At the funeral's end, Hiroto finally reopened his eyes and found Satsuma already walking away. He jogged to catch up, "What's the deal? Where ya going?" asked Hiroto impatiently. This garnered a short pause from Satsuma before he spoke in response.

"Training you isn't my only job in this village. You should go back home and rest for tomorrow, you'll need it." and with that, the old man left and Hiroto was now on his own to do whatever he liked.

As much as Hiroto would have liked to train a bit more, he had to admit that his side was still aching from Satsuma's kick earlier. Wincing from the pain of the soreness, Hiroto rubbed his side and decided it might be a good idea to get it looked at. Who knew, maybe the medical ninja had some handy dandy pain relief jutsu they could use on it? One could hope, anyway. And so, Hiroto made a quick trip to the ninja hospital. They didn't exactly have the cool jutsu Hiroto was hoping for, but they were able to numb the pain and gave him some pills they said would help the soreness, so it wasn't a complete waste. [i]This better not slow me down tomorrow[/i].

---

Later that evening, Hiroto returned home to find that his folks had started dinner without him. They left some of the fish and additives on the counter so Hiroto was at least able to make himself some sushi for supper. With that out of the way he decided to turn in early for the night and retreated to his room. Hiroto's bedroom, which contained a bit of ninja paraphernalia here and there and a punching bug hung from the ceiling, couldn't have been a more welcomed sight. Without so much as taking off his headband, Hiroto collapsed onto the bed and fell right to sleep.

---

Satsuma didn't drag Hiroto out of bed that morning, but somehow Hiroto found himself awake at the usual time anyway. It was still a couple hours before he was supposed to meet his new teacher and teammate, but Hiroto was restless and so he left early, deciding to use the extra time to get in some morning exercise.

From his home, Hiroto jogged through the village, making his way to the training grounds where he was supposed to meet his team later. He figured it wouldn't hurt to show up early and be already training when the others got there. In fact, Hiroto decided, it might end up being a slick way to impress the new teacher with such dedication and punctuality. Reaching the training grounds only took a few minutes, and sure enough it looked like he was the first to arrive. No matter, morning exercises never hurt anyone anyway.

Hiroto began by doing some pushups on the ground. His side, while still a bit sore, didn't ache as much and thankfully didn't slow him down like he was afraid it would. After tiring of pushups, Hiroto got back on his feet and simply practiced his katas through shadowboxing, essentially throwing his punches and kicks at an imaginary opponent. His new team would get there when they get there, and when they did, he would be ready for them.