder at his teammate. "Living with Ero-sennin puts you in some interesting situations. Some groups of women actually planned out their attacks when they found out he was peeping on them. We were in some tough spots occasionally. When I couldn't avoid a beating by being nice I had to plan a way out. They didn't always work though." Naruto touched the back of his head unconsciously. He remembered those times when his plans didn't work all to well.

Later that evening the group came within sight of the tower. Kabuto warned them that from here on they should keep the talking to a minimum and move more stealthily. They made slow but steady progress towards the objective, or at least it seemed like they were. It wasn't until Sakura noticed they had passed the same tree three times in as many hours that the group realized they had wandered blindly into someone's trap.

"Genjutsu," Sasuke said quietly.

"So it seems," Kabuto answered. "I was totally fooled. We've been tricked into walking in circles. Quite masterfully done I might add."

"We're being watched too," Sakura said as she began flicking her gaze from tree to tree.

Naruto felt a tingle go up his spine. He'd always had a good sense for when he was being spied on, another by product from Jiriaya's peeping, so it was unnerving to realize someone's eyes had been on him and he hadn't felt it. 'They're good if I can't feel them. Better then Jiriaya maybe.'

"They probably wanted us to waste our strength so they could jump on us when we got tired. We've played right into their plan."

Even before Kabuto was done speaking they all began to feel the subtle gatherings of chakra around them. Sasuke let a cold grin slide onto his face. "They're here."

Dark figures began to materialize, quite literally, out of the wood work. They looked identical in every way. From their black body suits to their spiky hair and eye coverings.

"There are a lot of them. All replications by their looks," Kabuto noted.

"Well then they shouldn't be too tough," Naruto said as he lunged for the nearest one. He landed a clean hit but before he could shout triumphantly the body gave way before him and actually melted under his fist. Sasuke groaned inwardly. 'So maybe he isn't as smart as I thought.'

Naruto's momentum carried him forward. He rolled on the ground but quickly recovered and bounced back to his place between Sakura and Kabuto.

"Well that was interesting," Kabuto said as the clone reformed in front of them. "Normal replications disappear when they're hit yet these didn't. Are they really illusions or do they have real substance?" Kabuto caught Sasuke's eye and nodded. Sasuke knew what the older boy wanted him to do.

'Right. I'll see what's going on. Sharingan!'

Like a blanket of harbor mist suddenly lifting from the water, Sasuke's sharingan peeled back the illusion that had been placed over his eyes by their invisible enemies. The clones showed up as nothing more then illusions under his piercing gaze. In a voice as low as possible Sasuke explained what he saw to his teammates.

"Don't react. They're all illusions. Nothing but air and chakra." Sasuke watched as several of the clones lifted kunai. The clones let fly. Sasuke, thinking the kunai were harmless, stood his ground. Kabuto thought otherwise. The silver haired genin tackled Sasuke. One of the kunai sliced his arm as it passed.

A dual 'what the hell!' echoed from Sakura and Naruto's lips. Sasuke had just said they were only illusions. Kabuto grimaced and pinched the wound together to get it to stop bleeding. He left Sasuke and quickly picked up the kunai that had cut him. "It's real enough."

Sasuke stood, miffed that he had been wrong and that he had been tackled for a second time in as many days. He searched the clones again. They were just clones, which meant...

"Sasuke was right the first time. They're just illusions," Kabuto said, "it's the hidden enemies that are actually attacking. They line up their shot with the clone's attack. This makes it look like the illusions are the ones hurting us when they're really not."

The raven haired Uchiha stood again. "So we wait for them to attack again and I'll be able to trace the attack back to it's source."

Naruto huffed. "Yeah right Sasuke. If they're hidden you won't be able to see where the attacks come from unless they want you to."

Sasuke turned his eyes to meet Naruto's. The intake of breath from his blond teammate as their eyes met showed that Naruto hadn't known about the Uchiha's bloodline. How he had missed it until this point was beyond Sasuke and he didn't really care enough at the moment to wonder why.

