BAITING A MERMAID

Chapter Four

WHEN SHE WAS LITTLE, ONE OF THE ONLY MEMORIES SHE HAD OF HER HIM, had taught her that it was not nice to hit or say unkind words. Even back then, she was apparently quick to use her fists to get what she wanted. That went especially true when some other kid tried to steal her crayon and she cried as she backhanded him to get it back.Still, her father's warning stuck with her: be kind. Shion wasn't a mean child. She spoke her mind and was quick witted, but she always tried to not be cruel. So she didn't care much for Uzumaki Naruto, but that wasn't because of the hateful stares or prejudices of the adults, whispering about demons in their village.

She wasn't one to follow the pack, especially since those adults were annoying, if not more annoying than Hikaru and Misaki.

She didn't like Naruto for one simple reason. He was too loud, obnoxious, mischievous...

Shion pouted, "that's more than one reason."

Naturally, she wasn't the too happy with Naruto when he showed up outside of the girl's dorms with with a can of paint and a hesitant grin. Shion still had her toothbrush in her mouth by the time she took notice to the consistent knocking on the walls. This became Shion's problem to deal with since she woke up early for training and her four roommates only continued to roll over in their bunk beds, pillows covering their heads.

"The heck...?" Shion asked and he rocked back and forth on his heels in a very annoying way that made her feel guilty for some reason. "You're dropping paint on the floor, Naruto." She glanced down as the paint can continued dripping red from the sides. Shion decided she didn't care about the ugly floors as the paint would add some color to the chipped wood floor. With that in mind, she continued to brush her teeth.

"I was thinking, we could paint the Hokage monument," he said and Shion blinked, tucking loose strands of pink hair as she turned around and walked back into the dorm, leaving the door open as she walked into the bathroom and rinsed out her mouth. By the time she walked back to the door she found Naruto was still standing there, looking less certain as the minutes ticked on by and that made her curious if this kid really had no friends. Shion frowned, leaning against the door frame.

"All the Hokage monuments?" Shion asked and immediately his face brightened.

"I like targeting the Third the most!" The excitement in his voice was making it difficult to say no, also, vandalizing Hiruzen Sarutobi's monument sounded hilarious.

"Why are you asking me?" she finally questioned, toying with the bottom of her shirt, wondering if her sensei would mind if she ended up being late to training.

"I don't have anyone else..." Naruto mumbled so low that it was a wonder that she heard him at all.

Tsukasa was going to kill her, "alright, but let's be quick. My sensei is a bitch."

Naruto's grin widened across his face. She found it quite odd that he could develop such life in his eyes from something so foolish and simple, but who was she to judge him. She was becoming more and more certain this boy had no friends from the surprised look he gave her when she took one side of the heavy paint can in his hands. The steel handle jabbed into her palm, and she was just slightly taller than Naruto, so it made holding it even with him a little annoying.

But he looked so happy that there was no other choice but to continue being at his side. She supposed she pitied him a little, as she certainly never took her time to defend him when kids spoke badly of his character. She had only even stopped bullies from kicking his loud-mouthed ass the one time.

Perhaps she could use a friend as well, also she was looking forward to defacing the Third Hokage's statue.

"Okay, you take the right, I'll take the left," he said and Shion smiled, grabbing the paint can with one hand.

"Let's get to the vandalizing."

Shion drew a mustache on the fourth Hokage's face, and grew annoyed that her arm tired so quickly from how much work it took to detail the hair. In contrast, Naruto splattered paint with no care. Her eyes glanced from the monument and towards Naruto's face with a slowly forming smile. "Has anyone ever told you that have a striking similarity to the Fourth?"

Naruto glanced over to the monument, pausing his work of painting a green bit of snot from coming out from the Third Hokage's nose. "I don't think we look alike."

"You're probably right," Shion replied, glancing back towards the monument and over to Naruto's face before shaking her head and climbing up to draw the unibrow.

