Leadership Meeting - Intelligence on Orochimaru

Hokage's Office (Minato's Point of View) (The Next Morning)

Minato sat at his desk facing three of his most loyal shinobi. Shikaku Nara, the jonin commander who advised most of his military decisions. Inoichi Yamanaka, the head of the analysis team of the intelligence division. Finally, there was his wife, Mikoto Uchiha, who was here in her capacity as the Uchiha's liaison to the intelligence division. She had needed something to do and her son (the clan head) needed somebody he could trust manning that relationship. Shisui would be ideal, but it was best to keep the means that would allow that a secret. Unlike Mikoto, Shisui kept his mangekyou a secret from all but her, Itachi, and Minato at her request due to the fear it would cause others. It was also an asset that worked best when no one knew it existed; truly, it's an eye that's wasted on an honest guy like him.

Shikaku was a middle-aged version of his son. He had black hair styled in a pineapple-like ponytail, black eyes and scars on the right side of his face. His attire consisted of a dark green jonin vest over a fishnet shirt, metal wrist bracers, and black pants. During missions, he would wear a shaggy brown jacket, likely as a form of camouflage.

Inoichi was a middle-aged man of a similar age to Shikaku. He had long ash-blond hair reaching his lower back, which was spiky on top and ended in a long ponytail. He also had light green pupilless eyes similar to his daughter. His attire consisted of a dark green jonin vest over a long-sleeve black shirt with similar wrist braces to Shikaku and black shinobi-styled pants.

Minato, cleared his throat. It was time to begin.

"Alright, I've called you three here to discuss all the facts we've gathered regarding Orochimaru's operations and combine them with what we already have. Between the three of you, we should be able to paint the clearest picture of the situation. I'll start." They nodded.

"In the past few years, Master Jiraiya has collected information about multiple bases in different lands across the continent. The bases have different functions ranging from his twisted research facilities, to military compounds. The locations are mostly unknown, but we are aware of a few.

"During a raid of one of them, my master stated that any clues tying the bases together were removed before his raid. In fact, during an interrogation of the facility's occupants, he found that they weren't aware of any other locations or functions outside of that one. It's not too much of a stretch to assume that this is a method employed in most of his bases. The likely exception will be the base Orochimaru primarily resides in at any given time and any central supply points.

"Since capturing Orochimaru isn't likely for anyone in the village save myself and my master, I won't assign the raiding of his residence as a village priority; however, the supply point will be. His residence will be an intel only priority. If we can capture either facility intact, the rest of the locations will be made clear. That said, we will focus on the supply point." Minato stated. With that, he gave those in the room time to think. He was expecting questions, and by Mikoto's expression, she likely had one.

"Do we have any clues on its whereabouts?"

The truth of the matter was, they all knew what would likely constitute as an effective supply point, so no one asked; rather, they were more concerned with any new intelligence that would narrow down the search area.

For the supply point, there were a few things they had to consider. Since storage seals can be used to transport large equipment, the facility didn't need to have any connected roads. This made it a lot harder to find. With this in mind, they suspected it to be hidden underground with tunnels connected to multiple entry points. They would need a very strong sensor to detect it. Even then, it wasn't likely it could be detected through conventional means. Orochimaru had seals everywhere that prevented known forms of detection. They were all supplied by root after all.

One benefit is that they knew that any supply point would reasonably have to be somewhere in Fire Country or the surrounding lands. It was in the center of the continent and the primary reason Konoha was involved in so many wars.

Luckily for everyone, Orochimaru had the worst affinity for space ever measured in Konoha's history; it's why he hated Minato so much. It wasn't because Minato beat him to become Hokage like what most people assumed. Danzo was the one who wanted him in that role; he just needed research funds and freedom. What really pissed him off was Minato's excessively high affinity for space. As someone who's goal is to learn every jutsu ever created, having such a powerful teleportation technique out of your reach is infuriating. Worse, every bit of research he had done into the spatial affinity pointed it to being a property of the soul, which was out of his reach. No matter what he did, he just couldn't find any relevant material on the subject. True, he could try to breach the border of the land of souls, but that would be stupid. The samurai in that land had special means that he was ignorant and deathly afraid of. Truthfully, it was a good thing they were isolationist or everyone would be having a hard time.

The last major consideration they were sure of was the materials that would be transported. Based on their knowledge of his operations, the facility needed to be equipped to transport large quantities of people for experimentation, preserved corpses, chemicals, various tools, etc. For that, they had multiple ninjas who monitored purchase orders at various points around the land of fire. It was likely that Orochimaru sourced from outside, but they didn't have the means to reliably follow that activity in a way that helped build this intelligence picture. Jiraiya had to rely heavily on his personal intelligence network for that and even then, they were grasping at straws.

