Haruka was left with the uncomfortable feeling that she must be quite thoroughly insane. Indeed, absolutely, institutionalize-ably, stark raving mad. Her sea-green haired visitor had completely sold her on this wild story of destinies, antique mirrors, mysterious forces, and troubling visions; all things that Haruka would have expected herself to find utterly ridiculous. Today, however, she had believed Michiru as the girl told her about the re-occurring vision of Haruka within the surface of the lovely, ancient silver mirror that she had drawn from her bag. "This all must sound quite laughable, Haruka-san, especially coming from someone who might as well be a complete stranger, but I feel that we will be very important to each other. Somehow, I feel we may also be simply very important." Haruka refused to think about it any longer, she proceeded into the living room with her luke-warm coffee and set about thinking of more pleasant things. Or would have, if she could have thought of any. All she could think of were the dark clouds of dream images that Michiru's words had summoned up: dark, vast expanses of emptiness whipped constantly by gale winds, starry voids filled with hidden demons, swirling silver- white hair and magnanimous, if plastic smiles, and the shining blade of what could only be the ancient family sword, that any Tenoh would tell you had belonged to some great prince or princess of some country, the name of which none could agree on. In reality, of course, the sword was now nothing but a tarnished hilt; the blade long since rusted away. Haruka wondered idly where the sword was now; which of her horrid, bickering, hateful relatives had laid their greedy paws on the family treasures which were 'rightfully theirs'. Truth be told, she wouldn't have cared, she had no use for the Tenoh family grudge match, but she was suddenly over come with a desire to hold the hilt of the blade in her hand, and trace her fingers along the elegant silver- working. It hit her with the force of a bullet train: the style of the metal work in the hilt matched that of Michiru's mirror! She had to stop thinking about all of this rubbish. Abandoning her untouched coffee on one of the small tables that sided the sofa, she fetched her coat from the hall closet and, before leaving, announced to the apartment, "I've gone to find myself a loony bin, don't burn down yourself while I'm gone."

Luck, coincidences, and a small world be damned! As soon as she had settled into a comfortably grungy booth in a comfortably grungy food- serving establishment of some indistinguishable variety, in walked none other than the lovely Kaioh Michiru, accompanied by the scum of the earth. Or, at least, a boy who looked like he could have been the spokesman for the scum of the earth. He was filthy, torn and over-bleached, and his clothes were worse. The most truly offensive part of him was, of course, the sharp contrast he made to Michiru's elegant fall garb, and shining cleanliness. Haruka would have like nothing better than to dislocate the arm he had slung about the green haired girl's waist. Well, that wasn't strictly true, what she would have liked better was to be several blocks (if not cities, prefects, countries, or continents) away from the lovely cause of her mental discomfort. She slunk down in her booth, waited until they had seated themselves at the counter, and then slunk out. All right, so bad food and grungy atmosphere were not going to solve her mystic mood. When in doubt, rent a bad American horror flick. After two episodes of the Friday the 13th series (dubbed, as she had hardly felt up to exercising her English) she was feeling much better, in a strange, adolescent 'blood is funny' sort of way, and felt she could probably go to sleep with immunity.

Haruka did not, however, go to sleep. She shed her clothing and lowered herself into bed, closed her eyes, in complete mental peace. She was instantly assaulted by the image of her father holding the ancient silver hilt up in the light of a lamp, squinting at the patterns. Kevin Tenoh-Darling, the American liberal who had been more like a good friend than a father. When she asked for a bed time story he read to her from his own books, and always allowed her exposure to any and all media he himself made use of. Her father had always treated her like an adult, spoke to her calmly and reasonably, been supportive of her aspirations, and rational in the face of her tempers. He had been her accomplice in many a crime, had taken her to see her first race, and had driven her to school on his classy silver BMW motorcycle. He had hated the quarrels of his wife's family, called them petty, meaningless. It was from him that Haruka had learned her distaste for the needlessly hateful. He was gentle and loving with his wife, raucous and fun loving with his friends and everything to his only child, his lovely girl who would have killed to be his little boy. Haruka had always wanted to be her father. They had spent a summer at her grandmother's home once, and, to avoid the cousins and aunts and uncles, the bickering, and the disapproving glances, 30 year old man and 12 year old girl had spent there days outside of the house, or hidden in the attic. They had pored over the old treasures of her mother's family in a most irreverent fashion. Cries of 'junk' echoed through the dusty vault as they scrambled through boxes for days on end, until, "Look at this!" He held her mother's coveted heirloom up to the light, wonderingly, for a moment, before tucking it into his jacket. It had remained with them for two years until her mother's death, and then. Her father had sent it to his family! Her eyes snapped open; she knew where to find the sword!