Minako awoke. The bright, stark whiteness of the hospital room frightened her. She felt heavy; her whole body felt as if it had been put underneath some sort of great burden. Her legs ached, her head ached, her very soul seemed to scream out in agony.
She tried to lift her body, but failed, and fell back to her pillow in defeat. Ami sat on the side of the bed, and reached out her hand. Her face was red, indicating that she had been crying for awhile.
Minako's eyes met Ami's. A sort of understanding went between the two.
"….no." Minako's frail voice echoed through the tiny room.
Ami nodded slowly, her eyes welling up with more tears.
Minako's voice cracked. "N-no…no…no…no.." She reached over to her purse, which had been placed on a table beside her bed. She dug her henshin pen out and grasped it with shaking hands. It slowly broke into a million tiny fragments at her touch and ceased to exist.
Feeling overwhelmed her, and Ami leaned over and comforted her shrieking, disbelieving friend. Minako's fingernails dug sharply into Ami's back, as to hold on to one of her last remaining best friends.
Minako shook and cried, until she fell asleep. Sweet angelic music filtered through her head, violins, harps, flutes, all in perfect harmony.
"Ave Maria, ave, ave maria…."
Makoto layed in the darkness of her apartment. Mamoru had driven her home and made sure that she was okay, but Makoto was more worried for his safety. The news struck him unbelievably hard, and he had been silent and staring the entire ride home. Emptiness set inside both of them, and the harsh reality of a bleak future followed.
Makoto closed her eyes. She felt as if she was dying; Usagi, screaming, falling to the floor; her own screams, ringing in her ears, shrieking, yelling, cries for help; the unnerving stillness of Usagi on the cool hallway floor; her locket, which Makoto had grasped and slipped silently into her pocket when the police came and pried her from Usagi's unmoving form.
She opened her eyes quickly, breathing hard, and let the tears fall from her eyes. She shook, not from lack of warmth, but from fear. Nothing was okay anymore.
She thought of Chibusa; how she was never to be, the sweet, candy-colored child of Usagi and Mamoru's dreams, was never to live. The future Moon Kingdom was in ruins, sharp, crystal shards as deadly as daggers flew through Makoto's frightened mind.
Her henshin pen was in pieces, one more reminder of the life yet to come. Evil ones could now do as they wished to the earth; it was no longer able to be saved.
Makoto curled into a ball and pulled the covers loosely over her shoulders. Sleep came, and flung her down an endless corridor of nightmares and horrors of the past day.
The Senshi's broken souls moved as one sorrowful force that night, sorrow in the deepest depths of despair of things that would never come.
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A/N: Oh, and now we reach the end! I thank everyone for the overwhelming feedback I have gotten and am still getting. I'm thinking of writing a sequel; I'm not too sure yet, but one could definitely be in the works. I got the idea a few days before the actual shooting in Santee, California, which I think was a terrible, terrible tragedy. No one needs to go through such sorrow as a school shooting. Thanks everyone, and most probably look out for High Velocity II! ^.~