A/N 500 views since I posted the last chapter less than 24 hours ago! I'm blown away by your response! Thanks for reading and reviewing. I really appreciate it. The end is nigh

The buzz of pain and darkness gave way. A field of swaying grass materialized before him, whispers of wind pushing against his body. He slashed out sensing Shenzi, but his claws parted the darkness like murky water. He looked up and the night sky blazed with light, sharp beams puncturing the sheet of darkness.

I'm dead, he thought and a small shiver of fear rose the hairs of his pelt. He sat up and found no pain, his back leg healed, the vision in his left eye clearer than it had been in years. The ground before him shimmered like water, the green tendrils of grass rising up and wrapping about his paws. Great shapes moved overhead blocking out the light - large translucent lions, their manes and legs outlined by the burning background of stars. A roar boomed so high and above him, that he ducked his head, trying to escape it but the grass manacled itself to his paws, wrapped and dug through his fur, tightening, and he pulled away, but the shackles only tightened.

"Scar, for that is what you call yourself, you will now face your judgment. The dead will speak for you or against you." The voice spoke with the roar of a thousand lions, of a thousand dead kings and queens and lesser lions who died for their prides or lived to a ripe old age passing on surrounded by their loved ones and others cut down in their prime. He knew them at once, the knowledge flooding his mind, image upon image of lives, love, joy, death, blinding him for a moment with all they knew, all they felt, all they lost and loved, so he no longer knew himself. He felt them tear at him even as he came to know them, take and judge and pull things from him. When he thought he couldn't take anymore, when he would succumb, go mad, it stopped. He collapsed, panting against the dirt, the first aches of pain somewhere in his head.

"Where-" he choked, finding his tongue failing him. No. No. Not now. He couldn't give in. Not before these kings, this hallucination. Where was he? How had he gotten here? He dug into himself, finding strength that held another name; images of a young lion with his mane and clear eyes and no scars, sure of himself and his place and never in doubt or pain or humiliation.

"Where am I?" he said, but his voice was weak and mute compared to the baritone of voices that still seemed to ring, caught in the sky, and grass and trees, humming in his own fur and all around him.

"This is too much for you," the voices said. "We will make it easier." The dark starlit savanna warped, hissed and popped and ripped itself in half and funneled away into light.

He stood in the savanna, the wind bristling his fur, the sky stretching far beyond - miles into the horizon - clear and blue, the sun high above, but neither too hot nor cold. He remembered fear, judgment, something holding him to the ground, but the thoughts dribbled away like a dream in the first harsh light. He turned, scanning the field but it was empty. There was nothing but the swaying gold strands of grass and the scent of something sweet. The first sound to break away from the whistling of the wind and the drying cracking of the grass was the padfall of paws. Sarafina stood in front of him. Where had she been? He couldn't remember. It had been a long time since he'd seen her.

"Fi?" he said. Not sure why'd he said that. When had Sarafina become Fi again? But that sense of youth thrilled in his chest.

"Taka," she nodded towards him, and then took a step that brought them into proximity, her nose inches from his. "Taka? Or are you Scar?"

"What do you mean?" he said.

"Who are you?"

"Fi, you know me," he said.

"I knew a lion named Taka and I knew a lion named Scar and they were different. One defined himself by his strengths and the other built himself upon his weaknesses and took his name from an act of violence. Which lion are you?" She circled him, her tail lashing.

Her form shifted with a flicker of light and Mufasa's maw filled the space where hers had been moments before. Scar took a step back. Again the lion's form shifted. Ahadi wavered to life, shimmering and shifting, his paws kicking up golden dust and filling the air. It was as if the lion couldn't decide on its corporeal form. Scar felt a deep hatred, not originating from within himself, but all around him, filling the air, and he knew the thing couldn't keep its form for all the rage that filled it. His world tunneled, the voices seething and writhing as they dissected him and saw his crimes. The thing morphed into his brother, bruised, and bloodied from a hundred antelope hooves, his bloody broken jaw hanging open exposing jagged teeth.

"Brother," he said.

