Watching someone else train is not the most elegant and honorable thing to do. But what is worse than that is actually getting spotted and caught. The man who had revealed himself accidentally, sighed, wanting to resolve this peacefully: „Wait, I can explai…". Then, he got interrupted by a flurry of expertly thrown kunai and shuriken.
After the unknown man skillfully evaded the dozens of flying weapons, Shisui's sharingan sprang to live, before he disappeared from view, only to be replaced by a handful of non solid clones who sprinted synchronously towards the opposing man who seemed to become more and more flustered as the situation spiraled out of his assumed control.
Shisui wanted to support his clones with a sound based genjutsu, though that was countered instantly, as his opponent disturb his chakra flow. Opposite to the flustered expression of a man who was caught red handed, Shisui's opponent calmly took out two specially formed kunai, though Shisui did not notice these small opposing behavioral patterns.
Then, as his clones had surrounded the other man, Shisui saw his chance. His projected killing intent spiked, a crazed smile forming on his lips, before one of the specially formed kunai's clipped him. He narrowly avoided that deadly attack which was thrown with elegance and speed matching Shisui's bloodlust, still clipping his cheek slightly.
Then, Shisui was slammed face down into the dirt, before promptly losing consciousness due to a seal plastered on his back, all while the now apologetically smiling man seemed to have nether moved from his spot.
He had both seen through Shisui's clones and bested him in a mere heartbeat, even though Shisui's strength could now be ranked at the top of Konoha's chunin. Thoughtful, the man strode towards the motionless body of his adversary, touching him lightly, before both disappeared from the training ground, only leaving behind a devastated field of barren earth even though the fight was short.
He reappeared in a private room at the very top of Konoha's premier hospital, leaving Shisui behind, before instructing a medical ninja, who had come running: „Restrain him and nurse him back to health. Call me after he wakes up and do not loosen those restraints. To be sure, use the ones for jonin, not genin as he is probably one of the strongest chunin currently", he smirked, thinking about dozens of potential scenarios where Shisui's combat style could play a huge role. He vanished again, though this time it was a puff of smoke instead of his deathly silent instant departure.
This was a tell tale sign of a shadow clone, though it could have just been an attempt to deceive anyone keeping an eye on him from ever finding out if it was the real him or just a clone.
As he woke up, Shisui Uchiha was furious. Not in a way of harming or battling any- and everything around him, but furious for himself that he lost control. Hell, he had not even recognized the newly appointed hokage due to his blood frenzy: „The rumors do not do him justice", he muttered, whispering the name of his still pretty new superior: „Minato Namikaze".
„You called?", a voice sounded on the other side of the bed, shocking Shisui out of his gloomy thoughts, before turning his head towards the source: „No", he tried to joke. „Do not worry. I won't execute you for that little stunt you pulled, though it is actually in my capacity to do so, so try not to repeat that with anyone else, as then my hands would end up tied with no way to help you", he smiled lightly: „Though it is good to know that you are sound of mind again, as it would be too sad to see such a promising student like you incarcerated due to sanity issues. Anyway, as I do not have much time currently. You are hereby unofficially promoted to chunin, though that will be a secret between the two of us. The moment you solve this teeny tiny problem plaguing your mind, I will make it public or maybe offer you another position if you are interested in it. Come find me when you accomplish that as even if you decline to participate in my current plans, I will still reward you for your very impressive show of footwork. It is a rare delicacy to learn new things in a speciaity one has already mastered to one of the highest degrees known in the nations. Now sleep and I will tell the nurse to release you in a week or so", he chuckled, quietly disappearing from the room yet again. Though his chuckle did linger behind, a potent genjutsu interwoven which was amplified by the echo's of the spacious room, until Shisui, still restrained on the bed, fell into a deep relaxing slumber, probably for the first time ever since the war.
There he lay, slumbering deeply, but all things come to an eventual end so it was to no surprise that he awoke one and a half days later. This put him in the miserable position of not knowing what to do as he would be restrained for another 5.5 days or so the hogake claimed. IT turned out to be true, probably his idea of a good joke, but Shisui refused to sit … lie idle.
At first he did not know what to do for such a prolonged time. Obviously he could meditate, as his chakra was no longer suppressed, a show of trust he thought, until he tried to subtly break the restraints only to realize that he could not even scratch them. So he plotted, until he finally found another activity he could do as meditating seemed less appealing by the minute, as it would only me meditation for the sake of it, which meant that he would need to face his inner demons which he was certainly not ready to do in this state. Or any other really.
