~Yay! Chapter 16 is here at last! I drew some pictures of a few of the characters…. I might put them onto angelfire so you all can see, or if you want you can im me ^_^ And now onto Mary's less enthusiastic half for other news…!

Huh? Crazy? Naw, I'm perfectly sane. *Turns to wall: "right?"* But anyway, big plans await this fic… one chapter in particular (which is still to come, who knows when) is going to be either very funny, or a bit disturbing… depending on your point of view. *Yawn* Oh, and just because Haku happens to kiss Sen on the forehead rather than on the cheek, it doesn't mean that he's fixated on it. It just so happens to be that he's taller than Sen, to answer a reviewer's question.

~Hooray! Funny! Okay, now read chapter 16 and then REVIEW, people :D

This just in… *yawn* The word liqor appears in this chapter though with its normal spelling, so it might be taken out by the server… I don't know if it filters out things like that. Just know that if there is a blank spot where a word looks like it should go, there's your mystery word. Oh and I used the word for those chocolates that have liqor in them… I don't know what they're called, but I'm positive that they exist… so yeah… but at least now you won't be thinking that somebody gets stoned in this chapter, because they don't.

            If you were to ask either of the five guests which floor they liked best out of the entire castle, they'd pick the seventh, by far. They learned from Prince Miruto that it was mainly a bunch of shops, and Boh found himself to be like a kid in a candy store… which he was. One of their first stops was a candy store, and to everyone's delight, it was mostly free.

            "FREE?" Boh asked in disbelief.

            "Yup. Most of it's free, at least. The only thing you would have to actually buy is that chocolate with liquor in the filling… but you shouldn't be eating that stuff anyway," the prince explained, even though Boh had already taken off.

            "What? That stuff is my favorite!" Naomi began. "My aunt let me try some while she was babysitting me a few years ago. I've really been wanting some more since then… but, oh well. I'll settle for some tootsie rolls," she said as she made her way towards one of the walls lined with containers of candy.

            A lot of the candy was like what you'd find in the human world, of course. Most of it was chocolate, whether dark, white, or milk, with different fillings and toppings. There was taffy of all different flavors, which was just as good as tootsie rolls, and there was an entire wall dedicated to hard candies, be they fruit-flavored, mints, or candy canes.

            Haku and Sen both went straight for the jelly beans, taking a few of each kind and putting them into paper bags that were available for 'shoppers' (more like looters, if you ask me), while Dayu made himself at home inside a container of kompeitou (which, if you remember, is what Rin fed all the little soot balls). Boh, needless to say, was just walking along, occasionally eating a handful of whatever he passed. Naomi, being a fan of taffy, was taking mostly the small pieces of chocolate taffy that looked identical to tootsie rolls. Prince Miruto sat on the glass counter (where underneath was the liquor-filled chocolate) and spoke with the manager, who seemed to be a friend of the king's, while he waited for the rest of them.

            As Naomi came across some jaw breakers, she stopped to take a few. She was just pulling the front of the container forward to reveal the candy, when the prince walked up to her left and opened a container of licorice and took out a piece. Then he brought his left hand around his front and held out a box of the liquor chocolates to Naomi as he looked anywhere but her. He ate the licorice, waiting for her to take the box.

            She stared at the box for a few seconds, while Prince Miruto continued to eat more licorice. Then, when her brain registered that he was giving it to her, her face colored slightly and she smiled at him as she took it.

            "Thanks. Do you want one?" she offered, now taking off its outer layer of plastic.

            "Nah," he said, closing the licorice box, now that he had accomplished his mission.

            "Are you sure?"

            "Well… maybe just one, to get the licorice taste out of my mouth… I really hate that stuff," he confessed.

            "But you just ate some," Naomi pointed out, confused at why he would have if he didn't even like it.

            "Well I didn't think that you'd want Sen and Haku to realize the real reason I was over here; they might never have let it go," he explained as he took a chocolate from the box held out to him.

            "Oh… I guess you're right," Naomi said simply. She had to admit: it was flattering, the way he took that into consideration.

            He laughed quietly. "Well I'll just go tell Boh that it's time to continue the tour. Can you get the others?"

