The moon, in its full glory, floated above a world muted with ice and snow. Everything was covered in pure, unadulterated snow and the rivers and lakes seemed like black onyx in their frozen, suspended form. It seemed like nothing could break the tranquility winter gives. Not a living creature stirred, as if shushed into stillness by a kind mother.

Nothing except a form standing beneath the trees whose branches ache with the weight of the snowdrift.

A sword gleamed under the moon's light. It whistled through the air as it met its target.

A splatter of blood ruining the carpet of perfect snow.

Audible gulping sounds echoed across the forest, the trees witnessing the horror of it all.

Saya raised her head to the moon, her crimson eyes glowed as she finished feeding. The metallic taste of blood clung to her lips as she stabbed the ground with her sword.

She stared at her bloodied hands. A monster. This was all she is to be. A monster. Nothing else.

She took her sword, sheathed it and trudged to an abandoned temple she found in a clearing deep in the forest. Ironic that she chose to stay in a temple but there was nowhere else and its the dead of winter. Saya finally reached her destination, entered one of the rooms and collapsed with her back against the wall. She wasn't tired, not the slightest bit, but weary of just being. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to be lulled into an unsettling dream.

"You are not a monster Saya."

A voice like warm honey filled her ears.

"You are my heart. My life. My love."

She searched fruitlessly for the owner of the voice. Running in the darkness, running in circles, just running.

"Come home to me Saya."

Her eyes snapped open. What? Who? Her grip tightened on her sword as the words echoed in her head. Come home... But where is 'home'?

That voice. It was so familiar. Saya shook her head and looked around as if the empty room would give her answers. Just as she was about to close her eyes and dismiss the dream; a slight movement outside the room caught her attention. She crouched down, sword at a ready as she silently slid the door a crack.

"A yuuki-onna!" Saya thought in surprise. The mystical being drifted through the temple grounds almost as if at play then when just as it was a few feet away from where Saya was hiding, she looked directly towards the girl and cocked her head east-ward. Saya stumbled back when she lip-read what the yuuki-onna whispered.

"Follow me."

As the spirit drifted towards the forest, Saya got her sword and started to follow. After all, she reasoned, following a ghost would be so much better than driving herself insane figuring our those dreams.

Saya trailed after the ghost through the dark forest illuniated only by stalactites and stalagmites of ice caught the moons light, they flew over the sparkling glen, and skated through the black ice of the lake.

"Where are you taking me, spirit?" Saya called to the ghost garbed in white. She was met with silence but then, over the whistling of the wind, Saya heard a girl crying. It was faint, so faint. The yuuki-dono hovered over a lip of a small cliff and pointed to something below them. She smiled at Saya and promptly vanished.

"Wait!" Saya cried. Annoyed, she went over to where the poltergeist vanished and peeked.

A cottage.

And...

The sound of the girl weeping was coming from the cottage!

Saya leaped over the cliff and landed almost in front of the cottage; almost except the snowdrift below the cliff was so soft, she promptly sank up to her neck. Using her sword to pull herself up, she trudged to the cottage and broke down the door.

"No sense in being polite if the girl was crying because she was hurt or something." She reasoned to herself for merely barging in.

The sight that met her froze her in place. A girl crouched down over a photograph, crying her heart out. But then...

"Saya? Saya!" A blur of pink and gray wool enveloped Saya in a tight embrace, causing her to drop her sword. "It is you! I have been praying for you to come. I've been praying for so long..."

This voice, she recognized this voice. It was the voice in her dreams.

Saya reluctantly removed herself from the hug, missing the warmth it presented. She gazed at the owner of the voice, Saya's eyes brimmed with tears.

"Mana... How could I forget? Mana..." Saya choked out, brushing off her tears with the back of her hand.

"I've been looking for you. How did you find me?" Mana hiccuped, holding tightly to Saya's hand.

"I...I was led here..." Saya whispered with hestitation.

She stopped. The smell of blood.

Saya grabbed Mana by the hand and saw her wrists were bleeding.

"Mana..."

"I was... I was about to give up looking for you..." Mana tearfully explained. "I thought that if I can't be with you, I'll be with you in the next life."

Saya embraced Mana. So this is why she was led here.

Alast, she had managed to save someone.

"Mana, I'm here. I'm you are is home."