(5th of July, year 55 AK)
As Yuta was leaving the arena, he didn't see how Keiko nervously rubbed her neck where the kunai was pressing a moment ago.
'What is the deal with this freak...' Keiko thought nervously with a bit of fear still lingering in her heart as she remembered the unnatural and unnerving look in Yuta's eyes.
On his way back Yuta unhurriedly swallowed the pill Keiko gave him. He wasn't very worried about being drugged by the poison specialist. If he notices anything suspicious after swallowing the pill, he would just time-travel to fix it. After all, the pill could only affect his body, and as long as his soul is intact, he still could time-travel and fix whatever, or so he believed.
Also, after everyone saw how she gave him the pill in the middle of the arena, if there was something wrong with it, there would be a serious political incident, and Yuta didn't believe that a ninja from a minor hidden village would dare to cause something like that with the one of the five great hidden villages.
"Nice fight." Hikari commented as Yuta returned to the group, then as she looked at Yuta more closely, she said with a bit of suspicion, "Hey, what's up with your eyes again? It's like that time during the fight with those intruders a few months ago." She said obviously hinting at their clash against the Mist ninjas a long time ago when she saw Yuta with the same eyes when he was using the Calm State, but since there are a lot of people present, she didn't say the details directly.
Yuta, feeling how the antidote began working and the pain had already started to subside, he canceled the Calm State and his emotions returned.
As his emotions returned, he immediately felt embarrassment for using simple clones and the fake hand seal like that in the arena while everyone was watching. At that moment he calculated that it was appropriate to use some fake moves and some unnecessary jutsu to distract everyone from his real trump card – the genjutsu, but now he felt a bit embarrassed for those moves, as he realized that there was plenty of experienced ninjas in the room who probably saw right thought him at a glance. And in the eyes of those experienced ninjas he was probably looking like a clown that was throwing some fake moves like that when he could've just finished the fight directly, faster and easier, or so Yuta felt at this moment.
Yuta shook his head while clearing up his mind and suppressing his emotions. He knew that the moment he cancels the Calm State, his emotions tend to be a bit overwhelming for a while, so he made an effort to suppress them.
He finally looked back at Hikari and answered casually, "I thought I already told you about it after that fight on the backyard of that mansion..." Yuta hinted on their fight against the Stone village's Jonin, since that was the only fight involving the backyard of any mansion that they had so far.
"Ah, so that what it is... You never told me the specifics thought..." Hikari said with a tinge of disappointment in her voice.
"It's nothing special, you already saw pretty much everything." Yuta said as he leaned onto the handrails and watched as another fight was about to start.
Yuta wasn't about to discuss the specifics of his Calm State that he passes as his Kekkei Genkai in the middle of the crowd of the experienced ninjas, where the concept of privacy does not exist.
"Well, if you say so." Hikari said and also looked into the arena.
It wasn't like Yuta was unwilling to share the details about his supposed Kekkei Genkai with Hikari, but still, she didn't share anything about her own newly awakened bloodline either.
All Yuta knew about her Kekkei Genkai is that it could cut someone remotely, pretty much it was all that he saw that day when she used it against the Stone village's Jonin.
'Could it cut someone further away from her?' Yuta thought about Hikari's Kekkei Genkai and the mere thought about something this dangerous had put a sense of uneasiness even into someone like him, 'The attack that could suddenly cut even an experienced Jonin's wrist clean off, without the need of hand seals or long preparations. The attack so discreet and concealed that even a Jonin wasn't able to notice it in time. The attack that is so fast that even a Jonin wasn't able to react and dodge it in time...'
'No, I shouldn't overestimate her new Bloodline ability this much...' Yuta thought after a moment of contemplation about Hikari's Kekkei Genkai, 'For all I know it is possible that for her ability to activate she has to touch her target through her blade. That Jonin's wrist was cut off only after her blade slightly grazed him, besides, something so dangerous and uncounterable shouldn't exist in this world as a mere Kekkei Genkai of a Chunin-level ninja...'
As Yuta was thinking about it while watching a quite underwhelming fight on the arena between the two Chunin-level opponents, he felt as the pain in his body had completely faded. He examined what he felt from his entire body and felt that there nothing was off, his muscles were sore after a strain of being pushed beyond their limits by chakra, but that was about it.
