(April, year 52 AK)
After seeing the aged face of Manabu, Yuta felt bad for him and gained some needed resolve to go through the grueling process of returning all the way back into the past and reliving all this time all over again. He also promised himself that he would find whoever was responsible for sabotaging him and have his revenge someday, and not just for his own sake.
Chitose had told him that he was to be accepted as an apprentice to the local merchant.
'Yea sure, as if that would ever happen!' Yuta thought skeptically, 'Imagine me becoming some porter for a merchant in the world of shinobi, yea, not happening, ever!'
With that resolute thought, Yuta decided not to linger in here any longer and went directly into his mindscape.
As Yuta found himself standing on the surface of the water in a grand and mysterious space, he looked into the waters of the River of Time, his mind was calmed by the influence of it, all the negative emotions he felt before – was washed away and felt like a distant memories.
Yuta looked up briefly and thought, 'This void above the River of Time always felt unnatural to me, like something is missing here, I wonder what it was and if I would ever find out about it...'
Yuta let his thoughts to wander for a while longer, after that, being already familiar with how to handle the Time Control ability for the upcoming task, he formed an intent to submerge into the water and send himself into the past, he imagine wrapping the formed intent in all of the spiritual energy he could gather and sent it into the River of Time as a command to be executed.
Next instant everything happened the same as a few times before, Yuta fell into the water and his consciousness faded, and shortly after, some distance away up the stream, Yuta resurfaced and was pushed out of the water, he was mentally exhausted after spending up almost all of his spiritual energy, hence he was pushed out of his mindscape.
Yuta opened his eyes and found himself in his bed at the orphanage, it was the middle of the night.
'How convenient...' He thought, closing his eyes, about to fall asleep, 'It's five days before the academy entrance exam, in this time I wasn't sabotaged and failed yet, and Manabu doesn't blame himself for it yet, it's like all of that was just a dream, what a strange feeling...'
Next day Yuta was woken up relaxed and high-spirited, sure he had a setback with this situation, but it would only take some time for him to fix it and overcome this obstacle, and the time was a resource that he has an infinite amount of.
He only felt a little bad that Manabu would have to forget that he was Yuta's teacher, whatever brief that teaching was, but he can't think of a way around it.
Yuta spent his day leisurely, skipped his workouts as there was no point doing them, went to the training ground after lunch and practiced Tree-Climbing and rested there. Without returning back to the orphanage on time, he spends time there all the way until sunset.
After watching the sunset, Yuta, feeling quite hungry, felt that his spiritual energy had almost recovered, so he went back into his mindscape and repeated the time-travel...
...
Afterwards he spends his day the same way and repeats the time-travel...
...
He repeats it again, and again...
...
(March, year 52 AK)
...
And again...
...
(February, year 52 AK)
...
(January, year 52 AK)
...
(December, year 51 AK)
Yuta noticed that his time-travel starts to take him six days back instead of five...
...
(November, year 51 AK)
...
(October, year 51 AK)
...
(September, year 51 AK)
...
(August, year 51 AK)
Yuta noticed that he no longer felt such a huge discomfort when he was exiting the River of Time, and he no longer coughed with his lungs full of water, the process became easier and he got used to it...
...
(July, year 51 AK)
...
(June, year 51 AK)
...
(May, year 51 AK)
...
(April, year 51 AK)
Yuta became more familiar with the time-travel and now he was able to calculate the precise amount of spiritual energy he had to spend on time-travel to get to the precise point in time he wanted, it was no longer a guessing game for him...
He is also no longer allowed to leave the orphanage and go to the training grounds...
...
(March, year 51 AK)
...
(February, year 51 AK)
...
(January, year 51 AK)
...
(December, year 50 AK)
Yuta noticed that his spiritual energy had grown, and it was enough to take him seven days back now...
...
(11th of October, year 50 AK)
...
Yuta opened his eyes, sat up on his bed, and looked around.
"Hey, you. You're finally awake." The tired and harsh voice of an old woman sounded nearby.
'Ah shit, here we go again.' Yuta thought jokingly after time-traveling to the farthest point back in time as he possibly could, confirming his theory that this is indeed as far as he could go back, 'Finally, that endless cycle of rest and time-travel is ended, now the boring part begins. Ugh, I have to resume my workouts now...'
"You are in the village's orphanage now." Chitose said as she approached Yuta.
"In the orphanage? What happened?" Yuta asked, confused, playing the role of a clueless kid he should be in this situation.
"Village is in crisis, there is a lot of casualties." Chitose said heavily, "You were found unconscious and brought here, luckily you were unharmed during the incident. Give me your name, names of your parents and your home address, we will inform your parents, and they would pick you up later."
