Spirited Away II: Return to the Spirit Realm

Chapter 24

All has been done, and not it was the war. In the midst of the chaotic days that preceded the war and now in the apprehension that will shortly follow, it was easy for the Lady, Zeniba, and even for Haku to let all thoughts of a certain brunette human go into the back of their minds. Their control and attention over her loosened and loosened as time passed by, and the spark of freedom that their slightly neglectful ways gave the girl turned out to be something that would hugely alter the outcome of the war.

And now let us consider Chihiro and see what secret role she was playing for a long time now.

Of course, for a very long time after the Lady told Chihiro that she wouldn't be the one to kill the Dark Spirit, a harvest of gratefulness followed. Never did every breath seem so sweet, and never before did the solid feel of her cool hands brought her such exhilaration. But that joy always shriveled whenever she saw a flick of desperation in the Lady's or Haku's eyes, and soon realization seeped through. "The absence of my sacrifice... will bring a much greater sacrifice," she had concluded mentally.

So she then decided to keenly inquire Haku and the Lady about how serious the situation was, but all she got in reply were sugarcoated words of stability. Chihiro could see the lie right through them, and the thought of them keeping secret from her infuriated her. A dozen or so of scientific volumes in the Lady's chamber soon became her outlet of research, and when Chihiro read pages after crisped pages, her wariness turned into shock and then into terror and dread.

She began to wonder if the Lady really made the wise choice when she said that Chihiro won't be the one to kill the Dark Spirit.

Then she realized that, even if the Lady didn't decide to reveal Chihiro's presence and act so mercifully, the chances that Chihiro would succeed in killing the Dark Spirit were very slim. The Dark Spirit was a monster with magical powers of a full-fledged sorcerer and more; who was to say that the Dark Spirit wouldn't killher before she killed it? Without qualified training of a warrior that she most assuredly didn't have, Chihiro would simply get herself killed, loose her youthful life, and not deter the spirit of darkness in anyway. "It would be like telling a lamb to go to a lions' den and kill all the lions there lest they ate her," was a simile the Lady once used to describe the situation. Chihiro have grimly nodded her agreement to her uselessness at the point.

So it was all going in the same channel until, one day, Yubaba came.

It was a quiet evening. The outside cleared of its usual furry of storms, and the sky overhead twinkled with the brilliance of billion of stars. A numbing coldness seeped through a couple of cracks in the window, so a rosy fire was lit to keep the room warm. Chihiro had no intention to idly sit by the fire, so she wrapped a scratchy woolen shawl around her shoulders, sat on the windowsill, and decided to brave whatever numbness that would creep into her fingers merely for the purpose of spotting something interesting in the vista. It was quite fortunate timing, because right then as Chihiro proceeded to keenly peruse the firmament, she spotted a dark object gliding deftly beneath the full moon.

Chihiro blinked her eyes thrice to clear away any bleariness and looked closely at the spot, but the object was still there. Upon closer inspection, she saw that the object was (of course) a bird - and a large bird at that, nearly the size of a human, with grayish blond hair piled up into a neat bun atop its abnormally large head.

A memory, like a song from a distant dream, came to Chihiro's mind. Trepidation scorched her veins. Against all common sense and rational thought, she remained seated at the windowsill where she was, out in the open and in plain sight, while she perused the curve of the bird's great black wings and the magnificent swoops of its flight. "Can it be you, Yubaba?" she wondered.