Disclaimer: I Don't own Spirited Away
If this is the night it's also ashes and sky. Deeper than water
"You say I'm speaking in circles, so let me say this plainly," Chihiro stood before them, walking to the river bank, and gesturing for them to follow as she did. Taking them back down the trail along the river's edge -its waters growing murky the further down they looked, a plastic coke bottle aimlessly floating downstream. "The river is the god, they are one and the same… And they have been polluted. Before I was gifted to Nigihayami Kohaku-nushi, I made a promise on behalf of the town to clean it -a promise that was acknowledged by all. That we would dredge the trash from it's bed. And upon it's completion, I promised we would hold a festival in their name. But I can no longer fulfill that promise by myself -I'm no longer real in this world, not completely. So now it's up to you -all of you- to save this place."
For a moment, Chihiro acutely felt the distance between them. This small group that she'd once known her entire life, now felt as if strangers to her. And it was not them who had changed. It was her. For all that she felt the same -still just Chihiro- she was not. What did it make her, to be one who stood out of place in both worlds she attempted to call home -the reluctant bride of a dragon? A little bit less than human, she suspected. A little bit more than real.
"And what happens if I refuse to believe in this farce and go back to my life?" Ryoichi asked her -his voice hot, a jumble of all of those passionate emotions; Anger, confusion, disbelief. "You're not dead -you're standing right infront of me. And I have a girlfriend who's been texting me all day wondering when I'm coming home -I had to put in a leave of absence at work. This isn't my problem."
It was Kaiko that spoke first, addressing him with the same passionate bite to her tone. "The Dragon is not the only god to have awakened, Ichi -he was merely the first. If you think ours is the only town in the world where the Old Ones have come back and demanded retribution for the land, you are mistaken. And that makes it your problem."
Chihiro sighed -watching quietly as the two bickered back and forth, her other two companions suspiciously quiet in the early afternoon light. "I suppose the two of you have decided this isn't your problem as well, right?"
The way Hideaki adverted his gaze was enough of an answer for her, so she turned to dark-haired woman at his side.
"I'm going to school all the way in Osaka," Satomi told her in lieu of answer -her cellphone clamped tightly between her fingers, and behind them, Kaiko finally lost her cool, beginning to shout at the older man at her side.
"You just don't understand. Maybe if you'd seen the god, like we had, you might. But you don't. You were off in your own entitled little world -playing around in the city like you're too good for this place now."
Chihiro watched as Hideaki placed a hand on the younger girl's arm, trying to calm her down, and it was with that action that she spoke.
"Is that what it will take to convince you of the gravity of this situation?" Chihiro asked softly, feeling her own ire rising. It was strange, to be feeling so distinctly for this first time in what felt like so long. The emotion felt as if it would melt the flesh from her bones with its intensity and she wasn't sure how to handle it. "To see him for yourselves? To see that, if not yours, you belong to this place?"
Kaiko paused at that -faltering in her tirade as her eyes grew wide. She feared The Dragon, the one Chihiro tried to call her husband with any amount of conviction, but found the title falling flat. "I…"
Chihiro couldn't do this anymore. Pretend to be be something she wasn't. Play the voice of a dragon when she didn't even know what she was supposed to say. Chihiro wasn't herself anymore, she knew that -she was supposed to be this half god. This creature that was above and yet not. But she couldn't do this anymore. She couldn't pass herself off as some intimidating figure when she was just as scared and confused as they were.
"You know what? No. I'm really sorry that this is so fantastical and inconvenient that not even you can believe it, Hideaki." The words were laced with a bitterness that she didn't know she had in her -a blame she couldn't stop herself from placing on his shoulders. Every fiber of her being wanted to scream at him -for if he adored her half as much as he had always claimed, he never would have left her to her fate. He would never have let her die.
Instead, she swallowed that bitterness back into herself, and Chihiro turned from him. From the rest of the words she so desperately wanted to say. From the look on his face that couldn't have been more wounded if she'd slapped him -and out toward the bay they'd been approaching by following the river bank.
From the opening of the bay there was a great swirling movement in the water, the thrashing of of a large predator as it hunted beneath the surface -breaking the silence that had taken over with her words. She knew that it was her Dragon -summoned by whatever dark emotion he'd felt in her.
Behind her she could feel the unease of those she walked with, -the hesitance and fear- and as the chaotic churning came closer, they all stepped back from the water's edge. For within it's boundaries appeared the rhythmic rise and fall of shark fins -chasing after something larger, almost as if loyal dogs to their master. And their master had white scales and fur the color of sea foam -horns the color of bone that slowly rose from the waves to reveal his form to them.
