Reaching mediocrity

After many failures, Sasuke managed to succeed in using his Sharingan to affect Kakashi… it only made him blink a few times, though. Using his Chakra on his eyes and then sending a wave of energy to influence others around was quite tricky, and it also consumed a lot of energy.

"You succeeded once, even though I wasn't expecting it," Kakashi said. "You just need to get used to that feeling and improve it."

"Repetition, huh," Sasuke said while frowning. "I thought that only Naruto would have to deal with that."

"You can always make a shadow clone do the job for you," Kakashi shrugged. "Oh, wait… it isn't that simple and easy, huh."

Climbing trees by using Chakra in his feet was hard; using a genjutsu even of the lowest level was ten times harder, so that wasn't an option. Sasuke tried to recall the types of genjutsu that he knew, but none of them would come in handy… learning them was possible, but cutting corners now wouldn't help.

When night came, Sasuke felt like his eyes were burning… even without the Sharingan, they were red. Still, at least he managed to achieve something else aside from making Kakashi blink. He made him see a flash of light in the blink of an eye.

"This is really hard…" Sakura said while she was standing upside down on the ceiling and trying to cancel her Chakra on her feet without falling. "Out of reflex, she always hesitated since she didn't want to fall."

"Once you are able to do that, canceling genjutsu on others will be easy," Kakashi said. "The trick is always to be quick on your feet and make decisions. Some genjutsu users out there can make you feel hours passing in a single moment."

Or months, Sasuke wanted to say, but he didn't. No one was aware of Itachi's Tsukuyomi yet… being informed beforehand might come in handy. Still, it would be hard to convince anyone that such a technique actually existed.

When they were about to head downstairs to have dinner, Sasuke realized that it was already night outside, and then he heard Naruto raising his voice… when they went there, they saw Inari leaving the room while running.

"Why these guys can't do their drama while I am not around?" Sasuke furrowed his eyebrows while he thought about it.

"It seems that Naruto is causing trouble even though we are guests here," Sakura said and then sighed.

"I will talk with the kid since Naruto is too awkward for this," Kakashi said. "This might take a while; you two should head to bed after eating. Training tomorrow will be at the bridge."

Sasuke and Sakura nodded, and then they found Naruto in the living room looking bored out of his mind. He looked more relaxed after saying a few things to another troublesome kid… after watching him for a few days, Sasuke realized that aside from the incident with Mizuki, Naruto was different from the original storyline since he knew about the fourth Hokage, his mother, and the nine-tailed fox. It was hard to say if he hated them for being the solution to their problems, though.

In any case, while they were guarding Tazuna, Sasuke, and Sakura learned more about genjutsu. Four days later, Naruto finished his training, and he also began to hang out with Inari on the bridge… it looked like they got closer faster than in the original storyline…

At the same time, all the training that Sasuke did was starting to affect his parameters; he was starting to get experience in his genjutsu the very moment Kakashi began to struggle to fight back the illusion. Even though he knew that he was in a genjutsu, he was unable to move for at least a second.

"That is good; if you train hard for ten more years, you can reach mediocrity," Kakashi said while nodding to himself.

"That was mean…" Sakura protested.

Sasuke ignored Kakashi's sarcasm since he was satisfied with his progress. The only problem was the fact that he needed to focus too much, and he couldn't move while using the genjutsu… it wasn't ready for combat yet.

"If my guess is right, our dear friend, Zabuza momochi, the devil of the hidden mist will show up in the next few days," Kakashi said while looking at Tazuna driving a machine and moving some pillars. "The bridge will be ready in ten days; now it is high time for him and his accomplices to stop Mister Tazuna since the bridge might be completed by others."

"Urgh… I wished that we didn't have to face him again," Sakura said while looking around. "There is plenty of water here; his mist will be even more troublesome."

"Indeed, but he won't have the chance to use it," Kakashi said, and he looked pretty confident. "Tomorrow, we will bring Naruto as well since he has to work at least a little bit."

Sasuke felt that he was forgetting something when he heard that, but the thought escaped his head…