Disclaimer – Ya'll know da drill…they ain't mine :( Hehehe…besides, I thought I made that point clear on the first page already!

Author's Note – ¡Hola! Well, I said 5 or even 3 reviews and I'll post rite?? So here I am ^^* I'll save my blabbing till the bottom, but I just wanna thank everyone (LoL…or mebbe I should just say the four of you, on last count :P) who reviewed last time…you don't know how much it means to me to see that people actually come and read my figgy :D *sniff sniff* You guys are the best!! Hehehe…but hey, enough of dis…hope you like this chappie~!

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~*~ The Day the Dream Ended ~*~

Chapter 2 ~ Storm

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Raindrops. A flash of lightening. Raindrops. A roar of thunder. The sky overhead was of an angry storm-gray; the river between the Majou no Sekai and the "real" world was over-flooded, turned into an impenetrable ocean by the relentless storm. The whole city—no, the whole world—was darkened so much that one could just vaguely make out shapes of buildings. If you were to look hard enough, somewhere in the midst of the storm smoke could be seen coming from the Aburaya, although there was not much of that either. The Aburaya was not as busy as it once was—it appears that most of the usual guests had not dared to venture outside of their homes tonight. To be perfectly honest, most of the usual guests had not dared to venture outside of their homes for months now, out of fear that the storm would sweep them away into the unknown. A powerful and destructive storm such as this was unheard of in Majou no Sekai, and that could only mean one thing—the magic which protected the Majou no Sekai from being wiped from existence, and prevents it from falling into the world of humans, was finally wearing off. Kaonashi looked out the window in the little laid-back cottage he had been invited to stay in, and sighed an inaudible sigh.

Perhaps they were meant to become nothing more than rubbles of the remnants of an old "theme park", just like what the humans thought they were.

Their time and their world were coming to an end.

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"Argh…I can't stand this anymore!" Rin cried out in frustration for what seemed like the millionth time that day. Not someone who was particularly fond of her customers or her work, one would have assumed that she would be happy to see so few customers to serve. However, it would appear that Rin also did not particularly like being cooped up inside all day underneath a darkened sky either.

"Just calm down over there Rin," Kamajii said to her in a pleading tone, "you're making these old ears hurt, and I'd like to at least think that I can die in peace when the time comes you know?"

"If that was a joke, it wasn't funny at all." was the sullen reply. Sighing, Rin sat down on the edge of the wood floor, where the Susuwatari proceeded to gather before her feet.

"No food yet…you just had lunch! Don't be such pigs." the young woman scolded them half-heartedly. Although spirits did not age in the world of the Majou no Sekai, people did, and that included Rin. Although physically she had grown into her looks and appeared more mature, Rin still talked and acted like she did when she had met Chihiro—still the same mischievous girl in her late-teens.

"Now now, don't take it out on them Susuwatari. They're just suffering as much as we are, you know." Kamajii said, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. Seeing how dejected she looked, he crawled down from his usual post and made his way over to her. "What's the matter now, huh?"

"I wonder if she remembers us." came the soft reply.

"Well," the old man began, "it's been a long time—seven of her years, I believe. There's a chance that she may not remember anything, or maybe she thought it was just a dream. She was such a little thing when she came here."

Rin looked over to the spider-spirit. Kindness was evident in the old broiler man's voice, and she could tell that he missed little Sen as much as she did.

"I'm really glad that she made it out of here before this happened, you know? But I miss her all the same…I mean, she was such a clumsy little thing, I thought she would never get over tripping over her own feet." AN-no offense to Chihiro or her fans out there. I like her a lot too, but ya gotta admit she was extremely clumsy at first! XD

"Well, I would think that she's not so little anymore." Kamajii said, "and I'm sure that she's doing just fine. Even if she doesn't remember actually coming here, she could still remember us as a nice dream that she had." Observing the quizzical way the Susuwatari were behaving upon hearing the name of the young girl they had no doubt taken a liking to, he too, could not help but sigh. "You know, when she left us all those years ago to return home, I was really happy for her. But I had honestly thought that we would see her again someday…I just never imagined that we wouldn't be here when or if she decided to return to visit us."

