Mkay, this kinda starts off fast, slows for a bit, quickens up, slows down, etc, taking a relatively large chunk out of time... o.O Enjoy anyways, though, despite the weirdishness. xD

Time continued to pass by swiftly. Shikaku worked Shikami and Ethan so hard they hardly had time to remember to breathe. Shikami figured that was the way Shikaku wanted it.

Shikami mastered the walk-on-water technique shortly before Ethan did, and Shikaku started teaching him another shadow jutsu: the Shadow Strangle Jutsu. And Shikami felt a slight and sudden shock to realize that with this jutsu, he could actually end someone's life.

But that was ordinary for ninjas, he reminded himself. And, as Shikaku had taught him, if he wasn't prepared to kill, he would wind up being the killed one.

And if this would help prepare him to get his mom back, he would do it.

He began to learn to master the Shadow Strangle Jutsu.

Almost as soon as Ethan completed the walk-on-water technique the next day, a one-eyed man with silver hair and black eyes (or eye, Shikami supposed, since the other eye was blocked by his headband) showed up and crouched on a tree branch, looking sheepish.

"You're late, as usual," Shikaku told him.

"Uh, sorry. You see, I was supposed to have bad luck today if I got up early, so..." the man started to explain, but Shikaku waved off his excuse.

"Spare me." Shikaku motioned towards Ethan with an incline of his head. "There's your student, Kakashi."

Ethan and Shikami exchanged glances, then Ethan stepped forward and introductions were made. It seemed Ethan's new sensei was called Kakashi Hatake.

After a moment, Shikami tried to tune them out and concentrate on his own training. When he looked around again, he and Shikaku were alone.

Even though Ethan now spent the mornings in another training spot with Kakashi, he returned to train his taijutsu with Shikami in the afternoons. Also, Shikami started playing strategy games once more with Shikaku often. He still couldn't win any, but he got closer to it with every game played.

About another week and a half passed, and Shikami mastered the Shadow Strangle Jutsu and was eagerly looking forward to the next jutsu.

"That's all, kid."

Shikami stared at his sensei. "What?"

"I'm not teaching you any more shadow jutsu, at least for a little while."

Shikami frowned. "Then, you're going to get me to focus mainly on taijutsu?"

Shikaku shook his head. "You'll still be learning that in the afternoon with me and Ethan, but I think you'd be good using genjutsu. I'll teach you the basics myself today, but then you'll get another teacher in the mornings to teach you more advanced genjutsu."

Shikami felt his pulse quicken with anticipation. He was going to learn more about genjutsu! That was one thing in the academy that he felt he hadn't been able to learn about. Even the general idea was vague. And now he was going to be able to learn how to use it for himself.

So the rest of that morning was spent in Shikaku outline in slightly more detail than before the basics of genjutsu – casting it and breaking it.

"Most genjutsu does not need a hand sign to execute," Shikaku said. "Although sometimes you may have to form the basic hand sign for building up chakra in order to effectively cast some forms of genjutsu. Then you send your own chakra into your opponent's mind and take over their five senses. This part must be done quickly and without detection, otherwise there is a greater risk that your opponent will realize they are in a genjutsu and they'll break break it."

Shikaku continued on for a few minutes, then changed direction and started explaining how to release it. Shikami found that he had only been able to release the Ethan illusion because of Shikaku's low level of expertise in the area. To counter higher level genjutsu would be much more difficult.

"Because your mind's chakra is under the control of the genjutsu caster, it's necessary to do two things to break the jutsu," Shikaku explained. "Step one is to cut off your own flow of chakra, and the second step is to disrupt the flow of chakra with a powerful burst of energy within yourself."

Shikami nodded, trying to memorize. This was basically building upon what he had already learned, and he needed to try and remember as much as he could.

"There are times when that won't work, though," Shikaku continued. "There are two other ways. One will only work when your squad members are nearby and unaffected by the genjutsu you see. They can force some of their own chakra into you by touching you, which will disrupt the chakra the genjutsu caster is controlling, thus breaking the genjutsu."

"And the third way?" Shikami asked.

"The last way to break out of a jutsu is to experience pain not caused by the genjutsu's effects. Driving a kunai into yourself, for example, or even just biting your lip hard enough. Pain works in funny ways: sometimes it clouds your mind, and sometimes it can clear it."

Shikami nodded.

"Also, remember this," Shikaku finished. "Only a couple people in the world can kill using genjutsu. Some can cause real severe pain by making the mind think the body is hurting, but for about ninety-five percent of ninja that use genjutsu, all they do is make their target motionless and cause pain up here." Shikaku tapped his head. "They have to have some other way of killing, if they want to cause death."

"You're going to learn genjutsu? Wow, that's so cool, Shikami!" Ethan said.

The two boys and Rue were sitting in the living room after supper, exchanging news of their day, as they had begun doing recently. Shikami wasn't sure exactly how it got started, or why Rue was included as well, but it was a good, relaxing part of the day that Shikami looked forward to anyways.

Shikami shrugged but grinned.

"Iruka-sensei doesn't tell us much about genjutsu," Rue said, somewhat wistfully. "I don't know why. Maybe because it's more complicated."

Shikami nodded towards her. "That could be. How's your earth jutsu training coming, Ethan?"

Ethan flashed a grin, showing again his chipped tooth. "Wicked cool. Kakashi-sensei is always really late, which is very annoying, but once he got me started, I could practice the jutsu he was teaching me on my own for a bit."

Rue smiled shyly at him, her face turning slightly red as she asked, "What kinds of earth techniques are you learning?"

Ethan's grinned widened. "That's a secret for now, so I can wow everyone later."

Shikami rolled his eyes. "Knowing you, I'm sure we'll be very 'wowed'."

Ethan laughed, and Shikami found himself wondering who his genjutsu sensei would be. He supposed he would find out the next day.

Note: No, Shikami wasn't complaining or anything like that when it says 'or why Rue was included as well'. He was just commenting that he didn't know. xD

Anyways, this is leading up to more than one thing. Maybe in the next chapter, I'll be able to insert one of them: another time-filler thought up by Taylor and Amber - those geniuses I've already mentioned before in other chapters' A/Ns. xD

With twenty-four chapters previous all saying roughly the same thing right here, you should know what's coming next, right? Right. Review! xDD