'I can't believe I was talked into doing this.'
// "Come on, Lin! You agreed last night that you would do this."
"What! I agreed to help you! Not this!"
"Well, you wanted to help, this is what I need you to do."
"You've got to be kidding." \\
'Damn her!' Lin cursed to herself quietly as she silently stalked threw the abandoned bath house keeping a sharp eye out for any sort of floating blue ball that could turn up around a corner.
Her search had soon become an all out manhunt as she walked from floor to floor. Not one single nano bug was seen anywhere. Not even in plain view was there any of the tiny cameras. Cursing while she lowered her guard and began to walk along the corridors with little worry she soon found herself facing the final elevator that brought her to Noria's own dwelling. What with her past visits to that unholy place, she remembered of how their were a good number of nano bugs along the hallways that finally led to the front doors of Naomi's room. She quickly thought it over, and finally decided on taking the risk. Of course this meant she could be caught, but on the positive side, if they could rid Naomi from her position, they'd all be free. Well… at least from Naomi's grip at least.
Taking two steps forward, she was inside the tiny elevator and all that stood between her and a whole lot of trouble was the tiny lever at her right. With a squint and a deep breath she rested her hand on the lever and pulled it down, allowing for the doors to close and allowing her access to the upper levels.
'Gods, this was a bad idea.'
~*~*~*~
"Damn! Is it really that hard to have on hand a small toolbox? I need a friggin screwdriver!" Chihiro cursed as she looked about the barn that contained the now sleeping pigs. After Yubaba was thrown from her seat at the top of the towering bathhouse, Naomi had decided on leaving the pigs, whom where once humans, to their fate. She cared very little for humans, but their creation of technology was one thing that kept her from taking any more humans that stumbled upon their world captive, in another form at least.
With her patience wavering, she soon stumbled upon some strange tool that could be used for the same purpose. Feeling somewhat satisfied she stood up to return to her bedroom where the other female workers still slept. Upon standing, a sudden rustle from the bushes gave her a start, as she quickly took the tool in her hands in a defensive position. The bushes rustled a bit more before a head poked out.
"Kane!?" She said in an exasperated tone.
"Shhh… and put that down! I'm not here to hurt you." Kane said in a desperate whisper.
"Really. And what happened to being Noria's little marionette? Did she break you?" She jeered. She was far from giving into Kane's seductive moves this time. Not to mention, it was always fun having a long, sharp, pointy object in hand. And of course there was the fact that she missed hacking people up in her video games, that she needed a little carnage to suffice her needs, and lacerating away at his head would be perfect.
"Look, I just wanted to help you was all."
"You want to help me. Why the hell, should I trust you in helping me! You would certainly be the last person I would want helping me. What with gaining my respect and then turning around and showing me how you're just like every other stuck up prick I've ever met!" She argued as she quickly began to storm off, leaving him to inhale the cloud of smoke.
"No, Sen! Please." He quickly moved around the shrubbery and walked a few paces behind Chihiro. "I left, Noria's side. I no longer work for her. She doesn't know this, but I'm working as a spy now. I've finally seen that Noria's plans are horrible, and that she will never succeed in continuing with them."
"Ha! Like I should believe that cock and bull story. Not interested." She exclaimed without even a glance behind her. Kane quickened his pace a bit more to now be directly behind the steaming brunette.
"Well, I just may have something that could help you." He said bluntly, calling for a sudden stop in Chihiro's forward movement. Then, turning, she looked up at Kane, but right before she could even open her mouth, Kane planted his lips upon hers. Her eyes widened in shock, as Kane moved in closer and deepened the kiss. She finally made an effort and stepped back, still staring at the man, feelings completely changed.
"Haku told me to give that to you."
