This started out as an "Akatsuki capture random person" fic and then I realised I had no plot so I tried to create one by shoving the whole thing into FMA-land.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Fullmetal Alchemist! SPOILER ALERT! Oh, the spoilers!

Life? Can we make a deal? I don't know what I did to piss you off so much but I, Catherine Bryson, solemnly promise I'll never do it again if you just show a little mercy and cut me a break!

I'm pushing through thick forest in the middle of a small cyclone, terrified, wearing one shoe (since the other one fell off a cliff), my uniform is covered in mud and blood and a green sticky substance I can't name that I think came from a tree, and the only other things I have on me are a hairbrush, my maths textbook and my PE bag.

Honestly Life I'm just a normal kid; what did I do to deserve this?

This is where the explanatory flashback comes in…

"Cathy! You're going to be late; I'm leaving in ten minutes; where are you?" My mother yelled up the stairs as I clattered down them, school and PE bags in my left hand, dragging my hairbrush approximately through my hair with the other.

Once I reached the bottom I realised that I had forgotten my maths homework, dropped my schoolbag and ran back up the stairs. I slammed through the door to my room and grabbed my maths textbook off my bed and as I did the homework sheet slipped out and slid underneath it. By the time I had located it, my mother was half-way across town if her shouts were anything to go by.

"I'm coming now!" I yelled downstairs as I raced towards my bedroom door; I yanked it open, barrelled through it and ran headlong into empty space. After a short but sickening fall I landed hard on something, fell again for a split second and hit the ground.

Winded and shocked out of coherent thought, I pulled myself into a sitting position and at first just focused on getting air into my lungs. Slowly the reason for my new bruises came into focus. I was sitting on the ground in front of a tree. More than one tree, in fact, now that I had my breath back and blew my hair out of my eyes it was clear I was sitting in the middle of a large collection of them; perhaps even a forest. I heard the sound of rain and looked up; the leaves in the honeycomb canopy above my head rubbed against each other in the wind.

Well Life, it's finally happened. I've gone mad. I've always said that double maths on a Monday would be the death of my higher brain function. Or I'm dreaming, one of the two. Either way, I might as well do something.

I clambered to my feet.

"Right." I whispered. "Forest. Okay." I spun around, looking for an edge to the trees, a gap, and path or something. I still expected to see my bedroom door standing open somehow in the middle of the air. It wasn't of course.

I noticed my hairbrush and PE bag sitting on the ground next to me and bent down to pick them up, my maths textbook, complete with homework, was sprawled a metre away on the top of a bush. I picked it up and shoved it in the bag.

There was still not path or break apparent in the trees outside of the small clearing I was in, I peered through them for any sign of a building, but couldn't see one.

When I got lost as a kid, my parents would always tell me to wait for them to find me, but how were they supposed to get wherever this was? So, this time it was up to me to get home myself. Did Alice simply sit when she fell down the rabbit hole? Every direction looked the same, so I followed the slight slope of the ground into the line of trees.

"Hello?" I called after a few steps, "Is anyone here? I'm a little lost!" I continued to call out variants as I walked along. "I'd really like to know where I am so I can go home!"

The undergrowth was thick and full of catching thorns and branches that snagged on my clothes and whipped across my face, leaving red lines on my bare skin. I noticed that I seemed to be heading downhill slightly, where was this? Finally I stumbled into another small clearing, furnished by a huge fallen tree. I sat down on it and rested by head in my hands.

"This is not going well. I hate being lost." I looked up as I heard a loud thump from directly in front of me. Two figures had appeared in the clearing; I stood up and took a step towards them before I had even properly taken them in.

"Hey, excuse me! Do you-?" The taller of the two turned around without warning, grabbed my wrist and dragged me into the air in front of him.

"Where the hell did you come from, who are you!?" he yelled at me, pulling something out of his pocket and pressing it against my throat, it was sharp.

I noticed that his face was distinctly blue and he had dark gaps in his skin just under his eyes.

