Spirited Away Fanfiction
by TASHHHHHH!11
"The Brunette from Hell"
T Rating: for naughty language.
Big note: I'm just bs-ing the geography here, making up mountains, rivers, towns, as I go along. If this conflicts with anything you are familiar about in Japan, just think of it as alternate-universe-spirited-away-fanfiction-Japan. I know an itty bit about the marshy lake chains of boundary waters (between Ontario and Minnesota), so dammit I'm gonna at least sound like I know what I'm talking about! If you are confused, just pretend you aren't so smart, and allow yourself to be awed by my scientific jargon).
Little note: I came up with a lot of exposition, as you can see. Please let me know if it gets too boring, I'll try to break up the explanations. But what else would Kohaku be thinking about right now, really?
Chapter 2 - Rivers Being Rivers
Kohaku had not been to the human world in over 5 years, and had forgotten what to expect. To exist in that world was quite different than to view it through a paper shikikami. He had crossed the border between the worlds with several goals in mind, but as soon as he arrived, he was yanked on to a course to the northeast. After being away for so long, the pull of the Kohaku River was irresistible and welcoming to its weary guardian spirit. To go anywhere else or attempt to think about any other worldly plans would have required great physical effort.
Through his surveillance he learned what had happened to his river. The flow of water had been dammed where there used to be a natural waterfall. Pipes had been constructed to direct the most underground waterflow to flow underneath the new town section, removing moisture from the soil allowing for solid buildings to stand. The land where the new apartments stood used to be the beginning of the widest point of the Kohaku river. An adjacent river from the same dammed lake source now was much higher. Ironically, his brother river, Shimai Ogawa, had actually benefited from the project that had almost killed Kohaku. The water from the settlement eventually flowed out of the town sewer system, through a pipe, creating a stream which flowed back onto the proper route, and on towards the ocean.
In the morning sky, a white dragon glided blissfully at about 40 km/h (25 mph, or residential street speed), not even bothering to be discreet or worry about being spotted by humans. He carelessly plunged into the water downstream, then went up underground into the piping system, where he sank into a nice dark crevice and proceeded to take the longest nap of his life (not including hibernation).
[1 week later]
Brad the Toad hesitantly tugged on the dragon's whiskers.
"Hey man, you alright?"
"Hrrrmmmmfivemoreminutesgranny..." Kohaku grumbled. He shot up and hit his head on the concrete. "Owww! Huh? Where am I? Oh, right, sewer-river. Hmm?" he looked down and crossed his eyes to see the little creature. "Greetings, Toad."
"Dude, you've been crashed out on this shelf for at least a week."
"Oh, I have?" he said, feeling silly. Kohaku rolled of the shelf, and found that a sheet of algae had grown on the tip of his tail, which floated to the center of the pipe junction, basking in the daily sunlight. He ate it all off. Then he growled because it had tasted bad, but he knew it was good for him, containing lots of omega-3 fatty acids. The toad did not seem to be phased by the dragon. "Well I just got back from the spirit world, and I have not been here in years. I was just basking."
"Oh, wow, you're a spirit?" said Brad, wide-eyed.
Kohaku blinked, not sure if the Toad was kidding or not. "I'm the guardian spirit of this river / water system. Excuse me, but what did you think I was a big dog-faced snake?"
"No, I uh... well yeah I guess you aren't a snake. That's good I guess. Snakes eat toads. What do dragons eat again?"
"Um, well lets see," Kohaku rolled his eyes. "I eat fishies and birdies, and then sometimes... snakes and toads."
"Oh, that's good-hey wait! Don't eat me bro!" Kohaku grinned a mouthful of canine teeth at the dumb little Toad, but let it get away, to leave its fate up to someone else.
