I think it would be fair to say that regularly hoping Oro just doesn't bother us is part of the reason he's blindsided us. We have 0 ways of dealing with him because thus far our strategy has been "hope he doesn't notice us". So when he does actually notice us, there is no plan of action to turn to.
I don't think "Just go back to hoping he doesn't notice us" is a workable solution
Ami dealt with him
That's why people are proposing Mari or another litigating party present the deal, not Hazou
To be fair, it took Ami funneling all of Leaf's current and future financially destitute into Orochimaru's basement for Orochimaru to allow her to live. And, tellingly enough, Ami hasn't been eager to interact with Orochimaru a second time.
Ami doesn't have the protections of being a Leaf Clan Head and the Mizukage and Hokage both hate her guts, she's much less inconvenient to kill than Hazou. There would be much greater consequence for Hazou getting basemented, as Ami would probably notify Mist, so Mist/the Kurosawa would throw a fit, meanwhile Clan Heads would be jostling Asuma over it due to the precedent it sets and all that pressure on him would likely force him to tell Tsunade and Naruto to go bap Orochimaru on the head or blow up a floor of his lab or something as punishment. I doubt Leaf would kick him out but he can't literally do whatever he wants (in my model of the world). And if it's more convenient to not kill Hazou than to kill Hazou, then he wouldn't do it. Plus, he has reason to believe the Dragon Crisis is real now, so he would sort of be shooting his immortality in the foot if he removed one of the only people who can help research it for idle curiosity, and while Oro is dumb about many things, I don't think threatening his own immortality is one of them (then again, he constantly undersells other people's abilities so he may not think Hazou would improve the odds of success one way or another...)
I mean, no harm in coming up with lines of action even if it's currently too inconvenient for him to pursue us, since that could always change
We might see if Kei and Shikamaru might be willing to share information about the five. Not sure that's viable but worth considering
y'know I was actually wondering, why does Oro want to dissect a Thinker ninja anyways? I can't imagine that they really have unique physiology that would tell him how they speak to the Five, though I guess the communication from otherworldly entities is heritable, so there's something biological going on...still, not like he is good enough to like discern brain patterns or anything
he seems interested in non-bio sealing too. going by his comment not to insult the sealing profession with the great seal replica.
What do we reckon his Sealing Stat is anyways? He wasn't as good as Jiraiya who we ballpark as 80 or so, so would he be about a 70? A 60 even?
Get back in favor of Naruto so he protects us
If we assume "biosealing" isn't a stat on its own, but is, instead, a category of sealing (such as Dimensionalism and explosives are) then I would propose Orochimaru has a sealing stat of 60-70, a medical knowledge of 80s or so, and the rest of his stats (physique, athletics, etc) being boosted to insane levels as a result of his most successful biosealing creations.
One thing to remember is that Oro was taken out during the battle against Akatsuki. So he's not huge levels ahead of all the other elite jounin who survived the battle. He's scary but not pain level scary
In fact, wasn't Jiraiya considered better than Oro?
Hazou stood his ground against direct fury of Itachi and Asuma, smoothly navigated his interactions with Hidan, and threw himself at Zabuza because we told him to. Why is Orochimaru being treated as some sort of captial-G God-monster such that merely engaging with the concept of him would be enough to turn Hazou into a helpless puppet? How exactly would the submit-plan-in-written-form approach fail, Hazou gets so nervous thinking about Oro he accidentally misspells the entire thing as "I submit to your eternal servitude"?
Sure. His Leaf resources (the Basement, etc.) already sort of serve in that capacity here, though, since Asuma (as per 4.3) would probably oust him if Hazou dies. Or, well, do whatever it is that makes Oro more or less stay in line.
Sure, sounds good.
Well then Oro can very well just do it right now, no? He'd probably really like to study the Sharingan, why's Sasuke still alive? Why is anyone still alive, why didn't he vivisect all of Leaf yet?
I specifically ruled out this sort of outcome with point 4.3. Edited for clarity now:
We actually probably should talk to Sasuke about Orochimaru, cuz even here the dude is kinda obsessed with the Sharingan. Even made a point to say when he first met Hazou that the Iron Nerve is important to have since there's so few Sharingan users left. The fuck did Sasuke say to him that made him buzz off?
But the entire point is that we don't have to talk to him. We can have Mari or Ami deliver the message. We can do it by sending summons. We aren't talking to him we are delivering contracts to be negotiated. If Orochimaru has any objections he can send them to us in writing
Noumero was explicitly saying we don't talk to him, merely draft the proposed deal and have someone else arbitrate it.
I don't remember when exactly it was said, but you don't become a bio-sealer without first getting really good at the fundamentals of sealing. It makes logical sense too - people who try get a seal failure inside them.
People thinking he's still willing to do it definitely benefits Orochimaru more than anyone else