Sakura needed time to think.

Well, if she was going to be picky, she needed about double the number of people, triple the amount of prep hours, and maybe quadruple the amount of paper bombs. If she had that, taking down the fortress would be easy, no matter how tough Hiroshi or his shinob were.

What Sakura did have, and this was mostly tentatively, was about thirty shinobi who were willing to turn against Hiroshi. There were about triple that number who wouldn't interfere, but didn't want to risk getting involved, on the chance of failure. The ones willing to help her had also been willing to share their tools, but what they had was meager. It was clearly a 'village' that hadn't had long to build up, and due to its remote location, that made it harder to gain supplies to begin with.

There was a small part of her that considered sending some sort of message to Sunagakure about the state of affairs at their northern borders, but that would tip off the village to her and Gaara's location, which spelled nothing but disaster for the two of them. It wasn't just herself she had to look out for now, but Gaara as well, who'd felt so little for his home village that he hadn't thought twice about leaving it. She couldn't bear to see him dragged back. And, obviously, she wasn't exactly keen on Suna murdering her for running off with their Jinchuuriki. Konoha was out too; they were Suna's allies, but she was on the run from them too, and Sakura couldn't help but wonder sometimes if, for this exact reason, it would have been better if she hadn't started this journey to begin with.

She was afraid of Hiroshi. When Gaara had mentioned that the shinobi had used a kekkei genkai, she immediately felt her heart freeze inside her chest. When she thought of kekkei genkai, she thought of shinobi like Sasuke, with his Sharingan. She thought of Haku from the Land of Waves, of his unbreakable ice mirrors and imperceptible speed. She thought of the Byakugan and Neji Hyuuga, and how it looked as though he might kill Naruto in the chuunin exams before Naruto had suddenly summoned up…

(Well, it had been energy from the Nine-Tailed Fox, now that Sakura had thought about it, though it hadn't crossed her mind at the time.)

Regardless, Naruto had only just managed to beat Neji, Haku had beaten her team near to death, and Sasuke, of course, was on an entirely different level than anyone she knew. So even just the thought of a kekkei genkai was enough to make her shiver. It did help that Gaara seemed to have some familiarity with the mechanics of the Magnet Release, but even so, this was going to be an opponent that she wasn't sure Gaara and her could take on her own, even if the shinobi aiding her managed to distract all of Hiroshi's bodyguards in the fortress.

But Sakura had something that few shinobi had when pitted up against a formidable foe, and that was time to plan. Her improvised jutsu and attacks against Hiroshi's minions had worked surprisingly better than she'd hoped, so Sakura hoped to be able to keep that creative energy flowing and come up with some ideas that no shinobi would be able to see coming.

So Sakura thought, and using the map of the fortress Gaara had drawn up for her (and the intel on the shinobi that he had seen inside), Sakura began to plan, because damn it all, her mind was her best quality and she was going to use it.

Unless some of those inside the fortress had a change of heart, there were going to be about fifty enemies between her and Hiroshi. That was almost two against one, which weren't good odds to begin with. Even if Sakura could find a way to thin the herd prior, or get more shinobi on her side, even one on one odds weren't particularly great, especially since Sakura was fairly certain that Hiroshi would want to keep the strongest shinobi he had close to him.

There was only one smart approach to dealing with this fortress, and that was a stealth approach, in the hope that they could thin the enemy numbers before it escalated into an all out brawl.

Sakura had the thought enter her mind that Gaara was probably capable of doing this himself. He'd snuck into the fortress without being spotted at all, but he'd had to knock a guard unconscious to do it, which mean the enemy knew they were capable of breaching the defenses and had likely upped security as a result. But even with upped defenses, Gaara was a one man killing machine with nigh unbreakable defensive skills.

But...allowing Gaara to go on a killing spree was exactly what Sakura could no longer bring herself to do. Gaara didn't want to be a killer, and letting him go into the fortress and take it down by sheer brute strength would be proving Shukaku right. (And there was certainly no allowing for that in her plans.) Plus, Sakura wasn't exactly keen on killing again either. When she closed her eyes, she still saw the burn marks on her enemy's face. (Still smelled the scent of burning flesh.)

So, not only did Sakura desire a stealthy approach, she desired a non-lethal one, which made things considerably more difficult. She wasn't naive enough to think that Hiroshi could be persuaded out of his power, (she just didn't want to have to think about that inevitable fight yet), but the other shinobi under him were valuable lives that Sakura didn't want to waste.

Those willing to assist her hadn't seen things that way at first, but Sakura had come up with the clever excuse that the more shinobi they left alive, the safer their families would be from bandits and thugs that inevitably preyed upon small towns like these. Their ultimate goal would be to take down Hiroshi, come up with a better way of governing themselves that didn't involve child soldiers, and leave the town's society as intact as possible. Minimal loss of life. Maximum effect.

Sakura wished she had Ino here. Her old friend's family owned a flower shop, which served a double purpose: most of Konoha's poisons and healing herbs were grown by the Yamanaka family, and Ino had known better than anyone how to make smokes that would leave a person unconscious. Gaara mentioned, upon hearing this lament, that he had some rudimentary poison knowledge. (Something many Suna shinobi had specialized in, by the sound of things) However, most of what Gaara knew of was lethal, which wouldn't do.

