A month after the first meeting with Itachi, after the classes ended, Yuta as usual goes to the library only to be stopped in the corridors by Itachi.

"Yuta, I want to ask you something" Itachi said in his normal calm and serious voice.

"Sure" Yuta replied, surprised why Itachi confronted him like that. It is the first time something like that happened. Usually Itachi only joins Yuta and his group at the lunch breaks at the academy park, and he is not talking much.

Sometimes Itachi asking Yuta some abstract and philosophical questions, that Yuta usually replies simply without thinking too much. But Itachi up to this point never initiated small talks about anything.

"I want to have a sparring with you." Itachi said with serious look.

'Well, that was unexpected. Why is he wants to fight me? I'm sure at this point Itachi is on the Chunin level at the very least, I have no chance in wining against him, and I'm sure he knows it.'

'Maybe he wants to test me for some reason? Well, only one way to find out.'

"Fine" Yuta replied calmly, "When and where you want to do it?"

"Let's go right now to the academy training grounds, they should be empty at this hour." Itachi said and turns to leave.

Yuta follows Itachi, while thinking of the possible reasons Itachi might have for this fight.

When the two of them came to the training grounds, they stopped and looked at each other. The training grounds have some trees here and there, and some polls at one side, and some shuriken targets on the other.

"Well Itachi, seems you want to test me for something, so how we do this, just taijutsu or…?" Yuta asked looking at Itachi's serious expression.

Yuta has a small pouch on him with a dozen shuriken and two kunai. He didn't knew he would need a shinobi tools for a fight while he is in the academy, so he only carrying some shuriken and kunai for training.

"Yuta, use all you have, don't hold back, I can take it" Itachi said.

'Okay then, all out fight it is. Even if I use all I can with intention to kill, I doubt I can even scratch Itachi. Damn those geniuses from clans with strong bloodlines, one day the time will come when I will beat all of you with my hard work alone… Well, maybe hard work and some time travel I guess, details are not important!'

"Before we start, Itachi, can you tell me why you want to fight me?"

Itachi looked a little hesitant to answer, but after a few moments he said, "I know that you are training and studying a lot, I want to see how far you've got."

"Just some curiosity about my progress? I don't think so, Itachi, you are not that type of a guy who would go so far for something so simple like that, there should be some real reason for that" Yuta said with slight curiosity.

Itachi looked a little surprised hearing that. He clearly didn't expect that his half-hearted excuse would be seeing through by Yuta in an instant.

"You are right, my real reason is to see if you good enough for an early graduation."

Yuta is a little bewildered at that response from Itachi.

'Early graduation, me, good enough, what is he talking about? I knew that Itachi would graduate in a year after he entered the academy, but what do I have to do with it?'

'Don't tell me that he wants me to early graduate along with him so we both can end up in the same genin team, no way right?'

'I don't actually remember from the anime what will happen to Itachi during his years after academy. As I remember he was at ANBU, but it looks like that he will only join ANBU after he becomes Chunin, and that won't happen instantly after he graduates, so he will spend some time with in the genin team it seems.'

'I have to say, that joining Itachi's genin team is an interesting idea, I didn't think about that when I approached him a month ago, I just did it out of curiosity.'

'And why I didn't think about that possibility? Well it's simple, I didn't learn and master everything I wanted to, while I'm at the academy. If I go for early graduation, that should be possible with my current skills and knowledge already, I won't be able to complete my plans that I made for academy time.'

'Wait a minute, TIME! I don't actually need to stay at the academy for more years and I will still have enough time to complete my plans! I can have as much time as I want and still be able to graduate even now. I just need to time travel, that's all.'

'I had a lot of plans and interesting ideas about using my time travel later on in the future, but I still forgetting about it, the idea of time travel is still foreign to me and because of that I often forget about it and possibilities it can get me, damn!'

Stolen novel; please report.

'I can create the time loop right now and focus on finishing everything I planned for the academy inside the loop. My spiritual energy had grown and now I can travel 40 days back, with only 30 days needed for my soul energy to restore!'

'Well, it decided then, I will graduate early along with Itachi, but I still don't think I will end up on his team though, if that is what about Itachi is hinting at.'

Yuta looked at Itachi with thoughtful look, "Even If I graduate early, I don't think we will get in to the same team" Yuta said.

"I can ask someone for it." Itachi said with serious look.

'So he really meant it that way. But why he even interested in me at the first place? It can't be that it because of our small talks at lunch breaks, right? Well, he asked me a couple times some questions about stuff like life priorities and what would I do in certain difficult or dangerous situations, but I never paid attention and always replied with simple answers without thinking.'

'I was not really interested in Itachi after our first talk, I just thinking about my own stuff, mostly about fuinjutsu and developing my own style in it. I didn't know he would take it seriously and develop some interests out of it!'

'Well, it doesn't matter, I have to fight Itachi now, and I hope he will beat me not too badly…'

"Fine" Yuta said, "Let start then."

As Yuta said that, he mentally prepared himself for the fight. Yuta decide to start with simple taijutsu before anything else, so he immediately starts running to close the distance.

Itachi doesn't moves and just waits for Yuta to come closer.

