It took the squad about three days to return to the Hidden Stone from the Land of Grass stronghold.
No one noticed that, starting from a certain moment, the Chunin Yoshida had been replaced by someone harboring malicious intentions.
And so, with almost no resistance, Kamishiro Hagoromo infiltrated the enemy's home base—the Hidden Stone, one of the Five Great Ninja Villages.
This was his first time executing this type of mission. Realistically, an assignment like this shouldn't be handed to a young ninja at all. But Jiraiya clearly valued him highly—so highly that he felt a bit flattered and terrified. Well, terrified was more accurate. When he first saw the plan, he was genuinely shocked.
Yet upon actually arriving in the Hidden Stone, his mind was unexpectedly calm.
In terms of location, the Hidden Stone was similar to the Hidden Sand, and its towering terrain shared similarities with the Hidden Cloud. The entire village was surrounded by natural barriers, making it easy to defend and hard to attack. Or rather, this highly classified natural fortress, formed by countless rocky mountains, was built with defense against foreign enemies as its absolute first priority.
If he hadn't used this method to infiltrate, it would have been incredibly difficult for him to enter the Hidden Stone Village without alerting the enemy.
And hypothetically, if his identity were to be exposed inside the Hidden Stone for whatever reason, his fate would likely be quite miserable.
The Third Tsuchikage, Onoki of Both Scales, was famous for his stubbornness. Likewise, the Hidden Stone ninjas under his leadership were renowned for being fearless, completely unafraid of death while executing their missions.
This was exactly why the Chunin Yoshida—the target selected based on spy intel for him to impersonate—was so heavily disliked. A timid coward with that kind of personality really didn't fit the Hidden Stone's style.
...Well, a ninja with that kind of personality wouldn't be well-liked in any ninja village, even in Konoha, where the culture was slightly better.
For this reason, Yoshida was withdrawn, had no living relatives, barely spoke, and had almost no friends.
Outside of missions, he rarely interacted with anyone else. Impersonating a target with such simple interpersonal relationships probably reduced the risk of exposure to the absolute minimum.
Upon entering the Hidden Stone, the supply squad was declared disbanded. The time and specific details for the next mission would be notified separately.
He was definitely giving it his all. A perfect-tier Transformation Jutsu wasn't difficult for him; the hard part was having to maintain it continuously.
In fact, his imitation of Yoshida's speaking tone was over 95 percent accurate, which was more than enough to pass off the fake as genuine. Since the guy always spoke submissively anyway, as long as he added a slight tremble to his voice, no one would ever notice that an invisible nobody like him had been swapped out.
Successfully infiltrating the Hidden Stone meant that the first phase of his mission was complete.
The mission naturally didn't require him to cause any sabotage inside the village. Doing so would practically be suicide. No matter how underhanded Jiraiya could be, he wouldn't assign him a guaranteed death mission...
Although eyeballing this mission showed it was actually feasible in terms of success rate, regardless of success or failure, the mortality rate was absolutely sky-high.
For him, the first half of his mission was very simple: just impersonate Yoshida and follow this supply route back to the Hidden Stone.
And then firmly engrave that supply route into his brain.
Although spies had previously sent back intel regarding this, the information was somewhat ambiguous. Considering that certain future missions required extremely precise intelligence, someone had to verify the supply route in person.
Unfortunately, although he had secured this route, he paid absolutely no attention to a highly sensitive keyword like Kannabi Bridge.
Once he walked into the Hidden Stone, he faced his first major problem: he had no idea where Yoshida lived.
This wasn't negligence on the part of the intel-gathering spies. Realistically, even with detailed map markings, given the labyrinthine environment and architectural style of the Hidden Stone, it would be impossible for him to accurately locate Yoshida's residence without a guide.
Considering the current urgent state of the war, if he couldn't find the house and was caught wandering around in the middle of the night, he would be dead meat.
Fortunately, it was still a long way from sundown. While the situation was pressing, he wasn't panicking.
"Haha, Yoshida, you're finally back. How was the mission? Smooth?" Just as he was contemplating his next move, someone suddenly smiled and called out to him from a distance.
He glanced at the man. Cross-referencing his physical traits, he immediately deduced the other party's identity.
"Aono, it's you."
As he said this, a very natural smile appeared on his face, and that overly cautious tremor in his voice noticeably diminished.
Because this person was Yoshida's friend.
...Happily, even in Yoshida's miserable situation, he still had one friend.
Tragically, this was exactly the core of Yoshida's tragedy—not only was he despised in the village, but his sole friend was actually a Konoha spy.
The ninja named Aono looked incredibly ordinary and was about the same age as Yoshida. He strode toward him, maintaining that enthusiastic demeanor.
As he walked, his right hand, flashing in and out of his sleeve, casually formed a highly specific hand sign.
This was a sign indicating his identity. He obviously saw and understood it, but he showed no reaction whatsoever.
He didn't know if this spy belonged to Konoha's orthodox intelligence network or Danzo Shimura's Root. But right now, he was Yoshida, and he wasn't going to do anything out of character.
Regardless, no spy was worthy of trust. He could very well be a double agent. Who knows, maybe at any moment he would whip out a line like Sorry, I'm actually a cop just to show off.
"The mission was same as always. Luckily, nothing happened on the way." While analyzing the situation, he continued speaking.
"Is that right? That's great. Ever since you got stuck on logistics duty, your luck has been pretty good. I'm jealous. Unlike me—I almost died on my last mission," Aono said. He had already walked right up to him.
"Did something happen to you, Aono?"
His tone carried a hint of genuine concern.
"Well... it's not a classified mission or anything, but it's a long story. Let's go to your place, and I'll tell you the details."
"Uh... sure."
Actually, after dropping that line, Aono didn't even wait for a reply before turning around and leading the way.
Although he remained vigilant, he instantly understood what was happening: the guy was offering to act as his guide.
No matter what, he could only temporarily follow behind the man.
Along the way, the two chatted about random nonsense, but in reality, the other party was subtly feeding him information about things to watch out for inside the Hidden Stone.
Once they arrived at Yoshida's residence, they went inside and continued to talk.
It was almost two hours later before Aono finally stood up to leave.
He saw him to the door. Once the man was gone, he turned around and closed the door, the expression on his face instantly dropping into an icy calm.
During their casual chat just now, the man had actually used a specialized method to pass him a piece of intelligence.
The Hidden Stone was planning a massive operation to thrust into the Land of Lightning in the near future. The number of ninjas deployed would exceed 5,000. Many ninjas would be drafted, and Yoshida was highly likely to be among them.
He already knew the first half of the intel, while the second half was rather vague; the exact number of participating ninjas couldn't be confirmed.
But if Yoshida really was drafted for the operation, then this disguise would probably still prove highly useful.
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I also realized I haven't uploaded bonus chapters in awhile,so except more daily chaps for awhile.