Eight shinobi waited on a tower of sand for death to come. It awaited them all, and they were trained to accept it, but experiencing it for oneself was different. They were doing well enough before then. Each got a taste of war, ironically through each other's villages; were more than familiar with the shinobi life, and thought they could handle it. Reality was reminding almost all of their ignorance.

Like a shark's fin, white bone emerged from the brown sand. It couldn't crush Kimimaro. Poking his head out would leave him open for the Yamanaka jutsu, so he decided not to. His armor blinded him anyway. Attacking from beneath the surface was the wisest course of action, even if it would warn Gaara of his position. The Bracken Dance allowed him to do that at the cost of far too much chakra.

Kiba, recognizing the spine-whip first, tackled Shikamaru and Ino down. "I hate this guy."

"Join the club." Shikamaru groaned, watching the bladed bone coil over a sand shield overhead.

Gaara raised his sand to cover the cartilage. "Not so fast." He couldn't break it, but he could restrict its movements.

Kimimaro tugged but couldn't take his whip out. Letting go of the handle, he shifted to angle his body at the platform's surface. Forming more weapons was an exercise in futility. There was one efficient, brutal way to move forward. He wasn't sure if the Yamanaka could control him if he did, like how she attempted to transfer her mind into his body, so it had to be fast. Sharpened ribs sprouted from his armor and shot out the sand into the sky before he began spinning.

"Fuck!" Kiba rose with them in his arms and ran towards the edge alongside Akamaru, almost completely avoiding the spiraling collection of spikes.

Ino's eyes widened at one piercing through her right side when they jumped. "Son of a bitch!"

Temari blasted the bones with her wind to no avail. "Oh, come on!" She turned to run to the edge but the sand shifted her position for her.

"This better work." Kankuro attached his chakra strings to the bones and felt a stream of what could only be chakra. "Alright, now t–" The sand jerking him and Gaara nearly made him bite his tongue.

Lee shifted his grip to Tenten and jumped down. "Stay here." He let go, but she didn't.

"Don't go; not you too."

"I…" His hands balled into fists before he held her again "I… I won't." There was nothing he could do anyway, even if he could use the advanced gates without risk.

Temari, realizing the sand wasn't fast enough, mounted her fan and changed a fatal blow into one that nearly tore off her left arm. She screamed as she fell. The pain took away her focus towards molding her chakra into wind to ride on, sending her spiraling down. Her body smacked against the ground, and she was too overwhelmed by the added agony of broken bones to pick herself up.

The sand lowering his position beneath the bone spikes' path, Gaara grit his teeth beneath his sand armor and snarled. Being ineffective was a new experience for him. He was the secret weapon of the Hidden Sand Village, and the best he could do against their foe was prolong what seemed to be inevitable. Each one of them was going to die because he didn't think of filling him with sand when Ino had him restrained.

"I know you're doing the whole independent enlightenment thing, but we're going to die if you keep going like this."

"What are you doing with your chakra strings?"

"Trying to screw his chakra system: in theory, it's possible, but execution is…" Kankuro furrowed his brow.

"Stop ignoring me!"

'Shut up; he'd kill me before I could even transform.'

"You know that's impossible and finally! Do you have any other ideas? Because, while I'd love to be free again, reforming is a pain beyond anything you could ever imagine!"

Gaara frowned. "Kankuro, I want you to tell the others to run. I'm going to use Shukaku."

"Yes!"

"What?!" He would've let go if it wouldn't make him drop. "At that point, it's either it or him who's going to kill us!"

He looked him dead in the eye. "Can you actually do anything to his chakra pathways?" His look of dismay was his answer. "Even if it's pointless, I have to try."

"...I understand." Kankuro patted his shoulder before the sand began lowering him to the others.

"For what it's worth, I'll try not to kill them."

"Do you really expect me to believe you?" Gaara, submerging himself in the platform, asked.

"Not at all, but this Kaguya is way stronger than they are and could actually hurt me. If I try to kill them, it will be after I kill him."

He would've shrugged if that was something he did. "Fair enough."

Kiba grit his teeth as he landed. "Everyone alright?" His nose twitched at the scent of blood.

"He got me!" Ino looked up from the ground and saw Shino's body in the distance. "That's…"

"We have to focus on completing the mission," Kiba said, refusing to look.

Shikamaru nodded. "There's a lot more than us at risk."

