Chapter 4: Hidden Prisoner
By, azngurlenluv
A/N: Here is Chapter 4! Sorry it took so long… I never thought that I could write anything that would go beyond 2 or 3 chapters, but here it is! There are even more chapters after this!!! EEKNESS!!! OOH!!! Shameless self-advertising here: I recently wrote another fanfic for SA and would most appreciate it if you were to read that and offer your opinion. It's a one-shot fanfic just to let you know because I think I made it seem as if there might be a continuation… It's called "Nothing Else Matters" btw.
TO EVERYONE: This is the long -awaited chapter in which Haku's whereabouts are given! **crowd cheers** Yep, yep, yep! The plot that is unraveling in my head is actually drawing me in as well… Ooh… o_O Well, I hope you all enjoy!
To those of you who threatened to kill me, a.k.a. those who just wanted me to continue: I'VE CONTINUED!!! MWAHAHAHAHA!!! Although, it'll be about a month until I can get another chapter up… But hey! It's not my fault that my grandparents don't have a computer!
ElvenPrincessOfLegolas: Hello, oh faithful reviewer! Very glad that you liked my other story, but very sorry that it made you all sad and junk… ;_; Thanks for being first reviewer, though! ^^
GundamNymph: Ara, ara… At last! Another person who is constantly high on sugar!!! Now that I know what a plot bunny is, I must invent a way to ward them off when I need my rare moment of sanity! Thanks for being one of the first to review my other story. I don't think I want to make a sequel to it or anything because I'm content to leave it as it is… for now… But you're welcome to write your own sequel if you want to. How about a collab? And yes, I love Haku as well. Don't we all? ^^ I'll inform you the moment I invent a cloning machine so that we can all have our very own Haku! ;D
p4: I'm developing the plot some more, so watch out! And I always tend to end my chappies with cliffhangers… But I guess they do their job at leaving everyone hanging, ne?
I don't have a name, I'm just making this up!: Ogino? I have no idea whether that's her last name or not, but other fanfic writers seem to use that as her last name, so I thought, why not?
YueMichiruNaragisawaMiko: I don't know if spirits can have babies or not… But then I figured, they're humanoid spirits, humans can have babies, so I figured that they probably can too! ^^
Sorry I haven't answered everybody personally, but there are so many of you! I'm very happy that you like my story though, and thanks very much for taking the time to review! ^^
Disclaimer: I do not own Spirited Away or anything that is associated with it. They all belong to Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. I am not making any money off of this. Please don't sue because all you will get from me is a blank stare. o_O
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Silence echoed throughout the boiler room as Chihiro stared in disbelief at Lin. Her mouth opened and closed, but nothing passed her lips for there were no words she could find to express her shock. Her shock faded, allowing anger and hurt to come in and take its place.
'He lied,' she thought, 'He asked me to wait for him… It's been 10 years since he disappeared, and he hasn't even bothered to come for me.'
She felt tears slip from her eyes and buried her face in her hands. Lin scooted over to her and put her arms around the shaking young woman. More bath tokens were sent down, and Kamaji was called away to do his job as the 'slave to the boiler.'
"He lied!" Chihiro sobbed into Lin's shoulder, "He said we'd meet again! Did he even care about me?!"
She continued to sob into and soak Lin's shoulder, and Lin could find no other way to comfort her than to just let her cry and pat her on the back. Her cries stopped as she felt hands grip her shoulders from behind, and she was turned around to face Kamaji who had a very stern look on his face.
"You can't say that," he began, "You know just as well as I do that Haku is not the kind of person to break a promise, especially since he made it to you. You know how important you are to him, and I will not stand by and watch you doubt his integrity when it's clearer than anything how much you care for him."
Chihiro silently nodded and wiped away the tears that lingered on her cheeks. She gave a weak smile though she still felt like crying. Lin suddenly gave a loud exclamation and clapped her hands together. With a puzzled look on her face, Chihiro stared as Lin stood up and offered her hand to Chihiro to help her up.
