(July, year 55 AK)
Yuta was actively developing his new genjutsu – Shadow Mirage for the next months until the fifth of August, and when it was time for the finals, he time-traveled back to the seventh of July, the day after meeting Sasuke for the first time, and thus starting a new time-loop.
One month wasn't enough for Yuta to complete his new jutsu even with the constant use of the accelerated time inside his mindscape.
After that incident with nearly killing himself by pushing his limits too far of how long he could continuously work inside his mindscape, he was being a lot more cautious with how he uses it now. Now there are constant regular short breaks after about each hour or two of working inside the mindscape.
Of course, there is still no way to determine the passage of time in that place, but after the first month of actively using it, Yuta developed some sort of a knack for it and now his working sessions between breaks are never longer than two hours, or at least that what he believes. And with such a working regime he hadn't overworked himself inside his mindscape ever since.
From the outside's perspective, Yuta's life now looked like he was the laziest ninja that ever lived.
His each day looked identical to any other. He wakes up, unhurriedly goes somewhere to eat, returns back home and lays down on his bed, closes his eyes, and after some time falls asleep to pass the rest of the day, then he wakes up late evening to go somewhere to eat again, and then he goes home to sleep again until the next morning.
But if there was a perceptive ninja were to be observing Yuta during this time, they probably would've noticed that whenever Yuta were to go to bed, there was a brief period of about ten minutes when he lays completely still and his chakra being drained, and his face at the end of that period starting to show signs of exhaustion, the kind that someone has after a long and hard day at work.
Any competent ninja after noticing that would've suspected Yuta of practicing some sort of a bizarre technique during those periods, and not just lazing around.
With the help of the time acceleration inside his mindscape, as well as with the influence of the River of Time that creates calm, emotionless and focused environment where Yuta could work on something without any distractions, each day for Yuta becomes not just 24 hours, but it was more like 48 hours, from which he only sleeps for about 20 hours a day, and works with perfect concentration for the rest 28 or so.
Considering that usually on a day that free from missions Yuta could train and work on something for about ten to twelve hours a day, but by using his mindscape he was compressing almost three days' work in a single day, and counting the boost in productivity from the special environment, it was close to full four days' worth of work in a single day.
Not that Yuta really needed such acceleration when he had his time-loops. But inside his mindscape, being calm and devoid of any emotions, with no distractions, Yuta found that he doesn't feel like he was doing something difficult and hard by working in such conditions.
Even opposite to that, working inside his mindscape for ten plus hours felt for Yuta like it was over in an instant, and he only felt mental exhaustion afterwards. So, although his working ethics are usually very lax with the unlimited time and all, and what he is currently doing could be considered as working extremely hard, but for Yuta it didn't feel like that at all.
Yuta felt completely opposite of working hard in fact, the working sessions inside his mindscape felt for him like they were over in an instant and he even felt a bit annoyed and frustrated whenever he felt being mentally exhausted and has to go to sleep and rest. Yuta felt that if he could, he would've stayed in his mindscape for months straight while developing new jutsu without feeling any boredom.
So, despite working for more hours a day than a day usually has to offer, Yuta still felt quite relaxed and easygoing in general.
After the first month of working on his jutsu Yuta managed to complete the general template of a jutsu by reusing most of the components from his Shadow Cloak jutsu while modifying some of them to better suit the new jutsu, and now it was ready to be cast on a target as an empty template. By now the new jutsu was only missing its core and most important part, the genjutsu itself - the way it would affect the target's chakra network to create the visual and auditory illusions.
So now Yuta was stepping into, while not completely uncharted territory, but into the territory that Yuta has the least amount of experience working with – the visual and auditory illusions itself.
After a few more days of work, Yuta realized that it would probably take a lot of time, since he was already stumbling on a one problem after another since he began developing his illusions, and each of such problems required of him to constantly try and fail countless times trying different things and ways of influencing the chakra network to create results he needs.
After a few rough days like that, Yuta finally remembered that Shisui had offered his help, and so, somewhere in the middle of the second month Yuta went in the morning not to his usual spots to eat, but to the training grounds 68 that was reserved for his team.
