[[chapter eight- no hard feelings...or not]]

Hiei blinked, his vision blurring at the edges.

Where am I? He wondered. Then he remembered. Jumping upright, he surveyed the room. The brown-haired ningen was frantically pushing buttons, looking all the while at a glowing screen.

"Come in, Elli, come in!" she moaned furiously. Then the Asian girl laid a hand on her shoulder.

"I think you're pressing the wrong button."

"Ah."

Aforementioned Asian girl pressed a little magenta button on her keypad and spoke urgently into her microphone.

"Elli? We see that Operation Kurama has gone successfully, and we're really glad, but we've got a Code Red Situation here. Hiei found the Control Room. We—I­—knocked him out, but he's going to recover any second now, and then we're going to have a very angry fire demon on our hands."

"How about not?" Hiei muttered, advancing upon her. She turned and screamed.

"Don't!" she pleaded, falling to her knees, "I'll give you anything—my Magic cards, my Yugioh cards, my life-size Bakura, you name it, anything! Just don't kill me!"

"No."

"Please, Hiei, we're really sorry," the brown-haired girl whimpered. "We'll never prank you again—at least, not on so grand a scale."

"Never. Do. That. Again."

"Don't fret, we've learned our lesson!"

"You know, you four are possibly the most troublesome ningens I've ever had the misfortune to meet," he sighed. "You just don't back down. But now, you will, because I've got the power now, and I'm calling the shots."

"Right. You call the shots," the Asian girl said seriously, nodding, "I got it."

Hiei smirked. They were mere girls, after all, afraid of painful death like anyone else. It was surprisingly simple to defeat them, and he wondered vaguely why no one had tried it before. Possibly because they had put up such a convincing façade of courage.

At that moment, Elli, Neha, and the kitsune girl burst into the room, accompanied by Kurama, all of whom were panting slightly.

"Stop right there, Hiei!" Neha shrieked. "Don't lay a single finger on my friends!"

"Who's going to stop me?" Hiei leered. "You and a couple of baka kitsunes?"

At precisely that second, Kuwabara and Yusuke staggered through the doorway. They had to have the worst timing ever. Hiei studied them carefully. They were swaying around and giggling like women. They looked...like Kurama when he got drunk.

The pie crumbs, he realized. Feeling slightly defensive about his friends and their pranked states, he stood in front of them, a guard, to shield them from the evils of the five innocuous-seeming girls before them.

"Sorry, but it looks like we've won at your little games this time," he sneered.

"Oh, no you haven't!" the Asian one said calmly. She reached into a backpack and pulled out what Hiei presumed to be her most lethal weapon...

A card. He gazed at it curiously.

"A card?" he sniggered. "That's going to be our downfall?"

"Go, Rah! Obliterate them!" she cried. Instantly, a gold dragon with huge, metallic wings arose from the card. The four Yu Yu Hakusho cast members stared in horror as Rah prepared to 'obliterate' them. Even Yusuke and Kuwabara snapped out of their drunken state. They didn't know what 'obliterate' meant, but it didn't sound very good to them.

Without thinking about it, they turned on their heels and ran from the building in terror. Yusuke and Kuwabara screamed wildly as Rah's head burst through the roof, and even Hiei and Kurama were struck with complete terror.

Nikki sniggered as she watched the four of them depart, and she struck a victory pose. Elli turned to her friend and stared at her dragon with a look of complete perplexity on her face.

"Um... Nikki?" she asked gazing at the golden dragon, which (until now) she had thought to be a part of, who ever it was that created Yugi-Oh!' imagination. She stared at Elli a moment, then following her gaze and said,

"Oh, that."

Elli nodded distantly, "How did you do that?" she asked.

"Illusion." Nikki answered.

"Oooooooooooooooh." The others coursed, watching as the god-card vanished. They all stood in silence for a bit more, reflecting on the day's events.

"Guys," Neha said to the rest of the group. "We should go and find them, and apologize for all those pranks."

"Yea," Elli agreed, "Especially Hiei." Here she paused and smiled, "He's probably afraid to touch any kind of dessert now."

This caused a round of giggles. But in the end, all of the five girls who made up Team Kitsune, left for the door of the old shop in search of Yusuke, Kuwabara, Kurama and Hiei.