(June, year 54 AK)
For the past two weeks Shisui was training each of his Genins separately, and Yuta was learning and mastering Body Flicker jutsu to be able to use it quickly in combat to dodge the enemy attacks.
Yuta sighed with some frustration as he performed a short series of hand seals and disappeared to appear about twenty meters away from his previous position, as he did that, he felt as his view was spinning and he felt disoriented, but with some effort he suppressed that feeling and after two seconds he returned to his normal state.
'This will take a while to get used to...' Yuta thought with some irritation.
He was practicing the Body Flicker jutsu for the whole two weeks, and he is still struggling to use it quickly enough and what's even more important – to recover quickly enough after it's being used.
"Don't let it get to you." Shisui said reassuringly as he was standing to the side, leaning against the tree, "It happens sometimes, even exceptional shinobi sometimes struggle with some particular jutsu, it'll just take some more work for you to fully master it..."
"Yea..." Yuta replied absentmindedly, while he thought to himself, 'You don't have to tell me that, Shisui, I know better than anyone that I'm not some talented genius that could master any jutsu in the matter of minutes, I'm just pretending to be talented while in reality I spend months and even years in the time-loops to train to get to that level with hard work.'
As Yuta looked at Shisui's casual attitude and a slight reassuring smile, he felt deep down that although Shisui didn't show any signs that he was disappointed with his progress, Yuta still felt that he was, in fact, disappointed. And although Yuta didn't know if it was just his imagination, he doesn't care if it is true or false, because he already decided to train in the time-loop to get this new jutsu nailed down and mastered properly before they go on another mission outside of the village.
With that decision being made, Yuta initiated the time-travel right away and found himself in the early morning in the middle of the training grounds.
By now Yuta had time-traveled so many times that he was very precise at this point with the exact time that he wants to travel to, and this moment was the next day after Shisui first taught him the Body Flicker, and now he has two more weeks to practice it, and he was intended to do just that.
The days flew by while Yuta was diligently practicing the Body Flicker jutsu and by the end of the two weeks, he became more proficient with it, his speed of forming the jutsu increased and his recovery time after using it has slightly decreased with the overall distance he could flicker had increased to about thirty meters.
"Don't let it get to you." Shisui said reassuringly, the exact same way he said it the last time, "It happens sometimes, even exceptional shinobi sometimes struggle with some particular jutsu, it'll just take some more time for you to fully master it..."
Yuta sighed as his brow twitched hearing that, 'The exact same phrase he said the last time huh, I guess my overall progress is still far from being good enough...' Yuta thought as he initiated the time-travel once again.
As Yuta found himself again on the training grounds early in the morning with two more weeks of time for training, he resumed his practice with the Body Flicker Jutsu.
As Yuta started training, he heard Shisui coming closer, "Good, it seems you already had improved quite a lot from yesterday when I taught you the jutsu."
'Huh, that's new...' Yuta thought confusedly, but then he quickly figured out why Shisui said this new line that Yuta never heard before, 'Yesterday, when he taught me the jutsu, I was trying to use it for the first time and I wasn't very good at it, to say the least. But right now, I'm already much better at it, hence the comment, but what he doesn't know is that I had practiced this jutsu for four weeks between yesterday and today, sight...'
"Thanks, I guess..." Yuta replied with complicated feelings, feeling at the same time a satisfaction for making progress and irritation from knowing that this progress was quite slow, but then at the same time, Yuta doesn't really mind the progress being slow, knowing that with his ability it doesn't matter if it is slow or fast.
Yuta returned to training, and by the end of the two weeks, he heard Shisui coming closer, and Yuta was already mentally prepared to hear the same line as before, since the overall progress he made during these two weeks was still not good enough, Yuta thought.
"It seems that you still struggling with this jutsu a little." Shisui said calmly, "You'll need a little bit more practice to fully master it, don't worry, it's already on the acceptable level to be used in combat, and give it some time and you'll fully master it soon enough."
"Thanks." Yuta replied while he thought, 'This is new... I guess it is already on acceptable level, and Shisui didn't act so reassuring and comforting as the previous times, but instead he said it calmly and straight to the point. I guess he was a little disappointed back then, huh... Doesn't matter, I'm not done yet.'
Yuta, being still not satisfied with the results, initiated the time-travel once again.
Once again Yuta practiced through the two weeks with the Body Flicker jutsu.
