"Sakura," the blonde whispers softly, as if afraid to raise her voice. Perhaps if she raises her voice, it would shatter the moment. While it can be put back together again, it would not be the same. In a thousand pieces, a moment can look like a tragedy.
"Ino," whispers the pinkette back. For if her the other woman chooses to speak first and dare that first step, isn't it courtesy that she speak back? If one has already dared shatter the calm and it has resisted, then replying does not look so foreboding. Perhaps, it even looks docile...
They stand, waiting for the first moment in which one will explain. The moment in which all that has happened, all that can happen, and maybe, if one wishes hard enough, what will happen will come into perspective. But neither wishes to take a breath against Fate, that cruel woman that twists lives at a whim. So, they speak for what has happened and what is happening.
"I didn't mean to...She was just there and you were gone and...Would saying I'm sorry help any?" asks Ino, sparkling tears tinted crimson in the shimmer of stained glass roll down high cheekbones.
"It doesn't change the fact you slept with another woman. Don't I mean anything to you?"
From it's position lowered, as if not seeing her pink-haired lover would make every wrong disappear, the blonde's head snapped up. "Of course you do! You mean the world to me! I would die for you, live for you, kill for you..."
In this stained-glass room, Sakura pulls a kunai from her belt pouch and throws it at Ino. Watching as it catches a blue light, making it look far more dangerous than it should be, the blonde catches it. She watches dully as the weighted metal spins around her finger in a dance she's all to familiar with. The kunoichi knows how to defend herself with any bladed weapon. "Would you kill her for me?"
Firm in her resolve, Ino states clearly, "No."
The pinkette gives a brief, grim smile. "Good. No Shinobi of the Leaf should have morals any lower."
"True," the blonde says. "Will you forgive me?"
"Do you deserve to be forgiven?"
"No."
"Would you brave Fate herself to change what you have done?" Sakura's tone of voice is changing and Ino cannot tell why.
Lifting her chin in unconscious defiance, she screamed the word that changed it all, "Yes!"
The world around her warped. It twisted and writhed, colors blending and mixing. The world fell away, one grain at a time, until all that was no longer existed. Then, the blonde was suddenly cold. "Ice," she whispered and it was written into existence. Suddenly, as if by magic, a great throne of frozen water rose before her. Seated was a woman of incomparable beauty. She had the palest of blonde hair, paler than Ino's own, with wisps of silvery blue. The woman herself had an other-worldly glow.
"Ms. Yamanaka. Ino, I presume?" a voice spoke. It sounded as if in her head, resounding in a way it resembled the cadence of a waterfall and the mellow sound of a feather touching the Earth.
"Yes, Deity." The blonde fell to her knees, an immediat show of respect to the woman she was certain was the one called Fate.
"I am Fate and you are Destiny. You can choose to erase what has happened, but at a price."
"Price, Fate?" asked Ino, daring to raise aqua-marine orbs to the depthless eyes of Fate, that could only be compared to the sky on it's clearest night.
"Only you will know what was and what could have been."
The woman gestured long, slender fingers and the world, once again, fell away from the blonde. She watched an apartment where she could see herself and a brunette child she did not know. That child played happily with a train-set, her brown, doe-like eyes, alight with happiness. Then, without warning, the child fell, the hilt of a kunai sticking out of her slender throat. Ino tried to cry out, but she found she couldn't. She closed her eyes and opened her mouth in a silent scream.
She, then, underwent another vertigo in which she landed once more before Fate. "That child's death will come if the liasion is continued at the moment. If you wish to erase the part in which you betrayed your lifemate, then only you, Destiny, can decide what will happen. Do you wish to continue?"
Ino kept her eyes closed, wishing away the image of the slaughtered child. "Just tell me why? Why that child?"
"That is your and Sakura's child. She was killed because Sakura is one of the best medical-shinobi to ever grace the world."
"Just give me...just take away what I have done. I will paint a new story for Sakura and I."
The ethereal woman nodded. "So be it."
With another wave of her hand, Ino fell into darkness. Moments later, she found herself opening her eyes, her pink-haired lover asleep peacefully next to her. Ino reached over and touch Sakura's shoulder. Eyelids fluttered over green irises before sliding open.
"What is it? Ino?"
The blonde just stared before claiming Sakura's lips, just to know if she was real. As Ino pulled back, the pinkette staired worriedly. With tears in her eyes, the blonde answered, her mind on the never-slain child. "Nothing. Absolutely nothing."