(March, year 54 AK)

  In the middle of the series of exams Yuta went to Mamoru’s office during the lunch break, as he approached the office, he knocked on the door.

  “Come in.” Yuta heard Mamoru’s voice from inside.

  As he opened the door and walked in, he saw the minimalistic small office with a desk and a bookshelf in it, Mamoru was currently doing some paperwork behind his desk.

  “Yuta Arai? What brings you here?” Mamoru asked as he glanced briefly at his visitor and continued to write something on the scroll.

  “Ikeda-sensei, I want to apply for the early graduation.” Yuta stated, conducting himself in a serious and formal manner.

  “I see.” Mamoru said as he put away the scroll and looked up at Yuta, “Are you sure about that? Early graduation exam will be much harder than the regular one, are you sure you are up for it?”

  “Yes, I am sure.” Yuta stated.

  “You as well, Hokage was right on the mark with both of you it seems...” Mamoru mumbled barely audible, then he said louder, “Fine, I’ll sign you up, the early graduation exams will start right after the regular second-grade exams.”

  “Understood. Thank you.” Yuta responded and was about to leave.

  As Yuta was leaving, Mamoru said in a serious tone, “There will be combat evaluation as the part of the early graduation exams, it is the most important part, and from what I saw during your spar match against Taichi Hyuga, if that’s all you’ve got, you are not going to make it.”

  Yuta turned around and respectfully bowed to Mamoru and said, “Thank you for the warning, Ikeda-sensei.” After that Yuta left the office, leaving Mamoru deep in his thoughts.

  Mamoru was trying to make sense why Hokage would inquire about his two students from civilian background, in Mamoru’s point of view, Hikari was quite exceptional and sure will become a strong shinobi, maybe even make it to a Jonin rank in a decade or so, but Yuta Arai, he was sure smart and have some potential, but it was only the second grade for both of them, it’s too early to say that both of them would become exceptional shinobi or not.

  “Itachi Uchiha, Hikari and Yuta Arai... All three of them applied for an early graduation only after the second grade... That’s a shame that the three most promising students would leave my class so early...” Mamoru mumbled as he returned to the scroll and continued with his paperwork.

  ...

  As Yuta left the office and strolled along the hallway while appearing calm, his mind was actually in turmoil.

  ‘Did Mamoru just say something about “Hokage being right about both of us”? What is that supposed to mean? Did Hokage have a discussion with Mamoru about me and Itachi? That can’t be true, no one was supposed to know about my connection with Itachi, I didn’t speak with him at all... Did Shisui say something to Hiruzen? I didn’t think he would do that...’

  ‘“Both of you”, that should mean me and someone else, my first thought was about Itachi, but maybe it’s about someone else who also applied for an early graduation, and Hiruzen had a discussion with Mamoru about “both of us”. Now that I think about it, it could be Hikari, she now even better at taijutsu than Itachi, it is possible that she would apply for an early graduation as well.’

  ...

  ‘Doesn’t matter, whatever the case with that remark was, it doesn’t change anything for me, I’ll just wait and see.’ Yuta came to a conclusion and calmed down.

  ‘But why would Hiruzen discuss me with Mamoru, there is nothing about me that would be interesting to the Hokage... Did Mamoru get to know about my fight with those four students and reported it to the Hokage? That doesn’t make any sense, it is too insignificant, and there is nothing special about that fight. There is something about it that I don’t know, and as such, I can’t come to the right conclusion...’

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  After thinking about it for a while, Yuta understood that he wouldn’t be able to figure it out and dropped the matter, instead he focused on the coming exams.

  Days flew by, and soon the second-grade exams ended, and the early graduation exams started right after.

  Yuta came into a big class for his first early graduation exam, it was a written test, as he looked around the class, he saw around fifty students of all ages between seven to eleven years old, mostly on the older scale, as the majority of them are around ten-eleven years old.

  ‘So, this is all the students that are applying for the early graduation this year?’ Yuta thought as he took a seat behind an unoccupied desk.

