A/N:

So I've actually been working on this sequel here and there since I finished the last part. I'd planned to get these installments out before the end of the summer, but time and inspiration weren't on my side. I finally made the decision to just get this draft out of the closet, dust and finish it, because it's been nagging me in the back of my mind for months. Now that this is out of my system, I can focus better on my other project(s).

I had fun experimenting with this piece in terms of the writing style and format. I hope you all will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Part II


Seconds, minutes… he knows not how long he has before he meets his fated end. Deep down in his guts, his survival instincts practically scream and beg for him to command his limbs to run, to fight, or to just let her do her fucking job... Anything other than what he's doing right now that may allow him a few pathetic seconds more to his doomed existence.

But he steels his mind and doesn't reconsider his decision on how he wishes to take his last breaths before Death comes knocking.

Their kiss is a better moment spent, he thinks, rather than her vain efforts to prolong his life. He'd simply wanted her to shut up. Her paradoxical words and actions were having a profound impact on him, and he didn't need his fear to be fed at a time like this. Though as he continues with the unrefined act, there are flashing seconds that make his original intention blur.

Her lips are soft and pliable, not at all like his chapped and blood-stained ones. There is sweetness in them, unadulterated by the taste of metal and saline; there is promise in them, he finds, of something delightful to come… If only they weren't where they were, being shackled by their sealed destiny in this damned hell on earth, about to be exterminated—He presses his tongue against her mouth. At an insistent push, she lets him delve inside rather easily. Just then the cries of desperation and despair in his background seem to fade just a little.

Right now, he figures if he puts more mind into this, it may just help him become completely numb...

Still, this moment—for which he feels an irrational desire to stretch it into eternity—becomes a fleeting moment, as an acrid voice creeps over them, interrupting and robbing him of those brief minutes of ironic peace.

"Look what do we have here. Two little love birds."

She breaks away from their connection abruptly. A gasp of horror escapes her, and her hand immediately finds his, squeezing it. A surprisingly pleasant warmth blankets his cold digits. A shame that he's not in a time nor place to enjoy it.

The horrific sounds and smells that he'd gone oblivious to earlier come assaulting his senses all at once, as his vision clears to the view before him for a split second before it starts to shake violently.

Before them stands the Grim Reaper in flesh. Evil's reincarnation.

He seethes. Despicable is too kind a term to ascribe to this vile man. And hate is too lenient an emotion to describe how he feels toward him. He feels so much more, as contempt poisons every fiber of his being. Simply killing him is considered a mercy. He wishes nothing more than to shred him into pieces, crush him like a vermin, and decimate him until there's nothing left to bury. And let his tortured screams become music to his ears.

But even then, he knows it will not make himself whole again.

That line of bleak thought, along with the immobilizing pain, is enough to taper the hot rage and fiery defiance in his eyes, causing them to vanish into oblivion. In front of his enemy, the one that took everything from him, he relents through his ragged breaths:

"Just fucking get it over with."

Ironically, for someone who's been entrusted with the lives of tens of thousands of people, he's in no power to dictate his own.

When the last word of his surrender dies out in the wind, the hand that encases his squeezes harder. And he resists the urge to reciprocate, even more so the urge to look at her face. In this moment, there's nothing he can offer her or vice versa; no reassurance, no cold comfort.

"Too easy and too dull. I have a better idea."

Every syllable out of the lunatic's mouth grates on his ears like sandpaper grinding against his eardrums. His body trembles against his will, and he curses himself for it.

"How about we see which one of you breaks first."

The sight of the mad man's sneer causes his innards boil, but the sound of his words makes his blood run cold.

The man's crazed eyes shift back and forth between them both, like a predator seeking its prey. When he settles them on the spot next to him, he grins with malice; amusement dances in his evil glint.

Before he knows it, the warmth in his hand is snatched away. He's too slow to grab it and make it stay a second longer. Time seems to still, while he watches helplessly as she drifts further and further from him until a giant skeletal being ensnares her in its hand.

Then it all becomes a fucking nightmare.

His eyes go round with terror at the sight of her writhing in the hold of the monstrous skeletal being. She looks so tiny and fragile, about to snap in two like a twig at the slightest pressure. The tightening of the Susanoo's grip brings about a crunch of bones and agonizing screams. It threatens to devour the little sanity he didn't know he still has left. Her face contorts, her beauty marred by the trails of scarlet that flow down her mouth.

She coughs and chokes on her own blood and tears, as she struggles to mouth something to him. When he makes sense of her message, he breaks.

"I'm... sorry…"

It utterly destroys him.

The guttural screams tear through him and pierce through the thick air. Full of horror, hysteria, fear... His screams, this time.

His eyes widen, bulging from their sockets, but he can no longer see clear. His screams perpetuate, his vocal cords near rupturing, but he can no longer hear his voice. The howling winds drown out his near-inhuman cries.

A tsunami of sand erupts, pulverizing everything in its path and reducing all to dust without discretion, the smell of decay seeps deep within. The sand shrouds the sky, darkens it like midnight. It hurls and slings as it pleases, on its own accord, not restricted by any conscious thought from him. He had none to spare at that point anyway.

The violent waves come crashing down on his foe from every direction and dwarfs him. The smallest trace of surprise registers on the dark-haired man's face, and he's quick to redirect his avatar to his protection. But the ravenous sand seeks out every weak spot in his armor. Beating, crushing, obliterating with unrelenting force.

In the edge of the sandstorm, he lies paralyzed. Not knowing what becomes of the mad man, he's left with the sensation of the savage that the sand wreaks upon his own flesh for the first time. The raging dusts blind him, and the screeching winds deafen him. Millions of grains whip his no longer armored skin raw, tearing into him and close to flaying him. As he basks in this unaccustomed pain, he wishes it upon his enemy, but a thousandfold more...

When the wrath of the storm ebbs, he finally sees... His adversary, strung high in mid-air; only his head remains visible, the rest of him… cemented into a mountain of sand that shapes itself into a colossal form. A figure that resembles a woman; one that's strangely motherly, given the way it cradles the man. Yet, it's an embrace that's meant to smother and kill.

The antagonist leers in spite of his immobility, yet the craze in his ashen face gives way to resignation.

"Well done, Kid Kazekage, wel" The sand has no tolerance for his speech. It rushes to fill his mouth, his nose, his ears, his every crevice, silencing him until the end of time.

At the sight of the fresh grave, he manages to produce a rueful smirk despite his stiff lead-like jaw muscles, but it quickly evaporates from his face. The void in his soul, unfilled by the gratification of vengeance, is what he will carry with him to hell, so it seems.

As he rests on his own makeshift deathbed from the rubble, he thinks about the parting gift that the deranged man leaves him. A question unanswered: He doesn't know who actually breaks first in Madara's sick and twisted experiment. Everything hurts just so damn much. The pain continues to burn and radiate, eating every inch of him like fire ants. When he makes out a blob of pink from the distance, he can't help but feel bitter.

"...when you go, I'll make sure it won't hurt."

He's appalled to admit. Fear did get the better of him, and he'd entertained her proposal, as conceived by her own unbalanced mind.

Now he hates that she gave him false hope.

In the end, before the world fades from his vision, all he can do is to keep his angry and disappointing eyes on her unmoving body...

And think about how she couldn't keep her fucking words.