Kaiko was falling to her knees at the image of the god emerging from the water to steadily walk toward them -head bowed and fingers clasped as she whispered a frantic prayer that Chihiro heard just a touch too clearly for her own comfort.
She could hear soft cursing, even as Kohaku circled her so that he could bring himself face to face with his bride, while still trapping the mortals that traveled with her. Almost offhandedly, she noticed that the water did not seem to follow him out of the river -the scales that brushed against her arm were warm and dry. She also noticed the way his eyes saw only her -with no interest in the others.
"What is this?" Hideaki asked her, his voice feather-soft -so light that the wind could have carried it away. Instead it brought his awe-filled notes to whisper against her ear as if in a caress.
Instead she looked up to meet the eyes of her own personal fairytale, lifting her arms so that she could bury her fingers in the supple fur of his face -needing him to sooth the chaos that swirled through her. And the soft purr that resonated through him into her fingertips felt as if it were holding her together in the face of such strong emotion she had no real name for it.
"I felt your discontent," his great, rumbling voice told her, and she could feel the words rolling over her as if they had a physical presence. "What distresses you so, Little Dog?"
"I'm only human," she told him in response, "We feel things acutely at times; it is part of what we are."
"Never only." came a whispering that belonged to her ears alone.
"Chihiro, what is this?" Hideaki's voice rang louder this time, more demanding of her attention.
The dragon turned from her then to gaze upon the mortal with appraising eyes, and Chihiro finally followed suit -taking account of her companions.
Ryoichi had his arms protectively around Miori, pressing her face against his neck while she cried. He was mumbling quiet nonsense to the frightened girl while keeping her from seeing the fear in his own eyes.
Satomi was trying to pull Kaiko to her feet without touching one of the Dragon's thick coils, her motions frantic in their need to have something familiar beside her, as the dragon shifted around them, bringing Hideaki closer, and cutting him off from the others at the same time.
Chihiro felt a pang of something sharp in her heart -looking at the fear in their faces, the confusion.
"Such an entitled creature you are," Her intended noted, and Hideaki stiffened at the feeling of those eyes pinning him, of this mythical creature speaking to him directly. He did not freeze, though, did not back down from the towering creature that had encircled them with its massive body.
"Are you the one who did this?" he asked instead, "Are you the god who's come back?"
"I have done nothing beyond that which is my right." The creature moved its massive head toward him then, bringing himself between this man and his bride. The action was almost possessive in its aggression when he raised to his full height, forcing the man to look up at him. "The blame for all else falls upon the shoulders of your brethren. I did not ask for fear, nor tribute."
Hideaki seemed to have no qualms about accepting the god as real once he had lain his own two eyes on him. He seemed to take only a moment to process the creature in front of him, before his eyes flickered to the girl who had fitted herself against one of the God's legs. "Yet you force Chihiro to play your errand girl? Force her to stay with you in your world? If you are as blameless as you claim you would release her -give her back."
The Dragon's response was a snarl that poured between bared teeth, fog and sparking flame that sindged the edges of those too close -the anger and indignation of a god directed toward one man. Massive claws scoured the earth, digging deep trenches as he lowered on his haunches to bring himself eye to eye with the man.
The screams of terror that were ripped from the others were what finally broke the tension of the moment. Chihiro could understand their fear, in that abstract way of things you'd once been afraid of as a child. Like the dark, or an imaginary monster under your bed. But she could not feel it herself.
Frankly Chihiro didn't know if she could feel fear anymore. But she had her anger. She had her frustration. Her bitterness. And maybe that was enough. At least for now.
"Enough!" And the words snapped from her lips like the crack of a whip, resonating from somewhere between her vertebrae.
It was that same vibration that had her stepping forward -between the two who'd seen fit to turn this meeting into a battleground.
"I'm not some child's toy to be bartered for -I returned with the god of my own free will, and it is my will that keeps me by his side." She paused then, feeling her heart beating frantically inside her chest, as if attempting to escape its prison. "It is not your place, Hideaki, to play my rescuer. You're much too late for that."
"Chihiro, I-"
His words were cut short by the sound of her voice again, snapping through the air and cracking the tension of the moment. Making the world feel surreally out of place -like a dream he'd forgotten how to wake up from.
"Do you believe now?" And her words encompassed everything -cutting him off from the rest of reality with the ringing in his ears, though he knew her words were no longer for him.
"Yes."
"Then you all know what you must do. You have until the end of coming summer to clean the river."
Note: I absolutely loathed this chapter. It took me months because I hate the 'normal, regular person' characterization. Makes them act like assholes. My absence, though, was not just due to this chapter I'm afraid. I started going back to school this semester to pursue my English degree, and that, paired with also working full time, makes for one very tired author with no desire or willpower to write anything.