Chapter Text
After Chihiro’s thirteenth birthday passed, he began to wonder about his sorcery technique. He never really tried to gather spirit energy in his body thing yet, mostly because his dad always said their technique was their skill in the forge. Which, while maybe true, Chihiro always wondered if it went farther than that. He never really had time to wonder about this as his dad was so useless out of the forge Chihiro had to do everything.
It was one of those nights cleaning up after his father he began to try out the energy gathering strategy he overheard Shiba talking about. He took a deep breath and focused on his body and its energy or whatever Shiba said. After a few moments of not feeling anything he quickly gave up and went back to finish sweeping.
After a few sleepless nights of trying to continue to gather spirit energy, Chihiro noticed he could work for a little longer and harder in the forge without feeling so tired as before. He partly attributed this to just working in the forge almost everyday, and maybe his energy gathering was working. His dad also noticed this development.
“You’re getting stronger, kiddo! Maybe one day you’ll beat me. I doubt that though.” His dad said, laughing and following him into the house after a few hours in the forge.
“I’m just getting more used to it.” Chihiro replied, taking off his forge shoes at the door and glaring at his dad till he followed in doing so.
“That’s the trick to it. You just get more used to it. Haa, you’re just like your old man.” His dad breathed out and pretended to tear up with a hand on his face.
“...” This Chihiro didn’t respond to and just went into the kitchen to make their dinner. After a moment he heard his dad begin his common one sided conversation with their fish.
His dad seemed to babble nonsense to the innocent fishes all the way until Chihiro brought their dinner to the table.
“Oohh, thank you Chihiro!” His dad said joyfully before beginning to dig into his meal.
Chihiro didn’t reply and just made a face at his dad before beginning to eat. He felt a small urge at this moment to mention his attempts at energy building, but what would his dad say? A joke? He almost certainly had no advice for him. Chihiro didn’t look down on his dad, he was technically a hero, but he knew his limits.
Chihiro just took a deep breath and looked at his father acting like a fool the whole meal.
This routine continued for around 6 months before Chihiro felt any real change. He felt like pulses behind his eyes, but they never showed anything beyond an incoming headache.
His first thought was that he somehow messed up his energy gathering and would never amount to anything, but that quickly proved to be wrong.
Chihiro had slowly been getting worse sleep as the months went by, and now it was as if he never slept even if he was in bed for 8 hours. He never let his father see, but he was exhausted.
After a particularly exhausting session in the forge, he made dinner and flopped on his bed expecting the usual no sleep.
Chihiro was proven wrong as he almost immediately fell into his deepest sleep in a while, but this also proved cursed too. He saw flashes of things he couldn’t understand, his house burnt, the fish dead, the sword cases across the yard. And his dad’s dead body in the yard. Chihiro stared at that flash for a while. He had no idea what he was looking at but he was scared. What on earth does this mean? Was this formed from his sleep deprived mind or was this something else? Why was he seeing this now? When was this going to happen?
Chihiro felt the questions bubble up in his head but as he tried to look in that flash to attempt to find answers it slipped out of his hands and mind and he awoke with a start.
He had somehow ended up under his covers despite not crawling under them before sleeping, and he was sweating and panting.
Chihiro backed up into his wall and brought his hands to his face. He felt too cold and too hot at the same time. He felt so scared, he realized with a shiver. Chihiro never really felt scared before. Not like this. His life was relatively comfortable, and his dad was incredibly kind, so this was a new, terrible feeling.
Chihiro’s breaths felt ragged and he ground his palms into his eyes until he saw stars and the pain brought him back to his body. It was just a dream. His dad was alive, the house was fine, and they would be fine.
Chihiro didn’t feel convinced even after repeating that mantra a thousand times over. He slowly rose out of his bed, still shaking a little bit and slowly left his room. He made a careful effort to be as quiet as possible, which wasn’t hard after all his energy gathering, and walked to his dad’s room and slid the door open. After slowly shuffling to his bed side, Chihiro stared down at his dad’s sleeping figure for a few minutes before he fully calmed down. His dad’s drooling, snoring, and tossing and turning confirmed he was alive and Chihiro felt well enough to head back before his dad woke up.
