Part 2: When I Decided

When I decided to believe and go forward,

The door opened, and those lights came shining on me.

Let's flap these wings beneath the blue sky,

These linked hands will never be separated.

Reprise l. 5-8

Chapter 6: The Noble and the Savage

Haku and Risuni followed the adults through the archway, guiding Chihiro together by the arms. Chihiro's skin felt warm on Haku's hand. Her arm felt so fragile, her bones so thin and delicate, her pulse beneath his fingertips quick like a frightened rabbit's, as they walked in the shade of the tunnel. Her elbow was tensed, as if she would run away at any moment. But she didn't. Her timid steps gradually relaxed as she began to trust them to lead her safely through the darkness. Their feet slapped against the stone floor and the sound echoed hollowly in the tunnel around them.

"Where are we?" Chihiro asked, bewildered. "It doesn't sound like the forest anymore. It sounds like…" a low whistle sounded in the distance, "a train station?"

"Not exactly," Haku said. He felt the spell on the Gate awaken to probe them, and then slowly fade away. It could not stop them. She doesn't deserve this! Haku thought. But Fujisan had to go and...

Chihiro hissed in pain and Haku loosened his grip on her arm, worried. "Sorry," he said. "I was just thinking…"

"It's not you," she said softly. "It's just that, my head hurts. Is something wrong?"

"No," Haku said, then laughed quietly to himself at the obvious lie. Her head hurts just hearing the train echo through the tunnel, even with the charmed hairtie around her wrist. Is the charm not working? She can't possibly stay in the Spirit World for long. It's too risky. We can't let her remember. And then he thought, sadly, that she might never remember him the way he remembered her. It doesn't matter, he told himself firmly.

"It's called the Waiting Room," Risuni said, startling him. "We are in the gateway between the Human World and the Spirit World. There's a ferry on the other side that takes travellers to the nearest town, and every night, they wait here for the ferry."

"But how did we get here from the clearing?" Chihiro asked. "There's nothing there, I go there all the time…"

Haku and Risuni looked at each other, struggling for an explanation.

"It's not always visible," Risuni tried. "It's like… remember the parallel worlds from physics?"

Chihiro's face scrunched up in confusion, but she didn't open her eyes.

Haku squeezed Chihiro's arm gently, trying to reassure her. Well. I promised to explain things to her. Where shall I begin? "Let me tell you a story," he said.

As he began, his voice took on the intonation of a chant, and he felt Chihiro's arm relax. It was a ritual she knew, and it brought an element of familiarity to what must have been a very strange place.

"In the beginning," he said, using magic to pull images into Chihiro's mind, "after the first six divine generations retreated from the surface of the earth into the high plain of heaven, the seventh divine generation created Kuniumi, the islands of Japan. At that time, the worlds were one, and the humans and spirits lived in harmony. Mountains rose and rivers were born. The humans worshiped the spirits of the wind, the water, and the earth as kami, or gods, and were looked upon with favor. These kami were the guardians and protectors of the people, and were well loved.

"The greatest of these kami was Amaterasu, goddess of the Sun. She fell in love with the first of the dragons, whom the gods made the souls of the oceans of water and oceans of fire, and he created a great palace for her at the western border of the Great Sea. There, Amaterasu gave birth to the Emperors of Japan. This is why Kuniumi has always been called the Land of the Rising Sun.

"Amaterasu loved the humans. She loved their capacity to love. Her children ruled over Japan wisely for many generations, with her blessing. The people prospered. They had enough to set aside for times of famine, and life was long and full.

" Then, Amaterasu's brother Tsukiyomi, the moon god, grew jealous of how much the humans loved her. They rejoiced to see her face and produced good things under her care but turned their backs on him, and his anger grew.

"After Amaterasu banished Tsukuyomi for killing Ukemochi, Tsukuyomi had a son - Akuma. From the moment he was born, Akuma was afraid of the dark. He resented Amaterasu for taking away the light. He decided to give the darkness that she forced on him to her beloved humans - darkness in the form of selfishness. The people became discontent. Their wants grew greater than their needs. Desire for riches overcame the love for their homelands, so people moved away from their beloved kami and crowded together in the concrete jungles. As they left, they forgot their pasts. As they traveled through the generations, they left their stories behind in the hearts of their ancestors. They mocked the idea of petitioning the kami, for the kami could not give them what their greed desired. They left their lands desolate for their presence and their gods forlorn. The kami are the rivers, the mountains, the winds, the rice paddies, and without the humans' love, they had no life, for love and life are one and the same. With inattention and scorn, the humans banished the spirits. The world split in two like a heart separated from its beloved, the spirits on one side, the humans on the other, connected by a few splinters of pathways.