That left Sakura with two options. One: hope that her small army of shinobi were skilled enough to stealthily take down fifty men without killing them. Two: come up with a jutsu that was capable of imprisoning an enemy long enough for her crew to get to Hiroshi. Of course, she had to keep enough of a reserve to challenge Hiroshi when she got to him, so logically her plan would have to rely on an even mix of both options.

Furthermore, her earth jutsu only worked when there was ground available to use beneath her; she would be near useless against any enemies on the higher floors, and she'd have to hope beyond hope that she could corner Hiroshi on the ground floor, or else her starting strategy would have to involve beating him down into the ground floor.

It was about an hour into her thinking when Sakura came up with what she would essentially call a 'dick move'.

Gaara had mentioned in his telling of the fortress' layout that there was some sort of mess hall in which most of the shinobi took their meals. Hiroshi, of course, wouldn't sink low enough to eat with his underlings, which meant that he likely took meals in his personal chambers. If her army waited until, say, dinner time to begin, they could ensure that the majority of Hiroshi's army were in one place.

The mess hall was on the ground floor. There were two exits, short of windows. Though the majority of her allies were wind-style users, there were a few earth style users, and they were more than happy to teach each other a basic earthen wall technique. (Something Sakura might conveniently sit on herself, if they let her. New techniques meant she'd be less of a burden.) If they positioned themselves accordingly, and Sakura had to calculate it based on the dimensions of the walls that the earth users were able to produce, they could put up walls at both the doors and the windows in order to trap the eating shinobi inside and ensure they would be unable to interfere with the coming battle.

Sakura calculated that at least twenty shinobi would need to stay in the area to do this, and to keep rebuilding the walls as the enemy inevitably tried to tear them down. That left her with ten shinobi and Gaara.

Her hope was that she could trap at least forty of the enemy this way, leaving them in a ten versus ten scenario, which was better odds than before. Gaara alone could probably deal with this many enemies on his own, and at this point even if there were some accidental deaths, it would be far fewer than if Sakura had encouraged an all out brawl. And once those shinobi were dealt with, that left her, Gaara, and however many of her own had survived against Hiroshi.

Even if just one of the ten allies had survived, that was three on one, and even against a shinobi with a kekkei genkai, those had to be good odds...right? At the very least, Sakura admitted to herself, it was a fairly solid plan.

From there, get Hiroshi to the ground if he wasn't, and then take him out. After that, convince the surviving enemy to surrender, set up new leadership, and…

And Sakura would have successfully staged a revolution.

Well, fuck, when she put it like that, the task seemed way more daunting.

Gaara seemed apathetic to the realization, which was both typical and comforting. Nothing seemed to phase the boy, and Sakura was beginning to realize that she could not only rely on that, but liked being able to rely on that. He was much like Sasuke when it came to facing down an enemy. He wasn't scared, simply strong. And if Gaara was willing to stand at her side, well, maybe Sakura could try her hand at starting a revolution.

If she could do this, she told herself, just maybe she'd have a chance against someone from Akatsuki.

It took about a week to prepare, given that a couple dozen shinobi had to learn a new technique that was very much 'not in their element', but their small group found a surprising source of help from none other than Shukaku. Gaara, it seemed, had bullied the beast into providing information. (Sakura would have loved to have heard that conversation firsthand.) Though the beast was bratty about it, he did have centuries of knowledge on earth techniques, and with Gaara as his spokesperson, gave tips to Sakura about how to better pulled the earth into the wall she desired. Earth was a dense element, he explained, and the seemingly impossible task of a shinobi was to first make it soft enough to mold, and then make it hard enough to withstand damage. It required chakra control and a strong enough mind to picture exactly what needed to happen.

Something Sakura realized she was pretty darn good at.

She in turn passed on the tips to her allies, and as the week reached its end, she was confident that they could at least keep the enemy at bay for a while, even if it wasn't forever. Long enough, she hoped, to get Hiroshi into a corner at least.

They scheduled a date for the attack, and Sakura spent her last day of preparation stocking up on paper bombs and sharpening her tools. She went over the plan, and the layout of the fortress, over and over again in her mind until she was certain she wouldn't forget it. She'd know the lay of the land better than Hiroshi himself, damn it all, and she knew, she just knew that would have to come to her advantage somehow.

Her plan wasn't perfect, but it was unexpected and easy enough to execute. All that was left was the doing of it.

Sometimes a plan went just a little bit too well.

Sakura should have known that something bad was on the horizon when her men had managed to trap an amazing forty-three of the enemy within the mess hall. She should have known something bad was coming when the remaining seven men were taken down with only two casualties on her side. She should have known that something was undeniably up when they walked into Hiroshi's room (second floor, east side of the fortress) and the man had what looked to be a pile of two hundred weapons at his feet.

She definitely knew that shit was about to get even worse when all two hundred of the weapons suddenly levitated into the air and pointed at her small team.

"You're bold. I'll give you that." Hiroshi spoke. "It's unfortunate you've chosen this path. Now I have no choice but to kill you."

Sakura didn't even have time to blink before the weapons shot at her team. She heard the sound of blades tearing flesh, and she heard the sound of rushing sand.

When her thoughts caught up with her, all of her allies had been impaled on the wall behind her. In front of her, Gaara's sand had rushed forward, protecting both him and her from harm. If not for Gaara, she'd have died instantly. She didn't stand a chance against this shinobi on her own, and even with Gaara, Sakura was beginning to realize that it might be a miracle for them to get out of this alive.

Especially when she saw, out of the corners of her eyes, the weapons behind her begin to lift and move once again.

...fuck.