(1st of July, year 55 AK)
'Six months have passed since that clusterfuck of a mission when we fought the Stone village's Jonin, huh...' Yuta lazily thought on his way to the Academy accompanied by Itachi and Hikari.
Yuta thought about these past six months. There were team trainings with Shisui, about two dozen C-rank missions, a third of which had escalated to B-rank and involved some fighting against other ninjas, but nothing dangerous or exciting. Most of their opponents were Genins, and only few Chunins, but not even on the level of those Stone village's Chunins, and by now Yuta could dispatch such opponents with ease all by himself, so his fights during past six months wasn't very exciting, they were rather one-sided beatings than fights.
By now Yuta was absolutely sure that Shisui was selecting such fishy missions on purpose, since C-rank missions is not supposed to go sideways this often, but not that Yuta was against such missions and he is definitely not complaining about it, neither Itachi nor Hikari. For the three of them, as long as they don't stumble on a full-fledged Jonin from one of the major villages, everything else was like a breeze, it was just routine work and nothing else.
And even if they would be pinned against a Jonin again, Yuta believed that the three of them had become stronger enough in the past six months, individually and as a team, so even then they should be able to handle a one Jonin with much less difficulty than the last time.
Yuta glanced at Itachi and Hikari by his side as he walked to the Academy and thought, 'Itachi definitely became much stronger, especially after that fight against the Stone village's Jonin. I can hardly sense the extent of his chakra by now, it is somewhere higher that 15C, or just 1.5J, I can't sense it more precisely yet. And Hikari? Well, her chakra had grown from 2.5C to 4C in these six months, although there was no leap in her chakra growth when she awakened her Kekkei Genkai back then and her chakra was growing gradually over time... Strange, I was expecting a leap there, maybe not as exaggerated as Itachi's after his awakening of the Sharingan, but still...'
'Damn, why did I think that ending up on Itachi's team was a good idea again? I just end up envious and frustrated most of the time, both of them are growing so much faster than I ever could... I have 5.7C amount of chakra by now, it had grown only by 0.4C in the last six months, and a big chunk of its growth happened exactly after that fight against the Jonin, I guess life-and-death battles do boost spiritual energy's growth somewhat. But then again, Itachi's chakra grown by more than 5C and Hikari's chakra grown for 1.5C in the same time period...'
'Sigh, I better stop comparing our progress outside of time-loops, I knew all along that I'm not talented like they are. I'm just going to die of envy and frustration if I keep comparing myself against them...' Yuta thought with tired reluctance, and a slightly bitter acceptance.
Yuta's thoughts returned to the past six months, and he thought about the chakra form and nature transformation training that Shisui started to teach them recently, just about a month ago.
Shisui had explained back then, that since all three of them already have some sort of a specialty, like Hikari's kenjutsu, Yuta's genjutsu and Itachi's Fire Style and Sharingan, hence they should continue training and honing those already established skills.
As for the Chakra Nature Transformation, Shisui explained that he started teaching them because he thought it was a good time to begin training with it for Yuta and Hikari, since they will have to master it eventually. Shisui said, that after all, ninjutsu is essential ninja art, it's the most commonly used way of using chakra in battle and each proper shinobi should learn it to at least some extent.
Shisui explained that mastering nature transformation for elemental ninjutsu could take a few years until they would get to the level when they would be able to confidently use elemental ninjutsu in combat.
Of course that didn't apply to Itachi, who had already mastered the Fire Chakra Nature Transformation. In fact, Itachi started training to master the second Chakra Nature Transformation by now – Wind. While both Yuta and Hikari were only starting their training with the Chakra Nature Transformation according to their primary affinity that was tested by Shisui with special chakra paper.
Yuta remembered how he saw Hikari taking a paper slip and the next moment it burned to ashes in an instant.
'Fire, huh...' Yuta thought back then, 'How generic for the Land of Fire ninja. The majority of ninjas of the Leaf have Fire element as their primary affinity. Although anyone could train other elements even if they have poor affinity with them, but it would be much harder. I wonder what my primary elemental affinity is...'
Then Yuta took the piece of paper and pushed his chakra into it. The next instant it soaked wet.
'Water, huh...' Yuta thought a bit indifferently.
