(September, year 52 AK)
Although Yuta was excited at first about the events going on, but after his first conversation with Shisui nothing much has happened since then, and two and a half months had passed.
Yuta didn't talk with Itachi since then, only Shisui was coming for a brief small talk from time to time to the training grounds Yuta usually trains after the academy, but they didn't discuss anything important, although Shisui gave Yuta a few pointers in shurikenjutsu.
But even with a significant improvement in aim with throwing ninja tools, Yuta understood that with his speed and strength it won't do much in a real combat, but at least his scores during the shurikenjutsu tests gradually grew all the way to the top-3 position in the class.
The first place, of course, was being held firmly by Itachi with a wide gap between his scores and the second place, that was occupied by a girl named Hikari.
Yuta felt that there was something unusual about that girl.
Hikari was an orphan, just like Yuta, but she came from a different orphanage than him. She has a slim figure and normal height for her age and short black hair. She is always quiet, and she always has that fierce and scary look in her black eyes and other students tend to avoid her. And her scores on the practical tests are quite amazing, to the point that Yuta starts doubting himself about why he doesn't remember such a noticeable character from the anime.
Also, Yuta's skills with the Water-Walking exercise improved significantly in this time period. He was able to walk on water without too much strain, although it's still burning through his chakra quite fast. Since Yuta doesn't have any other means to use up his chakra, he utilizes this exercise to deplete his chakra each day, and it was helping him to gradually grow his chakra reserves this way.
While his results in shurikenjutsu improved significantly, the same couldn't be said about his taijutsu. In hand-to-hand combat Yuta was holding the position in the middle of the class, although he beat all the classmates with a civilian background, who didn't train from the young age by some shinobi, except Hikari that is, still, he was defeated most of the times when he spar with the kids from clans.
They are just stronger and faster and have more endurance, and no matter how hard Yuta trains, he can't catch up. And Yuta had accepted this reality in which he must find some other ways to defeat his enemies in combat, other than taijutsu.
Fortunately, recently Mamoru started to teach hand seals in class, and it seems that soon Yuta would be able to learn the three basic academy jutsu. Although Mamoru said he would teach them jutsu soon, he also said that mastering said jutsu will take years, and overall mastery over the three basic academy jutsu will be tested during the academy years all the way to the graduation.
There were also boring theoretical classes going on as well, such as history, geography, algebra and geometry, although they were not quite the same as Yuta remembered from his past life. All these classes have its own unique ninja flavor to them here, like mathematical problems were always about some ninja stuff, like calculating the speed or angle of a thrown shuriken or something like that.
Not that any ninja would ever try to calculate those things in action though, so it's mostly useless for any practical use.
Memorizing all this stuff was easy for Yuta, and he has very good scores on the theoretical tests without even trying. Yuta found it quite funny, since in his past life he didn't had good scores on most subjects, or rather he had good scores but was tend to quickly get bored and lose interest in the subject, and when that happens, his scores on the subject plummeted as well.
On one of these days Yuta noticed that a few boys from class started to follow Itachi everywhere. It was strange since those guys usually tend to badmouth Itachi behind his back all the time and they envied his scores and that a lot of girls were always chasing him.
Later on, Yuta got to know, that Itachi beat an upperclassman in the hall, who bullied those boys, and since Itachi saved them, they made a hundred-eighty-degree turn and now they are his loyal followers it seems.
Yuta briefly considered joining them so that way he would be able to talk with Itachi without causing much suspicion, since Itachi was likely under surveillance of Fugaku, who was eager to uncover where Itachi got that intel on Orochimaru from. But after brief consideration, he decided not to, since there won't be any opportunity to talk with him in private in the academy anyway, with how many people are always around him.
Another month has passed. Yuta on one of these days overheard an interesting conversation in the academy hallway.
Apparently, during this lunch break, just a couple minutes ago, there was a fight on the academy grounds. The upperclassman, who was beat by Itachi a month ago, rallied a group of his classmates and came to have revenge on Itachi and others.
