(late-June, year 52 AK)
"I believe you." Itachi said and put away his kunai, the coldness was gone from his voice.
"Huh, just like that, isn't it too easy?" Yuta blurted out, perplexed by how Itachi switched from a cold and threatening demeanor to a friendly one so suddenly.
"I'm sure that you are telling the truth." Itachi calmly replied, "What did you meant by Uchiha clan's destruction?"
'It is too early to talk about that...' Yuta thought as he hurriedly thought of a way to explain things to Itachi, and what exactly he wanted to achieve with this conversation.
"I can't say much right now, I can only assure you that there is still time, it won't happen in the next five years or so. What I wanted to talk about today is something else, and it's something that is more urgent."
"I see." Itachi said as he visibly relaxed a little after hearing about the five-years' time.
"I wanted to tell you about the one of the Sannin – Orochimaru." Yuta continued with his initial plan to utilize this piece of information to win Itachi's trust, "Eighteen days from now, Orochimaru will betray the village and defect."
"What!? It can't be true!" Itachi was shocked to hear that, he knew full well who Orochimaru is and he even talked with him personally, he couldn't believe that a renowned war hero like Orochimaru could betray the village, it makes no sense to him, "And how you could possibly know about something like that!?"
"Sigh, I can't tell you that." Yuta sighed tiredly and looked Itachi in the eyes with confidence "But I can assure you it's nothing like you could imagine, I'm not a spy or anything like that."
"Then, if you sure your intel is correct, it must be reported to the Hokage immediately!" Itachi declared with urgency.
"It can't be reported to the Hokage. I can't explain why, but if I report it to the higher-ups, it will lead to a disaster." Yuta said with confidence.
'Yea, a disaster named – a piece of trash Danzo, to be exact, as whatever could happen between me and the higher-ups if this intel got leaked, the biggest problem would sure be - that thrash Danzo, but let's skip the unnecessary details...'
"And I don't think this can be prevented, it will happen anyway." Yuta continued, "I'm only telling you this, to be honest, just because this intel will be confirmed soon, and this way I would earn your trust."
...
'Maybe I spoke too openly, the last part shouldn't be said out loud, my bad, I just dropped the act and spoke openly, since it was working, and I can't think too much about what I'm saying or it won't appear as genuine as it should...' Yuta thought with some regret.
"How you even know all this... Right, you can't explain that to me..." Itachi was at a loss.
"Just know this, Itachi, if this intel got leaked and connected back to me, then I will die for sure. And in that case, there won't be anyone to prevent the Uchiha clan's destruction in the future, I can't explain why, but trust me on this, only I can do something about it. I can't explain everything to you right now, but all I already said is the absolute truth!"
"I see..." Itachi was at a loss, "Let's talk about this after... After eighteen days." After saying that, Itachi immediately disappeared from where he stood, nowhere to be seen.
Yuta looked around and after he didn't see Itachi anywhere, he went home. As he walked through the streets of Konoha, he thought, 'It didn't go as planned at all, but somehow, it ended the way I initially planned. Itachi now knows about Orochimaru's defection and after it happens, he will know that I meant business and not just speak nonsense. If Orochimaru's part is true, then the Uchiha clan's destruction part will be confirmed for Itachi as well.'
...
'I didn't expect him to pull a kunai and go all menacing like that though, I was a bit startled for a moment. Could've he really kill me just like that, just because I said something? Just because of a supposed threat to his beloved little brother Sasuke? Now that I think about it, it seems possible, and if he would've tried to kill me, would I really be able to pull the time-travel fast enough?'
...
'Did I really just risk my life right now?! I was sure that everything is under control, but maybe it wasn't...'
'How fast can I initiate the time-travel anyway? I can enter the mindscape in an instant, but then there is some time required to start it. Wait a second, I remember in the anime there is some long conversations happening all the time inside Naruto's mindscape, while outside it didn't take any time at all...'
Yuta was exited to test his new theory immediately, he stopped at a sideline of the street and looked at the first person who attracted his attention, it was a middle-aged man who walked straight down the street with a constant speed.
Yuta watched the man and remembered his speed, his current location and the direction the man was walking. Then Yuta entered his mindscape and started counting seconds all the way to sixty. After a whole minute passed in his mindscape, Yuta exited it and went back.