~*~*~*~
The elevator soon came to a halt. The loud racket of the elevators sudden halt, called for a jump from Lin. Of course it was a normal reaction, seeing as what just rested on the opposite side of the door. The door soon slid open. Lin had herself curled up along the side of the wall, in the tiny nitch that kept her hidden from things that would enter the elevator. With her net at the ready, she slowly peered past the wall, squinting dramatically, as if it would help her if she couldn't see the beings that would bring her fate to her on a silver platter. But it wasn't long because once she was seeing threw her eyes normally, she noticed that their wasn't a single nano bug floating around the dimly lit hallway. She stood up weakly. Still a little unsure of what was going on. But as she gained her full height, she noticed that all along the walls, their sat hundreds of nano bugs. Each shut down for the night, looking easily like little toy balls. Taking a few steps into the hall, she neared one of the balls and examined it. The red dot, like Sen had mentioned, was nowhere to be seen, but it also wasn't glowing the unusual blue color like it normally did. Glancing down the hall quickly, and feeling fairly safe, she grasped the ball she had stopped to pay closest attention too, and stuffing it into her net, while making sure that if it did come to life, it wouldn't be able to get out and quickly climbed back onto the elevator and made her escape.
"Well, that was easier than expected." She stated with a sigh as she relaxed against the wall as the elevator slid smoothly down, finally coming to a halt at the floor containing the bedrooms for the workers, only this time without the slightest sound. Lin disembarked once again and quickly made a silent jog for her room. Sen had told her she would be waiting there for her when she returned, already hacking away at whatever she was planning on doing. Lin moved silently into the room, but to all her efforts of trying to move as quickly as possible to find one of the floating orbs, she came back to a Sen-less room.
"Damnit, Sen!" She scoffed angrily as she quickly took the net, and wrapping the nano bug tightly inside, she picked up the loose floorboard and hid it securely underneath it, before she set off to the pigpen.
~*~*~*~
Chihiro stood their, completely speechless. 'Haku.' Was all she could think about. With a cocky smile, Kane then disappeared into thin air. A light breeze blew threw Chihiro's hair as he left. In a compulsive move, she dropped to her knees, and clasped her hands around her ears tightly. Her eyes screaming in tears as the moaning and crying memories flooded into every part of her body. It was all true, every last word of it. She had once been here. Back when she had first moved to her new home. Back to when her parents had taken that wrong turn down the road and wandered curiously into a life-changing world, that they would merrily forget about upon leaving. But, Chihiro should have completely forgotten these memories, just as her parents had done. Why was it that these memories, yet hidden, still remained with her?
These different thoughts and emotions she suddenly found surging into her quickly made her weary and unprotected. Everything seemed to have come closing in on her but then abruptly flew out around her, everything just out of reach. It was far too much to handle all at once. Her heart was racing and just as a trig broke behind her, she spun around ready to strike as if a cobra.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Sen it's me. Lin. Put the pick down." She said motioning to the same sharp object she had acquired not to long ago, and threatened yet another person with it as well. Chihiro loosened up and sat down on the soft soil, breathing heavily, and trying to regain reality.
"I'm… sorry, Lin. You just startled me is all."
"Well, of course I startled you. Just shows how you're always on you guard. Which is a definite good thing, considering what we're planning. Or at least, what you planned." She grinned.
"…Yeah."
"Hey, are you okay. You looked like you were having some sort of a seizure there on the ground." She motioned out a hand to help the girl up off the ground.
"No, I'm fine." Chihiro stated wearily as she took the women's hand and stood half struggled to get up, her knees still rather wobbly as she tried to gain composure once more.
"Come on, we should head back to our room. I was able to get the—"
"You got the nano bug!" Chihiro exclaimed excitedly, now seeming like the normal Chihiro.
"Yeah. Took some time to find one of the damn balls." Chihiro looked at the girl questioningly at her chosen words. "Well, for some reason, they all looked to have disappeared. Which isn't normal, considering I have always seen them in the halls at this time of the night. But there wasn't any! I finally took up the courage to go up to Noria's and I found them all… off." She commented. Chihiro continued to study her friend strangely.
"They were shut off?"
"Yeah. Well, they weren't glowing or anything, that's what I figured." Chihiro fell silent at these words.
"I don't know. Let's just get back and I can get to work on it. It shouldn't be to difficult to get it to work."
~*~*~*~
"What the hell is wrong with this thing!?" Three hours had passed since they had set to work on the glowing orb. The only thing Chihiro succeeded in doing was destroying the one thing that kept her sane in this world. Her CD player, well what remained of it, was in pieces on the ground. Multi-colored wires connected the computer chip and the blue orb; only the nano bug remained mute. Chihiro picked up the same wire she had been using for the past hour and tapped it to one of the jacks in the chip which was suppose to start up and keep the nano bug under her control, but it continued to remain unchanged.
