A/N: Hello again everyone! Welcome back. Now, we've got a lot to get through in this chapter. Anko has completely defied Orochimaru, but does he EVER take "no" for an answer? And all Kakashi wants to do is save his 'almost wife.' But how the hell are they going to stop Manda of all things? I came up with a way. Read, and you'll see. Enjoy!

When Kakashi made it out of the rubble and through the lingering pockets of leftover flames, he spotted Anko half way to Manda. God that thing is fucking huge, he thought as he looked up at the colossal snake. He looked at Anko again and she seemed to be screaming at Orochimaru. Then she did something that made him say, "Did she just flip him off?"

Kakashi looked to his left and saw charred ash with flecks of gold throughout it. He knew Anko had killed the final snake. Now, she was facing the head snake and its summoner.

It seemed as if Anko and Orochimaru were having a stare down. After she ever so eloquently told him to "fuck off," neither made a move toward the other. They just glared at each other. That is until Orochimaru saw Kakashi emerge from the remnants of the shrine and stand next to what was left of his final blue gold snake.

"Perfect," Orochimaru said. "Manda – that man is an abomination to our plans to destroy this village. Eliminate him."

Manda replied, "You're lucky I came here at all. I demand 100 sacrifices for my time."

Orochimaru said, "Already done – the bodies all around the walls of the village are yours."

Manda said, "Then the man with the white hair will die."

"Don't harm the girl. I still have need of her – services."

Kakashi slowly started to advance toward Anko – she was close to a football field away from him. Suddenly Manda moved and Kakashi watched in horror as it looked as if the big snake meant to crush his almost wife. He watched as it dove over her head and raced straight for him instead.

As the massive snake passed over Anko's head, she reacted quickly. She opened her fan and angled it forward, parallel with Manda's body. As he passed over her head, the fan cut into the snake's thick skin, producing more of a minor irritant than a serious injury. Still, it got Manda's attention. He roared at Orochimaru, 'That girl you speak of cut the length of my underbelly!"

Orochimaru thought for a moment, then got a bit worried, to strike at Manda? Anko must be serious.

Kakashi realized almost too late that he was in fact the big snake's target. He performed a rapid succession of hand seals and disappeared underground – earth style. Manda crashed into the ground where Kakashi used to be moments before and quickly turned to find Anko running toward him screaming.

Inside the shrine, Tsunade was getting desperate. She still couldn't find Jiraiya and there had just been another god-awful crash outside. Kakashi popped up outside the front of the shrine and ran inside the wreckage where Tsunade stopped him.

"Kakashi! I know you need to help Anko, but I need to find Jiraiya. He and I need to call our summons to fight Manda or we're going to lose this village!"

Kakashi thought a moment then did some hand seals of his own. In a poof of smoke and dust, the hounds returned to him, having left earlier. They sat down and waited for instructions.

Kakashi said, "No time to explain boys, just find Jiraiya. He's in here somewhere."

One of the hounds said, "How do we know what he smells like?"

Kakashi said, "Just sniff around for 'pervert' and, uhm, 'old,' oh, and there's this." He reached inside his kimono pocket and pulled out the small kaeru frog Jiraiya had given all of them. "He gave this to me." He stuck his hand out, and all the hounds came forward and sniffed it.

Pakkun said, "Got it. Come on boys. We have a pervert to find."

All the hounds stopped and looked at Kakashi who yelled, "NOT ME! GO!" Pakkun laughed as he and the rest of the hounds began padding around the rubble looking for the King of all perverts.

Tsunade said, "Thank you Kakashi. As soon as I find Jiraiya, we'll be right out to assist you. We'll be there shortly."

Temari walked up to Kakashi, broken arm and all, and said, "Tsunade-sama, how much destruction do you need to happen to stop Manda?"

Tsunade answered, "Enough to mow down a forest, if that forest were made of one enormous moving tree."

Temari said, "Kakashi, lead the way." Kakashi took her by her good arm and led her out to where the evil snake lurked.

Tsunade watched them go, thinking what can that girl do to Manda? For God's sake, she's got a broken arm. I hope she can at least slow him down until I can get out there. Tsunade paused momentarily, then joined everyone else, plus the hounds in the desperate search for Jiraiya. She knew they were seriously running out of time.

Anko ran at Manda. She'd seen Kakashi's hand seals and knew he'd more than likely done an earth style jutsu to avoid Manda's attack. Still, it infuriated her to know that Orochimaru would still use anything he could against her, including, anyone. But she had a plan. She had no idea if what she had in store for the big snake would work or not, but she decided to try it anyway. She got closer to Manda, who still was searching for Kakashi. Then she reached up into her ruined hair-do and felt around in it. She picked out three of the drugged senbon that still were in her hair and ran right up to Manda.

As the snake coiled around itself, she could see the whitish line the fan had cut on the snake's underbelly. She said to herself, "This has got to work. Or at least slow him down a bit." She reached back and threw the senbon as hard as she could. All three hit the whitish line, two of which sunk in half way.

"YESSSSS!" she said as she moved away from the great snake. She wanted to see if the drugs would have any effect on something as huge as Manda.

Kakashi helped Temari out over the rubble. Manda and Orochimaru were not far from them. Temari said, "I thought Gaara's Shukaku was huge, but this thing is unbelievable."

Kakashi said, "He's fast too. What can I do to help? Your arm's broken."

Temari said, "Nothing, but you can stand back so you don't get caught up in the jutsu. I don't even know how much damage I'll end up doing, but any is at least some."

Kakashi saw Anko close to Manda. He said, "Wait Temari – Anko's still out there!"

"Well you'd better get her out of there, or she'll be killed!"

