(2nd of July, year 55 AK)
What came next, from the outside's point of view, looked like Yuta was doing nothing but sleeping for days. He wakes up, eats some food that the examiners had provided for them, then he goes back to sleep again.
But in reality, Yuta was spending countless hours working inside his mindscape where the time flows differently, and when he is out, he is mentally exhausted and goes straight to sleep just to get back to work again the next time he wakes up with restored energy.
Five days went by in a blink, and Yuta made some progress on his new genjutsu, although it was only about 20% complete at best by now, where at least 15% of that came from the parts and components he is reusing from his Shadow Cloak genjutsu.
Starting from the second day, participants started to come to the tower. Over the course of the coming days more and more participants had completed the test, and by the end of the fifth day there were thirty participants there, ten squads in total including Yuta's squad.
On the fifth day in the evening the proctor of the second phase of the exam came and announced that it was over and that everyone should follow him into the next stage area.
Yuta, suspecting that there would be preliminary rounds like in the original story, rested during the fifth day and now he was full of energy as he followed the proctor to another floor of the tower.
Not that Yuta thought that he would need his 100% strength during the preliminaries, but he was a bit worried that there was a chance that he would have to fight Itachi or Hikari in the preliminary rounds.
When Yuta thought about fighting Hikari, he believed that he has the advantage in the fight as long as she didn't use her Kekkei Genkai, and Yuta also believed that she wouldn't use it casually here, since she was serious about keeping it a secret.
But when Yuta thought about fighting Itachi, he knew that there was not a chance for him to win at all. Yuta still didn't come up with any way how to beat Sharingan with his genjutsu, so his strongest skill will be worthless in a fight against Itachi. And comparing his other skills against Itachi's, who was firmly on a Jonin level in all areas, Yuta knew that there was no point even trying to fight him. The way Yuta was now, without being able to utilize genjutsu, there wasn't the slightest chance of winning, or so he thought.
So, in case he'll have to fight Itachi, Yuta knew, the way he is right now, he would lose no matter what. And in case he'll have to fight Hikari, Yuta believed that he has high chances of winning, so he rested during the fifth day, stopping his work on the new genjutsu for now to have all his energy for the preliminaries just in case.
As for the rest of the participants, Yuta couldn't care less about them.
During the fifth day everyone was sizing up each other inside the tower, expecting that they would have to fight each other in the next stage of the exams.
And the group that everyone was sizing up the most – was Yuta's group. Everyone knew by now that Yuta's group completed the exam first, and they looked the youngest by far than everyone else.
Yuta assumed that most of them just refused to believe that the group of nine-year-old kids could outperform all of them to such a degree, and that they refused to believe that they are so much stronger than them.
After all, every participant that reached this point, all of them are already firmly on the Chunin level of strength, they wouldn't get to this stage otherwise.
But if the Chunin level opponents were posing a serious challenge for Yuta back in the time when he faced Mist ninjas, it wasn't the same anymore. By now Yuta had 5.7C of chakra and his chakra control, genjutsu skills and the development of his original genjutsu techniques, all of that was trained and honed to the very edge of his current capabilities and to what his current chakra strength allows.
If by now Yuta still manages somehow to lose to an average Chunin, even if he wasn't at his best, then there was no hope for him to ever become the one of the strongest ninjas in the world, or so he believed.
The proctor led them to a spacious hall on a different floor of the tower, and as soon as Yuta entered the hall, he recognized the place.
'It is the same stage the preliminary rounds were conducted in the original story...' Yuta realized in a glance as he looked over the big open area and the elevated viewer's area alongside the walls.
Then as they were led to the center of the area, Yuta noticed a bunch of people that stood opposite the participants, and Yuta immediately recognized Hiruzen in the head of the group, and Shisui who calmly stood among the others slightly behind Hiruzen. The proctor of the first part of the exam was here as well.
A bit later Yuta also recognized Mamoru, his class teacher from the Academy, standing there as well. As for other ninjas there, Yuta didn't know who they were, he didn't recognize anyone from the anime. Yuta knew that it doesn't mean that there is no one else from the original story are here, but he might just not recognize them in real life due to everyone looking a bit different than in the drawn pictures from the anime.
"Congratulations everyone on completing the second stage of the Chunin Exams." Hiruzen said loudly in an official but friendly tone, "It's time for you to learn the true meaning of the Chunin Exams..."