Since Yuta was specializing in genjutsu and had recently formed some plans to learn fuinjutsu(Sealing Arts) and iryojutsu(medical ninjutsu), hence he wasn't too excited about using ninjutsu that much. Also, having time-travel, Yuta figured that it won't be a problem for him to master all five basic elements eventually, even those that he doesn't have good affinity with, although it would take a lot of time in a time-loop, but it was still easily achievable for him since he wasn't limited by time like others.
'Water Style does have some good ninjutsu in it that suits my fighting style, like The Hidden Mist jutsu, I guess... But who am I kidding, the first thing on my mind was Tobirama's Water Severing Wave jutsu, although that jutsu is very high rank from what I remember and I won't get it any time soon, sadly... Well, not that I would be using ninjutsu that much anyway, I suppose...'
Although Yuta wanted to master multiple cool ninjutsu, like who wouldn't, he still understood that ninjutsu is likely won't become his main skill. It's not like Yuta would be weak in the field of ninjutsu, like he is when it comes to taijutsu, but throwing ninjutsus requires a lot of chakra, and Yuta believed that his limited chakra would be better spent using genjutsu in most situations instead.
Then Yuta remembered the training techniques Shisui had taught them. Shisui had explained the techniques for all five basic elements. Yuta was already familiar with the Wind Nature Transformation training from the original story. For other elements, it was somewhat similar.
The core principle is to transform normal chakra into chakra of one of the basic elements and use it. No hand seals involved, pure chakra control exercise. For Water Nature Transformation training Yuta had to extract water from the leaf in his palms using Water Nature chakra that he has to somehow figure out how to produce.
For the past month Yuta was patiently spending a few hours a day trying just that, and he genuinely felt like he had returned back in time to the time when he was trying to figure out how to use sound for his genjutsu, this kind of training was seriously frustrating to him.
It was one thing to train when he knew what he was doing and seeing real progress day after day, no matter how small. But when he has to train when he has no idea how exactly he was supposed to accomplish it, and there is no visible progress at all, it was all very frustrating to Yuta.
Yuta remembered how he did it with sound, back then he shut himself up in the time-loop and was determined to go at it until he succeeds, no matter how long it takes. And it did take quite long... Back then, being in a closed time-loop, Yuta didn't feel much frustration, at least not after a while of going at it when he got into some kind of a rhythm and submerged into the routine completely. But right now, being outside of a time-loop and spending only two hours a day training the Nature Transformation and seeing no results, Yuta felt very frustrated.
Either way, Yuta was trying not to focus on it too much, he wanted to train the Water Nature Transformation properly later on in a time-loop when he starts another long training session. With how his body grown naturally for the past ten months after the last time-loop training, Yuta figured that he could afford another long time-loop training once again by now, although it will likely make the side effects of energies imbalance to resurface again, still, it shouldn't be too serious now.
Yuta's thoughts returned back to the present as he, Itachi and Hikari entered the ninja Academy though the main entrance and walked through the wide hall. There were quite a lot of people there, standing, chatting, passing through, and Yuta's group looked much younger than the rest of them.
As Yuta's group walked past the crowd, many people thrown mocking and dismissive glances at them, but Yuta didn't mind that. He knew that the majority of those overconfident idiots are just weaklings who won't bother Yuta for much longer and will soon be dropped out.
And the reason why Yuta's group are here in the first place, it was, of course, The Chunin Exams, and the first phase of it will be conducted today, about half an hour from now. That's why there are so many people here, although almost all of them are at least sixteen years old and older, Yuta's group was by far the youngest participants.
From the outside's perspective Yuta's group looked like a group of kids who wandered somewhere they shouldn't be.
Yuta glanced around the crowd.
'Mainly Leaf shinobi, according to the signs on their headbands, huh...' Yuta thought, 'Although there are few from minor hidden villages like Grass village, and a group from the Sand village as well, and...'
Suddenly Yuta felt an especially cold gaze on him. He turned to the side and caught sight of the group of ninjas with headband signs of Tanigakure, The Village Hidden in Valleys.
'What is their deal I wonder...' Yuta thought without being too worried, 'Ah, I remember beating down a squad from their village, they were too weak for us to go against them seriously, so we didn't even kill anyone back then, why are they angry? No matter, if they are dumb enough to stand in my way, I don't mind beating them up one more time...'
It seems that after six months of ninja work with occasional fights against relatively weak opponents Yuta started to get a bit arrogant and overconfident once again...
--- AN ---
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