Chapter 22

I slowly started talking like an old man who has seen everything in his life. I decided to forget about all that and just rest for a while. I spoke to Hinata for a few more minutes before she fell asleep due to low chakra levels. I also left the Hyuga household and headed to another house in Konoha.

I knocked on the door and waited for a response. A woman with black hair, red eyes and red lipstick. She is Kurenai Yuhi, one of the top genjutsu users in the village. I wanted to come to her to learn genjutsu and I also had Kakashi in mind, but when the blacksmith said I have to talk to Asuma, I had to come to her.

If she can introduce me to Asuma, he might be willing to share information he otherwise wouldn't. Kurenai looked at me and asked "Aren't you Hatsuo Uchiha, the kid that's famous in the village? What do you want with me?" to which I replied "I asked Hinata and she said you were free till the Chunin exams. So, I was hoping you could teach me about genjutsu in your free time."

Kurenai was surprised. She asked "You don't have any chakra. How will you learn genjutsu?" and I replied "Well, I have been training ever since I was a kid and have seen a slight increase in chakra. Since genjutsu doesn't need as much chakra as ninjutsu, I wanted to learn that from you."

Kurenai sighed, since she thought that she would be able to rest in the free time she had till the Chunin exams started. She thought of going out with Asuma in that time and training her team when she is free. She thought for a while and decided that having me with her team might actually help Hinata perform better, so she agreed.

She said "Keep in touch with Hinata and join team 8 in their daily training from tomorrow." and I left after thanking her. It was already evening and I didn't have much to do. I just walked around town, not doing much and ended up bumping into Ino, Shikamaru and Choji.

Ino ran towards me while waving at me. Shikamaru and Choji just walked to me. Ino arrived first and asked "Hatsuo, when did you come back from your little trip?" I replied "Today. I didn't know you guys were back from your mission". Ino sighed and said "It was a boring mission. I am amazed it took us so long just to find a bandit. But enough about that, what did you do and where did you go?"

I replied "You could call it a kind of training. I have improved a lot from before I left for the trip." and when I finished, both mine and Choji's stomach growled at the same time. We both smiled and Ino then said "We were going to get food. Want to join us?"

I accepted the offer, since I didn't have money. We visited a Korean barbeque restaurant and everyone had a blast. They spoke about how they were doing in their missions and I spoke to them about stuff I did when I was away from the village. I didn't go into details, because even though I trust them, it is better if they don't know now. When the time comes, I will tell them.

We all had a great time and Shikamaru paid for me this time. We then returned home and I went to sleep. I was tired from all the training and talking today. I immediately fell asleep and woke up early in the morning the next day since my body was used to me waking up early for an early morning exercise.

Instead of training by myself, I went to the Hyuga household and by the time I arrived there, they were already training. I walked towards the training hall Hinata and Hanabi practice while observing others train. Mostly, everyone practiced the gentle fist and the Eight Trigrams technique, but I did notice some members just studying books.

I then arrived at the training hall and knocked on the door. "Come in" Hinata's father shouted from the other side. I entered the hall and, Hinata and Hanabi had already started training. Hinata's father looked at me and said "You are late."

I didn't know what to say, because it was 6 in the morning and the sun just came out a few minutes ago. Most people don't even wake up this early. I asked "What time do you guys start?" and he replied "4 am everyday. You should also learn to wake up early. You just missed 2 hours of training just being lazy."

I then joined Hinata and Hanabi in training. It was the same as usual, but I wanted to improve myself. I can only see one second into the future. When people learn of this, they will be able to easily change their moves throwing a feint for that second. To improve that, I need to constantly use the future sight.

So, I went with the blindfolds again and continued training. The whole time I managed to dodge all of their attacks, but I didn't make much progress. It was around 10 am when Hinata said it was time for Kurenai's training. Hinata left to get ready while I rested for some time.

We then went to the place where Team 8 usually trained. Kiba and Shino were already there before us. I hadn't met Shino before, so I walked up to him, stretched out my hand and said "Hello. Nice to meet you. I am Hats...." He didn't even let me finish. He said "I know everything about you. I am Shino Aburame. Nice to meet you"

I immediately turned to Hinata, who looked away. Kiba laughed and came to me. He put his arm around my shoulder and asked "So Hatsuo, why are you here?" before I could even reply, Kurenai answered from behind "He will be training with us."

All four of us turned to Kurenai and listened to her. She said "I remember all three of you were working on your clan moves, so you can train among yourselves. I will train with Hatsuo for today and see if he can really learn genjutsu. We can start the usual sparring lessons tomorrow."