"The humans desired more and more wealth, but could not be satisfied by it. They began to hunt and kill the gods in order to take their lands and treasures for themselves, forgetting that once we let humans live on our land with our blessings. The hunted kami fled, one by one, to the Spirit World. Many died. The worlds sundered further and further, and mourned.

"Gradually, spirits grew to fear humans. They feared that the hunters would pursue them across the border along these pathways where the worlds were still connected. A barrier was built across the paths to separate the worlds even further. Gates were set in the barrier and spelled them to ensure that any human who crossed into Spirit World would never be able to find the way again. And as more and more humans forget that they used to live among spirits, it becomes harder to remember the old stories. Certain families around the world, ones that generations ago had interbred with spirits, took it upon themselves to keep the traditions alive, to guard the shrines and the knowledge of the kami. The worlds are connected by knowledge and love, and so by loving the land and keeping the old traditions, the families kept the worlds connected.

"Thus begins the history of the Rift War, named Amaterasu's Sorrow. It is here in the telling that the story as written in the Kojiki ends, because the rest of the story has yet to be played out. Today, another chapter in the story begins. Today, Mount Fuji cried in despair as its spirit, Prince Fujisan, abandoned it."

After a long while, Chihiro spoke. The world Haku had painted with his words was still bright behind her closed eyelids. "Haku. I mean, Nigihaya…"

"Haku," Haku said quietly. "Just call me… Haku."

"Haku, then," Chihiro said. She was silent for a time. Then she said, "You're telling me that this is all… real."

"Yes," Haku said.

"And right now, we're in one of these... these... pathways bridging the worlds."

"Yes, Chihiro."

"And you're a spirit. You're not human." It wasn't a question.

"Yes," Haku said again.

"Is this a dream? Am I going crazy?" she asked quietly. She shuddered, and then continued, slightly hysterically, "you actually want me to believe that, that the world is filled with dragons, and trolls under bridges, and… and ghosts?" Haku touched her shoulder, wanting to reassure her, to calm her down. She stiffened at his touch, but she didn't pull her arm from his hand.

"Chihiro," Risuni admonished. "You collect folk tales. You obsess over them. As long as I've known you, you've loved them."

"But they're just stories!" Chihiro exclaimed. Her words bounced back to them from the walls of the tunnel. Even though she protested, Chihiro could feel something in Risuni's words stirring inside her. Risuni squeezed her hand, steadying her.

"You say that because you've been hearing it for years, from our teachers and from the kids at school, and from your parents," Risuni said. "But you don't really believe that. I know it's probably a big shock, but like it or not, you're part of the story now."

Haku gritted his teeth. Risuni was likely right, but that didn't mean he liked it.

Chihiro took a deep breath and gripped her friend's hand harder, as if it could anchor her to reality. "If I'm being honest," Chihiro said, "no, it's not. A shock, I mean." She sighed. "You're in this tale, too?" she said. "You never mentioned it."

Risuni nodded, then realized that Chihiro couldn't see her. "Yes," she said. "There is spirit blood in my family. And are you so surprised I didn't mention it? I didn't think you would believe me. But I didn't know that Haku was the Prince until today, when my grandfather called."

Haku made a face. He didn't like the direction that the conversation was taking. But Chihiro had a thoughtful look on her face, and did not choose to follow up on Risuni's words.

"That river spirit you have a shrine to in your house," she said. "He's real, then? A kami? Are all kami dragons?"

"Tenryu, you mean? Yeah, he's real, he's the one who told Grandfather about Haku," Risuni tried to say, but she was interrupted by Chihiro pulling her arms away from her guides to press her palms against her pounding head. She sank down into a crouch, curling herself into a ball.

"Chihiro?" Risuni's said worriedly, bending down next to her. Her parents, who had been walking in front, turned around at the sound. Mrs. Shinkono walked back toward them, looking concerned.

"Chihiro, think about something else, and it won't hurt anymore," Haku said.

Chihiro only buried her head deeper between her knees and hugged her legs to her. Haku looked at her helplessly. He was afraid to touch her for fear it would trigger her memories even further.

Suzume began to sing, and after a line, Risuni and her father joined in. It was a rhythmic song, a song about mountains and rivers and the people living in them. And as they sang, Chihiro relaxed. Suzume motioned for Haku to pick Chihiro up, one arm below her knees and one supporting her back, and placed her arms around his neck. Her skin was burning hot.

"Don't open your eyes yet," she whispered to Chihiro, "we're almost there," before she picked up the song again.

