Mia Yakitoshi trudged out through the metal front gates of Asahikawa High School. The heels of her black shoes clicked softly as she walked away from her school. It had been another boring day, she concluded as she reflected back. More stares and hushed whispers coming from her fellow classmates. Even after nearly two years of having to endure her in their presence, they still had the need to treat her like an outsider. Not that Mia was really complaining though. She liked, no loved, being alone.

However, if she loved being alone, she couldn't help sometimes wonder why she even stuck to staying in this god-forsaken, boring school. She had no need for the boring lessons there, the teachers that constantly pester her about her choice in keeping her hair long and not the length that the school rules required, and certainly she had no need for the students who were frightened of her, though she didn't really give them a reason to be afraid of her.

"Hey, Mia!" a familiar male voice called to her from behind.

Mia cringed and ground her teeth in annoyance as she let her waist-length, raven black hair fall on either side of her face like curtains. She did not stop to wait for the owner of the voice to catch up and continued on walking away.

"Mia Yakitoshi! Wait up for me!" the voice continued shouting.

Mia heard his hurried footsteps catch up to her and inwardly cursed. Everyone in her school, even the teachers, kept their distance away from Mia but not Tenchi Masaki, who was well thought of by many in Asahikawa High. From day one when Mia first entered the classroom, Tenchi had always been trying to be her friend. It was in vain though because every time Mia would reject him in the worse terms possible. Yet, Tenshi still persisted.

None but Tenchi Masaki can vex me so, she thought darkly as she passed a group of freshmen girls who immediately quieted down as she passed. Mia blew up at her short bangs to get them out of her eyesight. Suddenly four long-ago familiar male faces swam into Mia's mind, unwanted and hated, sending Mia's blood boiling and caused her to stop walking. Okay, maybe I was wrong about Tenchi being the only one who can vex me, Mia thought again and shook her head to get rid of the faces.

At that moment, a rather sweaty hand caught her cold left hand and spun her around so that she now stared face to face at a rather breathless Tenchi Masaki.

Mia gave Tenchi her deadliest glare, but that didn't seem to faze the young boy any bit, who was quite used to her death glares by now. Tenchi stood at least a foot taller than her so that the top of her head just barely reached his shoulders. Tenchi had wide puppy brown eyes that made any girl looking into them melt. Any girl but Mia Yakitoshi that is.

"What do you want, baka?" she snapped and ripped her hand away from Tenshi's. Mia clenched her left hand into a tight fist and willed herself not to punch his lights out.

Tenchi only smiled warmly down at her. "Mia, wanna come over to my house so we could study for our history test?" he asked politely. As a sign of his anxiousness for her answer, he began to pull at the short hair tail he had grown at the back of his head.

Mia rolled her eyes. Not again, she thought. "Didn't I just tell you to leave me alone like the rest of them?" she spat venomously with a hint of a threat in her tone.

Tenchi stopped pulling at his hair tail and tilted his head to the side a little with a sad look on his face; a perfect puppy look. Tenchi shook his head slowly as if he couldn't understand why she would reject a kind gesture towards friendship as he had just done. "Because I want to be your-"

Mia interrupted him rudely. "You want to be my friend?" she asked coldly and gave him a small, sharp laugh. She watched in satisfaction as Tenchi winced at the bitterness underneath the sound. "I don't need a friend!" Mia added harshly. "So just leave me alone!" Without another word, Mia spun on her heel so fast that her knee-length black skirt that was part of her uniform briefly flew up and stomped away from the stunned teenage boy.

I don't need anyone, Mia told herself for the thousandth upon thousandth time since she moved here nearly two years ago. And I certainly don't need to be friends with the son of a demon hunter, she added mentally. Mia tugged irritably at the black scarf she was forced to wear around her neck and checked the time on the plastic black watch she wore on her left wrist. It was half past mid-afternoon.

"I'm going to be late," she murmured. She threw a cautious look over her shoulder and then began to quicken her pace.

Her high school was slightly separated from the city by a little drawbridge that was located over a rather large creek. Beyond the area where her high school was located went deeper into suburbia where most of the student populace lived. Only those who either were very rich or had families working in the city could afford to live there. Mia didn't have any family members working in the city. In fact, she didn't have any family members at all. Although considered quite young to be living by herself by her peers, she lived all alone in a tiny apartment in the city that was located above a coffee shop.

However, Mia wasn't going to her "home" yet. As she crossed the little drawbridge and walked into the more rural areas of the city, her dark brown eyes were very alert, as if she expected an ambush of sorts. She stopped in front of a dark alleyway that had a dead end and inconspicuously stepped inside the shadows. With the average person's set of eyes, they would have found themselves surrounded almost completely by the crushing darkness. Not Mia Yakitoshi, though. Quite the opposite. She felt at home because she was looking through the darkness as if it were daylight in the alley. Slipping off her school bag, she unzipped it and drew out a heavy material of cloth before hiding her bag inside an empty garbage can and quickly throwing on the black cloak so that it revealed no part of her. Just as she firmly secured the hood over her head, Mia noticed that the entrance of the alleyway was blocked by two figures.

