I'm not good with fight scenes. And that is all I shall say.

No, wait, no it's not.

There is a lot of switching in Points of Views in this chapter. The changing of points of view between San and Wolf Boy will be shown by this symbol: -(o)-

Also, this scene isn't THAT different from the movie until the end… you'll have to read it to see what I mean. Originally there were two other versions besides this one, and I was going to have my editor decide which one she liked best, but those other two wouldn't cooperate AT ALL. So I just did this but switched the ending - and some minor things that aren't important to the plotline whatsoever.

Lastly, I worked really hard on this chapter, because I wanted to publish it on the 29th, which is not only my birthday, but also the one year anniversary of the day I uploaded this story last year. So… happy birthday to both it and me! And whomever else is reading this with a birthday that is coming up or has past!

There, that's all I'll say.

Disclaimer: I do not own Princess Mononoke or any characters thereof. Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki are the proud owners of the fantastic film, while I am just a High School student and am writing this for my own amusement and because I'm shocked that no one else had come up with the idea before me. I only own any possible changes I make to the plot of this movie, the dialogue of this movie, and/or any other things that I can't think of right now.

The Wolf Boy Attacks

They charged towards the human fortress, running around and over trees that had fallen and trees that had not. The Wolf Boy could hear the sound of metal hitting metal - Iron Town's alarm. The humans knew he was coming.

His fur coat streaming behind him, the Wolf Boy raised his spear over his head, almost taunting the riflemen as they aimed their guns at him and his brothers and missed. It was his way of telling them, You missed us! We're still alive, filthy humans! But it also was his way of giving them the message that the Wolf Clan had not given up. They were not going to lie down and let them cut down their forest. They were going to fight, and they were willing to die if it meant the forest would be saved.

"The wolves are coming! It's the Wolf Prince!" He could hear them yelling, sounding terrified but doing a terrible job of hiding it, and he smirked behind his mask. Humans were such cowards -

With the exception of That Woman. She never showed fear. She had escaped his Mother's fangs by an inch, and according to Mother, had not even flinched. His Mother had said this rather reluctantly, of course, and had only told him at his constant prodding for every detail. Could she blame him? He wanted to know everything he could about the forest's enemy. If he knew more, then it would be easier to find her weakness.

His brothers turned off of the barren strip of land surrounding the iron fortress, leading down the hill, across the stream at the bottom of the hill, and up again. While his other brother broke away and ran away - because he wasn't important to the attack at the moment - the brother he was riding kept going, running up the hill that Iron Town rested on, straight towards the wooden spikes the humans had set up at the base of their walls to keep intruders from climbing up over.

Clearly they had never expected someone as ambitious as the Wolf Boy.

His brother ran up, turned sideways at the last moment and slammed into the spikes. The Wolf Boy, who had stood up once they had started going up the hill, sprang upwards off his brothers back and easily scaled half the wall. The flats of his feet slammed against the wall, and he stabbed the tip of his obsidian-headed spear into the wood. Instantly, he scrambled onto it, and used it to launch himself upwards to the top of the wall, all the while pulling his dagger out. The moment he landed between two of the wooden posts that formed the wall, he lunged forward towards the rifleman - who didn't even have time to raise his rifle in defence, much less fire it - and sliced the wooden part of the gun in half. As soon as the gun had been destroyed, the Wolf Boy used his free hand to shove the rifleman off of the wall walk.

The moment the rifleman fell, the Wolf Boy jumped off of the wall walk himself, landing on the roof of a nearby house. A gun fired at him as he jumped, missing him by inches, and as soon as he landed on the roof he ran, moving as fast as he could - which was almost unnaturally fast. As he neared the end of the roof, a bullet hit the roof just a second after he had leapt to the next house. As soon as his feet hit the next roof, he continued his mad skittering. Suddenly, before he could jump across the street to the next house, a bullet hit the roof and knocked him off his feet, sending the Wolf Boy somersaulting to the ground below.