They walked on, Haku carrying Chihiro in his arms. Suzume stomped out the rhythm during the chorus as if she could stomp the thoughts from Chihiro's mind; the echoes of the dance filled the hollow space of the waiting room.

"What's wrong with me?" Chihiro asked softly. "My head hurt before, too, during the first earthquake, when I looked at the statue in the shrine."

"Does it hurt now?" Haku asked, speaking quietly through the song. Her face was so close to his. He felt her warmth in his arms and against his chest, and from her arms around his neck.

"No," Chihiro said slowly. "But I've forgotten what the statue looks like, and I don't remember its name. Even though I remember how it feels in my hands. Even though I looked it up when I got home. The Toi gold mine. Even though Risuni just said it! The river runs just north of here." She sounded scared.

"There's nothing wrong with you, Chihiro," Haku said. "There's a spell on you. A spell of forgetting.

"I wish I could tell you your story, because you need to know it. You deserve to know it. But even if I told you, it wouldn't be real to you, because it wouldn't be you remembering. It would just be another story that happened to someone else. And it might hurt you." He paused for a moment, thinking.

"Here's what I can tell you," he said. "Seven years ago, you and your parents stumbled into the Spirit World. You were trapped there for only a few weeks, but during that time you made many friends. One of them gave you the purple hairtie that you're wearing around your wrist. She was very wise, and foresaw the need, so put a protective charm on that hairtie.

"When you left, you passed through one of the World Gates. This one, in fact. The Gate is spelled to remove the memories of a human's time in the Spirit World, and to ensure that the human never enters the Spirit World again. That's why you can't see the Gate. Without a guide, you would never find the entrance. It would have erased your memories the way it did with your parents, but for the protective charm. To protect your memories, the charm turned them into dreams that the spell won't let you remember. Your head hurt because seeing the statue was triggering your memories, and the spell wants you to forget them."

All at once, Chihiro felt the sun on her face and darkness behind her. From the darkness, wind blew. Before her, there was the sound of grass rustling. "You can open your eyes now," Haku said, and set her down.

She opened her eyes. She could see the beginnings of a vast, green plain, but not much else. A mist hung around them like a curtain, obscuring the view in every direction. The Shinkonos stood a little off to the side, staring into the mist. "Have I been here before?" Chihiro asked.

Haku was taken aback. "Does it look familiar?" he said, worried. "Does your head hurt?"

"No…" Chihiro said, hesitant. "No, it doesn't." She couldn't remember - there were no features to the plain that she could see, but sound of the wind made tears well up in her eyes. She expected to hear a faint cry of pain in the distance. The feeling faded before she could place it.

Haku shook his head. "The view here should be different enough that it shouldn't trigger any of your memories. If it did, the spell on the Gate would activate."

"I have been here before, then."

"Yes," he said. Risuni put her arm around Chihiro sympathetically.

"Look," Risuni said, and pointed to a shape moving within the mist. "It's Shika," she said. The shadow grew larger much more quickly than Chihiro thought possible.

Shika…a deer? She thought. The deer emerged from the mist just meters from where they stood. Before Chihiro could blink, Risuni had run up to it and was hugging its neck. Shika, if that was its name, licked her face in affection, making Risuni laugh. Risuni's parents bowed formally in greeting, but Shika walked up to Suzume until they were eye to eye, and placed its head on her shoulder. Suzume laughed and hugged it just as Risuni had, and even kissed it lovingly on the cheek.

"Chihiro," Risuni said. "This is my cousin, Shika." She laughed as Chihiro boggled. "My very distantly related cousin. Shika, this is my best friend, Chihiro."

The deer raised itself onto its hind legs and became a lean, dark-skinned young man, about their age, in a straw hat, frayed, threadbare pants, and a tattered green vest that showed off his wiry, muscular limbs. Standing next to the pale, always immaculate Kohaku, he looked like the pauper to Kohaku's prince. He bowed to Chihiro, sweeping off his hat and revealing a top-knot. "My lady." He then bowed to Haku. "My prince," he said. "Allow me to escort you into the hinterlands."

To Chihiro's amazement, Haku laughed. "Your poor parents! You are a sight to behold," he said.

Shika smiled. "I feel sorrier for you," he said, "having to spend all that time listening to them bemoan my fate at court." Then Shika looked around at them all. "Ready to go home?" he asked.

Risuni smiled widely at Chihiro. "We're going to stay with my grandparents. Don't worry. You'll love it there."

The six of them clasped hands and walked into the thick fog. Chihiro found herself deprived of her sight for the second time that day as the whiteness closed in around them.


A/N The next few chapters might be a bit slow in coming out. I've been busy and I'm falling a little behind :(