Author's Note: I decided to take this entire story, originally called From Hate To Love, down and fix up a few things, starting with changing the title. I much prefer this title to the last.

Anything that is talking about From Hate To Love is referring to this story. I'm just not going to bother taking down every single story that refers to it just so I can change a few lines.

-------------------------------------------

Hating Me, Loving You

-------------------------------------------

When she first joined us, I thought she was nothing more than some pushover who would be in and out within the week. The Akatsuki was a group of elite nukenin, and not just anybody could make it. She was eighteen, like most of us when we first joined, but she didn't seem to be anything special. So it was justified that I had no idea what our boss was thinking. Maybe he would use her as a decoy in his next plan, or as part of a training exercise. All I knew was that she wouldn't last.

At least, that was what I thought.

We first met in the main hall at our headquarters. Uchiha Itachi was there, and apparently he knew her, as he shot her dirty looks the entire time he stood there. They obviously weren't too fond of each other, I noted. Hoshigaki Kisame was also there, as was Sasori-danna, though he kept to himself, as always. Zetsu had showed up, much to my dismay. I never really liked him, and the split-personalities thing had always freaked me out a bit. She was a half demon, they said, easily identifiable by her aura, if you couldn't see her in the dim light of the candlelit hall. She looked mostly human, but the few demonic features were easily noticeable. The jet-black cat ears and tail gave it away at once, if you didn't look into her eyes first. A strange golden colour, they were, with slitted feline pupils. The fangs and blood-stained claws were a bit of a dead giveaway as well. Her raven-coloured hair was ridiculously long, past her waist at least, though it was kept up, tied with a blood-red elastic. She was from the Hidden Leaf Village, Konoha, as I could tell from the headband she wore, which now bore a large slash right across the symbol that had, until now, identified her as one of theirs. A new cloak, sleek black, with our signature red-and-white clouds, covered her clothes, so I couldn't quite see what she was wearing, but I didn't care. I never paid much attention to that sort of thing, nor to women in general. This one was no different from the other females who had tried to join our ranks. She was cocky, and didn't seem all that intelligent to me, as cats are supposed to. She didn't speak for a time, so I took that to mean she was timid as well, easily frightened. Everyone just looked her over, trying to judge exactly what could have been going through the boss' mind when he decided to let her become an Akatsuki. But questioning the Leader's judgement was never a good idea, so we kept our thoughts to ourselves.

Kisame was the first to speak to her. He put on that stupid fish-like grin of his and looked down at her, as she was a few inches shorter than he, and said, "You do know about the initiation for women Akatsuki, right?"

Of course, there really was no initiation, and he must have figured she didn't know that.

She didn't react for a moment, acting as if he wasn't there, so he repeated the question.

Leave it to Kisame to try to score with the new girl, I thought to myself, smirking at his lack of awkwardness in asking such a question.

I figured that she would either look horrified, blush profusely, or walk quickly away, completely mortified, but she did none of those things. Instead, she looked up, staring him straight in the eyes and snapped, "If you want your balls torn off and fed to the flytrap over there, keep talkin'."

Judging by the way the she was glaring at him, and by the fact that she wasn't at all fazed by the fact that he had his giant sword, Samehada, strapped to his back, I could tell she meant it, even if none of the others could.

Zetsu started talking to himself at this, muttering about how rude that comment was, and then about how he shouldn't let her get to him. I shook my head, wondering if he was stupid, or just plain crazy. Turning my attention back to Kisame and the new girl, I saw that she hadn't faltered, and was still glaring at him with intense dislike.

Impressive, I thought, that she isn't even startled.

"Oh, a fighter, are you?" Kisame said with a smirk. "I like them that way."

I could swear that her eyes flashed red for a split second as she told him, "If you say one more thing, you'll be too dead to care, got it?"

She sounded very dangerous, and I had to admit, I was starting to become interested in this easily annoyed woman. I could be pretty dangerous, myself, and I believed I may just have found a kindred spirit.

Uchiha rolled his eyes and muttered something barely audible, but I didn't bother to find out what it was. I had decided to introduce myself to our newest teammate.

Shoving Kisame aside, I rather nonchalantly said, "Leave the poor girl alone, un. The last thing she needs is to be hit on by something you'd find in cat food."

This was obviously the wrong thing to say, because in an instant, I was on the floor with her katana at my throat. "If you were trying to be funny, I didn't find that very amusing," she growled, pressing the tip of the blade even further up against my neck. "I may be a cat, but I'm far from the strays you find in back alleys. There's a big difference between regular cats and cat demons, got that?"

Sasori, who had, until now, been leaning against the opposite wall and saying nothing, came up beside her and took hold of her arm, moving it, and the sword, far enough away from me that I could back up a bit and stand without getting speared. I muttered my thanks and edged away from them both, getting as far away from her as I possibly could. It wasn't so much that I was afraid of her, as that I was afraid of Sasori. He was pretty frightening when he was angry, and I wouldn't want to get between those two, should they decide to fight.

"Don't bother with him, Kuro-san," he told her in that calm, emotionless voice of his. "He isn't worth your time or effort."

"Sasori-danna-" I began to whine, cut off when he shot me a glare that clearly said "Shut up if you don't want me to kill you." The girl, Kuro, sheathed the katana when Sasori let go of her arm, and shot me a dirty look. "You got lucky this time, yaro, but next time, you won't be so fortunate," she hissed, and left the hall, leaving me staring after her.

What is it about her that I find so intriguing? I have to have her, I thought, vowing to myself that from this moment on, my current project was to get Kuro to fall in love with me.