What the interesting part was, is that Itachi was puffed into a cloud of smoke during the fight, supposedly using some kind of jutsu, everyone was discussing what happened back there and building theories of which jutsu Itachi had used to disappear like that.
After hearing those details, Yuta remembered that this was the event when it was revealed to everyone that Itachi was using the Shadow Clone jutsu, and since this jutsu was so advanced that mostly only Jonins could use it, it will be decided that Itachi will graduate after only first year at the academy.
'Interesting.' Yuta thought, 'I think it would be better if I interfere and prevent Itachi's Shadow Clone from being exposed. It would be better if Itachi stays in the academy for a while longer. The emergence of a yet another new genius from the Uchiha clan will rub that scum Danzo the wrong way, and probably it also will boost the confidence of the radicals inside the Uchiha clan as well, not that those morons need any confidence boost to begin with, with how arrogant and aggressive they are, but still.'
'Besides, if I want to try to end up on his team, he must stay in the academy for now, I doubt I could even push for an early graduation myself just after one year in the academy.'
'Even if I could excel in every subject with some time repeats with my time-travel, there is still taijutsu that hinders me, with this liability I doubt Mamoru would approve my early graduation request just after one year, even if I master everything else that's on the six years academy program. Damn taijutsu happen to be the most essential thing for a shinobi!'
Coming to a decision, Yuta enters his mindscape and proceeds with time-travel half an hour back, so he could catch up with Itachi's group when the fight starts.
It was the first time when Yuta used time-travel for such a short distance, and when he completed it and found himself inside his mindscape once again, he felt something unexpected.
'I feel heavy all of a sudden, this feeling is quite strange. Usually, my spiritual energy is exhausted after the time-travel, but right now it's not, I only used up a small part of it... This heaviness I feel, I used to feel it after each time-travel too, but I thought it was just a side effect of the depleted spiritual energy, but since my spiritual energy is mostly full right now, it seems it's not related...'
'This feeling of mental heaviness used to fade in about eight hours or so after the time-travel. If my guess is correct, then I won't be able to repeat the time-travel in this period of time. I must test and confirm this theory!'
Yuta tried to initiate the time-travel once again, but as he feared, he felt that he couldn't do it, when he formulated his intent and powered it with some spiritual energy and sent it into the River of Time, he felt a negative feedback that told him he was indeed correct on the previous theory.
Analyzing the feedback, Yuta vaguely understood that the time-travel through the River of Time is quite exhausting for the soul itself, and the soul needs some time to rest before it would be able to time-travel once again. The cooldown period of about eight hours is fundamental, and Yuta doubted he would ever be able to do something about it.
...
'It's a good thing I discovered this flaw in a safe environment! If I were to use the time-travel while being in a mortal danger to only go back in time, for example, for a few minutes, then I would still be in a grave danger without the ability to repeat the time-travel again!'
...
'It has eight hours cooldown, huh...' Yuta thought as he exited the mindscape, he found himself in a classroom, and the last lesson before lunch break was about to end. After it ended, Yuta followed Itachi's group at some distance.
'Since the time-travel has eight hours cooldown, I better make a rule that I won't use time-travel for less than eight hours ever again, better be safe than sorry.' He thought as he followed the boys while mentally preparing for a fight.
'Although I'm not that good at taijutsu, all I have to do is just prevent Itachi's Shadow Clone being hit, I should be able to accomplish at least that... right?'
...
--- AN ---
I had a very bad night of sleep and was quite sleep-deprived while writing this chapter, I hope the chapter is not too bad. I woke up after only four or five hours of sleep and was unable to fall asleep for the next two hours straight, not a fan of that I tell you...
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Thanks to Loalola, Rohan_ps, Jayroy_63, Coldasice223, creationking, SomeLordsBastard, Dylan_Cardenas_843 and waltersaaron16 for the power stones! That's a lot of power stones, and a lot of new names, thanks!