The Sensing Barrier and Intelligence teams gathered in a small copse some dozen kilometres behind the Land of Fire's border, at the secondary HQ they had prepared in advance as a fallback position.
"Iroha, report."
Included amongst their number was Hyūga Iroha, whose task it was to relay the precise positions of the Leaf's retreating troops so that Shikaku might properly arrange his men lying in ambush. Personally, Sakura felt a flicker of disappointment that it was him rather than Tokuma, the most handsome man in the Hyūga clan. Tokuma was, after all, far easier on the eye than his square-jawed clan brother.
Ahem.
At any rate, the Hidden Leaf simply did not have nearly enough troops to carry out Shikaku's plan of luring the enemy into an encirclement on open terrain. Even if the Iwa-nin were to overextend into the Land of Fire and overstay their welcome, it would be the Konoha-nin who found themselves surrounded, if anything. To stand even the slightest chance of victory, the Hidden Leaf would have to use its knowledge of the Land of Fire's terrain to its fullest.
After all, there was a limit to the range of Sakura's ultimate Wood and Crystal Style jutsu, even with Naruto bolstering her chakra, and its indiscriminate attacks were hardly suited to a battlefield where allies were present.
"The last of our forces have finished crossing the border," Iroha said. "They're taking light losses, but thanks to the Hokage's treatment, our men look worse than they actually are."
Covered in blood and injuries, looking only a few wounds away from death, and yet, infuriatingly, still surprisingly light on their feet, Sakura could imagine how maddening it must be for the Iwa-nin to hover constantly on the verge of a kill, only for the final blow to miss by a hair's breadth and their victims to slip away.
"Milady, it should be time," Shikaku said. "Are you ready?"
Sakura nodded and held out her palm before her.
"You'd better retreat to a safe distance if you're carrying anything metal on you," she cautioned the curious members of the Barrier and Intel teams gathering to watch. "…No, even further than that."
Sparks flew as the lightning-nature chakra stored in Sakura's Celestial Empress Lotus Seal gathered in her palm. Bolts of electricity arced from her hand, licking at her surroundings as she raised the mass of spinning blue energy above her head, causing the strands of her hair to stand on end. The scent of ozone filled the air, a strange salty, iron-like flavour blooming across the tongues of the onlookers...
Iroha, Inoichi and Shikaku watched in awe as the dense chakra coalesced into a rotating ball that emitted stroboscopic flashes of blue light, the occasional bolt of lightning escaping its confines to zap the nearest objects like an electric fly swatter.
"Such incredible amounts of chakra," Shikaku murmured. "And to think this is only a drop in the bucket compared to her reserves…"
With this much chakra, she almost had as much as the lower-tier Tailed Beasts!
"Lightning Style: Rasenchakram!"
Sakura brandished her creation proudly above her head.
"The radio equipment is down!" one technician exclaimed as his workstation died, belching sparks and smoke. "And even if the enemy thought to develop shielding technology, I doubt they'd be able to get a single word out through this much interference!"
At this point, Sakura only needed to maintain the jutsu's outer layer to contain the chakra spiralling within, giving its insides a spin every once in a while, but other than that, she wouldn't have to expend any more chakra to keep it going.
"Can you still see, Iroha-san?" Inoichi asked, massaging his aching temples. "The Lady Hokage's jutsu seems to be disrupting my Chakra Transmission Communication Device."
"I can," Iroha confirmed.
Inoichi was referring to the device he used to boost his Mind Body Transmission Jutsu's effective range, which allowed him to telepathically reach out to as many of the Leaf's soldiers as possible, somewhat like the X-Men's Cerebro. It consisted of a bucket-like helmet connected to a mysterious box through a bundle of thick wires, powered by primitive jar-based, galvanic cell batteries.
"That's why I lent you a Katsuyu," Sakura explained.
Since Katsuyu was Katsuyu and Katsuyu was also Katsuyu, each of her divided selves was quantum-linked to the others. Thus, EMP-based attacks couldn't disrupt her hive mind. Sakura rather suspected that this connection might even persist across parallel worlds.
"Iwa's army is in hot pursuit," Iroha said, "but without the Lady Hokage's healing jutsu, our men are beginning to take losses."
Unfortunately, Sakura could not concentrate on both healing and radio jamming at once. She had to pick one or the other, and as the strategy relied on the enemy's comms being down…
"Lead the enemy into the Valley of the End as planned," Inoichi said, gingerly picking up a stray Katsuyu and speaking into her wet, slimy foot as though she were a telephone. "Prioritise your lives."
"It's a day and a half from here to the Valley of the End, even at full pace," Sakura said, worried. "If our men have to fend off attacks at their backs the entire way, I'm not sure there will be much left of them by the time we get there…"
The Valley of the End… so far, Sakura had managed to avoid visiting that inauspicious place where Hashirama and Madara had once duelled to the death, and where Naruto and Sasuke had parted ways in the original timeline, but now it seemed she would have no choice but to finally go.
"I know it's far, but it's the only chance we've got at launching a pincer attack against the Hidden Stone," Shikaku said helplessly. "Otogakure and Orochimaru's remnant forces from the north, and the remnants of the north-eastern defence line from the south…"
Once Iwa's army entered the valley, they would be trapped like rats. The Sound-nin would descend from the Land of Rice Paddies to the north, while the Hidden Leaf forces stationed nearby to ward off any further incursions from Kumo would be diverted west to sandwich the Iwa-nin from the other side.