AN: Sorry I didn't released new chapters for a few days, it's been an intense heat wave here for days, sometimes the temperature was reaching up to +37C (98.6F), I'm barely functioning here without an AC, but the temperature is finally dropping, so it should be fine now.
(June 25th, year 54 AK)
On the small clearing with trees around it, Yuta stood in front of Hiruzen, who kept a friendly smile at all times.
"Well, Yuta, show it to me when you are ready." Hiruzen said encouragingly.
"Yes, Lord Hokage." Yuta replied respectfully.
Yuta briefly thought about doing some theatrics like clasping his hands or forming some hand seal but immediately thrown that thought away, there is no need, and he won't be doing that anyway when he activates his Calm State in the future.
So instead, Yuta just reached inside for that soothing-cold feeling and successfully channeled the Calm State without much effort.
As Yuta felt the soothing-cold feeling spread through his whole being and washed away all his emotions, his posture slightly changed into a more relaxed one and his expression became empty but focused.
Hiruzen was observing the changes in Yuta with interest.
As Yuta's mind obtained more clarity, he immediately thought over the whole situation all over again in a new light, while his feelings and emotions weren't getting in the way. Yuta immediately noticed quite a few details and nuances in Hiruzen's behavior now, such as - Hiruzen was clearly more interested in his new Bloodline than he was trying to show.
But after thinking over his decision to reveal the Calm State as some minor Bloodline awakening, Yuta didn't find any significant problem with that.
'I'm an orphan with no backing besides being on Shisui's team, but no one knows that Shisui and I have something more in common than just that, so my position is weak. That means that if my "Bloodline" raises enough interest, I might end up in someone's laboratory as a test subject. But there shouldn't be any serious problem with that, since it is unlikely to happen, considering how underwhelming my Calm State should appear to others.' Yuta's unnaturally calm mind concluded.
Yuta raised his sight and met Hiruzens eyes.
"It is active right now." Yuta stated in an emotionless tone.
"Interesting." Hiruzen said as he observed Yuta.
Hiruzen focused his chakra senses to analyze Yuta's chakra-flow and he sensed, that although Yuta's chakra amount on the surface appeared as of a promising Genin that has still some way to go until it reaches Chunin level, but under his closer look Hiruzen quickly discovered that it was just a disguise, a form of chakra suppression that ninjas often use to hide their presence. And underneath that disguise, Yuta's chakra was already comparable to a Chunin's level.
"Hm, you are using a chakra suppression technique?" Hiruzen asked in a mild surprise.
'I use it all the time to smooth out over time my abrupt chakra growth during time-loop training, by now I even maintain it when I sleep, it becomes natural. Right now, my disguise shows about 4G of chakra, and I constantly increase it over time to display natural growth. It would be suspicious, after all, if I were to exit one of my time-loop training sessions and double or triple my chakra, that would seem like it happened overnight.'
'And even if my chakra disguise to be discovered at some point, it still better than not to use it at all, and it is not a rare thing for ninjas to use it regularly, after all.'
Yuta calmly thought, but out loud he said something else.
"Yes. I had seen this technique being used by my combat evaluation examiner and by Shisui-sensei as well, so I started using it myself and it quickly became natural for me by now. I do it all the time, it became some sort of concentration training for me."
"Hm, I see, that is a commendable diligence." Hiruzen replied as he examined Yuta's chakra flow more closely.
Shortly, Hiruzen noticed that Yuta's chakra flow was unnaturally calm, and he even felt a cold feeling from it, and then he noticed that slowly but surely, Yuta's chakra was indeed being drained, it's being constantly used up form something. After Hiruzen saw that, he confirmed that the Calm State Yuta was using is indeed nothing else than a Bloodline ability, it can't be anything else at this point in his understanding.
Hiruzen withdrew his chakra senses and looked at Yuta in the eyes, analyzing the effects of the Calm State.
But the more Hiruzen looked in the eyes of the eight-years-old kid in front of him, the more uncomfortable and unsettling he felt, that cold and emotionless look, that was also strangely focused and calculating, it wasn't something that any kid should possess, or any human being at all, it felt deeply wrong, inhumane, alien...
"Okay, that's enough." Hiruzen finally said after a while of observation.
Yuta immediately canceled the Calm State, and his emotions gradually returned to him.
