My One and Only

Chapter 15

Sakura stared at the man sitting across from her.

Only a few days after Itachi's announcement, they had packed their things and were now on their way to his family gathering. She was seated in a carriage, different from the one Itachi had taken her in last time. This one was bigger.

There was a strange man seated across from her. He was large and tall with muscles she was sure were bigger than her head. He had short, spiky, blue hair that she supposed paired nicely with the blue tint of his skin. There were also strange things on his cheeks that looked like...gills?Sakura had never seen anyone that looked like him before.

He must have sensed her staring because he turned his head from looking out the window and stared right back at her. She rightfully jumped when his beady eyes stared straight through her soul and he opened up his mouth in a mocking smirk to reveal pointy white teeth.

This man must be related to a shark of some sort.

"Kisame." The quiet admonishing voice snapped her out of it and she turned to look at Itachi. He was staring at shark man with what she could only describe as a warning look.

"Fine, fine. I was just having some fun." The shark man's voice was just as creepy as the rest of him. She turned again and peered dubiously at him. There was a large sword wrapped in cloth sitting on the seat next to him that looked to be taller than her. He looked like he was tempted to make another face at her but looked at Itachi and thought better of it.

She wanted to ask Itachi who he was since Itachi had never bothered to explain his identity to her before she found herself sitting across from him. She was too intimidated to ask in front of him, though, so unless Itachi spoke up himself she would have to wait.

As if reading her mind, Itachi suddenly provided the answer she had been looking for, "Kisame is a guard, he's here for security reasons." 

That explained the sword. But she didn't know about the security part, he looked more like the danger.

Sakura continued to stare at him. Itachi said it would be a long trip, so she wasn't expecting to get there anytime soon. The shark man would occasionally stare at her for a little too long with his beady gray eyes and effectively make her skin crawl. He would do nothing but look at her with a blank face. She shuffled closer to Itachi.

The little smile shark man would try to hide once he finally turned to look back out the window told her he was enjoying himself at her expense.

Itachi and shark man eventually started talking about him taking care of something, effectively taking shark man's attention away from her. She couldn't have been more grateful.

"You can leave as soon as we get there to take care of the problem..." Itachi was saying. She looked back and forth between them.

From what she could guess, they were talking about bandits in a town near where the family gathering was being held. 

Shark man nodded, "I'll come back as soon as I'm done, shouldn't take more than a few hours, " He waved his hand dismissively. Looking at shark man, she felt bad for those bandits.

She tuned them out when the conversation turned to topics she didn't care enough about to eavesdrop on and she gazed out the window. Her brows furrowed when she thought she saw a person jumping through the trees. She stuck her head out a bit more to see if she could see anything.

"Sakura?" Came Itachi's questioning voice. 

She looked back at him, "I thought I saw something." She replied distractedly going back to the window.

"Saw what?" Shark man asked. Sakura stuck her head back inside and opened her mouth to answer him but she never got a chance because the carriage suddenly came to an abrupt stop. She was slightly thrown forward because of her lightweight but now enough to throw her out of the seat.

"What the hell?" Shark man was the first to stand, grabbing his sword and huffing as he threw the door open and stepped outside.

Itachi stood next, turning to her "Stay here." he ordered before walking out behind Kisame and shutting the door to the carriage.