Yubaba,
I'm done with my mission. I am returning shortly. I will stop by Zeniba's and check on the No-Face. I should be to the bathhouse in the morn, if not by nightfall.
Usumu
Yubaba folded the letter carefully and tucked it away in her drawer. So, two were coming? It would be an adventure to have two old faces back in the bath house. All that she had to do was wait.
And she HATED waiting.
Yubaba stood and glanced out of her window, before ringing a bell. A few seconds later, the toad foreman stepped solemnly through her door. "You called for me?" "Yes," she said returning to her desk, "I want you to welcome 'Sen' and bring her to me at once." The foreman's eyes widened. 'Chihiro?' "She will be needing to sign her contract." She glanced up to see a still shocked foreman in front of her. "Go!" she yelled, "I'm a busy woman."
The foreman scrambled to stand and half-skittered, half-fell, out of Yubaba's office, but as soon as he was out of her sight, he sprinted through the bathhouse and down the steps to the river.
Sen! Master Haku was going to see his Chihiro again! And after 7 long years, would he be pleased? . . . He ran down the steps as he thought about the time. 'Mistress Sen: how much she will have grown by now. . . '
The toad-ish man stood wringing his pale hands at the foot of the bridge, his big eyes frantically searching for a human child. 'Well, she wouldn't still be a small, thin human brat, would she?' he thought. Humans changed quickly over brief amounts of time like that.
He bent over to scratch at his leg, the dryness of his skin irritating him. Little droplets of sweat dripped down his forehead due to both the humidity and the effort he had to exert to reach around his rounded stomach.
A strong, cold wind blew him to a standing position and almost over backwards. So, his lord Haku had returned. . . He lifted his gaze to the bath-house just in time to catch to tail end of a pearl colored dragon body whipping into a top-floor window, teal mane combed through by fierce fingers of wind.
'Oh, Master. . . your human. . . will you still be pleased with her?' A fearsome query, indeed. Also his mistress had sent for her first. What did Yubaba want with her? Nothing good, he deduced.
A funny scent tickled his nose. A very human scent. He started, previously large eyes widening to assume to appearance of shiny bug-eyes. During all his pondering, he had forgotten that he was indeed waiting for someone!
The foreman heard a small noise to his left, and instinctually, his head snapped in that direction… only to come face to face with—well, face to breast with—
The foreman looked upwards to find the face on Chihiro's towering form. He 'gawp!'ed and pulled away slowly, trying to get his blush under control after he had come eye-level with her more rounded attributes. He grinned widely up at her and saw that she was slightly blushing as well.
"Hello, foreman," Chihiro said, awed, "You're exactly the same as I remember you! Albeit a little shorter." "Yes, Miss Sen," he said, taking her wrist and beginning to lead her across the bridge. "Where are you taking me?" Chihiro asked. "I'm not sure that I am supposed to tell you, but," he replied timidly, leading her up the steps, "my lady and mistress, Yubaba, has sent for you upon your arrival." "Yubaba!" He glanced back at her, "Yes. You remember enough not to ask why, do you not?" Chihiro nodded, "I remember CLEARLY." She giggled nervously. 'What could Yubaba want with me already? Nothing good, that's for sure. Probably wants to kick me out. . . but I'm not going, NO MATTER WHAT SHE SAYS!'
As they entered the bathhouse, the workers stopped and stared for a moment in surprise, then, with a few yelled orders and complaints from her escort, the bustle began anew. The foreman led her through the hall to the small elevator, all the while debating whether he should take her straight to his mistress, or rather, to Master Haku.
"Uh, foreman," Chihiro looked up at him once they were aboard the elevator and going up. "Yes," he turned to look up at her. Height was also something she had acquired in her time back in the human world. "Are you really taking me to see Yubaba? Won't you get in trouble?" Her worry for him was etched into every line of her face. It made him uncomfortable that she would care so much. "No, Miss Chihiro! She sent me personally to come fetch you, and make certain that you would not become lost on your way to see her," the frog man hurriedly reassured her to clear her worries. 'Chihiro? Since when has he started calling me that? Oh, well, whatever.'
"Oh," Chihiro said, straightening and shifting her gaze to the colorful scenes flashing before her as the lift rose. There were so many bright colors that her eyesight began to blur. The floors were covered with so many bright colors, and it seemed as if they were all blending together, trying to make her woozy.
She squeezed her eyes closed tightly as her fear of heights rammed into her. Her eyes were beginning to tear with the hard pressure she was putting on her lids. The foreman smelled her tears and looked up, thinking she was crying because she was afraid of the impending meeting with his mistress, "Don't worry, Mistress Chihiro, I'm sure everything will be alright." Chihiro nodded, caught up in her fear, trying to convince herself of what the man beside her was saying to her was true. She had begun chanting them in her head when she realized the full content of his words. 'Mistress Chihiro? Where did that come from? He sounded barely comfortable with just 'Miss Chihiro'.'
