Howdy everyone! I have successfully graduated with a BS in biomedical engineering. My family officially left town and I am finally free to work on my writing. Thanks for all of your continued support and well wishes as I went through this period in my life. I need to catch up on all of my writing because I may or may not have started writing a third fanfiction that I haven't posted yet *cough cough* Hermione/Krum *cough* undercover *cough* political corruption *hacks up sputum and checks it for signs of TB before throwing away handkerchief*.
The upcoming chapters are going to rotate between super short and horrendously long since I dislike cutting scenes in the middle of the action. As you will notice, this chapter is short, but the next chapter will be much longer. As we begin to approach the climax of this arc or as I like to refer to it as 'the part where I get to knock over all of the dominoes I have lined up', please keep in mind that the overall story will be two arcs. I will end Shadow Wars at the end of this arc and start the second/final arc after a hiatus.
Next Chapter will be posted on June 1st.
Chapter 14:
Yui sat down at the dinner table beside Lin and Chihiro as if it were completely common for her to be in the upper levels of the bathhouse. The frogs and yuna gossiped quietly in the background as they wondered what could have brought the crane spirit up from her usual habitat. Though perturbed by the matron's presence, Lin had the dark suspicion that she already knew what the crane was going to ask. Feigning ignorance as to the woman's motive, Lin dug into her food as Chihiro greeted Yui warmly. Crunching happily on the fish in her bowl, Yui struck up conversation with Chihiro on the different workings of the bathhouse and the upcoming festival.
"If I am still here when the festival rolls around, I would be happy to attend it if Lin doesn't need me here."
"When I talked to Haku earlier this afternoon he seemed fairly confident that you would be here through the festival since Zeniba hasn't made any progress. Between you and me, I have this terrible gut feeling that I won't be able to attend the festival."
"Why is that? Don't you have to perform the cleansing dance?"
"Well I don't have the Mind's eye to see the future, but sometimes I get gut feelings and they are always spot on. I am supposed to perform the dance, but if it rains or something comes up then there will be no one to replace me. Everyone is already so busy and it's just a feeling…" Chihiro frowned as she thought about all of the spirits that would be relying on that cleansing dance to purify them. If the dance wasn't performed at the end of the festival, then what would be the point of the water festival? Lin saw the way that Chihiro's face scrunched up in concern at the way Yui laid the bait before her. Heaving a loud sigh, Lin decided to help Yui push Chihiro into the trap.
"I can manage just fine on my own Chihiro. Why don't you learn the purification dance so everyone doesn't have to listen to Watari-san worrying over the next few weeks? You can work with her in the morning and then assist me in the evening after our lunch break."
"I don't know much about purification rituals or dancing, but if it would make you feel better…"
"It would mean the world to me," Yui stated with a smile.
Lin sliced the last of the seaweed before heaving a sigh. With Chihiro gone to begin training with Yui, the morning seemed almost back to normal. Except for the dragon stalling outside of the doorway trying to discreetly gather his courage to enter… Before Chihiro had arrived, Haku would have just sauntered in and spoken to her. Setting the tray in place, Lin began the assembly of the sushi that would become everyone's lunch. The chef was shorthanded after the field mouse spirit that assisted in the kitchen had burnt her hand and had to be sent down to the infirmary. Taking her time, she listened to Haku breathing outside of the door.
"You might as well come in. I already know you're there," Lin said with a hint of exasperation. Trying to hold onto some of his pride, Haku walked in and took a seat at the counter across from her. Frowning at him, she clicked her tongue, "If you are going to be bothering me, then you might as well help." Getting up from his seat, he rolled up his sleeves and began to wash his hands under the faucet.
"Chihiro didn't come home again last night. Has she been staying with you?" The creases on Lin's forehead deepened and she felt herself frown in thought. She had thought that they had already made up since Chihiro had been going upstairs early to see Haku like usual. Apparently she must have been going somewhere else. That would also explain why she hadn't been seeing Haku hanging around them at work the past few days. Haku began to roll sushi beside her and found the tedious process relieving. Lin's reaction had been all he needed to know that she hadn't been going there either.
