A/N: I am SO sorry that it took me so long to get this chapter out! I had the week from Hell, quite literally, cause I missed a week of school from being sick and last week was my time to make it all up, on top of the ACT test. Evil, I tell you! *passes out cookies to make up for the time* Sorry!

R.O.T. (Random Odd Things): I'm just going to start putting my little details and stuff here, because I seem to have a lot of them, and that way you can pass over them if you wish ^_^;;

~I made Haku be taller because a grown up Chihiro and a little Haku just doesn't seem quite right -_-;; I don't think it's mentioned, but he is.

~I dunno about you, but I don't think that Rin is human, so for the purposes of this fic, she isn't.

~And yes, I use a ton of commas, mainly because the style of this fic is VERY different from everything else that I've written. This flows (or it's supposed to, anyway), especially when we get into Haku's pov about halfway through this chapter. My computer got quite ticked at me for a few sentences near the end because they're so long lol ^_^

And on with the fic! :-) By the way, I just wanted to say that I am thrilled with the response I've been getting for this fic! I have found my ideal fandom in all you guys lol. ^_^ A big thank you to everyone!

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Darkness fell unnervingly quickly. Chihiro's dream from earlier in the afternoon sprang unbidden to her mind, images of her nightmare and all that lay before her meshing together until Chihiro could no longer tell what was dream and what was not. Her instincts screamed at her to run. But if this really was the land of her dream then those odd shadow creatures were out there- not to mention the fact that there would be masses of water and the boat that slipped across its dark depths blocking her from her home. No, there would be no refuge back the way she had come, Chihiro decided. The bathhouse with its windows full of real, earthly light was her last hope.

The thought that the shapeless blobs could be sneaking up on her set her feet in motion. Chihiro bolted across the bridge, flying to the doorway and pounding on it like there was no tomorrow. Though in the situation she was in, there very well might not be. After only a moment, the door flew open, an irritated man that strongly resembled a frog scowling at her. "All right, all right, I'm here. Hello, good customer…" He suddenly trailed off, sniffing the air. "A HUMAN!"

Chihiro only stared at the weird thing before her. Her throat constricted with fear. There would be no refuge in the large bathhouse; behind the frog Chihiro could see other of his kind, odd women with slightly oversized heads, and other creatures running around in a swirl of chaotic activity.

"Be careful," another frogman whispered, holding its nose as it hovered beside the first.

"Nonsense," said an actual frog in a little blue coat, defying all logic and speaking as it hopped around anxiously. "But it will contaminate the whole place if it gets in! And don't tought it! Human germs are deadly, you know."

"Eeeeew, what's that awful stench?" demanded one of the women, pausing by the ever-growing group of beings. Chihiro shifted uncomfortably as they all fixed their eyes on her while they whispered rather unpleasant things about her and other humans that carried to her ears.

"I'm dreaming," Chihiro whispered to herself, so quietly that her voice reached her ears and went no further. "I'm dreaming! I'm dreamingI'mdreamingimdreamingimdreaming! None of this is real!" Her voice rose in volume with each word until she was yelling so loudly that the frogman before her jumped in alarm.

"This is no place for a human! Hurry and get away, the customers are coming!" Sen spun around with a gasp. Sure enough, the frog's words rang true. An odd procession was drawing ever closer, some of the weirdest things that Chihiro had ever seen, much less imagined. At the head were beings shrouded in the voluminous traditional cloaks of nobles with odd, rectangular masks hiding their faces. Or maybe those were their faces; Chihiro couldn't tell. She couldn't see much of the other beings, and quite frankly, she didn't want to.

"This is a dream, it just HAS to be!" Chihiro wailed. "Just another of my crazy nightmares!" By this point, she had turned back to the looming building and the slightly less scary people within.

"Yeah, leave already! You're stinking up the place enough as it is, stupid human," one of the women sneered.

"Are you dense? I said scram!" Not as easy as the frogman made it seem. She could dash into the bathhouse, but what support would that offer? The only other option was to turn back, but the water and the other…things were still there.

Chihiro's hands came up to grip at the sides of her head in desperation. "It's a dream, just a dream! Please, let me wake up!"

"Sen?"

"You stinking human, GO AWAY before I have Yubaba come down here and turn you into a pig so we can serve you for dinner!" The threat didn't quite work though, seeing as Chihiro didn't have even the slightest clue who, or what, this Yubaba person was.

"SEN!" a woman screeched, coming out of the bathhouse and pushing past the by now exceedingly annoyed frogman to enfold a very confused Chihiro in her arms.

"Wh-what?" Chihiro choked out, struggling against the woman's strong hold on her.