The moment his feet hit the ground, he impulsively swung his knife out - which turned out to be a wise move, as he had landed directly in front of a mob of humans, all of them holding torches and spears and the like. There was a young woman at the front, dressed in blue and not holding a weapon - not that it made a difference. She was a human, just like the rest of them, just another parasite made for him to crush. The Wolf Boy began to slash his knife back and forth, making movements made to cut her throat. But the girl pulled a sword out from her side and used it to block all of his hits, though she made no attempt to attack him back. But he could see in her eyes that she wanted nothing more than to fight back, to show him she wouldn't be beaten so easily.

"Stop it!" She yelled, blocking another hit that he had aimed at her stomach, in an attempt to at least injure her if not kill her outright. "I don't want to fight you, I'm a friend!"

She looks familiar… he mused briefly, before putting the thought out of his mind. She wasn't important. She was just another human… nothing special. And certainly not his friend! He leapt backwards into a crouching position, and when a man rushed forward with a torch, intending to burn him, he sprang up, launching himself onto another roof. The moment his feet hit solid wood, he ran off again, headed for the forge.

-(o)-

"Hurry! He's after Lady Eboshi!" One of the men yelled. The yell was enough to get San thinking clearly again, as her thoughts had become rather clouded once the Wolf Boy had landed in front of her and started attacking. Spotting a stack of wooden crates against the side of a house, she mentally prepared herself for what she was about to do. Then, she broke into a run, headed straight for the crates. When she was about three feet away from them, she jumped, and the moment her feet hit the wood, she used it as a platform and jumped off of the crates, grabbed hold of the edge of the roof, and pulled herself onto the roof. Once she was safely up, she looked in the direction the Wolf Boy had headed. He was headed straight for the forge, jumping from roof to roof. Without thinking twice, San took off after him, hoping to catch him before he got himself killed or captured.

"Wait!" San yelled at his back. The Wolf Boy had leapt onto the roof of the forge and was running up to the very top. Soon he had vanished into the smoke rising, and San lost track of him, but she still chased after him, soon reaching the forge herself. Men! She cursed in her thoughts.

San had made it up half the height of the forge before she heard Lady Eboshi call out. When she looked, her eyes narrowed instantly. The Lady stood in the center of the courtyard, with the people of Iron Town forming a wide ring around her. Two women, both armed with guns, stood on either side of Eboshi.

Lady Eboshi called out into the night, her powerful voice carrying across the entire courtyard and up to the very top of the forge. "I know you're there, Prince of the Beasts. If it's me you want, come out and fight me like a real man, because I'm here and I am ready. If you wish to take revenge for all of the animals we've killed, for the forest I burned down, then there are two women here I want you to meet. They'd like revenge as well."

"Come on out! We've got a score to settle!" One woman snarled. "My husband is dead because of you and your filthy wolves!"

-(o)-

Those filthy humans could insult him all they wished.

They could insult anything about him, and he wouldn't care, because even if he was better than them, he had the body of a human and in that respect was as low as they were.

But no one - no one, not even the Forest Spirit Himself - insulted his family to his face and got away from it.

The woman who had called his brothers and Mother filthy would die as soon as That Woman had her throat cut.

-(o)-

San averted her eyes from the courtyard and looked to the top of the forge, searching for any sign of the Wolf Boy.

Then he appeared, standing up tall, right at the peak of the forge. His arms hung at his side, a gleaming black dagger clutched tightly in his right hand. His fur coat and the fur of his mask fluttered in the wind. His muscles were tense, like he was ready to lunge forward in the blink of an eye. With his red demonic mask, he looked every bit the Prince Mononoke - the Prince of Spirits, ghouls, beasts, and Ancient Gods.