"You are really good at this, Shion-chan," Naruto praised, climbing over to where she rested perched on the first Hokage's head.

"I like to draw," Shion said, glancing to her detailed mustache and unibrow. "I have to say, this wasn't what I had in mind when I learned how to paint."

Shion's dimpled cheeks became more visible when she smiled and her curled and pink hair cupped her cheeks as she smeared the paint on her hands against her legs. In the next moment, she pulled out her backpack, grabbed a rice ball, and then unwrapped it. Naruto still looked rather hesitant and shy, as if she were about to shove him from the rock.

As if she could ever do such a thing. That would just be annoying to have people asking her why she would do that, not to mention Tsukasa would kick her ass.

"Oh my god, Tsukasa-sensei is going to kill me," Shion muttered, finding her rice ball looked less appealing in comparison to her fast approaching demise. She let out a sigh, splitting it in half and handing it to Naruto.

"That's for me?" Naruto's confusion made her feel like a dick for never caring about him before last week. She could tell she had a lot of bad karma to make up.

"Of course, that's why I'm handing it to you, Naruto," Shion told him, standing up and mentally preparing herself for Tsukasa's scolding. If she could only get a scolding then she would consider today to be a success. However, Tsukasa looked to be a woman of action instead of words and Shion was nearly an hour late.

Naruto grabbed it and stared at it as if she had just handed him a ton of cash instead of half a rice ball.

"Well, I have to go," Shion said, holding out her hand. He only stared at it so she grabbed his free hand with a smile and placed it into hers. "It was a pleasure working with you Naruto."

Naruto's lips spread into a wide grin, "yep. I am the future Hokage after all."

Hopefully far in the future.

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Shion did contemplate not showing up at all, as at least that way she could say she had gotten sick. Sadly, she had never been much of a good liar, and despite everything, she did want to be an amazing ninja. She wanted to be someone strong like Tobirama, or gallivant and respected like Hashirama.

Or maybe someone smart like Taehiro from Ninja Love 2.

Okay, maybe historical and war novels were not all she read. Romance books were insightful too. Either way, Taehiro wouldn't skip out on training and she would be damned if she ran out just because Tsukasa was terrifying.

"After waiting for thirty minutes I stopped being mad," came a voice, whispering into her ear and causing Shion to let out a loud scream.

She turned around to face her sensei, who was currently standing much too still with her arms folded over her chest. Even her curls looks frightful in this light. Shion began to wonder if Tsukasa made her eyeliner winged like a bird or if she secretly wanted to cut people every time she blinked.

"You're not mad?" Shion was amazed by her ability to get out the sentence without stuttering.

"Mad?" Tsukasa smiled, her one eye glinting with amusement which made Shion even more nervous. "I'm absolutely livid."

"Oh well, as long as you're not mad," Shion let out a nervous laugh, searching desperately for Misaki and Hikaru with no avail. She nearly suspected that Tsukasa had killed them.

"Oh mad doesn't even begin to cover the feeling I have at this very moment," Tsukasa replied, and Shion barely had time to comprehend the feeling of a chain twisting around her ankles and dangling her in the air.

Shion felt her hair fall from her shoulders and dangle down with her in its braids. "Okay, I get your point. I suck. Can I come down now?"

"Anytime you like," Tsukasa said poking Shion in the forehead hard enough so she could swing back and land right back into Tsukasa's pointer finger. "But you have do it on your own."

"What? That sucks. Its solid steel, sensei," Shion grumbled, trying to free her legs from the chain. "Where is Misaki and Hikaru."

"On their next mission. You can't have expected us to wait forever, let alone five minutes," Tsukasa said, and Shion pouted.

"But I was being a good person today," she replied and Tsukasa snorted.

"Was it everything you dreamed of?" Tsukasa asked before she turned on her heel and began to leave.

"Wait! You're just gonna leave me here?"

"Yeah why?"

"It's summer! It's gonna be hot today!"

"Don't worry. You're an orphan. No one will miss you if you die out here from thirst," Tsukasa wiggled her fingers in a motion of goodbye. "Toodles."