Akamaru whining drew Kiba's focus. "Hurt your legs, huh?" He picked him up and stowed him in his coat. "If we go, it's together."

"All of us if this keeps up." He turned back, looked up, and clucked his tongue. "That doesn't look like anything you can use as a weapon, so it's probably from his body." Looking to his teammate, he tried not to focus on her wound. "Ino."

"Out of range."

"Troublesome."

Kankuro, looking down at the remnants of Team Guy, raised a hand. "Hey!" He shifted his focus on to his fallen sister. "Are you alright?!"

"...M-My arm!" Temari put her shaking working hand over her broken ribs.

"We need to run: Gaara's about to transform into Shukaku!"

"He's what!?"

Tenten looked back. "Shukaku?"

"The One-Tail!" She struggled to her feet.

"…I hope it fucking kills him."

"It's probably going to kill us!" Temari walked to her brother's side and helped him up while the sand entered her wound. "Could one of you grab my fan?"

Lee reluctantly let Neji's body go before picking up her ninja tool. "I never imagined our next meeting would be like this." He furled it.

"None of us did."

"We need to tell the others what's happening" Kankuro said.

Tenten shifted her hold on Neji's body into a bridal-like carry. "Where are they?"

"On the other side."

"Ah fuck," Temari said.

"I'll do it." Lee disappeared in a flash of green and stopped by the other three. "Gaara is about to transform into The One-Tail."

"Can he control it?" Shikamaru asked.

"Kankuro said we need to run."

"I'd rather stay and watch." Kiba glared up at the spiraling bones. "This asshole killed Shino."

Ino pursed her lips. "Is that even going to work? If Naruto could take it down and he couldn't even kill this him, what can it do?"

"Stall for time at worst and actually kill him at best." Shikamaru looked back at the forest. "Let's get some distance." He started walking.

"Shouldn't we be going after Naruto?"

"If he takes care of it and catches up, do you think we can take him and Naruto at the same time?"

"Good point."

Lee gave each a lightning fast pat on the back. "I will inform the others." He did exactly that when he sped back to them on the other side of the forest. "That is our best course of action."

Kankuro groaned. "We are so fucked."

"At least we can make sure we take him with us this way," Temari said.

"I can't agree with you more." Tenten glanced at Neji's dead, smiling face. "After what he's done, we can't let him go: he's too dangerous to be left alive anyway."

Gaara rested at the bottom center of the sand platform. The slim barrier between himself and Shukaku was breaking down. While they weren't one in the same, Gaara was born with it part of him. The esoteric, makeshift sealing method Chiyo invented didn't restrain it either. His father told him as much when he pointed out his ability to manipulate sand had nothing to do with their family's kekkei genkai. It was something only Shukaku could do.

"It's been too long."

His surroundings shifted from darkness to an endless wasteland. The Tailed Beast towered over him with nothing holding it back. Every dune bore its visage and stared at him. If he wasn't used to the treatment, he would've been terrified. At best, it annoyed him, like everything else about Shukaku. No one taken back by its existence would immediately notice it was trying to compensate for something.

"Well, let's get to it. This bony bastard isn't going to kill himself."

A gust of wind blew the endless grains of Shukaku around Gaara's body. It grew from a cloud of dust, to a stream, and into a proper storm of sand. Like an actual sandstorm, it flayed his mind rather than his body. There was no merging but really their consciousness smashing together. He didn't know if it was a consequence of using its power or just a byproduct of the sealing method.

Kimimaro stopped spinning. If they weren't dead, they were at least wounded and forced to jump off the sand platform, which could have wounded those with little resistance training. Chances were they were split too. Gaara was evidently still alive because the structure was up, but the others were a different story. He'd use the Bracken Dance again to check and finish them off if regenerating his body didn't consume so much chakra. Thoughts on how to proceed ceased when he felt the sand around him moving.

They all watched the platform of sand rise and shift into a shape unfamiliar to most. Only Neji and those in the stands fighting initially saw it. Everyone else could feel its presence though. Its chakra was thick enough to be felt by non-sensor types, envious, and spiteful. While not nearly as pervasive as the Nine-Tail's, fighting it was a bad idea for almost every shinobi.

"Damn, it feels good to be solid again!" Shukaku manifested claws around Kimimaro and pushed him out of its form. "Thanks, Kaguya!" It tilted its head at his odd appearance. "Since when did you start looking like that? Last I checked, you came out looking like Indra's pretty boy or Asura's brickhouse."

