As Haku approached the boiler room, he heard giggles from the other side of the door.

"Just a word of warning Chinatsu," he heard the old boiler man start. "They will make your clothes quite dirty with soot."

The girl only giggled more. "That doesn't matter. They're so adorable!"

Haku smiled. She did not have the same personality as Chihiro did. But then again, she was four years older then Chihiro had been when he had met her. Haku leaned against the wall outside the door, not wanting to enter the room quite yet. Chihiro had changed so much while she had been here in the spirit world. Perhaps this was what she had been like four years after she returned to her world, but Haku hadn't known. "Chihiro…" he whispered. "Are you really here? No, you are dead, never getting a chance to see me ever again, when that's what I promised you, and that's what you wanted." A small sob escaped his throat, despite his attempts to hold it back. "I'm so sorry…" he choked out, sliding down the wall and tucking into a ball on the floor, his knees hiding his face and his tears, which where extremely rare, but were frequently becoming more common.

A few moments later he heard soft footsteps padding against the wooden floor. His ears picked up a basket being set on the floor and the footsteps stopping next to him. He knew who it was but didn't look up, not wanting her to see him in this sort of condition. "Haku…?" Rin whispered gently, placing an arm around his shoulders. "Don't tell me this is more about Chihiro." When she received no answer, she continued. "You told me you'd given up on this years ago," she said softly.

After taking a few deep breaths and letting his eyes dry a little, he looked up and straight ahead, not looking at the woman by his side. "I'm taking it Yubaba hasn't informed the bathhouse…"

"Informed us of what?" Rin questioned, sitting back slightly, her arm still around him.

"That a human, another one, has come."

"What?!"

Haku nodded. "She is fourteen years old, and the spitting image of Chihiro."

After several silent moments, Rin asked, "Where is she?"

"In the boiler room."

Just then they both heard a laugh and Kamajii said something to the girl. Rin's eyes widened. She stood up and took the few steps needed to open the door that led to the boiler room. Haku reached out for her hand. "But Rin, no matter how much she looks or acts like Chihiro, she's not. Don't make the same mistake I almost did. It took Yubaba to show me the truth, and she needs to go home. I was going to help her with that as soon as I spoke to Yubaba, which I just got back from."

Rin heard Haku, but didn't acknowledge it. She slid open the door and crawled in, Haku behind her, completely recovered from his tears. "Rin! Haku!" Kamajii greeted when he saw them. Chinatsu was covered in soot, and several soot balls were perched on her shoulders and head.

"Hello Kamajii," Rin greeted, then added, "and who's this?" even though she knew well enough.

"My name is Chinatsu," the girl greeted, and bowed to the older woman, who looked about in her mid-twenties.

"Nice to meet you Chinatsu," Rin returned the bow. She did look just like Chihiro, only a few years older. Is this what Chihiro looked like four years after she left the spirit world? Rin wondered to herself, looking at Haku with a look that told him she knew what he meant with what he said to her just minutes before.

Haku approached Chinatsu. "It looks like you're fitting right in."

She shrugged, never really answering him. "So what now?" she asked. "Am I going to get to go home?"

Haku nodded, a pain pulling at his heart. No matter how much she looked and reminded him of Chihiro, he knew she needed to go home. She belonged there, not here. "Yes, but you must wait until tomorrow. The tunnel is only open for ten minutes for three days every twenty-five years. It has already closed for today. We'll have to wait until tomorrow, which is the second day it's open."

"Oh… so how do you know when it's open."

"I sense it," Haku pointed to his head and Chinatsu laughed.

"It's true," Kamajii replied, just as three bath tokens rattled down in front of him.

Rin had been standing quiet for a while, staring at the girl, immediately feeling connected with her. "Come on Chinatsu," she started, grabbing her hand. "I'll show you around and we can hang out together, just us girls. What do you say?"

"Sure! Sounds fun. Might as well make the best of this situation."

"Of course, who wouldn't," Rin replied.

As they made their way upstairs, Chinatsu remembered something Haku had said. "Haku said if I held my breath while crossing the bridge, I would remain invisible to spirits. So how come you and Kamajii can see me?"

"It's to those who don't know you're here. Before I entered the boiler room, I encountered Haku who told me you were here. But for example, that spirit down there," she pointed to a spirit that looked like a duck. "That spirit has no clue a human is here, and therefore will not see you

"I see," Chinatsu mused. "That makes sense."

"Yes, but you must be careful. Yubaba also knows you're here. Who knows what she'll try to pull on you."

