She lay on a branch over the new Kohaku river and dipped her finger tips into the water. The eighteen year old Sen, thought about the past, and Kohaku, rather Haku. Something covered her mouth and she fell into the water, her eyes opened wide as she saw blood flowing out of her before she closed her eyes, slowly dying from drowning and bleeding to death.
Three months after he had last seen her Haku left the spirit world, only to come to a river, he saw that someone had carved a rock cave in the side of the rock wall and inside was a small sculpture of him in his dragon form. Near the sculpture sat two items that glinted in the sun, he pulled the one out, it was a gold character of the name Sen, and the other was his: the Kohaku river.
Sen was turned over on the spirit side of the river and saw a man hovering over top of her.
"are you alright?"
He asked and she sat up and he helped her up. She said not a word and nodded.
"you're a human spirit right?"
A nod. Then something weird happened, she faded away into the air, he watched as the grass bent under her feet as she walked away from him, a true spirit at last. She walked through town, materializing and de-materializing as she walked. She made her way to the bath house and down to the boiler room like she had before, only this time she was dripping wet. She stopped at the inner door and the dirt clumps just stopped and looked at her, as she stood there looking in. the boiler man stopped what he was doing and turned his head to look at her.
"well look what we have here a nature spirit… but what are you doing down here? The main door is up there."
He said as he pointed up. He took a long look at what she looked like, all she had on her was a simple dress, a light blue, but her face made him second guess himself.
"you…don't recognize me Kamajii?"
She said in a soft voice, he leaned closer to her and met her gaze.
"oh…Sen… you've change quite a bit."
The dirt balls moved out of her way as she walked over to the boiler to try to get the water off of her. She was just about dry when Lin came in and exchanged bowls with Kamajii.
"hey who's the girl?"
She asked as Sen stood up. She saw a sad expression in the girls face as she said that. Her eyes widen and she whispered a name under her breath.
"Sen?"
The girl looked up and said
"long time no see. Lin"
The older girl ran up and hugged the younger one.
"Sen! What are you doing here?"
"I am here for a job, I can't go home, my spirit is free from my body."
Lin pulled away from her and looked at her eyes, the bright determined eyes were replaced by eyes so dull that they could have rivaled Haku's eyes.
Lin nodded and took her hand, she then lead her up to the head, well the second in command.
"yubabba is no longer in power here, but the policy is still the same, Haru is now in charge. He is a nature spirit, and he may help you out."
They reached the top of the tower and she saw that Lin was indeed correct. He was handsome, short dark hair but he had wind, water, dust, and soot swirling around him. he looked over to Lin and spoke.
"I see that you have brought another for the work load, tell me girl what are you and what is your name?"
"My name is Sen, and I have been told that I am a nature spirit."
"Lin leave."
Lin left but not before she glanced at her sister in arms, a friend so well known that they knew everything.
Haru walked over to Sen and held her up by her neck, and then he dropped her onto the floor. He went over to the desk and a piece of paper and a pen floated up to her, she signed her name on the paper and waited.
"I will train you every night, but during the day you are to work with Lin. One complaint from you and you will be sorry. Now go"
She left without a word nd walked with Lin back to their living quarters, where they changed into their work clothes and went back.
"Lin, Sen you guys are working on the big tub today, the tokens that you may need are already for you in the room."
The foreman said and he walked away as Lin laughed and Sen just smiled at what happened the last time they had to clean the big tub. They got there nd saw that it was in the same condition as when they first got the job. Sen was quiet while she worked and Lin was concerned for the younger girl. She had not seen Haku either since the baka witch fell from power. Yet here was Sen, and she no longer had anywhere to go. They both did there jobs and as soon as it turned into day Lin went back to the quarters with Sen's promise to head back after her training as a nature spirit.
Again she was knocked against the back wall, and again she was bleeding from wind cuts on her abdomen. She felt the wind around her and she put her hands up to block the wind from hitting her again but the wind never connected with her skin, she looked up and saw that she was blocking the wind from hitting her because she had put Haru in a tornado, but the swirling wind was gentle enough that all he was doing was spinning around.
"Enough"
He called out and he slowly reached the floor. Panting. Then seconds later she found herself in a room with water in it and the door being closed on it. She was beginning to panic and thrash around trying to open the hatch. But it did not work. Then she just relaxed as a shift began with in her, the next thing that she knew she was out on the floor, her lungs starving for air.
"You did good, relax, you will change back."
Haru told her and she returned to her normal apprentice. He gave her a battle kimono to wear and turned to leave but not before he spoke to her.
"You are now my apprentice Sen. You will were this, but your job is as your choosing."
He walked away from her, leavening her lying on the grown gasping for air, tired, strained, and sore. She took the kimono and went down to the boiler room.