Yuta examined the chakra flow in his own chakra network and found nothing off there either. He had spent about 17G of chakra from start to finish during that fight, having about 40G left, and his chakra flow felt calm and natural. At that point he deduced that there was nothing wrong with the antidote Keiko gave him, at least nothing he could detect, and if there is something, then it would be detected on his next checkup in the Hospital after the second phase of the Chunin Exams ends, so he put that matter aside, lowering his guard only now.
'Although Keiko's chakra strength was only about 1.8C, I had underestimated her quite a lot. A poison specialist, huh...' Yuta's thoughts wandered back to his last fight, 'Her taijutsu was subpar, I guess it is somewhat on the average Chunin's level, I was only struggling because my taijutsu being even worse...'
'But the poison that she coated her shurikens with, that was an interesting move. The poison that could affect a person just from the scattered airborne particles without the need to be delivered into the target's bloodstream through a wound is quite something. Although the amount I had inhaled was not much, it was still enough to induce pain throughout my whole body, and with such intensity...'
'I had studied the subject of poisons a lot during my Academy years, but there is not much about airborne poisons like that in the materials I had read. General knowledge about such poisons says that they couldn't be too potent and too lethal, since being delivered to the organism through the respiratory system, especially in such a small quantities, is less effective than when the poison enters the bloodstream directly, but I guess in each rule there are exceptions... And I'm still not knowledgeable enough in the subject of poisons to begin with...'
'Still, using just pain? Sure, it could take out Genins, probably some Chunins, but more hardened and experienced ninjas should be able to handle something like that... Even without my Calm State I was able to still stand and fight, and I'm not seeing myself as a hardened type ninja that could withstand any suffering with a smile... Yea, that poison is not that special as she thinks...' Yuta concluded.
Although in reality it wasn't that Keiko's poison was weak, it was he who was an anomaly in regard to ignoring pain. But no one knew what he was thinking about at the moment and no one came to correct him on his error, so Yuta remained oblivious about it for the time being.
'She did try to cast some jutsu in the end though, but it was already too late at that moment, and I wasn't about to stop my own move just to see what else she is capable of. She could only blame herself for not using that jutsu earlier, whatever that jutsu was.'
'Sigh, I was quite excited to have to fight an opponent who clearly stood above the rest in terms of chakra strength, but all I've got is some taijutsu exchanges and a pain inducing poison to the face... If I wanted, I could've ended the fight in just a second or two from the very beginning. One cast of Shadow Chains and it would've been all over for her in an instant...'
'Although I would prefer not to reveal my Shadow Chains at all during these exams. Whatever is used during finals inside the public arena – would soon become public knowledge. And giving away such a crucial intel about myself as me having a genjutsu of the forceful type that could outright paralyze anyone up to Jonin level, barely including the weaker Jonins too... If this intel would go public, everyone would be much more cautious in a fight against me.'
'It is one thing for everyone to get to know that they were dealing with a genjutsu specialist, there are countermeasures and ways to deal with such opponents. But if every one where to get to know that I'm a genjutsu specialist that could use so potent and forceful genjutsu that could outright paralyze anyone up to a Jonin level like that, with almost no chance of breaking it from inside?'
'Everyone will instantly become very cautious around me, and it would be much harder to catch someone off guard...'
'But, I guess it's inevitable that I will have to fight either Itachi or Hikari in the finals, and going against them without my strongest jutsu? That would be like directly asking for a beating...'
Yuta sighed tiredly as he thought about his potential fight against his two teammates in the near future. At this moment he thought that it would be for the better if Itachi will fight Hikari first and defeat her, and after that Yuta could just quickly lose to Itachi, since there is no beating Itachi for him anyway, or so he thought, and keeping his Shadow Chains jutsu a secret this way without using it in public whatsoever.
'Well, there is still another possibility that exists, I guess. I could develop something completely new before finals to fight Hikari instead of using my Shadow Chains that I'm so unwilling to reveal to the public... Although the long training session in a time-loop might trigger my energies imbalance side effects again, but it shouldn't be that bad, almost a year had passed since the last time and my physical body had become somewhat stronger, so I should be able to handle it.'
--- 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 FoolishJester, FebriGonzales, Denuncia, Krishna_Razz, Jayroy_63 for the power stones.