Gaze: (Actual conversation, I just typed it here!)

Star: Muahaha! My turn to put something in this account!

Gaze: (sweat drops) it will definitely be the last time you bring me into your house to type out your story, stupid. I wrote like almost all of it! It was my idea!

Star: Only the fluff, I did the setting.

Gaze: That's only 30 of the work! Besides, it's based on a legend! I did the plot!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything so leave me alone! You CAN bug Star.

Star: (hits Gaze on the head) Take that back!

Gaze: (cries) I take it back (bump swelling) Dual-Written LONG possibly 3-4 part story, since it is a fairy tale. Please review! Please!

Part I: Botan-Hime

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Once upon a time, in a place called Gamogun, was a castle called Adzuchi-no-shiro. The castle was a lovely old place, surrounded by tall, stone walls and inside was a pond filled with lotus-lilies and a cherry blossom forest beyond it for fifty metres and the courtyard carpeted with lush green grass. In the manor lived the feudal lord who was a brave, wealthy man; Yuki Naizen-no-jo, a great samurai. His wife had been dead for a number of years from a dreadful illusion and has been heartbroken ever since. He had no son but had a beautiful daughter, who regained the title of princess for her family's prosperity, her kind heart and her warm presence at the age of seven.

Princess Hiromi. She was considered a constellation prize at the age of two since she was the daughter of, not only a feudal lord, but a Daimyo: a great landowner, second to the highest status of the Samurai class and third from the emperor. She had undeniably lost count of the turned down marriages decided by her and her father. Tiredly, Hiromi had sworn to not to marry anyone. Whatever 'marriage' or 'marrying' meant.

That was her vow.

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One day…

"Princess Hiromi!" a maid-in-waiting, Tohru, rushed into the tiny girl's bedroom where her studies were done at the time. "Excuse me sensei, sir, but the Lord wishes the Princess to be at the Receiving Room at once! He said it was important to have her studies interrupted."

She dropped her calligraphy brush and nearly spilled her black ink as she squirmed to get her knees out from underneath the tiny table. Suddenly, she let out a grunt as her knee hit the table.

"Careful, you might hurt yourself princess," the instructor soothed, concern shown on his old features.

Excited, she ran ahead of the maid and then immediately stopped in her tracks when her etiquette instructor appeared at the doorstep of the Receiving Room. The instructor was a tall blonde with hazel coloured eyes, Lady Tsunade or Madame as Hiromi called her. She was dressed like one of the noblewomen in the household, okay, Lady Tsunade WAS the only noblewoman in the house.

She gave her young student a warning look then smiled, "Come princess, you have to meet the young gentleman." Hiromi blushed, then scorned bitterly at the thought. 'A gentleman it's not like I haven't seen one before.' The instructor held her hand and led her into the room. The lord sat on what looked like a small platform that rose a foot from the ground, covered in pillows and expensive silk and cotton cloths.

"Ah, Hiromi," the daimyo greeted, "Come here, child." Hiromi paced quick to her father's side and bowed to father respectfully and turned to the company. One was a middle-aged noble in the traditional armour of a samurai who bowed before her. His two newly polished black sheaths shone as he bowed down. The other one was a little boy, just slightly older than her in the white kimono shirt and dark blue pants. He had two shades of hair, one grey and the other dark blue and had fierce crimson eyes. His face was adorned with a disgusted look and a terrible frown.

'Aww, not this again.' Hiromi frowned. 'Another crude noble boy.'

"Bow, my son," the noble called on him, his head down.

"I will bow down to no one," he retorted simply, his voice detached. Hiromi's eye twitched. 'What a playmate this boy will turn out to be! Boring.'

"Forgive me, my Lord, my son is a bit hot-headed today, am I correct Kai?"

'Noblemen always use the SAME excuse,' Hiromi sighed, her patience thinning.

"Bow," his father growled under his breath.

Kai bowed down regretfully to the princess, gritting his teeth in anger. Angrily, he muttered his curtsy line, "I am pleased to meet you Princess Hiromi."

'The answer is no,' Hilary scowled at the tiny boy.

"Now greet her like we do in the foreign lands," the noble ordered.

"Ungh," he glared at his father. How could his father be so cruel!

"Now." The noble hissed. Daimyo Yuki noticed this and instantly knew this boy will never last a second with Hiromi. He frowned. They would have been a great pair to begin with.

Kai walked over the girl and placed a kiss on her cheek. Her ears began to feel hot and her cheeks reddened, 'Eh?' She wanted to push him off but didn't want to disappoint her father. The noble might think the daimyo's child was destructive and rude. 'Remember, Hiromi, proper etiquette.'

The ladies in the whole room were giggling, which made her even more flushed. The lord felt a bit uneasy at this too. After, Kai returned to his father and bowed to her again, waiting. Hiromi rubbed her sleeves against her cheeks.

The lord spoke making Hiromi crane her neck back at him, "This is Lord Tagekashi, the chief of one of our samurai armies and his only son Kai.

"They had traveled to many different countries and learned many different cultures. Please do understand, daughter."

Confused still, she nodded politely.

"Your son is to stay here, yes?"

"Yes, my lord."

'He's staying!' Hiromi bit her lip. 'We'll just see about that.'

'I'm staying! NO!' Kai stomped his foot hard on the ground, crossing his arms and his lips into an aggravated frown.

