Promise of a River
By: LadyRainStarDragon
Chapter 20: Sleeps Through Anything
Rain owneth not ye Spirited Away. Rain does own the original characters though, and if Miyazaki actually wanted them, I would do cartwheels in glee (which I can't do very well at all).
Last time in Promise of a River . . .
Eyes still firmly shut, Chihiro reached out and pinched his nearest available body part using her nails, what her hand found was his nose. Believing it to be Ryu for some odd dream-addled reason, though she couldn't fathom why the name sounded familiar, she fought to retain sleep.
"Ryu! Sen doesn't live here, try down the hall before I leave gouges so deep you won't even think about groping 'Wind."
Of course, this caused the demon to pull back, holding his nose to protect it from further harm at the hands of the sleeping maiden. A moment was taken to process the shock at being fought against. Most women eagerly woke to enjoy his caresses, but this one, even though the witch had copied the body and voice of her lover, merely wanted to sleep. Growling in frustration, the demon ripped away the covers and sprang to pounce on his prey.
"You will let me in!"
'Damn witch is trying to mess with my head again, and ripping off my looks on top of it! Demons going around and jumping into dreams. Pha!'
Totally ignoring the fact that he had somehow figured out a way to see events in worlds other than his own and working instead on the instinct of protecting what belonged to him, Kohaku just wanted to rip the imposter to shreds and festoon the pieces on Yubaba while she slept. Sadly, he couldn't do that. But how was he going to help her just on the off chance that this was not some sideshow illusion the witch had conjured to punish him for the Kami only knew what?
Kohaku tried to call on his element to attack the evil creature, feeling extremely odd about trying to fight someone who looked like himself. None was close enough to hand to do anything, although he could feel something weak burst. Seemingly helpless due to the fact that he was not where he could defend the helpless maiden himself, he cast about within his mind for anything that could help. If he couldn't think of something, who knew what the nasty thing intended to do to the innocent young woman.
While he was worrying about what he was seeing, the unknown silver strand that ran from his heart to hers that connected his life force to her own conducted extra energy. The invisible aura that surrounded her grew brighter, the pearly color laced with silver scale and still yet unseen. His vitality was pushed by jealous instinct into her, and the unconscious body fell forward as he did the one thing he shouldn't have done.
Kohaku's forehead made contact with the charged orb, the force more than enough to explode the dangerous bauble. His body was sent flying across the room to slam into the wall and fall to the floor in an abused heap. Soot from the incineration of the natural hydrogen-powered bomb (although far less destructive than the unnatural human variety) had been scorched into the desk and covered the unprepared dragon from head to foot. The heat had also burned his face, but he would heal due to his youth, health, and the fact that he was a spirit would see that no scar was left.
As Chihiro's dreams became more vivid the deeper she went, soothed by the familiar energy surrounding her, the dream demon became a bit more solid and a bit more powerful due to his enemies confusion and injury.
Happily, Chihiro managed to dive back into the realm of sleep, rolling over in search of a warm and fuzzy blanket that had been so cruelly yanked away by a frustrated demon finding her dreams oddly inaccessible. In her search, she rolled off of the bed, and rolled herself into the rug on the floor. Chihiro didn't wake up, as she had to either wake on her own or get drenched with water being a deep sleeper. This left the unfortunate dream demon to land on an empty bed instead of diving into the threshold to her deepest and most secret dreams.
Bouncing up off of the comfort device, he again tried to leap into her dream, only to hit a shield that suddenly sprang up. The evil replica of 'Sen's' hero and dream lover slid down the shining wall, leaving a little trail of drool where his mouth had impacted. It didn't take long to slide down, but he did land in an undignified sprawl. Calling on his demon magic, the fake water spirit began to show his true self as he blasted sections repeatedly with fire and threw specially charged iron spikes to sap the defender's strength. Still, the shield held true.
His scream of aggravation was truly terrifying, especially considering that the witch had gifted him with a certain river dragon's form and abilities, including Kohaku's exceedingly loud voice when completely and thoroughly ticked off at the whole bath house's performance. If there had been no spirits living in the household, he would have been safe from being heard, as he existed on the dream level. Too bad there was a 'stray' witch's cat, disguised volcano dragon, and a now very grumpy Dreamwalker/Shaman in the apartment, all awoken from their peaceful repose. Let's not forget about the old priest right next door either.
The slam of a door alerted the spirit to the terrible mistake that he had made. Less than a half a second later, a dark form was outlined in the doorway. Acting out of panic, the demon used his copied abilities to shut the door with his magic, and locked it tight. He had to get in the girl's dream before the dreadful monster made it through the door, but the doorway into her dreams was steadily shrinking as she sank even deeper into slumber, closer to the Delta state where the brain ceased to dream. It really didn't help him that said doorway and woman were completely enfolded in a now very silver scaly shield. Quickly, he tried every way that he could think of to get through the shield, and yet every opportunity presented steely scale that rebuffed him.
