[center]Yuganori, Kinuko[/center]

Shafts of pale light crept along the cold floor like a pool of frigid candlelight, illuminating everything in a soft white glow as silent footsteps coursed across it, seemingly unwilling (or perhaps unable) to break the serenity of the moment. Slight gusts of chilly air rushed through the pockets of brief incandescence, accompanied by the dying crunches of fallen leaves, splitting into infinitesimally small fragments before joining the bleak nothingness of the light surrounding them. It was part of the cycle of nature, that that which died might give way to new life, and just as this small act was the completion of a cycle, so were the actions of the one who had ended but a single facet of the cycle of nature.

The tight embrace of the forest and its cyclical nature did not allow the wickedness of mortals to pervade it. More footsteps completed more cycles, each time bringing another cycle closer to its eventual end and rebirth, and before long the previously contained pools of light spilled forth into the open grasses, illuminating the field before the village of Konohagakure in a still, radiant light. For all of the radiance of the light, it too was tainted by the actions of men. The light spilled forth unto what was quickly becoming a raging inferno of a battle, a great beast with a thunderous heartbeat pounding through the ground, each pulse of its fiery blood surging through its veins like the drums of a great hunt, out to kill and maim and turn everything it touched into ashes.

Another cycle, perhaps.

Perhaps not.

There were cycles whose times had come, cycles that needed to be reset to preserve the grand design that the world had taken upon itself to create, but it seemed to the woman standing before the fields of battle that this was one such cycle whose time had come prematurely. To one of a small perspective, the change would have been significant, but not disastrous - it could be reversed, or remedied, or a new cycle could be instated. To one possessed of a greater perspective, it was the opposite - catastrophic. There were greater cycles that demanded an appropriate time to close in order to allow more important things to happen, and for each of its constituent cycles that failed to take their proper course, its proper course was delayed. With enough delays, it could be thrown from balance, and with it the entire balance of the world. There were those, blessed with a great understanding of the world's design, that understood the havoc so much as a single errant word could cause - people who would maintain the balance. Intentions were meaningless before the needs of the grand design, however, and those who sought to work against a cycle could bring it to its natural end, and those who sought to preserve them could break their fragile frames with misguided actions. Kinuko was careful enough to intervene only when necessary, to minimise the risks, but even she could not prevent every errant word that sung through the fabric of the cosmos.

Each victim felled in the battle unfolding before her was another victim of the great beast of war, each life extinguished a cycle ended. Some of those cycles were long since due to end, and some had many years left before it was time, but saddest of all were those which had ended at precisely the correct time. Kinuko saw not sadness in that, but beauty, and in the cycles that should have long since persevered she saw a great sadness, a void in which no truth or beauty could exist. It was her place to intervene, but such things must be performed delicately so as to disturb as few of the natural processes as she could. So, on the outskirts of battle, she waited for the great beast to rear its head and rush towards her, drawing her into the deadly dance of war. It was a dance that she knew well, and it was one that she loathed. After all, those who were following the paths set out before them would die before they had trodden their final steps if their paths crossed with hers.

It was a haunting thought, that balance could only be preserved by breaking the tenets one sought to protect, but the preservation of the grand design took precedence over all things - even the tenets designed to protect it.