New Beginnings

A/N: Just like I promised, here's the sequel. Most of it is flashbacks, but for a very good reason. But luckily, Hidan does appear in the first chapter. Itachi fans will be dissapointed, as there won't be anymore romantic scenes with him and Akina. Don't worry, there will be plenty of romance between Hidan and Akina. With that said, enjoy the story!

Chapter One: Yesterday's Feelings

It had been five years since that fateful day that changed her life. The day that she died and became a vampire...

When Akina Kobayashi woke up, she found herself in a morgue with nothing but a ring on her finger and a note from her brother. And nearly all the memories of her life before her eternal damnation had been lost.

Dear Akina,

If you're reading this letter, it means that you have awakened from your sleep. I am sorry that I could not be with you right now. I came here with Sasuke and his organization to save you from the Akatsuki. I don't know what the outcome of the battle was, I am just happy to know you are safe. I love you very much and I will always care for you.

On your right ring finger is a special ring, please wear it. It'll protect you from the sun. You are the best sister I could've ever asked for. I love you.

Best wishes,

Daisuke

Daisuke died that night. But he didn't come back. He went to heaven, like you're supposed to when you die. That didn't happen to Akina. All she remembered was feeling fire run through her veins and everything going black.

She could hardly remember anything from her human life at all, except one person: A handsome man with silver hair and lavender eyes.

He told her that he loved her more than anything in this world. And she told him that she loved him as well.

Who was he?

That was the question.

So many feelings of loneliness overshadowed her. Her entire family was gone and she had nowhere to go. She was too old to go to high school. And she couldn't stay in Tokyo. Everyone thought she was dead. So she decided to travel, in hopes of finding her lost memories, and that man she loved.

Hours later Akina had her suitcase packed and sat at the airport in Beijing waiting for her flight. She wore a red tank top with yellow flowers on it, and a pair of low-rise jeans with sneakers. A pair of black sunglasses covered her eyes, even though she was indoors. Her hair weave had been taken out a long time ago, and she spent years growing out her real hair. It was now shoulder length with lots of layers and platinum blonde and auburn streaks throughout.

Her face was incredibly beautiful with her straight slightly upturned nose, pointed chin and beautiful blue eyes. After she was changed, all her bodily functions had stopped and she no longer had to worry about what she ate or how she looked. In fact, she looked too beautiful to be real.

As to where Akina was going, she didn't care. There was nothing for her in Beijing.

She glanced down at her ticket.

First Class: New York City, New York, U.S.A. Row 3, seat 4.

3:00 p.m.

Monday, July 24th, 2001.

Akina sighed. Was this trip going to be worth it this time? She wondered if she should even go along with it.

Suddenly an announcement in Cantonese went off.

"Flight 128 to New York City is now boarding." Akina got up and brought her carry-on bag to the door. She handed her ticket to the attendant and boarded her plane.

"Maybe things will be better there..." she spoke softly as she gazed out the window during takeoff.

"What shall we do now, my queen?" Ophelia's slurping ceased and she licked the blood from her chin. Five years ago she had been summoned by Orochimaru and is now using the body of Ino Yamanaka as a vessel. She killed Orochimaru after, and now Kabuto is doing everything in his power to make sure she doesn't kill him.

"I am finished feasting." The young boy that she feasted upon fell to the cold hardwood floor, a small pool of blood forming around him. She turned to look at Kabuto. "Dispose of this," she said pointing to the boy.

"Yes my queen." It had been like this for the past five years. Ophelia and Kabuto had been hunting across the countryside for years, feasting upon defenseless humans.

After they were finished, they would give the bodies to wild animals or throw them into the ocean if there was one nearby. Kabuto threw the body to a pack of pigs that hadn't been fed in almost five days. They were wild with hunger and began tearing the body limb from limb, devouring all that they could. Ophelia put her black hood back over her head and Kabuto quickly followed her back out to the German countryside.

