“Thank you, Amon. I am heading out of the village with my team soon and will try to use your advice with the kids.” Asuma said as he stood up from his seat in my office.

  “Think nothing of it. I trust you to use the information responsibly. I have found that you can have too much of a good thing. How’s Asuna doing? I haven't seen her since I got back.” I said, making my way to open the door for the man.

  “She’s good, out on a long-term mission.” The moment Asuma took a foot out the door, he lit up a cigarette. “You know the kind. Honestly, I’m a bit envious.”

  “Don’t light up the moment you leave my office. I thought you were going to start using the nicotine gum.”

  “I do both,” Asuma responded with a grin. I made a show of slumping my shoulders to show my displeasure, which made him bark out a laugh. “Once my sister comes back, I’ll tell her you were asking about her. I’ll tell her you have feelings for her.”

  “I do have feelings for her. The feelings are annoyance and wary.”

  “Oh, she’s not that bad.”

  “She takes after your father before he was saddled with the responsibility of the village. If I ever wonder what your father was like when he was younger, I look at her.”

  “Hmm, yeah, that’s pretty accurate. I never signed the summoning contract with the monkeys, but they could be fun, if not a handful. The fact that my sister did tells you something.”

  “What, what does it tell you?”

  “Well…that they have playful sides. You should sign a summoned beast contract.”

  “I don’t have the chakra for it.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “I use my chakra efficiently. My chakra pool is always below average for my rank. If I had a lot of chakra to spare, yeah, I would use one, but I don’t.”

  “Hmm, well, I guess that is why you are so good at genjutsu and stuff.”

  I locked the door behind us, and we went to find Kurenai at the training fields. Asuma believed I could help her train with her genjutsu. She was only sixteen and was trying to become a special Jonin. The people from my life before thought that anything below Jonin rank was cannon fodder, but living a whole life here puts things in perspective. When considering the scale of grand prophecies and gods bringing destruction to the land, yeah, being a special Jonin wasn’t the biggest thing in the world. However, for the everyday people of this world, it was equivalent to getting a Master's degree, while Jonin was like obtaining a doctorate.

  We walked the streets of Konoha, as leaping from roof to roof was considered bad manners, and we weren't in that much of a hurry—a feeling I wanted to hold onto for as long as possible. I sensed trouble was on the horizon. Danzo had been quiet, which indicated he was either busy with something or planning to strike from an angle I didn’t have covered.

  Orochimaru was up to something, but he was too skilled at covering his tracks. Whenever I got close to discovering anything, Danzo would play defense for the man. Orochimaru had a great deal of freedom and resources available to him, and he worked on a wide array of projects. If I found a clue, it could lead to a dozen dangerous and different directions.

  I would love to ask, “What would Minato do?” But I know he didn’t do much. He allowed Orochimaru and Danzo to do as they pleased, and I honestly can’t think of a better solution. Even Hashirama didn’t have perfect control over the village during his time in office.

  Walking through the village, I couldn’t help but window shop at the stalls. I was still couch-surfing at the Hatake estate, and since I was going on a longer-term mission, I shouldn’t buy anything unnecessary. Instead, I forced myself to examine the kind of goods being sold. A large portion of the stalls were selling clothes and food.

  My wardrobe was fine, and I used it in my ninja duties. Easy to always be armed when you wear your weapon of choice, and thanks to my earth nature chakra, when I use my bandages in fights, I could funnel my chakra through them and make them strong and durable.

  For food, my fuinjutsu came in handy. Seals that helped preserve food meant I could ignore expiration dates, and I was able to perform jutsu that would dehydrate food and then prepare the ingredients to eat. I was confident that there was no ninja in the village, if not the world, that could outcook me on any given day. Especially once out on the field. Thanks to the experience from my previous life, I was accustomed to a certain level of creature comforts, which I spent a considerable amount of my free time trying to replicate in my new life.

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

  Thanks to spending so much time studying such a “unique” way of using chakra and fuinjutsu, I have benefited not only from quality of life changes but also from improvements in my shinobie life. I’m trying to bestow some of my teachings on my students, but I doubt many ninja, including Kurenai, would appreciate that field of study. The average person, especially ninjas in this world, are willing to “tough it out” through life.

  “What’s with the long face?” Asuma asked, noticing the change in my mood, even through my bandages.

  “Oh, I was just thinking about how awful food pills are,” I answered, causing him to roll his eyes and shake his head.

  “Your time in the capital made you too soft. I hope that doesn’t happen to me.”

  “Don’t blame my time with the daimyo. I appreciated the finer things in life before that.”

  “If you spent half the time you spent on your 'quality of life' ninjitsu on training traditional ninjitsu. You would be the new god of Shinobe.”

  “Well first off, what’s the point of being a “god of shinobe” if you can’t enjoy yourself while you do it. And second, you are wrong. It’s my pursuit in such fields of study that has made me the man I am today.”

  “Oh, is that right?” Asuma raised an eyebrow, showing his disbelief.

