(February, year 54 AK)

  Another month has passed, it’s only two months left before the end of the second grade for Yuta.

  For the past month Yuta switched from futile efforts of trying to figure out how to use sound for genjutsu and focused on his chakra-sensing skills instead, as he had a feeling that heightened chakra sensitivity could help him with the sound problem.

  So, whenever he goes, he tries to focus on his chakra senses and distinguish the chakra of other people or animals around him, pushing his sensory ability as much as he can to increase the range and the clarity of his senses.

  At first it was hard to sense anything, at most he was able to notice a vague feeling of Hideto’s chakra, who seats beside him during classes, but after a few days his chakra-senses started to improve little by little, and now he could distinguish the other people’s chakra in a ten meters around him, still, Shisui seems to be able to hide his chakra presence and avoid his senses as long as he wasn't right next to him.

  He also trained with genjutsu and occasionally with academy ninjutsu, mostly working on improving his original genjutsu – Shadow Cloak.

  While experimenting with the perception-altering, Yuta improved his jutsu significantly, and now the effect of his jutsu is no longer fixed on himself and how the target is perceiving himself, but now he also could alter how the target of the genjutsu would perceive other people or objects, effectively making the target unable to recognize and comprehend what it sees.

  With this jutsu, although there is still a lot of room to improve, Yuta could effectively alter the enemy’s perception, making the enemy unable to properly notice, recognize and react to the threat. Yuta could freely move around and the enemy would dismiss what they see and perceive Yuta as the part of the environment, unable to react and allowing him to score the finishing blow. At least that was the general idea of the jutsu.

  What originally started as the means for protection from the taijutsu users had grown into an advanced and proper genjutsu, suitable for defense and offence at the same time. And with recent improvements, since Yuta could use it to alter the enemy’s perception not only of himself but also of others, it is also suitable for support as well.

  During his genjutsu training with Shisui, now since Yuta understands genjutsu on a much deeper level, he started to recognize that Shisui, just with a few remarks and advices helped him tremendously with his genjutsu learning progress and with the development of the Shadow Cloak jutsu as well. Without Shisui’s help Yuta would be stumbling in the dark and spend years instead of months. Noticing how significant Shisui’s help actually is, he was very grateful for it.

  Still, since this genjutsu is of the subtle type, it could be easily dispelled if noticed, and the better Yuta become at precise chakra control and as his genjutsu mastery grows, it would be harder and harder to notice this genjutsu for the target.

  As Yuta learned more about genjutsu, he started to understand it on a deeper level. This is the fundamental law for the subtle type genjutsu in general. Subtle genjutsu relies on being undetected as long as possible, but it also easy to dispel once detected, it has lower chakra requirements as well.

  There is also a forceful type of genjutsu, but those are mostly categorized as highly advanced techniques, they generally rely on high chakra consumption and forceful control of the enemy’s chakra network, making the genjutsu hard to dispel, and this type of genjutsu doesn’t need to be subtle at all in return, since it doesn’t matter if the enemy knew they’re being under genjutsu or not.

  Kurenai’s Tree Binding Death signature genjutsu, and Tayuya’s genjutsu that she used against Shikamaru are an example of the forceful type genjutsu.

  In general, subtle type is for deception, mislead and for gaining a huge advantage over the enemy during combat, this is the most used type of genjutsu. While forceful type is for immobilizing the enemy completely, it requires more chakra, more control and greater mastery, but if it works – the enemy could be considered as instantly finished.

  Hell Viewing genjutsu, for example, has the aspects of forceful type – its effects aren’t subtle but forceful, it shows the enemy their biggest fear, and if successful, it destroys the enemy’s spirit and incapacitates the enemy. But still, it’s a basic genjutsu and it lacks the advanced and forceful control over the enemy’s chakra network, so it is easy to dispel, just like the subtle type, because of that, any experienced shinobi would recognize the genjutsu and dispel it right away.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  ...

  Yuta was currently training by the lake with Shisui, but this time instead of training genjutsu, Shisui insisted on testing out his taijutsu skills.

  For the past few minutes Shisui was exchanging blows with Yuta, from the outside it looked like they were equally matched, but in reality Shisui was just testing out Yuta’s level.