"I don't believe you're here! What's it been, five, six years? How have you been? And what in Yubaba's name are you doing here?"

Can't…breathe…"

"Huh? Oh, sorry about that!" The woman grinned sheepishly. "I was just so excited to see you! What's wrong? You've barely said a word! Cat spirit got your tongue?"

"Let me go! You have no right to-"

"Sen!" the woman admonished, a surprised look in her eyes. She now held Chihiro by the shoulders, distancing herself a bit.

"Rin, get that little brat out of here!" the talkative frogman demanded, nervously eyeing the approaching spirits.

"You must have the wrong person. Now LET ME GO!" Chihiro started struggling even more, desperate to get away, away from everything, to find a little corner and curl up in it until all these strange people had gone away and she could wake up from this terrifyingly real nightmare.

The woman's hands continued to hold Chihiro by the shoulders, aggravating the girl to no end. "Get away! I don't know you! Just leave me alone!"

"Rin, what's going on out there?" Yet another sluggish woman peered out of the door, staring openly at the scene Chihiro was making. "And what's that awful smell?" Chihiro was seriously starting to get annoyed with every single being holding their noses and claiming that she smelled bad. It wasn't like she never showered or anything, after all. There was no way that she could smell that bad.

Rin's hands dropped from Chihiro's shoulders as if she has been burned. "…You don't remember anything, Sen?"

The disappointment and hurt in Rin's voice clamed Chihiro's hysteria a bit. "Remember!? Remember what? And my name is Chihiro. Chihiro. Chi-hi-ro. Not Sen!"

Rin grabbed Chihiro's arm once more, but only to mover her out of the customers' way. The frogmen and women scowled at the fact that Rin ignored them, but could do noting about it as the spirits had arrived. The air was soon filled with many voices calling out greetings and the chatter of the people receiving them. The customers began flooding into the bathhouse, some wrinkling their noses at the tang of human in the air.

Rin was silent for a time. "Se- Chihiro, why are you here?"

"I don't know," Chihiro replied, tearing her eyes away from the strange procession. "I don't even know where 'here' is, or who you think I am. Or who you are, for that matter."

Rin was silent for a little while, apparently pondering. "Come, then. I will take you to the person in charge. You can't go home now, at any rate." With barely a glance at Chihiro, Rin turned and set off into the grand building.

Chihiro fell into step at her heels. She found, much to her surprise, that she actually liked the interior and felt comfortable there. The bright lights and warmth that virtually flooded the place helped her previous terror seep away, and the steam carried the comforting scent of herbs to her nose, relaxing tense muscles.

It was a very beautiful place. Everything was amazingly clean and shiny. Some of the most exquisite artwork that Chihiro had even seen was plastered all over the place. Fancy chandeliers hung from the high, vaulted ceiling, bathing everything in a bright glow. The entire place screamed money, so much so that Chihiro felt a bit guilty for treading inside the place with her dirty sneakers on.

Chihiro was silent as they walked through the polished hallways. They were going up and up on various elevators, giving Chihiro a good view of the bathhouse and all the abnormal beings within. Her shock truly was beginning to wear off- not that Chihiro really believed that any of it was real.

Throughout it all, there were cries of, "Sen!" and, "Sen is back!" Chihiro, miffed, to say the least, ignored them.

Finally, the door slid open on the top level to reveal a hallway even more ornate than the levels below. Chihiro had thought that Rin would leave her to speak to the owner herself, but the woman came, wincing a bit as Chihiro's tennis shoes sounded loudly on the polished marble flooring. Rin did, however, make Chihiro announce her presence by speaking to the weird doorknocker that apparently felt the need to speak right back.

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He paced. A lot.

Running Aburaya was easy- the workers knew what to do and did it well, without his interference. He doubted that many of the denizens of Yubaba even knew that their master was gone, off on a journey to set up another bathhouse in some distant corner of the world.

Or so she said. He knew it was a lie.

Something, somewhere, was wring, dreadfully wrong. He had just arrived back from a little mission she had wanted him to take, nothing at all of significance, when a panicked messenger from Zeniba had arrived. Yubaba didn't know that he was listening as she muttered to herself, as she hurriedly packed her things, grabbed a most unhappy Bou, and taken off, leaving him a small note with her excuse and that she would send word sometime soon. Yubaba would never have left the bathhouse under any but the most drastic circumstances. And that's exactly what worried him- if she deemed it too important to speak a word of the truth to him, her closest and most trusted servant, though he was no longer a slave to her will and did everything of his own volition, it must be drastic indeed.

And so he paced.

And ignored the fact that someone was at the door to Yubaba's office.

"If you don't pace somewhere else, you're going to wear a rut into the floor, you know."