"...What?" Kimimaro asked, voicing everyone who could hear's thoughts.

"Never mind. Tell you what, I'll help you kill these guys first before I kill you as thanks for pushing the brat this far."

"Oh come on!" Kankuro yelled.

Blinking beneath his blinding helmet, Kimimaro weighed the offer for a moment before sprouting bones all across his body. He couldn't trust a Tailed Beast. Its presence meant most of the others were either dead or on the ground, which made them easy pickings. Shukaku was the weakest so, even after everything, taking him wouldn't be that much of a challenge.

"Suit yourself, prick!" It added more sand to tighten its hold, but he spun out, tearing apart its claws. "Hey!" His spikes expanded to cut apart its body. "Stop that!" Shukaku breathed in only for its mouth to be severed.

Everyone below stared at what should've been an impossible sight: a Tailed Beast being overcome with Taijutsu. His kekkei genkai played a large role, but it was still Taijutsu. The bone carved away the sand with no issue at all. Shukaku tried to sink him when his feet touched the ground just for him to jump out and continue his onslaught of whirling bones. Just like Naruto, he was making short work of something far above most living things.

"We have to regroup with the others," Temari said. "None of us stand a chance like this." She ran as fast as she could holding Kankuro.

"...This is a nightmare." Tenten followed and held Neji's body tighter.

Hefting the fan over his shoulder, Lee joined her with a frown. "I wish it was."

Shikamaru clucked his tongue. "Get ready." He glanced at a nodding Ino.

"This bastard has to die," Kiba said. "Even if it kills us, we have to kill him."

"Need to find a way to do that first." The sight of the others circling the battle made him furrow his brow. "Kankuro's poison was ineffective, Temari can only keep him at bay, Tenten's weapons can't get through his defenses, Taijutsu is suicide, and not even Gaara can do much." He would have said the two of them were useless if they didn't know it already.

Sakura and Choji could see the battle between Tailed Beast and shinobi as they approached. "What. The. Hell?"

"This feeling…" Choji gulped.

"It's the same as the Chunin Exams." Her eyes widened. "The Sand are here to support us with their jinchuriki!"

"Huh?"

"Gaara is the jinchuriki of the One-Tail. He transformed into it during the attack on the village while you were out."

"I heard about that, but that's the One-Tail!?"

She shrugged. "Do you know any other giant one-tailed sand monsters?" The spiral of bones made her squint. "And that must be Kimimaro."

"He's...fighting a Tailed Beast with Taijutsu!" Choji gaped.

Sakura scoffed in equal disbelief. "He's beating a Tailed Beast with Taijutsu."

He began to shake. "W-Wait, if Gaara transformed into a Tailed Beast, what about the others? Can he even control it?" Her horrified look cast one on him. "Shikamaru and Ino… The others might be dead."

"We don't know that!" She bit her lip before looking straight ahead. "Focus on our mission. Not on conjecture."

They entered the clearing just as the groups joined into one. When they laid eyes on each other, there was no relief or joy. Shino laid in a puddle of his own blood completely still, Neji left red on Tenten and a trail of it around the sand creature, nearly everyone was wounded, and their last hope was being torn apart. No words needed to be said.

"Where's Sa..suke?"

"I don't know." Shikamaru turned to the one-sided fight. "We have other things to worry about."

Choji looked from his sand-blocked gut wound to Ino's bleeding side. While not fatal, they were on borrowed time, something they didn't have. Really, all of them were. Shikamaru was the smartest person he knew with some of the most powerful shinobi of their generation under his command, and their enemy still annihilated them. There was only one way they had a chance of surviving, much less completing their mission.

Ruffling followed by a snap drew Ino's eye. "What are..you…"

"Taking multiple soldier pills will damage your metabolism, Choji," Tenten said.

Kiba and Akamaru's noses twitched. "Those aren't normal soldier pills."

"The Three Colored Pills?!" Sakura stared as he downed the yellow one.

"...Choji," Shikamaru said, "do–"

"I have to do this." He took the Chili Pill out, letting the container fall, and patted his shoulder.

Ino's vision blurred once more. "But… I… We…" She hugged him tight.

"Eating that's going to kill you, isn't it?" Temari murmured when he nodded.

Kankuro pursed his lips. "What does it do?"

"The Three Colored Pills of my clan convert our reserves of fat into chakra," Choji said, staring at the little ball of red. "If I take this, I'll lose everything I have left." His gaze steeled as the Tailed Beast began to lose shape. "Here goes nothing." He threw it into his mouth and swallowed.

