(late-May, year 54 AK)
After reporting to the Hokage, Yuta went home and rested for the night. Early in the morning he went to his usual training grounds and started his training routine.
After four hours of intense physical training with his usual exercises, shurikenjutsu practice and practicing some taijutsu by performing punches and kicks on a log, Yuta found out that his physique had actually improved somewhat after the month-long mission, instead of stagnating as he expected it to be because of absence of training during the last month.
As Yuta sat down on the grass and rested his back against a tree, he breathed heavily, being quite exhausted after the training routine that was actually more intense than Yuta was being used to. Since he didn't train for a month, Yuta felt that he was falling behind on his training and he had pushed himself a lot more than usual today, and now that he thought about it, he noticed that he performed better than usual.
'I thought I would be in a worse shape than I was before the mission or at the same shape at best, but I actually had improved, I wonder why though...' Yuta thought, 'The only close thing to a training during the mission was the running all the way back to the village, but it wasn't as exhausting as actual training, so it can't be the cause of it. Maybe it's just my natural body growing and becoming stronger in the process? No, it was just a month, I already could estimate the rate of me becoming stronger with my body's aging, and it isn't that fast, I had improved by about twenty percent, and now my physique is on the level as an average Genin, or so I think. One month's growth wasn't nearly enough for that...'
'The only thing that makes sense is that it was because of my spiritual energy and chakra that had grown more than three times over during the last time-loop that I did before the mission. I think that having my chakra grown so much has influenced my physique as well, more chakra – more strength, or something like that. And now that I think about it, my physique had improved by about twenty percent, and it didn't happen overnight, I feel like my body was being constantly adjusting during the last month to adapt to the grown chakra, and that caused me becoming stronger.'
'But, even if that is the case, this is just a lucky bonus, it won't be nearly enough to solve the growing disbalance between the spiritual and physical energies, my physical energy had grown by about twenty percent after my spiritual energy had grown by more than three hundred percent, and the process for physical energy's growth was gradual over the month, and I feel like it is already over, my physical energy won't be stimulated to grow anymore with my current spiritual energy level.'
'My physical body was just adjusting to the significantly grown chakra level, and having my physical energy grew, as well as my physical condition improving, it all was just a byproduct of that, I believe this must be the case here.'
After analyzing the changes in his body, Yuta wanted to perform a time-travel to go back a month to better observe and pay closer attention to the process of his body's adjusting to the significantly grown chakra, to better understand the process, but then he thought about the boring month-long journey in the company of unfriendly merchants and also he thought about that he had already figured out the important parts of the process anyway, and in the end Yuta dropped the idea.
'There is not much point going back and closely observing the process of my body adjusting to the grown chakra anyway. The improvement of my physique is not that significant anyway, and this has nothing to do with me being unwilling to go through that boring experience of a mission again, I'm just deciding to not get sidetracked by minor things, yea, that is all that is there to it...' Yuta thought half-jokingly as he stood up and continued his training, this time with his genjutsu.
By performing the Shadow Cloak and the Shadow Chains genjutsu in the new sound-based variants on himself over and over again, using as little chakra as possible to last longer during this training, Yuta was slowly but steadily improving his understanding and mastery over those two particular genujtsus and over the genjutsu as a ninja art in general.
The three days that Shisui had given them had passed, and Yuta arrived at the training grounds number sixty-eight that Shisui had reserved after their team, the same place that Shisui had trained them for a month after graduation whenever they were free from D-rank missions.
As Yuta entered the training grounds and approached its center, he noticed that Itachi, Hikari and even Shisui were already there.
'Damn, am I late? No, this is the exact time we usually gather here, I'm exactly on time...' Yuta thought as he hastily approached the group. Yuta was always punctual and exactly on time, he doesn't understand the mentality of showing up early and waiting, like Hikari and Itachi usually do. Yuta knew that they usually show up about fifteen minutes before the designated time. But Yuta himself saw no reason for showing up early like that.
"You are late!" Hikari said with irritation when she saw Yuta.
'Tsk. No I'm not!' Yuta thought with annoyance but didn't voice it, then Yuta noticed Shisui's thoughtful look at him and thought, 'Why is Shisui looking at me like that, is there something wrong? Now that I think about it, Shisui didn't show up early like that before even once, this is the first time. Why do I suddenly have a feeling that he was testing my supposed future-prediction ability? Well, whatever, I might as well reset my morning and show up at the same time as him today, no big deal, I am the time traveler after all, am I not?'