            "Yeah."

            When she didn't move, too busy staring at the box of chocolates she as holding, the prince waved his hand on front of her face. As she snapped out of her trance he gave her a salute, like he always did before he left her, and she laughed at herself. Then, without thinking, she stuck her tongue out at him before walking over to Sen and Haku.

            'Did I just stick my tongue out at him?' she asked herself as she realized what she had done. 'Oh well… it's not like some people back home don't have their little hand jives they do with each other.' (UGH. If I see those stupid little rocket fuel kids do that woogly woogly thing *one* more time… I will crush them into bugs with my mighty replicant feet! ….Sorry…. randomness….)

            It was only when they were leaving the candy shop that Sen noticed Naomi munching on her chocolates.

            "Hey, how did you buy those?"

            Naomi opened her mouth to answer, but then popped another chocolate in before she said anything. It was obvious that she didn't want to talk about it, which left two possibilities: she stole the chocolates, or the prince bought them for her. Sen didn't have too hard of a time figuring it out.

            Okay, so Boh's favorite floor was the seventh because of the candy, but what about the others? Their next stop was a shop of glass figurines, and the people who blew the glass worked in thee back. They got to see how the workers there made them, which Haku found particularly interesting. After watching for a while, most of the guests dispersed to look at the figurines which were set out for customers, but Haku stayed behind, mesmerized by the melted glass in the flames.

            Out in the main area of the shop, where Sen, Naomi, Boh and Dayu were browsing (the prince just sitting in a chair, having already seen the place many times), the walls were lined with glass models of animals, birds, flowers, toys, everything. They even ogled over a tiny set of glass furniture for a while.

            Just as they were about to have seen everything and were getting impatient with waiting for Haku, he emerged from the back, looking very pleased with himself.

            "Look what I made," he said smugly, holding up a hair clip with a dragon on it to show Sen. The dragon on it was rather small, but had a surprising amount of detail. Sen could see the way he had made the fur on its back have little ridges in it to give it texture. It had small, turquoise-colored stones for the eyes, and the tip of its tail was also turquoise as well as the longer fur on its back. Its toes were curled into fists to hold onto the actual hair clip.

            "Oh my… that's the best thing in the whole shop! Have you done that before?" Sen asked with amazement.

            "Not once. It was a lot easier than I thought, though," he responded (without a trace of modesty), still grinning, as he clipped it into Sen's hair. "But since I made it, it was free."

            Sen hugged him, not knowing anything to say, before they were all told to run along to continue the tour.

            After walking farther along down the hall, passing over the random bathrooms and storage closets along the way, they came to Dayu and Sen's favorite part, which was a rather large room dedicated to testing new products that inventors in the castle came up with. It may not sound so fun at first, but when you consider that there was no gravity on one half of the room, your opinion changes.

            "What would they ever need to test for in an anti-gravity field?" Sen asked as she did a cartwheel on the ceiling.

            "You got me… but I think it helps them see how well things hold together," the prince replied, gliding through the air by kicking his feet and pulling himself forward as if he were swimming.

            "What else do they use to test stuff?" Boh asked.

            "Oh, the usual; they see if it's water proof, how much heat the product can stand, that sort of stuff."

            After floating about in the air 'till their heart's content, they reluctantly left the testing room to proceed to their next destination.

            Many of the rest of the shops they entered were filled with either toys or souvenirs. After exiting one shop which sold rare herds used for making medicine and other concoctions, they arrived at, to Naomi's delight, a store filled wall-to-wall with shelves and racks and huge loads of clothes. It was only then that Naomi started to appreciate how full all the stores were. Sen, she was happy to note, was also eager to try on a few things.

            Boh and Dayu were hiding from each other in a few racks of clothes, and Naomi was a bit shocked at how quickly Sen was taking clothes off of the racks to try on; she had never been so enthusiastic about shopping when they went out for back-to-school clothes every summer... But then she noticed that a slightly disgruntled Haku was tailing behind her, having each shirt, dress or whatever fly directly into his arms after being stripped from their previous position wherever they used to hang.

            When she saw this, Naomi couldn't help but comment on it. "Just be happy that she has no purse for you to hold while she changes, Haku," she said with a laugh. She was glad to see that it lightened him up a bit.

