(June, year 54 AK)
After leaving the Hokage Tower and saying goodbye to everyone, Yuta went home. He took care of his clothes and tools after the mission and rested for the day, recovering after all that happened.
At first, Yuta was thinking about checking at the Hospital about his injured back, but after almost two days of moving he felt that it was just a big bruise and the bones are all fine, so he didn't need medics to recover from that in just a couple more days, and remembering how he was locked in the Hospital for days the last time he was there, Yuta didn't wanted to get stuck there again.
Later that day, when Yuta was laying in his bed, he thought about all that happened. This whole mission came so suddenly and happened to be so intense that Yuta had a hard time believing it was all true.
'It was Ao from Kiri, the guy with the stolen Byakugan eye, huh...' Yuta thought, 'His moves and his ninjutsu, it was so fast, it was too fast in fact. If not for others dragging me back, all I would be able to do in that situation is to just retreat through the time-travel... Is this the level of a Jonin? No, I think it's more than that. Kiri has a lot of Jonins, it's the one of the five great hidden villages after all, but Ao always stood out in the original story, he might be an elite Jonin...'
...
'Could I ever be able to fight against someone like him? Will my body be able to reach that level of speed?'
...
'And that was just an elite Jonin. By the time my body reaches the age of twenty, the Fourth Great Ninja War is supposed to start, and during that – elite Jonins would be just a cannon fodder... Someone like Ao, who is an insurmountable mountain for me right now, would be like an ant in the face of true powerhouses of this world... Damn, I known all of this from the beginning, but only now did I get some perspective of the true scale of things...'
...
'If not for my time-travel, I would be starting panicking and get all anxious right about now, but with the time-travel I have all the time I need to reach that level of power. Whatever it takes, decades or centuries, I'm not in a hurry.'
'Even my weak physical body could be fixed eventually as well. There are things like Hashirama's cells, Kabuto's body modifications, Orochimaru's body-snatching technique, Chimera technique, and who knows how many other ways to do this, that exists in the world... And I don't have to settle for an ugly and half-backed solutions like everyone else, I have unlimited time to perfect and hand-tailor that stuff for myself, and I also have unlimited tries to experiment with my own body and to revert the changes if it goes bad after all.'
...
'Well, I sure dream big, especially for a Genin who only knows how to do a couple genjutsus and whose chakra is barely reaching a Chunin level. But whatever. One step at a time and all that.'
With that thought, Yuta was finally able to relax and quickly fell asleep. The next day Yuta after quick breakfast went to his usual training spot by the lake, his body still felt a bit heavy after the mission and all the fighting and exhaustion, his muscles ached and his back was still hurt, but he felt much better than the last night already.
'Well, today is a day off and Shisui said I should rest and recover, but I'm fine, more or less, the bruise and muscle strains are not that bad, just a minor inconvenience, no need to skip the daily training because of that.' Yuta thought as he reached the training ground with the small lake in the center and started his usual warmup.
But before Yuta was able to start with his usual training routine properly, he felt with his chakra senses that someone is running fast in his direction, chakra signature was unknown.
'Huh, who that might be...' Yuta thought a bit startled and raised his guard, preparing for anything. Yuta just had returned from an intense and dangerous mission, so his nerves are still tight, and he was on guard against anything unusual.
Next instant a man in ANBU attire flickered in front of him, he wore usual ANBU black clothes with exposed shoulders, and he had an ANBU tattoo on his shoulder, he wore a gray west and a white ANBU mask with animal paint on it.
"Yuta Arai? The Hokage had summoned you." The man immediately said calmly and as Yuta replied "Understood." The man flickered away without saying anything else.
'That's new, usually it was Shisui who was taking me to the Hokage...' Yuta thought a bit startled as he started running towards the Hokage Tower to not waste any time.
'I'm just a Genin, the lowest ninja rank in the system, there are thousands of Genins in the village, normally Hokage won't summon some lowly Genin like that. The only possible explanation is the last mission. Should I be worried? I used Calm State and during the fight I used some gory methods, those were efficient, but it is not what a fresh Genin like me would do, am I in trouble now?'
...
Shortly after, a bit nervous Yuta hurriedly arrived at the Hokage Tower and went straight to the Hokage's office, as he was almost there, he saw someone familiar approaching the office too.
"Hikari? You were summoned too?" Yuta said, surprised, "Then where is Itachi and Shisui?" Yuta asked as he looked around, but he didn't see anyone else.
"I don't know, I was just summoned here." Hikari replied calmly, but Yuta was able to notice that Hikari was also a bit nervous, "Let's go." Hikari said and knocked on the Hokage's office door.
"Come in." Yuta heard Hiruzen's voice from inside.
They opened the door and walked in.
Yuta's mind immediately went overdrive and he tried his best to appear calm and keep his intense feelings from showing on his face as he saw who was inside the office beside Hiruzen.
Yuta only looked at him briefly and returned his gaze back to Hiruzen, as if he didn't recognize the man, but inside Yuta became tense and uneasy.
'Danzo, what is he doing here?!' Yuta thought worriedly, but outside he acted calm and natural, and as he and Hikari went inside the office, both of them immediately bowed to the Hokage and said respectfully, following the protocol, "Lord Hokage."
"Ah, Hikari, Yuta, no need for formalities." Hiruzen said friendly with a kind smile, but nevertheless he only said it a second after both Hikari and Yuta bowed and greeted him.
As Hikari and Yuta raised their heads and looked at Hiruzen, he continued in the same friendly manner, "During the last mission both of you performed exceptionally. Did you rest well?"
"Yes, Lord Hokage." Yuta and Hikari replied.
'What is going on here? And why is Danzo here?' Yuta thought, although his mind was overloaded with questions, he wasn't able to figure out the situation just yet.
"Good, good." Hiruzen continued, "Considering your remarkable performance during the last mission, a rare opportunity has opened up for you. You are allowed to join the ANBU."
As soon as Hiruzen finished speaking, Danzo immediately said with seriousness and finality in his tone, "Both of you are joining my ANBU division and will be under my direct authority. From now on, you are under my command, follow me."
As he said that, he was about to leave the office.
'What?! His ANBU division?! That means Root, isn't it?!' Yuta thought, as he felt as if he was falling into the abyss, 'Calm down, stop panicking!' Yuta said to himself, 'I'm not going to join Root, I don't want to, and it's too dangerous, so what should I do? I still have the time-travel, so worst case scenario – I would time-travel and fix everything by changing the events that had led to this.'
...
'But what had led to this was my performance during the mission, and Hikari is in it as well... Should I re-do the mission but without drawing too much attention to myself? No, that is not possible, I had to fight tooth and nail just to survive, I can't afford to do any less than that or I die... And also, even if I find a way to avoid attention and Root recruitment myself, there is still Hikari, as long as she is there, she will draw Danzo's attention as well... What to do?'
...
'Maybe avoid the mission altogether? It's not like Shisui was in need of our help anyway, right? I should go back to the point where Shisui was summoned by the Hokage and convince Hikari to not try to follow Shisui, or I could tell Shisui that we shouldn't follow him on this mission, he should understand, yes, that should do it. Shisui will complete the mission with Shinji and the others easily and we will avoid Danzo's attention and being sold out to the Root like that... Sigh... Hiruzen handed us over to Danzo just like that... What did I expect from this old man...'
...
--- AN ---
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