As Yuta arrived, he quickly spotted Shisui sitting beside a tree there. With Yuta's chakra senses he felt that Shisui had unusually very little chakra, about 5C or so, and his usually strong and almost unbreachable chakra concealment technique right now working with only half its strength, that allowed Yuta to see through his chakra strength in the first place.
'A shadow clone, huh, and with just minimum amount of chakra too. Well, it is hard to expect that the real Shisui would waste his time like that and wait here during mornings just in case some of us would need some advice.' Yuta realized.
"Yuta, good morning." Shisui said casually as Yuta approached him, "You are here to ask for a new jutsu against Itachi too?"
"Hikari was here, huh... No, I'm currently working on a new genjutsu, and I need some advice." Yuta said
"I see. Then show me what you've got." Shisui said as he remains sitting lazily on the ground with his back against the tree.
'Hm... This is a bit awkward, huh... I only started working on my new genjutsu and came here as soon as the first serious problems appeared, what am I supposed to show him exactly?' Yuta thought a bit embarrassed.
"Well, you see, I only starting to work on it, so there is not much to show yet." Yuta said a bit apologetically.
"I see." Shisui said with the same casual tone, "Well, what is your questions then?"
"You see, I want to create the dynamic illusions that I would be able to control during the fight, but when I interfere in the chakra flow around the Tenketsu number 31 and 34, it only allows me to inject one prerecorded and compiled visual illusion at once, and I can't dynamically change the illusion after it is already injected through those Tenketsu points..." Yuta starting to explain the specifics of the problems he had right now with the development of his new genjutsu.
After about ten minutes or so of explaining his problems one by one, Yuta finally stopped and looked expectantly at Shisui.
After a brief pause, Shisui finally said calmly as his tone turned more serious, "From just hearing your questions I could tell that you already have a good idea on how to figure out and resolve your problems with your new genjutsu. You just want to speed up your work so it could be done before the finals, right? But if I help you right now and resolve these trivial problems for you, it would be detrimental for your future growth."
"Is that so. I see. So you won't help me with these, right?" Yuta said a bit dejected, but deep inside he understood Shisui's reasons and even somewhat approved of it. Shisui never withheld helping him whenever it truly mattered and whenever he was stuck on something for too long or were moving in the wrong direction entirely.
But right now, Yuta wasn't truly stuck, he just encountered some difficult problems that he only had a vague idea how to resolve, and he believed that he could resolve them eventually by himself without Shisui's help. But even then, he still came here to seek his advice to resolve those problems faster and easier.
"Yes. Come to me when you truly need help. You only started working on this new genjutsu of yours, having some issues that need resolving is only natural. But if I do everything for you, then you wouldn't learn from it. You should understand." Shisui explained calmly.
"Sigh, yea, I do understand..." Yuta said a bit reluctantly, then he said, "Well then, if you are not helping me with these 'trivial' issues, what about something less 'trivial'? I want to find a way to beat the Sharingan with my genjutsu, is such a thing possible?"
Shisui smiled and laughed casually and with amusement as he heard that, "Ha ha ha... You aim to defeat Itachi too, I see, that's the spirit!"
Then after a brief pause, Shisui said calmly, "I don't see why it won't be possible. Although it won't be easy either. The power of the Sharingan allows us to see through illusions, and it has power to cast illusions itself. But it is not all-powerful. Although it would be too hard for you to beat the Sharingan through the direct genjutsu confrontation, but if you find the way to bypass the direct confrontation and strike at the weak point, beating the Sharingan with genjutsu would be possible."
...
"What that even mean, 'strike at the weak point'?" Yuta asked a bit confused, "You aren't going to tell me anything more about it, aren't you..." Yuta said in a realization, that he walked into another classic Shisui's lesson in the form of a puzzle and a challenge where he has to figure out the rest on his own.
"I already said enough." Shisui said with a casual smile.
And Yuta's expression at that moment was a direct opposite of Shisui, who had a smile full of amusement...
--- AN ---
If you like the story, please write a comment, a review or vote with power stones, it helps a lot.
Also feel free to check out my Discord, where you can drop by and chat. The link is in the fanfic description.
27 advanced chapters are currently available on p@treon, /SycoreNovels
Thanks to Krishna_Razz, FebriGonzales, Denuncia, Jayroy_63, for the power stones.