"Hiei-chaaaan!"

Perched in a tall tree and out of the viewing span of human eyes, Hiei cracked an eye open and looked down. In his bleary state, he almost expected to see his sister shouting for him to wake up due to some emergency.

That was certainly not his sister.

The girl (at least, she appeared to be a girl, though the truth or falseness of that statement, Hiei would discover later) was not extraordinarily tall—only a few centimeters taller than himself, he guessed. Her hair was not what you might call "pretty," although she clearly cared for it with expensive shampoos and conditioners and other scented hair products. It all contributed to a rather bland color that might have once been blond and very shiny.

Hiei ignored her and tried to settle into the branch and fall back asleep.

The girl hit the tree anxiously, beating her petite fists against the bark. The slight vibrations disturbed Hiei's rest and he twitched in annoyance.

"Hiei-chaaaan!"

"What?" he muttered, bordering on anger. He peeked out through a gap in the leaves—maybe she had chanced to look through it to see him. He made sure his eyes were narrowed and his knuckles whitening.

"Hiei-chan, come down here and be joyous! For we are officially a couple, as of last night when I read it in a fanfiction my BFF wrote to give me for my birthday!"

Her slightly squeaking voice grated on his ears and he winced. Where had this girl come from? And what the hell was "fanfiction"? Whatever this "BFF" was would have to pay for its diabolical plot…

Hiei opted to settle back to his branch and try (desperately) to fall asleep.

Vibrations made the tree quiver again and another high-pitched wail was sure to follow. The fire demon leapt from his seat and landed beside the girl in a blur too quick to spot, but she instantly turned on him with glowing eyes and an impossibly wide smile.

"Hiei-chan!"

She dove as though to hug him, and Hiei jerked back sharply. What was this thing and why did it know who he was? And more importantly, why did it look so much like a human girl? It clearly was not, and yet it could pass for one in any common school. And what exactly was a "BFF"? Or a "fanfiction"? Or—

Wait.

The girl had taken complete advantage of Hiei's musings to cling to his waist like a…barnacle, or something. Her face was burrowed into his chest, an interesting feat with their differences in height, and she seemed to be trying to suffocate him.

Hiei attempted to push her off, succeeding after several minutes, only to have her latch onto his wrist with an Iron Grip.

"Come on!" she cried excitedly. "Let's go to Kurama's. You can show off that you've got a new girlfriend!"

"Girlfriend? What are—"

"Come on!" this mysterious thing giggled, dragging Hiei down the street (despite much violent resistance).

Damn that Iron Grip.

"How do you know where you're going?" Hiei asked in a voice between confusion and rage.

The girl smiled.

"I'm om-ni-po-tent," she said. "That means I know everything."

"I know what it means," Hiei snarled. The girl giggled again.

Slowly, Hiei began to realize that he didn't recognize his surroundings at all. They weren't headed towards Kurama's house…the fox lived at least two miles in the opposite direction. Hiei smacked the girl on the shoulder.

"You're going the wrong way," he said. "You're not omnipotent at all, you're just stupid. If you had asked me where the fox lived, we would be there by now."

The girl looked affronted. "Why, Love! Of course I know the way!"

"Don't call me that."

The girl turned on her heel and headed off in the opposite direction. Hiei continued to try and pull his arm from her grip, or, bar that, from its socket so that the rest of him could get away.

For the sake of convenience, let us say that the girl dragged Hiei to Kurama's house and Hiei's arm was not pulled from her grip or from its socket.

"Kurama-chaaaan!" the girl wailed.

Momentarily, the fox poked his head out the window.

"Yes?" he said suspiciously. The girl who had called for him was with Hiei, though, so she had to be trustworthy…right?

Right.

…right?

"Hey bro! Hiei and I just wanted to announce that we'll be getting married next month!"

"What! Your idea that we were a couple was absurd, but this is—"

"Can we trust you to come to the wedding and bring pretty flowers and stuff?"

"Run, Kurama, before it gets you, too!"

"Oh, you're so silly, Love."

"Don't call me that!"

Slightly dizzied by the speed of that brief exchange, Kurama paused before answering. The girl—or at least, he assumed it was a girl—looked at him hopefully, and he blinked.

"…bro?" he said blankly. The girl nodded furiously.

"Yeah, Kurama, don't you remember? We're long lost siblings? Duh! I was reincarnated when you were because I couldn't stand to lose my favorite brother!"

Clearly she was mentally ill. But Kurama didn't have time to deal with that at the moment.

"…married?" he said blankly. The girl nodded emphatically.

"I might need to bribe him or something first, but yeah, we're getting married!"

"…what's your name?"

"Yohaim Alexis Fernando Reinhardt Wyferon Versailles de Granvirias! You can call me 'Alexis' for short!"

