Note: Ok, there is some sort of confusion here. Here is the summary for the story so far: 3 years after leaving the Spirit World and Haku, Chihiro coincidently stumbled on to Murasaki, a dragon inhabiting the local lake at the park, haven't gotten a tip that the knowledge of Haku's current whereabouts lies with Nakamura Yuri, an extremely gifted occultist who is in the same school with Chihiro. (I assume Chihiro lives in Tokyo.) Unfortunately, jealousy soon brews in the young Yuri and she plots to get Chihiro out of the picture. In the meantime, Haku has finally decided to leave his current place to search for Chihiro after all these years. By coincidence, he is now within Chihiro's world and has informed this to Yuri. Deciding to take advantage of this, Yuri asks her sinister mentor, Shazi to kidnap Haku and Chihiro. Haku, realized that he was betrayed, resists to the powers threatening to snatch away his memories. But unknown to Yuri, Shazi also has a scheme of her own. By taking away his memories, Haku now belongs to Shazi. Chihiro was offered as a replacement for half pay. But Haku is now having déjà vu sensations whenever he is near this new girl, who is torn by her sorrow and confusing surrounding…including the reunion with a boy who no longer remembers her.
The newspapers rustled as Yuri flipped through pages of it, looking for something. She found it on the third page, which the title was: School girl missing.
She stopped and read on.
School Girl Missing
Tokyo-Thirteen year old Inoue Chihiro is believed to be missing for three days, after she did not return from school last Monday. Her parents lodged a report after they failed to contact her for a day, despite that Inoue's friend's had "swore they saw her getting down the bus". Inoue's best friend, Ichiru Kumiko, reported that Inoue was "very jittery and excited" throughout school that day.
Police are ruling out kidnap as the main motif, and it is possible that the kidnapper is known to Inoue. The police are asking the public to call in should they have any information……….
Yuri stopped there. A chuckle escaped her. Oh, I do know some valuable information…she thought.
But, oddly, there wasn't the expected feeling of satisfaction she had imagined. True, she was waiting for this day to come, and she thought that she would be basking in the satisfaction that Chihiro would be out of her way. Never had she had any doubts of what she was doing.
It reminds me of that day…Mother was murdered.
She got up abruptly and folded the papers together. No, she was not going to let whatever-she-was-feeling spoil her day. After all, today was supposed to be a nice day.
As she walked out of the door and locked it behind her, she wondered if she should pay a visit to her dragon friend by the lake. Yuri had felt no guilt whatsoever that she had given the information to Shazi, to make the whole process of getting Haku easier. No doubt Murasaki would have interfered if she found something suspicious.
Just thinking of all this, she thought, made her happy and satisfied, excluding the Chihiro part.
She was in perfect control of the whole thing.
The radio blared from the neighbor's house as she walked past.
"…Till this day, no matter how hard he scrubs, he will not be able to wash out the blood."
Yuri's bus came and drowned out the radio.
"…Guilt haunts."
…
Haku circled around the darkened room, careful not to approach the gigantic pentagram which was drawn in red, and which Shazi sat. Candles surrounded her. In front of his mistress, the girl from before looked as if in deep sleep, her brown hair a cap around her with specks of dried blood. Her face was sickly pale from the loss of blood, and she was dressed in a bright red dress, which contrasted starkly to her pale skin that glowed faintly in the candlelight.
He thought the whole scene was strangely familiar, and that he had somehow seen this somewhere.
But the problem was, he just couldn't recall anything.
Shazi's mouth moved in a soundless chanting, and her hand sometimes reached up to make symbols in the air. Haku watched her. Other than that, he was not allowed to do anything else that might interrupt the ritual. When he asked why did the old woman needed the girl, his mistress refused to answer, saying that toyols should mind their own business and not interfere unless called upon.
He snapped to attention when he felt another presence in the room. It was not Shazi, that was for sure, because along the presence came an aura of overwhelming power. He noticed that she had stopped chanting, and lay still, except for the odd twitching in her body. The intimidating aura was coming from her, from the statue in front of her.
Then suddenly her eyes rolled back, and they were whites. They rolled around for some time, before settling around the room, passing through him. It settled longer on him, before moving on.
Even though he shouldn't be, he was a little intimated.
Shazi, or whatever that was controlling her body, reached a hand out for the red clad girl. Shadows played on her sleeping face.