Naruto continued to stare in surprise at his friend's face as if he'd grown an extra nose or something. His mouth worked a bit before he finally was able to talk. "What...in...hell...are those?"

"Not now idiot," Sasuke responded in a unfriendly grating tone, "I'll explain late...LOOK OUT!"

Naruto reacted with reflexes honed from hours of training. He dropped and rolled away to his left. Three kunai thudded into the dirt where Naruto had just stood.

Because he had been facing in Naruto's direction when it happened Sasuke easily saw the weapons and where they had originated from.

"I have you!" he yelled.

A quartet of buzzing shuriken streaked off into the deep brush. Somewhere out of sight they found their target. A muffled scream announced they had hit where Sasuke had wanted them to. A third of the clones in front of the leaf ninja wavered for a moment then stabilized.

Sakura noticed the change right away. "Look you can see through some of them now! We weakened them. Good job Sasuke-kun!"

Naruto looked at his onyx eyed partner in stunned amazement. 'A bloodline limit? How did I not see before? How did I miss this? How strong is he really?'

Naruto willed his mind away from this startling new development and back to where he needed it, in the battle.

"I don't think we'll be that lucky again," Kabuto said. The clones had begun to close in.

"Ok, so we take out the clones and then use the confusion to pinpoint the remaining enemies. I'll take care of that."

Naruto's hands came together in a cross like seal. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

Shadow clones appeared, matching the enemy clones body for body. "Let's do this!"

The Naruto clones blitzed the enemy, knocking them aside in a flurry of fists and feet. Despite all of his effort the enemy clones began to reappear just as fast as Naruto was able to knock them down. In the distraction Sasuke watched for another missile from the real enemies. He was so focused on Naruto's actions that he almost didn't see the kunai aimed at him. The razor sharp edge grazed his shoulder, only missing his chest because of suburb reflexes. The pain didn't come by itself though. He saw where it came from.

Instead of firing off a return volley of missiles he took a few quick steps backwards and merged with the foliage. Kabuto noted Sasuke's movement and hoped the enemy wouldn't notice too soon.

Slipping as silently as possible up into the rafter like branches of the trees, Sasuke made his way around where he had seen the missile come from so he could approach from the rear. He teleported from tree trunk to tree trunk, giving the hidden enemy as little sight of his body as possible.

After a few minutes of silent movement, concealed partly by the still raging battle below, Sasuke was rewarded with the first sight of their enemy. From what he could see of them they were hidden rain nin. Their strange suits and breath masks gave that away quickly even without looking at their head protectors. One of them was busy targeting a brace of kunai. The second was busy trying to keep the clones going while patching up the third ninja who looked like he was out cold. Bloody holes indicated where Sasuke's well aimed shuriken had hit their marks. The whole group was no more then three feet apart.

Sasuke made some quick calculations. He could manage what he had planned after all.

The lead hidden rain ninja was a little disappointed that his ambush wasn't going as well as he had planned. The enemy below was still busy with his clones and didn't seem to have figured out the whole trap yet. The shuriken that the black haired boy had thrown must have been a lucky throw since he hadn't managed to do it again.

That thought triggered a little red flag in the ninja's brain. He hadn't seen the boy for over four minutes. He had been too busy trying to get a good shot at the blond's clones and the silver haired genin that he had almost forgotten about the lucky little kid. He did a quick search for the boy in question and found he was no where in sight. He turned slightly to question his still active teammate. "Have you seen that black haired kid?"

The other man turned an eye, his only one visible, toward the clearing below. "No I haven't."

More signals went off in the rain leader's mind. "How unlucky. Has he slipped away?"

A voice behind him answered the question for him. "I'm right here." A sandaled foot hit him like a cannon ball. A second foot smashed into his remaining comrade. Together they went headfirst towards the ground which rushed up to meet them with alarming speed. The leader uttered a little curse as his head met the unmoving and uncaring earth.

"Unlucky."

And there you have it. I'll probably be posting this up as a new chapter for a few days then moving it so it replaces that "lateness" rant that you guys wished was a chapter. So just be prepared. IT WILL MOVE AT SOME POINT!