(January, year 54 AK)

  A few weeks passed but Yuta was still stuck on the first step of making his genjutsu to work through sound, as he wasn’t able to infuse his chakra into the sound yet.

  Yuta was seating behind one of the academy buildings during the lunch break. He was just finished eating his lunch, and he was tapping his foot on the ground, still trying to infuse his chakra into the sound as he was doing just that all the time these days.

  Although he was focused on the task, he still noticed the sound of a group of people approaching him, as he stood up and faced their direction, he saw four academy students approaching him.

  “Yuta, long time no see!” The older looking guy said with false cheerfulness.

  “Huh, who are you again?” Yuta asked lazily.

  “You dare pretend that you’ve already forgot us?” Another guy said angerly, “Nice hiding spot you’ve got here by the way.” He said mockingly, clearly implying that Yuta was hiding here from them in fear, or something.

  “Hey, wasn’t we came here to ask Yuta to join our group?” The third guy said confusedly.

  “Well, that is not going to happen until he shows a proper respect first!” The older guy said.

  The third guy looked around hesitantly and then said in a friendly tone, “Hey, Yuta, you remember us, right? It’s me, Kenta, we entered academy together from the same orphanage!”

  “Oh, I remember now. Sory, but I have a lot of training to do, and I don’t have time to hang out with you, guys.” Yuta said casually, although he remembered Kenta, the second guy – Kiyoshi, and Saki from before, only now did he realize that the older guy must be Atsushi, the guy from the same orphanage who entered academy the year before Yuta, it was a long time since he saw him last time.

  “Just look at him!” Atsushi said with anger, “He still believes he is better than us. We should teach him a lesson and beat some respect into him!”

  ‘Just great...’ Yuta was cursing in his mind as he was mentally preparing for a fight.

  “Hey guys, it’s not what we were talking about.” Kenta objected weakly.

  “I would gladly beat up this idiot!” Kiyoshi said as he was cracking his knuckles.

  “Me too!” Saki, the only girl in the group, said eagerly, as she followed Kiyoshi.

  Atsushi, who was clearly the leader of the group, stepped forward, approaching Yuta with obvious intentions while smiling.

  ‘Sigh, just great...’ Yuta sighed tiredly as he analyzed the situation, ‘It’s three on one, as Kenta clearly wasn’t intent on joining the fun. Still, three on one is too much for me in a taijutsu fight, even if I could beat any one of them in one on one. Still, I can’t afford to lose this fight either, since tomorrow the whole academy would know that those morons have beaten me, and that would be bad, even my early graduation request could be denied because of this.’

  ‘I must preserve my reputation and win this fight. No matter how insignificant this fight might be for my reputation in general, still, many people take these things seriously here. It wouldn’t matter how good I am at genjutsu, and it wouldn’t matter that in this kind of fight using genjutsu is prohibited, as well as any offensive ninjutsu, and it wouldn’t matter that it’s three on one, still, I would be seen as a weakling if these morons beat me.’

  ...

  ‘Well, using ninjutsu in this situation might be frown upon, but still, if it's the three academy jutsu, and since none of them is offensive type, it should be fine if I use only those.’

  As Yuta finished formulating a plan for this fight, Atsushi already closed the distance and thrown a first punch at Yuta, while Kiyoshi and Saki were going to surround Yuta from his left and right.

  Yuta blocked the punch and continued exchanging a few more attacks with Atsushi, testing his strength, but a few moments latter, as he saw that Kiyoshi and Saki was about to close up on him, he faked an opening for Atsushi and Atsushi quickly followed with another punch to the chest. Yuta utilized that punch by jumping lightly into the air and by blocking the punch at the last moment he allowed the force to carry him and flew backwards, making somersault in the air.

  During the somersault, while everyone’s vision was blocked by Yuta’s back, he performed a quick series of hand seals.

  As Atsushi punched Yuta and saw him fly backwards, the next thing he saw is how Yuta puffed in a small cloud of white smoke, revealing the wooden log in his place.

  “A Substitution jutsu?” Atsushi exclaimed in surprise, “Where is he?!” He yelled as he was hastily looking around, no more paying any attention to the log.

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  “There he is!” Kiyoshi shouted as he pointed to the side where another Atsushi stood calmly, a few meters away from the group.

  “A Transformation jutsu? Who are you trying to fool, you moron!?” The real Atsushi shouted, as he rushed towards the second Atsushi.

  As everyone turned away from the log and left it behind as they moved towards the fake Atsushi, the log puffed again in a much smaller cloud of smoke, almost without any sound, revealing the real Yuta without anyone noticing.

  Technically, Kenta was still in the position behind, fully able to notice Yuta and shout the warning for the rest of the group, but Yuta picked a good timing for his move, while Kenta was distracted by the fake Atsushi, same as the rest of the group.

  Yuta jumped up, he quickly and quietly approached Kiyoshi from behind, as he was the closest and easiest target at the moment. As Yuta approached, he put all his momentum and strength into a one good spinning kick to the head, connecting it with perfect precision, sending Kiyoshi flying sideways. As Yuta was landing on the ground, he noticed that Kiyoshi wasn’t able to regroup and land properly, he didn’t even make any attempts doing so, indicating that he was clearly out.