"No. If she hasn't been with you, then maybe she has been staying with Kamaji. One of you needs to break the ice and apologize."
"I was planning on apologizing to her last night, but she never came home. Where is she this morning? Perhaps it would be easier to try and corner her at work."
"Last I saw she was on her way to Yui's shrine for dance rehearsal."
"She agreed to do it," Haku asked surprised. He had been expecting for her to refuse Watari-san over the chance that she might not be present for the matsuri.
"She has agreed to train for it in the likelihood that Yui will not be present. Tell me Haku, you aren't really planning on having her do the ceremony are you? Even with the mask on, surely someone is bound to notice that the energy you two cause together is different than that of two spirits performing a cleansing ritual."
"Human and spirit rituals are extremely powerful and we need as much power as we can get. As long as she stays under the radar during the festival and everyone at the bathhouse keeps their mouth shut about her true nature, there should be no problem."
"And how are you going to manage that? Call a staff meeting and growl at everyone until they all agree to not mention her humanity," Lin joked. Some part of her recognized that Haku might seriously try something like that if he thought it would work. Opening her mouth to take it back before he could heavily consider it, she was stopped by Haku's chuckle.
"No. In case you haven't noticed, everyone around here is fairly enamored with Chihiro. Even the guests have been asking for her to stop by and chat with them during their visit. I think it will be fine."
"You are unusually optimistic for the grumpy dragon that's been stalking around the bathhouse the past few months." Haku considered her words with an eye roll.
"Keep up that cheeky attitude and I'll make sure you are working the last night of the matsuri. The formal ball will run much smoother without a single, beautiful weasel spirit like yourself parading about." Throwing a smirk at him, Lin wiped her hands on her apron and grabbed a hand towel.
"As if I would attend a prattish event like that! You can bet your scales that I will be downstairs drinking with the rest of the bathhouse deemed unrefined enough for that stuck up dance. We will be having the real party down here," Lin said as she used the towel to hit at Haku's knees. Dodging the blow, Haku popped a piece of sushi into his mouth in rebellion and hauled ass out of there. "And don't you worry! Chihiro will be the life of the party and not miss you one bit!"
The wooden Torri gates stood behind them melting into the evening sky as Yui and Chihiro cleansed their bodies in front of the shrine. Spitting the water out of her mouth, Chihiro followed Yui up the center of the dirt plaza towards the looming central building. After they paid their respects, they walked together to a small side entrance of the left side building. Ditching their shoes before stepping up onto the beautifully polished hardwood floor, Yui began showing her around the quarters. The sweet smell of tatami wafted up from the floors mixing with the night air blowing in from the interior garden. The practice room was open to the garden and was essentially empty. Excusing herself to grab some cushions, Yui left Chihiro alone. Wandering forward, Chihiro stopped at the edge of the room before it dropped into the garden. The sight of a bell hanging over a well in the center of the garden caught her eye and she stood there considering it. The black bell was unusual with its burnt scars and moss patch. A small ivory bell hammer hung from two nails on a post holding up the bell. Something about the bell sent shivers down Chihiro's spine and she completely didn't hear Yui approach with the pillows.
"Strange isn't it? Even I find it hard to look away from sometimes," she said breaking the silence surrounding them. Breaking her stare at the bell, Chihiro looked back as Yui set the cushions up across from each other.
"Is it magic," Chihiro asked as she took a seat on the offered cushion across from Yui. She looked back at the bell and felt the same tingling sensation towards it as before.
"Silly girl," Yui laughed as she smiled as Chihiro, "Of course it's magic. You are in the Spirit World are you not? Or perhaps you have let your mind wander back to the land from which it came." Smiling distractedly, Chihiro refused to break her gaze with the bell. Feeling her smile fade, Yui sighed as she seated herself on the opposite cushion and looked at the bell as well. "Would you care to know how that bell came to rest there?"