'I wonder what Itachi and Hikari were being taught...' Yuta thought in the middle of the training, 'For Itachi, I would assume, maybe Fire Style ninjutsu training? He didn't awaken his Sharingan yet... For Hikari... She seems not very interested in ninjutsu, although she performed the three basic academy jutsu well enough, and she is bad at genjutsu, the only thing she is good at is taijutsu, please somebody tell me that Shisui won't teach the Eight Gates to Hikari!'
'No, it couldn't be! She is a monster already, being able to move so fast and attack with so much force, and she already seems to be starting to surpass Itachi in combat, if she learns the Eight Gates... It's scarry to even think about that... She always seems to be annoyed with me and tends to go violent, and I already avoided a beating on multiple occasions only thanks to my genjutsu proficiency... If she learns the Eight Gates, getting away from her will be impossible! Does genjutsu even work on someone with inner gates open?!'
As Yuta thought about that half-jokingly, but also half-seriously, he continued his training.
By the end of these two weeks, Yuta was already quite proficient with the jutsu, he flickers up to sixty meters, his hand seals and the initial phase of the jutsu was quite fast and the time was reduced to one second now, and his disoriented state was reduced to one second as well.
"It seems you doing well enough." Shisui said as he approached Yuta at some point, "Although it will take some time and practice to further hone this jutsu, it's combat ready."
"Yea, thanks." Yuta replied as he heard Shisui's casual evaluation, 'Two months of practice wasn't for nothing, I guess... But it still isn't good enough, I even didn't started on reducing the hand seals requirement for this jutsu yet, it requires four hand seals right now and from what I know, most ninjas use it with only one hand seal and more proficient ninjas use it without any. And the disorientation after-effect is still way too strong, the full second of complete vulnerability in the fast-paced ninja combat is way too much.'
With that thought Yuta initiated the time-travel once again, and once again he returned to the day after he learned the Body Flicker jutsu and he resumed his practice.
This time Yuta, being already familiar with the jutsu and the ways it requires to mold his chakra, he focused on reducing the hand seals requirement by molding the chakra in the specific ways manually, with his chakra control.
At first, he got rid of the first hand seal and performed the chakra molding by himself, using the remaining three hand seals after that, but after a few days of practice he quickly figured out the process and removed all but one hand seal, the final hand seal – Tiger, while molding chakra manually according to the jutsu requirements.
At first, it was much harder and required much more time to form the jutsu this way with only one hand seal, but by the end of the two weeks the time required had reduced to three seconds, with the manual chakra molding taking almost all of that time.
'This is very similar with how I was reducing the hand seals for the other jutsus, I did that multiple times already, I just need to get used to molding the chakra this way manually, without the guidance and help of the hand seal, and the time I need to concentrate to do that will gradually reduce, as it did with other jutsus.' Yuta had analyzed.
"I see you are making good progress." Shisui said casually from the side, "Already reducing the hand seals, good job."
"Thanks." Yuta replied with a small, satisfied smile, 'Well, hearing that felt much better than what he said the first times, although now I feel like I'm cheating or something, like I'm deceiving him by time-travel and training in the time-loop, working for so long and then presenting my hard work results as if I did it overnight, pretending to be some kind of a talented genius that I'm not...'
'Sigh, doesn't matter. No point feeling bad over such a stupid little thing, I'm working hard to improve myself, to survive in this cruel world and if I'm able to – to also make this world a little better place to live in while I'm at it. I'm not doing anything wrong here, and if I have to deceive people, pretending that I'm someone who I'm not, then I'll do just that, no big deal.'
...
'But is it all I want from this new life? Just to survive? I never thought about that, huh, from the first day I found myself in this world, or even before that, from the moment I found myself in that black void, all I did so far and all I was thinking about is to survive, no big plans and goals for the future... But I already figured out my time-travel ability, I should be able to survive with just that, what else I want then?'
'Sigh, just another useless thing to think about. Does it even matter? Right now I just want to become stronger, and also I consider Shisui as my friend, and knowing what will happen to him if I do nothing, I can't just stand by, it is no longer just me trying to prevent a massacre because I can, or because I could get some benefits from doing it, it became something personal at some point.'
'And as for the purpose in life and life-long goals and dreams, does it even matter to have some kind of a grand goal? My purpose in life is whatever I decide for myself, and I don't have to come up with some kind of a grand goal in life if I don't feel like it, no point overthinking it.'
'The first priority is to become stronger, to be able to survive, and to do whatever I want in this world. And what I want to do first in this world is to resolve this damn crisis with the Uchiha clan, and for whatever reason I decided to do it – it doesn't even matter at this point. And everything else – I can think about that later. Big plans for the future and goals in life – I'll leave it to the future me to think about it, assuming that the future me will have time for that crap, because I'm sure don't...'