"ARG! Oh, fuck it! It's not going to work. I'll just have to forget about my wireless camera idea." Chihiro stated rather disappointed in the fact that her experiment completely bombed, and she was now without a working CD player. "You know what. I think Noria knew about my little plan. How she found I could careless, but she must have been the one to go and shut down all of the nano bugs, so that way I couldn't hack into it's systems." Lin just starred at her blankly but continued to nod in understanding.
Chihiro fell back into her pillow with a sigh. "What time is it?" Lin came back to reality and drew her gaze out to the moon.
"Eh… it looks like it's 'round midnight." She said, but quickly jumped as Chihiro had suddenly sprung back up into a sitting position.
"I have an idea!" And before she could say anything in reply, Chihiro was up and running out of the room as quietly as possible but moving with great speed all at the same time. Lin refused to call after her considering the other sleeping bodies, but then jumped up and tried to maneuver around the others fast enough yet quiet enough as to not wake anyone.
Chihiro rounded the corner, almost running up on the wall seeing as she was slipping on the freshly cleaned floors, and with Lin in hot pursuit.
"Sen! Are you crazy! Your gunna get yourself caught!" Lin exclaimed in a whisper after her friend.
"That's just it! I won't." Lin starred at her in confusion as they ran down the stairs towards the boiler room. "I can't get caught, cause their aren't any nano bugs on that are running. Stupid, Noria, she never thought of that." Chihiro said with a grin of triumph as she burst into the boiler room. The sudden racket of the door sliding open woke Kamaji up from a silent sleep as he turned irritably around.
"What's going on you two?" He asked, rubbing his eyes as he tried to focus.
"I can't talk right now, I need to get threw that tunnel before dawn." Chihiro exclaimed as she ran to the opposite door.
"Hey, hold on. Explain some more to me what your doing." Lin said as she walked around the still sleeping frogs.
"Yes, I would like to know what is going on as well. Did your other plan work?" Chihiro stopped at the door and finally calming a bit down, she turned around to face her two friends who waited patiently for her to speak.
"Well… first off, when Lin went to find a nano bug, there weren't any around. She finally took up the courage to go up to Noria's and retrieve one from up there. What she found was all the nano bugs that are in the building and the surrounding area, turned off." Kamaji looked to Lin.
"That's right. They were all off. It was really strange, but in the end I took one and brought it with me. We spent a good three hours trying to get it to work, by destroying Sen's… CD player… but still nothing worked."
"Yup. But then I just realized. If all of the nano bugs were turned off, then that tunnel you had mentioned, which had all of the nano bugs in it, would be empty. Meaning I can walk through it with no worries."
"Marvelous!" Kamaji said happily as he stepped down from his platform and walked over to them. "Brilliant idea. A whole lot easier than your earlier one, hmm. But I do encourage you to be careful. Even if Noria did shut down all of the bath house nano bugs, she may have kept the ones in the tunnel still functional."
"Yes, but I already thought of that possibility. See, I've noticed that the nano bugs seem to work together. Everytime Noria would instruct the nano bugs to do something, every nano bug in that designated area would comply with the order. That tunnel is connected directly to Noria's main chamber; making all of the nano bugs perform the same task. So if, Lin was right about all the nano bugs in Noria's quarters were also shut down."
"Then the nano bugs in the tunnel would also be affected by the order." Lin finished for Chihiro. Chihiro nodded in reply.
"Well, I guess you certainly do know what your doing. Well, I guess I should allow you to get to work, seeing as you don't have much time."
"Thanks." Chihiro said with a smile as she bowed to Kamaji.
"Hey, I'll come with you. I can help watch your back." Lin chimed in.
"I, suggest you stay here. Who knows what I could find. Not to mention there is still the water hazard to get past. And I don't want you to get caught." Chihiro said. "I really don't want her to come. I'd rather see Haku by myself." She thought to herself.
"But, I can be of some help. I'm not completely useless you know!"
