The smoke from Sasuke's freshly lit cigarette started filling the car "Hey, can you check the glove compartment box? There should be some extra shells laying around"

Naruto opened it and groped around. He felt empty cigarette packs and some scrap paper but no bullets "Are you sure? Besides the legion of empty cigarette packs, there ain't shit in here"

"Fuck a duck! I told Sai to leave some extra shells when he was packing the guns" Sasuke bemoaned.

Naruto checked his gun barrel "Eh forget about it. I've got 4 bullets here. How much do you got?"

"Same" Sasuke replied, not bothering to check as he remembered he only fired twice.

"See that's 8 shots between us. And honestly we probably won't even need all of 'em" Naruto reassured.

"Well, that's in an ideal scenario. What if this Orochimaru guy has company? We'd essentially be going in there with our pants around our ankles" Sasuke stated.

Naruto chuckled "That's the worst case scenario. Quit being such a fucking pessimist dude"

"Someone's got to be the voice of reason. Plus I'd rather not get killed because of some poor fucking planning" Sasuke said as he took a pull of his cigarette.

Naruto scoffed "Oh please! No one's going to die… well, no one on our side at least. You're the deadliest man in our gang. With those 4 bullets you could take out an entire room full of people. And even if you fail, I still have 4 shells myself. Although I'm not the sharpest shot, I could still hit a barn door!"

Sasuke smirked "Well, it doesn't even matter does it? The fact of the matter is that we HAVE to kill him now. If he gets word that his little underlings were killed, that slippery bastard would find himself on the other side of the fucking hemisphere"

"Yeah you're right. We have no time to be dicking around. If he skips town Kakashi will have our asses. We've just got to go headstrong" Naruto admitted.

After a couple more minutes of driving they reached their destination. Sasuke parked the car and they both exited the vehicle. The pair observed the building carefully from the bottom up. It was a seedy apartment complex, not the type of place you'd live in if you had the choice.

"What number room are we looking for again?" Sasuke questioned.

Naruto took out the piece of paper the he had scribbled information on "Room 48"

They entered the building, the interior was quite bland. It looked as though it hadn't seen a fresh coat of paint in years. This didn't surprise Naruto and Sauske, it didn't seem like a 5 star resort in any case. They approached the front desk, there was an employee at the counter, however he was asleep.

Naruto glanced over at his partner "Real fucking professional eh?"

"Works out fine for us" Sasuke said as he continued walking past the counter.

Naruto looked back at the employee, who was snoring loudly, before catching up with his partner.

"Jeez that guy was passed out like a fucking log!" Naruto exclaimed.

"Well, if he was awake we'd have to make a reservation to get in here. The fact that he was asleep meant that we could simply waltz right past him" Sasuke digressed.

Naruto nodded in agreement. The walked down a hallway that contained rooms tightly packed together. They ascended some stairs which led them to more rooms but not the one in question. They climbed yet another set of stairs and walked down the hall, their footsteps becoming light and measured. Sasuke stuck out his hand, stopping Naruto in his tracks. The door in front of him was marked 48.

Sasuke took out his gun and got in position on one side of the door and Naruto did the same on the other side. Sasuke whispered "Same drill as last time. You ready?"

Naruto nodded and Sasuke subsequently kicked the door open, allowing them to storm in. A man was sitting on a couch directly opposite the door, they aimed their guns at him. It was him, the man they were looking for, the snake, Orochimaru.

He looked up at them calmly, a slice of pizza in his hand "Sorry fellas I think you have the wrong room I already got my pizza"

"We're sorry to bother you during din din but we're here on behalf of Kakashi Hatake. You may remember him, he's the guy you fucking ripped off" Naruto quipped sardonically.

"Ah so you're Kakashi's lackeys. What the fuck do you want with me?" he questioned, taking a bite of his pizza.

Sasuke intervened "Let's just say, I hope you enjoyed 'The Last Supper'"

Just then a door to Sasuke's left banged open and a large dog ran out and charged at him. Sasuke tried to point his gun at the dog but it was too fast and it lunged at him, biting his forearm. As he fell backwards he fired two shots into the air in a desperate attempt to hit anything. Sasuke hit the floor and knocked over Naruto, who was right behind him, in the process

Naruto fired off an instinctive shot as well when he fell over. The impact of their fall caused them to drop their guns which were lost into the darkened corner of the room. The dog's teeth were sunk into Sasuke's arm, which was being tugged around as if he were a ragdoll.

"Shoot this fucking thing!" Sasuke grimaced as he barely managed to hold off the powerful dog.

Naruto groped around the floor to find the guns as the room was very poorly lit. He felt the cold metal of one of the guns and so he grabbed it, spun around and shot the beast twice. Sasuke pushed the dog off of him and got up to his knees, clutching his injured forearm.

"Fuck! Where is he?" Sasuke asked, clearly in pain from his wound.

Naruto looked up at the couch where he was sitting, he was no longer there. The window however was open. Naruto rushed over and looked outside, he was running down the stairs of the fire escape.

"Shit! He's getting away" Naruto exclaimed as he climbed out the window.

Sasuke quickly found the other gun from the floor and followed his partner out the window. They descended the stairs at a much faster rate than their target, who was quite an aged man. Orochimaru reached the end of the fire escape and jumped down unto a pile of garbage bags to break his fall. He collected himself and hobbled off quickly onto the street.

Orochimaru looked back and saw Naruto and Sasuke jump down as well "Fuck! They're right on my ass"

"I can't outrun these guys. Better try something else" he thought to himself as he entered a dark alleyway on his right.

Sasuke caught a glimpse of him as he did so. They followed him but stopped at the entrance to the alley, it was almost pitch black. The moon had provided a bit of light, however it was only just enough to see a couple feet in front of you.

Naruto could see the outline of a garbage bin on the left hand side of the alleyway. He heard a bit of rustling, seemingly coming from that exact direction. Naruto pointed to the bin with his gun and whispered to Sasuke "He's in there"

Sasuke nodded and whispered back "You lift the top off. I'll be ready with the gun"

Naruto positioned himself in front of the bin and Sasuke at the side. In one fluid motion Naruto flung open the cover and Sasuke peered in with his gun at the ready.

Sasuke squinted as he checked inside "It's just a fucking rat"

At this moment Orochimaru appeared from the shadows behind Naruto. He grabbed him from behind and managed to disarm him. Sasuke pointed his gun at Orochimaru, while Naruto struggled vehemently to try to shake him off. It was no use however, he had gotten the gun and it was pointed at Naruto's temple.

***Author's Notes***

I'm not going to lie, I kind of struggled to write this one. I don't know, it just didn't flow like the others did. I still hope that it turned out alright and you guys enjoyed it.

This might just be the penultimate chapter… or maybe not who really knows? All I know is we've entered the climax of the story!

Anyways on to the next one.

-Cloud