Usagi: So, after a surprising new chapter of Heart Wars, here comes the next instalment of DoH too. Ain't I spoiling you guys?

Sora: I prefer Heart Wars. At least there I am a badass sith!

Usagi: (gazes at Sora)

Sora: what?

Usagi: Sora…you're being told of by a bunny.

Sora: he's a violent vicious bunny! Like Zakura!

Usagi: oh…in that case you've forgiven.

Max: :3

Zakura: don't mess with bunnies.

Usagi: the title of this chapter turned out a bit ironic…I thought of naming it God of illusion but since said "God" is a dog I changed it to that… only later noticing dog is god backwards… words can be weird sometimes…

Chapter 12

The Dog of Illusion

"I think it's clear what we need to do, we've got to find the rest of the bijuu!" Souko said.

Nekomata sighed. "I still don't think Orochi will help us, but if this Xehanort guy is as bad as you say he is ("He's worse" Riku said) Houko should be warned."

"He's your friend isn't he? I heard Kaku mention it" Kairi said. Nekomata nodded.

"Houko's helped me out of quite a few tight spots. He's a five-tailed dog, but I guess it's easy to see we're not your typical cat and dog" she said. "He went into hiding after Kyuubi beat us, no one knows where he is…except me."

"If the heartless finds him now he'll be an easy target! We've got to warn him, I'd hate to see Neko go trhough the same thing I did" Shukaku said. Everyone else suddenly turned to look at him. "Ops…said too much."

"Aw come on, everyone knows you and Kyuubi were childhood friends" Kaku said. "Even if you often fought like…well cat and dog"

"That's no surprise" Sora said.

"He wasn't always this mean you know" Shukaku muttered. "He can actually be quite cool once you get to know him…and he's not a heartless."

"I know your pain" Samehada sighed. "But at least you can MOVE without your friends."

"Fine, first we'll go get Houko, then maybe we can go see if Orochi has any interest in kicking some heartless butt" Nekomata said, final one directed at Souko and Raijuu, who grinned. "Don't get your hopes up."
"Well in that case let's hurry up!" Raijuu said and swiftly switched to his weasel-form.

"Hey hold on a second! We can't keep on with you guys in your monster forms! We only have two legs" Etna complained.

"Oh…sorry, I forgot about that" Raijuu said embarrassed.

"That can be fixed" Shukaku said, as he transformed into a giant tanuki. "Hop aboard girls" he added to Kairi, Etna and Flonne.

"Like I'm gonna let them ride with you perv-boy" Nekomata said, and the giant cat knocked him out of the way. "Step right up, Kairi, you can come too kitty-boy".

"Oh joy" Zexion sighed, but he let Kairi help both him and Ienzo get up on the giant cat's back.

Flonne and Etna ran over to Raijuu, but as they climbed up they both got shocked.

"Sorry about that, it won't happen again I swear" the weasel said.

"Oh its okay" Flonne said.

"If I hadn't had to ride him he'd be so dead" Etna muttered.

Sora and Riku walked over to Shukaku. "Looks like you got dumped again" Riku said smirking.

"Oh shut up before you have to walk" Shukaku muttered, while the boys climbed up on his back, swiftly followed by Axel. "Hey Souko! Aren't you going to help?"

The four-tail gazed at the rest of them. "Sure none of you others can't take the rest? What about Kaku?"

"I'm too small" Kaku said, already in badger form, sure enough the only ones who had been able to fit on his back was Demyx and Samehada.

"Okay fine" Souko sighed, before transforming into his demon form. Which turned out to be some strange lizard with the head, wings and back feet of a rooster. "Stop staring" the demon warned.

"Garwsh, we weren't staring" Goofy said helpfully, but most of the others were indeed staring, Axel broke out in laughter and Shukaku just grinned.

"I had almost forgotten how stupid you actually looked" the tanuki said.

"Let's just get on with this" Souko hissed, before pretty much scooping up Donald, Mickey and Goofy, spread the large wings and took of.

"Everyone aboard? Then let's go" Nekomata said, she too spread her wings and flew just in front of Souko. "This way."

And so the bijuu demons set of, lead by Nekomata and Souko who flew up front.

Nekomata led them towards a large forested area; a few animal-like demons peered out of the trees but kept a distance to the bijuu.

"How far is it? We've passed this tree four times already" Kaku said.

"You may think so, but don't forget Houko is the god of illusions. You won't find his hideout unless you already know where to go" Nekomata said. "We'll be there soon."

Sure enough, soon they arrived at a clearing, and the biggest tree any of the travellers had ever seen. Nekomata landed and let her passengers of before slowly approaching the big tree.

"Is this the place?" Kairi asked. Nekomata merely nodded. "You should probably wait here, I'll go talk to him" the cat demon said.

She walked up to the tree and from a distance the party could barely see the figure of a large white beast sit up underneath it.

"Is that Houko?" Sora whispered.

"Looks like it, I haven't seen him in a while" Raijuu replied. "But he is a giant white five-tailed dog, so it's probably him.

Houko was indeed having a good nap, until suddenly four large demons and one badger, accompanied by several other small creatures suddenly barged into his resting place.

