want me to love you in moderation, do i look moderate to you?
rating: t
genre: romance/angst
pairings: inosaku
POV: Sakura
other notes: rae asked for sakura and ino taking over the world. title is from florence + the machine's moderation.
word count: 601
When they are finally alone in a room, Ino pushes Sakura against a wall–her armour clattering against the stone–and kisses her with enough gentleness to bring Sakura to weeping.
Ino holds her there, steady with the stone against her back, sobs tearing through her, carved out of her lungs like a sword brought to bear. Ino tastes of almonds and fierce, iron coated joy.
"We survived," Ino brushes along Sakura's cheek, tongue catching the blood drying on her skin. "There is no stopping us now."
They survived and Sasuke is dead and all there is now is the aftermath of what they have done.
They survived and all there is now is the rest of their lives, a kingdom held in the space between their lips.
Ino keeps her nails trimmed and clean, and adorns herself with golden rings and wide gestures. Sakura brews poisons, but is the one to lick them from Ino's mouth.
"When will it be enough?" Sakura does not ask.
There is more to digging your fingers into a kingdom than bloody battles. Sakura has held men's guts in her hands, and this she knows.
There is no use winning a kingdom only for it to slip from your grasp and shatter.
It will never be enough.
Ino's hair is twisted in a golden coronet of braids.
Sakura goes to her knees and lifts up the heavy brocade of Ino's skirt.
Sakura does not ask if she is enough. She knows the answer.
"I don't understand," Naruto says when he has finally seen, finally understood. He shakes as he cries. "Why would you do this, Sakura?"
Sakura laughs. "Do you want to know, Naruto? Do you really? Because you've never wanted to know."
"Sasuke is dead!" Naruto roars. "And it is your fault."
He is shaking with rage now, too.
Sakura isn't scared of him.
He should have known to be scared of her, but Naruto has never once looked at her and seen her for what she is.
Maybe things would have turned out differently if he had ever seen her as clearly as he does in this moment.
Maybe things wouldn't have ever turned out differently; Sakura has never been something for Naruto to save.
"You have a choice, Naruto," Sakura says, instead of agreeing. "You can choose to join us and to make a better future."
"Or I can die? You'll kill me, Sakura? Really, you think you can do it: look me in the face and kill me?"
Sakura smiles sadly.
Ino asked her, earlier, if she was sure.
Sakura had pressed a kiss to her palm in thanks.
The storybooks don't tell tales of old kings with grey beards who grip kingdoms in their hands to suffocation and call it tradition.
They tell tales of old kings with grey beards who uphold the law and call it goodness.
Sakura grew up in the dirt and would have stayed there. She was never the kind of girl godmothers appeared to, to bless with destiny.
Ino is no godmother.
Sakura winds herself around Ino's back and sets her teeth to Ino's neck.
There are no girls here, only witches and serpents and old men shrieking for the world that called their ignorance kindness, called their malice ignorance.
Ino tangles her hands in the sheets and strains against Sakura's grip on her hips.
"Tell me what's next," Sakura demands.
Ino obeys, and whispers of politics and daggers and fingers plunged into the dirt.
Here is revolution, with Sakura worshiping at her altar. Ichor, and the smell of burning, and prophecy on the wind.