It had been ten years in the human world and Haku kept the river safe from any harm, but there was something missing, something in the form of a 5'5" tall, long brown hair tied into a braid, with bronze eyes that could look deep into your soul. He lay on his back holding the Sen Character in his hand and flipped it through his fingers thinking.
"Haku"
He bolted up thinking that he heard his name being spoken by a girl with an angelic voice; he turned into his dragon form and went back to the spirit world.
He walked over the bridge and walked into the bath house, only to walk out again and go down to the boiler room to talk to Kamajii.
"hey Kamajii."
He said as he entered the boiler room, he was working at crushing the right herbs and keeping the fires hot. Kamajii looked over before returning to his work.
"Egh, it's been a while since you came here Haku, what have you been doing lately?"
"I have been protecting my river in the human world. Had anything interesting happened here since I have been gone?"
Kamajii stopped crushing his herbs and looked at him.
"it has been twenty years since anyone has seen you here Haku, the head hancho has a new apprentice, a sad but pretty young thing from the human world, I do not know if you remember her Haku, but she saved you about twice if I understand it correctly."
"Sen?"
He said with his eyes popping open remembering the young ten year olds face that helped him remember his name.
"Hai, she is back…but she has changed. She is a nature soul, but the boss takes pride in breaking her spirit. I fear that he may go too far on her one day."
Just then Lin came in with his food.
"here you go Kamajii, how you can stand those pickled radishes, while the radish spirit is here… I really don't know."
She paused before her eyes landed on Haku, then she began to feed the soot balls.
"so, your back Haku, you could have come and visited a little earlier, or else Sen would probably not be half dead again."
"what do you mean Lin."
"Egh, Haru, keeps her up during the night's (day) helping her train her abilities, and she helps out with the bath house every day too, she is so thin, even when I tell her to take the day off she still does her job. I have never seen her look so broke in her life."
Lin suddenly sat down and brought her hands up to her face. Both Haku and Kamajii looked at her, as did the soot balls, and they could both tell that she was crying. Haku walked over to her and put his hand on her shoulder.
"please continue"
Lin started to sob louder and tried to speak.
"He…He has done thing…to her… that is…that is… unforgiveable…even here…he's…he's been…"
She could not continue, not at all and Haku managed to read between the lines with what she had been saying. He stepped away from her and let lose a dragon's roar that rattled the entire building.
A rumble roused Sen from her light sleep, well meditation, she had not gotten any sleep since she came here. She winced as her muscles protested her getting up. She dressed in the kimono and walked out of the room into the main area, she was still sore, from both her training and…that. She walked out into the main area and every one stopped and watched her since she was dressed in a kimono instead of a working outfit.
"Lin, I need to talk to you."
She called out just as Lin came out of the elevator. Lin walked out and came and stood in front of her.
"Lin can I ask you to be my… replacement for a few days? Haru wants me to take care of something for him."
Lin nodded as Haku blended in with the crowd, Sen walked away from her and turned into the wind and breezed through the bathhouse before she left completely. She was not strong enough to use her other talent, the one that she had kept from Haru. She could change her form. Her most preferred form was that of a gold and red dragon. Once a few miles away from the bath at Zaneba's house she knocked o the door.
"oh my word Sen come in, come in, no face, will you please make sure that Sen's room is ready for her, my god Sen you look like death."
She scolded as she brought her into the living room and placed a cup of tea in front of Sen, who was having a hard time keeping her eyes open. No face came in and nodded, Zaneba steadied the girl and walked her back to her room where she fell into a enchanted sleep. She looked at the sleeping girl as she closed the door, turning to NoFace.
"No Face I want you to go to the bath house and tell them that she is here safely."
No face nodded and left arriving at the boiler room seconds later. There Kamajii, Lin, and haku were waiting for him.
"she is safe at the twins house."
He said and they all nodded. Lin stood up and dusted herself off.
"well then. I'll rally the troops. Today we go to war."
"war?"
Haku asked of Lin when she, Kamajii, and the soot balls all got clothed in armor. She tossed him some armor as well.
"Everyone is defensive of Sen, she turned this place around so much that she might as well be in charge. Everyone knows that the bastard has been forcing himself upon her, we all want him to pay for what he has done to her. All we needed was a river spirit that could change into a dragon."
Haku nodded and walked behind them as they walked through the bath house telling everyone that they were going to war.
He defeated Haru fairly quickly; however Haru had cursed the contract that Sen had signed. And she was paying for it as he lay on the grown, bleeding from claw wounds to his chest, smiling.
Sen woke up feeling horrible, yet free at the same time. For awhile she could breathe without the feeling of water in her lungs, but something in the very pit of her stomach told her that the worst was yet to come.
