The girl stepped up to a food cart that did not match the area well. She went up boldly and asked the Middle Eastern food cook, who was relaxing from a busy day in the truck. It was after six PM, and the only other person in earshot was a homeless man enjoying the warm evening by the small park.

“I need one double order of spicy shrimp spring roll,” she said while showing a card with a drawing of a multitailed Japanese fox depicted in blacks and greys.

The homeless man spoke up from the bench he had camped out on, “Could the pretty girl order some of that for me? It sounds awfull good!”

She smiled a lovely smile that brought a skip to the desperate man’s heart. “No, I don’t think it would agree with you, but I will order you something better!”

“Bless your sweet little heart! You will make someone a very lovely bride one day!”

To the vendor, she said, “Give him any other dish you make from the regular menu every evening for the next week and put it on my tab.”

“Will do, miss. Here is your order.”

She took the small package he slid over the counter of the serving area of the truck’s food window. Nodding once to him with no trace of the previous smile, she left the area. She slipped behind a bush and slipped the object that was in the package into the back of her hair and made sure the item was secured as she did her hair up with a pair of chopsticks.

The sweet young girl was too good a target to pass up. Elia passed his eyes up and down her tasty-looking form again as he motioned to Sasha to close in on her. She had her hair up in a cute arrangement and held it with two beautiful, dark, wooden chopsticks.

“Young lady. This part of Los Angeles is a dangerous area. Would you like an escort to a safer place?” Sasha stated smoothly to the girl. His 6' 5” mass held in at a polite distance. It was about seven thirty in the evening, and the dark had begun to fall.

Timidly, she gave him a shy smile, “Thank you, sir! I seem to have lost my tour group. Do you know the way to the Budget Bison hotel? I have a room there.

Elia stepped forward with a grandfatherly smile. “Certainly, young lady! We need to go to my hotel right now. Maybe it would be better for you to stay at my hotel tonight, and we can take you back to your friends in the morning.” He said as he pointedly peered at the expensive watch on his wrist. “Please, come enjoy the safety of my luxury suite in the penthouse. By the way, what is your name, young lady?”

“My name is Jasmine, sir. Thank you for helping me. I have just been so flustered and confused. I have not been able to focus since my father was murdered recently.”

This will be easy. Elia said to himself, thinking of how much fun he would have using this waif. Even after he finishes with her, she should sell for a good price. Maybe he would give her to his son, Igor.

The ride in Elia’s large, black vehicle was luxurious. The main area of the elevated cabin was carpeted, and all seats were covered in supple leather. The rich black walnut panels were finished to perfection with a mirror-perfect coat of epoxy coating. Elia sat in a rear-facing seat, watching Jasmine with an unreadable expression. The vehicle moved with almost disturbingly smooth speed. When he offered her the soft drink, she sipped it demurely. She did not notice the effects of the drug it was laced with at all.

As they pulled up to the massive hotel, its lights shining like a massive palace in the twilight, two valets came up to take the keys to the vehicle and help Elia and Jasmine out of the high cabin, and escorted them to the elevator without having to go to the front desk. The pretty young girl was a docile as the old pervert had hoped. Elia inserted a special keycard into the slot in the control panel. The display showed “Penthouse”, and the elevator doors closed, and they began to rise.

“I love not having to press a button to choose the floor!” mused the portly man in a low voice. It didn’t matter what the girl heard at this point. Her senses would be so dulled by now that he could have bragged to her about what he would do to her. His bodyguards were ready to catch her. Besides, she wouldn’t be able to flee in the elevator even if she got free. His card was the only one currently active. He had made sure the hotel disabled all others when he brought girls over.

Elia did not see the feral grin on the girl’s face until he saw it in the mirror finish of the brass elevator door. He was about to ask her what brought this look to her face when he felt a sting at his neck. Everything went dark and soft. His vision went blank, and a soft hum began building in his ears until it all just went away.

He started to return to the world with the worst hangover headache he had ever had. He tried to call out for Sasha to bring him something for the pain and to settle his stomach, but there was something in his mouth that would not let him speak. Then, he noticed that his arms were fastened behind his back and his legs were fastened to a chair. His vision was fading into existence. He began to look around his penthouse suite. His men were lined up on the floor, neatly lined up as if for a mass grave. All ten were there.

