And here is the update. For those of you, who reviewed, thank you so much!! Sorry it took so long, it was just because of school and requirements. Ü Please tell me if you think the fight scenes are stupid and I'll do my best to improve them. I really do suck at them, seriously. Tips will be gratefully accepted.

Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own Naruto. I wish I did, so that Itachi could actually be less cryptic and Deidara would be the air-headed blonde I wish he was. And the theme song of Jaws would play whenever Kisame materializes.

Chapter Two: Back to the Beginning

Rika's eyes flickered open and she groaned. There was a sharp pain at the back of her head, a pain so sharp she wished that her unconsciousness had gone on a little more. She struggled to sit up, failed twice, and gave up. She surveyed her surroundings from what she could see while lying on the ground. Trees. Forest. Nearby crackling fire. Human shark. Uchiha Itachi.

She blinked again. She was sure her vision was deceiving her. A human shark was not possible, and Uchiha Itachi was still far away in the bowels of the Akatsuki hideout.

And yet there they were. Rika surmised that the human shark was Kisame. Never having seen him before, she naturally had no idea what the hell he looked like.

I thought he would've looked at least human, she thought disparagingly. Blue skin. Tell me, who has blue skin these days?!?! It's not normal!!! I wonder if he's watched Finding Nemo or Jaws. Probably not.

"So you're awake."

Rika turned her head so fast she cricked her neck. Rubbing it as she successfully sat up, she looked at the speaker.

Itachi.

He was staring at her with those all too familiar red eyes; the eyes she had grown accustomed to seeing ever since Shisui's death. The red eyes she had seen almost right after the massacre of the Uchiha clan.

"Long time, no see, Uchiha," she said coldly. Her blue eyes flashed fire.

Itachi inclined his head in acknowledgement of her comment. Then the shark man spoke. His voice startled her.

"Long time, no see?" he quoted with confusion. "Have the two of you met before?"

"You could say we were childhood friends," Itachi said emotionlessly, staring into the fire.

"Of a sort," he and Rika added in unison. Rika looked at him in surprise. He, forever stoic, showed nothing. Then she was at a loss on what to do. She had Itachi right here. She could knock him out and somehow carry what could possibly seem like 57.1 kilograms of murderer back to Konoha. So why couldn't she move a muscle?!?!

Maybe it was because the lump on her head was still extremely painful, and it somehow affected the messages her brain was sending. And those messages were saying, get up and go. But she couldn't. What could these two do? They could murder her. Very easily. Cool.

"What the hell happened?" she asked. As usual, she could barely remember a thing from the moment she had crashed into someone.

"You crashed into me," Itachi said indifferently. "Kisame acted instinctively and knocked you out. For some reason, I couldn't leave you lying there on the ground, even though it was only hours later when there was enough light to see you that I did recognize you."

"Although you didn't tell me," Kisame grumbled. He didn't seem to take well with the fact that his partner kept things from him. Although, knowing Itachi, he should probably have gotten used to it by now. Rika fought the impulse to roll her eyes.

"What were you doing in the forest alone?" Itachi suddenly asked quietly. She swallowed. There was no way she was going to tell him.

"Mission," she replied tersely.

"Ah, yes. So they appreciate you now?"

She bristled at that. It was unfair to remind her that she hadn't been sent on too many missions when she was a genin. And how ignored she had felt then.

"Obviously." She tried to get up. She had no idea how she could capture Itachi now when he was unwittingly in her grasp. She'd have to think of something first.

"Where the fuck are you going, kunoichi?" Kisame suddenly asked.

"Away from you," Rika replied coolly. "And for your information, I have a name like most beings in existence. If you'll excuse me, I have to go."

"No."

"What do you mean, 'no'?"

"No. Negative. We can't let you go."

"Why not?"

"You hold valuable information. Very valuable information."

"What information? I don't hold any--"

Rika stopped. She suddenly remembered.

flashback

"Rika, you are the most trustworthy ninja in Konoha, which is why I'm entrusting you with this." Tsunade-sama handed her a tightly furled scroll. She opened it and realized it held information on the whereabouts of the Akatsuki members. All of them, it seemed. Even Orochimaru. She gulped. Big secret to keep. And she knew she could do it. If only Sakura didn't keep pestering her about Sasuke.

