The Huntress

Chapter 13

Naruto had walked with Ilya and Kiba and Akamaru to their morning training, Kiba still half asleep, then waved at them as he walked off to his own training grounds. They arrived twenty minutes early and Shino and Hinata arrived shortly after them. 7am on the dot and Kurenai arrived. Ilya elbowed Kiba awake and he groaned and sat up, giving the brunette a small glare.

Kurenai gave them all a bright smile and a cheery good morning. Shino gave a head nod in return, Hinata gave a small smile back, Kiba yawned, and Ilya said a good morning back with a head nod as well. "So this morning, we will be doing an obstacle course so that I may determine where and what each of you need to work on." She explained and Kiba groaned at the impeding exhaustion.

A few hours later and all four of her students were sweating, muddy piles of exhaustion on the ground. "Alright, that wasn't the worst. But the goal is to finish this within two hours," Kurenai said as she walked over to the four heaps in the mud. Kiba groaned at their impending doom and Ilya huffed as she got up.

"Two hours?" she definitely did not whine. "We barely did it in four!"

"Yes, two hours," She said back. "I'll let you all go for today now, I expect you back here at 7am again with some warm-ups already done. Then I'll tell you our schedule for tomorrow." And with that she disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Ilya groaned as she stretched out. "Well. Should we do something together now?" she asked as she plopped back down on the ground, sitting cross-legged and prepared to meditate.

"I-I'm not opposed," Hinata murmured and Kiba gave a thumbs up from where he lay on the ground and Shino stared at her as he considered his own answer.

"I'm not opposed either, why? It's good team bonding."

"Great," Ilya said, "Lemme just do this real quick. We can all meet at..." She trailed off as she thought for a moment and closed her eyes, "My house I guess? In about an hour?" With her eyes closed she didn't see them all nod but she felt them move off to their own houses to clean up. She stayed there meditating for probably about fifteen minutes before someone stepped into the clearing with her. She was sitting at the edge so they probably hadn't noticed her yet but they soon would.

She focused her chakra-senses on the person, trying to find out who it was before she opened her eyes. Their chakra wasn't being smothered so they were a genin or an academy student, the pool of it was also rather small, so more likely to be an academy student. That's when Ilya opened her eyes and was met with Sakura. Oh.

"Hey Sakura," Ilya called out, startling the pinkette who whipped around and throw a kunai at her, which she dodged. "Is that how you greet friends?" She asked sarcastically.

"Oh, it's just you Ilya-chan." Sakura said and gave her a small smile of relief. "But what are you doing here?"

"This is Team Eight's training grounds normally. We actually just finished not that long ago and I stayed behind to meditate for a bit. It's become a habit to do so after training and before bed now." Sakura made a small O shape with her mouth. "What are you doing here?" Ilya asked, tilting her head to the side curiously.

Sakura couldn't get over how much she looked like a puppy, "I'm actually here to train some more. Kakashi-sensei seems more interested in training Sasuke-kun and Naruto rather than me and Kaede-san. And the boys are far ahead of us and their rivalry seems to push them forwards more and more and it's almost impossible to keep up," she rambled with tears beginning to prick at her eyes. Ilya moved closer to her and put a hand on her shoulder comfortingly.

"I wouldn't mind helping out with this extra training, both you and Kaede," Ilya offered, giving a small smile at the teary girl.

"Really?"