            Prince Miruto, who was standing behind Naomi, was in his own fit of laughter at the sight.

            "You wouldn't be laughing if you knew what came next," Naomi said to him.

            "Huh?" he managed to get out in-between a breath and a snort.

            "Were you expecting me to just stand here?" she asked rhetorically, taking his hand pulling him to the nearest rack of clothes. "Come on, I don't want Sen to have all the fun."

            "I— but—," he stammered as a few shirts, then a skirt or two found their way into his arms, which he never even remembered putting out in the first place. "Hey!"

            Naomi tossed him a pair of shorts. "Don't worry, I'm faster than Sen and she's already done! Just tolerate it for a few more minutes," she said.

            The prince gave a harrumph (yes, it's a real word!), though his heart wasn't really in it. He honestly didn't mind doing favors for Naomi.

            "Naomi, what do you think?" Sen asked from the doorway of a changing room. She had changed into a turquoise kimono with a slightly darker blue obi.

            "Nice, it matches your hair clip," she replied as she made her way to the changing rooms herself (but of course, not before adding a few things to the pile in the prince's arms). When she reached the door, the prince handed over the burden he was carrying, and Naomi went in to try everything on.

            Sen was still standing in front of the mirror outside of the changing room when she said, "Too bad we'd have to pay for all this if we ever wanted to keep it… I really like this kimono." She turned around to look at herself from a different angle in the mirror and added, "Haku, are you going to try anything on?"

            "No, I wouldn't want to find something that I like and then not be able to buy it." A sigh of agreement could be heard from Naomi behind the tall door she was dressing behind.

            "Well you're going to be here for three weeks, and I'm sure you won't want to wear the same thing for the entire time, so I could probably pull a few strings," the prince said.

            "Really?" Naomi asked as she emerged from the room, wearing a light blue tank top and white shorts.

            After hearing this good news, Sen had fun for while as she picked out a few things for Haku, Naomi and Dayu helped Boh with some of his shopping, and all the while, Prince Miruto was negotiating with the store manager to send charges to the king. After gathering everything into bags, they flagged down a servant to carry their things back to their rooms as they proceeded to the roof.

            When they got there, they all saw that it wasn't much different than the balcony outside of Sen and Haku's rooms. It was basically just a really big garden with some patio furniture placed here and there. So obviously, not much happened there, unless you consider that while the guests marveled over the variety of flowers, the prince picked some and started to braid them together out of boredom (a bit girly, but think of this: you're waiting to leave a family reunion where your most annoying relatives are, and your mother says you're leaving, but then she starts talking. Then she says you'll leave real soon, but she talks for another half hour, while some two-year-old cousins keep bugging you for a piggy back ride. That's the kind of boredom that drove him to it… though not that extreme, since they weren't there very long).

            Their final stop was, of course, the training grounds. After seeing a few gardens, fountains, pools and all that good stuff that you'd expect to be around a castle, they finally arrived to it, where the prince started to show them where everything was.

            They stood in am area about half the size of a football field and along its borders were a few medium-sized pieces of equipment. The six of them listened to the prince talk as they made their way underneath a near by tree, trying to escape the heat from the sun now high in the sky, the time being a couple hours after noon.

            "You see that biggest machine over there?" Prince Miruto asked, pointing to it on the side of the field farthest from them, "that's basically something like a mini cannon… it can fire different things at you; just set it to whatever you want. All of the smallest things are moving targets. They can go pretty fast too, and they can hover a few feet above the ground. There are also some stationary targets lying around, I think. Do you mind if I stick around and watch?"

            "Nope," Sen said. "It's probably better that you do, since somebody will have to keep an eye on Boh."

            As the prince sat under the tree with Boh and Dayu, the rest of them battled with the mini cannon-like machines. The prince was very interested in seeing how their weapons worked, and was having a rather good time by the time Naomi had released the sword form of her key by tossing it into the air and catching it.  After a while, Haku suggested to Sen that she could practice while riding on him in his dragon form. It was then that the prince paid attention to the fact that he called her Chihiro, and asked Boh if he knew anything about it.

