Bright sunlight roused Ame from her calm sleep, making her groan. Se felt weirdly groggy, her head was throbbing and her mouth felt dry. She struggled to open her eyes, wanting nothing more than to just curl up and go die somewhere. That small thought woke her up a little bit, having tapped into her fears, and telling her that 'if I'm thinking that kind of stuff, something is definitely wrong'. When she finally managed to open her eyes the bright morning light almost blinded her. Memories rushed into her mind and remembered exactly where she was, and why she felt as awful as she did. Sano had convinced her to try his sake, and now she was completely hungover. Ame groaned and pulled herself into a sitting position, something bright catching her eye almost immediately. 

It was a little note, and it took Ame a few seconds for her sluggish brain to process the fact that she needed to read it. She picked up the paper and blinked away the blurriness that stubbornly clung to her vision, finally being able to make out her sensei's instructions. She shifted her gaze to her side, seeing that her sensei was indeed meditating himself, and finally catching on to the smell of cooking food. Her eyes found their makeshift campfire, seeing that he had decided to catch fish for their breakfast. Ame sighed, knowing that her headache probably wasn't going to go away any time soon. She would simply follow Sano's instructions and hope that the pain would lessen in time. It wasn't as if she didn't know the good that meditation did for a person. She hoped it would help with the pain.

Ame folded her legs and sat up straight, taking a deep breath. She focused her consciousness inwards, finding her spiritual center with practiced ease. Her focus was steady, and soon her throbbing headache subsided to something slightly more tolerable. She exhaled and opened one eye, checking to make sure that she hadn't simply allowed the fish to burn. It looked fairly ready, but the only way to tell would be to cut it open. Ame got up quietly, not wanting to disturb her sensei. She moved towards the fire, picking up her now completely dry clothing as she went. She slipped back into her pants but left the shirt and jacket. The fish were her next priority and she took care to take them off the fire, making sure they were safe for consumption. Once she was sure the food was ready Ame turned to where Sanosuke was meditating. She wasn't stupid enough to go up close to him and try and tap on his shoulder. When trying to get a shinobi's attention you did it from a distance. Reflexes were difficult things to curb, especially when someone snuck up on you. 

"Sanosuke-sensei? The fish is ready." She didn't shout, but did make her voice a little louder than usual. It was necessary, and she was a usually quieter person in any case. She didn't know if he planned to do more exercises this morning or not, but either way she was quite hungry, her body having metabolized all the venison from the night before in an effort to replenish her wavering chakra stores. She was now feeling much more in balance, chakra circulating as it should. 

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Ameryuu's very soft but projected voice reached into his ears as he was meditating. She was most likely trying to get his attention for the fish was ready. That sounded about right as he let his other senses besides eyesight slowly awaken itself to the outside world. The smell of cooked fish filled the air as he let his eyes open. Sanosuke turned around to Ameryuu and let out a loud yawn as he got himself up and dusted himself off. "Good morning, Ame-chan." Sanosuke said sleepily as he walked over and got his piece of fish from the flames. The fire from the campfire spit licked his fingers as he plucked the stick that had onto it his own fish. Just from the smell of it, Sanosuke could tell that it was ready. He blew on it gently before taking bites out of it. Sanosuke would slow down his normally fast eating to a managable chewing as he paid attention to Ameryuu. She seemed to be doing much better than the breakdown she had last night. He was glad that she shared that experience with him, because now there was more of a deeper connection between the two of them as student and sensei.

While he ate, Sanosuke got out the bottle of sake he was drinking the other night and took two large mouthfuls of it before putting it down. Judging from how high the sun was, it was probably 11 in the morning. Regardless it was too early for any kind of drinking. But Sanosuke didn't care as he really needed something to drink to get himself ready for the day after a long night's worth of meditating. After one last swig, Sanosuke started back on the fish. "So we'll be continuing where we left off originally with your training. Breathing underwater. When you're finished, I want you to meditate until I tell you to stop. There you will keep training like we did the other night." Sanosuke said. There was a reason why he was putting so much stress on meditation. It calms the mind so concentration and thought process of the brain is more of a conscious and fluid effort. It will help her with the water breathing exercise. Once they were finished, Sanosuke would let the girl meditate while he wrestled with a rather old and cryptic trinket like puzzle he was given to by Guruu Pathik on their journey a few years ago. It's been years since he played with it and still hasn't figured it out yet. So he would mess around with that while he drank more of the sake. While Ame's meditating, there would be sounds of her teacher cursing in frustration with the occasional tossing the puzzle at the tree of anger.

