Cling. Cling. Cling.

Ryouga stirred to the sound of chimes clanking gently, and he opened his eyes blearily. A pale yellow roof stared back at him blankly, with a golden ceiling fan rotating slowly overhead and a soft substance underneath him told he was lying in a bed. It took him a few moments to realize he was in an unfamiliar place, and he sat up suddenly. Gazing around in wonder, he surveyed the room he was in. It looked to be an elaborately decorated shrine; expensive ornaments and chimes bedecked every corner of the room, the walls held up various worn scrolls filled with what seemed to be English and Spanish incantations, and in the center of the room was a hearth rug of deep crimson under a large sapphire statue of a swan. The eyes glittered oddly.

"Where… am I?" he wondered, gazing at the statue's eyes with awe and slight discomfort. They looked so alive…

A voice like a breath of wind echoed through the shuddering silence, causing Ryouga to jump several centimeters off the bed.

"So… you are awake now…"

"Who is that?" he demanded, leaping out of bed.

The swan's eyes glowed a handsome blue; the room grew bright with the blue hue, and Ryouga had to momentarily shield his eyes. When the haze cleared, he lowered his arms to see a girl dressed in a silken pink kimono standing in the middle of the room, watching him. She was unusually beautiful, with large intensely blue eyes, jet-black hair that fell like a velvety curtain about her slender shoulders and a tanned oval face with delicate porcelain features. About her neck was a striking necklace adorned with precious jewels, and carved into the central gem was a strange symbol. As she strode over towards him, she seemed to uphold the elegant composure of a swan moving gracefully through a sparkling lake.

Ryouga stared at her.

"Who are you?" he asked suspiciously, backing away slightly as she drew nearer.

"Hush…" she replied softly, and placing both hands on his face, her lips drew close to his.

"Uh…" Ryouga said shakily, pulling away and blushing. "Well… um… if you could tell me your name… heh…"

Looking slightly annoyed at her failed attempt at a dramatically romantic scene between a clueless, melancholy boy and a beautiful mysterious maiden, the girl, trying again, seductively sat on the bed and gazed at him with her piercing eyes. Slowly and theatrically, she whispered with a Spanish accent, "My name… is Sue Mary." With this, she gave a mystifying and inviting smile. "But they call me… Swan… You're quite the man to ask, aren't you…?" She winked at him.

"Ah. You're foreign, then?" he asked, apparently oblivious to her seductive attempts.

Swan looked affronted. "Yes, I am foreign. I'm Spanish." Despite this, her accent had vanished. Getting up, she paced irritably with much less grace than before to the end of the room, stopping in front of a marble table at the adjacent wall where a small pot was giving off steam. She began busying herself with the pot.

"Spanish? Sue Mary doesn't sound Spanish." Ryouga said.

"Well, I am Spanish! And I am a highborn, a well-bred aristocrat from the family of uh… Loco Dano."

"But doesn't loco mean "crazy"?"

"No!" Swan said a little too quickly. Looking as though she wanted to change the topic more than anything else, she added, "… I came here to Japan, to search for the man who killed…"

"Killed?"

"Killed my family." Swan said simply without looking at him. She had stopped what she was doing.

Ryouga's insides went cold, and he froze. At a loss for words, all he could do was stare at her.

"Killed… your family?" he uttered finally.

Swan spun around dramatically, her black hair sweeping around her shoulders, her face wearing a tragic expression with diamond tears shining in her azure eyes. Despite this, it almost seemed as though she had been hoping the topic about her past would come up, judging by the way she launched into the story of her terrible past immediately without hesitation.

"You see, it all began when I was a young child of four…" she sniffed, clasping her hands tightly. "I was so happy with my family, so very happy. I loved my dear brother and my dear parents. In our beautiful country home in the Diamond Village, we were all so carefree. Until that tragical day."

Swan closed her eyes for a moment, the heartrending expression on her face becoming more pronounced, before continuing. "That day occurred when a man named Armageddon and his band of thieves came to the village, and ransacked everything after we refused his demand of taking over as the new mayor. Many people were killed, and only a quarter of the village was able to escape, myself included. The five of us that were left went our separate ways after vowing to slay the evil Armageddon."