It had been almost five years since he last saw her. Another day went by and he felt nothing, except that he was going nowhere. He spent his time wondering—wondering if she would ever return to him.

"Akina..." her name escaped from his lips, as if it were a drug that he craved. Hidan sighed. 'Damn I miss her—Jashin-sama, please—bring her back.'

He retreated back inside his hotel room and found that Kakuzu was counting his money. Hidan sighed again.

"What's gotten into you now?"

"You know exactly what's gotten into me," he said in a dark tone. Kakuzu stopped. Talking about Akina was a very touchy subject for Hidan. Unlike Hidan, he knew that Akina was fine. After all, Hidan did turn her into a vampire.

Hidan went into the bathroom and looked at the mirror. Ever since Konan created the rings, he had been able to see himself in a normal mirror.

His face had remained completely unchanged, but he did change his hair a little bit. It was short and spiked, instead of his usual slicked back hairstyle. His lavender eyes had become colder, the dark rings around his eyes darker than usual. Perhaps he hadn't been able to feed as much knowing that Akina was out there somewhere alone and scared because of him.

Sometimes he would see a reflection of Akina beside him in the mirror. He longed to hold her in his arms, and look into her pale blue eyes and tell her that he was still madly in love with her.

Hidan even remembered the first and only time that he and Akina made love on that night in December. Just the thought of it drove him crazy. That was the night that he confessed all of his feelings to her in every way, and told her that he loved her.

'I hope she still loves me...' Most of all, he hoped that she still remembered him.

"We are now preparing to land in New York City. Please fasten your seatbelts and turn off all electronic devices."

Akina opened her eyes and turned off her CD player. For twelve hours she kept her eyes closed—not asleep, but in deep thought. She longed to remember the missing pieces of her human life.

Where was Daisuke? Who made the ring? And where was the man that she used to be in love with?

'I need to find out. I can't keep living how I am.'

She spent so many years traveling, at first with barely any money and a constant thirst for blood. Akina managed to get a hold of her mother's Swiss bank account that she left, and used her dead aunt's name to get the money. Her mother's father was born in Romania, and left during WWII to live in Sweden since it was a neutral country that was safer. She looked at her passport.

Name: Elena Florentina

Age: 20

Country: Romania

Date of Birth: 10/24/1981

It had been very useful, except for the fact that her age did not change. She was born in 1976, not 1981.

Akina hardly needed to travel by plane. Running for her had become much easier, as she could move through the forest with ease. For food she fed upon animals, knowing that hunting humans would be too risky if she chose to remain in hiding.

About ten minutes later the plane landed at 3:00 a.m. and Akina soon left the airport with all of her luggage in tow. New York was not as busy as Tokyo. In Tokyo, it was so crowded every afternoon with the constant chattering of business people on their cell phones. Walking down the streets, she felt nervous and scared. Even worse, it was in the middle of the night.

'Why should I be scared?' she thought. 'I'm the scariest thing I'm going to find in this city.'

Hopefully she was right.

She caught a taxicab and was driven to 32nd street where her hotel was. It was a tall fancy looking building with so many rooms that it made the skyscrapers back in Tokyo seem insignificant.

"Well, here it is: The New York Hilton. It sounds a bit fancy if you ask me."

"Nonsense," she said. "It's perfect." She handed the cab driver a generous amount of money and went inside the hotel. The lobby was very large and luxurious with its black grand piano, fancy red sofas and intricate carpeting and marble flooring.

"Hi," she said stopping at the front desk. "I made a reservation?"

"And your name," said the lady at the front desk.

"Elena Florentina."

"May I see a form of ID please?" Akina showed her passport.

"Ah yes, welcome Miss Florentina. Here's your room key. I hope you enjoy your stay here at the Hilton."

"Thank you," she said bluntly. A bellhop came by seconds later to help her bring her bags up to the 12th floor where her room was.

-0-

"Here you are," he said putting her bags on the floor of her room.

"Thank you," she said giving him a rather large wad of money.

"That's quite a bit of money, are you sure?"