"Anyone in there?" the figure on the left asked hesitantly.

Mia noticed that they were both male and wore cheesy disguises like long raincoats that buttoned down the front with baseball hats each and sunglasses. Mia stepped out of the shadows and smirked. "I'm right here," she replied in a voice filled with silky coldness.

The two jumped in surprise and the baseball hat of the figure on the left fell to the ground to reveal a pair of red eyes that were staring at Mia in fear.

"D-Don't do that!" he cried and bent to pick up his hat.

Mia sneered at him and his partner. "You have what I want?" she demanded.

The figure fit his hat back on his head and gave his partner a nod. Out from an inner pocket in his coat, his partner produced a single silver dagger. It was a beautiful dagger with Celtic designs along the hilt. The figure that had the dagger started to give it to Mia, but his partner stopped him.

"You have what we want?" he demanded, a greedy gleam in his red eyes.

Mia nodded and out from her large cloak pocket she produced a large glass pickle jar and held it up. Mia stared emotionlessly at the head floating in the jar. For a moment, a spark of anger ignited within her stomach as she stared at the dead empty eyes of Kisei the Elemental Master, but Mia remembered that Kisei was no more and quickly tore her eyes away from her old tormentor. She looked back at the two demon merchants before her. Their eyes, one red and one blue, were gleaming with their open greed as they stared at Kisei's head in the jar. Remembering themselves, their eyes turned to Mia's face, which they still could not see because of her hood.

"Give us the head," Blue Eyes said quickly and then held out the dagger he held.

Mia nodded stiffly and swiftly took a few steps forward and grabbed the dagger. Red Eyes grabbed the jar out of her other hand quickly just in case she decided to not hold up the end of their bargain. Mia took a few steps back, twirling the dagger in her left hand and feeling very pleased right now as she watched the dagger spin.

"So this concludes our business, Nightfire," Red Eyes said gleefully.

Blue Eyes' attention was snapped away from the prize he and his partner had received and his eyes moved rapidly between his partner and Mia. The look on his face made Mia assume he had been left out of the information of her name. "N-Nightfire?" he croaked in terror. His frightened blue eyes froze on Mia's figure. "You're N-Nightfire?! I heard you were dead!" he shouted. His eyes and now that of his partner's watched as Mia began to toss the dagger up in the air and catch it deftly with her left hand.

"She is dead," Mia replied coldly. "She died by the same demon whose head you now hold. I am-was," she corrected herself quickly, "Was her apprentice before she was captured and taken into the custody of the Spirit World brat and his meddling detectives," she informed them.

Blue Eyes sighed loudly with relief and then smacked the back of Red Eyes' head. "How come you didn't tell me that beforehand, you dolt?" Blue Eyes reprimanded.

Red Eyes turned to face his partner. "Because I didn't think it was necessary!" he yelled.

Mia interrupted them by clearing her throat. "Thank you very much boys for my prizes," she told them and smiled evilly.

Red Eyes eyed her warily. "Prizes?" he demanded.

Mia nodded and took a menacing step towards them, which they responded by both taking a step back. They now noticed with rising terror the twin blood red with black flecked orbs looking at them from within the hood. With her free hand, Mia clutched the edge of her hood.

"Meet the face of death boys," she hissed and pushed back her hood. Like so many of her victims in the past, the two demons stared with an open-mouthed mixture of horror and wonder at the facial image of beauty in front of them. However, until recently, two years to be exact, none of Mia's other victims had seen the jagged scar running from under her left eye and down to her chin. Mia held up the hand she had pushed back her hood with and snapped her fingers.

Instantly, large orange flames erupted all over the two demons. Red Eyes dropped the jar with Kisei's head and it shattered, spilling the embalming liquid and head onto the ground. The two demons' cries of pain were never heard as they slowly burned into ashes with Mia's demonic eyes staring emotionlessly at them with the reflection of the flickering flames in her eyes.

Mia snapped her fingers again and the flames quickly extinguished themselves, leaving only two piles of grey, smoking ashes. Walking over towards the area, she looked down to the left of Red Eyes' ashes and locked eyes with Kisei's dead ones that stared up at her. "Don't look at me like that," she cooed and slowly picked up his head by his main of equally raven black hair. Although at the moment, there were bright red streaks running through Mia's long hair. Tucking her newly acquired dagger deep into her pocket, she snapped her fingers and the large pickle jar, completely fixed, appeared in her left hand. Mia roughly threw Kisei's head inside the jar and stashed it once more into her cloak pocket. Another snap of her fingers and she held her school bag. Removing her cloak and placing it in her bag, she slung her school bag over one shoulder and exited the alleyway.

As she walked out of the rural area of the city and finally made her way towards her apartment, the only thought in her mind was that she was drawing herself a little closer to four people who had no clue what she had in store for them.