Hokage! Past and Present! - 3

'I doubt I'll be able to remove his soul entirely…' The Third realized he had underestimated his former student, 'Even so, I will not allow him to threaten Leaf! He will never use another jutsu again!'

"Just hurry up and die already!" Orochimaru cried heatedly, sensing Hiruzen's end was near, "You can't kill me, old man! Just give up!"

"I can't kill you, Orochimaru. It has never been within my power to do so," The Sandaime hissed, "But you should not expect to be so fortunate with the remainder of this village. They will end you swiftly and justly, and you will finally see the true strength of Konohagakure…"

"Hiruzen, wait!" Enma's hands were full of blood and slipping along the blade he had been restraining.

"Seal!" The Hokage allowed the death god to complete the jutsu, slashing at Orochimaru's arms with its dagger, disconnecting them from the rest of his soul.

Orochimaru reeled away in agony, abruptly releasing his sword. Hiruzen fell back, his own soul offered up to the mouth of the waiting shinigami. Enma caught his body gently, removing the blade in hopes of offering him some dignity in his death.

"Orochimaru-sama!" The remaining sound ninja rushed to the snake sennin's side, abandoning the fight with the Black-Ops. They withdrew immediately, avoiding a storm of shuriken that followed them as they fled the stadium.

The ANBU looked to their captain for orders, seeing that he was beside himself with grief. A small division of his team was sent to pursue the escaping Oto ninja while he went to the Hokage, the empty feeling in his chest telling him that the Sandaime was already dead.

*

Jiraiya only had to follow the trail of devastated forest and vegetation on his way to find his students, all the while very deep in thought, 'How could Minato have known that I'm training a new team? Hell, how did he know that they're in danger even?'

As much as he trusted his student, dead or not, he found that there was no obvious explanation of how he could have been aware of anything that was going on in the living world. Jiraiya quickly decided it was better not to question his good fortune, and he knew that the Fourth would be of great help to the Third in dispatching Orochimaru.

He was so confident he grinned widely as he moved through the canopy, 'I'll bet Naruto already settled things out here! It's too quiet and judging by the scorch-marks everywhere, I'd say Gamabunta also paid a visit…'

Like magic, out over the horizon line, Jiraiya could see the monstrous, sandy form of Shukaku crumbling pathetically, defeated.

*

"Hold still, Shikamaru, you're worse than Kiba-kun!" Sakura was tending to a cut above the Nara's eye once they had arrived at the garrison, "You're lucky that explosion didn't blow your head off. If you had just moved sooner you wouldn't have been hurt at all!"

"Well excuse me…it's not like we intended to get mixed up with those Cloud ninja…so troublesome!" He turned to Ino and Chouji beside him, "Ino, how's your arm?"

She flexed it curiously, wincing in pain, "Well…it's better than it was. Don't worry about me though; you and Chouji are worse off, right?"

"I'm fine!" Chouji informed her, procuring a new bag of potato chips. Shikamaru looked at the blonde girl for a long moment, not buying her story, and then closed his eyes with a sigh.

After aiding the Nara, Sakura turned to Kiba, who was sitting by a provision barrel with Akamaru perched on top of his head victoriously. Without his help, or Sakura's for that matter, Team 10 would have met a grisly end at the hands of the Kumo shinobi who had ambushed them.

Sakura frowned, taking a seat beside him, "Where do you think Kakashi-sensei went, Kiba-kun?"

"I don't know…but I don't think we should worry about him right now. He can handle himself," He could tell she was exhausted, judging by her anxious expression, "Are you feeling alright?"

She nodded absently, pulling Akamaru into her arms and scratching behind his ears, "I'll be okay. I just…I still can't believe all of this is happening, you know?"

"Tell me about it!" He paused, sniffing the air, "Whoa, Sasuke's back! Let's go find him."