Team 8 listened to her instructions and trained in their clan special jutsu. As for me, I was standing before Kurenai and was listening to her explain what genjutsu is. She started explaining "Genjutsu is where you use your chakra to alter the flow of chakra in the head of the target to make them feel things. Genjutsu is a difficult skill to master. Usually, people think genjutsu is easy and medical ninjutsu is hard, but that is not true. Genjutsu is equally hard, more harder if you think properly. You have to release your chakra into your surroundings without any physical contact and you also have to send chakra into the target without their knowledge. Also, you have to control that chakra from far without physical contact.

You also need excellent chakra control to learn this. It would have been easier if you had Sharingan like the rest of the Uchiha. The sharingan makes it easier to learn genjutsu since it focuses chakra in the field of vision of the eye. You have 10 days to learn how to spread your chakra to your surroundings. If you can't do it, you better give up learning genjutsu."

She is going in the opposite direction from my plans. I already know how to put someone in genjutsu. I need to learn how to use it in combat, but she is teaching me the basics that others learn. This is going to be a complete waste of time, but I don't want to show off my Sharingan to anyone.

Danzo loves Uchiha eyeballs and likes to have it in his hands at all times. If he learns that I have the three tomoe sharingan that can be used to perform Izanagi, he will definitely come for me. Also, I can't even face two ninjas at a time. I need to put up with this shit and learn genjutsu this way. I could have gone to Tagitsu and asked her to teach me, but her genjutsu is different and uses different methods.

So, I started concentrating and tried to focus on the small amounts of chakra left in my body. I can only feel haki, but not chakra. I can control nature energy, but Kurenai can't sense it. She can only sense normal chakra so I need to spread out normal chakra, which is very difficult for me.

The whole day went by, with just me struggling to find the chakra in my body. At the end of the day, Kurenai asked us to leave and on the way, Hinata said "Hatsuo, don't feel bad. You can do it. Don't give up." trying to cheer me up. I ruffled her hair and replied "Thanks Hinata."

Hinata's face turned red as a tomato and almost fainted before Kiba caught her. He also tried to encourage me and I thanked them for it before leaving for my house. I went to sleep disappointed and the next day was not any different from the previous one.

After three days, Kurenai came to me and said "I know that you are having trouble sensing the chakra in your body. I will make it easier for you by sending in some chakra into your body. This way, you should be able to sense the disturbances in your chakra path."

She then sent a small amount of chakra into my body and it was messing up the chakra in my body. I could feel the pain in my body, but I can't feel the chakra. This went on for four more days, with little to no progress.

A week had passed since I asked the blacksmith for my weights and he called me telling me that they were ready. I went to pick them up and when I arrived at his shop, he was dragging the weights to the door. When he looked at me, he said "Take your bloody weights. It is difficult to even move them. I want to see you wear them."

I walked to the weights and tried to lift them up. It took everything I had just to lift a single one and I had ordered four for each limb. The blacksmith had a smirk on his face as he watched me struggle.

I put on all four of them and that's it. I immediately fell to the floor. It was hard to even stand. The blacksmith laughed as he walked back to his forgery and left me to myself. It took me half an hour just to get up and stand properly. I was able to walk only for 10 mins before I had to take a break and with my pace, I was covering a very small distance in that 10 minutes.

It took me 3 hours to get home, which is way too long because it is just 20 mins away from my home. When I got home, I dropped my weights outside in a bush. I can't take it inside because they will definitely break the wooden flooring in the house. Since I was poor, I had to go back to my ramen diet, which Naruto taught me.

I want to work in Ichiraku ramen, but I will have to work for long and what I need the most is sleep. So, I had three cups of ramen and went to sleep. I didn't go to the Hyuga household to train the next day and used the time to train with my weights. The rest of the day was as usual. This way, another week went by and I did see a little progress in my physical training. It went from struggling to move, to walking like an old man.

As for my genjutsu training, I think that the physical training helped increase my chakra, as I was able to sense the chakra and able to release a little chakra from my body, which Kurenai acknowledged and agreed to train me further. This was a huge progress and I was very happy with that. I did use my Sharingan a little to train in this. When I wasn't training with Kurenai, I put a few strangers in genjutsu and focused on the energy I was using.

I was returning home from training and that's when I ran into Team 7, who were on their way home from the Hokage's office. They finished reporting their mission. Sakura looked at me and waved as she shouted "Hatsuo! Here!" I looked at them and that's the first time I saw Kakashi and Sasuke.

They walked to me and Kakashi looked at me. He looked at me for a while and said "So you are Hatsuo. Nice to meet you". Kakashi then left and it was just Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke. Sasuke glared at me and didn't say anything. He then said "Meet me at my parents' grave tomorrow morning. I have something I want to ask you."