Gaara lay rigid on the ground, like a discarded rag doll.
His signature Sand Armor had long since shattered, leaving not even a scrap behind.
His normally icy little face was now paper-white, without the slightest trace of life.
Naruto lunged over and reached trembling hands toward Gaara's nose.
There was nothing. Not even a faint breath of warmth.
"Gaara! Don't scare me like this!"
Naruto shouted at the top of his lungs, his voice dry and hoarse, as though his mouth were full of sand.
He kept shaking Gaara's shoulders, but the limp weight of that body sent panic surging through him.
Sen Senju walked over with his hands behind his back, glanced down, and said nothing.
His brow knotted tightly. This body was in worse shape than dried-out tree bark.
Although Shukaku, the One-Tail, had been forcibly extracted, he had taken much of the boy's original life essence with him.
Gaara might technically have been alive, but he was no different from a corpse. Only the faint residual electrical activity in his chest kept him hanging on.
"Sen, say something! Can you still save him?"
Tears welled in Naruto's eyes. All that stubborn determination of his had turned into sheer anxiety.
"Aren't you the strongest? If you step in, he'll be fine, right?"
Sen Senju shoved Naruto aside in distaste, keeping his tears and snot away from his trouser leg.
"Pull that red glow back in first. Your howling is hurting my ears."
He reached out and gently rested his fingertips against Gaara's icy neck.
The moment his fingers touched it, a bone-deep chill seeped into them.
It was the lingering cold left after life force had been completely exhausted, as bottomless as an abandoned well in winter.
Sen Senju stared at that lifeless face for several seconds.