Ryouga frowned, confused about the total figure of survivors that were meant to be the remaining quarter of the village, and was about to try and make a calculation when she spoke again, so suddenly that he jumped.

"My beloved family was amid the deceased. I am now on a quest to destroy this villain, who caused my horrible past, and impose upon his dark and twisted soul what he put me through – my tragical suffering and torment will be inflicted back onto him and he shall regret the evil deeds he committed!" Swan commenced pretentiously, speaking as though she was reciting it all off by heart.

"But where do I come in? Why am I here?" Ryouga asked.

Swan looked at him. "I rescued you from the peril you were previously in. I had watched you flee from danger, and witnessed you turn into a piglet. It was then that I took you back to my place to nurture you back to health."

"Why?" he questioned.

"Because… because… Because I love you!" she cried out, and at that moment she flew forward in an attempt to fall into his arms. Ryouga was so startled that he leapt backwards, causing Swan to crash to the ground. Blushing, he backed up against the wall.

"Y-You love m-me?" he stammered, feeling his face burn.

Swan rose to her feet, adopting her seductive manners once again. She fluttered her eyelashes at him. "Oh yes," she purred. "I love you more than anything in the world. You look so lonely, and I am so lonely it hurts! So we must be together."

Normally, Ryouga would have been extremely flattered, and perhaps would have fallen for her. But this girl was… she was… there wasn't a word to describe her. She didn't seem right… she seemed chillingly desperate, almost like some kind of stalker. He shuffled backwards slightly, trying to subdue his embarrassment, and cleared his throat, thinking of a way to change the subject.

"Um, how exactly are you, uh, going to kill this Armageddon guy? Are you strong?"

She smiled. "Yes. My entire village was composed of the most powerful fighters in the Universe, and I was taught for a month. I was praised as the best in the village."

"So what do you know?" Ryouga asked.

"I am extremely proficient in every martial art in existence, and can also expertly use every type of weapon. As well as that, I can fire ki blasts and have mastered controlling my ki, so I can fly. I am a shape-shifter, can speak over six hundred billion languages, have psychic powers of every kind and can manipulate any element around me, especially fire." She then went on to describe many more abilities and powers of hers in detail. Ryouga raised his eyebrows as he listened, quite taken aback at all these skills of hers that she had magically learned in a month at the age of four. If all the villagers were like her, how come a gang of petty thieves managed to wipe them out? Then again, even they would have had trouble if there had only been twenty of them.

After Swan had finished talking, she cleared her throat significantly, and tapped her fingers on her necklace, giving the impression that she wanted him to ask about it, but also making it seem as though she really didn't.

"So… what's with the necklace? Does it have some history to it?" Ryouga asked, getting the message.

Swan gave a great start of fake surprise. "Oh, you mean this? Oh… don't worry about it. It's just a necklace…" She lowered her eyes enigmatically, but also fervently checking to see whether Ryouga was being killed by anticipation about what horrible twisted past the pendant may hold. He wasn't.

"I-I'm sorry, but I cannot speak of this pendant. It is oh-so mysterious, and must remain that way." Swan apologized, trying to reinforce the suspense. But two seconds later she eagerly plowed on with the story anyway. "It came from my mother, who received it in turn from her mother, and so on. It is a symbol of our heritage of race."

She paused for a moment, and then continued. "I am not a pure-bred warrior. I am half-human, half-demon."

"Half-demon?" Ryouga gasped.

"Yes. But I am also half-elf, a quarter Pegasus, half-flame fairy, half-fallen angel, three thirds of a tenth of a mermaid, half-water sprite, seventeen quarters dragon-slayer and six point four eight two zero six zero recurring two hundredths sorcerer."

Ryouga sweat-dropped. This girl was chilling. No, forget chilling. A total maniac.

As he moved backwards slightly to increase the distance between them, Swan beckoned for him to follow her as she made her way to the door.

"Come on!" she said, all traces of her sadness gone. "Let's go for a walk, shall we?"