"Cho–" Shikamaru widened his eyes alongside the others when butterfly wings composed of pure chakra emerged from his back.

The plumpness of his cheeks were gone, revealing a sharp handsome face. While his entire body was in searing agony, he managed a smile. "Take care of my dad for me." He pulled his teammates in for a gentle, albeit bruising, group hug, weary of the ungodly strength surging through him. "It was fun being shinobi with you guys." A warm laugh left his lips before he looked over the rest. "All of you." He let go and stepped forward. "Tell Asuma-sensei all of that money he spent on me was put to good use."

When the feeling of the Tailed Beast's chakra disappeared, Kimimaro stopped spinning, absorbed his overgrown bone protrusions, and landed on the ground. He shaped holes in the helmet where his eyes were and saw Gaara limp on a pile of sand. They went as quickly as they formed. Bending his knees, he prepared to finish it before a far thicker chakra emerging from behind made him jump forward and turn back. His peepholes reformed, letting him see the approaching source.

Choji glared at him. "I have no idea who you are, but you're in our way, and you've hurt too many of my friends to let live."

"...Akimichi." He furrowed his brow. "So this is your clan's ultimate jutsu." Waving his hands, he shot phalanges that stopped against a wall of sand. "Gaara." Turning around to deal with him would've been a death sentence, so his eyes remained on his newest foe.

"There's nothing you can do to stop me." Choji took an earth-quaking step towards him and launched himself.

Kimimaro extended his ribs again, but he shattered them with a bat of his hand. Jumping back to make distance, numerous thoughts of how to counter him came to mind. Close combat was out of the question. There was a chance he could take him from range if he took Gaara out of the picture. While stronger, the Akimichi still wasn't as fast as him. He, if all else failed, could sink into the ground to escape.

"Lee," Ino said, forming a rectangle with her fingers, "get me close."

He set down Temari's fan. "If that is what you wish." To her confusion, he picked her up like a box before running towards the battle.

"I'm going too." Kiba, scowling, followed.

Sakura began going through hand seals. "Hold on."

The rest were either too wounded, tired, or overwhelmed to stop them or protest. Nearly everything they tried failed. Even if they lived, they weren't sure they could ever recover from the experience. Their mission, to make matters worse, wasn't even over yet. Failure was not an option yet their goal was still far from reach.

Protruding a spike from his elbow, Kimimaro pulled his arm forward to finish the biggest thorn in his side. He brought it back and froze against his will. "Yama..naka." An influx of survival-induced panic helped him break out of it only to almost fall in spasms. "G-G-Gen…" His hands inched to each other.

Kiba crouched before taking off, circling him. "As if I'd let you!"

"No." Lee dropped Ino, activated the first gate, and reinforced his flanking maneuver.

Kimimaro couldn't form the tiger seal or sprout bones in time to defend himself. They kicked him back towards Choji, who concentrated all his chakra into a fist powerful enough to crack the ground beneath their feet. He couldn't mold his own to submerge himself thanks to the pseudo-seizure. With their combined efforts, they set him up for a blow that was impossible for him to avoid.

"This." Choji punched straight through his bones and flesh, driving him into the earth. "Is for everyone!"

The entire clearing fell in on the blow. Several trees on the opposite ends even keeled over from their roots following it. As for the people, they either slipped and caught themselves with chakra or grabbed what they could for support. It was a natural disaster in the form of an attack. Few shinobi alive could survive, and they hoped their foe at its center wasn't one of them.

When the dust cleared, a relieved yet weary Choji stood over two halves of Kimimaro. "It's...over."

"Not yet!" Lee, clinging to the walls of the crater, yelled.

Gaara took a shaky breath on top of a pile of sand. "He can shed his wounds!" His chest ached from strain.

Kimimaro only stared out into the blue sky. "Lo..rd Orochimaru…" He wasn't fazed at his vanquisher pulling his fist back. "I…am an unworthy vessel." There wasn't enough chakra left in him to create another body. "May Naruto…Uzumaki fulfill your…dreams." Eyes closing, he let the shock take him, returning back to his normal state.

"I-Is he dead?!" Temari asked.

Ino frowned at Choji's shaking, red arm. "I can't feel his chakra anymore!" She let herself slide down and caught him just as he fell limp. "Hey!"