"Now that you've come back here, you gotta go sign another contract with Yubaba to work here," Lin explained, "Otherwise, she might follow through with her policy and turn you into whatever she likes even though it's clear that you were her favorite. She's become meaner and stricter with the past 10 years, and you never, ever want to get on her bad side, although I can't figure out why you would want to do it in the first place…"
Chihiro nodded her consent and helped to clean up the small mess that they had made with their long, drawn out meal. After Lin had strapped little Aki to her back, they each took up a tray and bid goodbye to Kamaji who waved them off with a familiar, "Good luck" and 2 thumbs up.
"You don't have to tail me so closely this time," Lin said with a smile, "After being sick for almost a week and being fed our food, no one's going to notice that you're a human."
They made their way up to the top floor, Chihiro turning her head every which way to take in the familiar scenery. It was funny how some things changed and some things remained the same over such a long period of time. The interior of the bathhouse was still wooden and painted red in most places, and nothing about the way things were run had changed.
There was as much hustle and bustle as there always was. Spirits and gods could be seen being led to and from the baths, and even more were in the various rooms that branched off from the corridors, drinking and laughing in their own strange ways. They finally reached the elevator that would take them to the top, and this time, both of them got on. When they reached the top floor, Lin gave Chihiro a reassuring hug and closed the elevator door to go back down, and Chihiro was left to face Yubaba on her own as she had done so many years ago.
She approached the familiar hideous doorknocker and did as it had reprimanded her to do when she had tried to force her way in when she was younger. In answer to her knock, the knocker rolled its eyes and spoke:
"Back again are we?" came Yubaba's voice through the mouth of the knocker, "You're not as scrawny as you used to be… Well, come in then."
The double doors opened to reveal several other sets of doors that opened one after the other, and not wanting to be pulled in by magic again, Chihiro walked briskly through them to have them close and lock themselves behind her. After turning a couple of corners, she came to face the familiar door that led to the office of Yubaba.
The door opened on its own, and she stepped through them and walked to the center of the room. Turning, she saw Yubaba sitting at her desk with her head rested on her hand. The 3 green heads rolled over to circle and bounce around Chihiro's feet, and she glared down at them as she remembered what they had almost done to Haku when he came to Yubaba 10 years ago, bleeding and dying from the inside.
"I want a job here, please," Chihiro said looking up at Yubaba, her voice many times more confident than when she had stepped into this same room for the first time.
"I thought so," Yubaba replied with no change in her demeanor, "You still owe me a lot of gold for all the damage you caused here the first time. Why should I let you work here with all the trouble you caused here?"
"Because you took and oath to give work to anyone who asked," Chihiro replied with a look of ice, "And this time, I want to keep my name; you cannot control me. I will sign a contract, but I refuse to give you my name. I never plan to return to my world, so you don't have to worry about me being able to escape with the knowledge that having my name will give me."
Yubaba looked long and hard at Chihiro. The girl radiated confidence and determination, and Yubaba did not feel like challenging her just yet.
"Very well," she muttered, waving a finger at a bin full of papers. A sheet of paper extracted itself from the pile and floated over to Chihiro with a pen trailing after it.
Chihiro took the both of them from the air and bent over near the fireplace to sign it. When she was done, she straightened up and brought the contract over to the wrinkled sorceress herself. Yubaba took the contract and put her glasses on to examine it. Seemingly satisfied, she put the contract into another pile of papers and looked up at Chihiro.
"You'll know how to show yourself out of here, I suppose," she said nonchalantly.
"Yes ma'am," Chihiro answered with the same ice cold stare at the old, leather-faced sorceress.
With a wave of her hand, Yubaba dismissed Chihiro from her quarters. Silence settled upon the room for several moments as the old sorceress stared into the roaring fire, a smirk growing on her face. The 3 green heads sat in silence next to the fireplace and exchanged puzzled looks amongst themselves, but at the sound of Yubaba's chair sliding out from beneath the desk, they looked up to see the witch approaching them.
With small grunts, they moved out of the way of their mistress who was so easily angered and resettled themselves on a red satin armchair that was situated near the fireplace. She paused at the fireplace, and with a flick of her wrist, the fire that had been burning with such intensity went out in no less than a second.
