"Izin! Izin!" She cradled her friend's bleeding body close to her, one hand firmly pressed against the gaping wound in his abdomen.

It was no good, no use. There was no way for her to stop the bleeding. He was losing too much too quickly.

"Don't screaming so loud, squirt," he chuckled. "It's not the end of the world, just mine."

"What the hell am I supposed to do?" She looked around their small two room hut for something, anything to staunch the blood just long enough for her to drag him to the nearest healer. Her

Izin put her brown eye scanning. To say that she was desperate was an understatement and to say that she wasn't scared would be a lie. Who else but Izin was supposed to take care of her? He was the only one who she...

"Save your tears for the pillow, sweetheart, when nobody can see them." Izin's voice was fading.

His cold finger wiped away the tear that she had unknowingly let escape from her eye.

"You're not dying on me, stupid! Do you hear me?"

Izin shook his head, his long black hair falling to cover half his face in similar fashion to her own. She leaned over a little bit to move it out of his face so she could see his eyes for one last time.

"Thanks," he tried to sit up straight, but the pain was too much for him. With a choking cough and a sputter of blood, Izin fell again, hitting his head hard against the wall behind him. He gently shook his head again. "There's no point in trying to deny what's gonna happen to me, kiddo. There's nothing you can do to save me."

The girl opened her mouth to refute his claim, but quickly shut her mouth. Izin's hand touched her cheek.

"But there's one thing you can do for me, if you're willing to fulfill a dying man's last request."

"Anything!" She answered quickly. "I'll do anything!"

Izin chuckled at her eagerness. "If you want to avenge me, find the man with the Jagan eye. That's who killed me."

Her dark brows furrowed. "What? What's a Jagan eye?"

He couldn't reply, too busy coughing up more blood.

"I..can't...I don't have...there's not much time left. You'll have...to...find out..on...your...owwwn." Izin's life force slowly evaporated into thin air. The last breath left him. Life faded from his black eyes.

It took the young woman several minutes to realize what had happened, though she could not come to terms with it. Accepting change was never a knack she owned. She shook his shoulders, even slapped him across the face. There was no moment. No sound. No life. He was gone, and the sooner she accepted that the better.

"Izin! Izin! Izin!"

Nine Months Later

Her heels clicked on marble flooring. One hand stuffed in the pocket of her low-cut, tight-fitting jacket, the other carried the brief which contained the goods promised to her employer. The job was almost done. The butler who was escorting her had glanced at her more than once. One time was a common response, but more than two glances were enough to cause suspicion. He eyed her face, which was curious. Usually men had their eyes drawn further down.

"I know that you keep looking at me, I suggest that you stop it. I don't mind if you look occasionally, but you're just not being very subtle." She laughed.

"S-sorry, Ma'am."

"I get it a lot actually. People find my face to be a bit..unnerving."

The butler said nothing else after that. He silently escorted her to the master's study. He entered first and announced her before she entered herself before the butler could fetch the door. He ducked behind the closed the door, leaving her and her employer alone.

He was a wealthy Japanese business, a human too. He looked like all the rest. Middle aged, graying, slightly wrinkled face, smoked like a chimney. Not that she should be the one to talk. She smoked cigarettes on a daily basis, sometimes a whole pack in a day. This one looked a little younger than the others before. He was handsome, she had to admit.

"Do you have what I asked for?"

She lifted up the brief case. "I don't get paid if I brought an empty case."

"I am not fool." His cold dark eyes narrowed. "Open it."

The young woman shrugged her shoulders. She walked a little further and put the lead-lined suit case on the large oak desk that was compensating for something. She made quick work of the dials and locks. They clicked with a flick of her dexterous fingers and the hinges creaked when she popped open the lid. She spun the suit case around so her client could see the package he ordered.

A glass cylinder stopped up with thick metal lids was nestled carefully in the black velvet lining, like a pillow. The contents of the aforementioned cylinder drifted in a gelatinous, slime-green fluid. You know, the kind you see in stereotypical monster movies, the kind of muck monsters are born in. Speaking of which, her client, Mr. Watanashi had been greedy and impatient enough to pry the canister out of the suit case himself to inspect the item more closely. What lay drifting like a corpse in a river in the goo-like fluid was a black clawed hand sporting three fingers and a thumb. She wasn't sure what this business wanted with a nasty relic of some demon she never heard of before, but she wasn't one to judge someone else's hobbies either.

"Does it pass inspection, Mr. Watanashi?"

He nodded, putting the gruesome trophy in the middle of his desk. "You accept cash only, if I remember correctly right?"

"That's the only way I do it." Her smile grew wider as she extended her hand, palm open, towards him.

Watanashi opened a locked drawer in his desk, a safety deposit box, it would seem. He didn't know it, but she was watching him with her special eye hidden behind her hair. And with that special eye, she saw the numbers he turned the dial on the lock, saving it for future reference. He pulled out a metal box and flipped it open. The lid clanged against the wood desk, not that he seemed to mind. Watanashi shuffled through the bills. He counted them in his palm before handing the wad of cash into her waiting hand.

"It was a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Watanashi and please keep the suit case." She stuffed the money, which should have amounted to a little over twelve million yen, into her pants pocket. Tipping her hat politely, she spun on her heels and began to take her leave.

"May I ask one question of you before you go?" Mr. Watanashi never struck her as a curious man, which was why the hairs raised on the back of her neck.

She stopped mid-stride. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Mr. Watanashi stand up and place one hand on top of his new prize.

"Can I have a name? In case I need your expertise again."

She laughed. "Oh, sorry sweetie. I don't leave calling cards. If I started doing that, then it'd be nothing but work, work, work, all the time. I like to indulge in my hobbies now and then and doing this sort of thing would just hinder me from doing what I love."

"Are you sure? I can't even have a nickname or a code name you go by?"

"Poker Face."

She watched his brows bunch in confusion. "Excuse me?"

"Poker Face," she repeated. "That's what my friends call me, if I had any. I'm afraid that's all I can leave with you, sweetie."

"Don't call me that." Watanashi barked.

"Sorry." No she wasn't. "Force of habit." She left after blowing him a kiss.