Next Hiruzen lectured them about that after wars ended and peacetimes begun, the Chunin Exams now held the very important role – they allow young generation ninjas from different hidden villages to compete and to display the strength of their villages during the peacetimes.
There was something about the pride of their villages that all of them carry on their shoulders, and something about balance of power between nations, friendship thought life-and-death battle, but Yuta wasn't listening very attentively to the contents of Hiruzen's speech, finding it meaningless. Or maybe he didn't listen because he had developed a habit of snoozing through Hiruzen's long speeches. After all, due to his time-travels he had to listen through the Hiruzen's long speech at the Academy's entrance ceremony about four times.
Either way, Yuta thought that Hiruzen was just trying to instill his own vision and values onto the young ninjas of different villages, because, when will he have such opportunity if not right now?
'This is getting more boring by the second...' Yuta thought as he waited for Hiruzen to stop, 'I really wasn't expecting the written part of the exam to be the most interesting part... What friendship? What balance? What pride? All meaningless... It'll all come to Naruto and Sasuke, rising in power rapidly, fighting Akatsuki, Madara and Kaguya, and deciding the future course how the world will change and develop.'
'And what is the key component in all of the above? Strength. Overwhelming strength. Nothing else really matters. Hashirama had overwhelming strength, so he was able to change the world. Naruto and Sasuke had overwhelming strength in the original story by the end of it, so Naruto was able to change the world a little bit, well, not really... But at least the Five Great Hidden Villages became friendly with each other, although, will it lasts after Naruto was gone? Probably not...'
'And all that was happening in the world in the absence of such overwhelmingly strong ninjas making big moves? Just a pointless struggle where not a single side of the conflict could overthrow the other factions. Five Great Hidden Villages constantly conflicting and rivaling each other, there was occasional war happening once in a decade or two, but nothing really changes...'
'Well, there is also the Akatsuki, with Nagato and Obito, with all of that being created according to Madara's plans, and with a bunch of other S-ranks, I suppose they are the strongest faction that will make the biggest moves in the future. In the original story they had captured all of the Tailed Beasts, fought against the whole world and even despite all efforts of the strong as hell Naruto and Sasuke, and the reanimated four Hokages, and the whole ninja alliance, they still wasn't able to prevent Madara's plan to reach its fruition and him becoming the Ten-Tails jinchuriki...'
'The only truly important and impactful role that Naruto and Sasuke had played in the whole story, is only when they managed to fight and re-seal Kaguya... Everything they've done and achieved before that, it wasn't much and it didn't make the difference...'
'Sasuke was being manipulated by everyone his whole life, struggling and fighting inside everyone's nets of lies and half-truths, unable to find his own true way until his final defeat to Naruto... Naruto was also struggling and fighting tooth and nail to get stronger, to prove himself to the world and to uphold his believes that he had formed along the way.'
'I do envy their strength, talent and potential. But I do not envy their paths in life. I know that I would be broken and destroyed if I were to end up in their place, without my memories of the plot. I wouldn't be able to continue to struggle and move forward no matter what, like both of them did...'
'Well, it's a good thing that I don't need to. With my broken ability, everything could be achieved without such harsh struggles. If I mess up something, I could try again. If I'm not strong enough for something, I could stay in the past until I train myself to become strong enough. And who knows, after a hundred years or two, the resilience and strength of my own character might as well just become even firmer than theirs...'
"... and now, that you understand the true meaning of the Chunin Exams, it is time to move on to the third and final phase." Hiruzen finally ended his speech, and Yuta returned from his thoughts back to reality.
"But before that..." A man in his twenties stepped forward, "... the preliminary rounds have to be conducted first. I'm Junichi Naito, the proctor of the third and final phase of the Chunin Exams" Junichi introduced himself and announced the preliminaries. Then he explained the rules for the preliminary rounds, and he also announced that from the thirty participants that made it, only twelve will move forward to the finals.
With that, the air around Yuta became very tense and everyone's expressions changed to more serious ones.
'Thirty participants and only twelve of them move on to the finals huh, that means that there is a chance that I'll have to fight twice... As long as it isn't Itachi, I should be fine...' Yuta calmly thought as he continued to stand calmly, without showing any tensions and worry, completely different from the most of the participants there.
--- AN ---
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