Disclaimer: I do not own either Labyrinth or Spirited Away. Iroko and Hokusen are of my creation though…

A/N: Welcome to my first ever Labyrinth/Spirited Away crossover fic. One of the hardest things about writing this fic was the decision about whether to put it in the Labyrinth or the Spirited Away section. I've woven the worlds together pretty tightly, and the two will share a lot of screentime. However, because the Labyrinth will figure highly in the story after the first initial chapters, I have decided to put it into the Labyrinth section. So, there aren't any Labyrinth characters in the prologue, but hopefully it's still enjoyable, and you'll continue on and read the rest. :D

If you have not seen Spirited Away and do not understand the beginning, you have two options. You can…

1. ... see Spirited Away. It's an awesome movie by Hayao Miyazaki with many elements similar to the Labyrinth.

2. … pretend the bathhouse is like confusing fae politics. There have already been a ton of fanfics like that, so hopefully this won't be that strange.

The bathhouse was ablaze in Yubaba's fury. At the gate, customers were being turned away by the dozens, and inside, workers kept bringing their mistress calming draughts up from the kitchens.

"I told you not to bring me any more of these useless things!" Yubaba yelled as she grabbed a flask from a nearby employee and flung it across the room. It shattered loudly against the expensive wallpaper. "Do you all want to be turned into pigs?"

The workers all swallowed nervously and looked at each other. Ever since Master Haku had regained his name and freedom, there was no one who could stand up to Yubaba in her rages. Perhaps Boh could, but if Boh was here, then Yubaba wouldn't have needed calming down.

"Oh, my poor baby! It's all that wretched Hokusen's fault. She'll regret the day she messed with me and my family. Meanwhile, let no one in. Everyone is to direct their full attention-"

"Yubaba-sama?"

All the workers stared at the speaker. It was a young apprentice cook, not even in his second year of working at the bathhouse. Was he insane? No one ever interrupted Yubaba. She would have his head for this. As Yubaba turned towards him, the cook paled. He forced himself to speak.

"It's just that you're playing into her hands by doing this," the cook said. Yubaba slowly walked over to him until her face was only centimeters from his. The cook gulped. "She wants you to close down the bathhouse until you get your son back. If your guests can't come here, then they'll go to her. She's trying to make you go out of business."

Yubaba looked him in the eyes for a very long time before moving away. She was still very tense, but the fire was slowly going out of her. Objects started putting themselves away as Yubaba straightened up the room with a wave of her hand. She sat down behind her desk, and turned towards the cook again.

"And if so, what would you have me do?"

The cook licked the bottom of his mouth nervously. "Open up the bathhouse. Continue making money. Find someone who can enter…" He trailed off and looked down at his webbed feet.

"Someone who can enter his kingdom in the West? That twisted labyrinth only open to its natives and… humans? And where do you suppose we find a human gullible enough to trick, yet intelligent enough to get my baby back?" Yubaba leaned forward over the desk, smiling coldly.

The cook was a nervous wreck by now. He wrung his hands, scuffed the carpet with his feet, and had a terrible stutter. Still he managed to say, "There is one. I've overheard servants talking about her. Eight years ago… a girl called… Sen?"

There was a collective gasp. All the other workers in the room were dismayed. Just when things had been looking up for the cook, he mentioned the forbidden name. Worse, he told Yubaba that he had heard it from them. They started to inch backwards for the door…

"Very well."

Everyone froze.

"W-what did you say?" the cook asked.

Yubaba ignored him. "That human is perfect for the job. Pity I erased her memories after she returned to the human realm. Still, they'll come back soon enough. All she needs is someone to go over and fetch her."

"Go over?" The cook's face turned from pale green to white.

"Of course," Yubaba said. "With her memories gone, she won't come back here by herself. And who better to bring her over than the person who remembered her?"

"Go over?" he repeated in a high voice.

"You heard me. You're dismissed and have my permission to leave the bathhouse to find Sen. Now all of you get out, and don't return until you have my baby back. And tell the gateworkers to let the customers back in. At the very least that Hokusen won't have them."

The cook didn't seem to be registering anything, so a couple of the other workers helped carry him back down to the kitchens. In them the noise was deafening and there was barely an inch to stand, but even that didn't shake the young cook from his trance.