Chihiro wordlessly nodded her head as she memorized the faint details on the bell that she could see. She did not see the way that Yui's body slouched under an invisible weight as she thought through her memories. Speaking in a rich voice, Yui spun the tale as they both looked onto the bell.
"Long ago, that bell stood in a shrine shared by a young delta spirit and wetland spirit that worked together in harmony. The land was fertile and abundant in plant life, making it a haven for the small village of humans that had settled in the nearby woods. They built the shrine to the kami pair and worshiped them fervently. The wetland spirit became enamored with the villagers and took human form to live amongst them. She would come home to the delta spirit in delight and tell her about all of the strange adventures that she had had with her humans. However the trash from the village and the farmlands they built into her wetlands began to make her sick. As she grew weaker and weaker, the delta spirit learned medicine to heal her friend, but secretly harbored anger in her heart. The village continued to grow, and the wetland spirit asked nothing of the humans she loved. The delta spirit couldn't understand why her friend would give herself up to the humans in such a manner and became distraught. Her emotions swayed the level of the water in the delta, but the wetland spirit deflected any floods away the village. When time had passed and the villagers had yet again expanded their farmlands into the wetlands, the wetland spirit went to them and begged them to stop the destructive expansion. This time however, the villagers greeted her in anger and hatred. They were angry that there was a famine and that they could not expand their fields any further after tearing all of the nutrients out of the ground they had been given. Cursing her, they chased her back to the shrine they had built and set it on fire. Despite the rain, the fire burned the shrine down and finished off what was left of the wetlands. The delta spirit found her dear friend murdered beside the ashes of the shrine the next morning. In anger over her friend's death and the rush of power that comes with roaring rain, the delta spirit flooded the lands killing all of the humans and wiped the town off of the land. When the waters finally settled, the delta spirit wept in loneliness and properly saw to the disposal of all of the bodies."
"The delta spirit wandered the shores grieving for months and spent many a nights flooding the region and kicking up rain storms. She kept asking herself why the wetland spirit would give herself so willingly to what she saw as parasites upon their land. Why hadn't she stopped them once the wetland spirit had become some sick? Guilt and questions rattled her brain and she wandered upstream to the edge of her delta. One afternoon as she wandered about, a thunderstorm hit bringing a flood of water downstream. Using her powers to settle the water throughout the delta, she didn't notice the large metal bear trap on the ground until she accidentally stepped into it. Wailing out in pain, the delta spirit tried to use her feathers to open the trap from around her leg, but as you can imagine a crane form is difficult to open such a trap. Rain poured down and the delta spirit considered her options heavily. Before she could try converting to a human form, an old man came upon her and took pity. Freeing her from the trap, he carefully wrapped her wounded leg and offered her water from his water skin. Bewildered at his behavior, the delta spirit ignored the offered water and flew back to her home to rest. When she was healed, the delta spirit found herself thinking back to the man who had helped her. She returned to the woods and for the first time, took a human form. Hunting around, she found the same old man living in a small cottage with an elderly wife at the far edge of where the river to the north transitioned off into her delta. It was an area always liable to flood every time it rained, but the delta spirit had never felt any need to protect that region since it was so close to the main river. As it began to rain again, the delta spirit diverted the water away and at nightfall raised the courage to go knock on the cottage door. Lying to the old couple she told them that she was lost, and they welcomed her into their home. Accepting their offer to stay the night, she observed them and found herself intrigued. Was this the goodness of humans that the wetland spirit had seen behind all of their obtrusive nature?"
