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[LABEL FINAL_THOUGHTS_MINAKO_AINO]
The graves of my friends. Ami, Rei, Makoto, and Usagi. Usagi would
forgive me, I'm sure, but I can never forgive myself for what I did to
them. Let this thought recording be my last statement. Not an apology:
I could never hope for any honest person to sincerely accept my
apologies. Just an explanation.
I'd been doing it to them all along, almost since I met them. But it
was not until Usagi fainted that I began to suspect something was wrong.
Not that it was her first faint, of course. With all the battles we've
been through, she got knocked unconscious every so often. And then
there was the time her drink was spiked. I still think Mamoru did it,
just as an excuse to leave the party. Oh, well, don't put the upturned
apple cart before the hor-
No. Never again. That's what caused this whole mess, and I will not
allow even the possibility that these words might cause the same fate I
devoted my life to stopping.
Anyway, this time, we had not seen any monsters for months, and as it
turned out, the last group were the last we would live to see. We were
just sitting around, chatting and being ourselves, when Usagi collapsed.
Now that I think about it, she had been looking a little weak, but I did
not think it important at the time. Hindsight is...is...20/20. Damn
it, Mina, keep it together, don't let yourself slip back into the
pattern!
All four of us spent a very worried hour at the local hospital's waiting
room. It was a simple case of dehydration, they said. No one knew how
it could have come about - she was certainly drinking enough fluids and
all - but a few bottles of saline solution and another hour's rest, and
she was back on her feet. The others thought it might be some hidden
monster - understandable, given our lives at that point - but I knew
what had happened just before she went down. When I pestered the nurse
and Usagi about it, they agreed to put a hydration monitor on her arm,
broadcasting to a monitor I held, at least for a few days so I could
make sure this would not happen again. (Usagi caved in when I said it
might help us find whatever monster did this, if it attacked her again
and not me. She is...was...the princess, so she was the most likely of
us to be a target, as demonstrated by some of our other enemies.)
I checked the monitor every so often, trying to find out exactly what
could have been the cause. She dipped lowest when she was talking to
me. An obvious connection, but when I asked Rei in private, she could
not detect any evil attached to me. Nevertheless, I started making
jokes about "responsible Nurse Minako", comparing my behavior this time
to prior times I had taken care of my friends...and then Rei fainted.
Same cause, same circumstances. No one else connected the faints, and
no one else had been monitoring Usagi's levels, so no one suspected me.
I knew what was going on, but what could I do?
Ami said, once, that anyone could learn science if they wanted to. I
set to it, studying the biology of the activity in question. I was
tempted to devote all of my free time to it, but that might provoke
exactly the reaction I was trying to prevent. I socialized - a bit less
enthusiastically than normal, but at a fine balance: not low enough to
provoke the reaction on its own, yet not high enough that my normal
behavior would provoke it either. This distracted my from my studies,
though, so I thought it worth the risk of asking Ami for help. When I
revealed what I had been doing and how I came to my conclusions...
Poor Ami. Your sweatdrop muffled your final words. I did not hear what
you said, just before you keeled over, desiccated.
I dared not reveal what I knew to the others. Their reactions would
have been even more extreme, though equally fatal. I told them instead
that Ami had almost tracked the cause down, and was discussing things
with me when it got her. They were suprised that I would be her first
choice...and suprise caused *it*. Makoto died that night, Rei the next
day. Usagi only held on because I forced some of my life energy into
her through her crystal, despite her pleas not to. When she finally
pried my hands off, she fell into a coma...asleep, but alive.
I had no time to lose. The work actually was not that hard, once I set
myself to it. And in the end, it paid off. Not in time for my friends,
but at least no one else need ever suffer the same fate.
I finished just in time for Usagi to come around. I was so happy to see
her alive, I blurted out what I had come up with...
I think I denied feeling the stiffness of her death for three whole
seconds.
When I released her, there was the head-sized sweatdrop on her face,
leeching away her precious bodily fluids. I swatted it off of her as
fast as I could, but too late.
So there you have it. I, Minako Aino, killed my four best friends just
by being myself. I have come up with a vaccine - actually a slight
alteration to the human genetic code, though I'm sure it'll work on most
mammalian life forms - that prevents sweatdrops from taking a
significant portion of one's liquids and evaporating them away. Michiru
and Haruka are retrieving the data from my labs now. Setsuna is not
here, not that I blame her: she's already seen what is about to happen,
mourned if she will, and does not care to see a friend die. As for
Hotaru...
"Are you ready, Minako-mama?"
"Do it." Kill me. That glaive of yours should be sharp enough to
decapitate in one stroke.
I'm sorry, my-
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