"Yes. There's been an increase in the purchases of kunai, shuriken, senbon, explosives, and more at different points in the land of fire. Normally that wouldn't be a problem, but the buying shinobi aren't in our records and the ones who are don't remember making the purchase. We didn't really have an idea of what was going on before, but we might have an idea now.

"According to the Iwa shinobi that Team Uzuki encountered, Orochimaru is gathering renegade Iwa Shinobi that have grudges with Konoha; in some cases, it's specifically with me. From the initial estimates, there are over 200 defected shinobi; the ratio is roughly 3:1, which represents chunin and jonin respectively." Minato replied.

"How did the Iwa ninja know that much?" asked Inoichi.

"Orochimaru wasn't too forthcoming, but the other recruited shinobi were. They were comrades in arms back home, so they communicated that information in private. Sound shinobi are trained to fear Orochimaru so they won't spill his secrets; the Iwa shinobi have no such conditioning." Minato replied.

Hearing these details, Shikaku asked, "So, you're suspecting that they may be arming for an attack? Inviting that many renegade Konoha-hating shinobi could be for few other purposes and by the amount recruited, the attack would be soon. I would give it a few months at best. That many shinobi would require a lot of food and water, especially with the larger bodies of the Iwa males; the required food would be astronomical. The sound village simply isn't equipped to handle that level of resource consumption for long."

Hearing this, Inoichi decided to voice his thoughts. "What would Orochimaru's purpose be? I know he wants to crush Konoha, but I feel like any attack with that specific purpose would occur after he acquires his 'ultimate' power. From our profile on the man, he hates relying on others when achieving his grand ambitions. To him, it's a sign of weakness. Normally, he uses human tools to handle mundane tasks on his behalf." He wondered. There had to be another objective. Whatever assault he launches with these Iwa forces will absolutely be a diversion.

"I can take a guess." Mikoto replied, drawing everyone's attention to her. "One of his targets will probably be the Uchiha clan. He'll probably target one of our members for our bodies. Due to his relationship with Danzo, he likely already has plenty of eyes, but the brain would be needed to use them effectively. It's possible that he's gotten over that obsession due to finding and obtaining a Kaguya clan body, but we can't be sure. If he's looking for bodies, he'll probably aim for Sasuke and Kamui. Hinata Hyuga would also be a good alternative since she has an unmarked byakugan. That one is less likely though. He's always had an obsession with the sharingan's potential and power.

"Sasuke is a no brainer; he has the blood of the clan head running through his veins and is weak enough to kidnap. Aside from Itachi, he is considered to have the purest Uchiha blood in the clan. Kamui would be different. While he likely knows he can't immediately possess her, he probably won't give up until he tests that for himself. Even then, her chakra is unique and he'll want to study it. At worst, he can dispose of her and shelve the samples for later experiments." She finished, her explanation causing Inoichi and Shikaku to tense at the dense air of killing-intent billowing out of their Hokage; that combined with his cold stare reminded them why he was feared across the continent. This man was built to deal death. From his silent mannerisms to his ability, all were crafted by the Kami for this profession.

Moments later, Minato's killing-intent mellowed out as he sighed. "Truthfully, I'm more concerned about Sasuke. At this stage, Orochimaru would beat Kamui in a straight fight, but he couldn't trap her. He neither has the skill in seals necessary to obstruct her intent, nor the ability to stop her when she wants to teleport away. Sasuke is different. He is weaker than Orochimaru and can be goaded into bending to his whims, even if unknowingly. To address the situation, I'll give two teleportation seals to him after this meeting. One he can invoke consciously if Kakashi deems it necessary or they run into an S-Rank ninja; the other will be out of his conscious control. It will only activate if his body feels traces of Orochimaru's spiritual chakra."

"How did you get his chakra and wouldn't the signature have changed after taking over the Kaguya boy?" Shikaku asked, confused on the tracking method.

This time, it was Inoichi who responded. "The body can change, which would affect the physical component of chakra, but the spirit does not. No matter how many bodies he passes through, his spirit will always remain the same. Detecting the spiritual component of someone's chakra was actually something our clan came up with in the last few years. Since the fourth's daughter was able to separate the two components of chakra externally, we were able to create methods of differentiating them, even when together. It was one of the long-term missions the third had assigned our clan during his reign in pursuit of his wayward student. With her help, we were finally able to accomplish it. It'll help drastically with this situation." His clan specialized in the soul, so he was the leading authority on the subject in Konoha.