Shion's jaw dropped, "for your information I am not an orphan! My mother is very much alive thank you very much." Shion stopped complaining and attempted to sit up and grab a kunai from her weapons belt, unfortunately her belt was nowhere to be found. She glanced towards the ground below where she dangled and saw her weapons bag resting against the cushion of grass.

She didn't have to ask to know it was Tsukasa's doing so she pointed to her sensei's retreating back with a scowl, "you fiend."

As Shion hung there, restless, tired, and with her legs in pain, she contemplated life. She contemplated how she could stop the blood flowing to her head in such a fast rush that it momentarily left her winded. She contemplated how hot it was going to be when the sun finally reached the top of the sky and blazed heavily against her skin.

In that moment, she caught sight of a silver haired ninja, walking through the clearing of trees with an orange book in his palm. He glanced up, his eyes meeting hers and causing her to let out a sheepish grin.

"I know what you're thinking, but I'm just hanging out," she said with a raspy laugh as she watched the silver haired ninja raise a single brow. I'm gonna fucking die here...

"Hmm," he shrugged and continued walking.

"Hey, before you go, do you think you could toss me a kunai," she asked but he only continued walking.

"Nah," he said as his back got smaller and smaller in the distance.

"What a dick," she muttered, attempting to sit up, meanwhile working all her ab strength in order to grip onto her legs. "I want to go home..."

She felt like her spine was stretched out by the time she grabbed onto the chain, using it as leverage so she could climb her way up. By the time she reached the top of the chain where it remained tied to a thick tree branch, she was already gasping for breath. She sat on top of the branch, her feet still tied together and dangling below her.

She wasted no time attempt to balance her butt and her legs on top of the branch so she could begin untying Tsukasa's monster knot. It was not easy. "Stupid one eyed bitch..." she grumbled as she attempted to free the chain from the bindings. By the time she finally got loose, she only watched as the chain dropped and continued dangling below. She laid back, her breath coming out in gasps as she attempted to close her eyes and rest.

"You got loose. Congratulations," came a sardonic voice, creeping in next to her ear. Shion nearly fell off the branch as she sprung up and met Tsukasa's gaze. "What did you learn from this?"

"That my teacher is the opposite of chill," Shion replied and Tsukasa's lips quirked.

"Keep making those smartass comments and you'll find out just how...'unchill' I can be," Tsukasa warned, immediately forcing Shion to silence her next reply. "I am earnestly disappointed that you chose the most difficult way to free yourself. I mean, yes, it was amusing, but you could have maneuvered your Chakra into your legs and merely broke free."

"It was kind of hard to think, what with my blood flowing into my brain," Shion replied with a frown, annoyed that she didn't think of that.

"Well, I suppose I should let you know you have a mission," Tsukasa stood up and Shion groaned.

"I don't want to pull anymore weeds," she replied, watching Tsukasa's one eye roll up.

"Trust me. It's not fun for me to watch you three attempt to pull weeds correctly," she replied before she jumped off the branch and onto the forest floor below. "But actually, its a C-rank."

Shion sprung up so quickly that she fell off the branch and landed on the ground with a thud. "Really? You mean it? What are we going to to do? Guard a princess? Travel to a distant land and fight bad guys? Assassinate someone? G-"

"Assassinations are A-ranked missions, Shion," Tsukasa interrupted, causing Shion to pout. "No. We have bodyguard duty. Congratulations. You are guarding the Fire Daimyo-"

"The actual Fire Daimyo? Really? Oh that is so cool-"

"No. The Fire Daimyo's wife-"

"Oh? Muffin Top? Well, that's cool too. I mean, I would love to see Mochi again and-"

"Interrupt me one more time and you get sent back onto the chain," Tsukasa warned, causing Shion's mouth to clasp together so quickly that it actually caused her teeth to clatter. "You are guarding the Fire Daimyo's wife's cats."

