Chapter 18: "The Backstage Rage (of the Fire Demon, Part 01)"

Perched in a tree outside of Onigumo Manor, Hiei watched.

Hiei watched, and Hiei laughed his ass off.

Hiei wasn't the type to guffaw in view of others. No; he had a surly image to maintain, which is why the Jagan was such a delight at times like these. It afforded him a bird's eye view of the ridiculous cases the toddler king liked to assign the detective—cases like the one involving the idiot gaijin and their demon of a dog, for instance. While Yusuke and the others approached Onigumo Manor earlier that evening, Hiei had installed himself in the branches of a nearby tree to observe. He'd step in when they inevitably needed him to intervene, and not a minute sooner.

And a good thing, too, because getting to watch the whole deranged mess from afar was deliciously entertaining—and it became even more so when the gaijin and their dog took the reins and ran with them.

The dog was the mastermind of the whole thing, of course. No sooner did Scooby enter another hallway of doors did he initiate a mad scramble of a chase through them, wielding psionic powers to confuse and befuddle the demon into thinking the gaijin could defy the laws of physics. Yusuke, Kurama and Kuwabara stood back and watched the debacle play out from the end of the hallway, witnessing firsthand Scooby-Doo's impressive abilities with appreciative applause.

But the demon wouldn't be swayed by that trick for very long. Psychic confusion only lasted until the affected party got their bearings, and the demon found theirs quickly enough… but Scooby-Doo was no slouch. As soon as the demon cornered Scooby in a derelict room, Scooby pulled another trick from his metaphorical hat, slamming the demon with a burst of psychic energy arranged into a single, inescapable image:

A barber's chair.

The moment the demon chased Scooby-Doo into a dead end, Scooby had conjured the image of a barber's chair, a barber's striped maypole, and a mirror with a set of trimmers lying beside it on a silver tray. Hiei, who had never set foot in a barber shop in his life, knew what these things were because Scooby wanted him to. The dog-demon had embroidered the images with meaning; even though Hiei was not the target of the images, simply witnessing them from afar was enough to plant the meanings of the images indelibly into his head.

"A testament to the beast's skill, indeed!" Hiei remarked to himself with a mocking laugh. "But to what end will he aim this ruse?"

Scooby (who suddenly wore an illusory apron and striped shirt, a handlebar mustache decorating the end of his brown muzzle) gestured for the demon to sit at the barber's chair. The demon did so without argument, walking into Scooby's conjured scenario like an actor walking purposefully onto a stage set. Such was the power of Scooby's sway, Hiei mused as the demon sat in the chair, allowed Scooby to tie a smock around their neck and cover the demon's face with illusory shaving cream. The dog could convince even aggressive demons to play right into his paw!

But it didn't end there. Scooby gave the demon a shave, trimmed his hair, even gave him a hot towel face treatment—and then he asked the demon to pay him for his services. The demon patted his haunches while Hiei chortled, searching for a wallet in pockets he didn't own, and when he shrugged at Scooby to indicate he couldn't pay, Scooby's outfit changed. Suddenly he wore a police officer's uniform, and then it was Scooby chasing the demon, waving a nightstick at the creature and shouting with his garbled affectation for the demon to "Rop, rin rhe rame ruv rhe raw!"

It was, of course, an utterly ridiculous sight to behold—but as Hiei laughed hard enough to nearly pitch him out of the tree and to the ground below, he noticed that Scooby wasn't the only one in the house pulling off a neat little trick.

NOTES: Hiei likes to pretend he's above all this. He is not. He is delighted, but like hell will he ever admit it. (Also the random scenarios Scooby can somehow convince ghosts and ghouls to play along with HAD TO MAKE AN APPEARANCE. At least now we know why he can pull the wool over people's eyes the way he does...)