Bounce: Fanfic Reception Test

Author’s Note - Important: I’m gonna need to clear a few things up before you read this. Firstly, Bounce is not the title of this story. I’ve dubbed it this because I want to bounce something off you guys: I want to see if what I’ve written works okay so far. Secondly, before you read said piece, I need you to read the first chapter of this first: www.fanfiction.net/s/2876641/1…

This is No Way Out, a Spirited Away fan fiction which I agreed to adopt a little while ago that I was due to release last month, but legal issues over my nana’s inheritance popped up and I was up out of town for five weeks of ongoing court case crap. I’m back now, but I’ll be scarce, cos my bookkeeping and computerised accounts course starts up tomorrow and I’ll be nonexistent from seven til five every weekday. Still, I find it easier to write if you’re on a schedule, funnily enough. In any case, this is what I’ve got on chapter one so far - as you can see, it’s a little more long-winded than the original story, but that’s how I write. I was wondering what others might think of Yubaba’s characterisation, and the details I’ve written about Haku’s back story and why he is the way he is. Keep in mind, Yubaba’s feeling a tad grumpy here - she’s had a stressful day - and Haku’s name is deliberately omitted. It won’t be used until he makes his entrance. Just for narrative effect.

Much thanks, people,

Rachel.


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No Way Out: Interpretation

By Reiycheru

Original Concept and Story by Arktos. Taken with permission.

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Chapter One: Black and White

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In retrospect, she realised that she should have paid attention to the signs.

They were there, alright. All the hallmarks of those trite little coming-of-age stories; the formulaic triumph-through-adversity kind of yarn. Some silly little scrap of a mortal forced to endure through foul magic’s and general unpleasantry, faced with seemingly insurmountable odds . . . Yes, she really should have paid far more attention . . . This was, after all, the sphere in which so many of those old legends found their roots.

Yubaba reached for her graven onyx seal and stamped the ledger in front of her with perhaps a little more force than might have strictly been necessary.

She was not in the best of moods.

Accursed scrawny little upstart . . .

It was unheard of. Laughable. A witch of her calibre, proprietress of a bathhouse patronized by over ten thousand gods, infamous for her calculating wit and shrewd, razor-sharp business-sense . . . outmanoeuvred by one puny human brat?

Mortifying . . .

Fair enough, the losses, on her part, were minimal. One labourer and a couple of pigs, nothing too substantial - a single working night in the bathhouse regularly generated several times that loss - but it was the principal of the thing. And not to forget the trauma of losing her only son, of course. She’d been positively beside herself with worry. That Zeniba was not to be trusted; if anyone should know that it would be her. Tricky as a fox, the old hag. Well, they had to take after each other in some respects . . . And her poor little darling had been acting awfully strange since he’d gotten back from that horrid old swamp . . . Why, he didn’t even want to play with his toys!

Frowning thunderously, the witch laid her quill aside mid-character and summoned her favoured ivory cigarette holder with a flick of one scarlet-coated fingernail. Carved out of the tusk of a Baku, it had cost her a pretty penny, but she’d been feeling indulgent that day. A woman deserved to treat herself from time to time, right? It couldn’t always be nose-to-the-grindstone . . . A bow-legged case perched on the far right of her desk pushed itself to its feet and obligingly marched forth, but she paused in the act of reaching to flip the elaborately scrolled lid.

Moments later, the cigarette holder vanished with a poof and one impatient flourish of a gnarled hand. Confused, the caddy paused on its squat gilded legs as she beckoned to a tall armoire standing against the adjacent wall and the glass-fronted doors swung outward, revealing a glimmering menagerie of china patterns, spindly ornaments and gilded figurines. A brief series of curt gestures and a larger shape divided itself from the rest of this garish mass, an elegant rosewood case with a high gloss and a filigreed golden clasp that soared across the room and presented itself smartly before the witch.

