Naruto knew he'd have to be serious if he wanted to have any chance of taking on Tachibana so he quickly returned to his usual enthusiasm soon after and rushed towards Tachibana, intending to engage with him in hand-to-hand combat.
Not knowing what his teammates had planned for him just yet, Tachibana played along and rushed towards Naruto to meet him in combat.
As soon as they were in punching distance of each other, Naruto sent a punch in Tachibana's direction which Tachibana redirected by slapping his arm.
Tachibana closed the distance between them and with a simple kick, attempted to break the bones in Naruto's chest by launching his heel into it.
Naruto was quick to react and placed his palm in between them to block Tachibana's blow.
But knowing that Naruto was faster than him, Tachibana planted a simple trap at the end of his kick.
Just as Naruto's palm made contact with his heel, Naruto froze for a moment as he saw a burning explosive tag attached to the end of it.
Tachibana capitalized on this terror and used Naruto's hands as leverage to give himself the momentum to power a back-kick that was about to devastate Naruto's face.
'Tsk.'
But to his dissatisfaction, Tachibana had to abandon the attack when a flurry of shuriken and kunai were tossed in his direction.
Tachiba armed himself almost immediately with two kunai and began to dodge and deflect the ones thrown at him.
Tachibana noticed the wires attached to the kunai and quickly stepped away to avoid being entangled in them.
But as he moved Tachibana heard a sharp whistle from behind him.
Almost instantly Tachibana ducked low to dodge the projectile that was thrown from his blind spot.
Except as soon as Tachibana ducked low he found the sound followed him lower.
'Genjutsu!!!'
Tachibana quickly flared up the circulation of chakra inside his body and dispelled the genjutsu but by then Naruto was already moving away from him while Sasuke's kunai which had wires attached to them encircled him, ready to trap him in their midst.
Tachibana grew restless.
'Is the only way out to teleport away?'
'...no!'
Tachibana thrust chakra into his feet and used the body flicker jutsu in an unorthodox position where he was almost squatting close to the ground.
But instead of stepping away from the arena, Tachibana used the body flicker jutsu to empower his jump.
And within the next moment, Tachibana almost flew six feet into the air. His jump completely cleared the height at which Sasuke had tossed his kunai.
"Is that all you've got?" Tachibana asked with a smile as he grabbed onto the branch above his head before flipping upside down and standing on it.
But when Tachibana looked around he found his view of things skewed.
'Genjutsu again!!!'
Without even thinking about it, Tachibana reflexively jumped away from the tree branch he was standing on while simultaneously flaring his chakra.
It was good that he did because as soon as he did, Tachibana saw Naruto running on the tree towards him to punch his guts.
Tachibana pushed away Naruto's hand in defence and engaged in an upside-down Taijutsu contest with him.
Tachibana wanted to get away, but Naruto kept him locked in defence since as soon as Tachibana even showed a hint of rushing away, he would forcefully launch more punches and kicks, trying to disallow Tachibana from taking any other actions.
Tachibana noticed Naruto's insistence on keeping him in the same spot but his mind was thinking of something else.
'They transformed themselves to look like each other?'
'Naruto can't be this good at Taijutsu can he?'
'He wouldn't be able to pace a fight so well…'
'Or did he learn something from Yamato after all?'
'This is confusing…but I have a way to find out if he's the real Naruto after all.'
"With how terrible you are at Taijutsu, I think I'm going to become the Hokage before you Naruto!" Tachibana taunted and Naruto almost got distracted for a second.
But he managed to recover before shouting, "That was underhanded Tachibana-kun!!!!! Fight me fair if you want me to respect you as a man!!!"
'He's the real one alright. Apart from his voice, his response matches as well.'
'But he's gotten so good.'
Knowing that Sasuke and Sakura were cooking up something to deal with him, Tachibana tensed his nerves but didn't disengage with Naruto.
He was betting on the possibility that he could find a way to react to their surprise attack in time by teleporting away using a flame.
'I have set up several safe spots after all.'
'So unless they have a way to stop me from teleporting away I don't think they can beat me.'
'But it doesn't hurt to have one more backup.'
Tachibana stopped sticking to the underside of the branch and dropped down from the tree, following which Naruto did the same thing to keep up with him.
But Tachibana's plan hadn't ended there.
As soon as Tachibana got onto the forest floor, he tossed on the ground a simple smoke bomb.
*VVVOOOOOSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHH*
The smoke bomb worked flawlessly and covered the entire surroundings in dense white smoke, hiding all of Tachibana's moves inside it, but Naruto smiled when he saw it.
"Wind Release: Breakthrough!!!"
A sudden gust of wind encroached on the area and puffered away the dense smoke that had been hiding Tachibana's actions.
"Haha~ Tachibana-kun! A smoke bomb won't work on me anymore!!!" Naruto said as he saw Tachibana had taken out several kunai with explosive tags attached to it.
Tachibana looked annoyed that his planning was caught but internally he was rejoicing.
'Lol. He totally didn't notice what I just did.'
'I just hope Sasuke wasn't paying attention to me with his Sharingan.'
Tachibana pretended that he was caught yet threw the kunai in his hands at Naruto who panicked when he saw that the explosive tags were lit.
"Tachibana-kun!!!! This is a friendly spar!!!! Why are you trying to kill meeeee!!!!!"
Tachibana smiled and then spoke softly, "Naruto-kun! Take responsibility for your actions!!! If you wouldn't have uncovered my plan I would've left you alive! But now you must die!!!!!!"
Having dealt with Tachibana throwing kunai with explosive tags attached before, the rest of Team Seven had developed a strategy to save themselves in case that happened again.
And so Naruto tossed his own kunai and shuriken at Tachibana's to divert them from their natural trajectory.
*BBBBBBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM*
Several explosions lined the forest, but even before the dust settled, Sasuke and Naruto appeared from beside Tachibana with kunai in their hands.
Tachibana ducked low to dodge Naruto's kunai, but Sasuke's kunai didn't aim for his head. Instead, it aimed to show Tachibana a reflection of his own eyes, eyes that had the Sharingan activated.
Tachibana's pupils dilated as he immediately jabbed the kunai in his hand into Sasuke, going for a killing move directly so that he wouldn't have to waste time trying to break out of the genjutsu.
But it was already too late.
Tachibana's kunai passed straight through Sasuke's head.
Yet, Tachibana was laughing mentally.
'Is this all?'
'They thought I wouldn't have made a counter against falling into a genjutsu from the Shraingan?'
'Lol! Fools!!'