A/N: Just a little Greek themed one-shot.

In the mt. Olympus, there was a huge feast. The three goddesses of arts were singing one of the most popular verses of their fore-fathers.

Their bare arms shone bright like ivory, and the music was soft enough to caress the ears of the beholders.

"Long time ago, in ancient Greece... there was a beautiful goddess named Persephone...

She was so beautiful and her mother loved her very dearly. Her mother, the goddess of fertility, made trees and crops grow.

One day, Persephone was playing with the nymphs, but she saw beautiful, colorful flowers growing in a far meadow.

But then the powerful god of the underworld Hades saw Persephone and decided to make her his wife.

The song was sweet, and the goddesses, both the singing and spectating, were a vision. But the atmosphere between the chief god and his youngest son, the god of the underworld turned frigid like ice. The chief god's grip on his golden goblet tightened furiously and the god of the underworld felt the urge to rise and leave, not out of fear but indignation and pride.

The latter, Sasuke glared at the god of sun and music who instigated this awkward moment with his father, 'Naruto...he purposely chose that hymn so that father and mother will get at me, again.'

He couldn't wait for his parents to give up their age old harangue about how he wouldn't take in a bride. Just because his predecessor went on and kidnapped a goddess doesn't mean that he has to give up his sweet solitude.

As expected, Fugaku barked in exasperation, "Sasuke, you could have any pick of goddess or even a nymph as your wife. Ha, you could even pick a demi goddess!"

For the ruler of the gods, he was making a drastic compromise. Sasuke almost rolled his eyes but did his best to instead give his parents a stony look.

But his mother wouldn't have it.

"My lord" she turned to her husband, "how could Sasuke pick a demi goddess or a nymph as his wife?" Mikoto, the queen of the gods balked, "she should at the very least be a second grade goddess!" Her throat turned red but did nothing to mar her beauty.

Sasuke felt heat rise in his face in mortification as his male peers snickered at this comedic affair. At the corner of his eye, he spotted the god of cunning and thieves, Shikamaru and the god of sun and music, Naruto chuckling at this scene that never gets old for them. Meanwhile, the goddesses blushed as they saw the rare coloring of his complexion and held their breath for their favorite subject-"who will be the next queen of the underworld?"

All the deities of Olympos were absolutely stunning but the god of the underworld was especially known for being handsome. He was also the wealthiest of the gods and one of the most powerful three-the air, the seas, and the underworld.

Mikoto looked at her eldest son, Itachi, the god of wisdom and warfare, "could it be that your brother is interested in men? Tell me, Itachi."

Itachi crossed his muscular arms to communicate that he won't be part of this family drama. Sasuke silently thanked his brother for his maturity.

"Don't tell me we have to hold a beauty contest for the god of the underworld," Gaara, the god of the deserts, made an uncharacteristically sarcastic remark at this foolery.

Then something in Sasuke just snapped and he impatiently broke in, "How about a mortal?" He just wanted this foolery to be done with, so he could stop seeing the gods laughing their arse off at his expense.

A resounding gasp echoed in the sacred festival of the gods. Fugaku's brow twitched. "Mortal?"

Demi-goddess. Half-blood. Nymph. Siren.

The one and only Fugaku gave him all these options, but what?

Mikoto looked as if she was going to faint.

Even Naruto started at this sudden plot twist, "A mortal?"

The god of the underworld stormed off the hall, and soon the goddesses began to whisper amongst themselves.

"Maybe one of his many female worshippers caught his eye!"

"You mean his female worshippers in the temple of Delphi?"

"Or in Thebes?"

"He has home shrines too!"

Overhearing the other goddesses, the goddess of spring scoffed. The other goddesses stopped their gossip and glanced at the goddess of spring.

She flicked her long pink hair and smiled triumphantly, "You are all fools. Who could Sasuke be thinking of instead? I am the goddess of spring, who has traditionally always been the sole mistress of the underworld."