She waved it open to reveal a generous arrangement of finely wrapped cigars, lined up neatly on a bed of green velvet. Yubaba cast a critical eye over the selection before nodding at one on the far left, which detached itself from its fellows with dignified aplomb. While the thing went about unwrapping itself, the cigar case closed with a snap and dipped in mid-air, the inanimate object’s equivalent of a bow, before zooming off towards the armoire. Impotent and forgotten, the cigarette caddy plodded back to its place, and the cigar obligingly placed itself in the witch’s waiting fingers. Flicking a spark into kindling on the point of one claw, she lit up and abandoned the pursuit of her documentary distraction, and settled back to wait instead.

It wouldn’t be too long, now . . .

Drawing deep, Yubaba exhaled a cloud of lavender-coloured smoke and chuckled lightly.

Foolish boy . . .

He tried so hard to be impassive, inscrutable . . . But he’d given himself away the very moment he strode into her kitchen, bold as brass and without a scratch on him, to boot. He’d been as good as dead when last she saw him, bleeding a mess all over her parlour floor. Zeniba’s curse should have killed him, and yet there he was, standing in front of her hale and hearty, and sassing her like the insolent brat he had finally proven himself to be.

Oh, she’d known he’d had it in him, alright. It had been part of his charm. Yubaba enjoyed a good challenge every now and then; it kept her on her toes, and the gods knew she needed to be, running an establishment the likes of her own. The past three days had proven that much, surely. And she had to admit, it had been careless of her to let her guard down so. Especially with one such as him . . .

When a lost river spirit had shown up on her doorstep, offering himself into her tuition, he had claimed no ulterior motive, but she hadn’t bought it for a second. There was darkness in him; an imbalance, bourn of the violent severing of his ties to his proper element; an empty void, a chasm that his soul sought to fill somehow . . . Yubaba had seen it many times before. And it quickly became apparent that magic was the answer he believed he was looking for, his “drug of choice” in a manner of speaking. It was not uncommon. The powerful ones - and she knew the boy had been strong; to have survived the death of his physical part in any way intact he had to have been - it was the powerful ones that tended to gravitate towards magic in the aftermath of that kind of fatal ordeal, a sort of subconscious effort to rebuild themselves, to reach the former heights of their strength. Lesser spirits tended to drift, aimlessly, shadows of their former selves, or to latch on to other creatures, clinging to them as they did to their wretched existence.

There had been none of that with him. Flagging as he‘d been when he arrived, he was no wraith, and had retained a very definite sense of self after his “death.” In bearing he maintained a cool reserve, without any real standoffishness though, and was as respectful and deferent to her as was properly expected. He was clever, hardworking, and a tad prideful, whether he was aware of it or not. It was difficult to scare him, more so to cow him, but not, she learned, to catch him unawares, and she had leaned heavily on that element of surprise to keep him in check before implanting him with a control curse. It had been amusing to watch him for a while, but having observed his strengths and weaknesses, she had quickly realised that he could in fact prove himself quite the commodity.

Her speculation had proved itself as truth when he returned from his first appointed “errand” winded but uninjured, and wordlessly dropped a trident made of jade, black pearl, and solid white-gold in front of her. She could not have hidden the satisfaction that etched itself across her visage in that moment. And so thus had their system been established: she would continue his training through means of preparing him for his next forthcoming expedition, and he in turn would earn his proper keep in the bathhouse by performing those missions for her. In addition to his apprenticeship duties he was appointed her assistant in chief, placing him an entire rank above even the foreman, which - in theory - declared him her second in command.

Hmph . . . And this is the thanks I get . . .

There was no telling what might have become of the boy had she not been so gracious as to have taken him in. But in all honestly, she had needed very little persuasion to accept him into her services. Apart from his evident potential and his impressively single-minded determination to assume the vacant position as her protégé, he had sparked her interest, and it was this, more than anything, that had been the true deciding factor in the matter. In her opinion - not so humble but perfectly valid all the same - that boy had been the most intriguing specimen to set foot in her office in over three decades. She’d recognised him for what he was on-sight; after all, did she not cater to his fellow kin on a daily basis? The irony of the matter did not evade her either; to her recollection, it had always been she who served the gods, not the other way around.

