Right. Next up...let's see...thanks for your reviews, dream lighting, HitmanTargetsYou and Himeno Kazehito.
After falling into the boiler room, nearly on top of Kamaji, the girls knew something was still terribly wrong with Haku. That spell Zeniba had cast on her seal had definitely been doing its damage, but Haku was alive...for now.
Even Kamaji left his post at the boiler, seeing how serious Haku's condition was. "Maybe he swallowed something." he suggested.
Arya nudged Chihiro. "Sis...the river spirit's gift..." Chihiro nodded. She broke off a piece and while the girls had to force it into Haku, it really was no different than what he'd done with the berries. Had Arya not ended up taking it with worded persuasion, she had a feeling Haku would have forced them to take the berries – after all, he was saving their lives.
And this time, it was life-saving again.. Haku choked out two things: a little seal made of gold – so Haku had taken it in spite of what Chihiro had said – and a black slug-like creature.
"Look there!" exclaimed Kamaji. Chihiro rushed over to pick up the seal, while Arya, on Kamaji's advice, squished and killed the slug. She blanched at the black slime between her toes.
"You killed it!" Kamaji exclaimed. "Those things are bad luck. Quickly, before it rubs off on you – put your thumbs and forefingers together." Arya obeyed. "Evil – be gone." Kamaji cut the connection with her thumbs and forefingers with one hand.
Chihiro didn't know what to do with the seal yet, but Haku was still the main issue. He turned back into a boy, but no one could be sure whether he'd survive stealing Zeniba's seal. He was unconscious.
It was Chihiro's idea that what might help is if they returned the seal to Zeniba. But to do that, they needed train tickets, but luckily, Kamaji had been saving train tickets for 40 years. Five tickets, in fact, so the mouse baby and fly could come too – and they could bring someone else.
While Kamaji was finding the tickets, Lin came in. She'd been trying to find them - apparently It was about the gold-giver. "He turned out to be a monster called No-Face, and he says that you let him in the bath house." she told Chihiro.
"I did." Chihiro admitted. "I thought he was a customer."
"And he helped me when the foreman wouldn't give me a soap token." Arya added. "He didn't seem like a monster. But then, I saw him-"
"He's already eaten three people!" Lin exclaimed.
"Just what I was going to say." Arya muttered. "What are we supposed to do about it?"
They soon knew. No-Face wanted to talk to them. Kamaji gave them the tickets and instructions on where to stop, and the girls set off to solve the problem with No-Face before they took the seal back.
"Haku, I'll be back soon." Chihiro reassured the unconcious spirit.
Arya said nothing, but she kissed Haku on the cheek before following her sister.
"What's going on?" Lin wondered out loud.
"Something you wouldn't recognize." Kamaji told her. "It's called love."
The girls quickly grabbed their old clothes, which the soot balls had been keeping safe for them, along with the card that their names were on. They changed into them and put their work clothes over them before they went to face the music.
Yubaba pretty much pushed the girls into the room with No-Face, but not before telling to get all the gold from him that they could. Arya heard through the door that someone was asking if the girls would be okay in there by themselves, and Yubaba asking "You want to take their place?" She couldn't help but smirk a little. Did a random spirit really not want them dead?
"Come closer, girls." No-Face said. "Want some gold? I'm not giving it to anyone else. What would you like?"
"We would like to leave, sir." Chihiro said, her voice taking on a more adult tone than she'd ever used before in her life. "We have someplace we need to go to right away, please."
Arya's voice had the same tone. "You should also leave here. Yubaba would prefer that you weren't in the bathouse any longer. Don't you have somewhere to go to, or someone?"
"No." No-Face answered, his mask's mouth turning downwards. "No, I'm lonely."
"What do you want?" Chihiro asked.
"I want Ani and Sen!" No-Face answered firmly. He wanted them, but in what way? Arya wondered if he meant that he wanted to eat them, too.
Luckily, Chihiro thought fast and gave him the rest of the medicine from the river spirit. It made him start throwing up, and angered him towards the girls, but they made a run for it, and by the time they made it out of the bathouse, he'd thrown up two of the people he'd eaten.
Lin was waiting for the girls with a makeshift boat to take to the flooded train station. The girls took their work clothes off, leaving only their old clothes. Chihiro called to the much thinner and rapidly calming No-Face.
"Don't call him over!' Lin admonished, as No-Face jumped into the water and made his way towards the boat.
"I think he's okay now." Arya said, looking at the masked spirit. "The bathouse had a bad effect on him. Maybe he needed to be outside." Her point was proved when No-Face choked out the one other person he'd eaten – the talking frog that had made Chihiro gasp that night on the bridge. No-Face was back to normal, although he could no longer talk. He'd been using the frog's voice up until then.
"Yeah, being in the bathouse made him crazy. He needed to get out of there." Chihiro agreed.
"Yeah, and go where?" Lin challenged. "Great, now he's following us."
"He won't hurt us." Chihiro said confidently.
Lin let the girls out on the train rails, pointing out the stop. The girls took off their shoes and socks, planning to put them on once they got to the station. First, they had to wade there, and Arya had to roll up her jeans, in any case.
"Sen! Ani!" Lin called, just as the girls were already 200 metres away. "I'm sorry I called you two a dope and a hard nut before! I take it back!"
The girls waved.
"She's like another sister." Chihiro mused.
"An older sister," added Arya, "Because she always made sure that we were always okay, even though she was definitely irritated with us half the time. I'll miss her when we go home."
"Me too."
At that moment, the girls heard Lin yelling at their follower. "No-Face, if you put even one scratch on either of those girls, you're in big trouble!"
The sisters exchanged smiles, and when the train came, they needed all five tickets. Two for them, two for Yubaba's bird-turned-fly and her baby-turned-mouse, and the last one for No-Face. The train ride was long, and there was a feeling of hostility in the carriage, but the girls endured the ride. Chihiro clutched the seal in her hand, while Arya stared pensively out the window. No-Face sat beside them. As they waited, they wondered what would happen when they reached Zeniba's home.
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