Then goddess Ino snapped without any trepidation, "You're no mistress of the underworld! You are not even one of his mistresses!"

Sakura blushed a deep scarlet, "You're just jealous that Sasuke got tired of you and chose to rest in my temple instead!"

Ino, the radiant goddess, had no choice but to stay silent.

Then Sakura turned and headed to her temple where she knew he would be waiting for her.

In fact, the god of the underworld was at the goddess of spring's temple. But not for the enchanting beauty of the goddess Sakura.

He was there for something else.

Perched on the top of the marble temple and invisible to mortal eyes, Sasuke looked down at two mortals.

One mortal was a dark haired woman wearing a simple white robe while the other, a boy of thirteen, was draped in brown. The latter kept bowing to the former as in gratitude.

The dark haired woman smiled as she kindly touched the worshiper on the shoulder, "The goddess of spring, Sakura shall look after you and your family, Dermeteres."

As if he was beholding the very said goddess herself, the little boy's eyes shone, "Thank you, my lady. Thank you."

The priestess smiled and bowed her head as the boy bowed his head. Sasuke soon learned that the boy visited the priestess of Sakura to ask if his cattle will bear any calves. He needed his cattle to bear offspring so he could escape being in debt because of his incompetent drunk father.

'The lowest of the low,' Sasuke mused, 'anyone can see there is no hope.'

And as expected, nobody paid attention to the unlucky boy. Except for the little priestess.

Moved by pity,Hinata gave some of her own pension to the boy. She couldn't bear the poor child to live his life as a slave because of his irresponsible father.

When the boy tried to refuse, she calmly said, "What is given to me is by the goddess, Sakura. Nothing is mine, so there is nothing I gave."

Sasuke scoffed. Like Sakura ever gave anything to anyone without some self-serving reason. Despite the priestess's convictions, she was too naive.

The goddess she served and trusted wasn't even listening to her prayers for the people. She was busy beautifying herself and catfighting with other goddesses for his nonexistent attention. But mortals could be very naive, sometimes. At first, he thought she must be plain stupid.

But the thoughts of the mere mortal continued to sway him even when he was lying in his heavenly chambers with the pink haired goddess.

Sasuke decided that he will allow the goddess of spring to stay in his quarters in Olympos, not out of any affection but to spite the god of sun for harassing him earlier and prevent his parents from nagging him.

He even made his intentions clear to Sakura, "You could stay but I don't want you to expect anything more out of this."

Undeterred by his coldness, Sakura merely smiled and told him, "If it's about lord Fugaku and queen Mikoto, don't worry. They know I'm here."

Sasuke answered coldly, "Good."

Her rosy nails skimmed admiringly across his muscular arm. Her honeyed voice called to him, "Sasuke, it is very wise of you to misguide the gods and goddesses."

When he glanced at her, his dark eyebrow rising in question, she smiled,

"They think that you are seriously considering marrying a mortal! How cunning and shrewd of you!"

The god of the underworld didn't say anything.

Sakura blushed, "I am touched by how you are trying to protect me from other jealous goddesses. You know how they never give up."

But Sasuke wasn't listening. Through the eyes of a hawk he sent to the temple, he was looking at the petite mortal priestess busily tending to the divine burning fire. She was wearing a plain priestess's headdress over her head, but he knew that whenever she pulled down the cloth after her priestly duties, her lush dark midnight blue tresses would tumble down on her shoulders, bringing her pale, almost spectral face to life.

Her dark hair would frame her soft round face , coiling on her fragile shoulders. She didn't have any divine blood in her, not a single drop in her lineage, but she looked more mysterious and untouchable than any goddess, nymph, or sorceress he had seen.

Then he tried to catch himself, 'wait...no. She's a foolish little priestess.' Since when did he ever care about her looks?

Right then, the little girl priestess was lugging on a heavy bundle of balsam fir branches and swaying and trembling due to its weight. She looked as if she was going to fall. Sasuke frowned. Why was she doing it all by herself? Couldn't she order the temple guards or at least ask for the other priestesses' help? If she keeps being afraid to be assertive, it will be hard when she becomes his queen.

