Preliminary Ends, Finals Starts

Yuta's opponent, the adult looking guy from Ame, pulled a dozen shurikens and thrown them at Yuta while continuing his move by weaving hand seals.

Yuta observing his opponent recognized hand seals for water bullet jutsu, he dodged the shurikens by jumping to the side and waiving hand seals in the process for his own water bullet jutsu that he created by modifying the water ball D-rank jutsu.

Yuta used only two hand seals instead of five like the Ame guy, but the jutsus that they both used were pretty much similar as both of them shot a series of three water bullets that canceled each other in the middle between them.

'I decided to only use ninjutsu for around 30% of my current power and no genjutsu and fuinjutsu for this exam, explosive tags didn't count, if I would use my full strength in ninjutsu with water bullet jutsu here I would have already won…' Yuta thought while observing his opponent, waiting to see what else he has to show.

After that Ame guy clicked his tongue and proceeded to perform another series of hand seals, Yuta seeing another water release jutsu being performed, thrown a couple shurikens at his opponent.

Before Yuta's shurikens connected with his opponent, the Ame guy managed to complete the jutsu and dodge the shurikens in the last moment, as the arena starts filling in the thick mist.

'Hiding in the Mist jutsu that is Kirigakure's specialty, why the Ame guy using it? It supposed to work in pair with the Silent Killing technique of Kiri, but I doubt this guy are proficient in it, maybe he just a sensor and trying to take advantage with that…'

And shortly after the mist covered the arena Yuta felt a sensory technique being used on him from the area where his opponent is supposed to be.

Sensing that Yuta instantly created a shadow clone beside him and hid his own chakra, using shadow clone as substitute.

'Hm… let's make him regret his choices…' Yuta thought while silently moving away from his shadow clone, while shadow clone pulled out an explosion tag secretly and waited for his opponent to show up.

Yuta didn't use his sensory technique at all, as it impossible to use it along with chakra hiding technique, and his clone didn't use any of those techniques, waiting.

Shortly after Yuta's shadow clone sensed the movement and chakra fluctuations from his side, as Ame guy performing another water release jutsu to attack him, shadow clone performed a water wall jutsu pouring a large amount of water from his mouth to protect himself from the attack while he run to the opponent to close the distance shortly after.

The water wall easily protected shadow clone and being canceled right after that, shadow clone closing a distance to his opponent and now seeing the Ame guy ten meters away from him, shadow clone flickered right in front of him.

Usually such tactic is too dangerous, as Yuta feel dizzy for a moment after body flicker jutsu, but in this case it doesn't matter, as shadow clone just instantly exploded his long-prepared explosive tag and Ame guy was unable to react in time and was blown away with a good amount of force and landed twenty meters from the explosion.

That was just a singe explosive tag, and while it made a significant amount of damage to the Ame guy, it was not enough to put him down, and he attempted to stand up right after his landing, too bad for him as Yuta was standing right behind him and puts his kunai against the Ame guy's throat. Yuta was hiding his chakra the whole time and Ame guy was unable to sense him at all, and Yuta was coordinating with his shadow clone to predict where the Ame guy would be blown to.

Just like that Yuta won his match using the least amount of chakra possible and showing his shinobi skills at a same time, knowing that he was watched by the judges that will decide if he would be promoted or not, and not showing his true strength as it will look unnatural to grow this much in just a couple of months and it will arise many questions.

The referee announced Yuta's win and Yuta returned to his team on the elevated platform where all the participants were.

As Yuta returned, Hikari looked at him and said, "A hand seals for the water jutsu, really? I know you can do those jutsus without hand seals, why are you holding back so much?"

'Damned Hikari! Can't you read the room? Why are you so insistent on blowing up my cover?' Yuta thought while saying calmly.

"Isn't it will be too easy? There are no opponents for us here anyway, why should I go all out against that poor guy?" Yuta said and looked at Hikari with curiosity, "You didn't fight yet, will you go all out against some wannabe Chunins that is much weaker than you?"

"Humph, as if I need to…" Hikari replied annoyedly and turn away from Yuta.

