(June 27th, year 54 AK)
Days went by, and each time it was the morning of June 30th, Yuta was going back in time to the morning of June 27th. He could've went back further, all the way to the evening of June 24th when he had returned from the mission, but there was some events that would interfere with his routine in the time-loop, like the tired and sore state of his body after the mission, the Danzo's Root recruitment on June 25th, or the team meeting on June 26th.
Yuta was training with his modified Shadow Cloak genjutsu. At first, he needed five full seconds of concentration and eight hand seals to cast the jutsu with only two targets at a time. But the days went by, then weeks and then months...
After the first month of training, Yuta was able to reduce the time to two seconds, after that he hit some sort of soft ceiling and his progress had slowed down significantly.
Then Yuta switched his focus on reducing the number of hand seals instead.
After the four months of work Yuta had reduced the hand seals requirements to only two seals while his time to form the jutsu stayed the same – 2 seconds. This part went not as easy as everything that he did before in this time-loop. Reducing the hand seals in a jutsu was always hard, especially when the jutsu is complex like that.
By now Yuta remembered how he was reducing the hand seals on his three basic Academy jutsus, back then he thought that was hard, but now Yuta changed his mind. What he did back then – was quite easy in comparison to what he was working on right now.
Even his original Shadow Cloak with single targeted design was much less complex, and reducing the hand seals all the way to just one seal was much easier. Then Yuta remembered that he didn't reduce the hand seals requirement for his Shadow Chains jutsu at all, it was still required a full set of eight hand seals, thinking about that Yuta felt a shiver.
...
For the four more months Yuta continued to work on reducing the hand seals for the multi-targeted Shadow Cloak genjutsu. At some point Yuta thought of renaming his new variant of the jutsu into something like Multi Shadow Cloak jutsu or something, but then he thrown away that thought.
He realized, that soon enough he would only be using the multi-targeted variant of it anyway, since it has a better design and flexibility, and with a single target it costs only slightly more chakra and only slightly more difficult to cast, so he thought that it would be better to switch to this variant entirely anyway and just keep the name of the jutsu.
During this time Yuta reduced the hand seals to just one and had reduced the time he needed for casting it to just a one second. But it was still not enough for him to be satisfied with it.
By now Yuta realized, that he should be able to remove the last hand seal requirement of his original single-target Shadow Cloak jutsu, with how his chakra and chakra control had improved after his last mission and during the multiple months in this current time-loop. But as for the new variant of it – it was harder to do, since he still wasn't proficient, and it was more complex.
But anyway, by now Yuta has decided to switch completely from the single-target old variant and only practice the new one instead. From now on he would refer to the new multi-targeted version as Shadow Cloak jutsu, and the old single-target version will be left behind.
For the six more months Yuta had practiced his Shadow Cloak jutsu, focusing on the speed of the jutsu and he has reduced the time to just a half a second, at this point he felt like he won't be able to push the time any further though, but he was satisfied with it, it was about the same time he previously needed for the old variant of the jutsu.
By now Yuta was casting the newly developed multitargeted Shadow Cloak genjutsu with two targets at once, and he was doing it with the same speed he was previously casting the old single target variant, and with only one hand seal too.
Next, Yuta started to practice with the jutsu to try and remove the hand seal component entirely. Since by now Yuta has become very proficient with it and he is very used to the jutsu, he was immediately able to form the jutsu with just his own chakra control and without using the hand seals.
But at first, it took him about twenty seconds of full concentration, and he had to stretch all his willpower and chakra control to complete the jutsu this way.
Yuta felt that he could train this way to cast it much faster though.
But before that, Yuta decided to start reducing the hand seals for his Shadow Chains genjutsu instead, since he felt that it would be a good practice before he tackles the most difficult task – to remove the last hand seal from this Shadow Cloak jutsu, since removing the last hand seal was always the most difficult step for him.
As Yuta was working on his Shadow Chains genjutsu, the jutsu that was way more chakra intensive, the time flew by again.
About eight months later Yuta managed to reduce the hand seals of the jutsu to just three. But at the last three seals the chakra intensity and hence the chakra control he needed to compensate for the lack of each next hand seal - had skyrocketed.
During the last month Yuta was trying futilely to get rid of the next seal of the three remaining ones, but after the full month of futile efforts he realized that he wouldn't be able to do that on his level yet. This jutsu was already stretching his capabilities hard, even without hand seal reducing, since the jutsu was very chakra intensive and complex, so it was already on the very edge of his abilities when he only had developed it.
Back then he was only able to cast it two or three times, after all. But it would be a different story now, since his chakra had increased since then, but still not enough to cast it without much effort.
Even now Yuta had to spend quite a lot of his chakra and effort on each cast of it, even when he reduces the amount of chakra for training purposes. After all, to train properly it would be better if he could cast the jutsu more than just a couple times a day. But even with that he still needs to practice the jutsu at full power too sometimes, he can't always train with reduced amount of chakra in it, or such training might lead to him making mistakes in a real fight.
After pushing the Shadow Chains jutsu as far as he could, Yuta returned to the big task of removing the last hand seal on the Shadow Cloak jutsu instead.
And right now, after another eight months of working on Shadow Chains jutsu, Yuta was immediately able to feel the difference in his skill as he was able to cast the Shadow Cloak jutsu without any hand seals in just about twelve seconds instead of twenty.
Being happy to see the good progress, Yuta started the training of casting the Shadow Cloak jutsu without the hand seals.
After another three months he had reduced the time to six seconds, but after that it became harder and harder to perform the jutsu faster.
Another three months went by, and the time had reduced to four seconds. A much better result than twenty, but still, in the fast-paced ninja combat the four seconds is like an eternity. Yuta understood that he would be killed couple times over before he ever forms the jutsu this way...
With that thought Yuta was determined to continue pushing this jutsu to its absolute limit, that when the hard part of the training came.
For the next six months Yuta was training, and he had reduced the time to two seconds, still not enough to be combat-ready, but the progress had slowed down to a crawl. But still, Yuta's determination to make it work has only reignited.
Another six months of training flew by. The time of casting the jutsu has reduced further to 1.5 seconds, still not enough for Yuta to be satisfied with it and to call it a day.
At this point Yuta had spent more than three years in the time-loop. By this point he has already tried out every restaurant and every food stall in the village, and every food item they have to offer. He also had read every popular book in the bookstores in the village and started to tap into the less interesting and not as popular titles at the bookstores.
These days Yuta, instead of reading, more often just goes on a walk through the village while letting his mind wander, thinking about nothing in particular. Those walks were helping him to relax and pass the time more than anything else.
After reducing the time for his Shadow Cloak jutsu without hand seals component to just 1.5 seconds, Yuta entered some kind of a focused state of mind, and the days started to fly by rapidly in his perception.
With that, another eight months had passed, and Yuta was able to reduce the time to just a second. Although, Yuta felt that he could push it further, although hit would be very hard, so he continued, feeling that in his current state he could keep going and achieve a better speed, after all, a full second in a ninja fight is still not ideal for a jutsu.
One more year Yuta was working on pushing his own limits with this jutsu. By this point the jutsu felt very natural and instinctual to him. Right now, Yuta was no longer able to even imagine himself using this jutsu with hand seals at all.
The time had further reduced to 0.6 seconds.
'Good enough...' Yuta finally acknowledged his final result.
--- AN ---
Funny enough, but somehow, I'm feeling a bit mentally tired after writing this training arc as if it was me myself who was training instead of Yuta. What about you guys?
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