The Genjutsu Devil of Konoha

Time-skip.

It's been a week. There was like a month off before the test—you may wonder, why a whole month? Answer was simple: thousands of kids wanted to be ninja, and grading all those papers did not happen overnight.

A lot of shit needed to be done—assigning them to their class, trying to find how much potential they had, some light clan politics 'cause of course politics were included. Politics were in everything nowadays.

Not like Seijuro minded. He had this whole time to train... if only he knew all of his future rivals were doing the same thing and were training harder than canon—especially Hiashi. His Byakugan had been tricked. He refused. He absolutely refused to let this shit happen.

His Byakugan was tricked... his clan's prized Dōjutsu was tricked.

Hizashi watched his brother complete the Kata for the 565th time. The whole Kata.

Everything.

The boy had woken up at 6 in the morning—it was now 3 p.m., and he was still doing Kata. He never stopped, not even for a second.

The dummy had so many holes in its body it was crazy to think about. At this rate, his range of 40 meters in all directions and 100 meters in one direction was going to increase a lot.

{He is still a kid; I doubt his range would reach kilometer values yet.}

He was the future Hyuga heir. He refused—he absolutely refused—to let this slide.

Next time they fought, he would win.

Meanwhile, Seijuro—the target of this training saga—could be seen doing his own training.

He'd been at this for a week now. Since acing the Academy entrance exam and securing a place in Class 1-A, Seijuro had done what any overly rational, secretly anxious, mildly obsessive prodigy would do:

Train. Relentlessly.

Morning? Training.

Afternoon? Training.

Night? Training while pretending not to train because Yui said he needed rest. She was like the mother he never had.

He liked her. Favorite nanny for real.

He closed his book—"A Beginner's Guide to Intermediate Chakra Control: Vol. 2"—and gazed at the still-spinning clump of dirt in his hand.

"Molding earth with chakra for extended periods builds control and stamina simultaneously," he muttered, repeating the book's lesson. But of course, Seijuro didn't stop there. He had taken it upon himself to design unique chakra control exercises tailored to each elemental affinity.

He knew his affinity was all five.

...So he trained for all of them.

But he did put more of a focus on Earth and Fire.

Good defense, and Konohagakure was like the Fire Nation with more than two big clans being fire practitioners—the Sarutobi and Uchiha were Fire users. Little to say, they had a lot of Fire jutsu.

If Water, Air, and Lightning were more available, he would train those too.

For Air, he'd have to go to Suna.

Water? The Mist.

Lightning? The Cloud.

Hm, and for better Earth—Iwagakure, or the Stone Village.

Anyway, as to the techniques he had made—

He would light a single ember—no, no more than a spark—and then guide it across a leaf using only his chakra, without burning it. It required fine-tuned control of temperature, movement, and direction.

Like threading a needle... made of flame.

Bonus challenge: Write his name using a trail of embers in the walls. Yui nearly freaked out when she saw "SEIJURO WAS HERE" in scorched letters on the wall.

Hm, he liked doing a little trolling when she was around. Hm. He was getting attached to his nanny. He knew he shouldn't, but he just allowed himself to.

He felt like he would be lonely—that he would live a very single life. He didn't know what he would do if his loneliness was allowed to thrive—maybe he would grow a god complex and do some truly insane thing.

Maybe he would try to be like the Sage of Six Paths, he doesn't know. All he knew was that, he didn't like that future. He didn't like it at all.

For Water, what he did was simple. He filled a bowl to the brim with water, then used his chakra to create micro-vibrations, forming controlled ripples that didn't spill a single drop. His goal? Make a perfectly symmetrical ripple pattern and keep it alive for ten minutes straight.

Bonus challenge: Balance the bowl on his head while walking a tightrope... he failed... horribly. Got wet in the process... very damp. Looked like he went swimming and forgot how to swim.

For Wind, he had to get creative. Sure, he could just try and split a leaf in half with Wind, but that would be boring. Instead, he chose something far better in his childish mind.

He would grab five leaves, suspend them in the air with chakra, and then spin them around himself like a mini tornado. The leaves couldn't touch him—or each other.

Bonus challenge: Maintain the cyclone while solving math equations out loud. Multitasking training, baby. For the first week he kinda failed. Badly. Very badly.

Now for Lightning, the cool stuff. Using minimal chakra, he generated tiny static charges between his fingers and "stitched" together grains of sand like a thread through cloth. Every movement had to be insanely precise, or the sand would explode into his face.

Bonus challenge: Don't get zapped.

Spoiler: He got zapped. A lot. His hair was spiky for a week afterward. Anyone who touched him got a little zappy zap.

Now for Earth. He shaped a pebble using only his chakra, carving minute details into it without touching it physically. Surprisingly, it was easy—he even had time to make some stuff.

Bonus challenge: Craft a 3D fox using only one continuous stone thread. (He did it on the third try. Named it "Foxington." Or Kurama, yes, he named a 9-tail fox Kurama... why? 'Cause that was his clan name... bite him.)

And to train his base chakra control, he took inspiration from the puppet masters of Suna. He formed chakra threads from his fingers and used them to control an acorn across an obstacle course made of sticks, leaves, and old ramen cups.

Bonus challenge: Complete the course blindfolded. (He was failing, miserably, but progress was progress.)

With another sigh, Seijuro let the pebble fall and flopped backward, arms spread wide against the grassy field. His limbs ached, his chakra coils were strained, and his brain buzzed from overuse of Genjutsu formulas earlier that day.

He'd practiced three new illusions using layered emotional triggers. Yui walked in during one and ended up crying about a dead cat she never had. He decided to tone those down a little.

Still...

Progress was coming along nicely.

Hm. In the month he trained, his stats would look like this:

Seijuro Kurama

Age: 9

Strength: Second-year Academy student

Speed: Third-year Academy student

Endurance: Genin

Durability: Genin

Chakra: Somewhere like Mid-Chūnin

Chakra Control: Like High Chūnin

Hand-to-Hand: So far like Genin

Genjutsu: Jōnin

He didn't know many jutsu, and his elemental jutsu were still a work in progress. Well, he had like a while to develop—by the end of six months, he should be like Chūnin overall.

He wished for that. Maybe a specialized Jōnin.

Hm. Speaking of which, his clan leader had reached Jōnin rank... neat.

Kurama Renjirō was a Jōnin now.

A/N.