But he had not appeared to care about this small fact. And once he signed his name over, he had soon forgotten he had ever been a god or anything of the sort. Eventually most all that seemed to remain was his continued hunger for the magical learning she provided, and after that, it had been appallingly easy to implant him with a slug to contain him. She could not be assured of his loyalty, but she could be assured of his obedience, which was the important thing. The matter was settled.

Or so she had thought . . .

There hadn’t been a peep out of him for years after that. Initially, when she’d first taken him on, he’d been prone to that rogue element in him. From time to time he would wander away during the daylight hours, stealing moments of solitude while the rest of the staff slept, neither thinking or caring that she was fully aware of these little sojourns of his. He “secretly” practiced his magic outside of the hours she’d allocated him, and it wasn’t always sorcery she remembered teaching him, or even recognised. He was subject, at times, to what she had come to term a curious “soft streak” in him as well . . . It was he who made sure the youngest workers were treated fairly, who sharply nipped the egos and the tempers of the senior staff members in the bud, who ran a tight but honest shift yet otherwise discouraged personal interaction with his co-workers and subordinates alike. The only friendly interaction he openly sought was with the elderly creature who manned the furnaces, and he was known, on occasion, to relieve whichever servant delivered the daily meals to the boiler room so he could take it down himself.

The more outlandish of these quirks seemed to subside over time with the planting of that handy little slug. His trips to the boiler room became less and less frequent, he’d become a little colder towards the rest of the staff . . . It had been somewhat a relief watching the spell manifest itself, knowing that she had one less thing to worry about, but he’d ceased to become so interesting after that. He had his moments, usually those instances in the direct aftermath of the expeditions she appointed him, when he returned grave-faced and unkempt and bloodied on the odd occasion. Something about him seemed more awake in those moments, but it faded once he’d cleaned himself up and returned to his in-house post. In time he’d become more of a tool than anything else, though she hadn’t quite realised it until now.

And then to think, all it took to snap him out of it was one skinny little runt of a mortal.

He’d had her nicely fooled alright, though, hadn’t he? The circumstances surrounding the arrival of the girl had been suspicious enough, but he had been just one figure on the list of accusatory candidates she could think of. Yet there’d been nothing suspicious about his manner when she piled the creature off on him, and he’d quite unceremoniously piled her off on some other unfortunate as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Thus she’d felt it unnecessary to alter her plans for the day and took her leave of the bathhouse at first light. When she returned, the staff were just rousing and he had already departed for Swamp Bottom, and any qualms she may have had about what might have happened in her absence were quickly swept aside in the light of one rather eventful evening . . . When next she saw him, he was sprawled and dying on the floor of her study, and the golden seal she’d deployed him to retrieve was nowhere in sight. Disappointing, but more of a bother than anything else. She’d known this one was going to be risky; knowing Zeniba, she was surprised that the boy had come back in one piece, if at all. But he was of no use to her in this state, clearly. With far more pressing concerns to attend to, she ordered the Kashira to dispose of him, and swept off to check in on her little sweetlet before dealing with the monstrosity downstairs.

So it had been quite the surprise when, just a few hours later, he marched into her kitchen and all but demanded she spare the girl and her family. She had to commend him, really; not since that first night had there been any reason to suspect him of being involved with the human’s appearance. But, having been given the time to mull things over while he travelled once more to Zeniba’s swamp, matters had come into a slightly clearer perspective. One thing, more than anything else, was evident: her control curse had been purged somehow, and she knew exactly who was responsible for that. Interfering wretch. What was she supposed to think? That some child had freed him of her spell? Indeed! If Zeniba thought she was fooling anyone, she had best think again. And it was exactly the sort of thing she’d do, the spiteful old biddy. If she herself had known what that creature was from the very moment she laid eyes on him, then Zeniba would have been quick to spot it herself no doubt, not to mention the curse he carried unawares.

