(June, year 54 AK)
"Took you long enough..." Yuta said tiredly as he lowered his kunai and looked at the person in front of him.
"I knew you will be in trouble, so I came to help, no need to thank me." Hikari said playfully as she leaned her bloodied sword against her shoulder. Her hands and clothes had a lot of blood on them as well, even her face was covered in blood stains, but as Yuta could see, Hikari doesn't have any injuries, so all of that blood wasn't hers.
"Do you know how Itachi is doing?" Yuta asked as he put away his only remaining kunai back into his pouch.
"Man, you need to worry about yourself instead. I mean, look at you, all torn up and exhausted, you look like you are about to collapse." Hikari said with a smirk, "By the way, what with that look in your eyes? Did you finally go crazy from all the fighting and stuff? And no, I didn't saw Itachi, but on my way here I heard the sounds and explosions from their fight, so he was probably fine at that moment."
'She is awfully talkative all of a sudden, probably due to all of the excitement of the battle... But I'm really glad to see her now. I was already prepared to time-travel, if she didn't show up right now, I would have to re-do this mission from the beginning all over again. Well, it's not like it is completely over yet, I might still have to do it, so I can't fully relax and drop my guard just yet...' Yuta thought.
...
'Now that I think about it, Hikari's behavior seems quite abnormal, she is just an eight-year-old girl with two years of ninja training at the academy and a couple months of Shisui's training and missions. How could she act like that? Like all the fighting and killing and all the danger is just an amusement and games to her, what is wrong with her...'
"I'm fine, just tired, and don't mind the look, I'm just suppressing my emotions, I'm better in a fight this way." Yuta said calmly.
"Suppressing emotions? Some kind of a self-inflicted genjutsu? Better to put all that chakra and effort into something more useful and not cuddle your own feelings with something like that, if you ask me..." Hikari said, "Well, are you able to walk? Let's go and see how Itachi is doing."
'Well, this isn't a self-genjutsu, but she has a point there, I'm wasting chakra on the Calm State while it wasn't making me any stronger in a fight, it just clears up my mind, allowing me to think straight, I probably shouldn't rely on it too much in the future.'
"Yes, just give me a moment, I have to stop the suppression, I don't have any chakra left to keep it running..." Yuta said as he finally let go of the Calm State that he was keeping all this time since the battle had started.
As Yuta did that, he felt the cold soothing feeling recedes, then he felt the severe exhaustion, it hit him all at once. During the Calm State he felt the exhaustion too, but it felt distant and bearable, but now Yuta felt as if it had intensified significantly.
Yuta's vision blurred and the ground under his feet swayed, Yuta realized that he was about to fall and lose consciousness.
'No, I can't allow myself to collapse right now!' Yuta thought as he struggled to regain his footing and stay conscious, his body swayed as if about to fall, 'It's not safe yet, I have to keep going until Shisui shows up, or I might never wake up again!'
And with a lot of effort Yuta was able to fight back the exhaustion to keep himself going just a little bit longer, his vision had cleared up and he regained his footing.
But the next instant he remembered all that had happened since the battle had started. Back then he was without any emotions, acting in the most logical and efficient way he could come up with, but now, this time he remembered everything through the lens of his own feelings...
Three kunai, that had been thrown by his hand, plunging into the throats of the three ninjas, the blood splatters, there was a lot of blood...
His hands quickly searching the corpses and attaching paper tag bombs to them...
His hands forming hand seals and his mouth whistling, and the explosion in the distance right after, the explosion that had torn to pieces the three corpses and the one still alive ninja... The strong metallic scent of blood and burned meat...
The kunai was pushed by his hand with all the speed and strength he could master, it had plunged into the chest of a ninja in front of him, at first it was a weak resistance of the clothes, than a harder resistance of the mesh armor the ninja was wearing, but then the armor gives and kunai went deeper, slicing through skin, muscles, ribs, and finally slicing through the heart, Yuta felt all of that through the handle of the kunai...
The look in the eyes of that ninja, Takuma was his name, Yuta remembered how the other ninja called him by that name, the look in his eyes, at first, it was a surprise and shock, then realization, then fear, pain... Yuta didn't saw him fall and die since he ran away right after his strike, but Yuta could vividly imagine how the life had faded from Takuma's eyes shortly after...
The tip of the sword had suddenly appeared from Shigeru's chest, the pain and hatred in his eyes, his last word "...Who?..." that he said quietly before he died...
All of those memories hit Yuta all at once...
Yuta's face paled, a strong sense of nausea hit him, but luckily for him, he didn't eat normal food for a long time now, going on food pills for a while, so there was nothing in his stomach that he could've thrown up.
Hikari observed the changes in Yuta with a smirk, then said mockingly, "Hey, are your stomach is too weak to handle this much of fighting? Are you a coward?"
Strangely enough, that annoying remark seems to have helped Yuta regain his cool a little, and he managed to somewhat suppress his negative emotions and feelings at the moment.
Yuta looked up at the smirking Hikari with annoyance in his eyes, "Give me a break. Let's get going already, before I collapse from exhaustion and you would have to carry me instead."
"Huh, you better keep going, I'm not carrying you, if you collapse on me, I'll just put you out of your misery." Hikari said as she turned around and walked into the direction, from where faint sounds of a battle could be heard.
"You are just joking, right?" Yuta asked a bit more anxiously than he would've wanted to, as he quickly followed Hikari.
"Why don't you collapse and find out?" Hikari commented playfully as both of them approached the sounds of a battle.
'She is just joking around, right?' Yuta thought as he followed Hikari, 'No way she would actually do that... Right?...'
As Yuta followed Hikari, he quickly remembered that he sensed twelve enemy ninjas hiding in the trees before the battle, there was five more that confronted them in the open, that Shinji and Itachi are currently fighting, and there was six ninjas that came after him.
"Hey, Hikari, how many enemies did come after you?" Yuta asked.
"Six." Hikari replied proudly, "After clearing up your mess and saving your sorry ass, I had killed seven of them in total."
"Yea, yea, great job, you are the real hero and a savior, I would've been dead without you..." Yuta said with a deadpan expression as he thought, 'Six on Hikari's end, six on mine, all had been dealt with, only those five left...'
"That's right, never forget who you owe your life to!" Hikari replied playfully.
With a little banter and with his head back in the game, the visions of blood and killing had receded from Yuta's mind, allowing him to get a hold of himself and finally suppress a slight tremor in his hands.
He didn't notice how Hikari sneaked a glance back at him and had a little sigh of relief.
...
Yuta had lived in the world of shinobi for less than a decade, and although he had accepted the new reality and the rules of this world, as well as the necessity to kill, he was still not a native to this world after all.
The people who were born in this world and accept the reality of it will have a much easier time with stuff like that, but Yuta was different.
He still remembers his life in another world, the world without chakra, ninjas, and the necessity to kill to survive. That world wasn't perfect either, there were occasional wars, unfairness and its own share of darkness, but not nearly as much as here.
Besides, Yuta was just a civilian back there, and he had a peaceful life with no real struggle. His brain and personality were still mostly wired the old way and he didn't fully adapt to the new reality and its rules just yet, it's a one thing to understand everything with logic, and completely another thing to actually went through with it. And now, going through the life-and-death battles and killing people, needless to say that Yuta doesn't have an easy time with that.
...
Shortly after, Hikari and Yuta carefully approached the battlefield.
--- AN ---
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