She slowly opened her eyes into narrow slits to glance down and ask him what he meant by that, but the elevator came to a firm halt. "Miss Chihiro, we must move to another lift; this one will not carry us any higher. As they walked across the bridge over a floor of open baths, her eyes widened as she looked down at all of the strange looking customers being served. It seemed as though every step she took would bring her past an even more intriguing spirit, and her eyes would widen further still. By the time they had reached the lift on the opposite half of the room, she felt that she would never be able to properly close her eyes again.
As the foreman led her into the elevator across the bridge, Chihiro caught sight of a familiar spirit serving on the floor below. 'Rin!' Chihiro's heart beat faster as her mind raced. Unbeknownst to her, a brilliant smile lit on her face. Scenes of what their reunion could be like sped through her mind.
The lift door slid closed, and Chihiro's heart clenched. The fear of what was about to possibly happen to her in Yubaba's office caught up with her, and she began to panic. She no longer noticed the heights to which the lift was reaching, and she no longer noticed the fidgeting frog-man beside her. 'What will Yubaba do to me? Maybe willingly coming with the foreman was not such a good idea…' Chihiro began to wring her hands, 'Okay, so… I'll bolt as soon as the elevator stops. Oh, wait… I don't know where to go…'
The swift stop of the lift felt like the beheading blow of an axe to Chihiro. 'Oh, come on,' she scolded herself, 'you're over-dramatizing this…' The lift's door slid open once more and the two stepped out into the dark hallway. "Miss Chihiro, are you alright? You've fallen silent for quite a while…' "I'm fine," she replied, but the shake in her voice was so clearly pronounced that she almost winced. However, the foreman only nodded.
Approaching the ornate door to Yubaba's wing, the foreman firmly grasped the knocker and rapped softly on the door. "Louder, you imbecile! I can hardly hear that!" Chihiro watched a visible shiver run up the toad's body. Wringing her hands, Chihiro audibly swallowed and took a deep breath to calm herself.
"Well, toad—Send her in! I can't wait all day!" The booming, harsh voice quickly diminished the calm Chihiro had forced herself into. The toad stuttered and stammered, unable to get his trembling tongue to speak steadily as he turned to Chihiro, "W-well… I g-guess th-that's a-all I'm n-needed for… See ya!" With that, the foreman sprinted down the hall as fast as his short, fat legs could carry him and skidded into the elevator.
Chihiro watched the toad's scene, but only when the sharp 'ding!' of the lift sounded did her mind fully understand that she had been left alone… with the devil herself. "Well, COME IN!" Yubaba's stern voice commanded through her tastelessly colored doors. Chihiro felt a sharp tug on her front as the many doors through Yubaba's domain slammed open. She was dragged even less gracefully than she remembered through the long hall, her knees scraping the floor.
Chihiro tumbled into Yubaba's office as the witch's magic none-too-gently released her. Chihiro groaned as she slowly gathered her limbs to herself and began to stand, trying to steady herself after her abrupt change in motion.
Chihiro stood and looked around. There was no fire in the fireplace, and the shades on the windows were opened to show the many lights coming to life in the darkening market below. There were random pieces of non-matching furniture at odd places in the room, save for the chair before the fireplace. Yubaba's desk looked cluttered and chaotic, so unlike the large woman reclining behind it.
"So…" Yubaba took a long drag of her cigarette and looked at Chihiro from the corners of her eyes. As she released the smoke from her lungs, the vision of the young woman standing nervously before her became clouded in a whiff of smoke. "You're back. After so long…"
The witch drew out her words in a way that Chihiro was not sure if that was a rhetorical question. "Um, y-yes," Chihiro failed to keep her voice steady, and inwardly berated herself for the show of weakness before the intimidating witch. "Hmmm…" was all the response she got for a moment, then, "Well, I hope you haven't come to me wanting a job…"
'WHAT!' Chihiro's mind went up in flames, as did her face and expression. All fearful respect for the witch before her went out the window, and Chihiro's fists clenched. "What do you mean, "Come here wanting a job"? You summoned me!"
Yubaba turned to fully face the girl before her, scrutinizing her through a narrow glare. "Don't you yell at me, you little brat," she spat. Yubaba seemed to pull in the reins after her statement. This was not going how she had planned. "Now, I called you here because I knew that you would come to me, wanting a job," she stressed, "and I wanted to tell you 'no', before you wasted all your energy sneaking around with scum to try to get up here."