            "Why does Haku call her Chihiro if her name is Sen?"

            "Sen is the name that my mommy gave her to use while she works in the bath house. Chihiro is Sen's real name."

            "Is Naomi not Naomi's real name, then?"

            "Um… her real name isn't Naomi, but I don't know what it is. Nobody ever told me."

            "How do you know that Naomi isn't her real name, then?"

            "Because she works at the bath house. Mama always changes the names of the workers when they sign their contracts."

            Prince Miruto thought about this for a few moments and then asked, "What's your mother's name? I might have heard of her bath house."

            "Yubaba."

            Yes, the prince had heard of Yubaba's bath house. Everyone had, since Yubaba was the one who ruled that particular region of the Spirit World. So now he finally knew a little more about them! But there was still the matter of Naomi's name that was bugging him; next chance he got, he'd find out her real name.

            Lucky for him, the next chance he got happened to be when Sen, now also known by him as Chihiro, came up to him.

            "Will you hold onto this so that I don't risk breaking it?" she asked him, taking the hair clip Haku had made for her out of her hair.

            He took it from her saying, "Sure. Hey, Boh and I got a question for you."

            "What is it?"

            "What's Naomi's real name?'

            "It's Ruby… why do you ask?"

            "Boh here told be about why Haku calls you Chihiro, so I asked him what Naomi's real name was; but he didn't know, so I asked you."

            "Oh…" Sen hadn't really thought about it, but when she looked back on what had happened from when Boh first came into the picture up to now, she realized that nobody did ever tell Boh Naomi's real name. She just picked him up out of his room in the bath house without any introductions and then went from there. Come to think of it, the only reason he knew to call her Naomi was because that's what everyone else was calling her.

            Remembering what he had heard about Yubaba, the prince recalled that his mother once explained this name business to him. Not only that, but she also told him that people often forger their real names soon after they sign their contracts. "Is that why she wears that necklace with a ruby on it?"

            "Yeah. Haku gave it to her when we first got to this world. He gave me a bracelet with my name on it," she said, holding out the arm with the bracelet on it.

            "I see. Well how much longer are you all going to be out here?"

            "I don't know; I guess we'll just keep going until we get too tired," Sen replied as Dayu scuttled up her leg, then up her body and onto her shoulder. He squealed a few times and pointed over to Boh, who was trying to climb up the tree.

            "Uh… Boh, have you ever climbed a tree before?"

            "No."

            "You should get down, then. I wouldn't want Yubaba to blame me for anything that could happen to you."

            "But I'm bored."

            "Play with Dayu."

            "Nah," he said, lifting himself up onto a branch.

            "Don't make me get you down myself," she warned.

            Boh snorted at the thought of Sen trying to drag him out of the tree.

            "I'm serious!" she said in a tone that showed she was offended that he thought she was a complete weakling.

            Boh ignored her.

            That made her angry. She lifted her hand and waved it calmly around in a circle, and Boh was immediately captured by an orange bubble. She steered the bubble onto the ground, and Boh was then released to grumble and groan as much as he wanted safely on the grass.

            The prince stared at her for a moment. "Where did you learn to do that?"

            "Well I didn't really learn… I just sort of did it one day."

            "Oh... okay."

            Sen turned to Boh and said, "Now stop trying to do things that could get you hurt while I go practice some more." She set Dayu down on Boh's head and then started walking back to Haku and Naomi.

            As the prince watched, all three of the guests who were training themselves proved to be very skilled, but he of course paid more attention to Naomi than the other two. He watched as she expertly hit each of the targets floating around her, even when they were going at top speed. What really impressed him though was that once, when there were three rather large chunks of rock flying at her from all different sides, she created a black hole and jumped into it herself instead of letting the rocks fly through it. Whether it was an accident (probably was) or not didn't matter because she then reappeared out of thin air after the three rocks had collided and were on the ground.

            Sen and Haku were also in major butt-kicking mode, and proved that by doing some rather fancy acrobatics in the air while dodging and/or blocking rocks hurled at them and also knocking down every target that came whizzing their way.