'Wait...what?'

His train of thoughts was dangerously precipitating into deep caverns of delusions and shameful thoughts.

Sakura cocked her head to the side and asked, "Sasuke?"

When his dark steamy eyes met hers, she sighed, "Oh, Sasuke..." She hadn't behold such passion.

She smiled seductively, "Is there anything you are craving tonight?"

When he gave her a warning glare, she stammered "I-I mean, food or ambrosia!"

He turned his face away and answered non-committedly, "Gold apples."

"The gold apple tree is so far away, but you will surely wait for me, will you, Sasuke?"

He nodded. Anything to get her to leave his space and give him some privacy.

When she left, he continued to look down on the foolish little priestess.

That night, the lilac eyed priestess of goddess Sakura took a much needed bath and lied on her bed. She let the window wide open, as she liked the cool breeze after the rain shower. Her dark hair turned slightly wavy as she tried to dry her locks by the night wind. Earlier, she squeezed her hair dry with a cotton fabric, causing her straight dark hair to crease. Lying her wet head on her pillow, she sighed. It has been a long day.

She didn't notice that someone has entered her bed chamber because the intruder didn't give out a human presence.

She didn't know that when she sighed, the intruder felt the urge to smile but quickly covered his mouth even though he was invisible.

She had no idea that the intruder thought it was kind of cute that she would sigh and kick her bare feet on her bed at the end of her day.

She breathed softly through her nose and was deep asleep.

The intruder approached her bed and looked down at her quietly. He carefully lifted his large, handsome hand and remove a strand of hair from her cheek with his long elegant fingers. He felt her breathing, and his soft gaze became heated as he looked at her. He felt his breath quickening like the hooves of his hellish black stallions that drag his chariot to mount Olympus. It alarmed him. Everything about this alarmed him-his thoughts about her, how he was curious about her feelings, routine, and habits. How he imagined if he was by her side and how she would respond to his conversations. He never felt this way before.

He remembered when he first saw her. At that time, he didn't take any interest in her. He didn't even know she existed. He overheard Sakura telling other goddesses that she must punish prince Neji for plotting against his cousin, her worshipper and the rightful heiress to king Hiashi's throne. As soon as the aged king died, the king's nephew banished her from the palace, and forced her to be a priestess of the city's patron goddess as a political tool.

When he heard Sakura's story, he merely thought the removed princess to be stupid for meekly accepting such treason and not fighting for herself. A true princess should wage a war against her treasonous cousin or if she doesn't have the charisma, she should have married a nearby king and waged a vengeful war. But she didn't.

But the more he watched her from the corner of his eye, he began to see the infallibility of her beliefs in the gods and her duty to serve the people in humility. At one hand, she prayed for her people and loved ones morning and night in solitude and fasted every week. On the other hand, she hated how the Cretan religion thought that the more violently and bloody the animal sacrifice, the more generous the gods will be.

So she would treat the sacrificial animals with utmost care and worked with cattle ranchers and doctors to inject anesthesic poison so the animals could die in sleep.

She couldn't stop the tradition of animal sacrifice, because one time Sakura inflicted a terrible plague on a neighboring kingdom because the king forgot to offer her sacrifice.

After Hinata performs her duties, she would be the only one left with a broken heart, because she cared for the beasts and they were her friends.

One time, Sasuke overheard her saying in her soft, airy voice, "Would you be my friend?"

She was sitting alone in the marble stairs of the temple of Sakura. When he approached closer, he saw that she was hugging a little white hen.

Sasuke wondered. Maybe she was lonely. He also remembered times that he would bury his face into the neck of his black stallions when he felt alone.

The underworld could be a cold, lonely place. He felt that for once, he could understand this strange mortal.

Unbeknownst to her, the god of underworld took upon the souls of animals she sacrificed and listened to their stories of how good she was to them.

