AN: Sorry if you're waiting for my HMC update. I'm updating this first cz Spellbound and Japan are killing my brain at the moment. I've no beta so apologies for silly mistakes - unfortunately, I'm a mere human.

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3: Something Inconsequential

Streaks of white gleaming metal slashed through thin air, the motions moved at light speed in spherical patterns, flitting and whipping across and around the room.

Steel bit into steel, slashing, defending and dancing a deadly clash of sai versus katana sword to the backdrop of blue plain of the sea. The two lithe figures sparred, dressed only in hakama pants, tabi socks and zori thongs. Their torsos bare glistening and alluring. Beads of sweat resembled pearls sliding off dreamlike sculpted physiques with impossibly blemish free skin; they could only be Heaven sent – kami.

"Just fight!" roared one, his eyes green embers of hostility.

Gripping the katana with both hands, he spotted a weakness in his opponent's defense. The double-edged razor sharp blade skimmed over Raiden's chiseled face leaving a red mark across his jaw. His quicksilver silken mane barely saved by a last minute graceful arch backwards.

"Why..." Raiden chuckled mischievously, quickly recovering his centre of balance, "have you chosen to holiday in the human world, merely to return a sour grape, is beyond me!" Crash came the katana blade, impacting hard, trapped between the sai trident. A translucent blue rim vibrated around the blade as they both stood locked in a stale mate.

Both men faced off, sai poised against katana sword. Their figures – one towering over the other- silhouetted black to the canvas of the cerise beyond the windows. Their staggered breathing told the story of their drawn out sparring session. One man untangled his perfect killing weapon sheathed it noiselessly into its home on the wall at the side of the dojo, his jade eyes still iridescent with adrenaline.

"I am an earth spirit and need to know the ways of the human word," Haku replied in a flat tone, wiping his lean, muscular body with a towel he'd moved telekinetically from the side bars. "I shan't be returning to that world, Raiden."

Raiden's crackling cerise orbs glowed and his mouth curled wryly, suspicious as to why his young friend had abruptly returned to the realm. Even as the God of Thunder and Lighting, he never could have summoned up the torrential storm to match the one in his friend's eyes. They'd dueled like demons for the past twelve hours, but the thunder remained in Haku's eyes, marbled in his countenance and concrete, set jaw. Raiden peered woefully at his magical sai, severely chipped and battered from the water spirit's raging katana. Something was obviously consuming his friend. He pitched his sai forward and the tsuba points landed at the ground at Haku's socked feet.

"You owe me a new pair, Haku. Three years forged by the old man Kuroi in Takama-gahara- High Plain of Heaven and dwelling place of all kami- and you hack them to shreds in a twelve hour tantrum. Next time, just get hanky panky with one of those lady guests lining up to get with you, ne? Don't take it out on me," he joked good-naturedly, slapping his young friend hard on the back. "Or my toys."

"The sai I will replace," Haku slipped on his musashi top. "So what ladies might entertain me, tonight?" his eyes vacant, his lips smiling, convincing himself another could sustain him. He was steeled to take his friend's advice to forget. It was karma ordained.

"Ah. That's the way, dragon boy. Thank the kami the years spent at that river haven't washed away your er…tendencies," Raiden grinned roguishly. "Let's go celebrate your home-coming with these twins that checked in today," the shoji door magically slid closed after the departure of the two devastatingly striking kami, that would reduce a stony mountain to a boiling puddle of capitulation.

-x-

Chihiro had snuck out of her parent's house late, late in the night. She was desperate to explain everything to Haku. To erase the icy glint in his eyes the night before. But no matter how much she called for him, he didn't appear. So she had waded knee deep into his waters, then waist deep, finally immersing in the chilled water, waiting until dawn for him.

But he never appeared.

He was gone.

She had lost Haku just as she had found her.

Hayate's protectiveness that kept her safe in the last five years had ended her beginning with Haku, before it had begun. She blamed Hayate for it wholeheartedly, for Haku's departure. Rationally, she knew her vehemence towards Hayate was illogical: but her emotions were beyond her reach. Haku was gone, along with the chance for Chihiro to vindicate herself. Misery loves company, and Chihiro's misery amounted to one thousand, two-hundred and thirty million people dragging her down in his waters.

Where was he?

Chihiro's silent pleas knelled incessantly in head until sleep consumed her in the early morning on her return to the farm.

-x-

Breakfast at the Ogino farm was served with a side of bad temper and sprinkled with antagonistic side glances. Chihiro glared acrimoniously at the miso soup, rice and grilled salmon steak, unable to look Hayate, in case her eyes turned him to stone.

Across the table, her parents' eyes darted between Hayate and their daughter, unsure of what the lovers' tiff was about. They understood too well their daughter's quicksilver, unpredictable temperament. They also understood the obvious chagrin of their future son in law. And being the sympathetic parents they were had no intention of becoming tangled in the tryst. So, they wolfed down their food and raced from the kitchen smiling politely mumbling something about cabbages and kumquats.

"Maybe she didn't give him any last night, honey... ne?" Chihiro's father whispered to his wife as they closed the door.

"You're incorrigible!" gasped Chihiro's mother in consternation, flushing to her middle age cheeks.

