Argument: we should move to destroy Rain, ASAP.
We landed inside a world where we overcommitted our forces to this assault. We got Deidara, and maybe one other member:
- It wasn't Itachi (based on Deidara's inner monologue) or Konan (she wouldn't have died to the initial RER barrage).
- It likely wasn't Kisame (or if it was, we should be able to confirm it by looking for the scroll, via e. g. ES).
- It might've been Sasori or Hidan; potentially neither of them.
Itachi and Konan are definitely still alive, and likely Kisame too. This is very bad: Itachi has a varied suite of esoteric ninjutsu, potentially including space-warping techniques he copied off Conjura, which he might've shared with Kisame (if Itachi doesn't have the chakra to cast them himself).
Our default plan is to hole up in Leaf, erecting a FD over the village. Itachi + Kisame might be able to circumvent it using bullshit ninjutsu, ferrying other Akatsuki members with them as well. And in any case, I expect a FD would hold them up for, like, an hour: they'd quickly notice they can tunnel beneath it, breaking past the much-weaker Iron Earth defense. Past this point, they would do what we wanted to do to them: stage a massive attack, taking us by surprise, demolishing Leaf, instantly killing most of our forces, then mopping up the rest.
Arguably, we might be able to detect their arrival early using Ninja Radars. Erect a FD, recall all Leaf ninja within it to Leaf, kill all chakra beasts. Then, any approaching chakra signatures not in Leaf that the NRs detect would be Akatsuki members. This advance warning would let us summon Bosses and Sannin SCs. We should analyse this option's feasibility... But I'm a-priori skeptical: Konan plus Itachi plus Kisame plus Sasori, playing the role of attackers (making our main runic offensive, RERs, ~useless), and forewarned that we have some novel bullshit, likely win against this
anyway. Not without loses, but they likely win.
This is before considering the possibility they recruit Rock or Cloud's jinchuuriki against us.
We need to thin out their numbers further, such that the above no longer holds: such that they
don't auto-win a straight fight. Taking out Konan and one other member likely accomplishes that.
So: we should go to Rain, and repeat what we just did. Erect a FD and demolish the village, likely taking out at least Konan and one other Akatsuki in the process. That'd make the surviving Akatsuki group a pick of three or two out of {Itachi, Kisame, Sasori, Hidan}. Itachi-Kisame-Sasori would still be bad, but we likely win against any other possible group of survivors. In addition, it's pretty likely that at least Itachi or Kisame are at Rain, so the survivors would near-definitely be weak.
That said, Rain is a bigger target than the rift fortress; we can't guarantee that we would land a hit via RERs on
any Akatsuki, since we wouldn't know where they are in the village. In addition, the village is likely swarming with tons of jounin, likewise not conveniently concentrated in one small location for a RER barrage to wipe them all out. The ground assault force, then, would be swamped with them...
As such, I tentatively suggest that we jump directly to Superchilling Rain.
(We'll need to come up with some way to disguise the effect from Oro: maybe just straight-up don't take him along on this mission, do it through Tsunade; outline our concerns regarding Oro's reaction, ask her to help cover for us, etc.)
