(late March, year 54 AK)
Yuta slowly opened his eyes and looked at the unfamiliar ceiling.
'Where am I?' Yuta thought, his mind was still groggy.
Yuta looked around and found himself in a bed in an unfamiliar room.
...
'Right, I was in the middle of my combat evaluation, and my examiner stopped the test... That the last thing I remember, I must've collapsed the moment I stopped fighting...'
'Well, this is embarrassing. I didn't realize I was pushing myself over the limit back then. I did feel the exhaustion and pain, but somewhere along the way with all these time-travels I think I'm becoming more reckless and detached from reality. That exhaustion I felt, how do I say it, I paid it no more attention than I would to a stamina bar in a video game...'
'I'm getting to comfortable and too used to time-travel to the point, that I take too lightly all the pain, injuries or even the possibility of dying, this is probably not very good for my mental health...'
Yuta sat up on the bed with some effort, feeling how his whole body aches, especially in the chest area, he locked down on his chest, he was wearing his black t-shirt, as he pulled back the collar, he saw the white bondages wrapped tightly around his chest.
'So, I did get injured back then, enough to warrant some medical treatment. I must be at the hospital then. Damn, that guy was ruthless. But he was also quite strong, and besides the one opening at the beginning of the fight, he didn't give me any chances at all, all his moves were solid with zero weaknesses... Is that the level of a Chunin? Unlikely, his chakra felt so much stronger than Mamoru's chakra, and Mamoru is a Chunin.'
Yuta was only wearing a t-shirt and pants, his shoes, bag and pouch for ninja tools were nowhere in sight. Yuta put his feet on the floor and tried to stand up, the pain intensified, especially in the chest, but Yuta dismissed it as insignificant inconvenience.
'Well, where is my stuff?' He thought as he looked around, he spotted a bedside cabinet, as he opened it, he found his things inside. Yuta quickly put his shoes on and grabbed his bag and empty ninja tools pouch.
'Damn, all my shurikens and kunai were left at the training grounds, that guy didn't even pick up my last kunai that I held in hand at the end, that was a perfectly new kunai that I spent a quarter of my monthly allowance on! Well, at least he had a decency to deliver me to the hospital after I lost consciousness, I guess.'
As Yuta picked up his things and was about to leave, the door to the room suddenly opened.
"What do you think you are doing? You are supposed to stay in bed!" The woman in all white clothes and a white robe walked in and said authoritatively.
"Huh, but I'm fine, can't I just go home now?" Yuta asked with confusion.
"You are most definitely not fine!" The woman objected as she came inside the room, "In bed, now!"
"Fine." Yuta reluctantly responded as he thrown back his bag and pouch in the bedside cabinet, took off his shoes and lay back in bed under the woman's stern gaze, "When I would be able to leave, doctor-san?" Yuta asked.
"You have multiple minor fractures all over your ribs, don't you feel strong pain when you tried to move? Why are you so reckless?"
"Huh, yes, I feel pain, but it's nothing serious, right? Just some minor bone fractures, it will heal in no-time, I just need to be more careful during my training for a while, what's the big deal..." Yuta replied being genuinely confused, what the problem with him leaving the hospital, he still can walk, some pain is no big deal.
"What's wrong with you, kid? It's like you don't even care about your own health..." The woman said a little uneasy, and then continued in a calmer manner, "Anyway, my name is Akemi, I'm a doctor at the hospital, and while you are here, you do whatever I say, got it?"
"Yes, Akemi-san." Yuta calmly replied, deciding to stop arguing since it doesn't seem that it would help him to leave the hospital faster.
"Your name is Yuta Arai, right? You are the academy student, the ninja who brough you here said that you got injured during training, is that right?"
"Yes, Akemi-san." Yuta replied without showing any reaction, while he thought, 'Injured during training my ass! That guy blasted me with a massive water wave I had no means to escape, and he dared to call it "during training"? This guy...'
"Even if your injuries aren't serious, you still will have to remain in bed and rest for a couple days, don't even think of sneaking out, do you understand?"