  “That’s enough.” Shisui said as he stopped the spar and continued his analysis thoughtfully, “Although taijutsu is clearly the area you are less skilled at, and you would be able to compensate this weakness with other skills, but still, this level of taijutsu is too big of a flaw for you, you have to fix it at least to some extent or your other skills wouldn’t even matter...”

  “Is it that bad? How could I fix that? I could train harder, but I still won’t improve that much...” Yuta asked, feeling conflicted.

  “With this level of taijutsu you won’t be able to react in time to the fast enemy's attacks in time, neither you would be able to block and withstand those attacks that will reach you.” Shisui explained calmly, “This will be a huge disadvantage, even if you will mostly rely on your genjutsu and other skills, some minimal level of taijutsu is necessary for survival.

  As for how to achieve that level in your case, there is a way to improve taijutsu beside physical training.”

  “What is it?” Yuta hurriedly asked.

  “Since your chakra control is so sharp and precise already, you could utilize chakra during taijutsu, with that you could increase your speed and strength by infusing chakra at the right moment in the specific parts of your body.”

  “Oh? I think I read something about that in the academy scrolls, but it was only a basic description, and it was labeled as an advanced technique of chakra application, is that it?”

  “Yes. This technique requires precise chakra control in a timely manner, but among the experienced shinobi almost everyone is using this technique more or less. For a Jonin, it becomes second nature, but not many people actually advanced with this technique that far, and only using it for a mild boost in strength and speed, or for cushioning the blow. But there were some individuals that pushed this technique to the limit and achieved a monstrous amount of strength that they were able to unleash with it.”

  ‘Is he talking about Tsunade?’ Yuta came to a realization, ‘So this chakra application in taijutsu is a technique that Tsunade is using? This technique relies on precise chakra control and a perfect timing from what I can tell, that makes sense, since Sakura was able to master it as well, and Sakura was lacking strong physique and excels in chakra control.’

  ...

  ‘But there must be more to it. I doubt I could achieve that level of power with this technique without Tsunade’s guidance, at least I won’t be able to do that any time soon on my own. But still, I don’t have to push this technique to the limit and reach that level of strength, it would be enough if I could lower the gap in strength and speed with other taijutsu users, that would be more than enough for me.’

  “So, Shisui, do you use this technique as well?” Yuta asked after some thoughts.

  “Yes, but I don’t focus on it, this technique is only a small part of my strength, in taijutsu I mostly rely on my own strength and only boost myself with chakra when I have to. In a Jonin-level combat this technique is not amount to much, at least if you are not specializing in it completely, and using it all the time on such a high level will waste a lot of chakra, and in a Jonin-level fight every bit of advantage matters.”

  “I see.” Yuta said beginning to realize the implications and nuances of this technique of chakra application.

  “Still, I think this technique would be perfect for you to improve your taijutsu level, so it won’t be such a fatal flaw in your skill set. Since you won’t be engaging in taijutsu much, you don’t have to worry about chakra wastage with it, as you will be only using it during short exchanges in combat whenever you need it to block, dodge or to gain a distance between you and the enemy.”

  As Shisui said so, he pulled out a scroll and tossed it to Yuta.

  “Here, I already prepared a guide for you, the scroll contains the basics of the chakra application in taijutsu, you should master it.”

  “Thanks” Yuta replied gratefully, opened the scroll and started reading it, as Shisui left.

  After an hour of reading, Yuta closed the scroll.

  ‘It’s indeed quite complex, and it’s only basics?’ He thought, ‘The scroll describes and illustrates the inner composition of a human body and the different groups of muscles, as well as the ways to infuse chakra in them in a different ways to achieve specific results such as the bursts of speed and strength, and the timings of this chakra infusions is crucial for the technique to work properly, it has to be in sync with the current combat situation and timed perfectly with the flexing of muscles. It is far from easy...’

  ‘And if I mess up, I will end up with an injury that could be anything from a mild muscle strain to broken bones and torn tendons. Now that I have read and analyzed the technique, I could say for sure, whatever Tsunade is using – is much more than just that. The description from the scroll can’t explain the crazy amount of power that Tsunade is able to unleash, there is just no way.’

  ‘Still, with my understanding of the technique, I should be able to double and even triple my strength and speed with it, it still won’t be that much in a grand scheme of things and won’t even reach a Chunin level of taijutsu any time soon, but still, the taijutsu won’t be such a fatal weakness for me anymore.’