Hayate hadn't missed Chihiro's erratic behaviour for the past two days, and knew better than to tackle her temper head on: too smart to tempt a stampeding bull. Placing the chopsticks on his bowl he asked sympathetically, "Sweetheart, is there something wrong? You've been churlish and a little preoccupied since we arrived. Couldn't you have tried to at least be civilized in front of your parents?"

Chihiro sipped on her soup and took mouthfuls of rice: silently fuming. If steam could have spout from her ears, it would have. Honey, I'm rather pissed off because you interrupted my secret rendezvous with my long lost dragon and water spirit whom everyone told me to tell myself never existed. He's gone and I can't find him. It's your fault. BTW I think I might kinda-sorta-possibly be being unfaithful to you by the idea of him.

She detested Hayate for being abysmally understanding and kind when all she wanted to do was throttle him!

Haku leaving: must be karma warning me not to stray Chihiro rationalized to herself. He was a spirit and not of her world. She was not of his. They had only shared a few fleeting hours that night, shared one brief, inconsequential kiss. Logic directed her to let him go. She was committed to Hayate. But if the situation was inconsequential, than why was she battling herself to find him again?

Chihiro lightly sucked on the rim of her bowl, reliving Haku's kiss, supple, barely a graze, yet still present: her lips tingled merrily like bells at the thought of it. Her heart fainted reliving it.

"Damn fish!" Chihiro stabbed the innocent, lifeless salmon steak with her chopsticks blaming it for her woes. "Take that!" she snapped, cutting it in half.

"Chihiro!" Hayate's patience also snapped clean, annoyed with his constant one way conversation. "QUIT acting like an insipid brat. It's not about that pitiful river I dragged you from last night is it?"

"The Nigihayami Kohaku is NOT pitiful. It's only small because your family built over the rest, Hayate!" Chihiro's voice rose sharply, and she thumped her bowl to the table; a long suppressed oppression suddenly rearing. She stomped for the door letting her chair fall and hit the floor with a dull thud behind her.

A steel grip locked her wrist, wheeling her round to face a livid fiancé.

"Watch your mouth, Chihiro. You've worked and profited in my father's company for the last five years, too," his words stung like venom. "Maybe the crap and sludge in that water has gotten to you. It's the only reason you'd spew out this ridiculous nonsense!" his eyes a darkened with anger. "My future wife shouldn't be speaking to me like this either, Chihiro."

He'd never raised a harsh word, let alone his voice. He never had provocation until now. Chihiro knew she was in the wrong, though too maddened at herself. She was riddled with guilt of Haku seeing her in Hayate's arms to see clearly, beyond her fog of raw emotions. She pulled from Hayate's grip in vain, dropping her gaze to the ground towards the door.

"I'm not letting go until you tell me what's gotten into you. Is it those damn dreams again?" Hayate demanded, yanking her by both wrists to him.

She stared blankly at his chest forgetting to breath: her quiet firing his rage.

"TELL ME!" his voice whipped harshly, the veins in his temples began to twitch.

"Let go of me! You don't own me, Hayate, and I do have a right to want to be away from you for more than three seconds!"

Fleeing from the house Chihiro's feet went on automatic pilot to the river.

-x-

"Haku, please, please… please," but the only response were the rolling, placid ripples of water against the shores.

There was only an abandoned river: somber, spiritless water- exactly as Hayate had said. Even the birds and insects seemed to have stopped singing, the sky bled of its lively blue.

"Where's he gone?" Chihiro entreated to the umbrella of cherry blossoms over her. "If you tell me where he is, I swear I'll never to pick any one of you or your family again. I'll only ever take the fallen from the ground," her eyes widened with child like sincerity, staring sightlessly to the blushes of pastel flora. The cherry blossoms fluttered, some spiraling from their branches towards the heavens, but gave no discernable answer.

Chihiro sunk to her knees, and plucked despondently at the blades of grass under her, wishing she return to the moment Hayate had stomped down the hill last night. Don't be silly, he is a spirit, a dragon, a kami. He's gone and doesn't want you, her voice consoled. You don't even know him…

"SHUT UP!" she lashed vehemently to herself. She was being foolish, wanting a stranger she didn't know. Her russet eyes slid downward wearily to the carpet of green between her knees, "I'd rather hear your voice one more time saying goodbye, than never hearing it again," she confessed, broken for some indiscernible. The hollow grief bottomed out Chihiro's stomach, the winds brushed over her carrying with it a caress of floral scents. Instinctively, she curled into a ball under the cherry blossom trees and began weeping, like the trees did over the river banks; about that kiss she told her was inconsequential.

AN: Reviews and comments appreciated- who doesn't eh? Raiden? You'll learn more about him in later chapters if you already don't know about him from the original posting of this story.

Misty Voughn's original chapter was called 'Thunder and Lighting'. However, I've broken the chapter in two and did a little editing. 90% of her writing remains intact: I'm just lucky enough to adjust portions of her awesome fic. I'm hoping to meet her when she flies back to JP for Xmas before she runs away to Australia again.

I was watching TV the other day and they showed a documentary on Hayao Miyazaki and the making of Ponyo Off the Clip (?) and showed footage of him penciling the original story board. He's so insanely talented and if I understood the Japanese correctly, it took him a year to finish his scamps!! WOH!!! I'm so going to visit his museum next March! Yep, the good thing about being in Japan is HAVING to re-learn Japanese and then some.