"Choji!" Shikamaru joined them. "Are you alright?!" He was doing his best to hold himself together. "How do you feel?"

"We both know you already know the answer to that question."

"There's still time! If we head back to the village right now, Lady Tsunade can help you!" He moved to take him off Ino's hands but one placed on his shoulder stopped him. "Choji?"

A warm and determined look was on his handsome face. "Maybe, but we'll lose Naruto. Shino and Neji are already dead, aren't they? Don't waste their sacrifices on a half-chance." His heart sunk at the tears welling in his best friend's eyes. "Shikamaru, you're a chunin now, and there's a lot more riding on this mission than just us. You believe in me right? Well, I believe in you so don't give up here." He looked from him to Ino. "Both of you…keep…" The fatigue, pain, and shock finally rendered him unconscious.

Kankuro watched them set him on the ground. "Just passed out bu–"

"His organs are going to fail," Sakura, looking down, finished.

Tenten shifted her focus from their fallen foe, to Shino's corpse, the body in her arms, and all of their wounded. "Can we even go on like this?" No one answered her, afraid of saying it.

Kiba stared at his fallen comrade. "We shouldn't just leave them here, but I don't think we have a choice."

"Temari and Kankuro are too wounded to continue." Gaara rose with the help of his sand. "They'll stay with the bodies."

"That is the wisest course of action." Lee leapt to Tenten's side and shut Neji's seal-fried Byakugan.

She looked up to him. "...I want to stay." Gritting her teeth, she snarled. "But I also want to beat the ever-loving hell out of Naruto."

He regarded his head towards the Sand siblings. "They'll watch over them while we go onward."

"No arguments here," Kankuro said.

Temari limped towards their other sibling. "Can't even pick up my fan."

Tenten slid down, took one last look at Neji's smiling face, and set his body by Choji's. "Are you two ready?"

"...Yeah." Shikamaru let his tears fall before wiping them away.

Kiba picked up Shino's body and laid him by the others. He didn't have any words to say, party because he didn't know what to. They were comrades, but they weren't personally close. Of all people in their class, he didn't expect him to die first or any of them to go so young. Caution, composure, and cunning were the highest regarded qualities for shinobi Shino exemplified, but he was still dead.

Sakura joined the rest of their dwindling squad by the bottom of the crater. "Sasuke's probably fighting Naruto up ahead." Deep down, she knew he was most likely dead, but thinking that would've made her falter.

Shikamaru hummed. "If he's managed to hold out, we can still complete this mission."

"It's Sasuke: he can do it," Ino said, clinging on to what little hope they had left.

"Naruto," Gaara whispered to himself, recalling Sasuke standing guard over his body, "if you kill a comrade like that…"

Lee pumped his fist with tears in his eyes. "Let's finish this!"

It was already over.

Countless thoughts were going through Sasuke's mind as he breezed through the forest. He worried about the others, what he was walking into, and whether or not he could actually defeat Naruto. A good part of him blamed himself for the situation. There were signs of it before, but there was no way he didn't help. If he told him about the Mangekyo before, things may have gone differently.

When his surroundings finally changed from greenery to stone, he saw an unmistakable black and orange figure sitting on the side of a ninja's sculptured head. His feet dangled off the side. A hint of a smile as well as anxiousness were on his face. Someone was either supposed to be there or wasn't. It, regardless of his conflicting feelings, definitely wasn't him. Like Itachi, he was leaving him behind, complete with betraying the village.

He took a deep breath, grit his teeth, and lifted his head into the air. "Naruto!"

"Sasuke!?" He jumped to his feet and glared at him with reddening. "How the f–" A scoff left his lips. "That bony, silver-haired cunt!" Stomping a foot, he snarled. "I should've known he was planning this! That snake fuck!"

"What are you talking about?!"

"Kimimaro obviously let you go! I was told to wait here! Think, dumbass!"

"...Orochimaru wanted me to catch up to you!?"

"Duh!" Naruto furrowed his brow. "I don't give a shit if he is watching us; I'm going to fucking kill you and crush those stupid eyes!"

He squinted as he leapt over, closing the distance before an explosive clone could be made. "If Orochimaru is watching us, why should we fight?! He wants to steal your body, which means killing you!"

"Oh wow! I totally didn't know that!" He rolled his eyes. "Did Granny Tsunade forget to tell you we ran into him?" His confused face drew a laugh. "Now think: why would Orochimaru seek out the shinobi world's greatest medical ninja after a fight with the Old Man?"

