The return of the various involved countries military was neither glorious nor pretty.
There naturally was a huge feast to commemorate the ending of another year of strive and bloodshed, but afterward the real cost of war slowly reared its uglyhead. In a war torn world one would think, that support systems were in place, but the sad reality was that there wasn't. Only Konoha had something resembling a psychiatric unit, which was hopelessly overrun with all the emerging problems.
In other villages though, after the tension left the bodies of many people, the real horror just began. Suicides, senseless violence, addictions and more formed, plunging the already destabilized economy, moral and order into another bout of chaos which would take decades to recover.
The rivalries between both countries and the hidden villages still stood strong, some even continuing some of their war efforts in secret. Konoha's spy network was still in effect, the bloody mist village still held to its brutal practices which earned them that moniker in the first place, Iwagakure continued to trying develop weapons of mass destruction and while Kumogakure was the most silent one, they still harbored ambitions beyond their own borders.
Even while Kumogakure's intelligence network withered, they passed laws, regulations and improved their education system so that they could play the long game, reaping massive benefits before the next battles or wars.
And still, most efforts of any village paled in regard to Konoha, as while it was not perfect in any way or form, it still had the least impacts of the previous wars with with an abnormally low casualty rate, especially in their top brass. Even the other negative effects were either solved or negated to a large degree, so in reference to the rest Konoha stood even stronger than before.
Shisui also had his fair share of problems. It was no secret that he awakened the sharingan early in the conflict, but few knew that all the traumas he lived through were enough to get him close to awakening the mangekyo, though that close chasm seemed nearly insurmountable due to a multitude of reasons.
He was actually offered a promotion to chunin after the war, though he declined: „I am currently missing the comprehensive strength to support that rank as I am just a one trick pony". The truth was, that he did not want more responsibilities, as those meant less time for training, which was his form of therapy after all his grueling experiences.
The first exercise he strived to master was actually a very obscure one, which he had only theorized during the war and was the reason he started to learn sensing chakra. While ninja's needed to painstakingly create their own mana through kneading their physical and mental energy, natural chakra still existed in the atmosphere of this beautiful planet. And that chakra also had inherent affinities, similar to the affinity of humans. Well, that was the theory he had already proven, but maybe he could take it another step further.
He had already confirmed the existence of fire, earth, water, wind and electricity and now he wanted to magnify his understanding of these natural chakra affinities. Actually, sensing some types of affinities were quite rare with only the top percentile of veteran sensors ever reaching that stage, though even less could sense more than their own affinities. Shisui, who had already achieved that stage through tirelessly practicing wanted improve it even more, to sense the chakra affinities of living entities, giving him an edge in battles.
What this brief recess now brought him was worth is weight in gold, as he was now able to more accurately sense natural chakra affinities, which would help in reconnaissance for spotting some traps and knowing the enemies specialities before the fight began. He was also able to confirm the existence of natural chakra affinities for magma release, though those were very unstable and would revert to either earth or water in a matter of seconds.
Through this it was confirmed that several more complex kekkei genkai and chakra affinities were in fact natural occurrences for the most part and maybe even learnable, though Shisui himself knew that he was far from competent enough to even think about that, as that required similar mastery to the third hokage, who earned the nickname "The professor" due to his achievements in that regard.
Shisui instead focused on just kneading of chakra to fill his chakra starving body with the chakra it so desperately needed, until he hit the camp for his current situation, as he was constricted by both physical and mental fitness/age. This went surprisingly well due to the strain the recent war put on the boy and his young age, as it was easier to do such things at such a development age.
Afterwards, he committed himself to even more strenuous training, trying to just forget the horrors which would plague him like an ill fated carousel, over and over again. Taijutsu, ninjutsu, kenjutsu, theory, spars and so much more. It was exhausting but the rush of strength also felt exhilarating, slowly turning into another passion, though he had never yet know that just training could be so fulfilling. One endeavor he fervently pursued was to keep up his sensing 24/7, though the radius was not even half a meter for now, not that he had not tried to start with a higher range, it just proved too exhausting on his chakra reserves which were still quite small, even inside of his own generation.
If he got bored by the repetitiveness of physical training, he would change to practice chakra control or even do both simultaneously, unknowingly working on his multi tasking which improved rather slowly outside of the battlefield. Sometimes he just wished to be back on the battlefield to just feel the rush of a fight to the death, the feeling of rapid improvements while any single twitch could lead to his untimely death.
