Author's Note: Look! Another update! As requested, no less!

This is so unusual for me. Probably because my usual chapters are much longer than this. All the updates you've been getting so far, including this one and the one to follow pretty much make up my usual chapter length. I like writing stories that look as though they could be put into book form. I want to become a real writer. Do you think I could?

Well, now I'm rambling! You gotta stop me when I do that! Here's the new chapter! Enjoy and please, please, please leave more constructive comments! I love that all who have posted are so eager for me to update, but I'd also like it if you told me what I might be able to improve! As an inscentive, if you guys leave me more constructive comments, I'll be inclined to write a sequal...!

The rain had stopped but I still felt flooded. I couldn't see for all of the memories flowing into my head, one right after the other.

Kohaku, Rin, No-face, Yubaba and her baby, Old Man Komaji, Granny, and all of the other friends I had made a the bath house in the spirit world. I could feel them all with me again—every single memory I had made a year ago when my dad had driven us into that abandoned amusement park returned in full force.

I suddenly looked up. The amusement park!

I took off at a run. I couldn't feel the pain in my feet anymore, and the fact that my clothes were soaked didn't bother me at all. I don't know how long it took me to get to the woods near my house, or how long it took me to make my way through them in bare feet, when every bramble and branch seemed to be working against me, but I must have been at it for an hour before I came into a clearing. There, on the ground, was the familiar stone statue of the two-faced little man, and the tunnel before him. The one I had seen in my dreams.

I tore off down the tunnel, running blindly through the dark until I emerged on the other side onto rolling grassy hills lit by moonlight. I ran across them, no longer the timid little girl I was when I'd first come here a year ago. But also unlike a year ago, there was something blocking my path to the village.

I came to a sudden halt at the edge of a great flowing river that rushed between me and the seemingly abandoned village on the other side. Looking at it, panting from all of that running, and seeing all of the lights off, as though it really were just some old abandoned amusement park, made me wonder if I hadn't lost my mind or something.

That thought just made me very angry.

"Kohaku!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. "Kohaku! Why can't I go back? Why won't you talk to me?"

I waited patiently for a reply, but there was no sound other than that of the flowing river and the rustle of a small breeze in the tall grass. I suddenly felt very alone.

"You broke your promise!" I accused to the open air. "You said we'd be together again soon! But you left me alone and I forgot about you! I forgot…."

I was crying again. I didn't want to cry, but I couldn't help it. I was angry, and frustrated, and scared, and sad. Why wouldn't Kohaku come back? I'd just seen him a moment ago! He'd saved my life! Why wouldn't he talk to me?

"I didn't break my promise."

I looked up. There, standing on the surface of the river as though it were solid ground, was the dragon boy in my dreams. I couldn't read his expression in the dark, but it sounded as though he were angry at something. It took me a moment to realize what he had said.

"Did so!" I shouted, standing up. "You did so break your promise!"

"I only did because you broke your promise to me."

My breath caught in my throat. What had he said?

"I didn't break my promise!" I said, remembering now what that promise had been. "I didn't look back, not once! Just like you told me!"

"But you did," he said, starting to walk forward across the water, his graceful steps making him look just like the river spirit he was. "You've looked back on us. In the past few days, you've recovered your memories and you've reached back for a world that you no longer belong to."

I didn't belong anymore? That hurt.

"You were called to the spirit world for one reason, Chihiro," as he said my name his face became clearer in the moonlight. His dragon eyes were cold, and his mouth set. I had only seen him like that once before, when we were in Yubaba's presence, and he had ordered me to call him 'Master Haku.' I had learned later that this was just an act he put on for Yubaba, but now, seeing that face again, I wondered if he hadn't been just pretending to be my friend.

"Once you had fulfilled that purpose," he went on to say. "You were not meant to stay. You are a human, and you belong in the human world."

"But why couldn't I stay?" I asked, desperate to make my argument sound as solid and convincing as his. "Why couldn't I just become a spirit and stay with all of you? I was turning into one when you found me on the shore when we first met, wasn't I?"

Haku shook his head.

"You are not a spirit," he said firmly. "You are a mortal, and you belong here."

"Stop saying that!" I cried, tears springing to my eyes again. "I've never felt more at home than I did when I was with you and the other spirits!"

I couldn't help it. I was a little girl again, and Kohaku was the one, powerful friend I had. I rushed out into the water and tried to throw my arms around him, but I went straight through him, like he was air. I splashed into the river, which was freezing cold, but I was already wet, so it didn't matter. What mattered was that Kohaku had done that on purpose. I had seen him hit that drifter—he could be solid if he wanted to. He had purposely made himself into a ghost so that I couldn't touch him. I shrunk down in the water, hugging my legs to my chest as I shivered against the current that swirled around my shoulder blades.

"I missed you, Kohaku," I said quietly. "I missed all of you so much."