"You are just the best sensei ever," Shion squealed.

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"You are the worst sensei ever," Hikaru tried to speak, but every six words that came out and he would sneeze so hard it was a wonder his tongue didn't fly from his mouth by the force of his body bucking forwards.

There was enough Toras to make an army, and every single one seemed to enjoy the company of the one person in their party who wanted nothing to do with them.

That was unfortunate because Shion was desperately attempting to get Mochi to play with her to no avail. It seemed like the small cat was angry that she had given him up to the one woman he never wanted to see again since the day he tasted the free world outside muffin top's bulky arms that choked the life out of him.

"I have a treat, come on Mochi," Shion cooed, holding out a small bag of cat treats. Mochi only glanced at it before hissing at her and turning back around.

"This entire thing is getting sad, Shion," Misaki informed her as she picked up the scooper that rested near the litter box. "Why do these cats shit so much?"

"Probably cause there is 58 cats in one mansion," Tsukasa stated as she continued doing squats on the ceiling. It was one of her many odd exercises that took place along side Chakra control exercises like walking on water or, case and point, walking on ceilings.

Hikaru's consistent sneezing filled the room as cats continued to rub their bodies up against his legs. "If I die, please bury me far away from this house."

"Why won't Mochi forgive me," Shion mumbled.

"You guys don't even care about me at all, do you?" Hikaru whined and Shion glanced over just as Hikaru sneezed so hard that his legs gave out and he collapsed onto his butt.

"No. Not really," Shion said with a sigh.

"Stop pooping!" Misaki exclaimed at the three cats squatting over the three different litter boxes.

"If you yell at them right now, you're going to find feces in your shoes," Tsukasa warned, mid squat just as Hikaru got into a sneezing fit that left him sobbing with his head curled into his knees.

"That's it. I'm out of here," Hikaru said, standing up and rushing to the exit of the mansion. He slipped on his shoes before pausing. "Son of a bitch! I stepped in poopie!"

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Shion held up the drawing of Hikaru's face as he held up his shoes with smashed cat poo inside. The sketch had extra effort on the shading of the puffiness of Hikaru's eyes and the slight tears.

"Mission report complete sensei," Shion said proudly.

"For your information," Hikaru said with a frown and his arms crossed. "I wasn't crying."

"Yeah you were," Misaki replied, causing Hikaru's scowl to deepen.

"There's photo evidence," Shion held up the mission report with a grin.

"That's not even that accurate," Hikaru said, turning his head with a pout as he continued crossing his arms over his chest.

Tsukasa glanced up from the black book in her fingers that read the words 'Ninja Love 2'. It was a rather funny sigh to see their stoic sensei reading an obvious romance (and an erotic one at that), considering the woman was the most serious person Shion had ever met.

"It's accurate," Tsukasa said in a deadpan. "Right down to the snot dribbling down your chin, not to mention the tears."

"That was manly sweat," Hikaru exclaimed.

"I should read up on anatomy," Tsukasa said with a bored shrug. "I had no idea eye balls could sweat."

"I hate you all," Hikaru muttered as Shion giggled over the mission report.

"You stepped in cat poop," Misaki chuckled, forcing out another scowl from Hikaru.

"I don't think you should be laughing right now. I seem to recall a very recent incident with Itachi where you-"

Misaki jumped into action to interrupt, "I earnestly believe that we shouldn't make fun of Hikaru right now."

Shion had frozen from her giggling and was staring just as wide eyed as Tsukasa (minus one eye of course). "You little stalker," Shion whispered, just as Tsukasa stood up.

"Yep. This marks the end of the day for me. Bright and early tomorrow for training," the teacher informed them and they all straightened.

"Actual training? Like for realsies? An actual Jutsu?" Shion asked and Tsukasa's one visible eyebrow rose.

"Don't know yet. I'm a teacher, not a physic," Tsukasa disappeared in a swirl of leaves.

"I will pay you 200 ryo if you don't turn in that mission report," Hikaru said after the teacher had left.

