(June, year 54 AK)
In the middle of the forest, among the trees, stood an eight-year-old boy in simple black clothes that were dirtied and a bit torn up. He had a Konoha leaf symbol on his ninja headband, the ninja tool pouch on his waist was nearly empty, the kid stood shakily, he breathed heavily, his face was covered in sweat, his shaky hand holds a kunai with a firm grip in front of himself in a fighting stance, and his eyes were cold and emotionless, his eyes were dead-locked on his enemy in front of him with an unnatural clarity in them.
In front of the boy stood a man in his thirties, he wore gray ninja clothes that were slightly charred from the previous explosion, and a covered ninja headband so the symbol on it wasn't visible. The man looked at the boy in front of him with hatred, but there were also the shock and uneasiness that were growing steadily in the depts of his heart.
...
Shigeru briefly glanced back and saw that his comrade Takuma was lying on the ground with a kunai in his chest, his heart was pierced by it. He looked back at Yuta and said gravely, "You will pay for this!"
But as Shigeru said that, the uneasiness was starting to grow roots into his heart, and the source of it was the kid himself. Shigeru wasn't able to accept the reality where the eight-year-old kid was able to ruthlessly slaughter five experienced Chunins from his platoon. And now that kid was standing in front of him in an obvious state of extreme exhaustion, but his eyes... His eyes were cold and unwavering, like if those eyes do not belong to a kid or a human being at all, but to an inhumane monster and all humane feeling and emotions are completely alien to him. Fear, pain, despair, tiredness, it was like nothing of the sort even existed to him, Shigeru thought.
The uneasiness inside Shigeru's heart grew into uncertainty, and uncertainty grew into fear. But Shigeru was an experienced Chunin after all, he had faced death multiple times and saw his share of darkness, he quickly suppressed his abnormal emotions and faced the kid with determination to end him and avenge his comrades.
"I don't know who or what you are, but you are going to die here!" Shigeru said as he pulled a kunai and run straight at Yuta.
'"what you are..."? Did he lose his mind or something...' Yuta thought absentmindedly as he prepared to defend himself, 'I dealt with five of them and there is only one left, if only I had a bit more chakra... Sadly, but it really seemed to me that I will have to return into the past and train some more, after all...'
Yuta used a bit of chakra to straighten his muscles and speed up his movements, and blocked Shigeru's kunai with his own. Shigeru was attacking relentlessly and Yuta was forced into the defensive position immediately. All Yuta was able to do in this situation is to block, deflect and dodge Shigeru's attacks, pushed to the absolute limits of his abilities.
Afte just a couple of seconds in this taijutsu clash Yuta realized that he was severely outmatched, and he can't allow it to continue like that, even the slightest mistake will result in him dying here.
Yuta blocked Shigeru's kunai with his own again, then he immediately jumped back avoiding Shigeru's follow-up kick to the chest, as he did that, Yuta's concentration had wavered as if he was momentarily distracted from the fight. Shigeru, seeing an opening, immediately closed in on Yuta with another kunai strike, and this time he managed to successfully plunge his kunai deep into Yuta's chest.
But the feeling from the kunai that Shigeru felt through the kunai's handle wasn't the one of the slicing through flesh and bones, but rather of striking something hard and solid. Shigeru instantly realized what happened, and the puff of smoke confirmed his assumptions, as Yuta in front of him turned out to be just a wooden log.
'Substitution jutsu, and so flawlessly executed, without any hand seals at that...' Shigeru thought as he looked around.
When Shigeru didn't find Yuta immediately, he looked at the ground, and soon he found the footprints nearby and quickly followed them.
...
Soon after, as Yuta was running and hiding in the forest, he sensed Shigeru closing in on him with his chakra senses.
'Well, so much for that, I guess...' Yuta thought tiredly, 'I have almost no chakra left, I'll soon collapse if it goes much longer. And that guy has almost full chakra reserves...'
...
As Shigeru was quickly following the trail, he spotted the kid in the distance among the trees, running away from him, but as he ran after him, he immediately stopped, as he spotted another identical kid in another direction, and then another one in a different place, and another one behind him, all of them were running from him.