            However, after seeing Naomi and having his thought mainly on her as always, Prince Miruto couldn't help but made a scene over her astonishing performance. As the three gathered around the big ol' tree he was sitting under with the sun beginning to set, the prince jumped to his feet to congratulate her.

            "I dub thee: Ruby, conqueror of the training field!" he said very dramatically as he put a crown of flowers on her head (they just happened to be the flowers he was braiding up on the roof…. What, you thought that all my ranting over the fact that it was girlish, but you could live with it, was for nothing? I think not. As you can see, there was a purpose to that besides to make that paragraph a bit longer).

            "Uh," Naomi said with a smile as she began to blush. "Hey wait— how do you know my name?"

            "Sen told me."

            Naomi gave a slightly exasperated look to Sen that only she could see. Sen shrugged in return.

            "So what do you plan on doing now?" the prince asked.

            "I'm hungry. I want dinner," Boh said.

            "I guess we're going to go back and eat dinner then," Haku stated almost needlessly.

            "Are we eating in my room again?" Sen asked as they started walking.

            "I guess so," Naomi replied. "Will you be joining us?" she then asked Prince Miruto.

            He grinned and said, "Well I was just going to have dinner with my parents, but do you want me to join you?"

            They all looked at her as if slightly surprised, except for the prince, who was looking at her very haughtily. Naomi could feel her face burn red, and she replied, "Do whatever you want," trying not to sound too hopeful.

            "Well I think I want to join you, seeing as how I've been having a good day with you all so far, if it's all the same to you—"

            "Prince Miruto!" a voice called. They turned to see that it was the same woman who had told the prince to bring Naomi and Boh to Sen's room when they first arrived at the castle, and Haku recognized her as the king's advisor. "The king and queen need you up to dinner as soon as you can get there; they need to discuss the spell that was cast on the castle this morning."

            "The one that affects the castle on any given day?"

            "Yes."

            He sighed with disappointment. But oh well, there are still three weeks… "Okay, I'll just go now then. See you all tomorrow," he said, giving his traditional salute as he fallowed the advisor into the castle. Naomi just barely managed not to stick her tongue out at him; she wasn't about to do that in front of five other people if you didn't include the prince.

            After they had finished their dinner, the five of them were quite satisfied with that day's activities. They would definitely sleep well that night after the training they had gone through and especially after taking a long bath. All they could do was hope that the next day didn't bring one of those temporary changes to stifle their good moods.

            As Naomi and Sen emerged from the bathroom, their towels wrapped over their heads like turbans to keep their wet hair out of the way and dressed in new pajamas, courtesy of the prince, Sen wondered if Haku had already finished and had put Boh to bed, seeing that a pair of rather large baby feet had made a trail from water still on their bottoms. God, his feet were huge… probably from all the sweets he ate… sweets… candy… chocolate…

            "Naomi, the prince got you those chocolates, didn't he," Sen seemed to insist rather than ask.

            "Yeah… I think I still have a few; do you want to try one?" she offered, trying to keep the topic away from Prince Miruto.

            "No, thanks. But has he actually said anything to you yet?"

            "What do you mean?"

            "Oh, never mind, we're already at our rooms. G'night," she said before she let out a yawn.

            "See you tomorrow," Naomi replied as she opened her door to walk in.

            When she entered, she found Prince Miruto waiting in the same spot on her bed that he had sat in that very morning.

            "You are impossible," she said to him, referring to the fact that she was very groggy from a workout fallowed by a very filling meal and a bath; a combination that is certain to put anyone directly to sleep, and now he was in her room while she had absolutely no will to think up witty comments to trade with him.

            "Don't worry; I just wanted to know if you had any chocolate left. That stuff is very good; I'm not surprised that it's your favorite."

            She grunted tiredly and took the box of chocolate out of one of her bags. She tossed it over to him and said, "Have as much as you want, and please get off of my bed. I want to go to sleep."

            "I can tell," he said as he stood up and set the box down on her dresser. "But I only want one, so I'll leave the box here." He opened it and popped a piece into his mouth, the put the lid back on it and turned around to see Naomi sanding a few feet in front of him.

            "I need to thank you."

            "But you already did in the candy store. You don't have to thank me twice," he said happily.

