Under ordinary circumstances, Sakura would have been glad to be rid of Orochimaru, but his self-diagnosis could not have co at a worse ti. Although he was far from helpless, he was hardly fit to command the Land of Lightning front, where there was every chance he would have to throw hands with A, arguably the strongest of the other four Kage.
Going clockwise, Kirigakure had Momochi Zabuza, the Demon of the Hidden Mist, as well as Terumī i, the woman who would have beco the Fifth Mizukage; Sunagakure had Pakura the Hero; Iwagakure had Ōnoki the Fence Sitter; and lastly, Kumogakure had the strongest spear and shield in the form of the A and B Combo.
Zabuza was just barely Kage-level, so the Hyūga clan would be more than enough to counter his Kirigakure no Jutsu. Terumī i was the greater threat by comparison, weaker in individual duels but quite capable of devastating entire armies with nothing more than her breath. Even so, as long as the Hidden Mist stuck to its usual guerrilla tactics, raiding the coastline and never venturing too far inland, the Land of Fire would have little to fear from the eastern front.
Pakura's sheer firepower could only be dealt with by Tobirama, a grandmaster of Water Style ninjutsu, so he absolutely had to be stationed on the western front. In all of Konoha, only he and his disciple, Maruboshi Kosuke, were capable of wielding these ninja arts to their fullest extent without needing to rely on existing bodies of water.
Ōnoki's jutsu had the greatest lethality of any of the Five Kage, Sakura herself included, but Iwagakure's real strength was that it was by far the most populous of the Five Great Villages. Only the immortal Hashirama would be able to contain them all and prevent the Land of Fire from drowning in enemies, so he would be tied up holding the northwestern front, even though it was a poor use of his Tailed Beast-subduing talents.
This only left the duo of the Raikage A and the Eight-Tails' Jinchūriki, Killer Bee. Sakura regarded the pair as by far the greatest threat to Konoha, so she knew she had to be extrely careful when choosing a commander for the northern front. The Hidden Leaf was already short-staffed as it was, so where in the world was she supposed to find a replacent commander whose na wasn't Jiraiya!?
"As expected," Sakura sighed as she reclined in her chair and stared at the ceiling. "Am I really going to have to send the Third Hokage to the northern front…?"
Even though she didn't trust the snake, Sakura had initially agreed to Shikaku's plan to send Orochimaru to face Kumogakure's army specifically because she hoped they would kill him… but not before he had at least bought them so ti.
"Tobirama confird that Orochimaru was dying, so unless he managed to fool the smartest Hokage who ever lived, I doubt he's lying to get out of this," Sakura murmured to herself. "I suppose he just got lucky enough to wriggle out of it… if you can call being a dying man lucky."
Now it seed as though Sakura had no choice but to send either Jiraiya or Sarutobi Hiruzen to the north. But like it or not, both n were extrely popular amongst the people, thanks to years of Will of Fire propaganda being instiled in them. Sakura had to consider what it would do to the village's morale if she sent them out, only for their bodies to be returned in sealing scrolls.
After all, Hiruzen had been revived in an old man's body, already well past his pri, and Pain had left Jiraiya full of holes, an ordeal from which he had never fully recovered. If she sent them out to face the A-B Combo, there was no telling whether they would survive.
…and yet, Sakura still needed soone with enough prestige and clout to effectively command an army, and she could not leave Orochimaru behind as the village's final line of defence, for obvious reasons.
"The Third Hokage it is, then," Sakura rationalised. "Naruto's ntal health takes priority."
Sakura had only just started humming the Hokage's Funeral OST when Yurika burst into her office holding a stack of papers.
"Big news, Milady!" she said breathlessly. "We've finally deciphered the code the Konohagakure Intelligence Division extracted from the mind of the Stone-nin you brought back from Kusagakure!"
At last, news!
The village's spy network had been severely hampered by Danzō's banishnt. When he left, a large part of it went with him… and there was no telling how many of the agents still in her employ were still secretly working for him. It was becoming increasingly clear that Danzō had been infiltrating the regular ANBU for years, ensuring that only the information he wanted the Third and Fifth Hokages to hear ever reached their ears.
"Well?" Sakura asked eagerly. "What did you find?"
"He's actually a pretty big fish," explained Yurika. "His na is Kitsuchi, and he's the Third Tsuchikage's son… but we already knew that, his picture is in the bingo book."
Sakura had already noticed the familial resemblance from their puffy, bulbous noses; though Ōnoki's granddaughter Kurotsuchi thankfully did not share that feature.
"Any value as a hostage?" Sakura then asked.
Yurika shook her head.
"None at all. The Third Tsuchikage is apparently a very hard and stubborn man," she said. "Besides, the Tsuchikage bloodline is already secure, since Kitsuchi has a daughter nad Kurotsuchi."
Sakura grimaced. "I know," she said. "We've t."
It just went to show how much of an impression Madara must have made on Ōnoki that even he trembled at the re ntion of his na.
"There's more," Yurika said urgently. "The Hidden Stone has already solved the issue of the monster Danzō sent to attack their village, and they've already mobilised their troops. Kitsuchi was in Kusagakure to negotiate safe passage!"
A pit ford in Sakura's stomach.
"And the Box of Ultimate Bliss?" she asked.
"They cannot activate it without the Keeper of Lore and Secrets, who's still in Kumogakure," Yurika explained. "Apparently, Kumo has managed to put down their monster as well, but they're in no state to launch an attack straight away… I might be reading into it, but Kitsuchi seed convinced the Raikage was wary of handing over the key to unlocking the box while Kumogakure is still recovering!"
Sakura drumd her fingers against the surface of her desk. There was no way soone like Ōnoki would attack first, and on his own at that, especially not while the other villages were still paralysed and unable to divide the Leaf's attention. So, mobilising his forces was most likely a bluff.
This ant there was still ti before all-out war broke out, and if the Box was not yet operational, and the Cloud was in a worse state than she had initially assud, then perhaps there was sothing that could be done to further delay the deploynt of Kumo's forces on the northern front…
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