He quickly recognized the larger demons, Nekomata came up to him.

"Hi there doggy, how's it going?" she asked.

"Well I was having a good night's sleep until you woke me up" Houko said annoyed.

"It's the middle of day" Nekomata remarked.

"Whatever" Houko said and got up, flinching as a ray of pain shot trhough his bandaged leg. "Ouch…now what do you want? I assume you wouldn't bring the whole lot over if it was only a friendly visit" he asked. "And if you want to beat up Kyuubi again, I can't help you with that, with this leg I'm lucky if I can catch even an elephant."

"You're right, we have a serious reason to be here" Nekomata said. "The Netherworld is in danger".

"Gee, what gave that away? Our king, the second most aggressive demon in the Netherworld going nuts? Or are the squirrels plotting a take-over" the dog asked.

"Close…but it's not the squirrels that are plotting and its not just Kyuubi either" Nekomata said. "The heartless are getting more and more restless by the day, they've taken King Laharl and Isonade too! The last thing we need now is more bijuu falling to them, so we came to warn you".

"The overlord too? Man this is worse than I thought" Houko said. "Kyuubi loosing was bad enough, his opponent was water element. At this rate all demons would turn into heartless!"

"And that's not the worst" Sora said as the others came closer to the tree. "The Netherworld has a heart too, and if the heartless get to that we'll all be pretty screwed."

"You at least since you live here and all" Axel added.

"And where is this heart?" Houko asked.

"We have no idea" Sora said.

"Well then…how does it look like?" the dog asked.

"Don't know".

"And how do you expect to save something you don't know what is?"

"We're still thinking about that".

"Who are these people?" Houko asked Nekomata.

"Just some of the Overlord's associates. Flonne, Etna, Sora, Kairi, Riku, Axel, Demyx, Ienzo, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Trixi, and this little cute guy is Zexion" Nekomata said.

Zexion's eye twitched. "She did not just say that did she?"

If you mean "this little cute guy is Zexion", then yes, she did say that Ienzo said helpfully.

Zexion stared at his heartless, Houko stared at him too.

"You have a heartless in your party?" he asked.

"Oh don't worry about him, he's nice" Kairi said.

"Most of the time" Sora said quietly.

"Etna-sama, ETNA-SAMA!" a squeaky voice behind them suddenly yelled.

One of the prinnies came running towards them as fast as he could.

"What's wrong with you? I thought I told you to keep an eye on the prince" Etna said.

"It's just… pant… just that dood" the prinny said. "He's at the caste…and this giant snake heartless appeared. Dood"

"Orochi!" Nekomata hissed.

"Well I'll be damned" Souko said.

"Okay okay, so he got into a fight, big deal" Etna said.

"I think this might be serious dood. Deym and some other guy were there as well, and they said it was about the fate of the Netherworld" the prinny said.

Everyone stared at him.

"Say… you don't suppose the heart of the Netherworld is somewhere like…very close to the castle or something?" Demyx asked.

"I guess there is a slight possibility" Riku said.

"Then what are we waiting for! Ow…" Houko said, and got up before dropping back down.

"You're not in any condition to go anywhere" Nekomata said.

"You may be right but I don't want to miss this" Houko said, before he transformed into a humanoid demon with his right arm bandaged, he then walked up to Shukaku. "Mind giving me a ride?"

"Aw…do I have to?" Shukaku whined.

"Yes you do, now let's go!" Nekomata said and stopped briefly to let Kairi, Ienzo and Zexion back up on her back, and within shortly they were on their way.

--

The Overlord's castle was far beyond repair.

Not only was it completely trashed but because some smartass (Laharl figured it might as well be his father who had a habit of doing silly things) decided to build it in the middle of a lava pit most of the building materials had fallen in and melted.

Yet, the now heartless Overlord still stood on top of the rubble, looking over the surrounding area.

"Any particular reason we're still here" Kyuubi said, he was lying quite close, obviously bored. "This place is a mess".

"Well I did ask you to clean it up" Laharl said.

"I'm the king of bijuu, not a maid" Kyuubi said.

Laharl sighed. "I should really find a few prinnies and turn them into heartless too" he said.

"Why? Can't we just take another castle? I hear Hoggmeisser's is a nice place" the demon fox said.

"Hoggmeisser turned into a heartless last year and we had to tear down his castle because it smelt bad" Laharl said. "Turns out the old pig had been hiding a whole lot of food, and with no one there to eat it, it was starting to rot."

"Oh that's uncool" Kyuubi said, but the conversation got interrupted by a sound in the distance. "What was that?"

"We've got company" Laharl snarled, and pulled out his sword.

Usagi: is the Netherworld screwed? Or will our heroes find a way to save it in time?

I'M NOT TELLING YOU! YOU WILL NEVER KNOW! THE NEXT CHAPTER WILL BE ABOUT DRAGONBALL Z!

Zakura: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! NOT DRAGONBALL Z!

Usagi: fine it won't… it will be about saving the Netherworld! Please review or I'll have the heartless steal the heart of YOUR world!

Zakura:…you do realize that would be our world too right?

Usagi: oh snap… well in that case…well… REVIEW ANYWAY!