Once he had enough, about 2 hours worth of no results, Sanosuke called it quits and put it back in his pockets. "Okay Ame, time for you to get in the water. You're not leaving here until you can stay under the water for twice as long as how long you meditated just now. Which would be 4 hours."

Her sensei gave her her instructions for the morning and Ame nodded. She assumed that he had meant for her to spend as much time underwater as she could manage before coming up to meditate again. Ame quickly finished up her fish and pulled off her unneeded clothes again, not wanting to get things wet unnecessarily. She dipped a toe into the water, noticed that it was slightly cool and decided that just jumping in quickly was her best bet if she wanted to just ignore the feeling of the water. She shivered a little as she submerged herself but ignored the shivers, quickly concentrating her chakra as she had done the day before. It had become surprisingly easy for her to do so now and she found that she wasn't even panicking anymore as she did it. 'Breathing' became no trouble at all. 

She made it for about two hours before her control started to waver. Ame let herself float to her surface, lying flat on her back across the top of the water. She just stared into the sky for a little while before she swum back to shore, shaking off the water. Her sensei seemed to be meditating again himself and Ame planted herself on the ground near him, taking a deep breath and doing the same. She was unsure why he was placing such heavy importance on meditation. She was quite used to doing it on a regular basis, having done so since childhood, but it still perturbed her. She shrugged it off and settled down, slipping easily into her meditation mode. The sounds from outside escaped her notice as her breathing evened out to a nice, steady flow. 

Her sensei's next instructions pulled her out of her meditation and she blinked to regain focus. Her breath hitched when she heard exactly what he wanted her to do. 4 hours? That was a long time. She wasn't sure how long she had made it when she'd tried before but... she didn't know if she could make it. She could tell that there was no arguing about it though so she nodded firmly and marched back to the water, determined to get this right. She barely noticed the water this time as she plunged into the deeper part of the pool. Okay Ame, 4 hours. You can do this. She didn't have anything to track the time other than counting and she wasn't about to count out every second of her exercise. Hopefully Sanosuke would simply inform her of when her time was up as she could leave the water. And hopefully that would be before she ran out of air...

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Birds chirped above his head as Sanosuke was wrapping up his meditation session. From the sounds of their chirping, it was less lively than earlier. So some time must have passed since he started meditating at the start of Ameryuu's time period to be concentrating on willing her suiton chakra to allow her to breath underwater. While the girl was doing her task that he gave her, Sanosuke was reflecting on his duties as Raikage and what could be done to improve his village; essentially anything to get his mind off his thoughts he was having the earlier night. It was about that time to check up on Ameryuu. Picking himself up, Sanosuke draped on his shirt and pulled it down to make sure it was nicely fitted before putting on his jacket that he let the kunoichi wear last night. Willing the water out of his clothing, Sanosuke controlled it masterfully and returned it to the basin of the lake. His feet walked towards the water while applying a bit of chakra on his soles to keep him from falling in. Once he was where he believed his student was, Sanosuke bent down and focused chakra in his fingertips. His finger lightly pratted at the surface of the water to send ripples into the water strong enough to alert his student that he wanted her.

In case she didn't respond in a timely matter, Sanosuke would will the water to bring up Ameryuu to the surface and into his arms in one fluid motion. Once she araised, Sanosuke would give her a thumbs up and offer her hand to help her out of the water. "Well done Ame. Well done." Sanosuke smiled and offered to carry her on his back. She must be tired from the effort of concentrating her chakra for so long without a break. If he would let her, Sanosuke would walk her out of the water, clean up the camp they made from the previous night, and carry her towards a restaurant where they could get something to eat. Possibly Yoshida's again. After all Ame did really like that restaurant. "How does Yoshida's sound for a treat for completing the exercise?" He would wait for her answer before he walked. Wherever she wanted to go, drop her off at her place so she could rest or to rest, Sanosuke would comply. She earned it. The girl was on her way to being a marvelous shinobi of the village hidden in the clouds.

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WC: 8318
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