She thanked the elder witch and went on her way back home to the bath house, in her dragon form, only to be attacked by flying fish, with extra sharp teeth. They came at her and tore at her flesh; they ripped slivers of her skin off of her, and bit deeply into the very waters that kept her alive. She passed out from blood loss close to the bath house, half way from the train platform. It rained quite heavily the days that she was gone, and now the tracks looked like an ocean.
She fell into the ocean and just laid there with her body bleeding out, while still being attacked by the fish. She gave up trying to keep her dragon form as the clear blue water turned red and started to bubble from the attacking fish, so she gave up and returned to her human form.
Haku looked outside and saw Sen flying towards the bathhouse, but he was in her place as he watched her get attacked, but not by paper, by flying fish. She went straight and fell down into the water with the birds fallowing her.
"Sen"
He yelled at her before he jumped off of the balcony and turned into his dragon form, he dove into the water and then he came up out of the water with her on is back with her arms hocked on his horns. He flew up to the boiler room entrance and set her down on the grown so that he could change back into his human form.
He opened the door and picked her up just as the birds were getting ready to attack them again. But Haku was too fast for them and slammed the door closed as fast as he could and ran to the boiler room where Kamajii had returned to his work as the boiler man like nothing has happened. Sen's light cough made Kamajii look over to where Haku was standing as the soot balls stopped making a path for Haku to cross the room with, and Haku took it gratefully.
"my god"
Was all Kamajii said as a piece of paper fell down instead of a bath token, ignoring the slip of paper in favor of watching the boy gently handle the bleeding girl. Haku set Sen down on the grown as Kamajii offered him his bedding like he had done before, only with the girl on the grown. Kamajii watched as Haku reached up and took one of his scales off and placed it over Sen's heart.
Th scale started to glow faintly then it stopped, Haku just looked at the scale as Kamajii looked at the piece of parchment.
"I'll watch her Haku, Lin wants to see you in the main office… She…she's found something that you should look at."
Kamajii said in a dead calm voice as Haku stood up and went back into the both house and into the main office on the top floor.
"What is it Lin?"
He asked as he entered the office, seeing her sitting behind the desk with a notebook on the desk.
"read the notebook, and I can tell that you will want to bring the bastard back and torture him before killing him again."
Haku walked over to the notebook and flipped a few pages before he saw Sen's name.
"today I meet another nature spirit. The girls name is Sen, the plans that I have for her… she will be bloody, broken, beaten, and un-whole when I finally strip her of her power."
Haku skipped a few more pages, until he once again came to Sen's name.
"Sen is a virgin, well was. I took her innocence as my own; she kept saying the name, Haku, and Kohaku. I shut her up and had my way with her again, and again, and again. Her body answered the call of my own, gripping me tighter and tighter within her to the point of pain…it felt great. I set the first part of my spell in motion; she no longer remembers what the name Kohaku and Haku mean to her. I started to torture, sorry train her afterwards. She managed to get into her water form, but not before she almost passed out."
Again he flipped through the notebook seeing him saying something about the second and third part of his plan, but nothing about Sen…until he got to the last two pages of the notebook.
Sen was on the floor on a pad, but her mind was in turmoil. She kept getting hotter and hotter till the long sleeved shirt that she was wearing was too much. Slowly she brought her clawed hands up and started to shred the shirt. The air on her skin felt fabulous. She closed her eyes and did the same thing to her other sleeve.
She went to take her shirt off but her arms were held at her side. She looked up t see the outline of someone familiar…
"Haku…"
She whispered, the heat getting to her. She was wondering why he was holding her arms to her side, why he would not let her take her shirt off. She watched as he leaned in closer to her. And she screamed, Haru was looking at her in Haku's body. At that moment her heart stopped and her breath quit.
Haku obliterated the notebook and started to run down to the boiler room, after what he read in the notebook he knew that he did not have much time, or any if he was t save the girl that he loved. He got to her just as her talons reached for her neck, he grabbed one wrist in each hand and pined them to her side.
"ha…ku" he heard her say as she looked up at him, only to scream when he pulled his face closer to hers.
All at once her breath stopped and her heart ceased to beat. In one movement he picked her up in his arms and flew out of the boiler room and into a cave where the spirit world nearly crossed over into the human world close to his river.
He landed with her in the water and slowly she began to breathe again, but only slightly. He pulled her upright and held her to his chest allowing her head to listen to his heart.
The first thing that she heard was his heart. She just laid there with her eyes closed until she was moving up and out of the water, she was placed on a rock before something furry and scaly coiled around her. Going on instinct she turned into her dragon form inside the coil and placed her head on the fore-talons of the dragon around her.
