In the shade of the branches, high above the ground, Hiei contemplated and cursed his current predicament. Having his activities confined to such a small area was claustrophobic. He could strangle something. Or someone. Rather blaming his own hubris, the target of his rage was Yusuke Urameshi and the toddler prince who sent him. Irate and vengeful as he was, there he could do about it at the moment. His current predicament landed him in a position that made revenge nearly impossible. It could be done, but not without swift repercussions, and he planned to avoid any kind of execution for as long impossible. His days consisted of taking out his rage on unsuspecting weaker demons and cursing the day Urameshi was born. There was no prey today, leaving Hiei to do nothing but sit in the upper canopy of the pine tree. His cover wouldn't be blown so easily because he was so high up and there was hardly a breeze.

The sun was hitting him just right and even he couldn't resist taking a brief shut eye. It wasn't like he had to worry about being ambushed. Smaller demons knew better. Even if they had the guts to do such a stupid thing, they would ultimately fail. As if Hiei would let his life end that way.

Hiei had closed his eyes for no more than ten minutes when he was jolted awake by a spike of demonic energy in the air. His eyes snapped open and sat straight up. The thorny pine branch shook at the sudden motion. He faced the general direction where the energy was shooting out from. Standing up with the ease of a shadowy cat, he began to head that direction, boredom forgotten. Hopping from branch to branch, he was led by the energy signature to a large clearing, way out of reach of the humans' camping sites and hiking trails. This energy was so raw and warm. It was something that he had not felt before.

He hid behind the thickest branches of the tallest overlooking the clearing. His sharp eyes spotted between branches two figures. One was much taller than the other belonged to an ugly ogre with horns up and down his arms and spine. The ogre's giant form towered over the smaller figure of a woman. She was just standing there, unafraid of the ogre or the club strapped to his back. Hiei stood there, confused. Not so much for why the woman was just standing there like a lump on a log, but confused on whose energy signature he had been following. The ogre was of a common stalk. Nothing particularly special about him. His kind were known to haunt caves and forests and occasionally made their presence known since the feudal era. While humans attributed missing persons to starvation and other natural causes, it was likely that those who ventured too far into the woods were eaten by the likes of the ogre down below. Despite the ogre's size, he was still a common youkai. His energy signature wasn't the great. The woman, the woman on the other hand looked to be just an ordinary woman. Foolish but an ordinary human female nevertheless.

Unfortunately, his curiosity wasn't enough to keep him glued to the spot or step in and help her. Hiei turned and was about to flee the scene when he heard the characteristic wail of an ogre in its final throes of death. Hiei heard it before with his own ears when he sliced those monstrosities by himself. Perhaps somebody else decided to rescue the stupid woman from immediate death. No, that couldn't be it. There was nothing else in the air. There was no sign of anyone else in the area, demon or human. Hiei's brows furrowed sharply into a deep V-shape. There was only one possibility. He turned again.

The woman was standing on the ogre's stomach, rolling up her sleeves. There was a hole in the ogre's skull the size of a cannon ball. She knelt down; the torso of her victim was wide enough to sit on without having to straddle the body. What he saw next slightly turned his stomach. She rolled up her sleeves so she could dig her arm into the ogre's chest and bury it in the chest cavity, just under the rib cage. Hiei watched with morbid curiosity as she ripped the heart, dripping in red gore and sticky ventricles. She held it up for inspection. Her fingers poked and prodded the heart which was twice as big as her hand. When it seemed to have passed inspection, the woman took a bite.

The knots in his stomach were only slightly tightened. It wasn't an unusual thing for demons to eat other demons. In his world, it was kill or be killed. If you left yourself open to be made into fodder for another demon, it was your own fault. While in theory it was perfectly normal and logical, as dark, twisted, and disgusting as it may have been, in practice was still pretty gruesome to watch. It could be considered a form of cannibalism, but what would you call it if the eater was a human? This was unheard of.