From her spot on the roof, San could hear Gonza giving orders for the riflemen to aim their guns. Then she spotted the orange-wearing riflemen moving into position on the balcony of the wall surrounding Iron Town, so conveniently placed right next to the forge. The riflemen were setting their guns into place, training them on the Wolf Boy. It's a trap! "No, wait!" San screamed, hoping the boy would hear her. "Prince of the Wolf Gods! Please, you mustn't go down there! You have to go back to your forest!"

This… everything… was so foolish. This war between the wolves and the humans was foolish. She couldn't let it go on. If the Wolf Boy died, everything would collapse. If Prince Mononoke was truly like a wolf, like Lady Eboshi had said, then the Wolf Gods would stop at nothing to kill the townspeople for killing their clan member. Lady Eboshi would return the attack. Maybe the Gods hatred would turn them into Demons like Nago. If that were to happen, then the Gods would go on a rampage, cursing more humans like San herself was cursed.

She wouldn't let that happen.

She wouldn't let more innocents die.

So she screamed at the Wolf Boy at the top of her lungs, pleading with him. She would have been surprised if her inner terror wasn't showing in her facial expression. "PLEASE! Listen to me! There's been far too much killing already! PLEASE!" Desperation was evident in her voice, surely making her sound pathetic, but she couldn't find it in herself to care.

Down in the square, everyone watched San scream at the Wolf Boy, pleading with him to leave Iron Town. Gonza scowled, placing a hand on the hilt of his sword. "Shall I stop her?"

"Leave her be." Lady Eboshi said calmly, unfazed and not taking her eyes off of the Wolf Boy, who hadn't moved from his stance on the forge roof. "She may do as she likes." Before Gonza could even begin to protest, a wolf howl sounded.

-(o)-

The howl of his brother pierced the air.

It was time.

The Wolf Boy lunged forward, his dagger raised as he practically flew down the steep roof, slowly but surely picking up momentum as he headed straight for That Woman.

-(o)-

He hadn't listened to her, San realized with bitterness. She could see the riflemen preparing to shoot the Wolf Boy as he sprinted down the roof.

San ran. She ran as fast as she could, praying to the Gods that she would be able to intercept the Wolf Boy before the riflemen could shoot him. "I TOLD YOU TO LEAVE!" San yelled, her frustration reaching its limit and coming out in an angered scream. He gave no indication that he had heard her.

Just before San could reach him, the riflemen fired.

-(o)-

He attempted to skid to a halt as he heard the guns being fired, but with all his momentum it was useless. The bullets hit the roof, directly in front of him, sending up an explosion of orange fire and wooden splinters. All he could do was raise his arms over his face to shield himself. Through the explosion he could hear someone give a cry of shock, and could see a flash of blue amidst the orange of the fire.

One particularly large piece of wood struck him at the side of his head with such force that stars appeared in front of his eyes. He was knocked off his feet and began rolling, with his knees tucked against his chest, down the roof. He could hear a distant roar that sounded suspiciously like the humans, but he couldn't clear his head well enough to really focus on it. His thoughts were becoming jumbled together, and a sudden explosion of sneezes and coughs didn't help much. It just worsened his already splitting headache.

He tipped over the edge of the roof and fell to the ground, twenty feet below. The Wolf Boy regained some thought, and managed to turn over in midair and land on his hands and knees. His knife was still in his hand, thank the Gods. Drawing in a slow, shaky breath, he slowly stood up - and was instantly knocked off his feet as That Woman yelled for the women beside her to fire their guns, one bullet striking the forehead of his mask and shattering it to pieces. He lay flat on his back, eyes shut, face exposed, and a ringing in his ears. He could hear the sound of the humans rushing towards him, cheering at his defeat. It's over.

"NO! GET BACK!"

A crash sounded, followed by the cries of panic from the humans. Opening his eyes felt like too much work, so he kept them closed instead of looking to see what had happened.

Suddenly there were hands on his shoulders, shaking him gently, and a female voice saying, "Wake up!"