As Hiruzen saw that Yuta returned to his previous self completely, he said, "How are you feeling now, is everything fine?"
"Yes, Lord Hokage, I feel the same as always." Yuta replied, being a bit surprised about why Hiruzen would ask something like that.
"And you remember everything that happened during that Calm State of yours?" Hiruzen asked a bit worriedly.
"Yes, of course, it was me, after all, just without any emotions, that's all."
"I see. So, you also remember clearly about everything that happened during your fight on your mission?"
"Yes, every detail." Yuta replied as his posture and expression stiffened.
A quick series of flashbacks quickly ran through his vision, three kunai, thrown by his hand sinking deep into the necks of the three ninjas, blood spurts, then gory explosion, blood and flesh pieces flying everywhere, then kunai in his hand being pushed deep into the heart of his enemy, the texture of slicing skin, muscles and bones and heart that he felt through the handle, then the tip of Hikari's sword suddenly surfacing from the chest of his last enemy, the look in the eyes of his last enemy before he died...
"I remember all of it, but I prefer not to think about it." Yuta said after a brief pause.
"Sigh." Hiruzen sighed slightly relieved, "I see. What you did back then, you did it to protect the village, don't blame yourself for any of that."
"Yes, Lord Hokage."
After a few seconds of contemplation, Hiruzen said, "I saw enough of this new ability of yours, it's quite something. But I would ask you not to rely on it too much. Sometimes feelings gets in the way of a mission and in the Academy we teach to suppress them, that is true, but your Calm State is too drastic, it not just suppresses emotions, it cuts them off completely, it doesn't look right, and it might twist your judgement in the crucial moment into the wrong path."
'Ah, I see, he is worried that I will activate Calm State, and in the pinch, I might easily decide to sacrifice my teammates for a mission or something like that. Well, he has a point there, if I were just a regular ninja without time-travel, then I would've might just do something like that with Calm State active, that is possible. But it's not like sacrificing teammates for a mission is something unthinkable in this village, it happens all the time...' Yuta thought.
"I understand, Lord Hokage." Yuta replied respectfully.
"Good, good. Now then, I still have a lot of work to do, so I should go." Hiruzen said and walked away, leaving Yuta alone.
'Well, everything should be fine, right?' Yuta thought one last time before dismissing the whole situation from his mind.
Yuta went back to his usual training grounds after that and resumed his training session.
After a couple hours of intense physical exercises, Yuta calmed down a little and sat by the lake while recounting his previous battle in detail. In that battle, Yuta had found out a lot about his own strengths and weaknesses. He realized that a fight like that, against stronger opponents, is the best way to understand his own strength and where exactly he stood on the power scales.
'My biggest weakness during that fight was my lack of chakra no doubt.' Yuta analyzed, 'Each of my opponents had more chakra than me, and that made it much more difficult to affect them with genjutsu on my part. My subtle type genjutsu – Shadow Cloak worked fine on such opponents, but it costed more chakra and effort to affect them, but it can't be said the same about my forceful type genjutsu – Shadow Chains, I barely managed to affect that one ninja with it, and I was only able to maintain it for just a second or two...'
'Also, if I had more chakra left at the end, I would've dealt with the last enemy without much problem too. That guy in the end, although he already figured out that I was using genjutsu, that knowledge wouldn't help him if I were to use Shadow Chains on him, immobilizing him for a second or two, just enough to throw a kunai into his head. But using Shadow Cloak when the enemy is already knows about it – it becomes tricky...'
'This chakra problem of mine will fix itself with time though, and I could just go into the time-loop and train for a year or two, that will improve my chakra further.'
'Right now, I feel like my chakra had reached about 1C thought, although before the mission it was just slightly above 8G. It seems like it has improved quite significantly somehow in the past couple of days. Maybe it's because of me experiencing the real life-and-death battle for the first time? After all, most of my chakra comes from my spiritual energy, and spiritual energy comes from the soul, mind, knowledge and experience, so going through such an intense experience could've increased my chakra this much, it is possible...'
'Well, chakra problem is something I was aware of and it isn't' something that I should focus fixing right now, it will grow over time as it always did up until now, I just train some skill or a jutsu and it grows gradually over time.'
'As of my other weaknesses that has being revealed during the battle, there was quite a few of them and I should work to solve them as soon as possible...'