Killua was already awake when the first speckles of light touched his closed eyelids. He had sensed Miu there perhaps hours before, watching him, and he had simply chosen to keep up the facade of sleep to see what she would do. The answer seemed to be absolutely nothing and now that the sun was rising, the boy was growing impatient and found little motivation to wait any longer before confronting her.

"What do you want?" he asked, his eyes remaining closed.

There was a moment of silence, as he had anticipated there would be due to her surprise, and then finally Miu's voice responded.

"It isn't easy for someone like me to say I'm sorry."

He smirked.

"Is that your idea of an apology?"

"Yes. You don't know what it's like to be me, kid."

"Ditto."

"I... have lied my whole life. I want to be honest with you now. Taiki..." She paused. "...He trusted in you guys, I guess."

"Honest about what?" he pressed, ignoring the tail end of her statement.

"Open your eyes."

Separating his eyelids, a sight most unexpected met the former assassin. While indeed he had sensed Miu's aura and spoke to Miu's voice, the woman standing before him only a short distance away with her arms crossed over her chest (as if she were cradling herself through the long robe), was not familiar in the least. There were heavy purple creases below her weary brown eyes and sunken in cheeks that appeared to be more bone than skin. Her hair was dry, whispy, and shoulder-length. It was a mousy brown that was clearly greying in a few select patches. The flesh was too tight in certain areas and a bit too loose and discoloured in others.

"This... is who I really am."

Killua blinked.

"I thought Taiki was the one with the ability to change appearances."

Her eyes turned sullen as she replied, "Every member of L.I.G.H.T. is taught to do that when they join."

Neither spoke any words for a solid handful of minutes; Killua staring over the deteriorating woman and Miu avoiding eye contact altogether.

"Why did you bother showing us a disguise yesterday?" the boy finally questioned, sitting up in his sleeping bag and glancing over at his friend, who was now also awake. "We didn't know what you looked like, anyway."

"I never thought I would show you what I really looked like. I planned on just using that face and pretending it really was mine."

Although he was tempted to touch on the matter that there was likewise no way to prove that Miu's current form was in fact her true one either, Killua held back. He couldn't bring himself to accuse her of this while she looked so... defeated.

'All this stupid Misaki stuff is making me soft,' he scolded himself.

"I wasn't always so hideous..."

"You're not hideous, Miu-san!" Gon piped up.

"I am," she replied firmly. "I used to attract everyone... Even my ability depended on everyone looking at me... but not now. Everything has changed. I'm older now..."

"Taiki-san didn't think you were hideous!"

Though her eyes watered, the girl did manage to smile briefly.

"What was your name again, kid?"

"Gon Freecss."

"Well, Gon Freecss, thank you."

The tanned boy beamed and nodded in response.

Frowning again, Miu glanced up pitifully toward Killua.

"...But it's you that I came to apologize to. I know you don't owe me shit, but I... wondered if I could prove myself by joining your team... Please... let me make it up to you..."

Miu bowed her head low and Killua awkwardly exchanged looks with his companion, who smiled broadly back at him. Throwing his hands behind his head, the paler boy sighed in annoyance. In truth he wasn't particularly interested in having Miu around, but he also was not in the mood to have to defend his reasoning to Gon for an unspecified amount of time if he turned her down.

'I really am getting soft,' his mind grumbled.

"Fine, whatever."

Springing to her feet, the woman covered her mouth in an attempt to stifle her emotions.

"Really?" she cried out.

"Yeah, yeah... but the second we have another member on our team, you're going somewhere else."

The sudden sound of a single party clapping interrupted the trio. Startled by the presence that none of the three had sensed prior, their gazes simultaneously shot upwards to a tree branch that held a figure.

The figure was that of a girl, young but not clearly adult or adolescent, wearing an out of place, black dress that hung past her knees in the front and nearly touched her ankles in the back. The garment flared slightly, as though there were some degree of crinoline beneath a portion it. Towards the bottom right was a sewn bunny head patch with diagonal crosses for eyes that was split in the middle of the forehead. A pair of red lines on either side of the "gash" were positioned vertically down the face, and equally crimson ruching initiated at the same site and formed inverted arcs around the entirety of the gown. The sleeves barely concealed the shoulders, and bright yellow adhesive gauze coated the skin from about an inch below the sleeves all the way to the wrists on either side. This strange choice of covering was mirrored from the thighs to her mid-calf (where the square-heeled black boots with the same rabbit design on the bulk of the left shoe began) as well as all around the neck. Her hair was chin length, curled, and pallid pink; styled to create a heart-shape around her face.

Upon her final clap, the girl pressed her palms together and angled them to the left, resting her tilted cheek there as she closed her eyes and grinned from ear to ear. She bent her right leg back at the knee girlishly.

"Oh! It's so sweet! I love it, I love it!" the girl gushed, her voice pitched high enough to make her sound quite like she had inhaled helium prior to her arrival. "Even ugly people can find acceptance! It's like a fairy tale ending!"

In an instant, the boys found themselves on their feet.

"Who are you?" Gon asked, confused.

Repositioning herself to cross her ankles and dangle the yellow wrapped arms at her sides with the wrists gently tented outward, the girl smiled down at them.

"Me? I'm just a fan of good, old fashioned redemption!" Winking, she added, "But you can just call me Hoshii-chan. All of my friends call me that, and I want us to become the best of friends and have lots and lots of fun together, after all!"

Despite the gleeful element to her voice and her seemingly innocent appearance, Killua knew to keep his wits about him. This girl had managed to get uncomfortably close to them undetected. Even Miu, a high ranking member of a group of classified Conspiracy Hunters, was taken by surprise.

"Hoshii..." Gon repeated back, as though testing out the name on his tongue.

"Hoshii-chan," the girl corrected in a singsong manner, waving her pointer finger back and forth.

"Why are you here?" Killua asked, restraining his irritation as best as possible.

Hoshii transferred her "disciplinary" finger to her right cheek, resting the elbow into her palm of the opposite side. Her black eyes glistened from beneath the netting of her feathered fascinator, encouraging Killua into a more forthright defensive pose.

"I thought you'd never ask, chibi-chan!" Winking with enough gusto to concurrently cock her head to the left, she added, "I'm here to take care of business; just like you!"

A/N: Things will start to tie in and make more sense, if you haven't caught on already... I swear. XD