"Someone, come here. Feed the Kazekage his sand."
Having climbed out of the apocalyptic crater, Ikki left behind that single, chilling command before his silhouette completely vanished from Rasa's sight.
I will not let you have this... even in death, I will not let you strip away my dignity! A fierce, suicidal resolve flashed in Rasa's eyes. He desperately tried to force his shattered chakra pathways to mold Magnet Release, intent on crushing his own heart before he could be humiliated. However, before he could gather even a sliver of energy, two battered, stumbling figures blocked out the sun above him.
"Elder Chiyo... Elder Ebizō..." Rasa gasped. Seeing the siblings manage to stand brought a fleeting surge of relief to his chest. But as he truly looked at them, that relief violently curdled into shock and rising terror. "Wait... what are you doing?"
"We are feeding the Kazekage his sand," Chiyo rasped, a miserable, hollow smile twisting her wrinkled face. Beside her, Ebizō said nothing. He merely offered a slow, silent nod.
"Are you insane?!" Rasa shrieked, his voice cracking in panic. "The Iron Fist is punishing all three of us for standing in his way! Do you honestly believe that by acting as his dogs—by helping him humiliate me—he's going to spare your lives?! Wake up! The number of samurai and shinobi he slaughtered in the Warring States dwarfs the entire population of the Hidden Sand!"
Desperate, Rasa tried to reason with them. "Have you forgotten his ultimatum? 'Crawl back to the Land of Wind and eat sand, or go meet your First Kazekage.' That wasn't just directed at me! From the exact moment we told that monster to step aside, we were all tied to the same sinking stone!"
"It is true that his ultimatum was directed at the village as a whole," Chiyo replied, her voice eerily calm. "But you were the only one who commanded him to step aside, Lord Kazekage."
"You..." Rasa stared at her, utterly bewildered. But as his frantic mind rewound the encounter, a sickening realization washed over him. She was right. The elders had tried to negotiate safe passage. They had bowed. From beginning to end, Rasa was the only one who had screamed at the Iron Fist to get out of his way.
"Do not mistake our actions for cowardice, Lord Kazekage," Ebizō said, letting out a long, shuddering sigh as he watched Rasa look at them as if he wanted to flay them alive. "Death is merely a momentary release. It is the living who must endure the true agony."
"If this isn't cowardice, then the word has no meaning!" Rasa roared, his fury eclipsing his fear. "No, what you are doing is a complete insult to the very concept of survival!"
He glared at the two elders with pure, venomous hatred. So this is the rot at the core of the Hidden Sand. No wonder the village had languished in the barren deserts for generations. With spineless fossils like this at the helm, how could the Kazekages of the past ever hope to achieve greatness?
"We never expected to leave this desert alive," Chiyo interrupted, shaking her head. "Do not be delusional, Lord Kazekage. We know the Iron Fist's judgment applies to us as well. Whether we choke on sand or join Lord Reto in the afterlife... my brother and I are more than ready to face our First Kazekage."
Rasa froze. He looked closely into Chiyo and Ebizō's eyes and saw nothing but an endless, suffocating void. There was no desperate spark of survival. They were the ashen, dead eyes of people who had completely given up on tomorrow.
"You were born too late to understand," Chiyo continued, her voice dropping into a grim whisper. "Do you truly believe his title of 'Ninja Hero' comes from a kind, benevolent heart? In an era where five-year-old children were sent to die with kunai in their hands, do you think Ikki saved people? No. He earned that title because he butchered so many warring clans that the survivors had no choice but to unite. The Hidden Villages, the Daimyo treaties, this entire modern era... it was all born from the absolute, primal terror of his fists. The clans banded together because it was the only way to survive him."
"If we're all going to die anyway, then why are you doing this to me?!" Rasa demanded, driven to the brink of madness by her bleak exposition.
"Because you did not listen," Chiyo said, her complex gaze falling heavy upon the broken man. "You ignored my warnings. You ignored Ebizō's counsel. You insisted on expanding this war and dragging the Sand into the crossfire. Even then... I do not blame you for your ambition."
She knelt beside the mound of gold dust. "When you commanded the Iron Fist to step aside, you dragged my brother and me into the abyss with you. I do not blame you for that, either."
Chiyo scooped up a handful of the metallic sand, her trembling hand hovering over Rasa's face.
"But the lives of the two thousand shinobi standing above us... the total collapse of our military strength... the complete eradication of our village's future... that I cannot forgive."
Tears finally welled in the elder's eyes. Since the mysterious disappearance of the Third Kazekage and the defection of Sasori of the Red Sand, the village's foundation had been critically fragile. They had only four true Kage-level combatants left. Today, because of Rasa's suffocating arrogance, they had lost three of them in a single afternoon. The Hidden Sand was doomed to fall to the absolute bottom of the Five Great Nations, ripe for invasion and slaughter.
"As the Fourth Kazekage," Chiyo whispered, her voice laced with inescapable finality, "you must have the resolve to swallow the bitter consequences of your pride."
A/N: Apologies for the late upload guys. Got a little too drunk yesterday then woke up with a killer hangover. For this week, every 100 Powerstones will get ya'll an extra chapter! Thank you!