"Yes, Akemi-san."
After that Akemi left, leaving Yuta mildly annoyed.
'Sigh, what a drag... I'm supposed to report to Mamoru after my combat evaluation, I don't even know for sure if I passed the test or not, although I suppose if that guy isn't complete jerk he won't fail me after tasting my original genjutsu, so I should be fine, and my hospitalization is a proper enough excuse to not show up an Mamoru's office on time.'
'That guy was saying something right before I lost consciousness, but I don't seem to remember what exactly...'
As Yuta adjusted his posture to lay more comfortably and endured another wave of pain from his chest as he moved, he thought, 'That fight was quite valuable for me in terms of experience, it shows all the places where I'm lacking.' Yuta calmly analyzed his fight.
'I'm severely lacking in chakra reserves, and I also have to improve my chakra control and genjutsu mastery if I want to successfully fight such tough opponents like that guy. He has a massive amount of chakra, and that alone increased the difficulty of casting a genjutsu on him multiple times. Most of my chakra reserves was wasted just for three casts of Shadow Cloak on him just because of that.'
'Whenever I practice my genjutsu on Shisui, or rather on Shisui's shadow clone, he has much less chakra, around the same amount as Mamoru, or even less, and casting a genjutsu on him like that wasn't that taxing on my chakra reserves and it didn't put so much strain on me either.'
'Also, with my current chakra control and genjutsu mastery I'm unable to affect someone like that guy with a genjutsu unnoticed, my chakra control is still too crude, and my genjutsu mastery is not subtle enough. And in the situation when he noticed my genjutsu on him, knowing the genjutsu's nature he has the means to counter it like he did with that water wave back then.'
'Well, it's a subtle type genjutsu, it's only truly effective while being unnoticed and undetected.'
'I also lack the means of moving fast through the battlefield, as I was having a hard time running away and maneuvering around during the fight, I think that learning the Body Flicker jutsu might help me with that.'
'Also, Clone jutsu is unreliable as a distraction, and I do need some ways to distract the enemy to come closer in range for a genjutsu, I can't cast it from far away. I either need some better means that I could use as a distraction or I must achieve a breakthrough in sound application for a genjutsu, to increase the effective distance and to make it more subtle, with that I won't need a proper distraction anymore.'
'Also, my simple traps with ninja wire and ninja tools is a complete trash it seems, no wonder, in anime such traps was mostly seemed week as well, only the variations with explosion tags was somewhat powerful, but those paper tags costs an arm and a leg, no way I could afford to waste money on explosive traps very often, even after I start making money, D-rank missions won't pay much, and C-ranks probably too, and by the time I start completing B-ranks, I probably won't need the paper tags anymore at that point.'
'I also would like to have some kind of protective jutsu as well, if I had something like that, I would've stood a chance against that water wave probably...'
'Now that I think about it, at the very start of the fight, if I were to throw a kunai at the examiner the moment after I casted a genjutsu on him the first time, when he didn't dispelled it right away, instead of going for the mock-fatal hit in close range, the chances are that I would've be able to win that fight. The only problem is - that fight wasn't the fight to the death and killing my examiner like that wouldn't end well for me...'
'Well, analyzing this fight, the direction of my further progression is clear, I should improve with my genjutsu mastery and charka control, and I should push through that bottleneck with the sound genjutsu as well, this alone should elevate my combat strength a lot and fix my current shortcomings. Also, the Body Flicker jutsu should help with mobility, I will ask Shisui for this jutsu later.'
'Well then, should I time-travel? If I do that, I could relive that fight over and over again... No, I don't think I will learn as much from it than I already did, I do need to make a time-loop for some training to improve and hone my skills, but there is no rush with it, I could do that later. For now, I'm just tired of the academy and I want some change, I wonder which squad I end up on...'
--- AN ---
Yap-chapter, I know, I'll do better next time, I'm just tired.
Thanks to Loalola, Denuncia, Krishna_Razz, GokageSensumo, Joyboy08 and Jayroy_63 for the power stones.