"Rika, I trust you not to divulge that information even if your life is at stake. Whatever you do, do not say anything about that to a single living soul."

"I understand, Tsunade-sama. No one else shall know of this. No one."

end flashback

"Now, do you understand?" Kisame asked, his lips twisting up into a sardonic grin.

"There is no possible way you are getting that information out of me," Rika declared.

"Oh, we don't want that information," Itachi said, looking up and meeting her gaze levelly. "We just want to make sure you don't divulge the whereabouts of our fellows."

"I thought you generally didn't care about each other's welfare," she retorted.

"True, but at this point it is imperative that none of us get caught."

I don't care, she thought. I am going to bring him back to Konoha even if it's the last thing I do.

"I'm off to get more firewood," Kisame said, getting up. He was surprisingly tall (nope, not surprising) and for the first time Rika noticed a sword at his side. The Samehada. He disappeared into the trees.

She saw her chance. And took it. Recklessly. In a flash she was behind Itachi, her hand raised to knock him out.

Suddenly a hand appeared out of nowhere and grasped her wrist in a vice-like grip. She struggled and turned her head to look at her attacker, still trying to remove her wrist from his very, very painful grip. She looked down and saw that Itachi had disappeared.

It was Itachi. Curses.

"What are you doing?" he asked, though the answer was right in front of him.

"Isn't it obvious?" Rika hissed through gritted teeth. "I'm trying to knock you out so that I can take you back to Konoha and finish my mission."

"Oh, so your mission involves me, does it?"

"Unequivocally." This was becoming hard, thanks due to the sudden speeding up of her heart.

Itachi looked down at Rika. She seemed just the same as when they had last met 5 years ago. Same blue-black hair, same ocean-blue eyes, same slender figure, same attitude. Yet she had changed in a subtle way and it was hard to discern what. Maybe it was because she had grown tougher, much less of the old pushover she had once been. She was smarter, more cunning, and as impulsive as always.

She was still the most beautiful girl he'd ever known. And he, strangely, wanted nothing more than to start again where they'd left off. And it was very, very annoying, since she wanted to capture him and bring him, supposedly alive, to Konoha. He let go of her wrist and she rubbed it. Basically, it served her right. Did she really think that she could knock him out so easily? No. No matter how many times she tried, she wouldn't succeed. That thought was in his mind just as Rika whirled around and sent a knee straight into his stomach.

He was caught more or less off guard, something that never happened. Yes, Rika was still full of surprises.

He stumbled backward and crashed into a tree. Darkness almost claimed him and he shook his head vigorously. No, he wasn't about to give her the satisfaction of that. He got up without wobbling and faced her.

"That was unexpected."

"Certainly was." Her eyes flashed and he realized that he'd never found any one else who was as alluring as she unconsciously was at that very moment. He cursed the fire raging through his veins then.

Rika struggled to think of a way she could get out of the situation before Itachi had a chance to use his Mangekyo Sharingan. She definitely did not want to submit herself to whatever torture he had in store for her. She stared at him warily as he got up. She hadn't thought that that would work. Maybe he had been gloating in his very disturbed criminal mind. And then she wondered how she had come to think of him—the one she ONCE loved—in such a wry way. Maybe it was because she'd seen the massacre. Or maybe it was because of the way her pulse had reacted when she realized he was touching her again. And she was not going to think about that. She clenched her fist and tensed her body, ready to attack. Her fingers automatically reached for her weapons. She pulled out a kunai and ran at him, ready to plunge it into his heart if necessary.

And then it happened.

He caught her hand and slammed her against the tree, his hand flicking the kunai away as though it was just some dust on his sleeve. He pinned her against the tree trunk, his unfathomable eyes staring straight into her confused and hate-filled ones. He leaned down slowly toward her.

"There is no way you can capture me," he murmured into her ear.

And then his lips touched hers.

Yeah, the fight scene was stupid. I admit it: I had frequent attack of writer's block while writing this. Especially the fight scene and the dialogue. Anyway, if you think this worth your while and therefore worth continuing, please review. If you think it sucked, please review. If you just read it to pass the time, then we share the same feeling!! More power to us!! ­­