Haku did not stop his circling. "Shouldn't you be attending to the customers?" His voice was clam, impersonate.

He had reached the point in his relentless motion where he was facing Rin, who was busy sticking her tongue out at him. His gaze slipped to the girl standing quietly next to her. His step flatered.

Those eyes. Oh, how he had longed to see those eyes, those eyes he would know anywhere. "Chihiro," he breathed, eyes widening. So long had she been gone- though in reflection it truly was nothing but a drop of water in the river of his life- and just when the constant ache in his heart had dulled ever the smallest bit, just when the gaping hole inside him that only Chihiro could fill had ceased alerting him to its presence every second of every day and night alike, there she was before him, staring into his eyes with an expression on her face that suggested he was completely crazy and that there was no way in the world he should know her name.

"All right," she said, apparently not being able to keep her silence any longer.

Haku drank in her appearance. She had grown up in the time since she had left Aburaya… and him. She was taller, of course; so too was he. Her face had lost its childish roundness. It was now more angular and defined. He knew that she would not be considered the most lovely person in her world, but to him, she was the very epitome of beauty.

Her lyrical voice broke into his thoughts. "Where am I? Who are you? And why is everyone here calling me Sen?"

Haku's heart plummeted inside his chest as he stared at her, his one and only Chihiro, a growing feeling of dread winding itself through his veins. His mouth suddenly went dry, and he had to try hard to get his voice to work so he could answer her. "You are inside Aburaya, the bathhouse of the Spirits."

She frowned in consternation, pondering his answer.

"My name is Ko- Haku. I am Master Haku. And you… the spirits know you as Sen, not Chihiro."

"But why would the… spirits… know me? I've never been here before. I don't know anyone here! This is just a dream… isn't it?"

Each word that came out of her mouth sliced like a dagger to his heart. He had prayed to any and every spirit capable of granting heartfelt wishes that what he feared was not true. Here was after all this time, so close that he could reach out a trembling hand and touch her, and yet she was so unbearably far away.

It broke his heart.

"Why have you come here, Chihiro?" He felt a brief flash of guilt seize his already tortured heart as her eyes widened at the ice that suddenly permeated his voice.

"I… I don't know! I just walked through the tunnel into the town and then the sun set and then I couldn't get back! My friends have to be so worried! This isn't a dream, is it?"

All he could do was shake his head almost imperceptibly. Haku wished right then and there that he had some patron god or something like the humans did to curse for his current situation. First he was Yubaba's slave, forced to do all that she asked of him and more; then out of the blue a little human girl had found her way onto the bridge, challenging his master, informing him that his beloved river, his one and only home, was no more, and bringing his softer side back out into the light once more. She had given him his life back with the simple gift of his true name; and in return, she had left with his heart in her hands.

He should have asked her to stay. He remembered the day she had left him with the clarity of pure water, saw himself even now holding her hand, telling her to return to her own world even as every drop of his being screamed for him not to let her go. "I'll find my way back to my own world." It had been a lie, pure and simple, to reassure her that everything would be fine.

Now that she was back again, he didn't want to let her go.

"Please, I just want to go home!"

"You can't." He couldn't stop the lie from coming out of his mouth even as he told himself it wasn't right and mentally berated himself for being selfish. "Once you have found your way into the Spirit World, there is no going back. You must stay here and work or the magic of this world will overcome you and turn you into a form more suitable for use."

Oh, how he hated himself for saying what he did. He made sure to keep his eyes from coming in contact with Rin's; it was possible that she might know that there was nothing to keep Chihiro in this world, not with Yubaba gone.

"I…I can't go home?"

"No, not yet. You must do a great service to this world to untie the bonds that were set upon you the moment you set foot into this place. You must stay here and work until the opportunity arises and you win your freedom." Haku couldn't bear to look into her eyes for more than a second either. They were brimming with tears, an internal conflict playing itself out for all to see.

After a time of uneasy silence, she spoke, so softly that Haku would have missed her voice had he not been straining to hear it. "All right. If I cannot go home, I will stay and work." He saw Rin place a hand on her shaking shoulder in comfort. Haku truly hoped that Rin did not know the rules regarding humans within the Spirit World.

"You may work with Rin. There will be food, clothing, and a place for you to sleep. Rin will show you what to do. And perhaps you should become accustomed to calling yourself Sen so that if the spirits address you, you will know to whom they speak." With that, Haku turned his back on them. He knew that Rin would understand it to be a dismissal and take Chihiro to her room.

The door to the outside flew open at a glare from him after their footsteps faded away. With a thought, he took the form of the great dragon and hurled himself off the balcony and into the skies, slicing through the air and away from Aburaya until his thoughts and guilt calmed down.