At least he had identified his problem which proved ever elusive before. It was uncontrolled lust, bloodlust to be exact. Most use it as a synonym to killing intent, but the truth was much different to that believe. Bloodlust was raw, primal and chaotic whereas killing intent was calm, cutting and controlled. In laymen terms it is the refined version of bloodlust, but it was so much more difficult than that simplification, as for most bloodlust either just dissipated or for those where it did not, well they went insane. Some committed suicide, others slaughtered innocents, others went rogue doing the worst things imaginable and others conquered it, learned to control it, to convert it to a more benign power trough sheer will and discipline.
Shisui had both, but shackled to a bed is certainly not the right posture to tackle that. Instead, he practiced weaving handsigns. A mundane exercise, which he had mastered before he even attended school, but he started from the basics again, running through the exercises in blinding speed, until he had finished them five times.
Thousands of combinations, hundreds of slightly different signs and then, he did something he had never thought about before. He swapped hands. You see, most handsigns were specific to your dominant hand, but the truth was that you could weave signs with your feet with enough practice, at least if you did not die due to it as it needed tremendous skill in chakra control.
So he simply switched his hands and came to the startling realization that it was pretty uncomfortable to do so. While still manageable, it was nowhere near his near instinctual use of handsigns he previously showed, so he practiced. And practiced. And practiced.
He had nothing else to do, all his bodily needs being supplied intravenously, so he excelled at it. In the end it was not that hard and he reached his previous proficiency at alarming speeds. And again was left with nothing to do. So he practiced something which was more esoteric. One handed signs.
There is a myth about some livelong parters being able to use a jutsu through handsigns in conjunction with each other, only using one hand each and supplying varying amounts of chakra to it. Though those could not be confirmed for their accuracy, it still meant that handsigns were not limited to what you learned at school. The variety even is severly lacking and Shisui only knew 90% of his vocabular due to self study and his clans jutsu.
This meant that theoretically, it should be possible to weave handsigns with a single hand , which was also a well known fact actually as many disabled shinobi learned this due to sheer necessity.
And so he started practicing, though he did not come very far before being released. Actually, he did not even have an inkling where to start but not being able to release any jutsu really made experimenting with such things hard.
Contrary to what most would think he did not directly go back to his training ground to continue his self imposed meditative torture, but, well, the current hokage was right. He had not realized it before, more like Shisui did not want to acknowledge it before, but his current approach was not working as good as he hoped. It still worked somewhat, but it did not solve the underlying issue,
So he promised himself to try out new different things. Today it was a slow, purposeless walk throughout the whole village. A bustling day market, a quiet side street, an even quieter forest, a loud residential district with dozens of small children running around who not yet knew the possible horrors in their futures and more. Konoha had a big variety of different environments, shopping streets, food stalls and more, so Shisui would have more than enough to do. Tomorrow, he might eat bbq, the day after ramen, sometimes maybe reading a fictional book.
Solely training was just not the right thing to do in his circumstances, though the walk itself was extremely uncomfortable. It was hard for Shisui to suppress all his trained instincts to a manageable level so that he did not attack anyone, neither due to some type of movement or action.
After an hour long walk with the sun at its zenith he of course still went back to training and continued to practice handsigns and consequently his chakra control. Being able to finally release a jutsu again, his progress spiked due to his accumulated experience, even though it was solely theoretical.
First he practiced all his jutsu with both orientations of handsigns, before he tried once again to weave a jutsu with a single hand. He started with a few basic ones who only had little interaction between two hands with most things being done by a singular one.
There, his progress halted. He expected it of course as it was not something done lightly or fast. Shisui also did not expect it to bear fruit anytime soon, but he would still continue to practice periodically and implement it in his usual training regime.
After he grew tired of failing over and over again, he went back to something else. The amount of handsigns of a jutsu could be decreased with familiarity and chakra control. The reason that the three academy jutsu were selected precisely due to that reason as they were the simplest to reduce to one handed signs, which Shisui had achieved long ago. The clone justu, incorporal obviously, was the easiest one for him, mostly due to him heavily favoring it. What he wanted to do was to try casting it with or through his feet, which promptly landed him back in the hospital as he split open both of his shins due to a violent burst of chakra.
Nonetheless, his anxiety, which had built up during his walk which was originally intended to be relaxing, slowly disappeared during this training, together with a slight decrease of his bloodlust which he did not notice.