Kohaku spent another month working on his river. It was necessary to leave his anger at humans behind for a while and examine his new situation from a purely objective point of view. He had learned from other river spirits that his fate was not all that uncommon in this era. Many spirits that had once reined over babbling brooks now haunted water towers. The shape, and volume of his domain had been altered, but the water still flowed. But the damage to its character was what had hurt the guardian the most. Kohaku had been traumatized so because his river was streamlined at its spiritually strongest point, where the water was still pure from the mountains, but had developed some of its of flavor. He had not understood this 5 years ago, and allowed modernization to break his spirit, nearly killing him. But he had survived, and grown stronger and wiser from the ordeal, and now he knew that the key to moving on was adaption, not self-pity.
After much hard work, the dragon was satisfied for now. He finally allowed himself to turn his attention towards another piece of his heart that had been nagging at him for quite some time.
[Meanwhile...]
It was a beautiful sunshiney day. A few sparse clouds rolled across the distant horizon. Birds chirped, and rodents scampered about. The falling leaves of red and gold settled on the churning coastlines of the winding creek. The creek ran past the schoolyard, creating a border between the trim grass of the playground and the forest preserve. And by the creek at the edge of the schoolyard, a middle-school girl was harassing a smaller child.
"SSHHLLRRRPP!" Chihiro drained the box of juice and burped loudly. "Mmmmm, that was some tasty juice!" She smirked and tossed the purple box into the creek.
"Please stop it, Chihiro-sama!" the boy looked to be about 6 years old. His shiny black hair was cut with straight bangs in the front, and cropped in the back. He wore no shoes or socks, but a loose shirt and cloth-belted shorts made out of fine white cloth. He had a round baby-face, big sea-green eyes, and was totally cute. But at the moment, he was more totally distressed. He hopped up and down trying to reach the lunch bag that Chihiro was holding.
The girl took out a circular plastic package of mandarin oranges, and a plastic fork. She crumpled up the bag in her other hand.
"No, don't!" the boy shrieked. Chihiro held her items away from his grabby hands, and chucked the crumpled brown paper into the water as well.
"Waaah, stop polluting me!" he protested. "You are so disgusting!" Chihiro ignored the helpless little boy and opened the package. She ate the oranges with the fork, then when she was done, she kicked the boy in the stomach. He collapsed on the ground, starting to cry from physical and emotional stress.
"Shut up ya little twerp. I'll put my stuff wherever I want." She turned the plastic container over so that the remaining corn syrup splashed onto the boy's fine hair. She bent down and dangled the fork in front of his face, even though his head was down and his bangs covered his eyes.
"This." the fork was tossed into the stream.
"And this." she threw away the plastic container as well.
"Have you learned your lesson, 'Gawa-chan?"
"Y-yes," he sobbed.
"Excuse me?" she scoffed indignantly.
"Gulp. I m-mean, y-yes Chihiro-sama."
"That's a good boy. Now next time, bring me a real treasure, not a stupid piece of firewood." She bent down and picked up the rejected tribute, a very beautiful, perfectly dried section of twisted birch root, the type of wood that can be polished and carved into a cute little box, or simply displayed for its beauty. She chucked it into the river.
"Well, I'll see you later 'Gawa-chan." Chihiro picked the boy up by the upper arm, and threw him into the water too. Then she clapped her hands together and strolled on home.
Evil Chihiro returns! She is wicked fun to write. I never realized how cool evil is until I wrote the last two chapters. Good guys require so much finesse and delicacy.
Ok, Here is a serious question to the audience, please tell me your opinion: Should I reveal what's going on with Chihiro soon so we can watch the characters try to figure it out, or should I make it more like a mystery, and only show what is known to Kohaku's team? It's pretty big, but maybe it's not so amazing that if I wait to show it from Kohaku's pov, you'll all be like 'that's it? I read 10 chapters to find THAT out? what a let down!", so maybe i should just do chihiro pov next chapter? what do you think?
tl;dr: omnipresent voice, or Haku-tachi pov?
This is a fan-based story, not affiliated with or sponsored by any persons from Studio Ghibli or the production team of the movie "Spirited Away."