"What would I do with 200 ryo? I'm super content with my allowance," Shion informed him.

"400 ryo."

"I'm nine years old. What would I even do with all that money?"

"800 ryo."

"I don't think you're listening to me," Shion said, turning back towards the Hokage building to turn in the report.

Upon walking inside, she was greeted with the familiar sight of the long lines of ninja turning in their reports to Chuunin who briefly checked over Genin reports for accuracy. As she waited in line she played shogi in her head up until her imaginary opponent beat her. She let out a low "damn it," just as she reached the front of the line and turned in her report to Iruka.

He raised his brows up at her just before he opened the scroll and looked over her descriptive comic strip of Hikaru's eventful evening. "Shion, we've talked about this," he warned her.

"Words are boring, sensei," she said as she rocked back and forth on her heels. "Everyone would rather look at pictures."

Iruka rubbed his temples and she noticed a severe lack of bags underneath his eyes. This made her lament over her laziness for her lack of the usual weekly activities of making animal noises in the walkie talkie connected to the matching one that she hid under his floorboards.

"A professional ninja must learn how to write a proper mission report," Iruka scolded, causing Shion to scowl as she crossed her arms.

"Ever heard the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words? I drew eight pictures. That's basically eight thousand words. You're welcome," she retorted with a quick burst of wit.

"There is a 2000 word maximum for a mission report, 8000 is too much," Iruka said, trying to be smart, but Shion grinned.

"Iruka-sensei, it's a picture not words," she informed him and he rubbed his temples and gave her a wave.

"It is not acceptable."

"Tsukasa-sensei says it's okay."

"Tsukasa is too young to know proper etiquette," Iruka informed the girl, earning a snort from behind Shion, forcing the child to turn her head to see Itachi walk up to the closest Chuunin and turn in his mission report. The Chuunin didn't even bother checking it because it was Itachi.

"She knows etiquette. She just doesn't care," Itachi said, and Shion's lips quirked into a smile.

"Itachi. How's the underwear?" Shion greeted, causing Itachi's brow to quirk up before he shook his head and turned around to walk away. Shion turned back to see Iruka giving her an incredulous glance. "I stole all his underwear."

"You know what." Iruka stamped the mission report and placed it in the basket. "It's fine. You can go."

"Yep," Shion turned around and began to skip out when she caught sight of Naruto being dragged by the arm from a Konoha shinobi with a very unhappy frown. Naruto, however, was grinning ear to ear with splotches of red paint splattered on his cheeks. His grin widened when he caught sight of Shion.

"We won't be forgiving the next time you vandalize. The Hokage monument is sacred keepsake of all that Konoha stands for," the ninja scolded and Shion felt slightly guilty that Naruto was getting all the blame for something they both had done.

"If it's so special then why is it a sport to see whose spit can reach the bottom first. Personally, I've found that if you stand of the Third Hokage's head, it takes approximately five seconds. You can probably still catch my friends who are currently trying to beat my record."

The Chuunin looked like he just heard something scandalous and immediately his back straightened. "I must inform the Hokage at once." He rushed back up the stairs and out of sight.

"Is that an actual game, dattebayo?" Naruto asked and Shion shrugged.

"I like to think it is. Wanna make it one?"

"Yeah! Anything to make the old man mad."

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"Damn, it takes eight seconds," Shion muttered as she stared down at the ground with a thin frown.

"How fast do you think it takes pee to reach the ground?"

"I don't actually want to know that, Naruto."

"Aww."

"I like to think it take approximately five seconds."

Author's Note

I think Shion is one of my more favorite characters. She's very intelligent and at the same time playful. Also had a major ego but who doesn't at that age. More than that, I enjoy that there is just so much that can be done with her since she is very immature. I like the work that can still be done.

I wanted to give Naruto a friend after what I had Anomie make him go though in my other Chasing Smoke, so thank goodness Shion is super nice (sometimes!) ^_^

Thank you for reading! .