Briefly, Hiei looked away. Not because he was disgusted, that would be unheard of for a demon of his caliber. He looked away because he didn't like the way she was munching on the ogre's heart with the mannerisms of a starving wolf. When looked back, she was slurping up the contents. She had to hold her head back so the remainder of her meal could successfully go down all the way. Her lips and chin were as red as her arms. A red tongue lapped up the blood on her lips. She reached inside her jacket, pulled out a white handkerchief, and started to wipe her mouth and hands clean of the blood. Hiei didn't realize it until her eyes, or rather eye, she hid half of her face with her hair, turned their gaze towards the branches under which he kept himself concealed with the branches that he had his hand on the end pummel of his sword nor how hard his other hand was gripping the hilt at all. He didn't know when he laid his hand on his sword. He hadn't taken his eyes off the scene for so long, it a little bit of a shock that his subconscious deemed it a matter of safety to get his hands ready to use his sword. Why would he need it?

"I know you're there, Hiei. I only want to introduce myself. Don't make me come after you." Her smile made Hiei grind his teeth. Her blood-stained lips had no reason to smile so, not when it made her look like a homicidal maniac.

Hiei said nothing. He forced his hands away from his sword. Then, her gaze was firmly placed on the exact spot where he hid.

"I see you," she childishly smirked.

She probably did see him. Albeit, it startled him. It startled him that he wanted to know her name so badly. A human just bested an ogre on her own yet there was no reason why she appeared as nothing special. Unusual, frightening to some, and possibly a lunatic, but she was still a human. She posed no threat to him. On the other hand, he wanted to know how she did what she did and why she consumed her victim's heart to begin with. He jumped down.

The woman, as he found as he approached cautiously, was much taller than he guessed. He glanced at the dead body just past the woman who was striding over to meet him. The ogre would probably be standing at no more than eight feet tall. The deadly, sharp spines on his body gave the illusion that he was bigger than he was. The woman who killed the ogre wasn't that short either. In fact, she wasn't short at all. Even without the ridiculous high heeled shoes she was wearing, she would most likely stand at five-eight to six feet tall.

"Hiei, I've heard you like to make trouble. I'd like to make your acquaintance."

He still nothing. He only scrutinized her from head to toe. For a heart-eater in the literal sense, she dressed rather nicely. Her clothes were made to fit her like a second skin before drawing attention to certain assets. Her low-cut jacket drew his attention to her chest for a second. Hiei found that she lacked no modesty. She saw him take a quick look there but didn't so as much as blush. She smirked as if she won some kind of prize.

"Well, you're a rude fellow." She sounded disappointed but her smile never faltered.

Hiei wondered what it would take to wipe that stupid look off her face. It was starting to get on his last nerve.

"Hn."

"Hn?" The woman repeated.

"Don't mock me, woman." This time on purpose, Hiei put his hand around his sword.

"Who said I was mocking you? This is how I normally am."

"And do you normally eat ogre hearts?"

He watched as her expression changed from subtle to deliberately insane. It seemed that her smile widened more than physically possible.

"I have an unusual diet, to say the least, but it's necessary. Do you think I enjoy hunting down youkai? That I like having to perform pseudo-heart surgery to get what I need? Trust me, I don't enjoy it any more than you would. Unfortunately, it's a necessary evil." Her teeth were dyed pink with blood.

Hiei looked at the corpse. The ogre's face was caved in. Blood was everywhere. The spike he felt earlier in the air must have been coming from some kind of blast of spirit energy. But where did the energy signature go? He looked at the woman, and was disappointed. There wasn't a trace of energy, nothing that he felt moments ago, on her. If he hadn't seen what he just saw, Hiei would call her a normal human.

"I bet I know what you're thinking," she chuckled.

"Hn."

"You're wondering how I killed him and you're also wondering where the sudden spike in energy went to. You sensed something earlier, but now you're wondering where that sudden burst of energy went. You think I'm just human, don't you, love? You think I'm no different from the humans you're forced to associate with thanks to your failed attempt at the crime of the century. I heard what happened after you stole those artifacts from the Spirit World vault. I must say, I am impressed. Although, I could have done a better job. I've managed to pull off more jobs that were much harder than your heist, and do it without being identified. Still, I'm honored to have met you." She bowed to him from waist, hand on her hat. Slowly, rising, she said, "They simply call me Poker Face."

