Sucker. ;) I don't believe Gaara has it in him to be Kazekage, truthfully, and I can't imagine why he'd want to be, with all the duty and the lack of respect ('cause no one in his town likes him or even pities him, do they?) and the boring meetings and paperwork. As to Sasuke being Sound's leader--no way, dude. :D My fantasies about this are much less Sasuke-friendly. In them, he always watches Sakura kill Itachi before losing his body to Orochimaru. Although, really, Kabuto would be much less likely to take the leading role than he would be to take the role of second-in-command to the new leader, surely, because he's never seemed to want to be noticed. If I had to choose a kid from Sasuke's generation to take over Orochimaru's spot in this, it'd be Sakura.

(I think my problem with them was that they were way too predictable. :/ There was nothing in there that we hadn't read in fanfic multiple times, in more interesting ways that didn't involve the use of nicknames like 'White Fang' and 'Yellow Flash'. :D)

I think you'll be right--that Sakura really has no chance--but I think she has the potential to be a leader when she's older. And depending on what she chooses to focus on, she could be the second coming of Orochimaru. :D (She has the intellectual curiosity and mental strength he does and the drive to go after something that might be impossible, after all! Also: she has his bad temper.) And who knows what sort of power she has now? She had quite a bit at the bell test, and the power she has can only be magnified by the fact that she has so much control over it. If she joined Sound and got Kabuto on her side, she could totally be the leader. I can't see her as a kage (honestly, of the kids, I can only see Temari and maybe Chouji, if he got some confidence, being kage at this point--and Naruto because he wants it so badly and I want him to be happy), but Sound is one of the villages without a kage; they only need someone to keep them together and work out the inter-village intrigue. She'd need a strong, workable goal to get the respect she needs for that, though--and it'd have to be one that fits in with Kabuto's plans. I honestly doubt that anyone but Orochimaru could control Sound without him. As to Gaara, I think that there's more to leading than looking scary, even in Naruto's world! If he doesn't inspire some sort of loyalty, he'll find himself deposed in some way or find himself without a village to lead (assuming other villages/non-ninja areas are willing to absorb Sand ninja or are easy to fool); to keep his people in check using only fear, they'd pretty much have to think Gaara could read minds.

It would be nice to find out what's necessary. It's supposed to be the most powerful ninja, but as I've said when stating my case before, physical power needs to be backed up by emotional and mental strength to be at all worth calling power, and Gaara really doesn't have that. Yet. And possibly not ever. The leader has to be powerful, but he also has to be savvy and capable of inspiring at least minimal loyalty and unlikely to murder his underlings for no reason at all. :D I agree with your analysis of Kishimoto and female characters, though, sadly. :/ It is unlikely to happen in canon, really. I just think that it's plausible--I could believe it without too, too much convincing.

(Yeah! Where's Tenten, the new Akatsuki member? Or the explicit gay sex? :D)

Haha, that's me. I think way too much about silly fandom matters that I can't always back up with canon. :D As to writing about it, well. I sort of have been writing Sakura/Kabuto. Sakura/Kabuto/Temari is my current pet pairing. But it's one of those long-term writing projects that probably will never see the fandom light, and for good reason. ...you are right about Naruto become Hokage; if he doesn't, it will be like Hikaru no Go all over again, and I'm sure that no one wants that. Now, see, the whole thing with Gaara needing assistance to lead? That's what sets off my political manoeuvre alarms, what makes me think that this is partly done at the command of Tsunade, because of Sand's major alliance screw-up. ('Our new allies the Leaf' indeed--they were allies last time we saw them, too. Until they betrayed Leaf for Sound and then LOST.) Putting a weaker leader in charge of the village and then supporting him with a group of people that includes your spies--that's the way to go to ensure that Sand stays Leaf's ally. Maybe it's a Leaf command, too, that puts Gaara's major form of real support--his siblings, who are at least somewhat able to make him listen--off on insignificant errands. (I.e., what is a jounin doing setting up the chuunin exam, when Leaf, which surely has a lot more ninja to spare, is only using chuunin in the planning stages? Unless it's really just a diplomatic show of respect or something, or Sand had some reason to want to get rid of Temari temporarily.)

Oh, yeah--Tsunade's showing up was cool. I would've been upset to see Haku a girl, though; it was fun to see Naruto's "OMG, wait, that girl I was attracted to is a boy?!" and it would seriously have bothered me to see the first totally submissive character in the series being female, however skilful he was in everything he did. (I would have been marginally less annoyed if it were Kimimaro who was female, because at least there would already have been the precedent of Haku as a male whose entire being is focused on someone else.) Right now, I don't think that Naruto has the emotional strength--but we get to see it growing, so. :) We see Sakura's, too, and that's also heartening. They're both growing in cool ways, and in ways that will make them strong people. (Too bad Sasuke doesn't understand yet.)

(Haha! Poor Tenten, man. She could've been cool, but Temari totally destroyed her. Maybe she has been working on skills that don't involve throwing objects in the years we've been gone. Akatsuki is totally coming in, though! That last chapter. The hand-mouth guy. I guess Akatsuki feels that its vacation is over and it can go back to kidnapping young boys.)

Right; costly and completely unnecessary, when Sand's genin, including one of Sand most physically powerful ninja, have already shown their willingness to help out Leaf over what was supposedly Sand's new ally, Sound. The setup right now seems to keep final power in unreliable hands (but acceptable ones, in that Gaara is a Sand nin and it can be argued that he's the most powerful ninja in the village), while at the same time, helping Sand get over some of its issues [by making it or persuading it to adopt some of Leaf's policies]. Yeah, man. Ninja politics are right up there with ninja science in fun things to talk about. :D (Maybe. I'm sure we'll get more of an idea of what their relationship is in the next few chapters, with Akatsuki targetting Gaara.)

That's true! But he still has a long way to go; look at the bit before Kakashi's side story when Sakura tells him to wait a bit, and they could get Sasuke together, and he thinks: No, I doubt you'll be able to, so maybe I'll just do it on my own first. (That's true. The boy is crippled, and needs the Itachi situation to come to some resolution before he'll be able to move on from it. However, if Gaara can come out sort of on this side of reason, and realise that he doesn't have to kill Lee, etc., you'd think it'd be possible for Sasuke to heal, too. I mean, at least he's had people he could trust and people he loved and people who loved him, who aren't afraid of him.)

(Yeah. But we already knew how kickass Temari is! :/ Dude. I thought that fight with Shikamaru was the worst fight ever, because she lost, but she didn't even get to lose.)