Another night spent staring at the moon, and it was yet another night she had waited in vain. How long had it been since that hot summer's day that she had mistakenly found her way into the world of the spirits with her parents? How long had it been since they had been turned into pigs and she had saved them? How long had it been since she had been given that purple hair-tie and she promised a certain River-God that they would meet again and vice versa…
Twelve years, it had been twelve years, and still, not a single word she had received from her friends in the bathhouse… As a child, she had waited for that magical day of reunion, slowly waiting and waiting and waiting again for a sign… any sign that would show that they would see one another again.
And now, at 22 years old, a future lawyer who had just returned for a holiday from her tertiary studies in the United Kingdom, she just felt as if she could no longer wait any more. She had waited long enough. Throwing off the covers of her bed, she got dressed in a pair of comfy jeans and the first top that she saw. The purple hair-tie that Zeniba had given to her remained on her wrist, for she did not feel like putting her hair up, for it had been a cool night to begin with.
"Alright then, let's see if I can find the entrance again," she told herself, almost running down the stairs when she heard the sound of breaking glass. It could be the family cat again, she deemed, accidentally knocking off one of her mother's glass vases that she loved so much. But just before she could pass it off for the cat, she heard voices…
"Are you sure we've got the right place?" a male voice asked. A hiss followed… a snake? Why would a would-be robber be talking to a snake at all?
Even if she was not trained to sense anything in any way, Chihiro could gather that as the seconds passed, more and more people started to come into her house. Common sense would dictate that she ran back into her room or alert her still-sleeping parents, but… something just stayed her where she had been standing. No matter how hard she tried she could not move.
"I… I can't move!" she exclaimed, and he looked back towards her. Mumuring a few words in such speed that she could not comprehend, she saw white light coming from the palm of his hand, entering her legs…
"Stand, now," he barked, his orders gentle despite the apparent urgency that she did so. Within seconds, she was already on her feet, running from that strange-headed crow…
"What's going on in here?" her father demanded, his voice booming as he took one of the katana from the stands in the upstairs hallway. It had been their ancestor's, that one. Her father once told her that the Ogino family was once a samurai clan that fought of the Meiji Emperor during the Bakumatsu, roughly a hundred and fifty years ago. It was since passed down to him and Chihiro knew that it still remained as sharp as it had been all those years ago. "I have a katana and I'm not afraid to use it!"
And for a few minutes, it seemed that her father's threats had worked. Her mother came to her side and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. "Don't worry, your father will handle this," her mother told her, her usually calm voice trembling a little. Chihiro looked at her mother and nodded. "Be careful!" her mother then exclaimed to her father, who gave them a thumbs up before descending down the stairs.
Once her father had disappeared into the darkness of the living room which was directly beneath the stairs, silence followed once again. The tension was so thick that it could be cut with the weapon that her father now held in his hands. Instinctively, she and her mother held one another, trembling with fear as they heard nothing… nothing at all. Not even her father's footsteps.
"Oka-san, will Otou-san be alright?" Chihiro asked her mother, who only held her tighter. Mrs. Ogino was horribly terrified, particularly when sounds alike the hissing of snakes became louder and louder… There was a clang upon the immaculate porcelain-tiled floor. The ring of a heavy metal object hitting a cold, hard surface. Her father's katana had fallen… And even until then, there was not a sound to be heard…
Mrs. Ogino, driven both by fear for her husband, or the need to protect her daughter, pushed Chihiro aside and descended the stairs herself. She was not halfway down the stairs and screamed upon what she saw when she threw a light switch on, and with her scream, Chihiro had regained her ability to move. Immediately, she went to her mother's side, and discovered her father's body at the foot of the stairs, in a pool of blood, his head severed…
"Otou-san!" she cried out, bringing her hands to her mouth in response to her utter shock. Tears started to stream down her face, but that was not the end of it, on the contrary…
Right in the living-room, exposed for all to see, was a great a snake-like being dressed in summer yukata, wielding a great axe. And by its side, was what seemed to be a carp, with large, protruding eyes and golden scales. That thing seemed to be wearing ancient Chinese clothes, complete with the box-like hat upon the top of its head.
"There, there she is!" the carp exclaimed, brandishing its broadsword at her whilst looking towards the snake. "Do not let her escape!"
At those words, her mother pushed her away without a moment's hesitation. "Chihiro, run!" Mrs. Ogino shouted at her daughter, and pushed her into the kitchen so she could run through the back door as she picked up the katana of her fallen husband. Chihiro did not know what she was supposed to do. Her heart told her that she should not leave her mother alone there with her dead father, faced with such... monsters, but her instincts kicked in and she ran.
