(June, year 54 AK)
Yuta formed a Tiger hand seal, and in the next moment he disappeared from where he was standing and reappeared a hundred meters away. After a second of intense disorientation, Yuta sighed tiredly.
'It's being four months in a time-loop already, and I still can't do anything with this whole one second of disorientation... I reduced the hand seals requirements to only one seal, and I perform the Body Flicker jutsu very fast now, in less than a half a second, but this vulnerability at the end of the jutsu are bothering me very much, but no matter how long I practice, it doesn't subside any more than that...' Yuta thought with irritation.
'For the whole second my entire view is spinning like crazy after the high-speed movement, to the point that I can't determine where is up and down and what is going on around me, any attempt at moving during that second always results in me stumbling and falling, I start to feel like I won't be able to do anything about that, not now at least.'
"You are proven to be quite proficient with this jutsu from the moment I taught you, it's like this jutsu is natural for you..." Shisui commented from the side.
Yuta had spent four months during these two weeks in a time loop, and each time he had traveled to the day after Shisui taught him the jutsu, because the day that Shisui taught him the jutsu was also the day when the Obito's attack happened in a different timeline, so Yuta didn't want to mess too much with that time frame and subconsciously avoided to time-travel there.
But this last time travel Yuta went all the way back to the day when Shisui had taught him the Body Flicker jutsu, to re-do the day when he was struggling with the jutsu for the first time, and this time Yuta acted like he picked up on the jutsu instantly and shown great results from the start. He did that to fix the inconsistencies in his progress, so there won't be a huge unexplainable leap in his proficiency with the jutsu overnight, so this time he appeared like someone, who mastered the jutsu instantly and was very proficient with it from the start.
And now, when these two weeks ended for the ninth time for Yuta, he was finally satisfied with his progress and decide to move on, since he is no longer able to push his mastery over the jutsu that much for the time being.
"Thanks, but I still can't perform it fast enough without the hand seal and the disorientation in the end is still a problem." Yuta commented.
'Performing the jutsu without the hand seals is not a problem, but the time that I have to concentrate for it – is. It takes me about five seconds to manually mold the chakra for the Body Flicker jutsu without the final Tiger hand seal right now, and I feel like with my current chakra level I can't improve this time by much. The stronger my chakra is – the stronger the control over the chakra I could master with training, and with that, the more chakra-intensive jutsu I would be able to perform without the hand seals in a reasonable time.'
'There is two sides for the chakra control: the fine control over the small amounts of chakra, this type of chakra control could be trained indefinitely and it doesn't rely on the overall chakra level of the user that much, this is mainly used in subtle type genjutsu and chakra-sensory skills, and probably in fuinjutsu (sealing arts) as well; but the other side of the chakra control is the ability to properly manipulate large amounts of chakra, properly handle it, mold it, and channel it into a jutsu without losing control over it, and that's where the problem of reducing the time required to mold chakra without the hand seals lies. This type of chakra control can't be trained too much beyond of what my current chakra strength allows.'
'During these four months of training my chakra had grown to about 8G. It was about 6 or 6.3G before, so I consider this a good progress being made. But it is still far behind if I compare it to Itachi and Hikari, they both have about 1.3C or 13G from I could sense now. But I shouldn't rush to catch up to them. After all, the majority of my chakra comes from the growing spiritual energy, while my physical energy and the physique of my body is quite lacking, if I train too much in the time-loops and grow my spiritual energy too much, while my physical body stays the same and not progress at all – the disbalance between the spiritual energy and physical energy will grow even more and it will become a huge problem.'
'Although I still don't feel any abnormalities or discomfort because of the growing disbalance, but I can't say it would stay like that indefinitely, and I'm not even sure if I could time-travel all the way back to my four-years-old self anymore, after all, back then my body was very weak and I'm not sure it could handle so much spiritual energy that I have right now if I were to time-travel all the way back to that point.'
"That is not a problem." Shisui replied, "You form the jutsu quickly enough and you are very proficient in it, and after your chakra and control improves more – you will be able to use the jutsu without the hand seals at all. As for disorientation – I'm afraid there is nothing that could be done about that. You will reduce it a little after a long time of using the jutsu, but that's about the extent that could be done without a dojutsu that could help you to keep up with the speed of the jutsu."
"I see." Yuta replied thoughtfully, as that was the same conclusion that Yuta came up with himself during the training.