His eyes snapped open, and he came face to face with the girl who he had attacked earlier and had been screaming at him on the roof. A sudden rush of adrenalin filled him, and he lashed out at her, swinging his knife towards her head. She jumped back in time - unfortunately for him. He then jumped to his feet, still slashing his knife toward her, but she managed to dodge every hit he threw at her. A cough escaped his mouth, momentarily halting him, and he saw a look of surprise on the girls face. Using her distraction to his advantage, he lunged to the side and charged towards the mob of humans that were standing just behind a… pillar of wood that was surrounded by twisted pieces of metal and stuck out of the ground like it had been thrown like a spear.

The girl cried out for him to stop, but he ignored her. A tall, muscular man pulled out a long sword, and swung it at the Wolf Boy's feet. He jumped into the air, came back down, slammed his foot into the man's face, and used it as a platform to leap over the rest of the crowd, landing in the courtyard. As soon as his feet hit the ground he ran towards That Woman, his knife pointed directly at her and giving out a fierce battle cry. The women who had shot at him scattered, disappearing into the crowd of humans forming a ring around That Woman. That Woman tossed her blue coat to the side and pulled out a long, thin sword, using it to block his dagger when it was only an inch away from stabbing her in the heart. The Wolf Boy heard a whistling sound, and when he glanced to the right he saw a needle-like knife in the left hand of That Woman, aimed right for him. He jumped backwards quickly, so a few hairs from his fur coat were sliced off, and landed in a crouch. That Woman came forward, wielding her sword, and neatly sliced off one of the fake wolf ears on his fur headdress as he barely dodged another blow. The Wolf Boy fought as best he could, blocking hits and making lunges whenever he had to, but the ringing in his ears was getting louder, his headache was slowly worsening every time he moved, his head was spinning, and he felt more exhausted than he remembered feeling in a long, long time.

The Wolf Boy sneezed. That Woman took advantage of his momentary distraction, lunged forward, and slashed her knife across his cheek, cutting him just under his eye and drawing blood. When he let out a cry of pain and instinctively raised his free hand to the cut, she struck the side of his head - the exact same place he had been hit with the piece of wood - with her fist, the blow strengthened by the hilt of her sword.

Stars exploded in front of the Wolf Boy's eyes, and he dropped to the ground, the world going black.

-(o)-

"HE'S DOWN!"

The cry ran through Iron Town, followed by a loud cheer. San could see the crowd hiding the Wolf Boy and Lady Eboshi from view suddenly rush forwards, forming a cheering, yelling mob, hell-bent on seeing the Wolf Boy murdered by their Lady.

Back where he had attacked her, San slowly stood up. Far ahead of her, Gonza was sitting on the ground, holding his head in pain, as he had been struck by the Wolf Boy's foot rather hard. Two other men stood around him, looking concerned and asking if they could help him. Gonza, embarrassed by his loss, angrily sent them towards the crowd of people waiting eagerly to see the Prince Mononoke killed.

San's eyes flashed angrily. A wind started blowing around her, ruffling her hair and somehow making her earrings ring and flash again. She clenched her right fist, ignoring the dull throbbing pain that had begun coursing through her arm once again. She unsheathed her sword and calmly started walking toward the fighting circle.

As she walked, a single thought was running through her mind: Hatred. Nothing but hatred and pain and killing wherever I go.

Gonza finally got to his feet and pulled his sword out of the ground, where it had fallen when the Wolf Boy stepped on his face. He looked up and saw the strange girl walking toward him, ghostly black tendrils swirling around her right arm, her short hair blowing around by the wind, and sword drawn. Her eyes were narrowed, though she wasn't exactly glaring. But it was clear that she was very, very angry.

"I knew it!" Gonza yelled, pointing his sword at the blue-clad girl. "You're with the wolves, aren't you?!"

San ignored him, continuing to walk forwards. The black snakes around her arm seemed eager to cut Gonza down, and she could hear a faint whispering at the back of her mind, telling her to slice his head off. It would have been easy to do, just as easy as it had been to pull the wooden beam from the roof and throw it to keep the men from getting too close to the Wolf Boy, but she would restrain herself this time. It would have been a waste of energy, and it was pointless to spill more blood.