Normally, when authors want to communicate the delicate terror of their china-doll heroine they compare their heartbeat to the wings of some adorable songbird. My experience of life-threatening terror is more like having an emu tap dance inside your rib cage; it's nowhere near as delicate.

My mouth worked silently until I kick-started a synapse or two.

"Bad fishy Kisame, no killing random strangers." I said, frazzled brain putting two and two together at last, Kisame's eyes went big.

"How'd you know that!?" He yelled, pushing me up against the nearest tree and holding me there by my throat, "Who are you!?"

"Bad…Fish…" I squeezed out around the block on my windpipe, "Can't breathe… Uchiha, help…" I assumed that the other figure was Kisame's partner, Itachi Uchiha.

"Kisame." A soft monotonous drawl came from behind the hulking fish-man, Kisame released my throat and I slid down the tree to the ground.

Coughing I staggered to my feet and peered around Kisame, standing a few metres away was a pale figure with long dark hair wearing the same black and red cloak.

"Uchiha of the Itachi variety!" I said loudly ducking under Kisame's arm and diving behind Itachi, "I'd appreciate it if ya didn't sic your crazy fish-swordsman on me, if you'd be so kind." Itachi turned around and surveyed me with bright red Sharingan eyes. "I'm Cathy by the way." I added.

"What the heck is going on here!?" Kisame yelled.

"She knew our names, Kisame. That is information that not many possess." Itachi said, I took a nervous step backwards. Isn't this always the way? Unwitting person lands near some ninja and is kidnapped. Drama ensues… Kisame made a move towards me; I turned on my heel and ran off through the trees.

This, Life ol' buddy ol' pal, is where you seemed to take a further dislike to me.

I slapped my way through some ferns and came to a river; I started slogging through it, got to about the halfway point when Itachi appeared in front of me. I bumped right into him and slipped on a mossy rock and fell over into the river. I splashed to my feet again; Itachi grabbed my wrist with his ninja reflexes and dragged me out onto the bank.

"Hey! Let go, you!" I said, just as peal of thunder reverberated from the dark clouds overhead, followed by heavy lashing rain.

Itachi's grip on my wrist tightened to enough to make me turn to look at him, my eyes met a flash of red and blackness swept in over me.

I groaned softly as I woke, my head felt like a troupe of sadistic gnomes in pointy shoes were dancing around inside it, which was a strange and unpleasant sensation. A similar sensation occurred when I opened my eyes; so I shut them again.

"Oi, Itachi, she moved." A deep voice said and a large hand appeared around my throat again and dragged me upwards. The obnoxious little gnomes in their clogs paled in comparison to pressure on my windpipe and my eyes flew open. Kisame's leering face came into view.

"Really…? Again, Fishy…?" I rasped out around Kisame's fist, he let up on the pressing but still kept my feet off the ground.

"I want an answer this time Itachi." He growled, "How do you know so much about us; girl? Where are we?"

I couldn't think of anything to say. Should I tell the truth? To someone who was currently trying to kill me? Kisame pressed harder, I coughed and wheezed desperately. He released his hold a little to let me speak.

"Is it a secret now? Lots of people have heard of the Akatsuki where I'm from."

"Where do you come from?" Itachi, the Weasel himself was sitting near the middle of the clearing next to the river we now occupied. The slope was much more pronounced by the banks, putting my in mind of a mountain.

"Well, considering that I stepped out of my bedroom and fell out of the sky, it's pretty safe to say I don't live here. You've never heard of where I live; it's a magical land full of mystical creatures with incredible power called Australia." Well, I can dream.

Kisame, seemingly satisfied for now, grimaced and let me down. I wobbled a bit on my feet, no doubt after effects of Itachi's Sharingan.

"This isn't over, I'll find out what else you know." Kisame muttered creepily.

"Looking forward to it, Bubbles." Kisame growled and rounded on me, I tried to move away from the row of sharp fangs now uncomfortably close to my face, but there was a tree in the way. Obviously able to read the shock on my face anyway, Kisame grinned and turned back to Itachi.