"Lin, Sen is right. You should stay here. If Sen doesn't return by dawn and you all set to work, everyone will be wondering where she is. You'd do best to cover for her, seeing as I can't leave." Kamaji pointed out. Lin looked to the ground, rather disappointed that she had to be on stand by like this.
"Alright."
"I'm sorry, Lin. I really wish you could come, but it's just to dangerous, and I wouldn't want anyone else to have to do something so difficult as this for me." She said whole-heartedly.
"It's okay. Good luck."
"Thanks." Sen gave her friend a hug, a bow to Kamaji and then whisked out the door.
Just as she had predicted no one was around. Her gaze drew up onto the moon and watched it as it allowed it's dim light to grace the water's surface. It was so quite and peaceful she just wanted to collapse into a nice patch of grass and watch the moons reflection swirl in the ever-moving waters. But she hadn't any time to do that now. She walked up to the railing and looked over into the dark depths of the water below her. She traced it along and finally came across a large hole along the sea wall. From the looks of it, she would have to walk rather far to be able to just wade into the water, and time was really cut short for her. Not even thinking twice on the matter she climbed up onto the railing and with a deep breath she dived off, falling a good 30 feet into the innate waters below.
She came up with a gasp. The water was warm. It felt strange to her considering the last few nights were fairly cool. Paying it little heed she quickly swam over to the hole along the wall. As she grew closer to it the water began to grow cold. Soon enough, the water was like ice. "Now this definitely won't be as easy as I was hoping." She thought to herself. Soon she came to the whole. It was just large enough for two people so swim threw side by side, and the perfect size for a snake like dragon to fly on threw. Taking in a lung full of air she dived down and swam as fast as possible threw the tunnel, not to sure of how long it would be before she would be able to reach land again and fresh air.
The tunnel seemed to go on forever as she swam. She was beginning to feel rather light headed as she swam, her eyes flickering shut. The cold water had quickly gotten to her, and she could feel her feet and hands beginning to go nub. Worry and fear was quickly being draped in front of her, but all to late as she finally came to a raise in the ceiling and an incline upwards. She climbed out, breathing heavily, and shaking rapidly from the cold. After the thought of near death had fled from her brain she stood up and began to walk the vast hill that was set out in front of her, and as she had thought, their weren't any nano bugs along this route.
"Perfect." She thought as she then quickly picked up her speed and soon found herself running up the slope, and soon enough coming upon an open room. The room was dimly lit, what with the few slight rays of moonlight streaming in threw the steel reinforced barred window. Their wasn't anything in this room that was worth looking at, but the rotten smell of dried blood triggered her to scrunch her nose in disgust. A drained moan from a dark corner of the room, quickly got her attention as she went for the knife she had brought along with her, but then slowly hesitated, the moan sounded in pain, and non-threatening. She slowly approached the corner, still not feeling that secure, she kept her hand rested on the knife in her pocket. A stream of moonlight slipped by her and rested into the corner, revealing a chained foot and a hand resting on it's back, also chained to the floor. Her eyes widened. She moved to the side, allowing for more light to fall on the figure laying on the ground. Tears screamed from her eyes as they spewed out down her still wet face.
Haku was chained there on the floor, a knife resting in his heart.
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I apologize so very much for taking SOOOOOOOOOOOOO long to get this out. Of course I was stuck working on my comic, and I finally decided to do commissions, and I've had a whole bunch of those that I needed to do, so Spirited Away: Revisited sort of fell into the back of my mind. But it's finally finished. Gotta hate that cliffhanger, huh. ^^ Your all probably thinking now "OMG! SHE DIDN'T GO AND KILL OFF HAKU!" XD All I can say is, your gunna have to wait for Chapter 7. Which I hope to finish by the end of this month. So be looking forward to that. And I promise I will get it out before the end of this month, that is as long as my job doesn't suddenly take up every damned minute I have to myself.
Well please R&R and tell me your thoughts. And please check out my online comic as well
w w and then copy and paste it into your address bar. Sign the guestbook and tell me what you think about that too. ^_^
Well that's it for me now. Thanks again for sticking with me. And like always, feel free to contact me. I don't feel like listing all the ways you can contact me so just check out the earlier chapters. I'm pretty sure their listed on chapter 5. See ya on Chapter 7!