Despite being the heaviest sleeper Chihiro ever knew, not that there was much competition, his dad always seemed to snap awake at Chihiro doing anything that might cause harm. Chihiro really did not want to explain to his dad why he was in his room in the middle of the night, and quietly but quickly shuffled to the door.
As he slowly tiptoed out of it he heard a little grunt and a mumble from his dad. A tell tale sign he was waking up. Chihiro quickly shut the door and ran back to his room and locked his door before sliding back to his bed and quickly pretending to be asleep. His dad was really persistent when he was worried about Chihiro and he really did not want to explain himself.
As Chihiro’s worst nightmares came true, a soft knock was heard at his door and his dad’s soft voice.
“Chihiro? Are you okay?” He heard his dad ask, and Chihiro gritted his teeth to not react. He suddenly felt the urge to run out there and hug his dad and never let go, but then his dad would tease him and that would be humiliating. Best to pretend he was asleep.
After a few moments his dad seemed to give up, and Chihiro actually settled back into sleep. This time he saw no more visions.
The visions didn’t come back for many weeks, and Chihiro was really hoping to just write it off as a tired nightmare. But of course, no peace could be found for him.
It was in the middle of dinner, a very ordinary night, with Chihiro hearing his dad rattle off what he talked to the fish about.
“-and they seem to be getting closer to responding, I suspect they’ll be talking by the end of the month!” His dad said, beaming with joy.
“You said that last month, and the month before that.” Chihiro responded, smiling the faintest smile at his dad’s face at his comment.
“I really mean it this time!! You come talk to them with me after dinner Chihiro you’ll see…” He said, grinning and Chihiro felt happy.
He loved his dad, and he loved his life. It was maybe a bit cheesy to admit but he truly was happy with how his life was.
So of course lightning had to strike him again.
Chihiro felt a shiver run up his spine and felt his vision and focus go blurry around the edges as the scene in front of him changed. He lost all his warmth and dropped the chopstick that was in his hand to roll around on the floor.
It was almost the same as last time. Almost. It had felt fake last time he saw this, now it was so real. Painfully real as he looked around and felt he could almost feel the fire licking at his home. It was so warm and Chihiro felt like he was burning to death but as he looked around he saw something different, his fathers slashed up body laying across the floor. It looked so close and he could almost hear the air leaving his body from where he was sitting.
“Chihiro?”
Chihiro hated himself for not being able to stand up and he wanted so desperately to move closer to his dying father and at least check if he was real. But of course, he was a failure, and of course, he had to watch this.
“Chihiro? Are you in there?”
Chihiro saw something moving in his peripherals and noticed a staggering figure that looked like him get closer to his father. As the figure looked up, Chihiro saw his face staring back at him in pure despair. So it was confirmed. This was a peak at a terrible future.
“Chihiro? What’s going on?”
He was being shown this to prevent this. Chihiro needed to save his father from an unknown, future threat.
As soon as he thought that, the vision fell away from his vision and he saw his very alive, very worried dad staring at him.
“Chihiro, are you back yet?” His dad asked, reaching up to grab Chihiro’s shoulder when he noticed Chihiro’s vision come back into focus. Chihiro flinched away from his touch before leaning into it fully. As Chihiro closed his eyes before he curled up into his father, he saw him look almost shocked and scared at Chihiro’s flinch.
As soon as Chihiro’s head found his dad’s chest he began to cry. He began to cry in a way he hasn’t since he was very little. His dad tried to ask him questions and talk to him, but Chihiro just heard a loud ringing in his ears and could only attempt to answer with gasps and sobs and he scrambled to grab onto something, anything.
His dad then lifted Chihiro up and over to the couch before laying the boy across his chest and he grabbed a blanket to wrap them both into as he waited for Chihiro to calm down. He rubbed circles into his back and held him until his sobs got quieter and eventually stopped.
“Chihiro? Are you okay now?” He asked very calmly despite the panic in him at his son's sudden panic.
Chihiro couldn’t bring himself to respond and just nodded into his chest.
“Do you know what happened?” He asked, moving his hand to Chihiro’s head to make him look up.
Chihiro didn’t respond and instead looked into his fathers face, as if trying to remember every detail of what he looked like alive. His dad just saw his very puffy and tear stained face and allowed him to burrow himself back into him and fall asleep.
They both fell asleep there on the couch.