There he thrived, but he had those instincts under control, though he would need to appease the urge at some point in time, though currently it was still far away from that point. Maybe he could even curb stomp that side of him into the ground?
Alas, it would destroy a part of his being, which he was intimately aware of as he had already tried, multiple times and failed each and every time. He had even thought about just jumping down from the cliff right next to his preferred training and resting spot, but he would not die from such a measly fall. You would need to be seriously injured, out of chakra and nearly dead before falling off the clip to even be presumed death, still you could still survive with a bit of luck. That specific canyon even had a river at the bottom, which made that task even easier.
If Shisui ever needed a way to fake it he already knew multiple ways of going about it, even in a world, where warfare is as advanced as here. Morbid thoughts for sure, but his mind spun around those niche situations, trying to find answers to anything and everything plaguing his mind.
Screaming your soul out of your body in the middle of the night fueled his desire to work through his difficulties even more, due to which he focused even more on training. He acquired, using most of his merits from the war, the best full body weights that money could not buy, personally created by one of the foremost fuinjutsu masters in the village, Minato Namikaze, though he only knew of those due to his platonic friendship with one of his schoolmates.
They had lucked out and got a sensei which did not die in the first few weeks of the wars and who at least tried to teach them necessary things for wartime, even though exactly that made it even harder to do anything of the sort.
That was the reason that my sensei was only a chunin in the first place. Not even a strong one, just a barely passable one, though he was a damn good teacher, no denying that. He just died in their first mission, which they were absolutely ill prepared for, though that was not his fault either, as their commander at that point in time forced them to participate.
The top combat force just could not be spared to play baby sitter for the newly graduated rookies, though that was one of the widely applied new laws in most villages, so that rookies had both protection and guidance, instead of only one of those. This meant, that the future batches of graduates would have better instructors than most could ever hope for, though that still depended on their scores while in school, as those people could not be wasted on people with perceived low potential.
Back to Shisui's new eights. They consisted of four bracelets, one for each leg and arm, a ring around the belly and a choker for the neck. Together they made it possible to increase the weight of specific parts of your body, the surrounding resistances to another level and even the gravity, which acted upon your body.
While not the most stylish thing to wear, Shisui started to wear it at any time of the day, though he only maxed them to his current limit when he was training, as he was afraid of an ambush, even inside of his own village, clan compound or home.
The only downside was the chakra consumption of these seals, though even that was a possibility to subconsciously improve your chakra control or so Shisui thought, as that was the reason he did not take them off anymore, except for showering and laundry day, as both sides of that particular coin needed to be cleaned sometimes.
While Shisui still tried to train evenly, not favoring any discipline majorly, he still heavily favored endurance, though that was universally needed. He had compressed all physical training exercises he had learned up to today into a single day, increasing the difficulty daily, though it did need quite some time to get the increase right.
On his very first day after he had gotten those weights, he had overcharged them so much, that he fell face first into the dirt and needed to wait 72 hours for the chakra to run out. Luckily no one had seen him in that period, as his training ground was not one of the well known ones. Afterwards, it slowly got better and better, until he had perfected this routine.
The exercises started with simple push ups, squads, planks, jumping jacks and similarly easy methods but even their strain nearly destroyed his body multiple times. Afterwards, he would run, jump and tree hop randomly throughout the forest, before practicing his katas and techniques. Then, he would rest for thirty minutes, before repeating the exact same sequence another four times.
Shisui also picked up a bit of iryo ninjutsu, though it was just one the most basic muscle relaxation technique which most training fanatics knew or many of those would not even be able to get out of bed the next morning.
He did have his eye on one of their specialities though. The chakra scalpel, simply due to its most ability of creating a weapon out of nothing but chakra. His interst came from one simple truth on the battlefield. Either, your tools would be destroyed or just used up or your chakra would be used up first.
In war, the second possibility was almost always the one to occur, but without a war going on, the first possibility could also happen and then it would help immensely, if you at least had an alternative.
Due to this fervent training, Shisui's strength spiked, especially his endurance. Coupled with his superior technique to most genin, he could outlast almost anyone in a prolonged fight, which he can also force to occur.
Rapidly, in less than a year, his physical fitness also caught up to his current age's limit, due to which he could decrease his workload to one rotation per day, which meant that he now had a lot more freetime to train other things. The first thing he did in a few days was to maximize his chakra capacity again, which he had only halfheartedly brought along during his physical training.
Now though came the time: „Let the real grind begin!"