(6th of July, year 55 AK)
After resting a bit longer, Yuta stood up and went home, and soon he fell asleep in his bed. It was only afternoon, but he felt like he was going without any sleep for days right now.
After sleeping for the rest of the day and the whole night, Yuta woken up early in the morning next day, and as he was about to go make some breakfast before going to train, he stopped and thought suddenly, 'Wait a minute, I'm going to spend a lot of time developing my new genjutsu, right? I'm going to time-loop anyway, why should I cook? I don't need to save money or time during time-loops, right?'
With that thought Yuta thrown back into the fridge the eggs he was about to fry, then he unhurriedly dressed up and went straight to the Yakiniku Q.
After going on missions for almost a year he wasn't short on money anymore, although even now he can't afford to eat at the expensive restaurants like Yakiniku Q very often, but during the time-loops money was never a problem since they always come back anyway.
After having a good meal of grilled meat and leaving a sizable chunk of his money behind, Yuta unhurriedly went back home.
Since he was going to time-travel anyway, as one month's time is not nearly enough for him to develop and master a new genjutsu, he wasn't going to do his routine physical training either.
He came back home, laid on his bed and closed his eyes as he entered his mindscape and after a minute or two of observing the waters of the River of Time in his usual awe as his emotions were being washed away by its influence, he continued working on his genjutsu where he stopped the last time.
'The Shadow Mirage, that is a fitting name for this jutsu.' Yuta thought.
'The Shadow Cloak jutsu's essence is to hide and obscure something from the target's recognition and comprehension, hence the cloak in its name – to cloak, as to hide. The Shadow Chains jutsu's essence is to restrain, hence the chains in its name, and the chains as the illusory element in the genjutsu itself. But the Shadow Mirage jutsu, its essence will be the illusions in the form of my own clones, to fool, confuse and mislead the target, hence the mirage.'
'I'll take the Shadow Cloak jutsu as the foundation for the Shadow Mirage, strip away its core elements that are responsible for the genjutsu effects itself, only the foundation remains. I already did something like that during the first exam back then. I'll have to modify some of it, but the most of it is already perfect and should work nicely for the new jutsu.'
'The core of the jutsu thought, it needs to be developed from scratch, it would be the hard part. I already know how to make visual illusions since I worked on it for the Shadow Chains, and there are some elements in the three basic genjutsu Shisui had taught me a long time ago, so I know the drill. Working with sounds is not completely foreign for me either. I'm not used to work with visual and auditory illusions though, but at least I mostly know what to do and where to start.'
With that being decided and the general plan being made, Yuta started working on the design of his new genjutsu.
From time to time Yuta was making a brief pauses and leaving his mindscape to assess his level of mental exhaustion, so he won't end up overstraining his mind like the day before.
But even then, with all the precautions, after leaving his mindscape a few times and returning right back, Yuta at some point lost track of time again and only remembered about it when it was already too late as he felt being mentally drained and even more mentally exhausted than the last time all of a sudden.
Yuta hastily exited his mindscape and felt as if his head was about to burst.
'God damn it! I did it again...' Yuta thought tiredly, 'Well, at least my bed is conveniently placed right under me...' Was his last thought as he lost consciousness, and later his unconscious state gradually turned into a deep sleep.
A couple days ago, when Yuta was working on his spying new genjutsu inside his mindscape while staying for five days at the tower in the middle of the Forest of Death, back then he was also working in the mindscape without any sense of time like he is doing now, but back then there was always some people around and he wasn't able to completely lose track of time like he did right now, since he was always being on guard around others, especially around the foreign ninjas.
But either yesterday, in the middle of his usual remote training grounds by the lake, or now at his home, Yuta felt relatively safe and, in such an environment, it was easy for him to lose track of time. And now he had unknowingly pushed his mind and mental capacity way beyond what he should've, hence he lost consciousness on the spot from overworking as soon as he left his mindscape.
Yuta slept for the whole day, night and then some, finally waking up only in the afternoon of the next day.
As Yuta slowly opened his eyes with effort, he groaned from sharp pain in his head, the room in his view had spun around him, and he felt that he was about to puke as he was experiencing a rare feeling as if he was about to be thrown down from his bed by the intense spinning of the world around him.
He stood up from his bed slowly and tried to walk to the bathroom, his legs were shaky and as he made a few steps, the room made one big spin around him and the next moment he found himself faceplanted on the floor. He opened his mouth to curse, but instead he puked right onto his floor.
'Fuck...' Yuta thought as he stopped puking and somehow managed to stand up, helping himself by leaning on the walls and furniture he managed to reach the bathroom. As he was entering the bathroom, he glanced back on the mess on the floor in the room and there was only one thought in his head, 'I'm not cleaning that...'
Soon Yuta reached the bathroom sink and looked in the mirror above it. He frowned as he saw his face. Pale, red eyes, dried blood all over his lower half of the face and neck, it seems he had a severe nose bleeding while he was asleep.
'Upsies... I guess I really overdid it, huh...' Yuta thought and laughed drily with a bit of amusement as looked into the image of his ruined self in the mirror.
'Damn, I could've kicked the bucket for good with this one, huh...' Yuta thought, 'What even happened to me?'
...
As Yuta stared in the mirror for a minute or two, he then suddenly realized, he was spacing out, his thought process was slow and inconsistent and his mind isn't functioning properly right now, and as soon as he realized that, with the sense of urgency he immediately went into his mindscape and initiated the time-travel right away.
...
...
...
Next instant Yuta found himself in the Yakiniku Q restaurant, in the middle of his heavy-calories breakfast, it was the morning when he was about to finish his expensive meal and go back home to enter his mindscape to work on the new jutsu, overworking himself to half-death in the process...
Yuta sat there frozen for a full minute with a blank mind, he had no appetite whatsoever.
'Damn...' He finally thought as he felt a chill on his back while remembering what happened.
...
Then after a few more minutes he calmed down a bit and thought, 'My time-travel wasn't precise, I was aiming at the moment I woke up this morning, but I had missed the timing by about an hour, this never happened to me before since I learned how to aim properly with my time-travel.'
...
Then another realization hit him, 'At that moment, seeing that it was afternoon, I assumed that it was the next day, but considering my conditions, it might've not be the case, I might've slept for two or three days like that, and my badly aimed time-travel could've as well brought me to the point in time after I already overcooked my brain...'
...
'Itachi was right, I need to be more careful, this is really dangerous...' Yuta thought.
Then he sat there for a couple more minutes, looking at his cooling down grilled meat, thinking how royally he had fucked up with him overworking himself to half-death...
But then, sighed and dismissed the entire matter and returned to eating as his appetite had already returned as if nothing had happened.
'Well, now I know, at least, what happens if I really push it, huh... I will be more careful next time...' He thought while eating his favorite meal in the whole village.
At some point Yuta remembered the mess he made on the floor of his room and frowned, but then he realized that there was no mess in this timeline to begin with, and he sighed with relief.
After finishing his meal, Yuta went back home and laid on his bed, same as the last time and entered his mindscape once again.
'Well, I still have a lot of work to do...' Yuta thought after a minute or two of observing the scenery, and then he returned back to work.
This time he wasn't so careless anymore, and he was constantly assessing his mental state and leaving his mindscape often to take five-minute breaks.
After that one incident, he had never overworked himself so hard inside his mindscape ever since.
Although he acted like it wasn't a big deal, the entire event had scared him quite a lot, although mostly afterwards, when he processed everything that happened there in the next few days, and he would always remember the spinning room, the mess on the floor and the half-dead, red-eyed face in the mirror, all covered in the dried blood...
--- AN ---
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