And it would have amused that spiteful old crone to no end, sticking her nose where it didn’t belong. Zeniba was a discerning creature unfortunately, as well as nosey, but discerning in a different kind of context. Whereas Yubaba made use of her steel-trap logic and business-like acumen, Zeniba was prone to a more practical attitude towards life in general, and an appalling lack of ambition. She was perfectly happy to wile away the rest of her days in that dismal little swamp, cooking up potions for warts and ingrown toenails like some silly old hedge witch. But as perfectly harmless as she appeared, she was nothing of the sort. As much as she might enjoy carrying on like some genial old granny, there was enough power in that decrepit little frame to rival the strength of ten sorcerers.

The manoeuvres she had taught the boy would have seemed like silly little magic tricks in comparison. But she had not been training him to confront the witch, she had been training him to blindside her. He’d been staking out the area months in advance, remaining as inconspicuous as possible; she knew that he would never go completely undetected. But Zeniba had made no move against the boy, had barely even acknowledged his presence. For a while, Yubaba had even dared to consider that she unaware who it was that was pulling the boy’s strings, but there had been no way to prove the theory without risking months of stealth work. And besides, she was growing impatient. That seal would be hers; she had been waiting far too long as it was. The night the humans crossed her border, she gave him the go-ahead, somewhat spurred into action by the evening’s events. It had been quite a while since she’d tasted such quailing fear as evinced by the mortal whelp . . . She was feeling confident.

Yubaba scowled.

Another mistake, apparently. The first had been giving in to the child, in letting her sign a contract . . . Or perhaps the greatest mistake had been in hiring the dragon in the first place . . .

No . . . No, he had, after all, proven himself very useful indeed before this unforeseen turn of events. A pity, really, that she’d promised to tear him to ribbons after all this nonsense. Perhaps she could just flog him half to death, then demote him . . .

Yubaba pursed her lips for a moment, and then shook her head, heaving another great billow of smoke over her desk-top. It resembled nothing less than the herbal steam the baths downstairs produced as it drifted, mist-like, in the recessed light. The night outside was young yet; clear and moonlit and a bit too picturesque to suit her mood. The skies had finished emptying themselves, it seemed; the temporary seascape had already receded by the time the humans had crossed back into the mortal realm that morning. The merriment would have carried on for hours had she not put her foot down and threatened to roast her entire workforce like newts if they didn’t get back inside. Idiots, the lot of them.

She’d seen neither hide nor hair of the boy since he’d appointed himself the child’s escort to the borderline. He hadn’t tried to follow her or anything, she knew that much; after all, he still had a contract to adhere to. No, he’d just been lying low somewhere, trying to delay the inevitable. Probably saying his last goodbyes to the boiler man, or whoever else he’d gotten involved with the brat’s misadventures. It had been a surprise to see the staff rooting for the girl in the end, that was for sure. Ingrates . . .


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Author’s Note: Right. I think that’s where I’ll leave off for now, and you can let me know what you think. Remember, you’ll need to have read the first chapter of Arktos’s original No Way Out to have an idea of what’s going on here. And just for the record, Haku is not a brat, and Zeniba is not evil. I’m just writing through Yubaba here, this is her POV. Haku’s ruffled her feathers a bit, and Zeniba . . . well, I doubt there’s much love lost there. I’m sure Zeniba can be wily, but I don’t think she’s a hag.  On the same note, it was indeed Chihiro who broke Haku’s curse, but I find it hard to imagine Yubaba willing to give her enough credit for that. I think she’d prefer denial. ^_^ Hehe.

And if you’re wondering what a Baku is, check out the Obakemono Project. It’s a creature from Japanese folklore, and yes, it’s got tusks. Just to clear that up.

In any case, this will remain here til I post the completed chapter at ff dot net. Then it will be taken down.

Thanks again, you guys.