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The water lapped against the sides of the pool while the calming sound of pipes were played softly. My eyes were closed and I was sitting in an up-right position, with the soft breeze blowing gently past me.

"Keep your focus, keep your posture and keep control," a voice said softly. I twitched my eye and wrinkled my nose, sniffing. I heard a heavy sigh.

"Alright, that's enough for today. Open your eyes Ame," the voice said, with a tone of disappointment. I opened my eyes to watch my sensei slouched over, his hand resting on his chin. He smiled weakly at me, all wrinkles and whiskers. I pouted my lips to the side, waiting for a lecture.

"You can't be put off in this state of meditation, Ame. You need to learn to control your chakra!" he wheezed. I nodded, my mind replaying what I did wrong.

"Can I control it, Sensei?" I asked, hopeful. He looked at me hard for a moment.

"That's something that only time will tell. Until then, no. You have not mastered the ancient arts and until then there is no hope of you controlling your chakra," he said.

"Oh,"

"You are dismissed Ame," he said, waving his hand at me. I nibbled my lip and stood up, bowing to him before walking away. Once he was out of sight, I picked up my speed and ran through the garden to the end, where a cherry blossom archway lead to what I called Rakuen, meaning paradise in Japanese. I crossed into the archway and entered Rakuen, turning to my left, I climbed up and old blossom tree. It was a beautiful tree, which blossomed once a year in the early spring. It had become a favourite place of rest that I came to often, when I felt lonely, stressed or scared.

I perched myself up in its old, strong branches and rested my back into the seat-shaped hole, higher up in its trunk. I sat there for a while, thinking to myself. I reached out to touch the blossoms in the tree, a beautiful baby pink colour, blended with hints of white. I sat back, with one leg dangling down, the other propped up on the trunk.

I took strands of my waist-length blue hair, , and began plaiting and un-plaiting them. I stared out into space, looking over our richly coloured garden. I sighed to myself and rolled my head to the side and glanced up.

"Control it, you must control it," Sensei's voice echoed in my head. "You will never be a Shinobi if you can't control your chakra!"

I closed my eyes and let out a heavy sigh. How can you control it? There had to be some way of managing it. I found myself getting lost in my thoughts that I didn't sense the approach of two figures.

"Ame, are you up there again?" 

I opened my eyes and looked down to see my Father standing there with his arms folded across his chest. He was in his Shinobi uniform and looked pretty worn out.

"Hi Dad," I called nervously. I heard him sigh.

"Will you get down from there? It's dangerous. You shouldn't be up there! You know how your Mother and I feel about you hiding out here on your own. Now come down here will you?" Dad called, walking and stopping at the foot of the tree. I rolled my eyes and climbed down, jumping the last couple of feet.

"Ame!" Dad yelled in a panic as he tried to catch me. I edged away from him.

"I'm fine, Dad, honest. It was just a little jump," I said. He shook his head.

"It doesn't matter. Inside, now, your Mother and I want to talk with you," he said, leading me in. I followed obediently. We went through the garden and into the house. It wasn't a hugely expensive hey! Look at my huge mansion sort of house, but it was bigger than your average home.

It had turned out that my clan, Funkai, were of huge wealth when they lived in Konoha, and in fact around the different nations too, my Aunt Aya for example. The money which my Mother had inherited went mostly towards helping out the village after the attacks which had happened some few years ago now, before I was born. My Mom decided that she didn't want all the money for herself, so she shared it out with the village and its people, as well as saving some for ourselves.

So you could say that I was born into a insanely rich family, but that's not how my parents see it. They both continue working and living the way they had before they'd gotten all this money. They were both Sensei's and team leaders and were both S-ranked ANBU agents. They went to work, and came back every evening, just as they had always done. Nothing had changed much, just the place that they lived in.

We walked in through the back doors, taking our sandals off at the raised flooring, before continuing inside where Mom was setting up the table for dinner. She too was in her Shinobi uniform 

"Hi Mom," I said, running up to her to give her a hug. She pulled me into a warm embrace and kissed my head.

"Hi Ame, I missed you today sweetie," she smiled. I hugged her tightly and she squeezed me back.

"She was up in that damn tree again," Dad cut in. Mom gasped.

"Kakashi! Language! Ame, what have we told you about that tree? It's not safe, what if you fell or the branch broke?!" she asked, kneeling to my height. I looked away, feeling guilt to have worried her.

"But I'm okay," I told her. She closed her eyes and sighed.

"Yes, yes you are. And thank goodness for that!" she breathed, hugging me close. "Now Ame, we spoke to Sensei about today's lesson, and unfortunately, we were not impressed..."

I quickly pulled away and groaned.

"I can't do it Mom! I can't control my chakra! I know, he keeps telling me and I keep trying! But it doesn't work! I know, okay?" I cried. Mom looked at me sadly, shaking her head.

"Ame we know that, so that's why we have decided that-"

"You'll be getting a new sensei, Ame. Or should I say, sensei's," Dad cut in, in a lighter tone. I did a double take, raising an eyebrow.

"What do you mean?" I asked, sitting down on the floor. Dad knelt next to Mom and smiled at me frm under his mask.

"We think that the old man wasn't exactly helping you very much-"

"More like not at all," I muttered.

"Exactly. So that's why I've asked two very special people to come and train you. They're both very nice and highly skilled Shinobi, and I think that you'll like them very much," Dad said.

"So I'm not in trouble?" I asked, just to clarify. Mom and Dad smiled.

"Nope, not in toruble. We know you can do it, and we also know that the old man couldn't teach it. We never doubted you for one second, and when it became clear to us that you weren't going to learn from some old bag, we decided that we knew the perfect matches for you Ame," Dad finished.

"Really?" I asked, grinning. Mom smiled and nodded. I hugged them both tightly.

"Thank you!" I grinned. "Thank you."

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