With nothing left to offer and no more power to pull from, Zabuza had defeated Kakashi and slammed him against the trunk of a tree. The only thing left for him to do was to accept his fate and find peace with the fact that it was all over for him at this point.
"Time to put an end to this," Zabuza said while struggling to lift his blade with his bad shoulder.
Kakashi's vision was blurry but still good enough to see Zabuza standing before him, about to cut him down with one final attack.
Father... I will see you soon. Kakashi thought, making peace with his death.
However, Zabuza was forced to block a sudden volley of Kunai, two of which hit him, one in the arm and another in his thigh where he had not been able to block them due to his shoulder injury.
"What in the!" Zabuza cried out in pain, dashing back to avoid the rest of the volley and watching as two Leaf ninjas landed next to Kakashi having come to his aid.
"Don't let him get near Captain Kakashi!" Another of them yelled, seeming to appear from all over the place.
"Take him down, men!" Another shouted, revealing that ninja from the hidden Waterfall had also appeared to join the fight.
"What? Don't tell me they were able to kill that fool Kakuzu?" Zabuza said, seeing the number of shinobi that were appearing seemed to suggest that had been the outcome.
"That bastard really died..." Zabuza said to himself, avoiding another barrage of shuriken and kunai.
"This is looking fun!" The Otter with the eye patch yelled, charging in and attacking some of the Waterfall ninja, using both of its blades to attack low, taking out their legs before he moved on.
The other Otter attacked too, trying to keep them away from Zabuza as best he could, only to realise that they were overwhelmed by numbers.
"Don't let him get away!" One of the captains of the Waterfall ninja yelled, ordering his men to attack and take advantage of Zabuza's wounds.
Zabuza knew that he wouldn't be able to fight such a large group, watching as both of his summoning Otters had already charged in and were starting to engage in battle with some of the Leaf and Waterfall ninja, doing damage and taking out as many of them as they could before they too were overwhelmed by numbers.
"Another time, Zabuza." The Otter with the red scarf said before both of them burst into smoke, ending their summoning contract to avoid a killing blow from some of the shinobi they had been fighting.
Zabuza didn't say anything as he watched them disappear, leaving him to fight this battle alone before he blocked an attack from a Waterfall ninja with his leg, stopping his sword attack and countering with his own.
"Things aren't looking good for me," Zabuza said, flipping backwards before being forced to avoid another barrage of attacks, doing his best to block and counter when he could while he tried to get away.
"Stop him men, don't let him run!"
However, Zabuza had already made a break for it, cutting through two genin that had dared to stand in his path, becoming victims to his brutality in the wake of his escape.
"Kakashi..." One of the older chunin said, seeing that he was in bad shape.
"We need to get him to a medic right away." He said, knowing they might not be able to save him.
Kakashi wasn't sure what had happened; all he knew was that he was still breathing and that his eyelids were finally beginning to droop before darkness engulfed him and his spirit gave way to exhaustion.
Meanwhile...
Ganryu and the others were faced with Sasori of the red sand and Orochimaru one of the legendary sannin.
"Don't let them get near Kimimaro!" Ganryu yelled as he dashed in front of the boy with his blast sword out ready to fight.
"Oh my, they really think they have a chance," Orochimaru said, finding their efforts amusing.
Haku was one of the first to rush to the front with Ganryu, ready to defend his brother with his life, quickly followed by Kogetsu who was also ready to give his life.
However, the sheer intimidating presence of Orochimaru and Sasori was so powerful that some of the others couldn't bring themselves to move, including Hattori who grit his teeth at the fact he felt fear.
"Please, allow me," Sasori said, suddenly opening his mouth and letting a barrage of senbon needles burst out, shooting them like a Gatling gun toward the Mist shinobi.
"Look out!" Ganryu yelled, not having time to do anything about it before he jumped into the air, hoping that the others would be able to dodge them also.
However, Kogetsu was able to make his hand signs in time and shot out a burst of water from his mouth, protecting everyone with a water wall, surprising both Orochimaru and Sasori with his efforts.
"Look out!" Ganryu yelled from above, watching as Sasori's metal tail slipped out of his cloak and looped around Kogetu's back, threatening to rip him in half as it pierced through into Kogetsu's back.
However, Kogetu's body burst into water, showing that Sasori's attack had no effect on him.
"Take this!" Ganryu yelled, flying down from the sky as he cut down at Sasori with his blast sword, creating a massive explosion as Sasori tried to block his attack, resulting in the paper bombs on the blast sword to explode forcing both Sasori and Orochimaru back.
"How interesting..." Orochimaru said having watched what had happened to Kogetsu.
"Everyone get back, we need to retreat! Kimimaro, I want you to get out of here as fast as you can." Ganryu shouted while the smoke blocked everyone's view.
"He's not going anywhere." Sasori's voice said, revealing that his tail had been broken in two, revealing he was a puppet.
"It's a puppet?" Kogetsu said, understanding why he had weapons like he did.
"Time to stop playing around," Sasori said, extending his arm from his cape before shooting a wooden box from it, causing it to explode above the Mist shinobi scattering senbon needles in every direction like a deadly rain.
"Look out!" Kogetsu yelled, trying to protect as many as he could.
"Kimimaro look out!" Haku shouted, putting up an ice dome to protect him and the others, stopping the senbon needles before they hit them.
However, some of the Mist shinobi had not been so lucky, having been hit by one or two of the senbon needles, not being able to avoid them.
Haku looked at the damage his attack had done, also seeing the poison that dripped off of the needles onto his ice.
