Shadowed: Prelude
Kino Makoto gazed across the vast wastelands where sparse, dry brown grasses were the only indicators of long-destroyed life. So many things had changed since the twentieth century: the environment, the definition of life and humanity...and the senshi themselves. Even Usagi, whom they had tried to protect from the horrors of their new lives, had not remained unchanged.
Now, as Neo-Queen Serenity, with her Mamo-chan as Neo-King Endymion, dealt with the remnants of the government and people of the world. Meanwhile, the senshi patrolled everywhere, with the meager military that was more like a colonial militia. And then on Saturday... Makoto smiled bitterly as she thought about Saturdays, The last day of the week, the senshi returned to the Crystal Palace, dressed as princesses, and danced with diplomats. The situation would almost have been funny if it hadn't been true. The four senshi spent the other six grueling days wiping out stray youma and daimons, barely in possession of proper utilities (namely running water and toilets), and then on Saturday, they dressed in silk, unbloodied or torn, and danced. They waltzed, smiled, and gossiped as if they had nothing else to do but look pretty and adorn the throne room.
Shaking her head as she knelt in the sandy dirt, Makoto sighed as she remembered the painful events of the past few years.
Ami had been the first one to submit to hopelessness. Now she worked like a machine, bringing in the sick and dying, treating them as best she could, and burying more than half of them. She lived for the senshi and Usagi, being as useful as she could, but held no real enthusiasm for the world except when she was around Usagi. There, at the Crystal Palace, the petite blue-haired woman continued to act cheerful and lively, but the others saw through the useless facade.
Rei and Minako had gone away for around a month to the far north-east to do some damage control. No one knew what had happened there, but the senshi had returned drastically changed and refused to recount the episodes that had occurred. The dark-haired senshi was still spiritual, but it was kept in the confines of her soul. The bright-haired and natured senshi leader had lost her eternal spark during that trip to unsaid terrors. Rei, in turn, no longer seemed to possess the previously unquenchable fiery spirit that had characterized her as Mars. They were as tired and soul-weary as Ami, but Minako still tried to keep their team together. They all lived for duty, with souls ravaged beyond healing.
Now Makoto was the only one left. She still wished for happy times and wanted to fulfill their original dreams of peace and contentment. She still wanted to find love, to have children, to make a new life for herself. The first blow had come when they had had to give up their respective careers. Then the second heavy strike to their hearts ha came when they had become orphans, like Makoto herself. Usagi's parents and younger brother, Rei's grandfather, Minako's parents, and Ami's mother (no one knew about her father, and she wasn't bothering to look for him) had all died for one simple, cruel reason: they had been related to the senshi, and the senshi deserved to suffer. That was the only goal of revenge.
Shadowed
Infinite Ice
