Mist shrouded the land. It swirled heavily around the ankles of the two women, obscuring their feet and what they stood on. White-grey clouds churned overhead. There was nothing else in the landscape besides the two women.

The first woman was a haggard old crone. She was wrapped up in a large grey cloak. She had once been very beautiful, as one might see if they dared look close enough, but age and disease had ravaged her. Gone were her thick, shiny curls and her plump, rosy cheeks. Gone were the sparkles from her eyes and the smile from her lips. She was frail and bent but her mind was still agile. Her wit was sharp and her disdain for the beauty that had been taken from her was strong.

The other woman was young and beautiful, but her image was in flux. Her appearance flickered disturbingly between that of a dark-haired woman with large lavender eyes and that of a pale-haired woman with onyx eyes. The only things that remained the same between the appearances were two depressions where bone was missing. There was a crescent shape under her left eye and an oval cut from her sternum. She also wore a grey cloak, but hers was pushed back on her shoulders to reveal a plain white dress underneath.

"You are brave to take on this challenge," the hag told the young woman. There was no awe or approval in her tone.

"I have no choice," the young woman said. "If I do not return, our kind may well be erased from the earth forever, by the very one who betrayed me."

"You want revenge."

"Of course, I want revenge!" the young woman snapped. Her image hesitated on the pale-haired version for a moment before beginning to flicker again. "But I also want peace for our kind. At first, I thought it was impossible, but then I glimpsed it and it was beautiful. But that upstart boy is going to ruin it all if I don't stop him!"

"Once you leave here, you will never be able to return," the old woman warned. "If you fail, you will be forced to wander that world forever as a ghost. Those are the rules."

"I understand," the young woman replied.

"Which form do you choose? Pick carefully, you won't be able to change your mind."

The young woman halted her appearance on the pale-haired version. "This."

"Are you certain?"

"I am."

"Are you ready?"

"I am."

The crone waved her arm and a mirror appeared before the two. The image focused on the wooded grounds of a gothic styled school at night. A few lights flickered in the windows of the main school building, but most everything was dark. This was Cross Academy.

A faint smile pulled at the corners of the young woman's mouth. "The school that tried to prove peace was possible and it nearly succeeded." She took two small steps toward the image, halting before she could touch it.

"Go on, then, child," the crone urged. "Unless you've changed your mind…"

"I haven't," the young woman insisted. Slowly, she reached out her hand to brush the surface of the image. It rippled slightly, like it was made of water. The young woman vanished. The mist twirled in a frenzy to fill the space that was no longer filled.

"She is truly your daughter, Hiroto," the crone said. A dark shape manifested in the mist, then grew as it approached the crone. When it finally emerged from the mist, it appeared as an aristocratic man, dressed in extravagant traditional dress.

"I am proud of her," he said. "I wept for her pain but when I saw how it changed her I knew that it was necessary. Tsukiko must be a strong woman for what is to come."

"Do you think she will succeed?" the crone asked. As she spoke, she drew up the hood of her cloak so that it hid her face in shadow.

"I do not know," Hiroto answered. "She has great power but that may be her very undoing."

"If she fails-" The crone shook her head inside the hood.

"Do not think of that, Kasumi," Hiroto replied. "She has what she needs to succeed. It is up to our daughter now to make the right decisions."

The crone pushed back her hood and she was a crone no longer. Her youthful face was framed by mist colored curls but her eyes were clouded milky white, blind. "Let us hope, then, that our daughter has the ability to do so."