Rivers Never Die
by LadyRainStarDragon
Chapter 9: Something to Protect
Disclaimer: I don't own Spirited Away. There are some original characters in this and other stories I write. Corrected and expanded version, ffnet edition will remain in PG-13 format, R-rated for the uncut scene in chapter 19 will remain on affnet.
Character key at chap 7
On with the story.
:Zips off on broom-o-doom.:
Koji had managed to talk Kohaku into at least taking some food with him. The cafeteria was serving dumplings and rice balls. He remembered those had been Chihiro's favorites during her time as Sen so he got a couple plates of those.
He didn't really feel like eating, but if she was awake, maybe she would eat if he made her think he was too. In the elevator, he quickly placed a spell on Chihiro's food to give his friend her strength back. It wasn't as good as if he had made it all himself, but it would do. Enspelling the food didn't take all that long, and Chihiro's room was all the way up on the top floor.
'What's wrong with me? I've changed.'
Becoming transparent again, he slipped back into another dimension, this time into someplace he had never really ever truly been.
Now we take a lovely trip inside Kohaku's head, someplace even he has decided it's time to visit.
"Something bothering you Kohaku?"
Kohaku carefully looked around. It looked like he was in his room in the bath house. Strange, because he knew that he had been in a hospital elevator just a bit ago.
"Yes and no. Technically, you still are in the elevator. However, this is much easier. The three of us need to have a little heart-to-heart, and our younger self needs some help."
"I'm fine!" A cold voice cut into the conversation. Kohaku looked towards his desk and saw his younger self sitting there, looking like Yubaba had just told him his mission was to muck out a pig pen. In other words, no expression.
"Oh, so is that why you've been stuck as a 15 year old for the past several years instead of aging back like the rest of us Haku?" Nigihayami was reaching the end of his patience, he'd put up with this split for four years now, and it was just too confusing. "Or does it have something to do with a couple incidences you don't want to deal with?"
The owner of the big voice was out on the balcony, and turned out to be a very large white dragon. Kohaku knew it was coming one of these days. Lin was always going on about how bottling yourself up was bad and how a mental breakdown would occur. Those voices now had form. Well, such is life. Time to deal with whatever it was. Chihiro was waiting.
"Well then, that's one down. See Haku, if Kohaku can come to terms with having a mental breakdown, don't you think you can too? After all, you are the one who helped Chihiro get to the bath house, fed her so she wouldn't disappear, and showed "Sen" her parents so she would know them. You also saved her clothes and brought her that card so she didn't forget her name, not to forget actually getting her back to the bathhouse in time to save her parents."
"And I lost the river in the first place. If I had been stronger I could have prevented them from filling it in, or at least had enough time to reroute it again. I could have even finished off that greed spirit that tried to take over our territory. This whole mess would not have happened. Chihiro would not have been pulled into Spirit World, and she would have been safe." Haku had an interesting argument.
Kohaku stepped in. "We don't even know if it was our having saved her that pulled her to us to begin with. For all we know, she could have been pulled in anyway. We might not have been there to help her."
Nigihayami was pleased, Kohaku had an even better argument. Haku sighed in defeat, "There's nothing that can be done about the past, don't look back. I don't want to relive it again and again every moment."
"Exactly. So, does everybody want to heal and move on then? We all blame ourselves for the river, and Chihiro even going to that world, but there had to be a reason. Yes, we did miss her very badly after she went home, but we're with her now. Things have worked out. We do have another problem though."
Haku looked suspicious. He obviously thought he was being blamed for something else. With how much of a nuisance he had been lately to the other parts of himself though, it wasn't all that far off.
"Somebody doesn't want to admit to himself that he loves Chihiro."
Haku burst out laughing. "Well it's not me then. You both know exactly how I'm attracted to her."
Nigihayami looked rather amused. "Yes, you take every opportunity to paint us very lovely images of our dear Chihiro. Often in the worst of times. I personally will be very happy when you finally get out of the age of hormones closer to where you are supposed to be. I'm attracted that way too, but I don't get lost in images of what I would like when I'm supposed to be working."
"So that leaves just one of us . . ."
Nigihayami and Haku looked at their 21 aged human self dryly. They watched as he swallowed the lump in his throat.
"I have no idea what you mean."
"Sure. And I suppose you are going to blame me for the lovely dreams. Not every single dream of her all wet and shiny in the river is me you know."
"That's your fetish Haku."
"No, mine is watching her form as she scrubs a floor. It has to be you."
Both Kohaku and Haku looked at each other confused. As one they looked to see Nigihayami blushing, impressive as it was hard for a dragon to blush.
"What? I'm mature, not ancient. She grew up to be very attractive. Well, now we know who was dreaming about Chihiro on the bed with the books."
It was Kohaku's turn to blush. "Yes, she is attractive. That doesn't mean it's honorable to dishonor her in our dreams."
"Who said we were dishonoring her with our dreams? This just proves that we are healthy males. Now if we were to act without her permission . . ." Nigihayami trailed off.
Everyone nodded. Something flashed over in the corner. Haku went to examine it, and when he went to touch it, the restraints he had found on himself were loosed an he aged from 15 to 21, looking just like Kohaku, his older self, shoulder length hair and all. What he held in his hand was a piece of paper, with two passages on it.
I accept my past, present, and future.
A God is nothing without someone to protect.
There were four spaces to sign on the bottom. Haku took it over to the desk.
"I assume that we are supposed to sign this agreement." Picking up one of the pens, he signed 'Haku' on a line. Nigihayami signed another line, and both were gone. Kohaku was alone in his own head finally. He raised a pen to the third line, and briefly wondered what the fourth line was for, but signed his name anyway. Chihiro had been waiting for him after all.
Haku blinked, checking his eyes, and even tested his muscles. There were no voices in his head, strange thoughts floating around, or any broken feeling. After a few more seconds, the elevator came to a stop and the doors slid open. Stepping through the doors with all the grace natural to any water spirit or dragon, he was totally at peace with himself. A passing nurse recognized him and opened Chihiro's door. He nodded as he passed her.
The sight that met his eyes made him smile. Chihiro was sitting up reading some papers that one of the nurses had brought her. She looked up as the door clicked softly shut. Shakily, she asked. "H-haku?"
He calmly pulled the little table over to her bed and put the dishes on it. "Yes Chihiro. Here, eat this, you must be hungry. You've been here 12 hours now."
Smiling a little smile as she looked at the food, she replied. "Last time you said to eat something, you told me you had put a spell on it to give me back my strength."
Sitting down beside her, he put his arm gently around her, leaned in a bit and handed her a rice ball. "So I did."
