SPIRITED AWAY: CHIHIRO RETURNS

Fateful Reunion: Part 1

Haku who was still within his other half was still trying to maintain his river, taking note of every defect within him that needed to be fixed or returned to normal. A lot has happened during the time he was blocked off from his home, the marine life population within his waters declined drastically and was still going to take some time to repopulate. Within these last 3 years, he was able to restore half of its population and he hopes it will only take another 3 to fully restore.

Being the Nigihayami Kohaku Nushi he is able to sense everything that goes on in his waters, he see's and controls all. He sees every crook and cranny, can control its currents and can also communicate with any other spirits and animals that his river inhabits.

As he starts to finish up, now at full strength by restoring his spiritual energy, he separates himself from his other half automatically flying out of the water and taking to the sky in his dragon form. Having spent almost an entire day at his river his yearning to see Chihiro was stronger than ever.

"Chihiro I'm coming!" he says to himself.

He knows she is human but for some reason, he can't help but feel an immense attachment to her, and he just can't figure out why. He could tell that his river knew something he didn't but refused to tell him, it just tells him that if it just gave him the answer it would be meaningless and was confident he could figure it out on his own. Which is pretty funny considering this meant he was actually hiding something from himself, Haku sighs wondering what could possibly be keeping himself from finding out the truth.

'I wonder how she has been... it has been so long, I wonder if she even remembers me...' he thought to himself feeling his heart tighten at the idea, they have quite the history together and knowing that she could possibly look at him and only seeing a stranger terrifies him. The first time he met her was when she was very young and then the second time was 7 years ago when she came here by accident meeting that time was a pure coincidence which he was so thankful for. However, everyone knows that once a human goes back to their world the Guardians of the Rift would put an amnesia spell on her. The Guardians of the Rift were responsible for the rift between the two worlds, it was their job to maintain and defend the spirit world and to make sure that humans do not discover or stumble into the spirit world. It is the law that any spirit must report any human activity within the spirit world, Chihiro only got lucky last time because she wasn't planning on staying so Yubaba didn't turn her in, in fact, he was surprised that no-one did.

'I wish I had never let go of that little hand, she is the first true friend I have made and has changed my view on humans greatly' Haku thinks to himself however even though he feels this was he also knew it was for the best, there was a good reason that humans can not stay in the spirit world not only would it unbalance both worlds but the human body itself cannot cope with being in the spirit world for too long...eventually they will get sick and die, disappearing wasn't the only thing Chihiro was in danger of back then. Lost within the contents of his mind as he soars in the direction of the bathhouse, there wasn't much else he could do anyway.

~1 hour later~

Haku huffed a big sigh of relief when the bathhouse finally came into view, he was finally going to see her after all these years... however he knew he will have to send her back, the spirit world was no place for a human everyone in this world knows this. Haku's heartthrobs in sadness wishing it wasn't true but he had to do the right thing by her, Chihiro had to go.

Approaching the bathhouse Haku carefully lands just before the bridge and turns into his human form but as he crossed the bridge his dragons keen sense of smell made him want to lean over the bridge and throw his guts up. After calming down and holding his nose in his hand he suddenly heard a familiar voice call out to him from above, it was Lin.