"The Hokage mortally wounded him."

"And if he could just swap bodies to fix it, why didn't he do that instead of going to Granny Tsunade?"

"He… It requires certain conditions to be met."

"There you go!" He scoffed. "For someone who graduated at the top of his class, you really are fucking stupid."

"Naruto…"

He lunged for Sasuke's neck only for him to catch his wrists. "Did you not hear a single word I said!?" Growling, his slit red eyes dug into the somber tomoe of his Sharingan.

"Why are you doing this?!" He concentrated his chakra into his palms and molded it into lightning.

Naruto, feeling an odd buzzing, grabbed his wrists in turn. "I have every reason to!" He let himself fall before throwing him over with the added force.

He rolled on to his feet. "You were doing fine before!"

"I… I was." Springing to his feet, his lips thinned out against each other.

"...What happened to you, Naruto?"

He averted his gaze for a second. "Do you really want to know?" The 'Are-You-Fucking-Kidding-Me' look on his face made him laugh. "Well… You are going to die anyway, and I'm probably never going to see Anko-sensei again." Inclining his head, his mocking smile turned sad. "…I met my dad."

Sasuke's eyes widened. "What?"

"My dad: you know, dumbass, the guy who fucks your mother?" He chuckled at a twitch. "Everyone in the shinobi world knows him, but a few people knew what he was to me." Furrowing his brow, he clenched his hands into fists. "We both know those people too."

"Who are you talking about?"

"Kakashi, Pervy Sage, and the Old Man! They knew the entire fucking time and never told me! I laid it all out on the table for Kakashi to finally say it that day, and he still didn't say shit, that piece of!" The Nine-Tail's chakra bubbled over before dissipating. "...Even when I showed him the Rasengan, he kept his mouth shut." He laughed bitterly as Sasuke froze. "Can you fucking believe that lazy asshole?"

"The Fourth Hokage is dead!"

He put his hand over his seal. "I know, but he still found a way to talk to me. When he sealed the Nine-Tails, a part of him stayed as some sort of failsafe in case I tried to release it."

"...On the day of Orochimaru's attack." Honest worry sparked in his eyes. "Naruto, were you trying to kill yourself?"

"I…" His voice broke. "…My father chose the village over me, his only child birthed by the woman he loved." Vision blurring, his heart ached. "He told me he loved me, and I only went on about how I was going to kill everyone because of him! I thought he was lying, but I realize now he wasn't." Tears streamed down his whiskered cheeks. "Even though I was his son, I wasn't enough for him to put me before everyone else. I wasn't enough for the Old Man, Kakashi, or Pervy Sage. They kept my father and my mother from me because they knew what could happen if I knew that!"

"Naru–"

"What I still don't get is how, of all people, you're the only one I could bring myself to tell this to." He pursed his lips. "I mean, it's partly because I'm going to kill you but still."

Sasuke stared. "...You need help."

"Oh, I know. That's why I'm going to Orochimaru. When I pick up everything I can from him, I'll kill him and then move on to the village; might stop by the Cloud first as a test run."

"We both know you know that's not what I meant." He resisted the urge to facepalm when he laughed for the umpteenth time.

"You could always read me better than anyone else." Naruto dropped into a stance. "But I'm pretty sure I can read you better."

"I don't want to fight you, and you know I'd win."

He scoffed. "All I ever used against you was Taijutsu. Even back in the Academy, I was fighting with a handicap thanks to those stupid rules. So you either fight or lay down and die, you gloomy cocksucker!" His fingers formed the Shadow Clone Jutsu sign, creating a single copy.

It was time.

AN: And finally! Got no excuses. I split myself between two different things, and of course, I started doing less the more I tried doing both. The distinct flow I had from focusing on one really got me going. Now, it's a lot harder since I broke it. This chapter might be revised a lot more than the others in editing once I'm done with this part of the story.

Kimimaro was going to go one way or the other eventually. Too loyal to Orochimaru for anyone to ever win him over. Least I could do was illustrate him being the absolute murder machine he'd be without anything to hinder him. His powers were really fun to work with. Rest in Orochimaru.

Having everyone die would've killed too many plotlines and ideas I had in mind besides being grimdark. Mostly let the flow dictate who lived and died. Gaara carried everyone else before Choji came along to actually do the suicide tactic his teammates couldn't.

Feel free to leave your thoughts in the form of a review or PM.