Part of a big plan
One week later, after the meeting with Shikamaru, Sasuke found himself in the mental clinic for his weekly meeting with Inoichi.
"Hello, Inoichi," Sasuke greeted.
"Hello, Sasuke. This week we have a lot to discuss," Inoichi said with a confident smile and continued, "Before we begin our session, I have learned from your friend Shikamaru that you are really talented at genjutsu. Can you give me a demonstration?"
"Since when were you under the impression that you are not in a Genjutsu?" Sasuke asked with a smirk on his face.
Inoichi looked at him, shocked. 'Am I already in genjutsu? But I don't feel anything strange. Did Shikaku underestimate this kid?' Inoichi thought.
"Hahaha, relax, I am joking with you," Sasuke said.
"You got me good," Inoichi said, smiling and feeling a little relaxed.
"But you shouldn't have dropped your guard. Now you are really in a genjutsu," Sasuke said.
'This boy is messing with me again,' Inoichi thought. However, when he carefully checked his condition, he was stunned.
"Shit, you are telling the truth. But you didn't turn your sharingan on. How did you do it?" Inoichi asked.
"That's a clan secret," Sasuke said, already expecting this question.
Of course, Sasuke just used his recently acquired technique, the partial transformation. If Inoichi had paid more attention he could easily see through it.
"Anyway, now we can talk. I have the following message from Shikaku," Inoichi said and gave Sasuke a scroll.
The message was the following:
[You showed too much talent with your win against the Hyuga genius. You have gained unwanted attention.
You are now part of our plan. You must train your genjutsu suggestive powers to a level capable of influencing the thoughts of jonin.
You will practice this power with Inoichi, who will double your sessions, and Shikamaru, who will attend your training.
It is expected that at some point you will be approached by a ninja pretending to be an ANBU. You will receive a scroll, and you must activate it as soon as this happens.
You will also use your genjutsu suggestion to lead this ninja to the Hokage's office.]
'As I expected, Shikaku really knows what's going on. I don't really like to trust others, but if he is as smart as his son, I can count on his plan to get rid of this unknown force. I have to show many of my cards, but my safety is the first priority, and right now I am too weak,' Sasuke thought.
"I agree with the plan, but I will need some techniques. I am sure that I can figure out how to use the power of suggestion on my own, but we don't know how much time we have. Also, I will need the technique that creates solid clones to accelerate my training," Sasuke said.
"You are really greedy, Sasuke," Inoichi said with a smile and continued, "Shikaku had already predicted that you would ask for genjutsu techniques. He had already provided them to me. However, with your ANBU watcher, I can't give you the scrolls, and I can only show them to you inside the genjutsu. Also, the solid clone technique is too eye-catching and dangerous for your age. it will create unwanted questions."
'Well, me asking for the solid clones was just a gamble. At least I got the genjutsu techniques.' Sasuke thought and said, "I expected as much. Let's begin."
What Inoichi forgot to mention was that after the end of the genjutsu, in their normal session, he was much more aggressive and checked several layers of his mind palace. However, Sasuke had already anticipated that after the discussion with Shikamaru and had made the necessary changes.
---
As soon as Sasuke reached his home, he started meditating and analyzing the techniques that he received.
'Creating a suggestion in the target's mind is a very advanced genjutsu. It requires careful emotional manipulation and insertion of new memories.
The connection between the new memories and the victim's feelings is a process that requires extremely high-level genjutsu and a basic understanding of your victim.
If the victim's feelings towards the memory are too unnatural, this technique would lead to emotional imbalance and eventually to schizophrenia or other serious mental illnesses.
If you plan to make the effects permanent you also need to renew the genjutsu from time to time depending on the amount and severity of suggestions. No matter how skilled you are in genjutsu by using it many times on the same target it's a matter of time until the target develops mental unbalances.
Also, only top Genjutsu grandmasters can pull it off consistently. Of course, there is an exception for talented Sharingan users.