"Hey! I just heard they started letting the customers back in! What happened up there? And what's wrong with Iroko? You frogs have always been a bit peakish, but he looks terrible!"

Of the other cooks swiped at the serving girl with his ladle. "Back off Lin. He has enough to deal with without you. Yubaba's just ordered him to get back Sen, from the human realm."

"The human realm?! But without a shrine to tie him there he'll die!"

"You think Iroko doesn't know that? Now run off. We never liked your type in the kitchens," the cook said. He pushed passed Lin and ladled some soup from a large kettle into a small bowl. He shoved it in Iroko's face. "Here. Drink." He turned back to Lin. "Why are you still here?"

"I need lunch for the soot sprites. Everyone forgot them in this madness," she said, shrugging. "And Kamaji's spell only does so much."

The cook scowled but yelled for some soot sprite candies. "If he can make the soot work for him, why doesn't he bewitch the coal?" Another cook passed the basket of candies to him, and he turned it over to Lin. She held on to it with her arm outstretched. The cook stared at her. "What?"

"You frogs really are heartless," she said. Lin brought her arm down and left the kitchen.

Iroko started coughing in the corner. A couple cooks hovered around him, offering soups that increased stamina and brought green back to a face. Iroko shook his head and pushed the bowls away.

"I'm fine now," he said. "Besides, there's no use in wasting good soup on the soon dead."

Iroko left that very afternoon. Yubaba would only force him to go if he waited. The mouth of the tunnel to the human world gaped ominously in front of him. Perhaps it would be easier if he closed his eyes. He took a step forward…

A sharp tingling shot up his leg. Iroko croaked in terror and broke into a run. Each step tingled and shocked more than the last, but he knew if he stopped, he wouldn't find the courage to go on again. At last he burst back into the light… and into a small forest in the human realm.

The stink was incredible, (Iroko had to cover his nose for a few seconds until he had adjusted to the smell better), but it just so happened that the stink was going to be what helped him. Unlike human smells, spirit smells never completely wore off. As long as he could smell a bit of spirit within the human stink, Iroko knew he was close to finding the girl.

There!

He followed the smell out of the forest and up a large hill. There were humans nearby, but he was invisible, and humans never actually looked anyway. Sen wouldn't be able to see either, but hopefully she would be able to sense him.

The smell led him through the walls of a blue house and into what was almost a perfectly normal Japanese bedroom. The only difference between it and the billions of other bedrooms in the human realm was that it was steeped in spirit smells. Iroko highly doubted that the smell on Sen would be this strong after all the years, so he figured that she must have spent a lot of time in this room, from the day she returned from the spirit realm up until…

Iroko frowned and sniffed the air. Sen had surely spent a lot of time here, but there wasn't anything that smelled newer than a month old. Could she have moved? He leaned over a nearby book and sniffed it. No… the items in the room were still hers. So where could she be?

He used some of his energy to partially materialize himself. There had to be something. He flipped through her drawers, her desk, even her trash, for clues. Iroko did not just give up over one hundred years of his life for nothing. Finally he found a small calendar on the wall. He didn't understand most of it, but the last note caught his attention.

Scribbled in about a month ago was a small memo that said, "9PM flight. Losanzelusu."

A/N, Part 2: Hi again. Just a few things before you head out of the prologue and into the main chapter.

1. Haku will probably not be making an appearance in this fic. If he does, it will be a minor role. It's one of the reasons I put this into the Labyrinth section.

2. Sarah will be making her appearance in the next chapter. So will some other members of the Labyrinth.

3. A few things on the Japanese terms and names I used. Boh is Yubaba's baby. I'm not sure whether that was said in the English version. Hokusen is written with the characters for 'north' and 'spring.' Perhaps that will tell you why she's a rival with Yubaba if you haven't figured out already. Iroko is a name I threw together with the characters for 'color' and 'child.' It doesn't have much significance really… Losanzelusu is the Japanese phonetic equivalent of an English place.

4. Miyazaki has stated that Chihiro has forgotten everything that happened to her in the Spirit World. I'm writing this story in that vein.

5. Read and review? :D