Spirited Away 2: Return to The Spirit World

It Begins

According to Zeniba, a train stopped at each train station every two hours. And so, after getting ready for what could be a very long journey, Chihiro was standing by the train stop with Zeniba, No-Face, and Yu-bird. Chihiro would be lying if she said she wasn't nervous. She had no idea where she would be going or what she would be doing. All she had was the golden seal to guide her.

After waiting about 40 minutes, the train pulled up. Chihiro handed the shadow spirit the tickets, but was unable to give he destination since the golden seal would be telling her where to go.

"I'm being guided by this seal." She said, pointing t the floating magical object. "It tells me where to go."

The shadow spirit eyed her strangely before shrugging and moving aside to let her on. She was surprised when No-Face got on with her.

"You're coming too?"

No-Face nodded. "Ah."

Yu-bird screeched and landed on Chihiro's shoulder. "You want to come too?"

Yu-bird nodded.

"Chihiro," Zeniba spoke up, "remember your reading. 'You will forgive those that have hurt you, but you can not turn to them for help during your journey.' Yu-bird wasn't meant to go with you."

Chihiro looked at her friend. Yu-bird hung her head, looking sad. The shadow spirit was getting impatient. He cleared his throat and pointed to his watch. Chihiro looked at Yu-bird again and a determine look came over her face.

"Forget the stupid reading." She growled. "I'm tired of everyone trying to get me to do what they want. Of course you can come, Yu-bird."

Yu-bird smiled and flapped her wings happily.

Zeniba waved goodbye to the three of them as the train started moving. "See you soon, dear."

"Bye, Granny. And thank you." Chihiro called back.

No-Face gently tugged on Chihiro's sleeve and pointed to some empty seats. "Ah, ah."

Chihiro nodded and they headed over to the seats, though Yu-bird was perfectly happy staying on Chihiro's shoulder. However, when they got to the seats, the spirit sitting next to them wasn't too friendly.

"Go away, human. I don't like your kind."

Chihiro frowned. "But there's nowhere else to sit, at least not together."

The spirit folded his arms. "Too bad. You shouldn't be here anyway."

No-Face stepped up to the spirit and growled at him, exposing his large mouth that could swallow the spirit in one gulp. The spirit slid back in his seat and didn't say anything else. No-Face turned to Chihiro and motioned for her to sit.

"Uh, thanks, No-Face." Chihiro said, taking the seat furthest away from the grumpy spirit.

They sat quietly for a few minutes. The grumpy spirit didn't say anything else. But, but he did occasionally give Chihiro looks of dislike and No-Face looks of fear.

"Don't worry about it. Some spirits are just like that."

Chihiro looked around for the source of the voice. She recognized it, but it couldn't be her.

"Right here, dear."

Next to Chihiro was a paper cutout of some sort of bird. Chihiro recognized it as one of the paper bird things that had attacked Haku 12 years ago.

"Granny?"

The paper 'bird' snickered. "You didn't think I would let you go without a way to keep an eye on you, did you?"