"How exactly am I supposed to show off inconspicuously?" Sakura grumbled as she trudged through the forest, her sixty-man vanguard trailing behind her. "Either we sneak in through the back, or we kick down the front door!"
She kicked a pinecone from her path and watched it roll away with a scowl.
"I believe the Nara kid meant for us to act naturally," Shiranui Genma said lazily. As always, he was chewing on a senbon. "The point is for the enemy to learn of our presence without arousing too much suspicion."
Usually, important people such as the Gokage wouldn't even show themselves on the frontlines unless an important battle had gone sideways or the enemy side's Kage had also come out to play. Naturally, any Kage worth their salt could easily make short work of any shinobi who crossed their path, but that would only lead to them pointlessly exhausting themselves before reaching the enemy boss. The point of having minions was to have them soften up the enemy, after all.
"I know," Sakura sighed. "But to think Shikamaru would send the Lord First away and not even include him in the operation…"
The Land of Grass front also needed defending from the Hidden Stone, and besides, having Hashirama around was counterproductive to the strategy. His presence alone was enough to keep Ōnoki hanging back, when the goal of today's outing was to get Iwa to chase them around and overextend…
"Something's not right," Sakura muttered to herself. "Where is everyone? This forest is emptier than Ino's head…"
Night was falling on the world of shinobi, but despite crossing the entirety of the Land of Waterfalls and reaching the mountain range that cleaved the continent between east and west, they had not encountered a single Iwa-nin yet. They had found plenty of abandoned base camps, but there was no intel to be found; everything left behind had been thoroughly incinerated.
Sakura craned her neck and watched through the canopy as Hinata soared through the air like a jet. She couldn't help briefly wondering how losing her Byakugan had granted Hinata the rare ability to fly, before the sound of barking dogs dragged her from her thoughts.
"The Inuzuka trackers have found an abandoned camp past the forest's edge, at the foot of the mountain range," Tatami Iwashi said, pressing a finger to his headset. "Their dogs identified traces of explosive clay."
"My turn to shine," Sakura said, weaving a few quick signs as she leapt to a tall tree overlooking the forest's edge. "Chidori Senbon!"
At her level of chakra control, further altering the shape of the Chidori was child's play. The only area in which she lagged behind Sasuke and Kakashi was naming; unlike them, she had not yet accomplished the feat of splitting a lightning bolt with the jutsu, so she could not call it Raikiri just yet.
"Sha!"
In Sakura's scarlet eyes, the buried plastic explosives were as obvious as pimples on a beautiful girl's otherwise unblemished face. The lightning sparking in her hand exploded into a myriad needles, indiscriminately blanketing the area before her and defusing all the explosives buried around the abandoned encampment.
"Seriously, where is everyone?" Sakura grumbled. "Did they just turn back and go home?"
For a second, Sakura was tempted to run through the mountain range straight to Iwagakure and repeat Madara's legendary feat of subduing an entire hidden village on his own.
"Or maybe…" Sakura muttered to herself, "they weren't just buying time for their allies to join the war… could it be that they have already made their move?"
Sakura watched as Hinata drew a wide arc in the sky, flying past the border and into the Land of Earth, before circling back into the Land of Waterfalls. The shy girl's voice soon rang out in her earpiece.
"I don't see anything like siege engines or supply lines leading west," Hinata said. "I don't see anything except mountains for a thousand kilometres in each direction…"
The Byakugan was not infallible, but for Hinata to fail to see a single enemy when they were supposed to be so numerous… that was simply impossible. Then again, the odds were high that Iwa had hired the Akatsuki, which meant they had access to the Leaf's every movement through the Zetsu Spy Network…
"Set up the long-range radio!" Sakura shouted. "I need to reach high command immediately!"
One of the chūnin under her command set down his enormous backpack and wrestled a towering piece of electronic equipment from it, while one of his companions quickly scampered up a tree with the antenna and yet another plugged the radio's extension cord into the portable generator he was carrying. With a jolt of lightning chakra, the radio crackled to life.
"Report!" Sakura spoke into the microphone a fourth chūnin handed her. "What's the situation on the Land of Grass front?"
"Same as usual!" came the reply from the radio operator on the other end. "Small-scale skirmishes involving no more than two or three four-man squads!"
This was getting stranger and stranger.
Sakura's first assumption was that the Hidden Stone had abandoned its fruitless assault on the Land of Waterfalls to concentrate their efforts on the Land of Grass, or perhaps to push through the Land of Rain, the gap in the Leaf's defences. But if everything was still business as usual down south… then where could Iwa's forces have possibly vanished to?
"Think, Sakura, think… even the slightest detail you can remember might help…"
This Fourth Shinobi World War was nothing like the original, so her memories of canon material wouldn't be of any help on that front. To make matters worse, she had not watched a single Naruto film except The Last, and she had stopped watching filler after enduring the Three-Tails' Appearance arc, so if there was anything to be found in filler, she was out of luck…
"But there's no possible way such an enormous army could have escaped notice, unless…"
Sakura facepalmed.
"…unless they completely bypassed the defence line by sailing through the northern sea and landing in the Land of Iron. They're supposed to be neutral in all this, but they shouldn't have enough ships for that kind of stunt, unless… did they borrow Kirigakure's fleet!?"
Restraining her urge to punch a tree, Sakura picked up the microphone again.
"Situation report!" Sakura shouted. "The north-eastern defence line!"
A few seconds later, the operator's voice crackled from the radio.
"No enemies sighted! Zero casualties as of yet, and one accidental self-inflicted injury!"
A chill ran down Sakura's spine. The northern fortifications were still being erected, since they did not have the advantage of the First Hokage sprouting fresh trees on command; and, more importantly, there were nowhere near enough soldiers stationed there to hold back both Iwa and Kumo… and the Box of Ultimate Bliss.
"Retreat!" Sakura roared. "We're heading back to Mt Shumisen!"
Unbeknownst to Sakura, her theory was only half right; thanks to the White Zetsus' perfectly accurate, instantaneous intelligence gathering, the enemy was outmanoeuvring even Shikamaru himself and twisting his best-laid plans into knots. The threat was far closer than Sakura could possibly imagine…