"Rei-chan! Rei-chan! Dinner's ready!" a middle-aged woman calls from the door of a small,yet cozy cabin. She walks back into the cabin and removes the heated soup from the stove. After pouring the soup into two bowls, she sets them on the kitchen table. She waits a few more minutes, then snatches her cloak of its hook and walks out.

"That girl... so much like her father..." she mutters as she smiles pleasantly at the thought, dodging various twigs and branches in her path. "Rei-chan! Rei-chan!"

Suddenly, to her left, she hears the sound of a breaking twig.

"Rei-chan? Is that you?" she walks to the edge of the path.

"No," a deep voice is heard from the bushes. Its owner, clothed in black and wearing a mask, leaps into the air knocking her to the ground.

"Who...who are you?" she gasps as she backs away from him and begins to stand.

The man steps forward, grabs her wrist, and flings her roughly against a giant oak tree. She kicks her knee out, making contact with his groin. He falls to his knees in pain. Using this moment to her advantage, she runs past him, but unfortunately, he reaches out, grabbing her ankle and trips her. She falls roughly on her back, knocking her breathless. He pins her down at the shoulders.

"Let me go!" she screams as she slams her fist into his face, breaking the mask.

Forcing her head to the side, he sneers, his canine teeth grows into a pair of fangs.

"You?!?" she gasps as he sinks his teeth into her neck. "Why? I thought..."

She starts to lose consciousness as he drains her of her blood.

"Why..?" these last words escape her pale lips.

"Why, you ask?" he whispers into her unhearing ear and smirks evilly. "Because he broke the Law. Those who break the Law will be punished."

The mysterious man, licking the blood from around his mouth, pulls out a wooden stake and shoves it into her heart. He stands and begins to walk away, his form gradually fading into nothingness.

"Sou-kun..." a little girl, about eight, weeps against an old, gnarly tree stump as she reads a note pinned to it. "Why? Why'd you leave?"

"Let me go!!!"

"That sounds like Kaasan's voice!" the girl snaps her head up at the scream.

Snatching the note from the tree and pocketing it, she begins running toward the sound. As she flies through the woods, she draws her shinai, hoping that she will make it in time to help her mother.

"Kaasan! Hold on! I'm coming!"

The girl emerges from the brush and gasps at the site of her mother's lifeless body.

"Kaasan?" she whimpers, dropping her shinai, and kneels over her. "KAASAN!!!!"