Tachibana's enemy looked around at the explosive tags littered in the area that had been lit up before slamming his hand onto the ground.
Wind Release: Great Breakthrough.
Thick funnels of air flew outwards in the four directions around the shinobi, covering the shinobi from almost all sides to prevent him from taking a direct blow from the explosive tags and becoming disabled.
But Tachibana's smile deepened when he saw this.
Under his swift command, a series of explosive seals were activated and they all exploded.
But instead of creating a dust cloud or even causing a loud explosion that would cause someone to go deaf, they all released a shower of sparks like a firecracker.
With the entire area covered in a sea of sparks, the shinobi became confused about what Tachibana was doing.
'Did his explosive tags fail?'
'Danzo-sama is right. Konoha cannot trust outsiders. Only explosive tags made by the root are of a good quali-.'
Before the shinobi could finish his words, a spark that had reached near his face through the open top of the pseudo-barrier that the shinobi had set up flared.
The spark flickered for a second before it rapidly expanded in the air to form a flaming gateway to the spirit world.
Tachibana vanished from his own position before reappearing in front of the shinobi in a swift single moment as he jabbed two sharp kunai into the shinobi's shoulders before he could even recall or react to something happening.
With that, Tachibana was the first person to take down his enemy.
Sakura looked at the various traps that had been suddenly activated and carefully analyzed all their trajectories. As the traps got closer her fingers grip on the strings that had wrapped around her enemy loosened slightly as she faltered in her decision.
'Should I focus on taking him down now or should I defend myself first…'
Sakura frowned deeply but not even a moment later she had a simple solution to her current scenario.
Sakura's chakra flared and before her enemy could do anything he was suddenly pulled closer to Sakura who was running towards him.
Under his slightly shocked gaze, if he could even feel such emotions, Sakura had turned this into a game of chicken.
If the shinobi chickened and pulled out of his attack first that would allow him to dodge Sakura. But if he made sure to attack her with the intention that Sakura would chicken out first then he could get a clean shot at her.
But if they both stayed true to their attacks, they would both get hurt, but Sakura would be less hurt since she'd already tied up her enemy and rendered him mostly useless in a direct fight.
Sakura ducked under a kunai that was moving straight at her head before pulling out another kunai to deflect a series of senbon that had been launched in her direction.
Her enemy was pulled closer to her as Sakura kept the strings between them tight while he continued to try and get out of the bindings Sakura had trapped him in.
This continued for a few more seconds, as Sakura performed inhumane body twists while deflecting those weapons that she could not. Sakura accumulated a few scratches and cuts but she stayed true to her plan and kept pulling her enemy closer with each move.
Sakura was focused.
And soon the two were in attacking range of each other.
With the enemy bound by strings, the outcome seemed clear as Sakura swung her kunai right at the shinobi's head. But to her shock and awe, the enemy suddenly broke the strings since he had been continuously weakening them throughout the time Sakura was evading his carefully set traps.
Caught in an improper posture for defending against incoming attacks, Sakura was laid bare in front of her enemy who was about to drive a kunai into her neck.
But he hadn't anticipated what would happen next.
The kunai travelled straight through Sakura's heart, causing an explosion of blood, but the shinobi instantly felt weird.
'There was no resistance!'
But it was too late.
A kunai appeared from beside the shinobi's head as he in his last-ditch effort flared his chakra to break out of the genjutsu he was in.
The kunai effortlessly stabbed the shinobi's lower back and disabled him for the rest of his life, which was probably not going to be very long.
And with that, Sakura became the second person to take down her opponent.
Sakura looked at Tachibana and spotted him lazily pocket the shinobi's money while tossing away the money pouch into the trees and shook her head.
'Cheapskate.'
Tachibana noticed someone looking at him and he looked at Sakura so he frowned a little before producing a ten ryo note and flicking it at Sakura.
The note struck the tree beside her and she picked it up wordlessly.
'Is this supposed to be a bribe…?' Sakura thought and when she looked at Tachibana she saw him nodding with a smile before he flashed her a thumbs up.
'...'
Sasuke on the other hand was struggling a little since his traditional method of luring his opponent into a genjutsu to kill them silently wasn't working well.
'How is he disrupting my sharingan genjutsu so easily?'
'I guess Sakura and Tachibana are done…'
'Tsk. I'm in the last place…'
'And I thought I was growing stronger.'
Sasuke looked at Naruto who he'd already noticed had woken up and formed a quick plan in his head.
Sasuke rushed at his enemy and engaged him in a Taijutsu battle.
They traded blow for blow, but Sasuke was at a clear advantage because of the Sharingan. The enemy tried desperately to string in feints and counters in his taijutsu style, but Sasuke's eyes never missed the mark in separating the truth from the lies.
Even then Sasuke only appeared to be struggling a little, in reality, he was much more relaxed since he'd fought in much tenser fights with Yamato's clone to get used to Kakashi's Sharingan.
Sasuke was currently simply keeping the pace of the fight a little slow to understand exactly how his enemy was disturbing his genjutsu.
Seeing how he was being pressed by Sasuke, the shinobi frowned.
'He isn't my target.'
'The target is to understand Tachibana Rei's abilities better.'
'It seems I have to take this a little more seriou-'
Sasuke easily noticed when his enemy was distracted and jabbed his ribs to drag his attention back into the fight. He didn't want to lag behind his comrades for long and decided that they could just question him once he was captured to know more about his methods.
But that was when Sasuke suddenly started to feel weird and weak.
'Poison?'
'But I was never cut!?'
'Air poison? Something that he is immune to already or has the antidote for?'
Sasuke quickly looked down at his body to understand what was wrong and became shocked when he saw small insects filled with his chakra.
'Aburame clan!?'
Sasuke was shocked and flattered for a moment causing the Aburame shinobi to land a punch in his guts.
Sasuke flew off the ground a little because of the weight behind the punch before the pain quickly levelled him out of his shock as he bore through the pain by using genjutsu on himself to cut off his pain receptors.
Sasuke's legs twisted around the man's arm like a snake before locking his neck into a triangle choke as he used his momentum to swing around the shinobi's neck and pin him onto the ground while completely breaking the man's shoulder in the process.
The entire event was finished in a few seconds before the shinobi was disabled making Sasuke the third to finally capture his enemy.
Naruto meanwhile still had his eyes closed and was trying to think of a solution and help Sasuke while sitting inside the cage and pretending to be knocked out.