'Using clones to fool me? Useless...' Shigeru thought as he ignored the clones and looked at the ground, intending to continue following the trail.
But he didn't know that Yuta had circled back, and the one that was behind Shigeru wasn't a clone but the real Yuta, and as Shigeru looked at the footprints on the ground and continued to follow them, multiple things happened at once.
As Shigeru made another step, he heard a quiet sizzling of the paper tag bomb, but as he was about to jump away from the spot, he sensed some movement from behind and as he glanced back, he saw Yuta who thrown a bunch of shurikens in his direction.
Shigeru's trained eyes quickly estimated the trajectories of the shurikens and he noticed that none of them will hit him, the kid missed, but then as he was about to jump away from the paper bomb trap he was triggered a moment ago, he realized that all of the ways out were sealed by the shurikens trajectories, no matter which direction he picks, he will be hit by at least one of them.
But there was no time to think as the few precious moments were already wasted by this point, and Shigeru's ninja instincts kicked in and he jumped away from the trap anyway, as he jumped, he covered his face and the neck by his left hand, and his vital organs with his right hand since there was no time to deflect the shurikens properly, and as he was flying through the air, one of the shurikens struck him in his right wrist, damaging it severely to the point, that the kunai that Shigeru was holding in his right hand had dropped to the ground, his right hand won't be able to hold a weapon anymore, Shigeru realized.
The explosion went off, but Shigeru was already far enough, so the blast only pushed him a little, without causing any injuries.
Shigeru quickly stood up and looked in Yuta's direction but didn't see him, Yuta had escaped again. He looked at his partially charred clothes, his injured and bleeding hands, his left palm was still bleeding from the shuriken from before, and his right wrist was severely injured to the point that hir right hand become useless, the shuriken was plunged deep into his wrist and was still there, but Shigeru didn't pull it out since it would cause severe bleeding, and he doesn't have time to stop it properly, he has to kill the monster kid no matter what, Shigeru thought with resolve.
...
Yuta was running away on the last bits of his strength, in the previous confrontation he had squeezed almost last drops of his chakra for the Clone jutsu for a distraction, and he already knew, that he won't be able to use any jutsu anymore, even more so, very soon he will be forced to cancel the Calm State, since he won't have enough chakra to maintain it. And he still needs to keep in reserve enough spiritual energy to time-travel at least eight hours into the past, although to time-travel for only eight hours he doesn't need that much of it, since his full amount of spiritual energy is enough to time-travel for three months by now, so to time-travel eight hours back he only needs less than a half of a percent of his spiritual energy.
Soon, Yuta sensed Shigeru that was closing in on him again.
Yuta stopped running and turned around, kunai in hand, ready to fight, although it was all for show, Yuta knew that at this point it was better not to risk it any more than he already did, and the moment Shigeru will launch his attack on him, Yuta was ready to time-travel, since he wasn't confident that he would be able to struggle through this fight any longer than that.
Shigeru showed up after a few seconds and stood in front of Yuta, he noticed how Yuta's exhaustion had reached an extreme state, Shigeru wasn't sure how the kid was even able to stay conscious in such a state, but when Shigeru looked Yuta in the eyes, he saw the same cold and emotionless look in the kid's eyes as before, no fear, no hesitation, no despair, no pain, only a cold and unnaturally emotionless gaze in the kid's blue eyes, that look felt deeply wrong and inhumane to Shigeru.
"Time to die, you freak!" Shigeru said with resentment and stepped forward, he felt a wide range of intense emotions, but among them the hatred for the freak kid stood at the top, and he was so riled up and focused on the kid in front of him and on his desire to kill him, that he didn't pay much attention to his surroundings at this moment.
...
But as Shigeru stepped forward, suddenly a sword exited from his chest as someone had pierced him with a sword from behind.
"Hughhh... Who..." That was the last thing he said, Shigeru, the Chunin of Kirigakure, as he fell forward and died, unable to see the person who killed him.
And as Shigeru fell, Yuta finally was able to see the person that stood behind Shigeru.
"Took you long enough..." Yuta said tiredly as he lowered his kunai.
--- AN ---
Sorry for being away longer than I said in the comments, I was busy and it took longer than I expected but I'm back now, I'm resuming the daily updates now.
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