"Hey." Yuta said as he looked at Itachi, "How long did Shisui-sensei had waited here for me?" Yuta asked with a slightly guilty expression.
"About ten minutes or so." Itachi replied.
"I see." Yuta said as he went into his mindscape.
As Yuta found himself standing on the calm water surface, he felt his emotions were swiftly washed away and he became unnaturally calm.
'This is just a minor thing, why I had decided to time-travel just because of being slightly late?' Yuta thought calmly, 'Doesn't matter, I should just follow through. Although with my self-imposed rule I have to time-travel at least eight hours into the past, since that is the cooldown before I would be able to time-travel again. I should always follow this rule to stay on the safe side.'
With that thought Yuta initiated the time travel, and soon he found himself at home, preparing to go to sleep.
'Well, at least this timing is convenient.' Yuta thought and went to bed for the night.
At the morning, Yuta arrived at the training grounds a ten minutes earlier than the last time and as he approached Itachi and Hikari, who was already there, Shisui showed up at the same time as well.
As Yuta greeted everyone, he noticed a slightly different expression on Shisui's face when Shisui looked at him.
'Huh, now what's wrong?' Yuta thought with confusion, 'If that was your test of my future-prediction ability, you should be satisfied now that I passed the test, right? I probably just overthinking everything, as I usually do, and there is no test at all, he had just showed up early, that's all.' Yuta thought as he dismissed the matter in his mind.
"I see you all rested and full of energy now." Shisui said enthusiastically, "We won't be going on missions for a while, instead I'm going to teach each one of you something new."
As the three Genins perked up hearing that, Shisui continued, "After two months I had spent with you, I already know about your skills and preferences, so I will be teaching something to each of you in the next two weeks, something that I think will be most beneficial for you to learn. Usually, Genins aren't being taught new techniques by their Jonin-instructors until much later, when they have a year or two of ninja experience and have their basics being hammered down properly, and sometimes they aren't being taught new techniques by their Jonin-instructors at all."
As three Genins were listening with great attention, Shisui continued, "But in your case, I believe that wasn't a problem for you three. Your basics are solid already, and your lack of experience is not much of a problem, your skills and preferences are already quite established so making a decision of what each of you should learn next and focus on is quite simple now. In the next two weeks I'll be teaching each one of you individually, and there won't be any missions until we are done with that."
'A new jutsu for each of us that is supposed to improve our skills and cover our shortcomings? I wonder what he is going to teach me? An offensive jutsu, or maybe a defensive one? Or some new special genjutsu instead?' Yuta thought with excitement.
"Well then, we'll start immediately." Shisui said and formed a hand seal and created two shadow clones. One of the shadow clones, or maybe a real Shisui, Yuta didn't know which is the case, came to Yuta and said, "Yuta, follow me." This Shisui said and walked into the secluded part of the training grounds, away from the others.
As Yuta followed, they went further into the training grounds and as there was only two of them now, Shisui changed his expression from the formal and sensei-like to a more casual one as he said, "So, Yuta, did you predicted that I would come earlier today, so that's why you came earlier yourself?"
"Huh, yea, something like that. But why you even bother to test me like that?" Yuta replied casually and without the usual respectful tone that he was using when there were others present, since he was more used to talking casually with Shisui and him becoming Yuta's Jonin-instructor doesn't change their relationships that much. Shisui was teaching Yuta for a long time before his graduation, and since Shisui didn't ask Yuta to call him sensei or to show more respect back then, hence Yuta was more used to talking with him casually like that.
As they walked some distance further and stopped at a small clearing among the trees, Shisui replied with a smile, "No reason, I was just curious."
"Yea, I don't think so." Yuta said being a little annoyed by Shisui's attitude, then he looked at Shisui and noticed something, "You seem a little down today, is something happened?"
"Well, you could say that. It's the clan. I don't think it would be long before it all spirals out of control..." Shisui said with some worry in his voice.
--- AN ---
I'll be busy on Sunday and Monday, so there won't be a new chapter on Sunday. Instead, I'll compensate for it by posting an extra chapter next Wednesday, so it will be 5 chapters next week.
If you like the story, please consider writing a comment, a review, voting with power stones, or check out my Patreon, there is 4 advanced chapters available (patreon.com/SycoreNovels)
Thanks to Loalola, Eyes_Of_The_Void, and Krishna_Razz for the power stones.