"You got that right." Rin said softly, her voice barely audible above the roaring sound of the storm in contrast to the dead-quiet broiler room.

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"Kasonashi? Kasonashi, could you bring that seal to me please?" Zeniiba, sensing his brooding mood, said kindly to her "housemate". In truth, Kasonashi couldn't really be labeled as a "he" or a "she". Unlike most spirits of their world, No-face could be described as just that—"no-face", wandering phantoms without an identity, and thus spirits of his kind usually hid in the darkness or stayed far away from the rest of the world out of shame and fear. This particular one, however, had been drawn into light an even ventured into the world of other spirits and creatures by one particular person—a little human girl who went by the name Sen. Acknowledging her in his preferred vocabulary of sounds, Kasonashi brought over the seal which Haku had stolen from her years ago.

"Thank you, Kasonashi." Granny smiled at him. Looking at the seal which had once held a powerful and deadly spell meant to destroy all who try to tempt with it, she continued. "You know, worrying about things like this won't help one bit. There is nothing we can do that we haven't done already to try and keep our world apart from that of the human world—Yu-Baaba and I even tried a spell together!"

Chuckling quietly over the memory, Zeniiba looked over at Kasonashi, who also had an amused expression on his usually blank face over remembering that little incident. Hearing his inquiring tone, she answered his literally unasked question.

"Unfortunately it didn't do much good. All we did was delay the spell from breaking up too quickly, and prolong this monster storm. Our spell might have been stronger if we knew how to work together." Rocking back and forth on her chair, Zeniiba chuckled a little dejectedly. "Sadly, neither of us could remember the last time we ever got along, let alone worked together. It's hard to believe we are twin sisters, isn't it?"

Looking the seal in her hand, Granny smiled at the memories it brought along—particularly the memories of one little girl wearing a pink spellbound hair-tie. "But all is not lost yet, my friend. Something will come up to help us. Something will certainly come up to help us."

Gripping the seal tightly, the witch murmured a spell which caused the seal to glow a light pinkish-red color. Satisfied, she started to rock her chair back and forth easily again, speaking. "Let's just hope that our 'something' realizes just how much we need her before it's too late."

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Wow…it's really 4:30am… laughing slightly crazily…ahh the joys of sleep deprivation…is dat even a word?? #_#

Alrito…just thought I should clear some stuff up before I get burned for it o_O First of all, I have no idea what Kaonashi (No-face) is…I just made up the part where him and his buddies hide from everyone else, so dunt quote me on that ^^;; It just seemed so fitting to me, seeing how shy and gentle he was, and how he had kept disappearing into the background, that he would be something like that, rite?? Secondly, I'm assuming and writing this based on the idea that the spirit and human worlds exist at the same time, but separately. The "theme park" is like the gateway between the two worlds, but is also the replacement of Haku's world in the human's world…wow I'm not making any sense at all!! (Can you tell I'm a lil confused about this?? Man alive…I hope I'm not scaring ya'll away with this!! o_O)

A special thanksie to shazaoblossom for telling me that "ze world of ze spirits" is called Majou no Sekai ^^* Now I dunt have to feel like a moron everytime I try mentioning it…ur da best!!! I hope you liked this chapter too XD

So anyhow…what did you think?? Still keep writing, or just drop it and try something else?? Please tell me!! Oh, and bear with me if the chapters come a lil further apart than well, usual…this is my first actual fic ever, so I'm bound to suck at it :P If it's bad, just try not to burn me too much in reviews, ¿por favor? Oh yeah…if you want, I can e-mail you when I post the next chapter(s)…just leave your e-mail address this time when you review (pls do!!!) and I'll keep you posted, okiee??

Now…*yawns* good nite minna-san~!

~Aqua Sunshine ^^*