"Poker Face?" Hiei snorted indignantly. "What a bizarre name. Did you come up with it all on your own?"

As if taking pride in her strange name, she answered, "Not really. I'm sure I was born with a more proper name, but I can't for the life of me recall it."

Hiei didn't by her 'pity me' attitude. She even had her wrist, still soaked in ogre blood, limply rest on her forehead like she was some kind of victim. The only thing she turned out to be was an overdramatic killer with a flare and love for thematic performances.

"A likely story." Hiei sneered.

Narrowing her eyes, Poker Face stuffed her hands into her pants' pockets. Her smile was less dramatic but no less deviant.

"Do you know what it means to have a poker face, Hiei?"

He silently shook his head.

"In the game of poker, it's a card game humans made up…"

"I'm aware of what poker is."

"In the game of poker, you have at least five players trying to outdo each other with the cards in their hands. As each card has a certain amount of numbers attached to it, the one with the strongest hand wins. However, poker isn't necessarily a game for honest people. Often, actually, it's all the time, you have to lie to the person across from you, beside you, off to the side. You have to fool your friends into thinking that the hand that you have is utter crap. It's a game of deception. In order to conceal the value of the cards in your hand, especially if they're good ones, you have to look emotionless. In my case, I wear a smile as my poker face, to keep everyone else guessing. You see, when you make faces like yours, people already know what kind of person you are. But a smile…a smile can confuse people."

Hiei glared but she remained unmoved by his stance. He was more than ready to cut off her pretty little head clean off her shoulders. She was speaking nothing but nonsense, stringing him along. As if she was distracting him.

"Are you a gambling man, Hiei?" She asked suddenly.

"What business is that of yours?"

Poker Face shrugged. "I suppose it isn't." She checked her watch, but it was splattered with blood. "As I can't tell what time it is, I'd better hurry and find a place to clean up. Can't turn up at my hotel looking like this, can I? If you are a gambling man, Hiei, then why don't you take the chance to see me again?"

She pulled out a card from an interior jacket pocket. Rather than giving it to him, Poker Face laid the calling card on the ground at his feet.

"If you'd like to pick up where we left off, why don't you meet me at this address this Saturday? At nine?"

Hiei had grown tired of her annoying, mocking tone. In the blink of an eye, his sword was unsheathed, but by then she was gone. She ran. She ran as fast as he could. No human could do that. Hiei was stunned for a moment, lost in thought. When he found no trace of her, he picked up the card she left behind. He scanned the large yet feminine scrawling on the white cardstock before crumbling it in his fist.

Three down, one to go, Poker Face thought to herself cheerfully as she adjusted the dark brown wig in the store's bathroom.

The color of the wig almost matched her brown eye. She frowned uncharacteristically at the frumpy cable knit sweater than hid all of her good assets, the knee-length skirt (what she considered dismally long), awful cream colored stockings, and granny Mary-Janes. What was worse was the white medical eyepatch she wore over her left eye. Even more than that was that tiny dark veins etched their way down her cheek and up along the temple of her forehead. She tried not to focus on the horrid scars she took every chance to hide from the world. What hid under the eyepatch was more of a nightmare, but a paid mission was under way. Whatever she would suffer now would receive a great recompense at the end of the job.

The ends of the wig tickled her neck, making her scratch it every so often. She was frankly disgusted with her new look. She was incredibly dowdy and innocent-looking. It almost made her puke in the toilet nearby. Her regular clothes were stuffed inside a large canvas bag. The bag was slung on her left shoulder before she made her exit.

Poker Face never understood why people liked books so much. More to the point, why did book stores still exist? Weren't there online stores where you could find all of the books you could ever want? Or even libraries, weren't they free? The smell of printed paper was all around. Even though she felt like a fish out of water, breaking out of character was a no-no. There was need for her to stretch to look over the bookshelves as she went to look for her prey; she was already so tall. Without even trying, she spotted a head of long red hair poking out from the sea of black. Kurama was still wearing his charming little school uniform.