Kurama counted in his head, recounting when he arrived at a perplexing result.

"That's a part Jewish, part American, part Hispanic, part Elven, part Roman name," he called down to her. "And 'Alexis' is certainly the American part of it!"

"It's also the shortest! And the most feminine!"

"But we're in Japan!"

She nodded emphatically. "Yeah, I know! I break rules 'cause I'm special!"

"Special, indeed…"

Hiei continued to try to pull his arm out of its socket, but being that Yohaim Alexis Fernando Reinhardt Wyferon Versailles de Granvirias had an Iron Grip on his wrist, he couldn't move much, and it was all pretty futile. Instead, he desperately tried to stamp a Morse code message to Kurama with his foot, but then he realized that he wasn't sure how to make an "E," so the message fell flat.

Alexis dragged Hiei up to Kurama's door, where she knocked politely, waited approximately one point seven nine three seconds, opened it, and toed off her shoes in the doorway. Upon seeing the two come up to the door, Kurama had dashed downstairs and reached the foyer in time to see Alexis's shoes spiral and flip into the living room. Impressive? Yes, a little. Rude? Yes, sort of. Her shoes were loafers, it wasn't as though they would be difficult to take off and place by the door.

"Miss…Versailles de Granvirias," Kurama said, trying to remember the latter part of her name. She nodded, her smile all too excited.

"Yohaim Alexis Fernando Reinhardt Wyferon Versailles de Granvirias. Did I mention that I'm directly descended from the greatest Elven king who ever lived?"

"Yes, well. You see, I don't think it would be a good way to spend my time, growing flowers for a wedding that isn't going to happen."

"But…" Alexis stuttered, her lower lip quivering. "But…t-the fanfi-i-i-ction," she hiccupped. "It s-said Hiei and I were a…a couple, and we got married!"

Luckily for Hiei, as Alexis began to bawl, she removed her Iron Grip from his wrist in order to bury her face in her hands. Hiei fled, ducking behind Kurama, an act which involved no ducking at all, seeing as how Kurama is taller than Hiei by several centimeters.

Hiei and Kurama made small talk for a little while, until the sounds of Alexis's wails began to die down. Hiei risked a glance over Kurama's shoulder, which was, as it turns out, a really bad move on his part.

Alexis leaped forward and, snaking her arm under Hiei's peeking head, grabbed Kurama around the neck and pulled him away. Hiei vainly reached for his friend and let his arm fall back uselessly when he missed.

"Marry me or I'll lock Kurama in a dungeon for the rest of his life and being that we all know Youko could live for like a bazillion years that'd be really bad and it'd kill his fox spirit and stuff and you're best friends so you really do like him and you want him to be all cool like that so you have to agree!"

"Um…"

Kurama looked from Hiei to the girl to Hiei to the girl. She did have an Iron Grip.

"Just say yes, Hiei," he said tiredly. He didn't need this right now…

"Yes."

"Thank you."

"YAY!"

Hiei looked over at Alexis-whatshername. Whenever she made squeaky noises like that, it meant bad things for him. What exactly had he just agreed to? He remembered something about Kurama, something about a dungeon, and something about a marriage.

Oh, that didn't sound good…

Meanwhile, the girl had latched back to Hiei's arm and was trying to drag him out the door. Hiei resisted mightily, but the girl had the power of fanfiction on her side and was ultimately successful.

"Let's go to Makeout Creek!"

"…excuse me?"

Giggling madly like a schoolgirl on drugs, Alexis hauled Hiei out the door and down the street, under the suddenly nighttime sky. Hiei blinked a few times. Never had he seen a sky turn so suddenly from one time to another. Not that it mattered—what the hell was "Makeout Creek"? A river which was difficult to see? He didn't think he wanted to know.

Alexis had, reasonably quickly, taken Hiei all the way up a romantic-looking hill (you know, surrounded by pretty white flowers and moonbeams and stuff) to a romantic-looking bluff (maybe with a babbling brook nearby, or something equally sap-tastic) from which they could see the romantic-looking city (with all the lights somehow not blocking out the stars, giving it an illogical ethereal glow). She sat down on the grass and dragged Hiei down beside her, trying to force his head into her lap. He resisted mightily, keeping himself from killing her by reminding himself that he was here in the first place to save Kurama.

"Isn't it beautiful, Love?" she sighed dreamily. Hiei gagged.

Cough cough.

"No," he spat, rubbing his throat. "It certainly is not, and I don't know why we can see the stars in the first place, what with all the light pollution."

"Oh, dear, you have no imagination!" Alexis laughed daintily. Hiei rolled his eyes and, in that moment, saw and heard someone—two of them, actually—crawling out of the bushes and sitting beside the less-than-happy couple.