The techniques are describing several methods of creating realistic feelings in the victim's mind. One of them is a method of copying preexisting feelings of the victim towards a person and transferring the feelings towards another person of your choice. However, with enough time, the victim would be able to detect that something is wrong.
This technique is very good for my situation. When the unknown figure approaches me, I can transfer the feeling of reverence, obedience, and fear that he has for his boss towards Hokage.
With his new feelings, it would be easier to manipulate his memories and make him believe that his mission is to accompany me towards Hokage's office,' Sasuke thought.
Sasuke was very happy with the new information. It was something that he could easily discover by himself, but he was glad that he didn't have to spend his precious time.
'If I combine this technique with psychedelic substances, the possibilities are endless. I can even use advanced psychological concepts like Cognitive Dissonance, Confirmation Bias, Halo Effect, and others to completely control the victim's personality. With enough time and experimentation, I can break down every mind. However, I am sure that most of the S-rank ninjas would have precautions against a power like this,' Sasuke thought with excitement.
---
It's been 1 week since the meeting with Inoichi, and Sasuke's training was proceeding with exceptional progress.
Sasuke finally finished mastering the body replacement jutsu without hand signs. It took longer than expected because Sasuke delayed it in order to master the partial transformation which was much more important to him right now.
His weight training increased from 35 kg to 45kg, and Sasuke doubled his food portions to cope with it.
He had already mastered water skating to an exceptional degree, performing it with his hands while keeping 15 rocks on his body with the leaf balancing exercise. Even Neji, watching him, was flabbergasted.
Neji was sure that not even Hiashi could pull off this exercise. The more he watched Sasuke, the more he was convinced that his decision to follow him was the correct one.
Sasuke now could know keep his sharingan activated for 15 minutes and his genjutsu for 12 minutes.
Shikamaru joined Sasuke for the genjutsu training as promised, but he didn't participate in the rest of the training because he was too lazy and tired. The boy's high willpower and intelligence, proving to be quite adept at defending his mind. However, Sasuke with his experience, even in the early stages of training, was already able to exert a temporary and subtle influence on Shikamaru's thoughts.
Sasuke also practiced his genjutsu with the girls and Inoichi. He already had complete confidence that he could create suggestions to an unprepared jonin.
---
'The girls have enough chakra control to proceed to the next step of my training,' Sasuke thought.
"Tenten, Ino, and Sakura, tomorrow we are going to skip the academy and instead we are going to the hospital. There will be a test for genins to see if they are suitable for learning medical ninjutsu. We are not genin, but considering the lack of medical ninjas, if we show enough talent, I am sure that they will train us."
Tenten started jumping with excitement and gave Sasuke a kiss on the cheek.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Ino shouted with panic.
"WHAT THE HECK?" Sakura shouted angrily.
Tenten looked at them and smiled mischievously.
"Relax, Ino and Sakura, it's not a big deal. You can also give me a kiss if you want," Sasuke said with confidence.
'It was just a matter of time for this to happen so it's better to play it cool' Sasuke thought.
The two girls were extremely excited and completely red.
Ino approached him first and started giving him a kiss on his right side, but she sucked too much of his cheek. She also kept the kiss for almost 5 seconds.
"This will count as 3 kisses," Sasuke said while smiling.
"I don't know when you will give us a chance like that in the future," Ino said, completely blushed.
"You never asked me before," Sasuke replied with confidence.
"WHAT?" Sakura and Ino shouted together, and Tenten was regretting her reckless action.
Finally, after the shock, Sakura came ahead for her turn. Half of her mouth touched Sasuke's cheek, and the other half touched his lips. Her kiss also lasted for several seconds.
"After your chakra control, I think that we also need to focus on your body control. It seems that your focus is a little off. However, it was a nice try," Sasuke said jokingly.
Sakura turned completely red.
"You are all completely insane," Neji said and went away with a little blush on his face.