Chapter Text
“No, no, no don’t look at me like that!”, she pleaded as the tears made their way down Ino’s cheeks.
Ino gently directed her hands to her left shoulder and as Sakura lifted her hand again it came away wet and red. A wound. They could deal with that, she had bandages somewhere in her pack and pain medication. It was fine. Everything was fine.
“You know what this means.”
Sakura’s shaking hands stop searching through her backpack and she looks desperate at Ino. Letting her backpack fall to the ground she gently lifts Ino’s face who only smiles at her sadly.
“I will fix this.”
“You can’t stop the infection Sakura.”
This wasn’t fair, she just got her back! Why weren’t they allowed a happy ending with peace and security and…each other.
“But I don’t want to lose you”, she chokes out, her voice failing under the pain that rips open her chest. Ino leans into her hands and gently kisses her wrist.
“I don’t want to leave you”, Ino’s voice is shaking but there is determination in her eyes when she looks back up at Sakura, “But I don’t want to change. Please don’t let me become like them.”
A sob breaks out of Sakura as she realises what Ino is asking her to do, what she can’t deny her. And even if it breaks her heart, she holds out her hand to take her lovers and slowly guides them down the street.
When she finds a suitable place, she barricades them inside. Then she begins to pull out everything that closely resembles blankets from their backpacks and Ino settles onto them. She winces as the movement pulls at her shoulder but Sakura is right there to help her lean against the cold wall.
When Sakura begins to scratch something in the floor next to them, Ino speaks up curiously: “What are you doing? Some light vandalism to brighten the mood?”
Even if the situation called for somberness, Sakura couldn’t help the quiet chuckle but the crack of light in the darkness quickly vanished when she explained.
“I don’t want anyone to forget our names.” She leaned back and cleared Ino’s view of her work. Their names were scratched into the floor there. Both of them. Her head snapped back to Sakura and stared at her confused.
“What is my life in this world if I don’t have you by my side?”
Ino wanted to scream, she wanted to protest but the finality in Sakura’s eyes made herself ask what she would have done. Would she continue living in this horror if she knew Sakura would never come back to her?
The small smile Sakura offered her got blurred by her tears and she pulls Sakura in her arms, clings to her to carry Sakura’s impression with her into the next life.
Sakura lifts her head and kisses her. It’s full of emotion, bursting with unspoken and unspeakable words. With memories they’ll never get to experience, full of summer nights spend awake and rainy days full of quiet words and gentle touches.
Filled with the shooting stars whose wishes will go unused. Inside jokes not yet experienced and laughter that will never fill a room.
And when they part their path is set.
Sakura settles Ino with her back against her chest, embracing her and placing tender kisses on her head. Loading the gun breaks the peaceful silence they embraced. Sakura’s hand shakes as she raises it to Ino’s temple.
“I love you.”
“I love you too, curse this universe where I couldn’t prove it to you.”
With a calm smile Ino lays her hand on Sakura’s and says so quietly, like a secret, meant just for their ears and no one else’s: “You already did.”
Then she pulled the trigger and Sakura sobbed as her body collapsed. The shot would alert the undead but she had barricaded the door as securely as a bunker. Their bodies would not feed those never full stomachs.
“I’ll find you in our next life”, she promises to the woman who died in her arms and lifts the gun to her own head. She can hear something scratch at the doors, loud and hungry snarling but she knows they’ll never hurt them again.
She pulls the trigger.
~~~
‘Yamanaka Ino and Haruno Sakura’ is scratched into the floor next to the bodies of two young woman.
She bends down to pull something out of a backpack that lies on the floor.
Two trashy romance novels. She opens them and begins to read. The pages are stained and used. And between the words of cheap love words, she discovers love letters that were never send or read. She reads about longing and hopefulness. About a reason to keep going.
Sighing she closes the book and stands up again.
“Let’s at least give them a proper burial.”
“She is our friend. Anything else wouldn’t be acceptable.”
“I knew the chances were high we would find her someday Shikamaru, but I always hoped…”, Temari stopped herself, not wanting to talk about foolish fantasies in a world so cruel.
“Me too”, Shikamaru admitted.
“Who knows…in a different universe, we might have.”