"Halt!" Gonza ordered. As she approached him, San took the tip of his sword in her fingers and bent it backward as easily as if it were made of paper instead of solid tamahagane.[1]

"Get out of the way." She ordered coolly, before walking past him. Some of the ghost tentacles left her arm and encircled the tip of Gonza's sword. Gonza glanced at the snakes wrapped around his sword and held it rigidly, his body shaking at the same time.

San approached the mob of people, who had once again formed a ring around Lady Eboshi and the Wolf Boy. Using the strength of her cursed arm, San shoved herself through the crowd, and if somebody refused to get out of her way, she would grab them by their clothes and toss them through the air like they weighed nothing. She would not be stopped so easily. With one final shove, she pushed herself to the very front of the crowd, and her eyes narrowed even further at the sight in front of her.

The Wolf Boy on his knees, his arms being held by two different men, both of them leering maliciously. A trickle of blood was sliding down from the side of his head, and there was a deep cut under his left eye that was also bleeding rather heavily down his cheek. His eyes were barely open, and he seemed to be drifting in and out of consciousness. The man holding the Wolf Boy's right arm was using his left arm to hold him, and was gripping a fistful of the Wolf Boy's hair in his right hand, keeping his head back and his throat barred.

Lady Eboshi stood with her back to San, not even aware that the girl was approaching. She had her sword out, and she was speaking. "You thought you could kill me?" She sneered, speaking to the Wolf Boy as if he was conscious enough to understand her. "You are nothing but a foolish little boy who thinks he can save an entire forest on his own. You may act like a wolf, but you will die as a dog!" She held her sword out to the left, pointing directly at the crowd of people to her left, before slashing it horizontally, with the intention of cutting off the Wolf Boy's head.

"STOP IT!" The sword was stopped just an inch away from the Wolf Boy's neck by San's sword. The Emishi girl had appeared directly in front of Lady Eboshi, holding her sword in her right hand and pointing it up to the sky, using all her strength to keep Lady Eboshi's blade from moving any closer to the Wolf Boy. Her teeth were clenched, and she glared up at Lady Eboshi with an expression of fury.

"What do you think you're doing, girl?" Lady Eboshi demanded.

"He can't fight back! Leave him alone!" San snarled.

"He attacked first. I'm merely protecting myself and my town."

San's eyes narrowed further. "You both are the same. There's a Demon inside both of you." As soon as she said this, the black snakes - which had disappeared after she bent Gonza's sword - reappeared, swirling around her arm. Only now, they were larger than they had been before. The townspeople gasped in horror, wondering who - or what - this girl really was. Was she really a human? Or was she a Demon? Judging by the black tentacles encircling her arm, they were guessing the latter. The men holding the Wolf Boy cried out in panic and dropped him to the ground as they retreated back to the safety of the crowd.

"Look, everyone!" San yelled at the townspeople. "This is what hatred looks like! This is what hatred looks like! This is what it does when it catches hold if you! It's eating me alive and very soon now it will kill me! Fear and anger only make it grow faster! Please, I beg of you," San looked across the crowd, searching through the terrified faces to see if she could find anyone who looked like they understood what she was trying to say. "You can't let yourself be ruled by hatred and anger."

"I'm getting a little bored of this curse of yours, San." Lady Eboshi said coldly, smirking at her. "Just let me cut the damn thing OFF!" On the last word, she pulled her sword free from San's block, raised it, and slashed it down with the intention of cutting off her cursed arm. Just before she could hit San, however, the Emishi girl hit Lady Eboshi in the stomach with the ringed pommel of her sword, doubling the blow with the strength of her cursed arm, knocking the Lady unconscious. With a grunt, the older woman's sword fell out of her grip and clattered to the ground as she fell forward and slumped on San's shoulder. As the phantom snakes disappeared into the air, several women in the crowd cried out at once at the sight of their Lady collapsing.