Kakashi said, "Be right back." He dashed back to the shrine and screamed, "PAKKUN!" The little pug trotted over to him and said, "Yo, what's up Kakashi?"

"I need you to run an errand for me, FAST!"

"You're not making me the doggie delivery service again are you?"

For just a moment, Kakashi remembered back to when he was on his sabbatical and he'd asked Pakkun to be his messenger to bring Anko gifts while he was away. He said, "If you want to save Anko's life and preserve the rest of the Village, you'll do it quickly!"

"What is it?" the little pug asked.

"I need you to get to Anko and have her get over here immediately. Temari is going to use a very destructive jutsu and she'll get caught in it if she doesn't get out of there!"

Pakkun said, "The Lady? Say no more – I'm on it." He popped from existence and then reappeared at Anko's feet.

"Lady!" he yelled up at her.

"What do you want Mutt?"

Pakkun looked offended for a moment and then he said, "Your fiancé sent me here to tell you to get the hell away from the snake. I think they're gonna try and blow it up or something."

"But I'm waiting to see if my paralytic drug senbon will have any effect on this thing!"

"We don't have time. Come on!" Pakkun started running like crazy. When she didn't follow him, he went back to her, jumped up, and clamped his teeth on the battered hem of her coat.

"What the fuck Mutt!" Anko said as she tried to shake him off her – but he wouldn't let go.

Pakkun said around a mouthful of Anko's coat, "I'm not letting go until we're half way back."

"Alright, alright!" Anko said, and then she started trotting back toward Kakashi, making Pakkun bounce up and down as she jogged. She kept looking back at Manda to see if he'd changed in any way because of the drugs from her senbon.

Manda shouted to Orochimaru, "That woman stung me! She hit me with something. Where she hit me, it feels numb, like it's not there anymore. Am I disappearing? She'll pay for that." The big snake made a move toward Anko and the dangling Pakkun, but part of his underbelly would not respond. It was just a small section and it felt as if it had fallen asleep. Manda tried to see where the "stingers" were, and what in fact, they were.

Orochimaru was getting furious. He wondered what Anko could have done to Manda to make him react in the manner he was reacting in. He said, "Never mind that now, we need to kill Kakashi and level this village!"

Manda replied, "I will to destroy everyone, yet I can't feel a part of me. Something isn't right."

The two bickered at each other as Anko and Pakkun made their getaway.

As Anko and Pakkun reached Kakashi and Temari, Temari warned them, "Everyone get back behind me. If you haven't seen this jutsu before, you won't know what to expect." Pakkun finally dropped from Anko's coat. She went and stood with Kakashi well behind Temari, close to the remains of the ashes of the last blue gold snake.

Temari carefully opened her fan. Her swollen broken arm, causing her great pain as she attempted to do something she had done a hundred times before. She re-opened her thumb and spread her blood in the same place as before. She thought I don't know how well I'm going to do this, my arm is killing me! But I have to try and stop that monstrosity. She did her whirl technique and then as she let out a pained cry of exertion and agony, she swung her fan in Manda's direction. Her Kamatari came forth and headed straight for the great snake, its huge sickle ready, and other small sickles spinning along with it.

Manda saw it coming and said, "What is that thing?"

Orochimaru knew what it was, and immediately said, "Avoid it! At all costs!"

Manda, full of boastful pride said, "It's so small, it can't harm me."

Orochimaru yelled, "Get out of its way!" But it was too late.

The wind picked up as the weasel flew toward the giant snake with its sickle. The small creature began to swing the sickle even before it reached Manda's body, as if it were getting up speed to slice through steel. Even still at a distance, each swing of the sickle caused a white stripe to appeare on Manda's skin. He felt them right away. As the weasel closed in, the stripes it inflicted began to leak blood. More and more stripes contained blood, and some stripes got deeper.

When the weasel was right on top of the snake, it changed the direction of the sickle and drove it into the giant snake. The smaller sickles also continued their journey through the head snake. Manda was sliced open in various parts, as the weasel and its sickle passed through the snake and came out the other side. Blood flowed like a stream and splashed on the ground from Manda's multiple wounds. He roared in disbelief that something so small could damage him so badly.

Manda turned to face where the weasel had gone, but it had disappeared, leaving huge amounts of destruction in its wake. Rocks were split, walls had crumbled, and trees had been lopped off.

Kakashi said, "That's some jutsu."

"Thanks," Temari said as she held her arm.

Anko said, "Oh my GOD! Manda's injured! It's almost impossible to even touch him. I barely made a scratch on him! That IS some jutsu Temari. Pakkun, you should take her inside and get Sakura or Tsunade or someone to look at her arm."

Kakashi said, "Thanks buddy. Help the guys find Jiraiya, and one more thing,"

Pakkun eyed Kakashi, looking almost annoyed at him.

"Don't look at me like that! Anyway, I didn't get a chance to look myself, but will you make sure you find Rin's body? It was where the altar was."

Anko said, "That was Rin? How is that possible?"

Kakashi looked up and said, "Anko I have a lot of explaining to do. I said I would tell you everything, but right now, we don't have time. Look!"

Anko and Kakashi turned to see Manda bleeding heavily and thrashing about. It looked as if he was trying to dislodge Orochimaru from his head.

Kakashi said, "Pakkun, get Temari out of here!"

Pakkun didn't have to be asked twice. He said, "Come on girlie," and he led her back into the wreckage of the shrine.

A/N: Damage! YES! Good ole Temari and her itachi. Only 4 more chapters to go - I can't believe it! But I still have a few things up my sleeve yet.

Next up: Manda is PISSED. We also have the return of Naruto with news he HAS to get to Kakashi. Finally, Kakashi and Anko get into an argument, and eventually come to a compromise that is significant. See you soon!