Chapter 107: A year’s worth of progress?

It had already been almost a year since the tragedy of the accursed night the entire Uchiha clan had been massacred.

His tears and sadness had long been replaced by a metaphorical empty hole, that seemed to suck away any once of joy within his life.

All that he felt now, was a hollow feeling inside his heart that had taken root.

A hollow feeling that made him rather apathetic to most things.

What he previously thought were amusing or simple things that he was able to enjoy, now seemed quite silly and he derived no feeling from it.

So much time had passed that it almost felt that he was no longer the same person.

In fact, about a year had passed since that horrible night.

Some things had changed within that one year.

Such as Homura turning 8 years old, and now knows far more about chakra and ninjutsu in general.

An example of that would be learning how to perform some rudimental jutsus taught at the academy.

It wasn't easy.

Nonetheless, it could not be said that it was too difficult either.

He still carried more or less the label of a genius. He certainly was quite talented in most physical activities and smarter than most students his age according to his test scores. 

But when it came to chakra or chakra related courses he was far from the best or among the ones that excelled in that field.

Other things that had changed were that within Homura's life, was the fact that he now had a new teacher, a new classroom, and overall a new set of classes.

Besides those facts, most of the village didn't truly see any differences.

There were now shinobi assigned to surveil the village instead of the Uchiha police since all of its members were massacred during that fateful night at the Uchiha clan.

However, saying that it was a significant change would be a lie, Konohagakure had enough fighting force to easily replace the now-defunct Uchiha police force.

Several shinobi were assigned to patrol the village in order to keep public order; though very few things seemed to happen regardless of that fact.

Crime rates seemed to be low as always.

At least, to what most citizens were aware of.

Hard to commit crimes in a village with so many ninjas walking around, every day of the week.

Though it is not uncommon to see someone getting arrested, but that usually occurs outside the village or when someone causes disorder within the village in a public location.

Which actually happens quite a lot, mostly at night.

Nonetheless, it was obvious to most who were aware of the performance of the previous police force and those now assigned to substitute them; the gap in the disparity of skills simply was quite noticeable.

The former police force was simply better trained.

In terms of quality, few regular chunins, and even jonins, could compete with a member of the Uchiha clan with a fully matured sharingan.

They could pick up details that normal shinobi could not, and even see large concentrations of chakra with their eyes clearly.

Helpful for detecting abnormal activities caused by possible spies and other nefarious individuals much easier; or restraining them with a genjutsu without waving hand seals.

With such a powerful set of abilities bestowed by the sharingan; losing it was without a doubt a major loss for the security of the village.

What was prior a job executed by over a hundred members of a single clan became a job for over 300 people, but it was a number that could easily fluctuate given the number of people on missions at any given moment.

Unfortunately for Konhogakure, they could not afford to project weakness.

The village was entering a time of steady decline in recent years, which all the villages were aware of.

The death of the 4th Hokage, Minato Namikaze.

The numerous deaths that were caused by the Kyuubi a few years prior.

The betrayal and successful escape of one of the legendary Sannin, Orochimaru.

And now the death of Konoha's strongest clan; which also held a special doujutsu that made them incredibly fearsome on the battlefield.

So much so, that most are aware of how fearsome members of that clan could be and even avoid confronting an Uchiha alone.

That legendary clan was now gone, and a powerful S-rank missing-nin that used to belong to that clan was now free to cause trouble for the world at large.

If all the other villages were not occupied with their own issues and were not incapable of trusting each other to make an alliance or feared that attacking another village could leave their own village exposed to an outside threat; Konoha as of now would be far less peaceful.

The fear of starting another great ninja war; was something all great ninja villages feared.

Not even the 3rd Hokage could solely act as a deterrence.

As powerful as he was, recent events may have tarnished his reputation on a large scale.

It was clear to all that his grasp within the leaf village was growing weaker; otherwise not so many major tragedies would have occurred in less than a decade.

While the political and military scales were slowly changing at large, on the other hand, at least within the personal lives of the people of the village many things stayed the same.

The village was hardly any different to most.

Such was more or less the case for Homura.

As his whole class was exactly the same as the previous year.

Despite their classroom and teacher being replaced by new versions, none of the students dropped out and no new student transferred this current academic year.

Now, a new class of students who entered earlier this academic year had been assigned their previous classroom alongside their previous teacher.

It wasn't the only change.

Since Homura's class was now a year older many things became less fun and games; they had now more work and competed against each other far more often than in the previous year.

It could be said they were now truly on the right track to becoming ninjas.

Though the class dynamics remained more or less the same as well, however, students such as Sasuke and Homura became far more recluse after the events of last year.

In Sasuke's case, it was understandable.

Few within the class were aware of what had truly happened to him or as to why his demeanor had changed even more radically than prior.

However, few seemed to care or notice, since they were never on friendly terms, to begin with.

Sasuke was not one to divulge his personal feelings or thoughts to anyone other than the people he was truly close to.

As time passed it simply became the new normal status quo within the class, the same as Homura seemingly becoming less and less open with others.

To others, he seemed simply more absent-minded most of the time and far more recluse than he had been prior, although it wasn't as aggravating since he tried to keep up appearances and tried to appear slightly more cheerful than prior.

Even indulging in helping Naruto with his pranks, rarely; but still, it was far more than he was willing to do so when compared previous year which was none.

The previous year, besides helping Naruto with his studies or teaming up during exercises, he rarely gave Naruto the time of the day.

