(5th of July, year 55 AK)
The preliminary matches continued, and Yuta watched them without much interest. He wasn't being summoned to the arena for the second time like Itachi and Hikari was, and soon the final twelve participants were determined.
After that the twelve finalists were summoned to the arena to draw the random numbers and with that the brackets for the finals were established.
Yuta drew number 3 and he would be fighting three fights according to the brackets. The first fight is against some guy from the Valleys village, the same guy, Yuta recognized, that had glared at him in the hall of the Academy when Yuta entered it five days ago for the Chunin Exams. The second fight is against Hikari, and if he makes it, he is fighting Itachi in the final round.
'So no avoiding it, huh...' Yuta thought and sighed tiredly.
He looked at the other part of the brackets that was shown to them and saw that the brackets were uneven, both of his teammates have to fight four battles each, so Hikari's fight against Yuta would be her third fight.
'Both of them had to fight one extra battle, the village really does want to showcase thoroughly their strength I assume, but why am I not having an extra fight like them? Have I not shown enough strength already? Tsk. I'm going to wipe the floor thoroughly with that Valleys guy during my first fight...'
Although Yuta was a bit unsatisfied with the arrangements, there was nothing he could do about it. And as long as he is getting the promotion, he was fine with whatever. The only goal he had for this whole event to begin with is the promotion, and also, he wanted to keep his strongest jutsu – the Shadow Chains hidden throughout the exams.
But now, seeing that he indeed has to fight Hikari, he wasn't so sure about keeping his Shadow Chains jutsu hidden anymore. He knew her strength well enough to understand that just his Shadow Cloak wouldn't be enough to defeat her.
If she didn't know about his Shadow Cloak genjutsu specifics beforehand, then he would've had a good chance of catching her off guard, but that is completely out of the question now.
'She knows about my genjutsu techniques, both the Shadow Cloak and the Shadow Chains, but I've never casted the Shadow Chains on her directly, so she is not prepared for it and doesn't know what to expect exactly, not that she could break out of it even with preparations, but still, the Shadow Chains jutsu has the highest chance against her, while the Shadow Cloak... I did use it against her in the past, and this is the jutsu that could be countered if you know what to expect...' Yuta analyzed as he looked at the brackets.
'Sigh, so what now?...' Yuta sighed tiredly for the umpteenth time, 'I'll have to either admit defeat in the fight against Hikari, and this is not happening, not ever, not if I want peace of mind in the foreseeable future, she will boast about winning against me straight to my face for months... Or I'll have to use my Shadow Chains jutsu against her if I want to win... Or, there is still a third option – to prepare something completely new against her, something she wouldn't expect, after all, I have all the time in the world for this...'
Yuta looked around and noticed that among twelve finalists, him included, there was eight ninjas from the Leaf, two from Sand, one from Grass and one From Valleys.
'Damn, the village is truly pulling out all the stops, aren't they...' Yuta though with a bit of amusement, 'This competition is truly rigged to hell and back. The only few somewhat strong foreign ninjas – they pit them against me and my teammates and by that they were eliminated early; the foreign ninjas are mostly fought other foreign ninjas, so half of them didn't make it; and the other Leaf ninjas? Their pairing was also suspicious, the strongest were paired with the weakest, who wouldn't be making it to the finals either way, or the stronger Leaf ninjas being paired with weaker foreign ninjas, so they still pass, so all of the strongest Leaf ninjas are making it to the finals quite easily.'
'The village is truly intended to boast it's strength to the maximum during these Chunin Exams, huh, making it so the majority of the finalists are the Leaf ninjas and also eliminating early the strongest foreign ninjas as well...'
Yuta didn't know if he wanted to applaud in respect for the village's efforts and the use of every means available, or if he wanted to frown upon the village's underhanded tactics.
Then the proctor of the third and final phase of the exams was introduced, it was some middle-aged man Yuta didn't recognize, and then the thirty-days-period before finals were announced and that it will be one-on-one combat tournament, just like during these preliminary rounds.