It was already late and Yuta was about to go home, Shisui told them to come here to the training grounds in early morning the next day and that they will go on a mission tomorrow, and as everyone was about to leave, Yuta sensed a chakra movements that are closing on them fast, he sensed the chakra vaguely and figured it was vague because of the same chakra concealment method that was used by the guy that beat him up during his combat evaluation for the graduation.
As Yuta was about to give a signal to Shisui, he noticed that Shisui slightly nodded at him.
'He noticed it too, and he is relaxed, that means it's not an enemy... Damn, after that delusional piece of trash Obito I've become paranoid... Well, you can't really be too paranoid in this world, you could only be not paranoid enough and get yourself killed...' Yuta thought as he saw a ninja in black clothes with exposed shoulders, gray west and a white mask with animal patterns appearing next to Shisui and said something quietly to him before disappearing with the Body Flicker jutsu after Shisui nodded to him.
"The mission we were going to take tomorrow will have to wait." Shisui calmly said as he looked at his team, "I'll see you later."
"Shisui-sensei, if you are going to go on a serious mission by yourself and leave us behind – I will be seriously mad!" Hikari said loudly with contempt.
'Huh? Ah, now I see... Hokage is summoning Shisui alone, that means there is something urgent, and since Shisui canceled our tomorrow mission, that means he will be busy for a while, he is going on a solo mission...' Yuta quickly deduced and then he looked at Hikari while being a little surprised, 'Since when Hikari became this sharp to be able to figure it out in an instant?! That is probably because she was about to lose the opportunity to get into the real fight she always wanted, it must be her instincts of a violent brute tingling or something...'
"Sigh, this could get dangerous..." Shisui said in a serious tone after a few seconds of thinking about it.
"Since when were we afraid of danger? Please, you have to take us with you!" Hikari said with determination.
"Itachi, Yuta, do you also want to come with me? Anything could happen, I might not have the opportunity to protect you during this mission." Shisui said seriously, "You don't have to go, this is above your pay grade. And I'm not sure if the Lord Hokage will allow it either."
"Sure, I'll go." Yuta replied without a second of hesitation, "I better take my chances on this dangerous mission, as I have a feeling that Hikari will kill me herself if I refuse to go." Yuta said half-jokingly.
"Humph, you can count on that." Hikari replied with a slightly threatening smile.
'Damn, I hope she won't learn Eight Gates and also don't get too good with dispelling genjutsu, or I might actually end up being beaten up one day...' Yuta thought half-jokingly.
Then Yuta glanced at Hikari, and finally noticed something unusual, Hikari had a short katana-looking sword on her back, it was tanto – short straight double-edged blade that is widely used by all sorts of ninjas in the village, and it is widely used by Anbu as well. But on Hikari's back, the tanto looked like a full-sized sword because of her small eight-years-old body.
'Did Shisui taught her kenjutsu?' Yuta wondered.
"I'll go too." Itachi replied coldly and confidently.
'Hm? There is something different about Itachi today...' Yuta thought as he looked at him, 'It's like his attitude became different, colder and more serious, or maybe I'm just imagining it?'
...
'What if...' Yuta thought as he concentrated on his chakra sensing and focused his attention on Itachi, 'Huh!? No way!?'
...
'His chakra... It's so much stronger now than before, and it gives a darker and colder feeling than before... Can it be? Yea, there is no other explanation to that... Shisui, what have you done to Itachi I wonder...' Yuta thought, being very surprised by what he sensed from Itachi.
"Very well then. Follow me." Shisui said after a few seconds of contemplation and coming to a decision. Then he quickly led his team to the Hokage Tower.
--- AN ---
A reminder on numerical values of chakra that MC had established in the previous chapters:
1G = the amount of chakra comparable to one average Genin;
Same for 1C = Chunin; 1J = Jonin, etc.
The power scaling is not set in stone, but it is something like that:
10G = 1C; 10C = 1J; 10J = 1S-rank/Kage level; 10S = 1SS.
Hashirama and Madara level I estimate as higher than 1SS, maybe Hashirama is about 1.8SS while Madara is 1.6SS, that is in their peak during the battle in the Walley of The End, where Madara is supposedly being killed by Hashirama.
And for the resurrected Madara with Rinnegan and Ten-Tails – I can't even estimate how much higher that level is above the 1.6SS that Madara was before that.
If you have any suggestions about the power-scaling please let me know in the comments.
Thanks to Loalola, Krishna_Razz, Eyes_Of_The_Void, Jayroy_63, DaoistAYdc5w, Shadow_reader_, Elijah_Thomas_1921, Zen_Slacker and Daoistbm0BeO for the power stones.