"The delta spirit began to spend many days visiting the old couple's cottage, and began to feel guilty for killing off those in the village who hadn't been involved in the wrongdoing. It was possible for humans to have kindness among the other qualities that she had not recognized as she watched them destroy her best friend from the inside out. In time, she became like family to the old couple and learned of how they struggled to make ends meet. The delta spirit offered to help them if they would but just bring her some thread. Giving her the thread, she made them promise not to open the door to the room as she spun. Agreeing readily they left her alone in the room and she reverted back to her natural form to weave the thread into cloth. She spun all day and night, plucking her own feathers to put into the fabric to bring beauty and magic into the cloth. When she was finished she presented the cloth to the old man and instructed him to sell the cloth at the market and bring back more thread. For several months this went on, until the old man became curious how she could spin such beautiful cloth and snuck a peek. He saw the girl in her natural crane form and recognized the scar upon her leg, marking her as the crane he had saved. Giving him the last cloth, the delta spirit thanked the couple for their kindness towards her and explained that she must leave now since they had seen her true form."
"And where did you go from there, Yui?" Chihiro's question brought Yui's eyes up from the ground where they had become plastered as she had become lost in her memories. It was so much easier to handle all of her emotions when she separated herself from them. Leave it to a bright girl like Chihiro to know instantly that the story was her own.
"I returned back to the ruins of the old village and found that my water had retracted significantly. I was no longer angry at humans and had come to terms with the loss of life I had caused. Perhaps if I had not stayed so distant from the village, I would have seen the warning signs and saved the wetland spirit. When I returned to the place where the village once stood, everything was gone except the bell- burnt, scarred, and moss covered from its time in the water. I realized that some part of my best friend's magic still resided in the bell though she was long dead and so I brought it back to our home in the delta. Over the years, my power and water began to wane as dams were built upstream, but I continued to watch over the couple in the cottage from a distance. I watched their son return with his wife and live there, and so on as generations passed. Every time it rains I continue to go there and divert water from flooding their lands. Several years ago, my water became a small trickle and I found myself dying out. Not ready to die, I knew that there had to be a way to survive if I looked hard enough. I had heard rumors that the master of the Eastern bathhouse had severed his essence from his human river completely and did not degrade into a Shadow, so I traveled here to ask him how. Water spirits have always been able to divide their essence and put it into multiple places, and as a delta spirit I knew I should be capable of doing it, but I was scared. I wanted to pull out completely, not scatter my soul between the worlds. If I could just yank up all of my essence to return back to the spirit world, I knew I could leave the human world completely and leave my delta to die peacefully."
"What do you mean your essence," Chihiro interrupted with a look of confusion. Yui's story had drawn her away from the bell and she sat at the edge of her cushion listening attentively.
"All spirits have an essence that makes up who they are. It isn't so much of a form as it is a personality, memories, and the energy of life itself. When spirits are born, we bind in some manner to the worlds and our essence is typically given completely over to that place or element. It is extremely difficult and painful to pull your essence out, let alone divide it, and of course you always run the risk of overwhelming yourself. That's why everyone says water spirits are the strongest fighters against the Tainted and also the greatest adversaries. When fighting for good, they can typically purge themselves of impurities as long as their essence isn't taken. When a water spirit falls to the Tainted…well let's just say it is extremely difficult to find someone's essence and destroy it."
"So what did you do then? What did Haku tell you?"
"Haku couldn't tell me what he had done to completely separate from the human world, but said if I were successful in the move that there was an old shrine nearby that needed a new caretaker. He did however ask Zeniba to help me with the process and we were only partially successful. I left only a tiny bit of myself behind, just enough to control the water surrounding the cottage from flooding. We stored the rest of my essence into the water in the well there and hung the bell overtop to mask its signature. If there is ever a true emergency, Haku knows to ring the bell and I will come running…as long as the town hasn't fallen to the Tainted and burnt to the ground," Yui joked dryly.
"You have to be one of the most amazing spirits I have ever met, Yui-san," Chihiro said in open admiration before reaching over to grab her folded hands, "I am honored that you shared your story with me." Wiping away a stray tear from her large brown eyes, Yui lifted her sad smile.
"Now that that's out of the way, let's get started on something much more important. Today I'm going to be teaching you how to enter into meditation. When you are conducting the ceremony you will be going into a form of meditation and I think you would benefit from the practice of centering your mind prior to we begin going over movements."