Her hand drifted over to the candleholder that stood to the leftmost side on the mantle above the fireplace. Her fingers curled around the candle that it held and she gave it a quick twist. There was a sound of stone grinding against stone, and the fireplace itself began to shift to the right.
When it came to a stop, a passageway was revealed that had been hidden by the fireplace when it was in its former position. Stone steps could be seen leading down into the darkness of the passageway. Yubaba descended these steps, pointing her finger at random torches to light her way as she went down.
Down, down, down she went, and still the steps continued with no place to get off. It seemed to take hours, but eventually, the sorceress reached the bottom. There was but a single metal door there that was bolted and sealed with magic that would have repelled anything that touched it except for the person who cast the spell on it or one of their own blood.
A wave of a hand later and the bolts were all dislodged. The door creaked open, and Yubaba stepped through it into another passageway, but to the left and right of this particular passageway, there were bars that separated it from cells that were meant to hold prisoners of the power-hungry sorceress.
Skeletons of different shapes could be seen in some of the cells as she walked leisurely down the passageway. She paused in front of a particular cell and peered in at its occupant. All the way in the back of the cell, there was a figure that was crumpled up on the ground. It was of the shape of a young man, and his shirtless back was riddled with scars and gashes that had yet to heal properly.
"Get up!" Yubaba demanded of the figure.
He remained there, still and silent as if he were dead. The only thing that gave him away was the rise and fall of his body as he breathed. A growl escaped the lips of the sorceress, and pointing her finger at him, she made him rise into the air. With a beckoning motion of her finger, she made him drift toward her and turned his body so that he faced her.
"How are we today?" she asked menacingly, staring straight into a face that showed nothing but contempt for her.
In response, the humanoid spirit spit in her face and glowered at her through eyes of green venom that glittered with utter hatred. Wiping her face in distaste, Yubaba then smirked at him. She sent a piercing gaze at him through her brown eyes.
Seconds later, cries of pain were heard throughout the dungeon as the spirit's body was slashed over and over again by invisible knives that Yubaba's magic seemed to have conjured up. When she decided that he had had enough, Yubaba dropped the spirit onto the floor of the cell.
"I told you I would tear you apart," she said as if she were explaining the matter to a toddler, "I never thought you would live through all of it, but that just makes it more enjoyable for me. Oh, and guess what my dearest Haku?"
Haku had propped himself up with his arms. Blood flowed freely from his open wounds, and he coughed up some more onto the floor of the cell. He glared at the sadistic sorceress through his hair.
"What?" he growled venomously as he spat up some more blood and wiped his mouth clean with the back of his hand.
"Your precious Chihiro has found her way back into this world again," she cackled, "Maybe I should find a reason to keep her down here so you two can be together…"
There was a loud clanging noise as Haku lunged at the evil witch through the bars because he knew all too well what the prisoners in this dungeon were subjected to. She had backed up to stay out of reach of Haku's vengefulness, but laughed at his seemingly useless efforts. Waving her hand again, she conjured up a tray full of food in his cell. She liked to keep her entertainment well-fed and alive.
She moved away from his cell to make the long journey up the endless stone steps, cackling louder than he had ever heard her before. Haku slumped down onto the cold stone floor next to the tray of food in defeat. Silent tears slipped out of his eyes to mix with his blood on the floor as he prayed fervently to the gods to keep the one he still loved out of the clutches of the power-hungry monster that ran the bathhouse…
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A/N: No anime guys were hurt in this last scene! Call it 'movie magic!' **mob gathers around to hurt the author** No!!! Haku is just fine! I would never be able to subject such a loveable character to such pain! See?! **Haku emerges from his dressing room, smiling and waving with not so much as a scratch on his… ahem… masculine physique** I kept my promise, and Haku did appear in this chapter, so you can't get me for that!!! But I bet you were all expecting the fateful reunion thing, huh? That'll be in my next chapter. I promise. Oh, and this will probably be my last post until August. I'll be on my way to Oklahoma to stay for a month with my grandparents pretty soon. They don't have a computer… I know. I don't want to go either, but they're my grandparents. What can I do? Please stick with me because I promise to post as soon as I get back! ^^ Oh, and as always, I'd very much appreciate it if you R&R. Happy 4th of July to everyone!