For this reason, she hated Kurama for it. Why should he get to be allowed to live a normal life? He was a demon, why should he get the privilege of leading an easy life. He didn't have to worry about working for scum like the Black Black Club or fight his way through demons to avenge someone he-a friend or constantly change hotels to avoid detection. No, he got to have a lovely, lazy life with his human mother, go to school, and get to live in relative peace. Poker Face really hated him for that, and that reason alone. It was unfortunate for her that she couldn't go and slice him up with her cards, but instead had to swallow her pride. She came to the book aisle next to his, pretending to look over the book titles. He hadn't noticed her yet. When he moved further up the aisle, Poker Face followed at a decent distance. Mustn't let him catch onto her, could she?

When they were finally at the end of their respective aisles, she placed the toe of her shoe around the stand of a display rack. She made it look like she was trying to turn into the next aisle. To an observer, it hopefully looked like she wasn't watching where she was going. With her foot placed just so, her tall frame was susceptible to being pulled directly into the display rack and those knocking it over. Kurama's aisle was successfully blocked. Poker Face sat on her knees, ignoring the rug burns on both her knees. She hated those most of all. Sakyo, if she could convince, would have to be compensation for all the little things that came with this job of his.

"Are you alright?" It was the soft-hearted school boy who had taken the bait.

She forced herself to blush as she tried to pull the display rack upright.

"I-I'm sorry. I'm just so clumsy." She waited for Kurama to come to her aid.

Just as she predicted, he knelt down and helped her rearrange the display. They picked up the books together. The heat in her blushing cheeks was getting on her nerves. Wearing the chunky sweater didn't help matters either. She was going to take a long cold bath once she got to her hotel.

Her moves were decisive. She made sure to pick up the books closest to him. Eventually, her carefully planned out movements led her to the pivotal moment in her trap. Their fingers barely touched as they both reached for the same book. Poker Face played the innocent angel, the blushing maiden that she thought Kurama would be most vulnerable towards. When she moved her head slightly upwards, she allowed him to see the left side of her face, eyepatch and scars in all. It took just a few moments before he gave her a look of pity. Vulnerable women didn't so much attract him, but given his attention to his once ailing human mother and his compassion for humans had certainly grown in the last fifteen years, Poker Face's strategies were working out splendidly.

"Oh, sorry," she pretended to hide her face. "I…was in a car accident while back. I finally got the courage to show my ugly face in public."

She and Kurama worked to put the cheap paper backs back where they belonged. They weren't in the exact place but it was close enough.

"I wouldn't say that. I think some imperfections make people far more attractive than those who have to work to achieve some kind of superficial goal of beauty."

Poker Face ignored the throbbing vein in her forehead. He was so sweet he was giving her a cavity.

"Can I know your name?" She asked nicely, biting the inside of her cheek so she couldn't say anything that would blow her cover.

"Minamino Shuichi, and what's yours?"

Crap! She forgot to give her undercover operative a name. Her gaze was fixed on her shoes with her head bowed. While he thought she was just being shy, she could come up with a good name on such short notice.

"I'm Mitsukine Maiko. It's very nice to meet you!" She may have been over enthusiastic and her bow may have been a little too deep from the waist.

Kurama didn't seem to notice. He smiled at her and returned the gesture. He was looking a little too hard on her eyepatch.

"I-I know this is weird to ask someone you just met, but, um, if you don't mind helping me with something, I would really appreciate it."

"Oh?" He seemed surprised.

Good. She wanted him to be distracted. He was looking too hard at her face.

"My friends invited me to go to this club with them this Saturday, to cheer me up, but I just don't know if I can do it. Maybe if they see me with a good looking guy, they wouldn't be so concerned about me." She even had her lower lip tremble for emphasis.

Kurama seemed to take the longest moment to think about it.

"I have a test to study for, but if it's later in the evening, I can probably make it."

Perfect. Poker Face struggled to keep herself from smirking. She dug into the canvas bag and pulled out another calling card. Thrusting it into his hand, she smiled broadly, forcibly.