Chihiro could tell by the tone of Yubaba's voice that she had not figured out who had helped the girl her previous time in the Spirit realm, and she held back a smirk at the thought that Yubaba was irked by that.
"What makes you think I'd even want a job from you, Yubaba? News flash—I don't." Yubaba's newly calmed face erupted into an angry scowl once more, and her thundering voice bellowed across the room at Chihiro, "Why you stupid girl! Don't you know that you can't stay here without a job! I'll show you, you ungrateful brat, I swear by all the gods—"
"Are you quite done yet?" Chihiro's sharp, clipped voice interrupted her rant. Yubaba's violently red face fumed, accentuated by the fiery setting sun behind her. "Because," Chihiro continued, "Since I do in fact know that I need a purpose to remain here, and you have already so skillfully declined to give me one, there are other places in which I need to search for a job." With her newly found courage, Chihiro haughtily turned up her nose, and away from the witch like a spoiled child.
Yubaba could not restrain herself any longer. The whole room, bathed in red sunlight, was not helping her to keep her rage under wraps; it was fueling it. And directly in the center of the blood-bathed room the object of her rage. Wind whipped around Yubaba's form as she rose into the air and hurtled toward Chihiro, ready to inflict pain upon the girl with not only her magic, but her fists.
Chihiro's eyes went wide as small saucers. 'Maybe I went too far…?' Her courage had completely deserted her in the eye of the storm and her fear was the only emotion that she had left within her, and it shone through her eyes. As Yubaba charged toward her, Chihiro found that her panicked body would not move. She scrunched her eyes closed and stood completely still, awaiting Yubaba's punishment.
Yubaba, remembering her plans in the nick of time, halted millimeters before the motionless girl, fist still raised to Chihiro's face. Although Yubaba had been able to halt before beating the insolent girl, rage still consumed her being.
She struck Chihiro soundly across the face.
Chihiro's eyes flashed open. 'How dare she—how dare she!' Chihiro was not sure what she had been expecting Yubaba to do, but the thought that the witch had slapped her was too much!
Chihiro's eyes snapped open to see Yubaba calmly sitting at her desk once more. "You bi—" "Now," the witch stated calmly, "I've changed my mind. Sign this." A contract rose up on a non-existent breeze, along with a quill, and drifted over to Chihiro. Chihiro's shock overrode her anger for a moment as she plucked the quill from the air and signed her name on the indicated line.
As the signed contract and quill floated away from her, all feeling came back to Chihiro. She felt as if she had just signed her death warrant.
"You will be given clothes and a futon with the other workers. I expect not one toe out of line, you hear me?" Yubaba said, raising her hand to a serving bell and ringing it. Seconds later, a non-descript lady-worker in a pink uniform hurried into the room. "Take this girl and get her clothes and a room."
The woman in pink could not fully conceal her disgust at being burdened with this human, and a heavy scowl crept upon her face. Yubaba sighed heavily, and mumbled to herself, so that the room's other occupants would not hear, "I'll be glad when I stop having to deal with such low-lives and my assistant returns. Damn them all…"
But Chihiro heard. 'Assistant? Is Haku still her assistant? Was he unable to get away? What did that witch do to him? Where is Haku?'
Before she could ask any questions aloud, however, the woman exited the room through a door that she had not seen before. Chihiro obediently followed the woman through the doorway.
Chihiro was suddenly met with such a blast of night wind that she had to fight to stay upright. Apparently the door led to an outside stairway. Chihiro felt all of her burdens, worries, and ill feelings torn away from her by the swift breeze, leaving only a restless contentment inside her. Chihiro grinned at the feeling and imagined what a mess her hair must look.
Unbeknownst to Yubaba, Chihiro, and the worker, a certain dragon had chosen just that moment to step out onto his balcony and draw comfort from the calmingly fragrant night breeze. He sank unto a comfortable bench that faced the plains surrounding the train tracks.
Haku lifted his feet to rest them on the opposite armrest of the bench. He sighed deeply in comfort, his brilliant green eyes closing for a moment in restful bliss. He stretched and yawned, and then opened his eyes half-mast.
Lazily glancing around, he happened to look over to a staircase hugging the wall and saw movement. His eyes snapped fully open.
Haku leapt to his feet. There she was! The girl that had haunted his dreams for the past several years! "My Chihiro…" he whispered to himself, gazing at the grinning young woman standing before him. And. . . oh my. . . she HAS grown. . .
Ha ha ha! Naughty Haku thoughts always fun! Sowwie about the much delayedness of the update. Story not dead! Story NOT dead! Just a little comatose, maybe…
LD-chan