He opened his eyes and observed the street and immediately found the man he observed before, he was surprised to find out that said man was only able to make a step or two while the whole minute passed in the Yuta's mindscape.
'Amazing!' Yuta thought excitedly, 'I need a clock with a second hand to measure it more precisely, but it is already evident that the time inside my mindscape flows much faster than in the real world! That means that as long as I'm able to enter the mindscape, I will have enough time to initiate the time-travel! And it only takes an instant to do so!'
After making this discovery, Yuta felt much more at ease now. Now he knows that it was very hard to get rid of him, as that would require to kill him instantly, so he wouldn't have an opportunity to react and enter his mindscape to initiate the time-travel.
And since no one knows about this, no one will take him seriously and try to kill him in a special way in an instant.
Yuta resumed his normal routine, went home, cooked food for dinner, as well for breakfast and lunch for the next day, and went to train after dinner.
As he reached his usual training grounds with a lake, he proceeded with his Water-Walking exercise. It was quite a while since he started to regularly practice it, and recently he was doing better and better, he could already stand on the surface without falling into the water.
Although walking is still quite hard for him and required his whole concentration to properly shift the chakra flow in sync with the shifting weight whenever he was making a step. As well as the amount of chakra he has to concentrate is still quite big for him to master the control of such an amount of it completely.
After ten minutes of performing the exercise, Yuta felt that his chakra was significantly depleted and he couldn't continue with the exercise any longer, so he proceeded with his normal workout instead.
After his normal workout, feeling quite exhausted, Yuta pulled a couple of kunai from his bag. He found those kunai abandoned at the training grounds. Yuta specifically went to find frequently used training grounds closer to the center of the village and explored it when there was no one there and found some kunai and shurikens.
He was thinking about buying his own stuff, but then decided not to, as he was always short on money and thought it would be a waste to buy stuff that he could just find lying on the ground.
Sure, the kunai and shurikens are a bit used, and some of them had a little chip on the blades, but they were still perfectly usable for training purposes.
Yuta scratched a circle on the big tree nearby with a kunai and proceeded to practice throwing kunai and shurikens into the makeshift target. Time went by and soon it was already dark, and Yuta packed up his ninja tools and went back home.
As he was walking, he thought, 'Although my aim is improving steadily, there is nothing much I could do with the speed and strength behind my throws. My physique is improving very slowly, and even if I push myself much harder during the workouts, it won't help much, I already tried that back in the orphanage.'
...
'Let's be real, my physique is nothing special, I won't become a Rock Lee and scream "Youth!" no matter how hard I train. Although with my hard work I am physically stronger now than half of the students in my class, most of those who are from powerful clans are much stronger and faster than me. And not only that, but they also improve their physical strength faster than me and the gap widens...'
'Sigh... Well, physical strength is not going to be my forte, is it? Rather than hopelessly trying to fix something that can't be fixed, I should focus on my strong skills instead.'
'And what is my strong skills exactly?'
...
'It should be everything that is spiritual energy – related, right? Genjutsu, huh, it wasn't much in the anime, and on the high-level combat it was useless completely from what I remember, especially useless when the user doesn't have a genjutsu-related bloodline, like Kurenai...'
'Well, I could at least try to make it work, it's not like I would ever regret wasting time on it anyway, as I have all the time in the world, could that be considered a genjutsu-related bloodline substitute I wonder...'
--- AN ---
As you could've probably guessed already, Yuta won't be another all-rounder ninja, winning fights just by throwing punches and poking everyone with a kunai, he would have to rack his brains and be smart and creative about it if he wants to win fights.
I personally like how the fights go in the original anime, and somewhat dislike when those aspects of it, where the information is the key to victory, where completely abandoned in most Naruto fics I read. Let me know what you think about it in the comments.
If you like the fic, please consider supporting me on patreon - currently there are 5 advanced chapters on Patreon (patreon dot com /SycoreNovels).
Thanks to Loalola, Dylan_Cardenas_843, Jayroy_63, waltersaaron16 and Denuncia for the power stones! Last week we got 34 stones at the end of the week, this time it's 46, with this progression we should be able to reach the top200 next week!
New schedule for updates - new chapter each day(hopefully), at 9 PM EST.