By Nyance-ler

A/N: I wasn't drunk for this one, so this gore warning is a little more serious than last time. If you weren't necessarily bothered that round, this one might be a little different, so perhaps consider turning around.

And with nothing but despair looming, Scar took the child in his arms, gazing at it sadly. This was all too much for one person to bear.

He couldn't go on. He knew this.

But would it be fair to leave such a young life alone with nothing but a legacy of tragedy?

Of course not.

Sighing, Scar gently stroked the child's back, making his way from the gruesome scene before him. It took only a few minutes before he'd reached the edge of a steep cliff. For a moment, he contemplated simply taking himself and the baby over its edge, but even in this mindset he knew he couldn't risk any extra pain to the infant. It was already too cruel.

Carefully, he sat, rocking the baby to sleep in his lap. When he was certain that it was calm, he took a nearby rock in his hands and, choking back a sob, quickly ended a life far too short. There wasn't a moment's hesitation, no chance that he'd done unnecessary damage. That, at least, was a relief.

As he saw the jagged rocks below rapidly approaching, he knew it was the last relief he'd ever be granted.

When he came too, he snapped up, fearing that he'd somehow failed. The gaping wound in his side and the feeling of crushed ribs…

He could see his lungs peering out from under them.

Scar swallowed down the panic he was feeling, trying to clear his thoughts. There was no way he was alive with an injury that deep. He had definitely died. But nothing about his surroundings could tell him where he was. It was too dark; the entire landscape, if it could even be called that, was overcast with shadow. There was no sky that he could see, and nothing but cold stone in every direction as far as he could make out.

He lifted himself, careful of his wounds, and began walking forward. Hopefully, he at least could find some sort of landmark if he continued long enough.

Not long after he'd begun his journey, he was tackled to the ground, hissing in pain as he could feel his exposed lung being crushed against the other's body. Shoving back, he found secure ground and threw himself upon his attacker.

"What…Mufasa?" It had been one surprise to recognize the face of his brother in the infant he'd carried earlier, but this was another shock entirely. His dead brother, given life again to have it taken away, was before him once again as he'd remembered him from so long ago.

That wasn't right. No, not exactly as he'd been. Mufasa hadn't had a jaw barely held to his face by thin strands of bleeding flesh. Mufasa's arms weren't shredded from his wrists to his elbows, Mufasa's face hadn't been marred by scratches and gashes, Mufasa hadn't been some gushing fountain of blood and pain.

Before he could even register that Mufasa wasn't going to and couldn't give him an answer, someone else was tugging him back by the shoulders and pinning him to the ground. His head hit the stone with enough force to send the world spinning. When he moved to shake himself back into focus, he felt his head restrained, as well.

And when the dizzying rush finally ended, he found himself looking at another familiar face. He didn't bother to say the name this time. He knew well who she was, and when she dipped her face down to meet her lips to his, he gladly welcomed it. It had been too long since he'd known her touch. It was just as rough and eager as he'd remembered all of Zira being.

Warm, as well. A contrast to the cold hands pressing against his jaw to keep him in place. As she held him, the warmth spread, and he smiled into their kiss briefly before he felt the warmth spread outside of the kiss. It trailed down the side of his mouth, fell down his neck in a neat line. It wasn't warmth from a lover's affection.

When Zira pulled back, her eyes wide with mad fury, she held his bloody, twitching tongue within her toothy grin.

With the realization came the pain all at once. Scar thrashed violently, finding that his legs were being held by that point, as well. His dear brother had taken the time to restrain his lower half, now panting deeply as his hands trailed slowly up Scar's torso, leaving bright scratch marks as far as he went.

Mufasa's eyelids fell, his cheeks rising in a mockery of the smiles he'd once been capable of, and he buried his hand beneath the flesh of Scar's open wound. Careful not to damage the exposed organs, he gave the loose skin a few experimental tugs before violently tearing it back, earning a scream from his brother beneath him.

"Mu…ha…sha…" The expression came between gurgling noises as Scar struggled to breathe equally as hard as he struggled to articulate himself.

His brother's expression didn't change in the slightest as he buried the other hand beneath another portion of flesh, ripping it open, as well. His hands were quickly becoming slick and sticky with blood and viscera as Scar's abdomen, then his whole torso, were exposed.

Scar's breaths came in shallow pants. He could see all of his insides at work, heedlessly churning away at what was hopefully a needless duty. He'd have turned his head if he could. Instead, he merely closed his eyes.

A tutting sound reached his ears as he felt the cold grip on his head shifting upwards. Fear held his eyes crushed shut. He managed to squeeze them further together when he felt a thumb trail over his left eye, stopping in place and rubbing it in mock affection.

"We can't have you missing your own show, dear." Her voice was too low, too rough, too happy to be here right now.

He felt her nail enter his eyelid and barely choked back a shout. She dragged it slowly across, tugging down as she went before dropping the skin atop the now exposed eye. Scar frantically tried to blink the flesh away, vision already clouded red and dead skin irritating his exposed eye. His entire body writhed beneath the others' grips, but he was becoming weak far too quickly. He'd lost more than enough blood to have died again by this point.

Zira, after waiting for Scar's struggling to lessen, plucked the skin she'd removed from his eye, not before turning it over and using the cleaner parts to wipe away some of the blood from the wound. Her former lover's remaining eyelid twitched the way through in his last attempts to remove the irritation. She chuckled, realizing that the lashes must have been scratching his eye as she wiped it. He'd still be able to see, though, so it served its purpose.

She nodded to Mufasa, holding Scar's head in place once more as the other man ran his palms across the hard muscle that remained atop his brother's chest, fingers trailing delicately across organs as he continued down and eventually found his grip on the ropey organ he'd been searching for. With the gentleness he'd lacked earlier, he began to slowly unwind it, placing it neatly in a pile to the side.

Scar's panting quickened, his stomach twisting in what he could only pray weren't literal knots. He opened his mouth to protest, but when the fresh blood spilled out he remembered why he couldn't. The tugging sensation he felt from inside as he watched his intestines unwound on his outside gave him a feeling of dissonance, the first mercy he'd felt through the entire ordeal. It was like watching a dream.

The feeling was still inside, but he could see it being moved out of him. It couldn't be the same thing. It wasn't actually happening. He wasn't really here. He wasn't really here. He wasn't reallyhere he w a snt' re al y l he r e

The tugging feeling stopped when Mufasa had finished unwinding it, trailing his hands to its base at Scar's stomach. He felt his way around the organ, gently, before gripping the base of it where it met the beginning of the rope he'd unwound and forcefully tugging it.

Scar managed a grunt at that. He frantically searched himself for the damage. The tug hadn't torn anything open.

Another tug and, this time, he could hear it ripping apart.

If he hadn't been watching his bile spill out into the cavity of his torso, he could've thrown up at the sight. The blood was enough for his dry heaving spell.

And even as he saw the remnants of his insides dissolving, the white of his spine exposed, he knew the end was nowhere near. Not yet.

Not in this hell.