lol @ winged dancer

I also think Orochimaru needs to live. The story will probably change focus after this arc but you just can't kill off Orochimaru. I assume sasuke will go to Oro and naruto and co will leave or something. And then somehow the akatsuki comes into the picture.

So basically my point is that Oro doesn't necessarily need to die for the story to progress, the story just need to focus on some other villin.