  As Yuta sat down and looked around the class, he spotted Itachi a couple of desks away from him, and he also spotted Hikari in a far corner of the class.

  ‘Hikari is here, so it was probably her that Mamoru was mentioned when he said “Hokage was right about both of you”.’ Yuta thought as he settled down and waited for the exam to start.

  The written exam was about much more advanced topics that the second-grade exams was, but as Yuta was studying those topics for a while now, ahead of his grade, it wasn’t too hard for him to answer most of the questions confidently, and only some of the questions gave a hard time for Yuta, but still, he was sure that he will get a good score on all the written exams.

  After the first written exam comes the second one, and the third, and soon the practical tests started: the srurikenjutsu, the three basic academy jutsu, and finally, the day for the final combat evaluation exam was approaching.

  During the last few days Yuta was preparing for the combat evaluation, it was four days without any exams or classes, during these four days Yuta was training extensively with his genjutsu, making a last-minute improvements to his original jutsu – the Shadow Cloak with the help of Shisui’s shadow clone.

  As it was already late and the sun starts to set, Yuta canceled the genjutsu he was casting on Shisui’s shadow clone and asked him, “Is it true, that the combat evaluation will be most important test among all the exams?”

  “Yes.” Shisui replied, “As long as you show good results on this one, it won’t even matter much even if you fail all the rest of the tests, but the same could be said in reverse, if you fail the combat evaluation, it won’t matter how good you were during all other tests.”

  “Huh, doesn’t this defeats the point of all other exams? Why even bother to conduct the written exams if they don’t even matter?” Yuta asked confusedly, as he sat down tiredly on the grass by the lake, watching the sunset.

  “They do matter in the end. Village has to know what your strong and weak suits are, that’s how Genin teams after academy are composed, usually.” Shisui said with a miniscule trace of sarcasm, that Yuta didn’t notice, as he followed Yuta and sat beside him.

  “So, it’s just for the record then. The true exam is combat evaluation all along.” Yuta concluded.

  “Efficiency with the three academy jutsu is also a requirement.” Shisui added.

  As they both were watching the sunset for a few minutes, Yuta being tired after a long training session and Shisui being calm and unbothered, Yuta asked, “Hey Shisui, I heard from Mamoru that he spoke about me with Hokage, do you know what it’s all about?”

  “Hm, I might.” Shisui replied with a slight smile, “But aren’t you able to predict the future already with the special ability of yours?”

  “If I could then I wouldn’t asked.”

  “Are you able to predict the outcome only if something bad is about to happen?” Shisui asked curiously.

  “You are changing the subject.” Yuta stated unamused.

  “I guess you’ll have to wait and see.” Shisui said.

  Although before Yuta was constantly on guard against Shisui whenever the discussion was touching on the topic of his special ability, lately he was opened up a little and he wasn’t so sensitive about it anymore around Shisui.

  That, of course, doesn’t mean that he would ever reveal his biggest secrets to Shisui or anyone else, but at least he was no longer so on guard about it whenever the conversation touches the topics of his special ability any longer.

  And while Shisui promised to not dig into this secret of Yuta any further, and promised that he will trust Yuta and won’t betray him, he was still quite worried about his clan’s situation and the village in general, and as such, he was still unconsciously trying to better understand the extent of Yuta’s special ability and it's limitations, not for turning it against Yuta, but rather to better cooperate with him and to better understand how to use it to achieve their mutual goals.

  And as Yuta trusted Shisui more and more with time, he was no longer that sensitive and on guard about it, and whenever Shisui would ask something like that, he pretty much understood Shisui’s intentions and worries, but still, he couldn't possibly satisfy Shisui’s curiosity about this, ever.

  This secret is too critical for Yuta’s survival, so it becomes Yuta’s most important rule in his new life – to never reveal his true nature or the true nature of his special ability, not leave even the slightest clue about it, ever. The existence of a certain entity, that scheming from the shadows for a thousand years had never left his mind.