"Is this Yubaba mean?"

Rin shrugged. "You could say that. She likes to do things for her own personal good. The last human who ventured into this world was a very good worker, and Yubaba made up a test that was almost impossible to pass so she could keep her as a worker there forever."

"If she's the leader of this bathhouse, why didn't she?"

"Because she made a deal with Haku, promising she'd send her home if she was able to pass the test. She wanted to break her deal with Haku, but Haku was no ordinary spirit, and in anger could easily overpower Yubaba. But this human was no ordinary girl either, and she passed the test, rescued her parents, and was able to go home."

"Chihiro," Chinatsu said, half to herself.

"You know of her?" she hadn't known Haku had told her.

"Yes, Haku called me Chihiro the first time he saw me."

"Hah. A typical mistake for that guy."

They both laughed a little. After Rin got them something to eat, she led Chinatsu up to her room where they sat to relax a bit. "Why was Chihiro so important to Haku?" Chinatsu asked as she bit into a dumpling.

Rin laughed. "He loved her."

"He did?"

Rin nodded. "And she loved him as well."

"So why did she go back to her own world if she loved him?"

"Because she knew she belonged there. She was a terrified little girl when she came into this world, and I don't believe the thought of ever staying here crossed her mind. She wanted to rescue her parents, whom Yubaba had turned into pigs. She wanted to go back to her own world because that was the place she was familiar with."

"Haku seemed so surprised when he saw me. I could have been Chihiro, couldn't I have been?"

Rin shook her head and sighed. "Chihiro came here almost 90 years ago. We don't age nearly as quickly as humans, as you can see. While we age 1 year, a human ages almost 20. I may look like I'm 25, but in reality I'm almost 500 years old.

Chinatsu's eyes widened. "Wow…" she muttered.

"So as you can see, Chihiro would have died long before us, and she did."

"Mm…" Chinatsu looked down at her hands.

"But I'm going to tell you something. I don't know how you'll take it and I don't know if Haku has considered it yet, but from seeing you and hearing what Haku has said about you, this is what I think from many years of experience in this world and in human lives."

Chinatsu looked at her expectantly.

"I have a feeling that you could possibly be Chihiro's reincarnation."

It took her a while to respond. "What?" she finally managed to croak out.

Rin nodded. "It happens here, and it happens in the human world."

"How do you know?" she asked, more forcefully then she had intended.

"Because I used to live in the human world," Rin replied. "Haku is the spirit of the Kohaku River. I am the spirit of a woman who died almost 500 years ago. That is who many of the spirits here are. The spirits who look like humans are the actual spirits of human beings well passed away. The other un-human characters are spirits of rocks, mountains, wind, trees, etc."

"But what about Haku? He looks human."

"Yes, but since Haku is a more powerful spirit then most, he has two forms: his Kohaku River spirit form and the form you know him in."

Chinatsu nodded, and then shook her head. "But wait, get back to the subject of me being Chihiro's reincarnation. That's not possible, it's just not."

"It's very possibly Chinatsu. It is a fairly large concept to grasp, but it could very well be true."

"So you're telling me my life, the life I'm living now, is not my original life? I have lived someone else's life first?"

"Yes, that's pretty much it. In fact, you could have lived three or four lives before this one, although that is extremely rare. People are only reincarnated usually once or twice before traveling on to the afterlife."

"No, I don't like this," Chinatsu replied, frowning. "This is my life and no one else's!"

"Of course it is! But it's not you're first one, that's what I'm saying, and I believe you understand that too, don't you?"

"Yes, but I just… I don't know…" she sighed, defeated by this concept of being a reincarnation of someone else.

Rin placed a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry about it Chinatsu. You're you, and not Chihiro. You know how I know this?"

"How?"

"Now don't take this the wrong way, but Haku didn't fall in love with you at first sight like he did with Chihiro."

Chinatsu's eyes suddenly sparkled. "It was love at first sight!?" she gasped, "That's so romantic!"

Rin laughed at the girl's sudden change in mood. "Yes I believe it was. Now don't tell Haku I told you all this or he'll have my head. He gets pretty sensitive and embarrassed about this subject." She leaned over and whispered close to Chinatsu's ear "He doesn't like to admit that he was head over heels in love with a girl."

They laughed for a while until footsteps behind them startled them both. "What were you telling her Rin?" Haku's voice sounded, mock anger on the surface.

The spirit laughed nervously. "Oh, nothing," she replied, leaning her head back. "What are you doing here Haku?"

"Yubaba sent me. She wants to see Chinatsu."