After a couple of another boring matches Itachi was called to the arena and fought against some Suna guy and won his fight almost instantly just with taijutsu and a kunai.

After that Hikari was called to fight against another Suna Genin and she won less than in a minute just with her speed and taijutsu alone, she didn't unsheathe her sword at all, dominating through the whole fight.

When she returned to the group, she gave Yuta a look filled with superiority for some reason, Yuta just sighed at her antics.

Shortly after that the sixteen finalists were decided and Hiruzen gave a ten-minutes speech to them that was pretty much the same as before the preliminary matches. After that it was announced that final rounds will be held in Konoha in a month's time.

Team-two left the tower and forest of death, and meet with Koichi, knowing the results Koichi said, "Well done guys, I didn't expect any less from you three. For the coming month and until the end of the Chunin exam there will be no missions for you, I expect you to use this time to further train yourself and become stronger.

It might be that in the current Chunin exams there is no challenging opponents for the three of you, but the world of shinobi is a dangerous place and you will fight against many strong enemies in the future, so don't compromise your training just because you are not pressured in the current Chunin exam, it's doesn't mean you are strong and can relax, if you do, you will die with such attitude!"

"Yes sensei" the three Genins responded.

After that Yuta went home, thinking how to spend this month. There is nothing much for him to do now, as he only recently trained in the time-loop and is satisfied with his results for the time being.

Yuta continues to do a good amount of physical training, as he wants to gradually grow his physical strength over time. The rest of the time he spends with his shadow clones researching the new ideas for the seals and trying to improve the existing ones.

For the time being Yuta didn't want to ask Koichi for more advanced fuinjutsu materials, as he already given all the materials he was able to convince Koichi to hand it to him, and for the year or two it was inconvenient to ask for any more of it for Yuta, as it was impossible to learn all of that he already received in such a little amount of time with the amount of shadow clones that Yuta was able to create.

The month before the finals passed quickly and it was time for the final rounds to begin. While Yuta was going to the arena, he noticed that there is a lot of foreigners in the Konoha, and the streets looked a lot more crowded than usual.

Going through the arena corridors to the balcony for participants, Yuta saw a few people in the Hyuga clan attire with their signature white eyes. Yuta spotted Hiashi, the Hyuga clan leader, and in some distance in the group of Hyugas behind him Yuta noticed Hizashi.

'Hizashi is still alive, right, it seems that the Hyuga incident from the original story might happen soon, Konoha are still don't have a peace treaty with Kumogakure, the war was over but there was no officially signed peace between Kumo and Konoha right now.

There will be Kumo's delegation for signing peace, and delegation's head will try to kidnap Hinata, the Hyuga's princess, but his true goal will be to die by the hands of Hiashi and his delegation will make a scene demanding the body of Hiashi as compensation, and Hizashi will sacrifice himself instead. The peace between Kumo and Konoha will be signed after that.' Yuta thought while making his way to the participant's balcony.

Yuta spotted Itachi and went to him and sat beside him, after a short greeting with Itachi and Hikari, who are also there, Yuta was once again deep in thoughts.

'Should I try to save Hizashi by catching the Kumo shinobi in the act? Definitely not, I'm not such a good guy to try to save a stranger by putting myself at risk, my involvement might be noticed, and this can create a lot of problems for me in the short- and long-term future.

Do nothing about this? It's not like I have to save people here, right? Well, while this might be true, at least I can try something and if it works then great, if not, then I can reverse time and let the situation play as in the original story.

Well then, if I'm not involving myself directly and want to try something, the best way will be to tell Itachi about it as if it is my new prophecy and let the Uchiha clan try to handle the situation, maybe they will be able to save the day and get some merits in the eyes of the village, this should make my job of preventing the Uchiha clan massacre easier…'

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[AN: 8 chapters in advance on patreon /SycoreNovels

Thanks to Jibreel Kamal for supporting me on patreon!

Thanks for the power stones!

Someone suggested to change the cover picture, I don't have any ideas about that and open to any suggestions, do you guys have something in mind that might fit as a good cover picture? Feel free to send me it if you do. The email will do - sycore.w@gmail.com]