'This whole conversation feels weird... Well, better get used to it, it won't be the last time I would time-travel and make people forget about me and all the time we spent together I guess...'
Yuta repeated the information Chitose asked.
"Ok then, Yuta, be a good boy and behave." Woman said sternly, "My name is Chitose Koba, I'm the caretaker in this orphanage, call me if you need anything." After saying that Chitose left.
Going straight outside and start a workout would be weird, Yuta thought, and decided to sulk in bed for today. As he was relaxing and pretending to be gloomy as he should, he observed the commotion going on in the orphanage.
'Ah, I almost forgot, it was yesterday that the Nine-Tails rampaged through the village, the orphanage would be lively for a few days...'
Next day, after breakfast, Yuta went outside to the orphanage's playgrounds and with some familiarity started his workout. But he had miscalculated things, as after only ten minutes he was already panting heavily and felt as if he was about to die.
'Damn, all my progress is gone, I have to start from zero again...' Yuta thought dejectedly.
"Hey, are you all right kid?" Manabu came to check on him.
'Manabu... Yea, he doesn't remember me either, of course...' Yuta thought with conflicting feelings, 'Wasn't back then when he first approached me like that, he called me by my name? Now it's just "kid" he said... Right, last time I started training after a week or so, and now it's only my second day in the orphanage, he didn't learn my name yet.'
"I'm.. I'm fine..." Yuta managed to say between heavy breaths.
"What's got into you all of a sudden?"
"I'm... Training..." Yuta said, his breath is gradually restoring.
"Training? What for?" Manabu was a little surprised.
"For the Ninja Academy. I heard there would be an entry exam."
Manabu chuckled a little after hearing Yuta's reasoning, "Haha... I see. Well, good luck kid." After saying that, Manabu left.
'That whole interaction felt weird and wrong, I still can't get used to the fact that everyone forgot me and about all that happened during the last year and a half...'
...
'Whatever... Time-travel is my main and strongest power right now, I should be okay with the side effects of using it, right?'
...
Yuta sighed heavily and went through his day, he was trying to train a little bit every couple of hours of rest, his body felt heavy and unresponsive, not at all like what Yuta was used to before, his muscles was as weak and untrained as they were possibly could.
Next day went the same way, and the day after that...
Yuta's body slowly but surely comes into shape with each day, after almost two weeks there was some good progress, Yuta was happy to see that, as in his final months in the orphanage before the academy his progress was very slow and he almost forgot the feeling of having good gains from training like that.
At the end of the second week of training, Manabu approached Yuta once again.
"I see you are serious about your training." Manabu said lazily, "Your body was clearly untrained when you started, but you are going through exercises like you know what you are doing."
"Huh?" Yuta was startled as Manabu sneaked up on him without him noticing, Yuta almost forgot about this habit of his, "My father taught me the workout routine, but I didn't train seriously before." Yuta came up with an excuse quickly.
"I see, that makes sense." Manabu replied, "Keep it up, kid, you are doing great."
"Yes, Koboshi-...san", Yuta replied and Manabu left.
'Damn, almost called him sensei there, that would've been a major slip-up, they are taking seriously the forms of addressing people here...'
Later on, as the day ended and Yuta went to sleep, he fell asleep quickly.
...
"WAKE UP!" Loud, cold and authoritative voice of a man invaded Yuta's ears and woke him up rudely.
"Where am I?", "What is going on?" - Yuta heard a bunch of startled and scared kid's voices around him as he opened his eyes and sat up on the cold ground, his body felt hurt a little, and he was freezing, the temperature was quite chilly here.
Yuta looked around and found himself in a dark and unfamiliar room with stone floor, walls and ceiling, there are no windows and only one heavy looking door.
"SILENCE!" The man yelled, emitting a heavy pressure, he wore black clothes and gray vest, with a white Anbu mask on his face, "You were selected to become Anbu, shinobi of the Konoha, you will be trained rigorously and become the sharp tools of the Konoha village, Anbu, shinobi of the Root!"
...
'HELL NO...' Yuta thought, adrenalin was coursing through his veins due to this whole unexpected situation...
...
--- AN ---
Root route unlocked... (did you hear about 'sister-leveling'? just a random intrusive thought, forget I ever said anything...)
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Currently there are 3 advanced chapters on Patreon (patreon dot com /SycoreNovels). There will be up to 20 advanced chapters in the future.
Thanks to Loalola, Hastyar_Hyper, Jayroy_63, DaoistOahuLH and Daoistbm0BeO(are you the same person?) for the power stones!