(June, year 54 AK)
Since there was no rush this time, Shisui led the group at a much slower pace than they were going before, and Yuta was thankful for that, since his back was still hurting with each movement. Yuta figured that even if all of his bones were fine, he still probably has a big and ugly bruise all over his back.
'Water could hit hard, who would've thought, huh...' Yuta thought absentmindedly as he suppressed the pain and kept going.
They were running for the rest of the day and then stooped for the night beside a river. Yohei and Isao caught some fish and they made a fire and had some grilled fish for dinner.
'Finally, some real food!' Yuta thought as he chewed on the grilled fish enthusiastically.
After some small talk over the food, Shisui had set the night shifts and Yuta had the first shift to watch over the camp together with Shisui.
As everyone else finally went to sleep around the campfire, Yuta and Shisui went a bit further away from the camp and sit down on a big stone boulder.
As they observed the quickly darkening sky and saw the first stars that started to appear on it, Shisui finally said, "How are you holding up?"
"Huh? I'm fine, really." Yuta responded.
"It was your first real battle, you had to fight for your life and kill. Well, you did even more than that. I can tell that it weighs on you, you are just suppressing what you feel, but you have to process and deal with it."
"Sigh, I know that, just give me a break." Yuta responded with a bit of anger that he didn't even expect from himself.
'What's going on with me all of a sudden...' Yuta thought, as he said more calmly, "Sorry, I didn't mean that."
Shisui, who was observing Yuta from the side, laughed a little, then said, "I often forget that you are still a kid, you act so mature and competent that I always forget how old you are."
As they went silent and looked at the night sky for a few minutes, Yuta realized why he had that outburst before, it was because he was overprotective of his own state of mind.
When it comes to his body, status in the village, jutsus, or pretty much anything that isn't his mind, Yuta realized that he doesn't care as much about any of it, since it doesn't matter if his body gets hurt – he could just time-travel back to the state where his body is fine. Same with the other things – with time-travel it's all fleeting and could be achieved one way or another, and could be lost as easily.
But when it comes to his own mind, it is the only thing that is constant through the time-travels, and when Shisui tried to tell Yuta what to do with his lingering trauma from the battle, Yuta instinctively became overprotective and angry. Instinctively and unconsciously Yuta felt something along the lines of "How dare Shisui, who won't even remember any of this if I'm to time-travel, to tell me what I should do with my own mind and how should I process my negative feelings from the killing I did!"
Yuta unconsciously felt superior to Shisui, like a player who was playing in a videogame would feel superior to a character from the game. And then, when that character suddenly started to tell him what to do, not even to the character that he was playing in the game, but to him as a player himself, that was what made him feel angry. Yuta understood that it was irrational and stupid, and that he shouldn't feel that way to begin with, but it still happened, nonetheless.
'This time-travel thing messes up with my mind more and more, huh...' Yuta thought, 'At this point I'm even treating my own body and the state it was in like something insignificant. Exhaustion, injuries, even lethal wounds, it's all a small issue to me, not worth mentioning, one quick time-travel and my body is all good again. Mess up big time on a mission? Accidentally caused someone to die? Even less of a problem, one quick time-travel later, and no one remembers a thing, like it never even happened, just a minor inconvenience really...'
'But when Shisui said that I shouldn't bottle up my feelings, oh no, now you had crossed the line, never should have done that! Sigh... What should I even do with that? There wasn't any instructions manual attached to the Time Control ability on how I should handle my mental state while using it... Not like I could discuss it with anyone either...'
...
...
...
'Whatever, what doesn't kill me – makes me stronger, or something like that. The time-travel remains as my biggest trump card in this dangerous world so far, and I must be able to use it efficiently, and if for that my mental state has to become all warped like this, then so be it, a small price to pay I'd say.'
After those thoughts flashed through Yuta's mind, he was able to better understand himself and that had calmed him down and brought some clarity.
Yuta sighed and said out loud, not to Shisui, but more like talking to himself, "I can't be the weakest member of my team when it comes to handling the negative emotions, can I?"
...
"You might already know that, but Itachi once went to the Third Shinobi World War's battlefield when he was only four years old, he was dealing with the darkness of this world for a long time now." Shisui said after a brief silence, "And Hikari... Well, she is the interesting one, her personality is... peculiar. Going into life-and-death battle and killing an enemy doesn't seem to affect her much. You don't have to compare yourself to them, both of your teammates are... different."
"You don't have cuddle my feelings, you know that, right?" Yuta said with a self-deprecating smile, "I'll be just fine. All of this is just the way of life in this world..."
"Unfortunately, it is." Shisui replied with a bit of sadness seeping into his voice.
...
As the silence returned, Yuta thought, 'Sigh, I wanted to talk some more about the world openly and hear Shisui's ideas about some topics, but there is probably Zetsu still lurking around, spying on Shisui, and asking Shisui to cast a genjutsu so we could have a small talk in private feels excessive...'
...
'This ninja world and its constant secrecy and spy games is quite annoying and suffocating sometimes... To have to always be aware of what you say, to whom, and who might overhear it, to always filter carefully each word, and also to make such filtered conversations look natural, it's such a bother, it feels very restricting... And I'm here who has it easy with my time-travel... This world sucks, huh, who would've thought...'
After a few hours of looking after the camp, Yuta's shift ended and he went to sleep.
In the morning Yuta woke up to the smell of grilled fish, and after a quick breakfast, the group moved out. Just in another five or so hours of running at a moderate pace, the group had reached the village. After a brief check on the gates, they went straight to the Hokage Tower, and shortly after they were already approaching the Hokage's office.
Shisui knocked on the door, and after hearing "Come in." they walked in and saw the Hokage sitting at his desk, doing some paperwork. Hiruzen looked up and briefly looked over the group, stopping at Shisui, as he said in a friendly manner, "Ah, it's you, Shisui, I take it that everything went well on your mission?"
Shisui stepped forward, bowed and said in a formal and respectful manner, "Lord Hokage, we have successfully completed the mission, the threat had been neutralized. Here is my report." As he said that, he pulled out a scroll from his pocket and placed it on the Hokage's desk.
'When he had the time to write a report I wonder...' Yuta thought absentmindedly.
"This is good to hear." Hiruzen said as he picked up the scroll and opened it. As he was reading it, his expression didn't change even one bit, and after just a few seconds he said in a more serious tone, "I see. So, it was the Mist after all, I wonder what they wanted to achieve here..."
Hiruzen seemed to be deep in thought for a moment, and Yuta wondered, 'Is he implying that Shisui should have taken some prisoners for interrogation or something? Is he displeased that we didn't figure out why the Mist ninjas came in the first place? Sigh, what a bother, I'm glad that it is Shisui who is a team leader and not me...'
After that, Hiruzen looked up with a surprise in his eyes as he looked at the three Genins, he said with a grandfatherly smile "It seems that the three of you had performed splendid during the mission, good job!"
'I would've preferred a monetary reward instead of a praise, the mesh armor and paper tag bombs isn't cheap, neither shurikens and kunai...' Yuta complained in his mind, but outside he, Itachi and Hikari bowed respectfully and said, "Thank you!" Instead.
With that, this dangerous mission was finally over for Yuta, or so he thought...
--- AN ---
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