Under the Dold–Kan correspondence, a -simplex of is a pair with
The horn consists of the edges and , joined at vertex . A map from it is therefore a pair of composable -simplices, equivalently a triple
where the first edge is and the second is . Thus
The Dold–Kan correspondence says that
is an equivalence from simplicial abelian groups to nonnegatively graded chain complexes of abelian groups. The restriction of the right adjoint to is a quasi-inverse: both the unit and counit are natural isomorphisms.
Regard the given short exact sequence as a degreewise short exact sequence of chain complexes concentrated in degree . The inverse functor in the Dold–Kan correspondence is exact, so it produces a degreewise short exact sequence of simplicial abelian groups
The last map is degreewise surjective and hence a Kan fibration. Its strict fiber is , and a strict fiber of a fibration computes the homotopy fiber. This proves the asserted homotopy fiber sequence of pointed Kan complexes.