"I knew there was some demon visiting her at night. And you were telling me to let them finish all those other times!"
"Fine! For once you were right! Less talk, more breaking down the frickin' door!"
Another door slammed open, but it wasn't the one to the bedroom. The same door slammed shut again, followed by a frenzied war cry.
"Banzai!"
The little old man and his staff seemed to fly across the room. It was an awe inspiring and terrifying sight for the dragon and shaman, seeing this old man fling himself in his plaid pajamas at the door like there was no tomorrow. The pair fully expected Koji to break his leg on impact, but the door was burst open like it had merely been leaning there for looks.
"Where the hell did the old man learn that!"
"Questions later! Kick butt now."
Ryu was understandably impressed, as he had fallen prey to the thought that an old man is a feeble one. The reminding proof of the contrary stood triumphantly on the door he had knocked down, the ancestral staff glowing with ghostly energy. A handful of dried soybeans was flung at the foul creature, and the illusion that had cloaked it melted away to reveal a formless darkness pressed backwards in an ineffectual block.
"Demon be gone!"
The American shoved her way past the shell-shocked yet still-ready-to-fight dragon as she went to cover Koji, eager to try some of the demon extermination techniques that she had learned from him. She and the priest distracted the demon the best that they could, while Ryu worked himself in between the dreaming Miko and the demon. Worried about the fact that her friend was sleeping through the entire racket, she looked to see why, only to see that some guardian spirit was using his vital force to shield her from the evil demon and had most likely suffered from some of the attacks judging by some abused looking areas of the shield. BlowingWind missed the faint purple aura immediately surrounding the woman's body like some kind of psychic bodybag.
'That spirit feels more like the one who's been visiting her. This other dude is just another roving dream demon it seems, although a bit stronger than he should be. I bet he ate his spinach.'
"It's not the same spirit! The Haku guy is protecting her."
Two glowing eyes focused on the humans coming against him. He was livid that mere humans thought that they could defeat him, the Demon of Impure Dreams. This Haku's heart stopping good looks and wonderful powers were lost to him now, but that didn't mean he didn't have some good tricks of his own. These two had impure dreams that he could easily use against them, and he was lucky enough to have some sleep powder to make them fall right into them. That should be enough to occupy them so that he could finish his objective, if he could figure out something to take care of the blasted black dragon masquerading as a human. He flung a handful of a purple powder, and a cloud formed around his hapless victims, forcing them into sleep and dropping their bodies heavily to the ground.
"Greatest and Most Secret Desire!"
"What did you do to them?"
"I merely sent them to dream about their greatest or most secret desires. If you let me finish my mission, I will be happy to tell you the strange maiden's."
"Not a chance. I already know both anyway."
Ryu flung himself at the invading entity, who merely dodged the seemingly artless attack. However, that's what Ryu had been counting on, and so he merely grabbed the shadow as he passed by, pulling him along for the ride. The panicked demon struck out with his free hand, but the impact did nothing to affect the pissed off dragon. Ryu merely returned the favor, twisting to drive the demon hard into the pine wood and putting in a few dents, that he hoped Chihiro wouldn't notice.
That was a very slim chance though, considering that when she was the one who did her floor, she got down and polished by hand.
"How are you able to even touch me?"
"I'm a magma dragon. I come from within the dark."
"Please don't kill me. It wasn't my idea. I was supposed to be getting back at a Nigihayami Kohakunushi."
"Who put you up to it?"
"I can't tell. I'd die."
"Looks like you're screwed either way then."
"I can't!"
With that, Ryu snapped the creature's neck, which disappeared as dark will before the searching glow of the dawn. There was an audible sigh to his ears, and he turned in time to see the shield pull into the form of a man. The wandering spirit fell to his knees, shuddering in agony before fading back to his body where he belonged. Grudgingly, Ryu had to admit that maybe this guy making Chihiro moan and keep him awake at night wasn't so bad after all if he would risk his life to stave off the demon on a power trip.
Surveying the room, Ryu saw the mess that had been made, and cringed. He needed to get the humans to their beds, then he needed to clean up before Chihiro woke up. And he had to either fix the door, or come up with a really good story.
"Master Haku!"
"Is he all right?"
"What happened!"
"Oh! The master!"
Frog men and slug women were all milling around in panic. The blast had echoed through the bath house, and several workers had been dispatched to see what had happened. No one had even known that he had finished his rounds and gone off to do his paperwork until he had been needed to find out what the disturbance was. Once the whole place had been searched and he had not been found, one frog had the bright idea to check his room. Lin had automatically been nominated as the only one brave enough. The master was very touchy about his room, and who knew what the mysterious man had hidden in there.
