Hime-sama

by: Bakunawa

I. First

The first time Naruto met Sasuke, she had thought of nothing particular about him.

It had been on an unparticular spring afternoon with an unparticular weather as she went through her unparticular routine of destroying the backyard flowerbed. She had stopped halfway of pulling out one bud off its roots when a shadow came from behind her. For an instant, she had thought of her caretakers or one of the estate guards or one of those shroudy ANBUs-she would always welcome one Uchiha Itachi to catch her but worse if it was her father himself-who had caught her again red-handed but the voice coming from the shadow had been too tiny to be any of them.

"What are you doing?" it had asked.

Naruto had roughly torn the delicate flower before standing up to face a boy of her age with jet-black hair, even darker eyes and a face that looked too much like a girl's. He was nothing particular, unlike Itachi-san.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" she had thrown back petulantly, a hand on her hip and nose in the air.

The boy had given her a critical once over, taking note of her orange yukata with dirt on her sleeves, hands, knees and right cheek, and the poor dying flower on her hand.

Was this the Hokage's only daughter that Itachi brought me to meet? Sasuke had asked himself. He had thought she did not look much either.

It had already been a few months after his older brother began his sentry duties at the Hokage's estate. He had been taking shifts between watching over the Hokage himself and/or his precious yet precocious daughter. Sasuke and most of his clan had bemoaned Itachi's fate of being demoted as a mere bodyguard though he still kept the rank title of an ANBU captain. Their mother had only thought of the more positive side of things while Fugaku, their father and clan head, had kept his comment to himself. Itachi, on the other hand, had seemed contented with the new phase of his career. Not a few times had he mentioned enjoying looking over 'Naruto-hime-sama'.

So for the longest time, Sasuke had wanted to meet this Hime-sama his older brother so fondly talked about during the few times he was at home. Itachi had thought it a wonderful idea but only that unparticular spring afternoon had he gotten around to bringing his younger sibling to the Hokage's estate.

To say the least, the first time seven-year-old Sasuke met Naruto-hime, he had been disappointed to see a tiny pig-tailed girl roughly his age, rolling around the dirt and destroying innocent flowers.