It was both better and worse than fighting a 'human' opponent ... the fact that some shinobi had delved so far into things best left alone that they could barely be considered such included.
Everything else aside, there was a difference to the mind.
The creature had mass enough to be the rough equivalent of a large tiger where weight was concerned, though it wouldn't seem so at first glance - the limbs were generally slimmer and longer, as was the torso, so it appeared quite a bit larger than that. Two prehensile tendrils of inky blackness extended upwards from the like colored fur of the beast's back.
Clones were torn apart in a moment, before the beast's shadow was snagged by that of Shikanenai, augmented by the shadows of the trees ... which lasted until the youkai blinked out of existence.
'Nenai immediately shot to the side, springboarded off the trunk of a tree, and narrowly avoided being eviscerated by the shape barreling in his direction from what had been his blind spot mere instants ago.
Said tree was not so lucky, trunk ending up little more than a cloud of splinters that momentarily obscured the beast from view, save for its twin 'tentacles' which whipped around wildly around its supposed position.
A Suiryuudan crafted dragon of pressurized water reared up into the sky from the nearby stream, and shot downwards, jaws open, a darker shape falling down within the water of the chakra construct.
The jutsu slammed into nothing at all, and a tree-bound Bakusuta Neshan parried a claw swipe that came, literally, out of nowhere, with the shaft of his naginata, only to cry out as jaws shattered past it and closed around his ribcage ...
... which was when the Kagebushin exploded right in the cat demon's maw, numerous explosive tags being set off as one and blowing away flesh and bone ...
Kirigishi Katsu, still dripping from his immersion in the water dragon jutsu, shot towards the staggering, mostly headless body from the point of the abovementioned dragon's impact ...
In an eyeblink, the mass of ragged flesh that had once been a head convulsed, twisting itself back into its original shape.
A tentacle snapped forward, extending beyond what had previously seemed its physical limit, slamming into Kirigishi's chest.
The genin's body taken clear off his feet, and catapulted backwards through the air ... even as another one seemed to split off from within him just before the impact, continuing the dash underneath the tentacle swipe, trailing water droplets.
The airborne Katsu slammed into a tree and lost cohesion, revealing himself to be little more than a chakra shaped mass of water, even as the original dove under and past his assailant, slashing upwards with a kunai as he slid between the beast's paws.
Retaliation was immediate, and made less effective only due to a second water dragon slamming down between the genin and the youkai, courtesy of said genin's Jounin-sensei.
Kakashi fought with experience, Neshan with a sort of calmness that made you think he was always several steps ahead of his enemy, and 'Nenai added a wildcard sort of balance to his melding of the two ...
... Kirigishi was usually something close to that lattermost attitude, but there and then he ran almost purely on instinct, face set in a snarl as he bounced, bounded, and finally crouched on the trunk of a tree ...
The youkai's roar of indignation and pain sounded. The wound to its belly wasn't healing.
"It works! Use steel!" Katsu shouted out as he lashed out with a spread of thrown kunai before bounding off.
*grumble* That seemed ... awkward. Took longer than I thought it would, too.
And yeah, cheap trick with the 'steel/iron' thing. Katsu's actually got a few kunai on him that are cold iron, not steel - he got them right after Kakashi became their sensei, just because he hasn't been without at least one cold iron weapon ever since his early Mist-genin days and the much referred to East Continent mission. Just goes to show that hindsight may be 20/20, but sometimes it does help.
Suggestion: fight commences, they manage to pin it for Kakashi to finish off with a Chidori.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm