Naruto smiled. His plan had gone according to plan. Orochimaru had prepared the Edo Tensei ninja, using dead shinobi that were enemies as the sacrifice. Sasuke had alerted Kabuto of the possible involvement of snakes, which were allies to Uzushio. Almost all the pieces were in play and ready to set up the checkmate.

Naruto was playing shogi in his office with Shikamaru, where he frequently lost, but just barely.

'Check.' Naruto said.

After thinking for a moment, Shikamaru quickly moved his jade general up, then smiled. 'Checkmate.'

'Ughhhh, I lost again!' Naruto groaned.

'It's fine.' Shikamaru said. 'Your strategy skills are getting better to the point that you will be able to beat some of the lesser Naras at shogi and battle tactics.'

Shikamaru was Naruto's tactical assistant, and helped out with tactics and advice with his also intelligent but lazy father, Shikaku.

'Thanks.' Naruto said. 'I guess we should go train. I have an idea on how to make the Mind Transfer Jutsu better. Right now, the Yamanaka Clan's ninjutsu is really weak, as they only have sensor and communication jutsu as well as remote control ninjutsu, but no offensive jutsu. I know how to make it a tool for learning ninjutsu.'

'Sure.' Shikamaru said.

Naruto and Shikamaru walked off, chatting happily.

Yakushi Kabuto quickly tested out a few ninjutsu.

'Mito. Menma. What brings you here?' He sneered.

'We want you to train us!' The brats asked.

'No.' Kabuto said.

'Then we'll get daddy to banish you!' Mito screeched.

'I'm too strong of a ninja for your idiotic Daddy to kick out. Even if he does, Konoha will rot.' Kabuto said.

'NO!' Mito and Menma screamed.

In the last few months, they hadn't trained at all and were running around the village talking trash and showing off their almost empty repertoire of jutsu. Of course, the villagers were amazed.

Anyways, Kabuto snickered. 'Now get lost. You're disturbing me.'

The demonic twins ran away crying.

'What pathetic excuses for ninja.' Kabuto thought. 'They're so useless that they would stand in a battlefield holding a kunai for the whole fight. And they would just order the enemy to stop because they are the Hokage's children. In a fight, the enemy won't listen to trash like that.'

Kabuto continued practicing, while pondering about how he could approach Orochimaru and whatever forces Orochimaru's allies would throw at him. After all, he had trained for a long time, and could single handedly beat 2 Kages at the same time without Kekkei Genkai and clones. With Kekkei Genkai, he knew that he could destroy at least 4 Kage at the same time. And when he used clones, he could easily defeat more than 5 Kage level shinobi.

'Scorch Release: Extremely Steaming Murder.' Kabuto said, as he shot out a few balls of fire at logs.

He had to admit, Konoha was better for training than the secluded hideouts that he had built over the years.

'I'm almost ready.' Kabuto thought. 'For the battle.'

Naruto smiled. His foxes had had reason to believe that Kabuto was planning an ambush to attack them and steal their jutsu.

'Prepare the Elite Squadron.' Naruto ordered.

The Elite Squadron was a team of the strongest ninja in Uzushio, consisting of Pain, Tobi, Kisame, Itachi, Sasuke, the Sannin, Sasori, Deidara, Kakuzu, Hidan, Konan, Naruto, and some other ninja.

The jonin bowed, then went to fetch the ninja.

Naruto rested his fingertips on the desk, waiting for the squadron to arrive. When everyone had gathered in the room, Naruto smiled and started briefing the ninja.

'We need to eliminate Kabuto from the equation to be able to claim the enemy. Our allies will not move for these 2 operations, to stop a war from erupting and depleting our allies from ninja. We shall do this ourselves. Now, here's the plan....'

Everything was falling into place. The opposite king was Konoha, and the Queen was Kabuto. Soon, the board would be set. The pieces were placed. The enemy had moved in. It was time to capture the enemy Queen.

===