Though one person was able to tell that his eyes rarely showed much emotion even as he laughed.

Those who knew him quite well; felt that this new attitude of his was odd but it soon became normal as well.

That is the nature of routine.

The short lives of human beings made them able to accept and adapt rather quickly to alterations within their lives.

After some time passes humans tend to forget, at least if new and more important memories, status quo, or relationships are not able to replace the previous ones.

The truth of the matter at hand, is simply that everyone forgets.

Even priorities and dreams are ultimately altered due to the passage of time; if not forgotten altogether.

Long was gone the Homura who tried to prove himself to others; a more seemingly relaxed and cheerful Homura had appeared.

Nonetheless, this was simply a front he tried to portray.

Being wrathful at all times was tiresome.

Anger with no clear direction or target to aim towards quickly becomes unsustainable and far too much for anyone sane to handle.

Something he had learned as time passed.

His hatred did not abandon him, instead of festering further without end; he simply became far more apathetic than he ever before.

While his anger simmers, underneath his new façade.

Ready to burst out at any time.

Just as what had happened in the shop that he was inside with the two-leaf shinobi almost an hour ago.

His emotions simply, could not remain in check, and the same for him controlling his acquired sharingan; when he heard Itachi's name being mentioned.

Anger and hatred were the key components that helped him to awaken his sharingan, and when his anger or hatred starts boiling his sharingan activates itself without warning,

Which was a source of headache for him.

Though, it had been a year.

The activation of the sharingan still quite alluded him.

Not because, he was unable to deactivate it.

Far from the truth.

The contrary was the real issue.

It activated itself too easily; especially under intense feelings such as the aforementioned anger and hatred.

Controlling one's emotions was incredibly hard and required maturity that only came from several decades of life experience or through one experiencing a multitude of complex events throughout the course of one's life.

However, that wasn't Homura real issue with the doujutsu at the moment.

The real issue was that it drained Homura of his chakra reserves far faster than he predicted; making it much harder to control.

He could only theorize that it was due to him possessing similar DNA to Shin Uchiha; which allowed his clones to keep their Sharingan always activated.

Although, he was unsure how the clones inherited the Sharingan, to begin with, or the differences between creatures born with the ability as a seemingly genetic predisposition and himself who had to awaken the ability and had a far younger body; at least physically.

Though those were pure speculation at the end of the day.

He had no deep knowledge of how human biology worked and much less when pertaining to human biology in this world; besides memories and textbooks from his past life that he could now remember more or less completely thanks to C's help, it was nevertheless a hard topic to understand.

It was still a mystery overall.

His previous knowledge had nothing that he could extract that allowed him to explain the intricacies of his current body or how it reacted with the concept of chakra.

This world and his former were simply too different; due to the impact of chakra on the development of his current world society and genetics.

Animals, so tall and grand that they defied several laws of nature and physics in Homura's previous world; and powers that enabled impossible feats to become reality.

Using his former world's logic and knowledge would simply give him a headache, and his skill was ultimately pointless if he did not have a sample of someone with a similar genetic makeup for him to analyze and compare.

Nonetheless, it was now a problem of the past; and not worth worrying too much about.

After the events of last year and Homura having to continue studying at the academy, with a pair of eyes that easily could give away his true heritage at any moment… was troublesome, to say the least.

That year and the following year, Homura had no choice but to find ways to suppress his now awakened sharingan.

His main goal soon became to try to suppress it; ironically.

He had wanted to use the ability for so long; however, it became more of a hassle and a handicap for him.

He was unable to properly control his sharingan, it seemed to often unexpectedly activate itself due to Homura not having control over his emotions or his temperament.

Even after trying several methods to quell and harness his emotions; overall the results were not what he had expected.

They were definitely not perfect.

Since now he was able to disable those eyes as long as he simply tries to calm down, it could be said that his training somehow worked.

The power of the sharingan could now be activated and deactivated on command, calling it a success was certainly a possibility.

However, the chakra costs being too high and taking a heavy toll on his current body; was also a massive problem.

Making it impossible to stay active for more than 5 minutes at a time.

Even less if he exerts himself.

It obviously demonstrates that he hasn't reached anywhere the control he wished for.

Even training his eyes in order to try to evolve it to the second stage of 2 tomoe per eye, was almost an impossibility due to the short timeframe available he had to work with the ability.

The fact that the sharingan can sometimes activate itself without his knowledge and uses large chunks of his chakra, was overall too dangerous.

Spending time trying to those eyes was out of the question.

So much so that last year, Homura, was forced to wear a thick pair of glasses and sometimes even sunglasses just to avoid unknowingly activating the ability.

Whether it was at the academy or outside.

Forcing himself to lie that his eyes became tired due to him reading so much lately, which most did believe since he spent a huge portion of his time reading books he'd find or buy.

Besides training and working to make money, Homura spent his time reading books.

It was because he felt that he needed to learn as many things as possible before graduating.

This world was so strange, that it was hard to tell myth from reality.

Demons or monsters seemed to exist to some degree, but it was hard to tell from books if they were simply mutated animals or if they were simply the result of a forbidden ninjutsu.

The truth was hard to grasp and Homura wanted to know as much as possible about the world at large.

If he wanted to truly get stronger he needed to know as much as possible and train in a safe location, away from prying eyes.

So he realized that he needed more space and a better location for him to pursue several endeavors.

Chapter end