Yuji temporarily stepped back from the hospital director role and handed the day-to-day affairs to Saori.
The war preparations demanded his full attention, and he had been spending most of his time in the planning rooms with Chiyo and the other senior officials, working through the strategic arrangements.
The succession question had settled into an informal consensus without being formally decided. With the Third Kazekage gone, Rasa was the most prominent figure in the village by any conventional measure, and his voice in the military planning carried corresponding weight.
The two of them had disagreements in the sessions, not targeted at each other personally, but arising naturally from different assessments of the battlefield situation.
The disputes were functional rather than hostile. In terms of raw standing within the village, battlefield experience, and established record, Rasa's position was stronger, and the majority of the planning reflected his framework.
Yuji's contributions were absorbed as supplements, enriching the tactical content and reducing exposure on specific fronts.
One point Yuji kept returning to was Konoha's younger generation. On the surface, Konoha appeared weakened, Tsunade absent, Sakumo dead, the peak power of the Second Ninja World War not available for this conflict.
But Konoha's training system had continued functioning throughout the post-war period. Minor ongoing conflicts with other villages had given their newer shinobi real battlefield experience. Someone needed to be watched carefully.
Namikaze Minato, specifically.
Yuji stated it plainly: this person was likely to become the decisive factor in Konoha's performance in the coming war. The response from Rasa and the others was skeptical.
Their intelligence on Minato was limited, and a shinobi without an established reputation didn't register as a serious threat in their strategic planning. Yuji didn't push further. He noted the reaction and moved on.
The final arrangement placed Yuji and Sasori on the Konoha front. The reasoning was straightforward, with the Third Kazekage gone and Konoha's elite forces below their Second War peak, the Sand Village's front against Konoha was simultaneously the highest-stakes engagement and the one most dependent on individual combat capability.
Sasori was the closest thing the village had to a Kage-level force. Yuji's role alongside him was equally critical. The overall battlefield command went to Shimizu, whose experience and qualifications were appropriate for the position.
Rasa remained stationed near the village itself, positioned to defend the Land of Wind's borders once the war's broader movements became clear.
The coastal front against the Hidden Mist was assigned to Pakura and a group of the village's more developed younger shinobi, battlefield seasoning for the next generation under controlled conditions.
Chiyo stayed in the village to oversee continued operations. The pharmaceutical factory was approaching full production capacity, and maintaining the supply chain through the war period was as important as the fighting itself.
Several of the village's less experienced senior officials were directed to the Konoha front as well. Yuji had suggested this with carefully neutral framing, and it had produced no suspicion, deploying the inexperienced officials to the most demanding front while the village's actual assets were positioned strategically made sense on the surface.
Walking back to his residence late that night after a full day of deliberation, Yuji turned the remaining concern over in his mind.
Konoha would underestimate Sunagakure. A village that had lost its Kage under unclear circumstances, deploying a force that looked thin at the top, against the strongest of the five great villages, the natural assumption would be that the Sand Village was overextending out of desperation rather than operating from a position of calculated strength.
The border deployment against the Land of Wind would reflect that assessment. Vigilance rather than concentrated force.
That was useful.
His real concern was not Konoha at all.
It was Kumogakure.
In the original story, the Third Ninja World War had seen the Hidden Cloud Village extend its ambitions toward Sunagakure. The Raikage's temperament made this predictable, hearing of the Third Kazekage's disappearance would be exactly the kind of signal he couldn't sit still through.
Kumogakure's grievances against Konoha and Iwagakure ran deeper, but that didn't prevent the Raikage from wanting to press Sunagakure while the village appeared leaderless, demonstrating Kumogakure's worth and collecting whatever advantage was available.
The pharmaceutical industry made the target more attractive, not less. Kumogakure's military strength was genuinely comparable to Konoha's, their defeat in the previous war had come down to a narrow gap at the very top of their combat roster and the brutal losses sustained fighting Iwagakure simultaneously.
Those conditions no longer applied in the same way.
Sunagakure's situation in this war was objectively more dangerous than the last one.
Yuji turned all of this over as he reached his door, reached for the handle, then paused.
His eyes dropped slightly. Something registered.
A guest.
He let a small smile cross his face and pushed the door open as though he had noticed nothing.
Inside, he went through the ordinary motions, washed his face, lay down, let his breathing settle into the rhythm of sleep.
The room was dark and quiet.
From a corner, a venomous snake emerged without sound and moved across the floor in a slow unhurried line, ascending toward the headboard. It reached striking distance and opened its fangs.
A cutting force crossed the room before the strike landed.
The snake's body separated cleanly. Its head hit the floor.
Yuji sat up and fixed his gaze on the corner of the room.
"I never expected," he said, his voice carrying a light mockery that didn't bother to hide itself, "that Orochimaru, one of Konoha's Three Legendary Sannin, a name known throughout the entire ninja world, would open with something this low. Trespassing into someone's home without even announcing himself."
A hoarse laugh emerged from the darkness.
"As expected of the Sand Village's Blood Doctor. Senses unusually sharp and precise. Quite different from those who simply call themselves geniuses."
A figure stepped out of the shadows.
Orochimaru.
….
Bonus@400