Inches from touching her, the hand suddenly shrank back as if it had been burned, and whatever inside Shazi cried, then hissed lowly. Haku saw the hand lingered in the air and traced a path past her face, across her shoulders, and down to her left wrist. Upon seeing the purple-ribbon-made-bracelet on her hand, the hand tightened as the skin pulled, and clawed the air. High piecing sounds came from Shazi's open mouth.
Then Shazi bristled, her body twitching again.
Next Haku felt the presence surround the whole room, filling every notch in it, before it was gone. The room felt strangely empty after that.
His mistress was awake. He flew forward, but stayed outside the circle. Shazi groaned and gingerly took out a bottle from her pockets. She dipped her hands into the oil and massaged her joints with it.
Suddenly she gave a wild cry and her hands flung abruptly, knocking the bottle of oil over and spilling out its contents on the floor. Still shouting, she half crawled over to the lying girl. Her eyes darted furtively, looking for something. Her eyes then caught sight of the purple ribbon on the girl's wrist. She screamed.
Getting up quickly, ignoring the spilled oil on the floor, she stepped out of the circle and flung open the door. She returned a while later with a scissors in her hand.
Bending over the girl, her hair falling all over like an insane woman, she positioned the blades right over the ribbon, and cut. The blades crossed, but stop when they closed around the ribbon. Shazi screamed and cut again.
The ribbon glowed in the candlelight, but did not allowed itself to be cut.
Haku watched quietly; he knew the bracelet was some sort of protective charm, made by some equally, if not more powerful than Shazi. He placidly scanned the girl; who had made the ribbon for her? Was she so important that she needed to be so securely protected?
Finally, Shazi cursed and stood up, throwing the scissor violently to the corner of the room. He followed the path of it and secured the position in his mind; in case his mistress might need it some other time.
She walked out of the circle again, but turned and looked at him in the last minute.
"Don't try to mess with that thing, Haku. It is something neither you nor I can handle. This brat Yuri has brought might not be just an ordinary school girl." She paused, then smirked. "But then again, when has all her acquaintances have been "ordinary"?"
The door swung shut.
….
Chihiro floated along with the dark waters; sometimes she floated above, sometimes she drowned beneath. Once, she had caught hold of a stronghold, but the current was too strong, and she was swept again.
It was strange; when she floated, she heard voices near her; but when she drowned, it seemed as if the water was a barrier, and she could see and hear nothing.
The current pushed her along, but she felt a stronghold again. She held on to it, tightly, and she woke up.
One thing she notice however, as she awoke, she was light. There were no sensations, and she felt like she was floating in the air.
The room she was in -Chihiro was sure it looked like a room- was dark, very dark, and the curtains were drawn to prevent any light from coming in. Weird symbols were scrawled on the four walls; she thought a few of them looked like it was drawn from human blood. She shivered and looked down.
And screamed.
She was lying down on the floor, her hair spread out, and clad in a red dress. Her face was pure white, her lips already blue.
She screamed again, a soundless scream.
AM I DEAD?
She swirled around; she moved so fast, she was sure it wasn't her body anymore. Glancing down at herself again, she floated wildly around, and when she thought she was going to knock into one of the walls, she just slipped past it to the outside.
She screamed, then she broke down and cried.
Why? Why? Why am I dead? How did I came here?
She tried to recall back, and found it quite easy. A dream. She had a dream. She went to the lake, and then—
somebody had killed her. But wait—there was something before that…
Chihiro stopped crying abruptly and froze.
…
He knew she was awake when something like a firecracker burst in his head. It was so vivid, so tremendous that it filled his whole head. He turned around and head for her.
He found her a little off Shazi's spell room, just outside. As soon as he got near her wave of grief and confusion hit him squarely in the face. The girl looked up.
Wide brown eyes…where have I saw you before?
"Haku," the girl suddenly whispered.
He was surprised. The girl knew his name, even though he never met her before.
He neared her and asked, "Who are you?" Where have I seen you before?
The girl looked surprised as she stared at him for a second. He sensed something close to panic in her. The she stuttered out, "Don't you remember me? Chihiro?"
Remember? He mentally repeated. So they had met before, but why didn't he recall anything?
"Chihiro…" he said slowly, as the girl stared at him, almost pleading.
"I don't remember you."
