A/N: I am so sorry, I have not been checking my stuff as often as I should and did not even realize it had been so long since I updated.

Haku walked out the small gate off to the side of Aburya's main entrance. He came out every day about a half hour before the lamps were lit and the guests began to arrive. The dragon walked out to the center of the bridge and turned toward the horizon, the sun was just beginning to set. Haku leaned against the railing and let his thoughts drift back to that day seven years ago.

He had sensed several presences that did not belong and decided to check it out on his own, before Yubaba noticed. He had just walked out the door when he saw the young girl. He had immediately recognized her, but for the life of him he could not remember where from. He had been shaking himself out his reverie and was about to approach the child when she spoke.

"A train!"

Haku whipped his head up in astonishment. He half expected it to have been his imagination and half hoped to see a ten year old Chihiro standing beside him. Instead he found only the young girl; maybe a year or two younger than Chihiro had been, leaning against the railing. She was looking out over the plains, watching the train disappear over the horizon.

She looked so much like his lost girl. The child's hair was much longer then Chihiro's had been, but the majority of it was almost the exact same shade of brown except for the light blue streaks that ran through it in random intervals. Her face had the same rounded shape that Chihiro's held. Haku would have continued comparing the young girl to his Chihiro if it had not been for the fact that another voice answered the outburst she had made a minute ago.

"Shaling, what do you think your doing?"

Another young girl, maybe a year or two older than Chihiro, reached out to wrap a hand around the younger girls arm. She jerked the child back away from the ledge and held her close to her chest.

Haku cocked his head to the side and looked over this young one as well. Her hair was slightly darker than the first's and had lines of light pink scattered throughout. Like the child her hair was long and strait, reaching well beyond the middle of her back even though it was held up in horses tail high on her head. Her eyes were tightly shut as she held the child firmly in her grasp, looking as if letting her go would kill her.

After several moments, a new figure made its way over to stand in front of the two, between them and Haku. She had a fierce, yet somehow gentle look in her emerald eyes. Almost as if she had decided he was not a threat, but would not hesitate to defend the others if it turned out she was wrong. Her hair was also a slightly darker brown than he remembered Chihiro's being, and this young woman had golden streaks through hers. Unlike the others her hair, surprisingly short, fell down just past her shoulders.

The other two girls looked up as the shadow of the third fell across them and he could not help but examine the two girls who had joined in staring at him. Their eyes, so similar in shape, obviously housed very different personalities within their multicolored depths. The youngest with brown eyes, again so achingly familiar, but at the same time distinctly different what with the sheen of silvery white that drifted through them from time to time, held the same kind of adventurous gleam Chihiro's eyes had by the time she had left them. The elder of the two seemed to have eyes made of sapphires and looked as if she would gladly challenge anyone who made any sort of wrong move towards her or the other two.

"Who are you?" the eldest of the girls demanded.

Haku elegantly lifted one eyebrow in a wordless response to the question before dignifying it with a spoken answer.

"I think the real question here is who are you three? More importantly, what are you doing trespassing on these grounds?"

The girl looked back at her companions, telepathically discussing how much to tell this strange man.

"I am called Madorie, these are my younger sisters: Raylin and Shaling. We had heard that we could find work here?"

Haku narrowed his eyes suspiciously, they were hiding something. He stood there staring at the eldest sister as her sisters looked back and forth between the two spirits. After a few moments of indecision he decided that whatever they where hiding was not malevolent and so sighed before introducing himself and asking the question he always dreaded since the answer was always the same.

"My name is Kohaku. I am Lady Yubaba's," he grimaced at the name he was forced to call her despite his restored memory; after all he did sign a contract, "apprentice. Are you sure that this is what you to do?"

"We have no choice."

The eldest sister, Madorie, replied without looking back at her sisters slightly frightened expressions; afraid that they might cause her to change her mind. This was the only way they could stay on the grounds long enough to find out about their sister. While they all understood the risks of their gamble against Yubaba, they also knew that if they could find their sister, she would know how to get them out of whatever mess they worked themselves into, she always did.

"Very well," Haku sighed in resignation, "follow me and I will take you to see Yubaba."

The three girls bowed and followed him through the main door of the bathhouse just as the lights came on, opening it for the evening. They followed Haku into several elevators and watched from high above as the workers put the finishing touches on the baths before the first guests started arriving. As the group was rising in the final elevator which would take them directly to Yubaba's rooms, Haku watched out of the corner of his eye as the girls huddled in the corner whispering together. His head snapped toward them in shock and back toward the doors as recovered an instant before the doors opened. He was not sure how or what they had done, but suddenly their power levels, which may have been equivalent to his own when he was younger, where now dampened to the point where they seemed to be nothing more than the simplest of spirits.

Haku did not question them, they were much less likely to be taken advantage of if Yubaba did not know how powerful they truly were, much less what kind. The old witch had many tricks up her sleeve, but he doubted she would be able to see through this sort of thing. The only reason he could was because he had been standing three feet away from them when they cast the spell. The middle sister, Raylin, saw his quick glance there way and winked at him. Again, the river spirit could not help but wonder what it was they were hiding.

He let the three of them off the elevator and sped down with it oversee the rest of the evenings preparations. A little while later, significantly less time than Chihiro's interview had taken, he was summoned up to collect the sister spirits and take them to their new posts.

Madorie was taken to begin work with the "housekeepers" and was assigned as Lin's new assistant. Raylin was given the job of an assistant cook for the time being, at least till they decided whether or not she could actually cook. Shaling was told to help Kamaji, seeing as she was too young to do anything else.

As things settled back into the nightly routine Haku could not help but think that things were going to change drastically soon. Although, whether it would be for better or for worse he could not tell.

A/N: The next chapter should not take me anywhere near as long to get out, seeing as I have about half of it written already, I think.