"You're dead," he whispered. His fur stood on end. "I-" the words caught in his throat.

"Admit your crime," Mufasa said and stepped closer. "Admit it to yourself,"

"No- I, brother," everything was fading, the sky stretching and tearing, deep gouges of bleeding sunlight filling the savanna. The ground rumbled under his paws and Mufasa stepped closer, his jaws open, narrowing towards his throat and he fell back catching himself. "No-I-I killed you," he said at last. The ground stopped rumbling long enough that he caught his balance.

The visage stopped, outlined in the morning sun, yet no shadow was cast against the phantom savanna. His brother's features softened. His eyes remained locked on Scar's and he felt that enmity burrowing through him. The contact between them seemed to exist in that gaze, some strange connection and his vision was filled with images, things he couldn't have possibly seen, emotions that he had never known until that moment washed through him, and he reeled, unable to comprehend the level of what was it? Similar to what he felt for Sarafina and Nala, but amplified, so much louder, beating in his head.

Simba being born, his pink mouth opening and taking his first breath, learning to walk, stumbling standing, an overwhelming sense of pride as Simba looked over the Pridelands and then fear. He gasped pulling in on himself, dropping to the ground, Simba in the gorge. He couldn't breathe. He gasped a sharp pain digging through his side. All the world was red, hooves, and dirt, and no air, the pounding of their feet so close to his head, pain racking his body, and Simba hanging from the branch, his feet kicking uselessly in the open air. A flash of darkness, a dark mane in his periphery.

"No," Scar moaned. "I don't want to see. I know how it ends." The images if anything became more tumultuous. And he saw himself from Mufasa's perspective, his eyes burning green, otherworldly in the noon light and pain coursed through his paws where his brother's claws dug into his flesh. Simba would die. Simba would die. My son. My son. Kings, help my Son.

Scar awoke panting, blood in his mouth. Great shadows fought above him, roars and cries, and through the haze in his vision a lithe figure moved.

"Sarafina," he said and his head slumped against the dirt of the elephant graveyard. The word was lost in the sound of battle. His memories were weak, confused. He tried to stand but his body wouldn't respond. The lions changed form before his eyes, sliding into his brother's form, his red mane somehow bright in the darkness and he slashed at the hyenas that treaded close. Some time passed and he opened his eyes. A pair of paws filled his vision. He looked up, seeing the slim outline of a lioness. "Fi," he said.

But she didn't respond and he followed her line of vision to the line of hyenas that stood a few feet from them. Blood dripped from a jagged cut to her shoulder and splattered close to Scar's front paw.

"Dispose of him," Shenzi said. "Then and only then will I consider what you have to say. He's as good as dead anyway. Not even your monkey can heal that wound. Best to put him out his misery."

"Fi," he whispered again, trying to crane his head, trying to make out the features of his savior.

"What's he saying?" Banzai said.

The hyenas words came to him muffled, like cattail fluff filled his ears, and he tried once again to find purchase. His front legs shook and slowly he found he could move his toes, though his legs remained numb. His head was half full of fluff too. He couldn't remember how he'd gotten into this predicament. But he felt warmth without reason at the idea that Sarafina stood above him, and the oddest idea that he had lost her somehow. "You came back," he said against the dirt.

"He's lost his mind," Shenzi growled.

"There has been too much loss, Shenzi," Sarafina said above him.

"We have nowhere to go."

"You can't expect me-" her voice broke and she took a step forward, her fur brushing lightly against Scar's side. "After what you did-" She faltered. Why, why did you bring her into this?"

His vision began to clear a bit and his heart dropped because he remembered what had happened to Sarafina. He pictured the cave that her body rested in. His head spun because it if wasn't Sarafina that stood above him then it could only be Nala.

"Nala," he said with a gasp and she turned and that's when he saw Shenzi's eyes flick towards Ed, her teeth flash in a silent signal and Ed silent this time, moved. A strength coursed through his body and he pushed himself up from the hard gray dirt and caught Ed just before his teeth snapped over Nala's throat. She turned with a surprise gasp. Scar rolled in the dirt and didn't feel any pain, his teeth closing around Ed's leg, but the hyena had his jaws around his throat. He couldn't breathe. He saw Nala from the corner of his eye. Everything dimmed, that drumbeat once again filling the void, sending out a golden ray of light with each beat. It grew so loud and intense that he thought his eardrums would burst.

