And then everything seems to happen at once. The Schipazoa lunges forward, towards Sarah. The tanks start blasting shots everywhere, the sound like machine-gun fire, and Odd and Ulrich are devirtualized instantaneously. The tarantula corners Yumi, who's now clinging desperately to one of the ropes, unable to get back, but unable to drop down without crippling herself further…

It's over in a single second, not longer than the moment a camera captures with a click of the shutter. There's only one thought in Sarah's head as she speeds towards the greatest of all X.A.N.A.'s monsters. It doesn't matter. I don't care. Besides, if I die now, I die a heroine. A martyr. When the board begins to slice through the Schipazoa's brain, it feels like she's been plunged into a dark, icy lake. Sarah can't see, can't hear…all she knows is the cold and dark. Horrible images form and dissolve in her brain, but only one of them stays with her; herself, alone, dying, bleeding to death, and someone or something laughing bitterly at her fate. Then, it's like she's surfacing; she's through to the other side, and raises her head a fraction of an inch to see what's happened.

Meanwhile, the tarantula attacking Yumi emits an awful, screeching cry and collapses in a heap of crumpled legs.

The Schipazoa's crippled, in its last throes, its brain having been cleanly sliced in two, and it staggers towards Aelita. Sarah abandons her sword-board and jumps between Aelita and the monster, despite the fact that all of her other weapons are still missing. "Aelita, put up a wall, quick!" Jeremie screams. She does so just in time; with a great, shuddering crash, the monster meets the wall and sends it crashing down on them both. Sarah manages to hold the wall up just long enough to let Aelita get out of the way, and then it and the monster's body fall on top of her. Aelita looks around; all the monsters are gone now, and there's only the tower to deactivate, only feet away. But she doesn't want to leave her friend like this. "Aelita, just go!" Sarah gasps, unable to move an inch under the crushing weight. She obeys, and is back minutes later to free her, but Jeremie's voice, concerned and with a hard edge to it, stops her.

"You'll never be able to pull Sarah out. Now, both of you, listen and do exactly what I say. I can't bring her back unless you can get her out, which is impossible. You'll have to devirtualize her, Aelita. And hurry; I don't know what's going to happen with Lyoko now that the Schipazoa's dead. Grab her board and stab her. You have to."

"NO WAY!!!" Aelita yells.

"You have to!" Sarah insists.

Reluctantly, Aelita grabs Sarah's sharp-ended board and raises it over her head, her arms trembling with the weight. "I can't do this," she whimpers, more to herself than to Sarah.

"DO IT!" both Jeremie and Sarah scream.

But Aelita cannot make that one swift movement, that one stab to the raven-haired girl's heart. The sheer weight of the board, though, begins to bring it closer and closer to Sarah; her arms are free, and she grabs the edge and stabs herself, in the heart, almost wishing it was for real.

A minute later, with everyone safe at the factory (Yumi having been caught by the devirtualized Ulrich and helped to get down,) Jeremie tries to figure out the next step. "Now, we may just have defeated Lyoko for good, and as soon as I can figure out the antivirus for Aelita and fix Sarah's imprint, we might just be done fighting forever. On the other hand…" he pauses, not sure how to put the bad news, "…by killing the Schipazoa, we may just have lost the key to curing both of you, or, since it was your vision, Sarah, that told you what to do, we might just be playing right into X.A.N.A.'s hands. And he may just build another, bigger, better army, or call up his reserves. We'll just have to wait and see. And I'm sorry about your ankle, Yumi, but I think we'd better not do a return to the past this time- just tell your parents you tripped or something, because we don't want to risk making X.A.N.A. stronger, especially now. It's getting late, though- let's get back to school. There's nothing we can do right now anyway."

It's a cautiously happy, tired gang that leaves the factory that night, with Ulrich helping Yumi back up. He offers to take her home, but she insists that she and Sarah can manage on their own, and they do, slowly, painfully, Yumi leaning heavily on Sarah the whole way. "You know that was incredibly stupid, right?"she chides her crutch.

"Stupid, nothing!" Sarah teases. "I saved your life, didn't I? Now reward me!" She kisses Yumi playfully, but Yumi resists.

"Just better wait until we get home, okay? I need to get back before I lose what little ability to walk I have left!" And she does make Sarah wait; not until they get back home, with ice on her ankle and enough Tylenol to kill an elephant swimming through her system, does she let Sarah kiss her, and be kissed back.

The next days, which stretch and fold into weeks, are strangely silent; there's not a peep from X.A.N.A. Jeremie's the cautionary voice, warning the rest of the gang that X.A.N.A. might just be going underground or rebuilding its army, but the others regard Sarah with admiration mixed with (in Yumi's and Aelita's cases,) something like hero-worship. And as for Sarah, her life is better than almost ever before. The visions and anxiety attacks don't come any more, the nightmares are all but gone, and as the gang begins to look up to her and she realizes the great thing she's done, she begins to think I am something. I am somebody.I have a gift. Even the occasional call from her parents barely upsets her, and the one time in those weeks when she thinks of harming herself, all she sees is the image X.A.N.A. showed her of her limp body on the floor. It's not just herself she's fighting; it's X.A.N.A., and she'll do anything to win. With Yumi's help, she even begins to do better in school and stops hiding her face behind her hair, but every night, she wonders Is it really over? and fears slipping back.