Hearing this, Shikaku sighed in amazement. Then, he turned to Minato and asked the question he'd been dreading of asking this entire conversation.

He asked, "Lord fourth and Madam Namikaze, the question I'm going to ask will probably upset you, but I'll ask anyways." He started, hearing this Mikoto and Minato had a bad feeling.

"Could we assign Kamui Uchiha to a scouting mission to locate Orochimaru's bases?" Hearing that, their hearts jumped to the top of their chests. Doing that would basically be sending her into the lion's den.

"With the amount of chakra we estimate she has, it'd be possible to cover a significant portion of Fire Country with a legion of shadow clones in a very short period of time. With her perception of space, chakra, and whatever else she can see, Kamui is the best equipped to find hidden bases like the ones we're anticipating Orochimaru to use. Barriers that would normally evade our eyes can't hide the intent residing in the chakra sustaining them; from what we've found over the years, something like that would be as visible as the windows in this room." He carefully replied.

This was a very sensitive subject, but it's better than waiting for Orochimaru to attack and twiddling their thumbs. If they had the means to find this place, they should use it. If worse comes to worst, she can teleport back to Konoha to evade capture. Technically, her real body didn't even need to leave Konoha.

"I'll consider it." Minato reluctantly stated, ignoring Mikoto's resigned expression. She knew he would agree in the end; he was just that dedicated to the village's safety. "In any case, we'll need a month and a half to properly prepare an assault force for that kind of operation. If my daughter is be a part of an operation like this, we'll need to make the most of it. I'll give her a host of thunder god kunai at the start of the mission, which she'll deploy at every detected barrier site she finds. I'll leave it to Shikaku to come up with the specifics, but we'll need to make whatever assault we conduct swift and efficient." Minato stated sternly. If his family had to put some skin in the game, he would make sure that they struck like lightning when they eliminated the snake for good. At the very least, Kamui needed to mark him with her eyes.

"Right. I'll spin up a small squad to begin planning for this effort. We'll make sure all the details are sorted out and on your desk for approval in the shortest time possible." Shikaku stated resolutely.

Since the fourth appeared willing to send his daughter on this dangerous of a mission, he needed to give it everything he had as well. This conflict could be the equivalent of fighting a minor nation with the number of shinobi Orochimaru was likely to possess. He had to be smart about this.

"Good. I want daily reports on your progress." Minato stated, his expression unchanged. This was the part he really hated about being Hokage; he always had to present a strong front in situations like this. He'd rather be dealing with the growing tension he could feel from his wife.

"What if we used Kamui to find any of Orochimaru's moles within Konoha?" Inoichi asked, drawing the attention of the room.

"How would she do that? We would need a chakra sample from each of them to track." Mikoto asked, confused on how her daughter would go about it. On the other hand, Shikaku's eyes widened in realization; he knew Inoichi's plan.

Inoichi replied, "Well, to my knowledge, Kamui's method of tracking intent is new. Is that correct?" Everyone in the room nodded. "With that being the case, Orochimaru likely hasn't adjusted the curse seals he normally places on his spies. The snake has never been a trusting person and always has some form of insurance to prevent betrayal. He needs it to remove anyone in his employ remotely. It's certainly necessary with all the intelligence his moles likely know about him. If that's the case, these people will have Orochimaru's chakra in their body at all times in the control seal. If we were to follow that, we should be able to find a solid number of spies."

"Do we have a sample of his chakra in storage?" As Mikoto asked the question, Minato's eyes widened into saucers. Seeing this, her face lit up as well.

'Anko!' She shouted mentally, answering her own question. Seeing this, Inoichi didn't respond. It was clear that everyone in the room knew the answer. Instead, he let out a knowing smile.

"Alright, I'm going to give it a couple of days before we move on this. That way we can begin preparing candidates for critical positions in Konoha. We have to assume that at least one of them has been made into one of his moles. Even if they're all clean, we can't be too careful. We have to mitigate any upheaval that may come about as a result of our efforts. Mikoto, can you handle the candidate selection?" She nodded. "Good. I don't think I need to tell any of you this, but I'll do so anyway. This operation will be classified at the highest levels. We need to move discretely for this operation. Any new shinobi must be vetted through me before they're added to the mission. Shikaku, I'll be expecting those names, so we can get them vetted." Minato ordered.

"Right!" The three of them acknowledged.

Hearing that, Minato sighed and slumped into his chair.

"So Shikaku, how's your son doing?" Minato asked, his expression and tone shifting out of his Hokage persona and back into his goofy father mode.

Smiling, Shikaku replied, glad that the formalities were out of the way.

For the next twenty minutes, the four of them had a fun discussion on their family lives before going about their businesses.