It was not long before she heard another scream from her mother, as well as the dreadful silence that followed it… She did not care, and offering her apologies to her parents in her mind, she ran as fast as her legs could bring her. She ran down the hill that her house was on, under the dim illumination of the streetlights that flickered on and off curiously. Taking a sharp left turn, Chihiro ran towards the nearby park and hid behind a rather tall bush.
"Where are you, human?" the carp demanded, walking about not ten feet away from her. "You can't hide from us forever you know…"
She did not respond in any way, for fear of giving away her location, not knowing that the snake already had its eyes upon her. She took a step back, and found herself being constricted by a frenzy of wet, slimy scale… It did not take long for her to realize that it was the snake that had a hold on her… "Help!" she shouted, but in truth, not a sound escaped her lips. She would be dead in a few more moments if the situation did not change, and a tear fell from her eye. Was this to be her end?
Her vision started to blur, but even as everything became hazy, she could make out the outline of someone… a man dressed in white and blue. A tall being with long hair and green eyes. Yes… she had seen those eyes before… The man raised his palm towards the snake, and it began to writhe in utter pain and agony. Chihiro could feel its skin increasing in temperature quickly, and within mere seconds, its hold over her started to slacken, and once again she was free. She hunched over, using the nearest tree for support as she caught her breath, all while watching the snake hiss and convulse in what seemed to be in utter pain.
Soon, red steam seemed to emerge from the snake itself… It… it was boiling from within! A painful, and utterly merciless death it had been, but she knew that she was not out of danger yet… There was still the thing that resembled a carp…
"I do not fear you, Dragon," the carp told the white-clothed man, backing away from him, its sword still held high, the tip pointed towards the man's chest.
A Dragon? Chihiro asked herself… Could it be?
And before she could ever come out with an answer for herself, the man laughed coolly, sounding so sinister that the hairs on her neck stood on end. "Indeed, you fled your own lake before I even entered it," he replied, gold light filling the space before his claw-like gesture. "It was in such a mess that you should be thanking me for how it is now!"
The carp did not answer, but began to chant in a language that Chihiro did not understand. Even the man's brows furrowed, and when the carp raised its head again, it disappeared, leaving about a dozen human-like sculptures made of soil and mud. There was a loud roar, one that caused a circular shockwave, but still, those things advanced towards the man… In fact, they seemed to have increased in power.
Clearly, magic, or whatever it was, had no hold over those things. And suddenly, the glimmer of a certain object caught the corner of Chihiro's eyes. It was the axe that belonged to the snake, and she grabbed it, knowing full-well that it was the weapon that had claimed the life of her father.
"Hey, use this!" she shouted towards the man, and threw the axe towards him as best she could, being very, very lucky that he managed to catch it. He wielded the weapon as if it had been a third appendage.
Hacking and slashing the mud-sculptures even as he made his way towards her, he noted that so long he kept severing the arms and legs of those things, they would only just grow back in seconds. Thus, he decided to change his tactics, and started to swing the axe vertically down, splitting the nearest one into half. It did not rise again, and soon, he began to repeat what he had just discovered, until every last one was gone.
"Chihiro!" the man shouted towards her when he cast down the axe, enveloping her in his arms. How did he know her name? "Forgive me… I was too late…" he murmured into her hair. That warmth about him was so familiar… She had met him once before, she knew it, it was a long, long time ago, from a forgotten memory that was trying its best to surface from the darkest depths of her mind.
And soon, she stopped her trembling, calmed by his embrace, and so did the tears that flowed down her face. "Haku…" she stammered. Yes, she recognized him now… He was Haku, the Dragon that saved her when she was a child, the one that she had befriended first at the bathhouse! She could not be mistaken at all, it was Haku! "Why?" she asked him, blinking her eyes in utter confusion. Her lips parted to speak further, but no word came out at all… she could not utter anything else, feeling a strange stillness that washed over her when she felt him touch her forehead ever so gently.
"Hush, Chihiro, all will be fine," he whispered into her ear, tucking his arms beneath her shoulders and knees to lift her up as she started to fall asleep. "Sleep…"
And thus, he disappeared into the night, leaving only the axe that he had wielded just a few minutes before… The carp was nowhere in sight, but he knew that there were more pressing matters he had to attend to… But there was one thing in his mind for sure:
Chihiro would not like what she will discover when she woke up.
HAN: Thanks to all who reviewed! ^.^ And thanks once again to Capital E for putting me out of a rut, ahahahaha ^.^