"You need it more than I do. Go on, take it," she said, her alluring eyes staring right at him.

"Really? Wow, thanks," he said still surprised at how much money he had received. Once Akina was alone, she took of her Abercrombie sweatshirt and hung it up in her closet.

The rest of her suitcases sat on the floor opened, revealing its contents of endless pairs of jeans, tank tops and mini skirts. She wasn't one to dress up very often, and had no idea how long she would be staying here. Probably long enough to clear her head and explore. Then she would move on again, usually with her questions unanswered.

The comfort of the bed was relaxing to her after being on that airplane for twelve hours. When she was out hunting in the Chinese countryside, she would often lie on the forest floor among the bushes and stare up at the stars in the sky for hours on end.

Her eyes closed and images of people passed her by, everything being a blur. That's what the last five years had been to her. Nothing but a blur...

"My heart bleeds for you sister..." Ophelia appeared in the pool of water, holding her bloody heart out to Akina.

Akina's eyes shot open and she nearly screamed with fright.

'Why did I just see that?' Perhaps it was a memory from her human life? Exactly who was she before she died?

'Let's see...I was born in 1976 in Okinawa. My mother's name was Mischa, and my father's name was Yuki. I have an older brother name Daisuke. He has brown hair. Then there's aunt Naomi and uncle Lars, and Deidara...' She stopped.

What had happened to Deidara? Was he still out there somewhere looking for her? Maybe it was him that made the ring for her? Her thoughts continued.

'I did ballet as a kid, then I used to sing, and then I wanted to be a model.'

A model. Is that what she was in her human life? That would explain why she was so thin. Her face would look good in pictures.

'My parents—' they were dead. Gone. A huge gap followed. Then the man with lavender eyes and silver hair appeared. His eyes were so mesmerizing.

"Sleep well my pet," he said leaving a gentle kiss on her forehead. Akina's pale blue eyes fluttered open and she saw a man with silver hair and lavender eyes disappear out of her window and into the night. She sat up and noticed that a black leather jacket was covering her.

'Was I afraid of him or something? No—I think we were in love.

"Would you like to dance?" She nodded. He stood up and took her hand and led her to the dance floor. He placed his hands on her hips, while hers rested on his shoulders. They began to sway in a small circle and it almost felt romantic in a way.

A small blush crept onto her face when she felt Hidan pull her closer to him. His hot breath brushed against her ear, giving her those butterflies again.

"You smell good," he whispered. His voice sent chills up and down her spine when he spoke. Soon she was looking up into his face and swore that she saw a hint of lavender gleaming under his mask.

She struggled to remember what had happened after that, but she still remembers the last words he had spoken to her.

"I love you more than anything in this world," he said softly. "You're everything to me."

That was all Akina remembered of her human life. Nothing else. Not Sasuke, her modeling career, Itachi, or anything else in between.

Just then a flock of pigeons had landed outside her open window, and Akina's throat had grown dry.

'It's time to hunt.'

Kakuzu sat in the room listening to the sounds coming outside. Hidan sat there with a pen and notebook...writing.

'Since when did he start writing?' he thought. And then Hidan sighed. Soon he began to sing.

'Since when did he sing?' He listened more as Hidan kept writing, scratching out lines he didn't like, and quietly singing to himself.

"Fuck this!" He took the page, crumpled it up and threw it off the balcony and onto the street below. Hidan shrugged it off and started writing again.

Kakuzu hardly had a clue as to how intelligent Hidan actually was. Little did Kakuzu know that in his human life he used to be a writer. He started writing after Natsumi had died, and now everything was about Akina. Each poem, song and story was always about Akina.

Kakuzu's eyes narrowed. Only when his eyes narrowed did he have another moneymaking idea.

'Perhaps I could use Hidan's talent rather than his religion to make money...'

Hidan turned around to see Kakuzu moving out of his view.

"Fucking money-whore."

I hope you all liked the story so far. Don't worry, more will be coming soon. Reviews are appreciated. :) Until next time...