Simba shook his head, clearing his vision and the blood that had run into his eyes. Ed's body lay close by. He couldn't remember what had happened after running towards Scar. He remembered falling, but everything in between was a blur of darkness and confusion. He had awoken to a roar he recognized but couldn't believe and there was Nala standing next to his mother. They were fighting driving the hyenas back. He joined them and the rest of the pride rallied, fighting and pushing the hyenas back. "I'm okay," she nodded and gave an exhausted smile and he didn't' know if she looked okay, but for now he was overjoyed. She was back. He didn't think he would ever speak to her again and he felt like he could fight. That they would win. She smiled at him. "We can do this."

But then Shenzi had brought the rear troop to the front and the battle turned once again.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The sky was dim, not like last time, not accusatory in its brightness, and he found he could open his eyes without pain.

"This is it then," he said to the darkness, and his words echoed strangely above him.

"Scar."

He recognized her voice.

"Fi."

"So many years since you've called me that," she said and materialized out of the darkness. He moved with strength he hadn't felt in years and then stopped in front of her suddenly aware of what a spectacle he had just made of himself.

"Still self-conscious even in death?" She said and laughed. "You always tried to cultivate such an image of discipline. Here you don't have to be inhibited."

"And where is here?" He said but he couldn't keep the happiness from his voice. "I didn't think I'd ever see you again.'

"Scar, I'd liked to call you Taka. I think you answered your own question."

"I'm dead?"

"Not quite, somewhere in-between."

"Then you must be too."

"I'm afraid not.

"Earlier-"he tried to recall the memory, but he wasn't sure what to call it. The vision of his brother? "I saw Mufasa. At least I think I did. More- I - it sounds ridiculous, idiotic, something a cub would say-"

"No need to rationalize here, Scar. You'll find things are not the same here."

"I felt him," he said. "Rage, fear, hatred. I saw what he saw."

"Something new was it?" She said with that slightly askance smile that he remembered so wall. "To gain another's perspective, hmm? What gave you your logic took from you any form of empathy."

"What of it?" he said.

"It's not entirely true though."

"You found even some without the help of your brother. In our daughter. In Nala."

"She 's okay, Fi. I saw her. At least-" He felt a sudden panic.

"I have to go back." He whirled around peering into the darkness that had since come to surround them.

"It's almost too late, now," she said. "I was sent to retrieve you. To bring you to the Kings."

"To stand judgement?" he said.

"Yes, but don't be so afraid."

"I have to get back." He took a step back, his foot touching the darkness and suddenly he was colder than he had ever been in is life.

"No, Scar, don't go that way. I can't come with you if you go that way. "

"I can't leave her, Fi. I can't leave her now that's she back."

And Sarafina stopped, her eyes wide. "You-you're right. But I can't guarantee what will happen. It will be more pain. "

"When hasn't it been," he said and then hated the sarcasm in is voice. "Why, just tell me why? Why did you go to graveyard? Why did you confront the hyenas on your own?"

"I had too, she said weakly. To protect Nala, to-to protect you, to protect he Pride."

"But why alone?"

"It was something I needed to do. Something I needed to see right by."

"Then you understand that this is what I have to do."

"I'll take you back but I can't cross the barrier with you. I can only go so far."

They moved through the darkness, Sarafina's body soaking heat into his own. It was as if she was the one still alive and he was the one dead for how cold he had grown. He could only see from the faint light that glowed around her body. "Will I ever see you again?" he said and his voice echoed strangely in the darkness, weak and yet seeming to fill everything.

"It is hard to say how the Kings will judge any of our actions."

They stopped, the darkness parted and he could see the fighting, feel it reverberate up through his paws.

"Keep her safe, please keep her safe, Taka."

For the second time, he awoke.