"They are poisoned." He said, realising how devastating that attack was.
"Water style, raging waves jutsu!" Kogetsu suddenly yelled, shooting a massive amount of water from his mouth in retaliation, taking both Sasori and Orochimaru by surprise as they were forced to retreat out of the way.
"Striking shadow snake!" Orochimaru said, finally deciding to attack as he shot snakes from his sleeve, using them to wrap around Kogetsu once he had finished his jutsu, only to see him burst into water again, slipping from the snake's grasp, impressing him at the same time.
"So, he is impervious to physical attacks," Orochimaru said, having already analysed his technique, licking his lips with his snake like tongue.
Sasori was able to jump out of the way of the large blast of water, however, Kogetsu hadn't been aiming to hit them with it, his goal was to provide the others with ammo to use more jutsu against them, giving them a body of water to use.
Ganryu was fast to click on what he was doing, quickly taking command of the situation and the tactical advantage Kogetsu had provided for them.
"Joint water jutsu now!" Ganryu yelled, getting as many of his men he could to attack with a joint jutsu.
As many as were able clapped their hands together, forming hand signs before they unleashed their jutsu to attack with, each yelling the attack out.
Both Sasori and Orochimaru had been placed on their back foot, not having anticipated that they would be able to launch such a powerful combination of jutsu at them, giving them little time to react to it.
"Enough of this," Orochimaru said, having found it amusing at first, only for their efforts to grow tiresome now.
"Summoning jutsu!" Orochimaru said, making the hand signs and drawing the blood across his arm, which already had the seal on it.
Suddenly a huge burst of smoke erupted, covering the view of everyone leaving them unsure if their jutsu had hit home or not.
However, that soon became apparent as the smoke cleared and a giant twin-headed snake appeared, casuing the Mist ninja to watch in horror as their water-style ninjutsu bounced off of the giant snake, not having enough power to damage the monster.
"No way... Such power..." One of the chunin said, fearing for his life as he looked up at the monster that Orochimaru had summoned.
"He is one of the legendary Sannin, we don't stand a chance!" Another yelled, also having succumbed to his fear.
Kimimaro watched as many of his fellow shinobi had been killed or injured already from the battle, having to face off against two extremely powerful foes.
"I don't have a choice." He said to himself, knowing that he would have to use the full power of the three tails from the get-go if they wanted to stand a chance at surviving this fight.
Haku could see the look on his brother's face, knowing what he was going to do before he even moved.
"No, run away Kimimaro!" Haku yelled, knowing that if they captured him he would be killed for sure.
"I'll hold him off as long as I can. You will have to take the other guy." Kimimaro said with a smile, knowing full well that he might not see his brother again.
Before Haku could say another word, Kimimaro burst forth with blinding speed, exploding into version two of his tailed beast mode right away as he charged toward Orochimaru and the twin-headed snake.
"Well, lucky here," Orochimaru said, watching as Kimimaro charged toward him as he commanded his snake to attack while he stood on its head, watching as it tried to crush Kimimaro with both of its huge heads, rushing forward and trying to eat him.
However, Kimimaro smashed a powerful uppercut into the first snake's head, knocking its head and body off balance due to the force of the attack.
The other head was also unable to attack him due to having its body being shifted from the force of Kimimaro's first attack.
Isobu, please lend me your power. Kimimaro said, speaking to the tailed beast inside of his inner world.
Of course, Kimimaro! Isobu roared, suddenly giving the boy all of his power once again and allowing him to turn into the full form of the three tails, blasting the twin-headed snake with his armoured tails.
"So this is your full power!" Orochimaru yelled, watching as Kimimaro turned into the full three-tailed beast, letting out a powerful roar all while pinning the giant snakes down with his tails, making them look not so giant anymore before crushing them to death, forcing Orochimaru to jump off of them before he placed his hands together in preparation.
Kimimaro and Isobu could see Orochimaru falling in the air and attacking with the last remaining tail, slapping his body with the full weight of it with one smooth spin attack.
But Orochimaru was already prepared for this and burst out of his body's mouth as if shedding his skin and recovering from the attack.
"Wind style, great breach!" Orochimaru said, blasting a powerful wind-style jutsu at Isobu and Kimimaro.
"Water style, giant bullet!" Isobu yelled, countering the wind style by blasting a massive shot of water from its mouth.
Both of the jutsu clashed in the air, however, Isobu overpowered Orochimaru's and pushed through it before the water blast headed over toward Orochimaru, threatening to smash into him.
"Argh!" Orochimaru yelled, shooting his tongue out of his mouth, using it to wrap around a tree and pull him out of the way of the attack.
Meanwhile, the others had been forced to get away from the clash of Titans, however, that also meant that they had been forced to leave anyone who was unable to get themselves away from the battle to be caught in the destruction.
Sasori was also impressed by the sheer power of Kimimaro, clearly already having control over the beast and displaying incredible power.
Still, Sasori would let Orochimaru deal with him turning his attention to the others that had survived the chaos and destruction.
"I guess I will clean up the riffraff," Sasori said, looking at the handful of Mist Shinobi that were left.
Ganryu, Kogetsu, Haku, Hattori, Koyuki, Rokuro, Chika, Kujira, Yuri and two others had been the only ones to survive the assault and the blast from Kimimaro and Orochimaru, not leaving them with much to face off against the puppet master.
"I hope you are all ready to put your lives on the line. Because this is going to be one fight you won't forget." Ganryu said, knowing that this could well be it for all of them.
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Thats the end of this chapter! I hope you enjoyed it.
Thank you for reading and all of your support.