San adjusted Lady Eboshi's body slightly, before addressing the crowd once again. "Someone lend me a hand."

A few seconds of silence followed this, until four women rushed out of the crowd, dropping their weapons as they did. When they reached San, the Emishi Princess helped them get Eboshi off her shoulder and into their arms. San gave them all reassurances that their Lady would be fine, that she had just been temporarily stunned. With that, San slid her sword back into her scabbard. Then she crouched down to the ground, and placed one hand over the Wolf Boy's heart, just to make sure he was still alive. She let out a small sigh of relief when she felt his heartbeat, and then wrapped her arms around the Wolf Boy and pulled him off the ground. After a moment of minor struggling, San managed to pull him onto her shoulders into a carrying position, with his legs hanging over her right shoulder and his head over her left. "I'm leaving now. I'm taking this boy with me as well." She stated calmly.

Suddenly one of the widows that had fired a the Wolf Boy earlier glared venomously at her. "No, you are not! Nobody treats my Lady Eboshi like that!" She yelled, readying her gun and aiming it at San, who had momentarily stopped and was watching the widow silently. "Don't you dare move!" Her words were threatening. However, the effect was ruined by her voice, which was slightly trembling. No doubt she was terrified that San would use her Demon powers on her.

San just stared at the woman for a moment, before turning away and walking off. The widow kept her gun up and aimed at San, though her shaking body exposed the fact that she didn't want to shoot. An elderly woman standing next to her looked from the woman to San, and then shouted, "Kiyo, stop it!"

The sudden shout startled Kiyo, and she accidentally pulled the trigger. She let out a scream as the bullet was fired from the gun, shooting through the air. However, Kiyo hadn't aimed it as well as she had earlier, and the old woman yelling at her had made her miss her target. Instead of going through San's upper body, like she had originally planned, it hit the Wolf Boy's shoulder instead, tearing through his skin and muscle, then stopping somewhere close to his collarbone.

San gasped, pausing to turn and stare in horror at the villagers, who were now staring right back at her with stunned expressions. Kiyo was lying on the ground, knocked backwards by the recoil of the gun, staring in disbelief at San and the Wolf Boy. But then San turned back around, and she continued to walk away from them.

San managed to keep from panicking. She just breathed, in and out, focusing on one sole task - to give the Wolf Boy enough of her energy to keep him alive. It worked, and she felt her life source slowly begin to flow from her body directly into the Wolf Boy's.

Gonza watched in fright as San walked toward him. After watching her walk past him, blood spilling out over her back from both the wound in the Wolf Boy's shoulder and his head wounds, he ran back to the crowd of villagers. He quickly asked one person if Lady Eboshi was alright, and when the person answered with a "yes", Gonza immediately started giving out orders again. He yelled for someone to get him his gun, and for the riflemen to follow him.

San, in the meanwhile, had continued her journey to the gate. Yakuul had somehow been able to sense that she was leaving, and had managed to free himself from his stall and began to walk behind her, following her on her path. Their path took them in the direction of the forge, and some women who had been standing outside spotted her. "Toki, come here." One of them called into the forge.

Toki rushed out of the building a few seconds later. She stared in disbelief at San, at the Wolf Prince hanging over her shoulders. The Emishi princess merely gave her a small smile. After a moment of shocked disbelief, Toki found her voice. "San, what's happened?"

San stopped suddenly, staring directly at Toki. "Thank you for your hospitality." Then she continued walking. The former brothel girl followed San with her eyes, staring as the Wolf Boy bled out onto San's back, staining her blue tunic a dark red, before Toki looked down and gasped.

Forming on the ground were little puddles of the Wolf Boy's blood.