Once I had my balance back I looked around. The river was wider here, no doubt swollen with the rain that was continuing to fall, I couldn't see the sky through the thick storm clouds but I had a feeling that it was a couple of hours later in the day, nearing noon.

"Now 'Tachi," I said, crossing to the log Itachi was sitting on and sitting beside him, "using your Sharingan on people you've only just met is hardly polite." He ignored me. "Just imagine what your parents would say." Still nothing.

"I guess it might be hard for you, you haven't seen them in so long and all, if all else fails we could go find your brother and ask him!"

I saw a flash of red as Itachi turned and tried to back away but started moving far too late, two hands grasped my shoulders and pushed me off of the log. My back slammed into the dirt. That may have been too much.

Once again my breath rushed out of my lungs and didn't want to come back in. I stared up at an unusually emotive Itachi; he was glaring down at me with an actual expression on his face.

Well, it was an expression for Itachi, for normal people it was more of an unperceivable movement of the eyebrows, but I was close enough to catch it. This was pretty big news.

It was also terrifying. This was after all a mass murderer. If I was to give this face a name it would be Death-is-coming-and-he-brought-friends. I'd always sort of felt bad for Itachi. From a distance anyway, when he was safely on my screen. Poor tortured soul, Weasel boy and all that. He kind of looked like he needed a hug, and was pretty darn huggable, but right now he was seriously freaking me out.

"See, if that doesn't confirm it I don't know what does!" Kisame burst out from behind me, "She knows too many things! We should take her to headquarters!"

"Kisame," Itachi said, "you forget that we are unaware of our current location, we do not even know where headquarters is." This intrigued me, snapping me out of my terror.

"Members of the elite and great Akatsuki got lost?" I said, then again with more conviction, "'Tachi and Number Two got lost! That's too funny!"

"We did not get lost!" Kisame seethed, "We were kidnapped or something from the middle of the base to here!"

"Kisame." Itachi said with the slightest warning edge to his voice. Itachi looked at me for a few more seconds, and then disappeared from above me; I stood up and brushed myself off, heart rate slowing. I started pacing around the campfire.

"So let me get this straight. You were transported by unknown means to this forest that you have never seen before, and then I come hurtling out of the sky and happen to stumble across you?" I questioned, Kisame nodded, "Sounds like a fanfiction," I said quietly to myself.

"What's a fanfiction?" Kisame said, able to hear what I said, no doubt, thanks to his ninja hearing.

"Don't worry about it Gill-Face, you'll never come across one. But what is important is that this is usually the point in one that I get kidnapped or something, so if you don't mind." With that I threw myself backwards which, thanks to my pacing, landed me into the centre of the swollen rushing river.

I was carried straight for a little bit by the rushing water before it descended into a series of sharp corners that knocked me against countless pointy rocks, after which I was hauled down another straight stretch.

I gasped in a breath of air, and one was all I got before I was pitched end over end under the water as it tumbled over the edge of a small cliff. It was nowhere near a full blown action movie waterfall, more like a small hiccup in the otherwise smooth slope.

Once the water had decided that I was confused enough, by which time I had gotten rather confused about the direction that up was in, it spat me out onto the edge. I slogged out of the water onto the bank; as I squelched through the mud I realised that I was missing a shoe, my left to be specific.

"Aww, I needed that shoe!" I grumbled, squishing over to a convenient log to squeeze some of the water out of my sock and take a look around. "Better keep moving I guess." I murmured,

I ran into the trees that lined the edge of the river and crouched down behind some bushes. I wasn't sure how far the river had taken me and I could be waylaid by troublesome ninja at any time.

"Or whatever else is living here; who knows what it could be, I hope they speak English." I muttered, suddenly aware that I didn't even know what universe I was in, and looking around suspiciously.

So, Life, this is where you find me now: soaking wet and shoving my way through thorny bushes in the middle of a small cyclone while trying not to be found and recaptured by two highly dangerous criminal ninja.

Care to reconsider?