Haku watched her as she did what she did, completely and utterly calm at the moment, e lifted his head and touched his forehead to hers. The way that dragons show affection in there forms. He noticed that her body heat was starting to go away, a good thing for her since a nature spirit was more in tuned to their surroundings than any other spirit was. He knew, oh he knew that Haru's binding spell was what was making her act like this.
He just laid there with his mind in the past, full of his golden memories with Sen. He dozed for a while before he woke with Sen in her dragon form waking along with him. Again he lifted his head up and pushed their foreheads together, he gave a dragons purr and she opened her eyes looking up at him.
she lifted her head slightly before falling with a thump onto the grown. Haku touched his nose to hers and she tried to get her head up again…only to fail again. She tried to stand…yet the same thing happened. She kept falling to the grown, Haku watched her helplessly as she tried yet again to stand, only this time to fall over onto her side.
She changed back into her human form and just laid there. Haku coiled himself around her yet again.
"Kohaku, Kasen?"
He heard her ask, and in seconds he was knelling next to her, right before he started to cradle her to his chest.
"Hush Sen, Chihiro, I'm her. I'm not going anywhere."
He moved his arm till it reached over and moved a strand of her long brown hair out of her face, he heard her take a deep sniff.
"your…real"
On that note knowing what had to be done he leaned down and kissed her, and to his surprise she kissed him back. Slowly they progressed and Sen was beginning to feel better and better as her hands roamed his upper torso. Only to scrape her nails against his chest as she cringed in pain, but Haku did not mind, no it only made him completing his goal more to the fore front of his mind, he slid his hand into her kimono and slid it off of her shoulders, down her arms, and slicing through her obi and allowed for the kimono to fall to the grown near them.
He lowered her to the grown on top of her fallen kimono and started to attack her neck, there was one spot in particular that he paid attention to more than anything, his little nibbles in that spot had her arching up into him as he continued his tour of her body.
He wanted to move faster, his very blood started to burn with the intensity of his passion, but he had to keep a level head…for in order to end the curse Haru had placed upon Sen someone else had to breach her.
Seconds later he grabbed her wrists and held them to the grown as he thrust into her, hurting her a little with how huge he was, and she arched upwards into him at such an acute angel that he feared that she would break her back.
Sen allowed Haku to continue with what he was doing to her, it hurt quite a bit, almost like it was her first time again. She meet each thrust with one of her own, and before she knew it she was in her dragon form with him over top of her still. A surge of power went over both of them Haku held her down as she vomited something black, with a powerful dark aura, before she passed out.
He withdrew from her and coiled around her again and he too fell asleep after making sure that his mate was happily asleep.
She was sore when she woke up, but it was a good sore, she was surrounded by something slightly cool and it brushed against her. She closed her eyes to go back into sleep but then something tickled the side of her snout. Right before she felt something on her forehead. At the slight pressure she opened her eyes and saw the form of a silver and blue dragon look at her. He moved away from her as she stood up, before she turned back into her human form. Only to fall to the grown again in her human form.
Haku watched as she turned back into her human form and just laid on the grown. With his front fangs he lifted the kimono and placed it over top of her before he changed back and went hunting in the river for fish, he knew that she would be hungry once she woke up from her deep sleep.
Dawn had just broken over the trees when he had gotten a fire started to roast the fish on when he had gotten a good look at her. She was so pale, she was way too thin to be healthy for her, she had scars all over her body and her glistening hair was dull as tarnished silver. He started to stroke her hair and she woke at the second stroke.
"Haku?"
She said as she opened her eyes to see the older Haku, kneeling beside her with a fire going behind him, the scent of roasted fish made her stomach growl like a dragon as she sat up.
"Yes Sen, I'm here."
"where are we?"
"you don't recognize this place?"
She looked along the river and saw the branch that she had fallen off of and floated over to the tree branch, Haku fallowed her to the branch and looked, on the branch was dried blood. He followed her gaze into the water…where he saw the half eaten corps of the girl that he loved.
"how could I forget the place where I was killed?"
He wrapped his arms around her and nuzzled her neck to try to calm her.
"how did you die, how long were you in the spirit world?"
He asked her.
"I died the day I turned eighteen, and I have no idea how long I was in the spirit world Haku."
He wrapped his arms around her nd pulled her away from her death spot and towards the fish that were done cooking. He watched as she ate like a starving dragon, it only proved his point. She snuggled up against him and they just sat there looking at the water.
"Chihiro, will you please tell me what happened to you when you came back?"
"Haru used me as his own personal sex toy, after training he would either keep me up there and rape my brains out or he would send me for a 'swim'. Every so often I would go to grandmothers in order to sleep. I have never forgotten you Kohaku."
He put his hand to her forehead and noticed that she was heating up pretty badly he gathered her in his arms and walked into the river again. She cooled down and he went back into the spirit world cradling Sen in his arms. Happy at last now that he got his mate back