It was an odd sight to be seen, the normally very loud Iron Town was deathly silent, all of the people who lived there stunned into silence by the stranger who had single handedly stopped their Lady Eboshi from killing the Prince Mononoke and seemed unfazed by the amount of blood that was dripping down her tunic.

As San approached the gate, Goro came out and stood in her path, holding his hand out towards her in a 'stop' gesture. He told her that the gate had been ordered shut, and could not be opened until morning. San completely ignored him and walked right on by. She only stopped when she reached the gate and the two riflemen standing by it. "We beg you, go back." One whispered.

"You rescued our friends. None of us want to hurt you." The other one agreed.

"Please."

"I came here earlier through this gate." San said calmly. "And I will leave the same way I entered." She raised her right arm - her cursed arm - and put the palm of her hand against the wooden gate.

"It's impossible. It takes ten men to open the door." The first rifleman said.

San's eyes narrowed. Impossible was not a word she liked at all. Her teeth clenched as she began pushing the gate, using all of her natural strength combined with the Demon mark's strength. It didn't move. Her eyes narrowed further, and her hair seemed to bristle as she pushed harder. She couldn't fail - not now, not with all these people watching her, not when there was somebody else's life depending on this moment.

The gate moved an inch. The townspeople stared in disbelief and began to whisper and gasp among themselves. "Come on…" San muttered through clenched teeth. The gate began to move back, inch by inch, until San gave one final pushed and the gate finally opened enough for her and Yakuul to fit through.

Gonza and the rest of the riflemen ran through the streets, all of them holding guns, heading for the gate. As they finally reached their destination, they saw the girl holding the gate up with one hand. But then everyone saw two white wolves racing toward the stranger, teeth bared and claws ready to tear into human flesh if they needed to.

"It's the wolves!" Gonza yelled, swinging his rifle around so he could aim it, accidentally knocking his gun into the head of some of the men around him. Then he noticed he was missing something. "Flint?!"

"Stop!" San yelled at the wolves, who skidded to a halt just on the other side of the bridge leading to Iron Town. "Don't worry, he's safe with me!" The wolves snarled viciously, their fur bristling and their fangs gleaming in the firelight cast from the torches within Iron Town. "Stay there, I'm coming over." She glanced back at her elk. "Come on, Yakuul." She whispered to him, using a noticeably gentler voice than she had used with anybody in Iron Town. The red elk ducked his head so his antlers would fit through, and slowly began to walk towards the wolves, who looked at Yakuul with less distrust than they had looked at San.

San turned back to the people of Iron Town, smiling gently. "Thank you. I'm much obliged to you all." With that, she slipped under the gate and let go, letting it slam back into place as she followed Yakuul.

As everyone watched her disappear in complete silence, Goro suddenly spoke. "Good luck, stranger." He whispered.

[1] - Tamahagane is a high quality metal (steel) made in the Japanese tradition. Tamahagane is used to make Japanese swords, knives, and other kinds of tools. Tamahagane is made of iron sand. - Wikipedia

Next chapter the wolf brothers will be named. Thank god.

God, I'm so mean to Ashitaka… first he's sick, now he has a concussion, a scar, and a freakin' bullet in his body.

But I won't deny that I had fun writing this chapter. XD

LAST - AND MOST IMPORTANT.

First of all, three days ago - the 26th of October - is the two year anniversary of the day I joined fanfiction. My sister too, but who cares about her, let's focus on ME! XD

Second of all, there is a reason I decided to post this chapter on Today - which, here in Vancouver, is the 29th of October. The reason is this: IT'S MY BIRTHDAY TODAY! :D So i decided to update all of my ongoing stories - on Fanfiction anyway, I've got a few Reader insert stories on dA that I haven't updated for a while - today, because of the fact that it's my birthday! Happy birthday to me!

Of course, one of the main reason besides this one that I updated this story today is because exactly one year ago today, I published this story. (This version of the story, anyway, for those of you who know about my previous deleted Prince Mononoke.) So this story is one year old today! So it's both of our birthdays! XD