About a year ago, this would have been beautiful.
About a year ago Shukaku would have been purring with delight inside Gaara's head.
But now as the the sand-filled wind passed over the countless fallen shinobi, all Gaara could feel was a cold sick emptiness.
Blood had been shed and spilled over the endless sand and was beginning to soak into his desert.
The civil war in Sand had been raging in nearby villages since decades before his birth and years after his father's death.
He as the Kazekage could not end the war without sacrifice, and that sacrifice had turned into bloodshed.
But this? Why This?.
Hundreds were dead in the sand, thousands perhaps. Hundreds of men, women and children who would never return home to their families, hundreds who had lived and loved.
How many people had he killed as a child? More than he or anyone else could count, and without a hint of sympathy or remorse.
Now he was surrounded by a dry sea of lifeless corpses, roting under the desert sun.
He truly was the only one left.
"Isn't this what you wanted?" The ghost of the demon in the back of his mind cooed. "To kill everyone other than yourself?"
As the Tanuki's howling cackle of glee echoed in the wind, Gaara felt his face consort into anguish.