"Meet me at the address on the card at nine. Again, thank you so much. Sorry, but I've got to go now."

With that, Poker Face spun on her heels and dashed off and out of the store. A while later, she got into her hotel room. Locking the door behind her, her disguise was tossed in every direction of the room. The wig was thrown into the trash along with the cap. Her copper hair was finally set free and she relished running her fingers through her locks with abandon. Clothes were thrown in some unknown place on the floor and her shoes were kicked away from her like they were disgusting rubbish.

"Good evening, kiddo."

Poker Face was standing in the middle of the room in just the skirt and bra. Her head whipped towards the voice. A cold chill ran down her spine.

"Izin?"

He was sitting in the windowsill. Not a scratch was on him. It was like he never died. He appeared as healthy and alive as before she found him bleeding out in their secret home.

"Keeping yourself busy, are you?" He motioned his head to the bag at her feet.

"You're not real."

"I've heard that you're doing a lot of business without me. Become quite an accomplished thief, haven't you? I couldn't be prouder."

"You're not real."

The fake Izin scooted of the sill and made his way towards her. His gait was just as she remembered. He had a slow, staggering walk, like he was always drunk. Oftentimes, he was. He was sleek, lanky, and didn't boast about much power. His clothes would often hang off of him like a scarecrow. His black hair ran down all the way to his lower back. Finally, one of his long arms reached out to touch her. If she was in anyway repulsed, Poker Face made no move to show it. Her eyes were glued to the window right past his ear. She focused on the city skyline and knew nothing else except how to breathe in this moment.

"You've gotten more beautiful too." His clawed hand cupped her cheek. "You look more like a woman now."

"You're not real."

"Why do you keep saying that when I'm right in front of you, koi."

"Because I held you in my arms when you died!"

That seemed to break the illusion. Poker Face woke up on the floor half-dressed with the eyepatch clutched in her hand. A black shoe was the first thing she saw. It looked was a very familiar shoe, the kind a businessman wore. This time she couldn't force herself to smile.

Her other hand shot up to cover the left side of her face and eye.

"Go away, Sakyo." Poker Face crawled on her hand and knees towards the dresser where she stashed her real clothes.

"I'm merely here to check up on your progress." He took advantage of the situation and sat himself on her bed. Permission was not needed.

She uneasily got to her feet, opened the drawer, and shuffled inside for some pjamas. There was no partying tonight. Not in this state. What she wanted was some well deserved rest. With any luck, she wouldn't have any more nightmares tonight.

"Are the Toguro brothers nearby?" The last thing she wanted was for them to see her like this. The oldest Toguro brother already made her flinch and she was barely able to keep her cool the last time they were in the same room together. She wasn't out to impress them, but she didn't want them to know her dirty little secret either.

"No. They're elsewhere. They have plans of their own for the evening." He paused and waited for her to start undressing. He noticed how she kept her left eye closed as she changed. "Did you have fun today?"

"What do you mean?"

"I found you passed out on the floor in a state of undress. Although, if you were to bring company over, I didn't think you would wear that kind of skirt."

Poker Face ignored him and kept her mind on changing clothes. A pair of silk shorts and a skin-tight cami was all she needed for the night. She fussed over her hair until she had her face covered. Leaning against the drawer, she looked Sakyo dead in the eye.

"I don't have company over when I'm working." She snapped.

Sakyo, surprised at her answer and her tone, gave her a look. "Oh?"

"You can go now."

He rose from the bed. Instead of heading straight for the door, he lingering a bit. He stepped dangerously close to her personal bubble.

"You're not smiling today. Did something happen?"

Poker Face stomped her way to the door. She tore it wide open and gestured him silently to go through it. Sakyo eventually too the hint. But he took his sweet time doing as she said. Once he was in the door way, he stopped, lingered there, and gave her a look.

"What did you do?"

"I looked at my reflection in the window." She pushed him out, nearly making him stumble, and slammed the door home. She didn't know how he got in without picking the locks, that would be too obvious and drew too much attention, but tomorrow she was checking out early and finding a new hotel.