"Back off and give the kid some air!"
The milling and panicking didn't stop though, and finally Lin had to growl at everyone to show that she meant business. That shocked them enough to make them do it.
"Uhnnnhh."
The weak moan was enough to let her know the idiot was at least coherent enough to feel pain. Surveying him, she knew he was probably in a lot of pain. His clothing was covered in soot, and looked like it had been burned after that, as there were several rather ragged holes in them. Burns were everywhere on his exposed flesh, and there were spikes sticking out of him as well. His head was cracked open again, probably from the wall since there was a nice little blood spot on it.
"Lin! Look here. Looks like something blew up. Whatever it was, his paperwork is toast now. That's gonna piss him off."
"You're worried about his reaction to the paperwork he doesn't want to do for Yubaba anyway? Look at his clothes! He'll be furious for a month!"
The bickering was cut short when Master Haku began to stir again, sitting up and bringing a hand to his head.
"Yubaba."
I awoke to the sound of irritating nattering, and the distinct sense of way too many bodies in my personal space. My head was pounding, and I felt like somebody had decided to torch me and then use what was left for target practice. Opening my eyes, I realized that I was having trouble focusing, and I briefly wondered what had happened.
It all came rushing back at one. There had been the sense of an intruder, only there had been none. Then I had put down the weapon to fix my door. I was going to de-arm the water orb and reabsorb the water, but for some reason I hadn't. What was the reason?
I had to have fallen asleep or something, and then landed on the dratted thing. Maybe that could explain why I felt like I'd been burnt. But why did I feel like I'd been stabbed? Whatever had happened, I knew Yubaba had been behind it, I had that feeling that I did every time Yubaba had sent me on a dangerous mission. Disposing of the venom, I let her name fall from my lips, in order not to internalize the poison of it.
"Hey buddy, what happened?"
"Lin?"
"Yeah, it's me."
"I think I've got a concussion. There's four of you."
"I wouldn't doubt it. You cracked your head open again. Let's get you to the medical center. You're going to need to be monitored. Can you walk?"
"Yeah. I've been messed up worse."
"I wouldn't doubt it. Next time you want to get messed up, use sake. The after effects are less painful."
I didn't think it was a funny joke. Then again, she was busy pulling out some spikes from my battered body. What happened?
Yubaba had been watching the proceedings with glee until Sen's friends had interrupted. She hadn't expected the girl to put up such a good fight. Still, she had sensed that Zeniba had somehow protected the girl, warned her somehow of the difference between the spirit who had gone to her and the one she loved. The fact that her apprentice had sent his life force to protect her had been a bold move on his part, although also a great liability. She had hoped that her summoned demon would have been more successful.
Who were those three that had burst into the dark room to save her? Stranger still, how had they known Haku? How was he able to visit her, when he had been either here or on assigned missions? Then she remembered how her sister had said his spirit was looking for its missing piece or pieces. It was strange, but was Sen somehow a part of him?
She bent closer over the crystal to find the answers to these questions, when the faces of five dragons filled the globe. Each glared at her, and she knew that where the Council was, they knew of what she had done. One dragon looked particularly angered, great blizzards raging behind him. She saw him open his mouth, pursing his lips to exhale a great gust. Yubaba's dark eyes opened wide in denial that her plan had failed and at what was about to happen.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
The crystal ball shattered into at least a million pieces, sending sprays of it to whip about the room in fierce winds driving piercing snow. Within moments, her office was filled with the water crystals, shards of her precious gazing ball now hopelessly lost and scattered.
Haku had won, and now she was under scrutiny by one of the most powerful groups in the spirit world.
In the morning back in the apartment:
"What happened to my door? Woah. Why is the kitchen flooded?"
Ryu, looking up from his task of cleaning up the water that had been birthed from a broken pipe, grunted before continuing. He was very glad that he had gotten her room clean, and found the busted pipe and repaired it already.
"Shoddy construction."
I couldn't resist poking a little fun at how deep Chihiro sleeps. I mean, she managed to sleep through all the commontion of everyone else getting up at the bath house, why not a fight?
Next chapter takes us on into 'Rivers Never Die' and parts of the chapter tackle the first part from a slightly different angle. There is some new info in it though that should make it worth the read.
Reviewer's Corner:
KatsyKat - Yeah, some witch, huh? Of course Ryu comes to the rescue! His nose (and probably other parts) would be in mortal peril otherwise.
NitenGale - Nope, he can't really do much of a spell from another world, unless he attacks the spellcaster herself. He can teleport stuff, be felt, but just wasn't there enough to figure out what he should have done (banish the demon, he could have done that). Good thing Ryu and the gang were there. Glad that you're recovered.
Sakura Arielle - Well now we found out why the demon couldn't get in her dream, and Haku just slips right in. Did the button work this time?
