He exhaled loudly then took another deep breath of the smoke and carefully blew it out into a large O. He continued doing this till he couldn't stand the burning in his throat anymore and put it out. He walked back into the cabin, the other three were sitting on the couch watching tv, he smiled at them then announced he was going to bed.
He shut the door behind them and began to change into a plain black T-shirt and then a new pair of boxers. He folded everything then slipped into his warm sheets, the aroma of cigarette smoke was still surrounding him.
Nagato awoke to the sound of pots clinking in the kitchen, and the aroma of melted butter, bread, and eggs. He arose groggily out of his cot and shuffled his way into the kitchen. Konan was attending to the eggs frying on the stove, where Jiriya was examining the local newspaper and Yahiko was tilted back in the chair with his feet propped up on the table. Yahiko picked scraps from his plate and handed them discreetly to Chibi, who was resting in Yahiko's lap. Nagato sat next to his teammate, he smiled briefly at Yahiko, who smiled back. He immediately noticed the gray circles under his crystal blue eyes; and how his usually energetic friend was dead silent.
After breakfast, the squad trekked to the training field to continue practicing. Jiriya turned around to face his three pupils- each one of their faces were lit with the eagerness to learn.
"You've already learned basic water jutsus, but now we're going to work on perfecting them. Today I'm going to teach you how to focus more chakra into your attack to make it precise, and decrease the potential of you missing your target entirely." Jiriya then clapped his hands together and suddenly a cloud of smoke appeared. Once the mist cleared, three wooden dummies became visible.
"If you condense your chakra into your attack, it will end up cutting deeper into your opponent," he smiled, "the first person to break through their wooden opponent gets to go fishing with me later this afternoon." He grinned widely then walked off to the side to observe who his winner would be.
The three young ninjas immediately charged forward and chose their attack dummies. Jiriya noticed Yahiko pause for a second and channel his chakra into his hands. His blue chakra began to pool out of his hands as he added his water style into the mix. However, Yahiko didn't seem to mix the two together sufficiently enough because when he launched the attack it spun out of control to the ground just next to the wooden opponent. Jiriya leaned back and softly laughed under his breath- It was a good try, Yahiko.
Jiriya then switched his gaze to Nagato, who was preparing to use his water jet jutsu. His chest puffed out as his head leaned back, then suddenly a burst of chakra-infused water escaped from his mouth. The beam of liquid traveled directly to the cardiac region of the wooden dummy. Jiriya waited in suspense as the mist cleared; the dummy had a measly crack through its chest. Jiriya exhaled, disappointed.
With his last whim of hope, Jiriya fixed his gaze onto Konan. Despite the competitive situation, her demeanor was cool and collected. The palms of her hands began to glow blue, from her highly-concentrated chakra. Konan then produced a hand sign that summoned water from the reserves underground, the water trickled up from the moist earth and then began to infuse itself with the circulating chakra. Once it all concentrated into an orb shape, she fired the water jutsu. Jiriya's eyes then widened with amazement as the water jet exploded through the abdomen of the dummy.
Konan relaxed herself from her battle-stance in disbelief, a smile crept across her face.
"I did it!" Konan cried with joy.
Yahiko and Nagato who were still working on perfecting their technique stopped to see what all the commotion was about.
What the heck, Yahiko thought, who would've thought Konan to have such amazing chakra control. Yahiko wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand as Nagato and him walked over to Konan.