(June 25th, year 54 AK)
Yuta was sitting beside the lake, resting after an intensive physical training session and analyzing his own skillset after it was stress-tested during the last mission.
'The problem with insufficient chakra aside, there is other things I have to work on first.' Yuta thought, 'The most obvious weakness that I had to deal with during the last battle is that all my genjutsus are single-target techniques. Because I wasn't able to target multiple enemies at once, I was forced into a lot of additional unnecessary moves during the fight, I had to put all my enemies into genjutsu one by one and I had to dodge and avoid enemy's attacks in the process, I barely managed to pull that off back then.'
'I think I should be able to modify my Shadow Cloak genjutsu to make it multitargeted, all I have to do is to increase the chakra input, form multiple Shadow Cloak genjutsu at once and then target multiple targets with it at once. Nothing new, nothing fundamentally different, but it will increase the chakra cost and complexity of the jutsu and I have to train it for a while before it will be combat-ready.'
'As for Shadow Chains – the jutsu is too chakra-consuming, I can't make it multitargeted for now, even if I could form the jutsu to target two opponents at once, it will cost more than a half of my chakra in one go, I won't be able to output and handle that much chakra just yet, so this one has to wait. As for other simple genjutsus, like Hell Viewing, they are weak and flawed, I won't be using those in combat anyway.'
'Okay, what else that stood out during the battle? I had to make diversions when I was using genjutsu, so enemies won't suspect it right away and dispel it, that was also quite inconvenient and taxing, if I could cast my genjutsus without hand seals that would be ideal.'
'For Shadow Chains that is not possible, at least for now, the jutsu is too chakra intensive and complex, I could reduce the hand seals requirement for it from eight seals to two or even one, but I won't be able to cast it without hand seals just yet, not on my current level.'
'But for Shadow Cloak jutsu, it should be possible, especially now that my chakra has grown even more. I don't know about the multitargeted version I'm going to develop, but the single-target one – I should be able to master casting it without hand seals at all now.'
...
'And the last major problem that I had during the last battle – is the sound I have to make to cast my genjutsu through it, or rather the fact that the sound was giving away my position. I had improvised and tried to imitate bird sounds during combat, but it didn't help much, my imitation was awful, since I wasn't practicing it before.'
'Practicing imitating the bird sounds is a good idea in general, but it doesn't solve the issue completely, the sound will be still there, and I bet experienced ninjas will be able to notice something off and track me by the sound anyway.'
'When I cast genjutsu through sound, I infuse my chakra into the sound waves and direct them onto my target, but there are also plenty of sound waves that disperse everywhere freely, so the sound I produce could be heard by everyone. Maybe I could suppress the "leftover" soundwaves, then only my target will hear the sound, this part can't be avoided, after all this is how the sound medium for genjutsu works fundamentally, the target has to hear it for it work.'
'Hm, I think I should be able to make my sound waves travel not in a straight line but in a curve, circling around the target before it reaches them, this way the person I target will hear the sound but will think it came from a different direction than it actually was.'
'Yes, this is a good solution to the problem, not that I could do anything else about it.'
'Then it settles that, make Shadow Cloak genjutsu multitargeted, master casting it without hand seals and work on sound concealment so I could cast genjutsu without revealing my position. As soon as I'll have at least three days off, I'll start the time-loop training and stay in it until I'm done with all of that. It would be more convenient to have at least three fully free days in a row for that.'
After forming a plan Yuta stood up and resumed his training, he started with the development of the multitargeted Shadow Cloak genjutsu first.
Although he decided to train according to plan in a time-loop as soon as he gets three days off, he didn't have anything else to do anyway, so he started training right away, after all, it was still noon and the day had barely started.
Next day Yuta arrived early in the morning at the training grounds where his team usually gathers.
As Yuta approached the clearing, his gaze wondered off to the small patch of trees in the distance, and a phantom pain in his chest had surfaced for a second, right in front of the heart where the Obito's hand had pierced him.
Yuta quickly got rid of the memories of that fuck-up with Obito capturing him and approached Itachi and Hikari.
"Morning" Yuta said casually.
"Hello." Itachi replied.
'Well, that's a progress, usually he just nods.' Yuta thought.
"Hi." Hikari said calmly.
"What, not going to scold me that I'm late again?" Yuta blurted out surprised by Hikari's not outright hostile attitude for a change.
"Sigh, you are supposed to come at least fifteen minutes before the appointed time, this is a basic common sense, but if you are so stubborn to always arrive exactly on time, I'm not going to waste my effort on you." Hiraki replied with irritation.
"Someone is awfully talkative today, did something happen?" Yuta asked a bit curiously.
"Nothing happened, besides that someone is asking for a beating." Hikari replied with her tone turning a bit menacing, and a smirk had formed on her face that didn't promise anything good.
"I see that someone forgot how they had been threatening and talking to an empty air like an idiot not too long ago..." Yuta said casually with a smirk of his own, bringing up the time when Hikari tried to beat him up but he had casted a genjutsu on her and left, leaving her confronting his clone instead.
"If you believe that trick would work on me for the second time, then you are up for a nasty surprise." Hikari replied.
As Yuta and Hikari were bickering as they usually do, although without much heat to it, they were suddenly interrupted by the sound of someone quietly laughing nearby.
Both of them turned their heads to the sound and saw Itachi who was laughing.
"You two are getting along well." Itachi said as he stopped laughing.
"No, we are not!" Yuta and Hikari said at the same time, then looked at each other with irritation.
But before the conversation could continue, Shisui appeared beside them and greeted them, "Good morning, everyone."
After the greeting, Shisui said as he handed over some banknotes to each of them, "Here is your payment for the last mission. The part that the three of you had participated had been determined as a B-rank mission, and you were being paid accordingly. Of course, the usual distribution rules stands, the third takes the village, and the third is for me, the squad leader, the rest is split among you. The payment for this mission is ninety thousand, so it's ten thousand for each of you."
As Yuta pocketed the money, he though, 'Well, this is the first substantial income I had received so far, not bad for a couple days of running and a one fight, but still, from the ninety thousand I only got ten... And Shisui said it was only for the part that the three of us had participated, his own mission was probably ranked-A, after all there an enemy Jonin was involved. And since Shinji and the others clearly didn't get a cut from our part, that means they also were assigned to the Shisui's mission. A shame that we didn't get an A-rank mission record this time, but B-rank record is fine too.'
...
'But still, just getting ten thousand feels off. During the battle I had used up about a dozen paper tag bombs that I looted from the corpses, and those costs about three thousand Ryo each, so I had wasted about thirty thousand Ryo during the fight, and that if I don't count other ninja tools like kunai and shurikens, and those are expensive too... Well, this is kinda sucks, but not like I can afford to stop using those, since my strongest offensive attack is still a thrown kunai, after all...'
'Sigh, the more progress I made with my training and ninja skills, the more I realize how actually long and difficult the path to the top truly is, and how truly terrifying those top powerhouses are...'
"One more thing." Shisui said, "The part of the mission, where we let the remaining Mist ninjas go, it's being classified, so keep that in mind. Also, during the next three days you should rest, after that we are resuming our team-training. I don't like how all three of you had separated and fought your own battles, I want you to maintain proper formations and act as a team, so we will be training in that regard."
'In other words, Shisui will be beating the three of us even more brutally than before to beat the "proper" teamwork and formations into us until it sticks, just great...' Yuta thought tiredly, 'Well, at least I'll have my three days to train in a time-loop before that, that's convenient.'