As Yuta knew who he is fighting, he is paying close attention to the details in the environment, hoping to spot the signs of any genjutsu he might be putted in to. As Yuta come in to the close distance to Itachi and starts preparing for throwing a punch, he spotted that grass under Itachi's feats moved a little.

Seeing that Yuta immediately realized that Itachi is no longer in front of him and what he sees is just an illusion.

'That is scary, he putted me under genjutsu with that ease!'

As Yuta thinks that, he jumped backwards, trying to flare his chakra to disrupt the genjutsu, on guard for any sudden attack from any direction. While Yuta still moving backwards he feels something coming closer from behind.

'Damn, Itachi is already behind me!'

With great efforts Yuta was able to change his direction and roll to the right. While Yuta still rolling he looks in the direction from where he sensed the movement but sees nothing.

'I don't see him, Itachi's genjutsu is still in place, it's harder to disrupt it than I thought!'

Yuta quickly ended his roll and jumped backwards a little further to increase the distance between him and the place he sensed the movement from. Yuta is still trying to flare his chakra, and as he putted more efforts in to it, he sensed that his vision became a little clearer and the Itachi's illusion, that is still in place, disappeared, and the real Itachi appeared right in front of Yuta, with the punch that already half way through to the Yuta's chest.

Yuta barely managed to block the incoming punch with his hand, but the strength behind it pushed him back and almost knocked him on the ground. The pain Yuta feels in his hand as he blocked the punch was much higher that he expected.

'Damn he is strong! I can't do anything in taijutsu to him, it's time for something else! But what can I do? I know only 3 basic jutsu, and I didn't master them fully yet, I can't use them without the hand seals, and with hand seals it's too obvious and useless against someone like Itachi!'

'Throwing shurikens against Itachi is just stupid. Get in to fight with kunai? He will beat me in kunai fight, that's for sure. Use fuinjutsu? As if I could, I didn't prepared anything yet with it, and with my basic level with fuinjutsu I don't even know how to use it directly without inscribing the seals beforehand!'

As Yuta was still sliding backwards after Itachi's punch, still deep in thoughts of what to do, Itachi thrown a bunch of shurikens at him.

'So fast!'

Yuta jumps to the right, grabs kunai and blocks a few shurikens that was in his escape path. While blocking shurikens with kunai, Yuta realized that shurikens is probably connected with ninja wire, and with that in mind he deflects them all to his left, so it will be harder for Itachi to redirect them back to Yuta and surround him from both directions with shurikens and wires.

'Damn! Is he wants to kill me? Why is he so sure that I will be able to defend myself in these circumstances? I'm not that strong, damned!'

While Yuta predicting the shurikens next trajectory, that Itachi is clearly intend to redirect them to with ninja wires, he turns to his left while continues escaping, facing Itachi with his right shoulder, as if preparing to block the shurikens with his kunai. Itachi is indeed redirected the shurikens with ninja wires, but as Yuta is slightly turned and Itachi is not able to clearly see Yuta's hands, Yuta is already dropped his kunai and performs the hand seals for Kawarimi.

'It's a first time I'm trying to do Kawarimi when there is actual danger to my life! I hope I won't make mistakes with it, it will be too embarrassing, I don't want to embarrass myself this much in front of Itachi!'

As Itachi redirected shurikens to hit Yuta, he looks at Yuta and sees in disbelief as Yuta dropped his kunai. Itachi is a little panicking as he can't do anything anymore in this situation to save Yuta, and he only can look how his shurikens struck Yuta in many places.

But the split second after the shurikens strike Yuta, he puffs in the cloud of smoke and the wood log appeared instead of him. Itachi realized that Yuta performed Kawarimi, he immediately dropped the ninja wires and starts looking for Yuta.

As Itachi starts looking around him, a few shurikens fly in his direction from the side. Itachi grabs the kunai and deflects the shurikens. As he did that and looked in the direction from where they came, he sensed some movement from his back.

Itachi quickly turns around and blocks the kunai, that Yuta is holding while trying to stab him with it from his back.

Some time ago, Yuta, the moment after he performed the Kawarimi, he thrown a few shurikens from behind the trees in Itachi's direction, and immediately after he performed the Kawarimi to switch places with the same log once again. After that he immediately runs to Itachi that is in the process of deflecting his shurikens and didn't saw him. Yuta grabs his last kunai and tries to stub Itachi in the back.

But this is Itachi, and not some no-name genin that can be fooled just like that. Itachi sensed the movement behind him, turned around and blocked the Yuta's attack in time.

Seeing that his attack failed, Yuta smiled sheepishly, visibly relaxed and dropped his guard while putting his kunai back in to his pouch.

"I don't think I have anything else to throw at you, there is no point in continuing." Yuta said calmly, while Itachi just nodded.

"Thanks for the fight" Itachi said calmly, "You did well, you just lack a little more of the physical training."

'Yea, I know that already, I didn't spend a lot of time in my physical training at all. But still, I didn't think I will last this much against Itachi! And the fight itself, the moment when the shurikens fly at me, that was actually so thrilling and exciting, I didn't know I had that in me! I actually enjoyed the fight!'