  “Well, when I was a simple, poor, malnourished, orphan, and taking classes at the academy, you won’t believe how I was doing in school.”

  “If I had to guess. Not good.”

  “Not good indeed. Especially compared to my classmates from clans. Now, why would you think that was the case?”

  “I don’t know,” Asuma answered uncomfortably, seeing he himself came from a famous clan.

  “Because my classmates weren’t simple, poor, malnourished, orphans. If I was going to be able to compete with them, I was going to have to start solving those problems.”

  “You solved your orphan problem?”

  “No, not yet, I’ll solve that when I marry. Hopefully, I’ll marry a rich woman with kind in-laws.” Asuma scuffed at my answer. “I needed to solve the problems of the poor and malnourished first. So I learned the mud clone jutsu as soon as I could.”

  “Mud clone?”

  “Yep, Clan kids had the benefit of having family members helping them with problems big and small. With the mud clone, I could do something similar. The clan hires maids and butlers to do chores; a mud clone can do chores as well. A family member offers advice in one manner or another. There’s a book in the public library that I could borrow and have a mud clone read, then write notes about it, summarizing the contents in a way that's easier for me to digest mentally. The clan has family members spar against each other; I can spar against myself.”

  "You spar against your own mud clones?”

  “Yep, easy to see the flaws and openings in your own defense or technique when it’s yourself. If you know the enemy and yourself, then you have nothing to fear. Thanks to fighting my clone, I learned both.”

  “But you will have to fight other ninjas. What are you going to do when you fight someone you don’t know?”

  “That is why I have a mud clone reading and making notes on every ninja in the Bingo book. Between you and me, I’m a fast learner and I love to get to know people.” I said, making a heart shape with my hands.

  Asuma looked at me nervously but kept walking. Eventually, we made it to the training fields and spotted Kurenai hidden in a tree staring off into the distance. Approaching the young lady, I looked to see what she was gazing at and saw a group of kids getting ready to spar against one another. Looking again, I recognized them as my students whom I sent on patrol with Kengo.

  “Yo Kurenai, what are you staring at? ” Asuma asked.

  “One of your students picked a fight. It looks like they are just some stupid Genin who just got out of the academy.” Asuma looked, and I could see the exact moment he recognized my students. His face snapped to me and then back towards the kids, “Man, Itachi is going to eat them alive.” Kurenai continued.

  “Um, Kurenai, maybe-”

  “I mean, I know Itachi is young, but those other kids don’t look anything special. I’m surprised they even graduated.”

  “They don’t impress you?”

  “Not one bit.” She scuffed and looked at me. “Hey Amon, how’s the hospital?”

  “Still there last I checked. Asuma asked me to help give you pointers on genjutsu.”

  “Yes, please, I’m trying to become a special Jonin soon, and I feel like I’m almost there with genjutsu. I asked Inoichi Sansei, but he was too busy and said I had already approached the limits of what he could teach. Would you be able to help?”

  “What aspects do you find the most difficult?”

  “Multiple targets. I know that genjutsu uses Yin chakra, and that's why the academy's basic three jutsu exist. The clone jutsu uses yin, Transformation uses yang, and escape is a basic summoning jutsu mixed with just dodging. But every time I use genjutsu on Multiple people, they start breaking out faster and faster.”

  “Practice on cats and dogs,” I answered simply.

  “Cats and dogs? Why?”

  “Other large animals work too; there are just more cats and dogs in the village. The problem you are experiencing is rooted in the five senses. You are most likely using a pre-designed genjutsu. Something your clan has made and has worked for you in the past.”

  “The Yūhi garden jutsu’s.”

  “The problem is that you are having a hard time adjusting the jutsus for individuals. Your jutsu’s, if I have to guess, attack all five senses, but people have different senses from each other. Some people are color blind, others can’t smell, or are just more numb. When you focus on one person, you can compensate for areas that don’t work for the individual. If the person can’t usually smell anything, they would be able to tell that something is wrong, and then the illusion is broken. Poring more chakra into the problem often resolves it and causes the victim to overlook the inconsistency. Different people, different senses, different inconsistencies, more and more chakra. Eventually, you slip up and they slip out.”

  “How do you do it?”

  “Less senses and drugs. It’s easy to create poisons that affect people's sense of smell, taste, and touch. Then I just have to work on sight and hearing. Plain and simple, you are using jutsus that are purposely designed for individual use. Find genjutsu’s that are less all-encompassing, or practice with your clan jutsu’s on cats and dogs. Their senses are so foreign to you that you will have to focus on adjusting the jutsu, but they don’t have a lot of chakra that can get in your way.”

  “Oh, well, it sounds easy when you say it like that.”

  “The benefits of asking a skilled practitioner for advice. The more you know something, the easier it should be to explain it to others.”

  “I mean, I guess that makes sense.” Kurenai shrugged.

  “Now it appears that the little Genin are about to have their sparring match. Please tell me more about your honest opinion on them. I would love to know about your perspective on them.”

  Asuma paled at my request, as he was unable to warn Kurenai off. She was more than happy to voice her opinion.