After that everyone was quickly escorted out of the Forest of Death. As they left the forest and were free to go, Shisui approached Yuta, Itachi and Hikari and said, "Well, you heard the details, the finals will be conducted in a month, so there won't be any missions before the exams are concluded."
"So will you teach us some new jutsu in preparation for the finals?" Hikari asked eagerly.
"No, I don't think so." Shisui replied firmly, "All three of you already have everything you need to get into the top-three during the finals. Better focus on the regular training and practicing of what you already learned, than to hastily learn something new."
"This is not fair. How am I supposed to beat Itachi if you don't teach me some new powerful jutsu?" Hikari asked with a bit of disappointment in her voice.
"Hey, you are not going to fight Itachi anyway, why would you need some new jutsu to use it against him?" Yuta asked with a deadpan expression after hearing how Hikari had dismissed him completely as if he wasn't even a challenge, after all, she have to defeat him first before fighting Itachi.
"Huh? I'm stronger than you, so it is obvious that I'm going to win." Hikari said as a matter of fact, as if she was declaring that the grass is green and the sky is blue.
'Okay, now you've done it...' Yuta thought as he had crossed out completely the first option from his mind that he was thinking about earlier. Now he is going to win no matter what. At this point Yuta decided that even if Hikari pulls out some miracle and wins the match against him, he is going to return back in time as many times as it takes, but he is going to beat her up, whatever it takes...
"Hey, maybe I'm not beating Itachi, but you? There is no future where I'm going to lose to you." Yuta stated no less firmly than her, and as of a matter of fact.
"Hump, we'll see about that." Hikari replied with a smirk, "I'm definitely going to beat you, and then I'm going to fight Itachi." She declared.
"Hey guys, I'm still here..." Itachi said with a bit of helplessness in his voice, and both Yuta and Hikari looked at him the same time with similar complicated expressions in their eyes, as if they were looking at a complicated math problem they don't know how to solve, and calculating possible solutions in their minds without finding a good answer...
"That's a good fighting spirit you have there, but let's save it for the finals." Shisui said casually with an obvious amusement in his voice, "If you have any questions, you can find me at our usual place in the mornings, at least when I'm not busy."
After that Yuta went home.
On the next day he went to train as usual, and after a couple hours of his normal physical workout routine, he sat down and leaned his back against the tree and went deep in thought as he looked over the small lake in front of him.
He felt his muscles aching and sore, not just after the workout, but mostly after the intense strain from yesterday's fight.
'The Chunin Exams were going almost the same way I remember it from the original story, although there are many small differences in it as well. There probably will be a lot of people watching the matches on the big arena. I feel a bit nervous all of a sudden, strange, I don't know why...'
'Even if something goes wrong and I make a mistake, I always could time-travel and re-do the whole thing, but I still feel a bit nervous anyway...'
'Training in a time-loop for a decade feels fine to me, fighting close-call life-and-death battles feels normal, receiving lethal injuries and being pushed to the brink of death is also fine, nothing serious and nothing to be worried about... But now all of a sudden, the thought of entering the arena and fighting while being watched by thousands of people, that is what making me nervous? Sigh, this is stupid...'
...
'Okay, enough of that, how do I win against Hikari?' Yuta was still being somewhat irritated by Hikari's dismissive statement that she was obviously stronger and going to win, 'I don't believe that I could pull it off with just my Shadow Cloak. Maybe if I time it perfectly and place the second layer of the genjutsu on top of the first one at the moment she dispels it? In theory this trick could work, but I'm not placing my bet on that. If I want to win, I need my Shadow Chains or something completely new.'
...
--- AN ---
If you like the story, please write a comment, a review or vote with power stones, it helps a lot.
Also feel free to check out my Discord, where you can drop by and chat. The link is in the fanfic description.
27 advanced chapters are currently available on p@treon, /SycoreNovels
Thanks to Denuncia, Jayroy_63, Aiden_Helmick, GuidingKey for the power stones.