"No!" Tsunade screamed as she watched Orochimaru plunge the sword into Naruto's chest. Naruto was going to die, and it was all her fault. She couldn't save him. Just like she couldn't save the only two other men that she had ever loved. The men that Orochimaru had promised to return to her. The men that Naruto had proved deserved to be true Hokage's. The two men that she finally realized would never want her to sit there frozen like a log while yet another man who wanted to be Hokage was slaughtered right before her eyes. She wouldn't let that happen. Not again.

Tsunade pulled out a kunai and, with a scream, she thrust it towards Orochimaru's unprotected side. Orochimaru was only just barely able to back away from Naruto in time to avoid the attack and Naruto fell to the ground coughing up blood.

"That's such a shame," Orochimaru smirked. "He might have been useful to me in the future, but he was getting in the way of something I wanted."

"No," Tsunade gasped as she dropped herself next to Naruto who was gasping for any sort of breath that he could get. With one final cough he collapsed to the ground with his eyes closed. "No!" Tsunade screamed, frantically looking for a pulse. There was one, but it was weak.

"He won't be alive for very much longer," Orochimaru said. "I put some of my snake's poison on that sword."

"Bastard!" the voice was from a person that none of them expected. It was Kimimarou who spoke the words as he rushed forward to attack the man that had ruined his life so easily.

"What are you doing?" Orochimaru growled.

"Bastard!" was Kimimarou's only answer. He shot the tips of his left fingers at Orochimaru while he pulled his spine out of his back to use to hold Orochimaru still.

Sasuke took this chance to check if Naruto was okay. He ran over to the side of Naruto that Lady Tsunade wasn't already occupying. "I'm fine," Naruto gasped. "I'm fine."

Sasuke didn't believe him. He knew Naruto better than that. He was struggling to heal his heart with the poison keeping it damaged. "Let Tsunade help you," Sasuke pleaded.

Naruto nodded his head silently. He didn't really have a choice in the matter, after all. He knew that if he did say no then Sasuke would find a way to make him accept the help no matter what he would have to do. Naruto leaned over slightly so that he was leaning again Sasuke's chest and, though she frowned at the position that Naruto chose to put himself in, Lady Tsunade went to work without any sort of complaint. She wasn't going to let anyone else die under her watch.

"How is Kimimarou doing?" Naruto asked quietly.

"He's fine," Sasuke answered.

"You didn't even look," Naruto sighed.

Sasuke sighed and looked at the two men fighting. It looked like Kimimarou was injured, but not severely. Orochimaru, on the other hand, was barely holding his own. He was struggling with the wound that he had gained with the fight against Sasuke and the third Hokage, and he never thought that he would ever have to fight against his own right-hand man. He had taught Kimimarou everything that he knew, but now the man was turning against him.

"What are you doing?" he hissed as he dodged a particularly horrible looking attack.

"I'm going to kill you," Kimimarou answered. "I'm going to seek revenge for my mother."

"Your mother?" Orochimaru asked. "What are you talking about? You never knew your mother."

"That's a lie," Kimimarou screamed. "She was the woman who took care of me all my life. You killed her along with the rest of my clan and village."

"I would never do that," Orochimaru said. "I was the one who saved you from the village. Why would I kill your mother? She was already dead when I got to you. The village killed her because they wanted to lock you up."

Kimimarou hesitated for a moment. Could it be possible that it was actually Naruto that had planted memories in his mind and not Orochimaru? No. Naruto wouldn't have known that much about his past to be able to do something like that and Orochimaru had always been a manipulative bastard who always tried to get everything that he wanted no matter what the cost. Naruto didn't seem like that kind of a person and Naruto was the one that had released him from the prison that was in his own mind. He would fight for Naruto even until the death.

Kimimarou felt his chest tightening as he continued to battle Orochimaru. He had expected Orochimaru to be difficult, but not as difficult as he really was, and now he was getting the added problems of his own sickness reacting. "Damn it!" he hissed angrily. It was obvious that he was going to die today, but he wanted to at least take the bastard that had ruined his life with him. With a cough of blood, he continued to fight.

"Sasuke," Naruto looked at Sasuke as soon as he saw the slight hesitation that Kimimarou's body forced him to take.

"Right," Sasuke nodded as he slowly lowered Naruto to the ground. He was sure that Tsunade would be able to heal him with the help of the Kyuubi powers so he was okay with leaving him behind for now.

"Sakura?" Sasuke called out to there missing teammate as he charged into the battle to help Kimimarou. "Where are you?"

"I'm almost there," Sakura answered. "What do you need?"

"Kimimarou's here," Sasuke answered, "and he's already starting to deteriorate."

"Got it," Sakura said. "I'll be there as soon as I can be. Try not to let him fight too much."

"You better get here fast," Sasuke said, "because he is determined to defeat Orochimaru."

"I'll be there as soon as I can," Sakura said determinedly. "How's Naruto? He always seems to get injured when I'm not around to heal him." Sasuke almost laughed at that.

"I resent that," Naruto whined quietly.

"You are hurt!" Naruto could hear the frown in her voice.

"I hate snake poison," Naruto whined again, "but I'll be fine. Just worry about Kimimarou."

"That's what I'm doing," Sasuke answered. Naruto looked over at him and saw that he was doing a complex amount of seals. He recognized them.

"You're going to do Amateratsu?" he asked.

"It's the only thing that I've got Naruto," Sasuke sighed. "I tried every other one of my jutsus last time and this is the only one that was actually able to kill him."

"But what if you miss," Naruto frowned. "You're only able to do so many of those. Even less than you were able to before because you don't have as much chakra as you did back then."

"It's all I've got," Sasuke said.

Naruto didn't answer. Instead, he pressed his hands into the ground with his fingers stuck in the dirt. Sasuke opened his eyes and was getting ready to blow the fire at Orochimaru as best as he could when he saw a hand of chakra wrap around Orochimaru's confiscated body. He didn't have time to think about it. He just had to do the jutsu now. With one last large intake of breath, he blew a large ball of fire that was as hot as the sun itself, right at Orochimaru's struggling form. He could hear the screaming man as he attempted to get himself free even as the fire scorched every bit of his flesh, turned his bones to ash, and then disintegrated his very soul.

Orochimaru was finally dead. Sasuke sighed. Orochimaru was finally dead and that was one less threat the he had to worry about hurting Naruto. That was one more step to keeping Naruto safe.

finally. this chapter took me forever to write. sorry it took so long guys. i hope you like it.