A new piece from me, one that's only been up on dA for a few minutes.

Warnings:
Future SasuNaru, ItaKyuu, and other undecided side pairings; AU (human/animal hybrids); humor; language; etc...
Rating for future chapters, and it may change in future chapters.

Disclaimer:
I do not own the Naruto characters.

Life was simple…well, as simple as it could be for a hybrid child at five years old.

The little fennec fox hybrid pounced around the playground, making the attempt to capture a monarch butterfly that fluttered just out of reach. His parents and older brother were still in sight, but he didn't care about them for the time being, he was trying to capture his prey.

"Naruto!"

Just has his little hands were about to cup the butterfly into entrapment, his long furry ears heard his father calling for him, leaving him to pause for a second. In that moment of hesitation, the butterfly managed to slip from his sight, leaving the child's ears and tail to droop. However, since he father called him, he had to see what he wanted.

Making his way over to where his parents and brother were, Naruto had a pout on his lips. He wanted to capture that butterfly; it was pretty. However, when he glanced up, the little blonde had been expecting to just find his family, not a family of hybrid white tigers with them.

While it was normal for breeds to mate within the same species, it was more common to find mixed partners…like his parents. Sure, both were foxes, but his father was a fennec fox like himself, and his mother and older brother were red foxes, so to find a family of just white tigers made Naruto think, in his little kid logic, that they were weird.

"Naruto, come meet the Uchiha family," Minato said. "They even have a son around your age. This is Sasuke."

At the information of one being his age, Naruto glanced at the youngest tiger hybrid and glared.

"You made me miss the butterfly," Naruto complained.

The blonde watched as the young tiger's tail twitched in annoyance while his eyes narrowed, but he didn't care. This tiger-child made him miss his prey.

"What are you talking about?"

"The pretty butterfly, you made me miss it, and I wanted it."

"Stupid."

A moment later the two children were rolling around on the ground while throwing clumsy punches at each other, none of them hitting their mark. Then out of frustration, Naruto became desperate.

"Ow! Did you just bite me?!"

"Naruto!"

~*~*~*~

Itachi had been watching the interaction between his brother and the youngest fox-boy with a frown. They were being childish, especially the blonde one. It was just a butterfly, nothing to get worked up over. He was hoping that the other fox-boy, who was introduced as Kyuubi, would be mature enough to see the ridiculousness of the whole matter; however, when Itachi turned his eyes on the other, the red fox was cheering his own brother on.

The cheers didn't last long, Itachi noticed, as the mother glared at her older son while her husband tried pulling the boys apart with help from his father. Once the children were separated, Itachi noticed that Sasuke had a bit of blood leaking from his arm. That must have been where the little fennec fox bit Sasuke, but other than that, the two boys just looked rumpled with smears of dirt here and there, and as fascinating as all that was, Itachi decided to ignore the whole thing.

"So…Itachi, right?"

Blinking at the question, Itachi waited for Kyuubi to continue with whatever he wanted to say. There was no point in wasting his energy in replying when there was nothing to say.

"I think it's 'puppy love' between those two," Kyuubi mentioned.

Frowning slightly, Itachi turned his attention back toward his little brother and the hellion that was Kyuubi's brother. Sasuke and Naruto were glaring fiercely at each other, never once turning their gazes away, and Itachi had to admit that he had never seen Sasuke riled up like that before. Sure, his brother only recently turned six, but he was normally quite stoic, especially for a child, and the little fox-child had destroyed that in less than a minute. Sasuke had also been subject to other children his age, but he usually just ignored them, managing to get through a 'play-date' without even muttering a single word to his playmate for the time and some were as energetic as Naruto.

"Hn."

Maybe the red fox was right…in some alternate universe where fighting equated to love.