            "No, I meant for changing," she said quietly. "You were really getting on my nerves before you stopped the perverted act," she added quickly before he thought too much of it.

            Prince Miruto smiled at her, but said nothing.

            "Good thing I came along to whip you into shape," she said, trying to fill the empty silence.

            "Well I may have changed because of you," he admitted, "but I also changed for you."

            Then there was a slightly uncomfortable silence in which Naomi thought of what to do next. She was sleepy and wanted to go to bed… so she stuck out her tongue, as if dismissing the prince so she could sleep.

            To her relief, he took the hint and chuckled quietly before saluting her and leaving the room, and she promptly re-acquainted her head with the soft pillow on her bed.

            Four days had passed since they learned that their departure would be delayed, and the guests (as well as everyone else in the castle) were getting a bit tense when nothing had happened yet from the spell that was supposedly placed on the castle. Each morning when they woke up, they look around anxiously, looking for any changes that might not be too pleasant, but they always found none. They were beginning to wonder if anything would happen at all, but then also considered the fact that they were also told that the changes would occur randomly as well as be only temporary.

            The lack of changes to throw anyone out of a good mood worked well for the prince though, because he found that Naomi was getting friendlier with him in his recent efforts to woo her (Woo… that's a funny word… but then there aren't really any good synonyms to get the same point across, so there you go).This was evident to the rest of the guests as well who never said anything about Naomi's change of heart, though they mentally raised eyebrows whenever she was inclined to tease (as in make jokes and maybe slap him lightly on the head) the prince in a manner to suggest that she didn't mind his company, which might be a slight understatement. She even began to talk about him when he wasn't around… weird.

            But back to the spell (or curse, whatever); on the fifth day that nothing seemed to happen, the prince managed to catch all five of the guests having breakfast that morning in Sen's room, which seemed to be their favorite meeting place.

            "You remember five days ago, when I was summoned to have dinner with my parents to talk about this?"

            They nodded in-between chews.

            "Well this is exactly the reason. Through the past, there have been times when this spell has been different than it should be… When that happened, the changes seemed not to come at random days, but one immediately after the other for a whole week. And since my dear old granny isn't exactly in her right mind, my parents assumed that this would happen, and so it seems that it has."

            "So what? They'd come one way or the other… I say it's better to get them over with all at once," Naomi said.

            "I agree," he said as he took a seat between Naomi and Boh, "but they end up being a bit more extreme when this happens." Then he nonchalantly took a piece of sausage from Naomi's plate, and she reacted with a snort of what seemed to be amusement. The sausage was, after all, right in front of him. This earned them some confused looks from the other guests, but neither seemed to notice.

            "Do you think you're just gonna get away with that?" Naomi asked.

            "No; I also think that I'm gonna get away with a potato wedge," he said as he took one from her plate. Naomi laughed. He liked it when she laughed… "And a sip of your juice to wash it all down," he added for good measure as he took that sip. Naomi laughed again.

            "Well I should go now," he said, standing up, "I have to monitor the repairs for the train and stuff. See ya." He gave a salute from the doorway before closing it, and Naomi stuck out her tongue at the closed door. Nobody saw her though, including her friends around the table, because they had watched him go. They turned back to their food and returned to the conversation they had been in before Prince Miruto had come in, and the rest of the day after that passed by like the five days before had.

"They're not spicy enough!"

Don't even ask me why I put that quote there. Like I said a chapter or two before, I'm running out. Oh and yes, somebody *did* say that in the movie. It was sometime around either the stink/river spirit or No-Face… not sure which, but it was one of those frog dudes and he just ran across the screen with a big plate of food in each hand and said it. You wouldn't believe how long it took me to stop laughing when I noticed it about the third time I watched it… but yeah, so anyway…

This chapter only took longer than I hoped because I was struggling with Naomi and Miruto… I had to delete some stuff because it was a bit too fluffy considering that Naomi only learned his name the day before… so then I had to think up more stuff to fill that in (which I did today, after not sleeping for the entire night… seriously… I'm only a little tired, but I feel all…silly…)… but whatever. Oh and don't worry, the stuff I deleted will come, just not so soon ^_^ Now please review!