[SS-rank mission Part-2]

I was diving through the memories of Kuno-san, trying to learn his mechanisms and who his friends are. A shinobi's mind is a complex thing, you could try to pry secret's from them, but the more they believe that the knowledge should stay with them the harder it is, so normal things like how you behave, and your best friends, the location of the Ichibi Jinchuriki that you don't care about are at the forefront of the barriers, but your secret ninjutsu, your fighting style, your friend's speciality, or your missions are stuck behind a barrier of a lot of memories.

'The good thing about a searching a normal shinobi is that they aren't trained to withstand mental intrusion, so that's a plus.'

It took me 6 hours to extract all the necessary information out of his mind before I absorbed his chakra and slit his neck, shoving the body into my inventory, I grimaced at my bloodied kunai before dropping it and running back to the border of hidden grass.

'Alright now to infiltrate Suna, I need to get close enough before turning into Kuno-san here and voila they won't suspect it, White Zetsu's abilities should not be public news so there is no way that they are prepared for this... huh what is Iwa doing here? are they planning to attack Konoha from the Hidden grass region?'

I diverted from my path and used multiple shadow transportation to appear close to Iwa-nin's position. The group considered of 3 people, 2 male and 1 female, the female had a Katana on her back while all of them were wearing Iwa's standard Jounin garb.

"-how much longer?" the female of the group asked.

"-not much they should be here soon, we need to stay in the area for 2 more minutes before departing..." the male answered, he looked the leader of the group as they stood tensely waiting for someone.

In a moment I sensed 2 chakra signatures dashing towards us before they landed near the Iwa team, after looking at each other for a second both of the team leaders used some hand signs to confirm their identity before the newly arrived sound nin darted back and Iwa-nin followed them.

'-so Kabuto's playing Shouji, tch'

Ignoring the golden opportunity to cut some opposition down, I turned back and continued going through the land of grass, on the way, I found multiple teams of Suna and Iwa across the region and I even punched an unsuspecting Iwa-nin to suck his chakra and memorize it.

'hmm, no Kumo though- maybe they are mobilizing elsewhere, tch if all of them are here as a front for their attack then Kuno-san's return to Suna will be suspected, should I ditch this plan?'

I kept on going though, deciding to alter the plan if any complications arose, running on top of the desert reduced my speed and it took me another day and a half to reach Sunagakure's borders.

'Alright according to Jiraya-sama's notes the sentries follow this pattern, it would have been worthless if I wanted to infiltrate because all these gaps will be covered but since I want to meet the person on patrol, I know exactly where to look.'

I concentrated and my appearance changed to mimic that of Kuno-san, my hair shortened and a bandana appeared on my head held by the Hiatae.

'Damn this outfit's bulky.'

I shook my hands and jumped up and down to adjust to the new body before running behind a sand dune.

'Shadow clone Jutsu'

A clone appeared beside me and I handed it a couple of kunai, as it already knew what to do, it proceeded to insert the kunai through my back and shoulders and then punched me hard in the face before disappearing.

'ouch... something is definitely wrong with my head.'

I staggered for around 10 mins before appearing close to the huge walls of Sunagakure, a ninja on sentry duty immediately spotted me and ran towards me.

"Kuno-san? are you okay? shit-" the chunin looked flustered as he tried to assess the situation and I looped my hand around his shoulders trying to stay stable.

"Did you alert anyone?" I said in a pained voice as he cursed once more, "no, we are short on manpower so individual sentries are being issued, wait let me-" before he could say anything more I grabbed his neck and absorbed his chakra before twisting it with a pop.

The unknown shinobi dropped like a sack and I popped him into my inventory before resuming his position and his face while going in the same pattern as depicted in Jiraya-sama's notes.

'Please let this be the right way, I can't afford a 50-50 guess here...'

After around 3 hours of moving around in an 8-pattern, sharing a glance with two other unknown shinobi's countless times, a man ran towards my direction, "Semi-kun, good job, did you see anything weird?"

"Nah" I grunted, "I might have died of boredom though." He laughed as he said, "Cool, passwords Chiyo" I gave him a weird look so he gave another chuckle and said, "the elders are having fun it, that's what we have to endure if we want them to stay out of the war..." I chuckle in response before waving and rushing towards Suna's entrance.

I arrived at the chasm between the two huge rocks and about 23 shinobi were guarding the region, I grunted "Chiyo" to the person who approached me and then he waved me through.

"Good work out there Semi-kun," a female voice said among the 23 shinobi. I smiled and waved before rushing into the village main. Instead of a bustling village, I was met with almost empty streets with shops open and people just going through their business without chattering.

'yeah, this is grim...'

Jumping into a nearby alley I waited for some time to pass before changing back into my original appearance. My chakra-nature transformed back into primary wind natured and I activated the Sharingan to check my surroundings.

'alright, there goes the second phase, now what?'