She would give us some portion of her bread.

She once nursed me back to health when I had a broken wing.

She is an angel.

When he heard of her idiosyncrasies like poking her index finger together when she feels nervous or making wreaths of flowers for young colts, he would find himself smiling like an idiot at the end of the animals' stories.

As he looked down at her sleeping face, he scoffed. He, himself is a god, who sees gods in their true forms, yet he didn't believe in any of them, save himself. But here, this woman who couldn't even see him if she opened her eyes, worked night and day as a messenger who counsels, warns, and comforts the people in the name of Sakura. To him, she was even more unreal than any of the most radiant, powerful goddesses in Mt. Olympus or forest nymphs or sirens.

He continued looking down at her, and he, with hesitance, released his hold on her dark, silky strand of hair. Her hair fell on her cheek.

When she shifted in her sleep, his eyes widened.

Her shifting caused the sleeve of her night tunic to slip off her shoulder, and one of her breasts sprang free from the confines of her clothes. She slung her arm over her head, inadvertently revealing more of her breasts to the divine cold night breeze. The wind made goosebumps rise on her arms, and her brown nipples pointed into a bud like a spring flower. Her lips parted slightly as she fell into even deeper sleep, innocently unaware that she is giving the god of the underworld one of the best shows on earth.

Sasuke's cheekbones flushed a deep scarlet as he felt blood rush to his face. His mouth turned dry and his hands quiver at the sight. Her breasts were not monstrously big, and her nipples were not neon pink like how most gods would prefer their women. Some gods and goddesses would even see her brown human nipples as hideous. But her breasts were wondrously shaped and generous enough. He had no choice but to admit-she was beautiful or at least, he thought she was beautiful.

He pressed his hand on her bed and gazed at her face closely. He looked at her from a hair's length and her soft breath fanned his nose. She smelt like wet lilac in the summer rain.

Before he realized what he was doing, his lips were getting dangerously close to hers. He hesitated. He knew what this meant. He intended to kiss the mortal.

But she was a mortal. And the only way a mortal could enter the underworld was to die. Sasuke frowned. He did want to take away her breath of life and bring her to the underworld, but the girl had too much emotional attachment to the world she lived in. Just because she received the seal of Hades, didn't guarantee that she will fall in love with him. He didn't want to risk her hating him for kidnapping her to the underworld. And he didn't want to make her cry. He learned he had a weakness for her tears.

If anyone asked him, why a mortal, why her, he wouldn't know what to say. He supposed that she succeeded in bewitching him without even trying or knowing his close presence, and he wanted to keep her close and study her so he could uncover the mystery of his attraction to her. And would she also find him fascinating if she met him? Would she fear him or grovel at his feet or fall in love with him like others?

Knowing how blindly devoted she was to Sakura, if she knew he was the god of the underworld, she might also try to extend that blind devotion.

No, he shook his head. He didn't want her blind devotion. He wanted her to want him the way he wanted her.

As his thoughts went around in a whirlwind, he kept staring at her lips. For Zeus' sake, he just had to kiss her. She was too fascinating to not be noticed by other gods or demi gods, and he couldn't risk having another god take an interest in her and kidnap her while he is in the underworld. He can't stay above the underworld for too long.

And like that, he stole the mortal's lips. It was the best feeling he had in his life. It felt as if a weight lifted from his chest and colors burst in his sight.

But right when he kissed her, her beautiful eyes flung open.

She rose from her bed and clutched her blanket to her chest and called out in the darkness of her room in a shaky voice.

"I-Is someone there?"

But all she could see was the breeze fluttering her diaphanous white curtain and the moonlight shining into her room from the crack of her window.

When she couldn't find anyone, she murmured about being tired and tried to go back to sleep.

Behind the curtain, the tall dark god of the underworld stood, gazing at the woman who spread across her bed. He touched his lips with his thumb and kept gazing at her, forlornly.

He could still smell the wisp of wet lilac in her moist hair.