Jasmine’s voice cut in with a sweet tone. Her voice was such a cutesy anime voice that it made him angry. “Don’t worry, your men are just having a little nap. They were so busy trying to wake you up. So I went ahead and used a little something I had to simplify things. They should wake up in about eight hours.”

Elia made an effort to scream something at the little girl, but what was in his mouth would let little more than garbled grunts pass. “Silly me. I forgot that we could not have a conversation if you can’t speak.” She stepped forward, ignoring his glare, and pulled something made of cloth from his mouth. Once she had it out, she showed him that was a pair of frilly, low-rise socks, just like the ones she had been wearing. Seeing her bare feet, he began spitting to clear the lint and imagined funk from his mouth.

“Look here you little bitch! I am a powerful man! Security will be up here any minute and then you will have a LOT of explaining to do!”

“I don’t think so. You always have the camera systems deactivated when you bring a ‘playmate’ up here. I know you had the place soundproofed too. So nobody will hear you, no matter how loud we are,” she said with a mocking smile.

“What do you want?”

“I just want to make sure you know what is about to happen and who is doing it to you. That’s all.”

“I have money! I have power! I have friends who will do anything for my safety, and will take revenge if anything happens to me!”

The girl pouted as she got right in his face, “You aren’t understanding your situation. I am not scared of you, old man. You put a contract out on the wrong people. Haven’t you ever been told it isn’t polite to attack the Yokai organization?”

His eyes opened wide like saucers, and he went deathly pale. “No! You can’t be with them! My father used to tell stories about them. I looked for them, but they only exist in rumors from old nutcases!”

“Do you remember what attacking them means?” she asked in a cute little girl voice again. “You even had the audacity to send a cutthroat to kill one of the Shinigami of our organization.” She wagged an index finger slowly in his face with a cute little frown. “You know we can’t let such a dishonor rest. But wait, to add insult to injury, your son was involved with it too. I hear he already has offended the Oyabun.  It doesn’t look good for him.”

“Please! Do anything to me! Just don’t kill my son!”

She seemed to ponder for a bit, and then with a smooth movement pulled a small object from her hair and said, “Okay, we won’t kill him.” She immediately pulled the little derringer-style double trigger on the disposable gun she had placed right in front of his forehead. Everything from his forehead back vanished in a pink mist as the chambers both fired and sent two explosive rounds through his skull.

Jasmine switched her reversible skirt and blouse from the white and blue exterior to the Blue and green alternate exterior. She pulled out the chopsticks. Then, she pulled on the tights she had hidden in the folds of her skirt. E took a  to admire the blast pattern of her former host’s remains on the couch. Then she went to the bedroom and opened the sliding glass door to leave via the patio.

It was a simple thing to climb her way down to the next floor, go in through the balcony of the room she had rented earlier. From there, she took the elevator to the ground floor and caught a cab. The gun was dropped with the chopsticks in a trash bin at the airport. The gun ignited and burned just enough to destroy itself and the hair ornaments that had held just enough of the gas for the bodyguards.

---===+++===---

Igor cursed to himself as he drifted to consciousness. The hangover pounding in his head was spectacular. Funny, he didn’t remember drinking last night…  His hands seemed to be asleep. He must have slept in an odd position.

Squinting as he opened his eyes, Igor looked into the impassive features of a beautiful, young Japanese girl. A girl he could remember brushing against him in the club as memories trickled in of the previous evening. He still could not remember anything after her gentle touch on his wrist. She still wore that sweet jasmine scent, tantalizing in its caress of his senses.

He could not wait to take her in every way. He would own her and her screams of agony and pleasure. He had a service that would clean up the mess afterwards.

“I see you are awake. Don’t even try to move or speak,” she said with a smirk. “Your father preserved your life with his last request, but not your mind or health.”

He could not help himself as he looked with lust as she leaned down over his face. She had something in her right hand, but he could not make out what it was. There was a sting of a needle in his neck on the left side. The world began to blur around him as she rose back up. For some reason, he began to think of his mother. She had vanished when he was only three years old. This woman looked nothing like her, but she made him think of her as the world faded from his view and mind.

She removed the prosthetics and the makeup that made up her disguise, revealing a slightly different face and a pair of blue eyes of shocking clarity. Then she went to the warehouse. On her way there, she made the call to her Oyabun to report the mission results and have the ambulance called for the vegetable she had just created.