  ‘One is out, two more to go.’ Yuta thought with satisfaction of a job well done.

  Without wasting any time, Yuta followed up for another attack, hoping that he would be able to deliver at least some more damage before Saki and Atsushi would be able to react, still distracted by Yuta’s transformed clone in front of them.

  Hearing a loud thud from behind, Atsushi quickly realized that something was wrong and turned around, quickly enough to see how Kiyoshi hit the ground unconsciously, he also saw how Saki was still in the process of turning around, clearly wasn’t fast enough to react to Yuta’s second attack from behind.

  “Watch out!” Atsushi yelled hastily, but that was already too late, as another kick, full of force and momentum, landed squarely on Saki’s face, that turned around just in time to receive said kick.

  Saki only was able to open her mouth for a scream, her expression turned into disbelief and fear, as the next moment the kick landed properly and with a full force that Yuta was able to master, the next moment Saki was flying to the side.

  ‘Nice! It went even better than I planned, I had a few more follow up moves planned ahead, but it seems I won’t be needing them after all. Well, one more to go...’ Yuta thought as he felt excited that he managed to take out two opponents so easily.

  “Yuta, stop it!” Kenta yelled as he runs towards Yuta from behind, he was clutching his fists and his expression was conflicted, but as Yuta heard the approaching sound and glanced back, he figured that Kenta was about to enter the fight as well.

  ‘Well, it seems it would be four on one after all, seems that my follow-up plans won’t be wasted...’ Yuta thought as he calmed down and concentrated on his next moves.

  As Yuta landed on the ground after his kick, and prepared for the continuation of the fight, he saw that Atsushi and Kenta was approaching him from the two opposite sides, Yuta waited a little more, while making his clone that was transformed as Atsushi to closely follow the real Atsushi.

  As Kenta and Atsushi closed on him and were about to attack, Yuta smiled and openly performed a quick series of hand seals. A big and thick cloud of smoke obstructed everyone’s vision for a split second, and as smoke cleared out, two Atsushi and two Kenta were standing in a circle, only one meter away from each other.

  As the real Atsushi and Kenta were startled, their copies wore the same startled and confused expressions, no different from the originals.

  “This is not fair! Stop using jutsu, you coward, and fight me!” one of the Atsushi yelled angerly and thrown a punch at the second Atsushi, who was hastily blocked the punch.

  “What are...” The second Atsushi started to talk but was quickly interrupted by the first Atsushi.

  “Who are you trying to fool, you idiot!” The first Atsushi yelled and followed up with a few more punches as he said angerly without turning around, “Hey, Kenta, help me out to beat him up, now!”

  “But...” One Kenta mumbled hesitantly, as another Kenta just stood silently.

  “Hey, you are...” The second Atsushi, who was on the defensive, tried to speak up but was interrupted once again by the first Atsushi.

  “Kenta! Get here now and help me out, or I will beat you up next!” The first Atsushi yelled with even more anger, pressuring Kenta without giving him even a moment to think.

  Kenta quickly rushed forward and attacked the second Atsushi, and even while Kenta being clearly weaker than both Atsushi’s, with his help, the first Atsushi quickly managed to score a multiple good punches on the second one, and it wasn’t long before the second Atsushi was beat up and laying on the ground.

  The second Atsushi were trying to talk multiple times, but each time he was interrupted by the first Atsushi angerly yelling at him and cursing him while beating him up with Kenta’s help, while the second Kenta, clearly a clone, was just disappeared at some point.

  “Well...” The first Atsushi said with a quickened breath while looking on the beat up second Atsushi on the ground, feeling how exhaustion was quickly catching up with him, “Third is down, one more to go...” He said with a tired but satisfied smile as he turned towards Kenta.

  “What?!” Kenta stepped backwards, as he was clearly confused by what was happening.

  A small puff of smoke later, Kenta saw with a bad premonition how the smoke was dispersing, revealing Yuta instead of Atsushi.

  Kenta looked at Atsushi, who was beaten up on the ground in disbelief, then he looked at smiling Yuta, and his face went pale as he remembered how he was helping to beat up the real Atsushi...

  “So, what it’s going to be, do you want to continue the fight or what?” Yuta said lazily, he saw during the previous fight that Kenta wasn’t very strong, so he didn’t take him too seriously at this point.

  “How... You were... Oh no...” Kenta mumbled as he imagined what Atsushi would do to him after he recovers...

  “Well, it seems like you are not in the mood to fight. Later.” Yuta said lazily and went back to his classroom, leaving one petrified and three beat up academy students behind.

  ‘That was... interesting. I guess these academy jutsu could be quite helpful in the actual combat, but still, those four morons are just second and third grades of the academy, they still aren't on the actual Genin level yet, these three basic jutsu would be much harder to use against a proper shinobi, I must practice them more, as so far I only practiced them from time to time. And I should learn how to use them without hand seals as well.’

  Yuta went back to his classroom in a very good mood. He didn’t notice Mamoru, his class teacher, who observed the whole fight from start to finish from a distance.

  Mamoru stood there with a thoughtful expression and then wrote something down into his notepad...