Sakura was used to the fact that his acute sense of smell could easily locate anyone from their team with even the barest hint of a scent. She stood up and followed him and halted in her tracks when she saw Naruto and Gaara with an unconscious Haku, trudging behind their sensei, all of them looking very beat-up.

It was her first instinct to run to them and make sure they were alright, but Kiba pulled her along by her arm, seeing she was distracted, "Come on, he's over there with Pakkun!"

She followed Kiba to where the Uchiha prodigy was hovering, looking a bit aghast.

Naruto set Haku down, seeing he was waking up, "Hey Haku! How many fingers am I holding up?"

He waved a peace sign in front of his friend's face and Haku blinked dizzily, "Hm…more than one?"

"Close enough!"

Sakura had briefly checked on Sasuke and after noting that he was perfectly fine, she had excused herself and made her way over to where Team 2 had settled down, "Naruto-kun! Where were you guys?"

He blinked up at her, "Oh, hey Sakura-chan! Er…we kind of got caught up in the worst of the fighting, but we're fine! Isn't that right Haku-kun?"

Haku nodded, still very disoriented. Sakura smiled weakly at him, then turned to the blonde boy, "Are you sure he's alright? He look's horrible…"

"No, actually he nearly got himself killed," Naruto admitted, frowning at the dark haired boy, "But hey, it wouldn't be the first time…"

Jiraiya approached Temari and Kankuro where they had settled near Gaara, noting they were from Suna and still couldn't help but be suspicious of them, "Will you two come with me, please? We have a lot to talk about."

Gaara watched his siblings as they silently followed after the toad sennin. He knew it wouldn't take his sensei long to see what a great help they had been to the Leaf.

Naruto glanced over to the red haired boy, "Sakura-chan, I think you should talk to Gaara-kun right now."

She smiled at him gratefully and walked over to the bench Gaara had perched himself on. He looked up at her for a long moment, inquisitively, as if a memory had crossed his mind.

"Who were those two with you who went with Gama-sennin?" Sakura asked curiously, sitting down beside him, "Are they Leaf shinobi?"

A ghost of a smile came over his face, "They're from Sand," His smirk widened when she gasped in surprise, "It's alright, Sakura. They're with us."

She crossed her arms, finding it difficult to believe, "How can you be so sure? So many ninja attacked today, I heard they even tried to take Hinata-chan!"

"It's because they're my brother and sister, and they helped Naruto-kun and Haku-kun during the fighting," Gaara explained and then added, "And even Sasuke, I've been told. I trust Temari and Kankuro with my life."

"Temari and Kankuro, right…" Sakura spoke the names aloud for herself, mulling it over, "Yeah, Naruto and Hinata talked about them a few times…" She smiled, "I'm just glad you're alright, and well, glad that they helped you."

Gaara fell silent, relishing the sound of her comforting voice. It hadn't taken her very long to accept his siblings, something he was grateful for.

His eyes scanned over to where Jiraiya was talking to his brother and sister, and then over to where a crowd of Hyuga were gathered. Gaara unintentionally smiled to himself while seeing Hinata trying to slink away from her father in an attempt to talk to Naruto while he tried to snap Haku back to his senses.

Even in the chaos of an invasion things hadn't changed. People were desperate to cling to whatever normalcy was left over, just for the reassurance that things would be alright.

'I've been through hell and back and not once was I abandoned.' Gaara hadn't doubted that his friend's would help him, 'Orochimaru failed.'

"Gaara-kun, can you maybe tell me what exactly happened?" Sakura spoke at length, still pondering why he and his teammates had run off so unexpectedly, "Are you sure you're alright?"

The red haired boy wrapped his arms around her in silence and she let out a small squeak. She knew he was capable of showing affection, but she wondered what he must have been thinking about earlier that made him want to be close to her. He seemed overwhelmed.

Sakura rested her chin on his shoulder, ignoring Naruto's mirthful chatter from nearby. If Gaara wanted to embrace she wasn't complaining.