"Father may I now be excused?" she flashed a sweet smile at her father.

The Daimyo smiled and nodded. Hiromi turned her heels toward the door, all eyes set on her. They were all wondering how the little princess would react to the little noble-class boy.

Pouting, she thought of the misery she will be going through with this sourpuss. 'I'm doomed.'

Alone, she left the room quietly. As soon as the hall was clear and she was out of sight. She quickly rubbed her cheek with her kimono sleeve like there was no tomorrow.

She heard the sound of the door of the Receiving Room close.

Good. Hiromi drew in a large amount of the oxygen, her cheeks huge and round then…

"EEWWWWW!" Hiromi shrieked in a high pitch, close to a bloodcurdling one. "Ew. EW. What did him just to me? EW!"

In the room, the instructors and her maids chuckled. They just got their answer. It won't be easy convincing the princess. The lord sighed and faced the company with an apologetic smile. Quirking an eyebrow, Kai wondered what they were laughing about.

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He was to protect her from harm that may come. He scoffed at the idea. "What harm? The castle was always surrounded by guards, watching our every move like a bunch of idiotic eagles."

"Guards are not enough. Hiromi must have someone to watch over her or she'll end up with the same fate as her mother."

"Can't she watch over herself?" he whined. Kai walloped the lily-filled pond water with his swift hand, splashing water on the dry rocks nearby. 'Glad to get that off,' Kai spat on the ground as the noble who was three times his size bigger towered over him. Glaring at his father, he thought it would've been to kiss a frog than the princess.

"Why did you make me do that!" he barked, in his little self.

"You know very well why," the noble squatted down to Kai's level.

He looked wearily away from his father's blue eyes, "I don't want to talk about it." His father will just remind him of his mother again.

"With your looks, the princess will surely fall for you, my son," the arrogant noble ruffled his son's slate blue hair. "It will help us gain power and gradually take over Yuki Naizen-no-jo's large land. We will be this close to getting what we want."

'Getting close to what you want,' Kai thought furiously, huffing in annoyance. "You told me that already," mumbled the tiny noble's son.

"Then you should know the next part: you and Hiromi must be coupled together."Tagekashi slowly picked a lily off its long, endless stalk and admired its beauty. The flower had white petals splashed with purple near the opening of the bulb; he took a moment and smelled it.

"I don't like her!" Kai yelled at his father out in the courtyard.

"Your heart will change," he sounded confident as he placed a comforting hand on the tiny boy's shoulder.

He swatted the upper-class man's hand away from his shoulder, "NEVER! That brat is worst than any girl that I've ever met!" Kai quarrelled.

He stayed quiet as he watched his son whine and complain. Kai had only met and loved one girl in his life, his mother who was now dead. The other women in the home, he had met were all older him and were his maids. Not once had Kai met a girl his age.

Princess Hiromi was the first.

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Hiromi was in her purple gossamer dress with little thin straps as her sleeves as her maid attended to her aid. She sat on the wooden floor, hysterically yelling 'Ew' and 'Gross' for the last half an hour. She was with her maid-of-honour, O Sadayo San who had been with her for seven years, equal to Hiromi's life.

"Get it off!" Hiromi squeaked to her maid. The black-haired maid held a towel cloth and gently wiped the princess's cheek.

"HARDER!" she yelled eerily.

"But prin-" the maid started, fixing a long strand of black hair of her porcelain face.

"I SAID HARDER!" she yelled. "I don't like him and the nerve of that boy coming onto to me like that!"

The young maid sighed and roughly wiped her cheek. 'That kiss meant nothing. The princess is sure picky with men.'

"You know princess; the little boy is quite the looker," she winked at the little girl. "None like the other boys we have seen so far willing to take your hand." The maid placed the towel back to the wooden basin, full of cold water.

After numerous scrubs on Hiromi's cheek, it had turned into deep shade of red. Hiromi reached her cheek with her hand and gently rubbed it, "He is, isn't he?"

Sadayo nodded eyeing Hiromi with a smile.

Hiromi looked down at her thin dress, "He's just going to be one of those boys who will flash me fake smiles and give me broken promises. He'll just leave and never come back. Why does father keep bringing young boys here anyway? He knows that I don't like boys," she flushed.

Sadayo felt her muscles tense up, she couldn't answer her. For if Sadayo had, Hiromi wouldn't understand a word of it since Hiromi was merely a little child. Her father had been searching for the right husband to keep the peace in his land, aiming for nobles' sons who were powerful and led a victorious samurai army in hopes of putting a fight against the other nobles or great landowners when the time of war came. It was a tradition he had to follow even though it ached every time that Hiromi couldn't choose her own husband to be to love and spend the rest of her life with him.

Sadayo carried the washbasin close to her chest and began to walk out of the princess's bedroom. Watching her leave, Hiromi followed suit but then was stopped by Sadayo, "You can't get out of the room in that dress. Your etiquette instructor will be mad. Wait here until I get you a new kimono."

"Madame Tsunade won't mind," Hiromi said in defence.

"No. Stay here," Sadayo placed a hand on her shoulder, "or I'll get in trouble."

Hiromi had no any other choice but to obey Sadayo San.

Sadayo left the room, slipping through the paper blinds and to the exit of her bedroom. Moments later another person came in…

"Oh," was all she could say.

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Gaze: How did you think it went? Well? You wantus to continue?