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Ashitaka: Attack on the Tatara Ba
After I've worked the tatara foot bellows for a good while, I take my leave, despite the women's complaints and pleas to stay longer and work with them. "Sorry, but there is someone I must meet," I explain to them.
Suddenly, something makes my senses twitch. I can feel an alien subject approaching the town. The wolf girl; Princess Mononoke is coming. "She's here," I mutter, and take off, leaving the women calling after me in confusion.
I run back to the town center, where the work is still going on as usual. No one suspects anything right now. But a panicked cry from the watch platform disrupts the peaceful work atmosphere. "The wolf princess!" Metal clangs against metal as the alarm is raised. She has entered the premises. The people are in a terrible frenzy.
The men are distributing weapons to each other, determined to defend their home from the terrorist. Securing my sword by my side, I run through the alleyways with a crowd of armed men. Guns boom, illuminating buildings in an orange red glow and destroying roofs as the musketeers try to hit the girl. She scurries like a small white mouse on top of buildings and huts, and lands in fronts of me.
Her face is hidden in a red mask, and she is clothed in white furs. Her dagger flashes, slashing at me. I get my sword out, desperately blocking her attacks. "Stop! I don't want to fight you!" I shout at her.
She jumps back, brandishes her knife, and leaps up onto a roof, missing a torch by the breadth of a hair. I scramble after her, no match for her agility.
Cries of fear echo through the night about how the girl will kill Eboshi tonight. I watch as Princess Mononoke jumps from roof to roof, and up to the tatara bellows building, where I was just a few moments ago. I follow her without hesitation.
By the time I get to the top of the building, I have lost her completely. The townspeople have formed a square in the commons, lit by torches and crowded with people. Eboshi and two other women stand in the middle.
"Can you hear me, Princess Mononoke? I'm here. If you would avenge your tribe, here are some who seek vengeance for husbands killed by wolves." Eboshi announces boldly.
"Come out! We have a score to settle." one woman by her side calls out.
The air is thick with fear and anticipation. Standing at the edge of the roof, I look around for the wolf girl and start to perspire from the heat fumes of the bellows below. Squinting, I spot a human figure on the topmost ledge of the roof. She stands up, clothes flapping in the hot winds from the tatara.
"There she is!" the townspeople shout. "Out of the way! You'll get hit!" A few people scatter. From the side, I notice the orange-robed musketeers positioning themselves with guns, aimed at Princess Mononoke.
"It's a trap," I realize. "Stop!" I shout to her. Scrambling to make myself seen by the girl, I yell at the top of my lungs, "Wolf-God Princess! Go back to the woods!"
If she hears me, she gives no indication. The red mask expressionless, the princess stares down at Eboshi and the crowd. "Don't die for nothing!" I scream at her.
A wolf's howl rips through the night. Its pitch makes the hairs on my neck stand up. The wolf girl raises her knife, and charges down the steep roof. Without thinking, I start running as well, determined to break her momentum. The muskets explode in front of her just before we collide. Blocking my face from the fire and wood splinters, I look around for the masked girl. There, she is unconscious and rolling down the roof. The crowd burst with excitement.
"Aim where she falls," Eboshi orders.
I stumble, and turn around to find something to stop them. I put my hands on a beam in the roof, and slowly rip it up. My right arm bulges almost twice the size of the other one. I have to keep Princess Mononoke alive, all while stopping her from killing Eboshi.
The guns boom and I hear something shatter. Gonza and the men surge forward. I raise the wooden beam and heave it at them.
"Stay back!" It demolishes a torch right in front of them. Gonza curses.
I jump off the roof and see the girl now, her mask in pieces, her face unveiled. I shake her shoulders, hoping she has not died. "Wake up."
Her eyes suddenly pop open, brimming with rage. Without a warning, her knife slices across my cheek, and she hops on her foot, slashing at me. I hop back, each time just in time to avoid the bite of the blade. She runs forward then, making for Eboshi.
Gonza draws a huge katana, and tries to swipe her off her feet, but the girl leaps up nimbly, and stepping hard on his face, she jumps over the humans and into the square where Eboshi is. I hear her feral yell, and blades clashing.
The rest of the crowd closes in on the two women with their spears. I rise slowly. The cut on my cheek is bleeding steadily now, and the warm blood slides down my face. I walk toward Gonza ahead of me, my sword drawn. How can the people entrap the girl like that, so mercilessly? And how can Princess Mononoke have such hate within her to want to destroy so much? Phantom snakes from the curse appear on my arm, and it starts pulsing with the demon lust for hatred and blood.
Gonza rubs his head angrily, and dismisses the men trying to help him. He notices me and holds out the katana, crying, "I knew it! You are on the Mononoke's side! Halt!"
With my right hand, I take the blade between two fingers and push it up, bending the katana like it is made of origami. Gonza groans and gapes in shock. "Step aside," I tell him.
Approaching the crowd, I shove them aside and toss a few persistent ones out of my way. The shouting stops immediately and is replaced with stunned quietness. The wolf girl and the leader of the humans are still locked in a duel. Eboshi glances at me and swings her sword. Princess Mononoke seems to be oblivious of me.
Without stopping, I grab the girl's wrist and push her from the older woman, and stop Eboshi's sword with my own. Using all the strength I have, I hold the two nemeses apart. While the girl struggles in my grip, Eboshi applies pressure on my sword, growling, "What are you doing?!"
I answer her, as calmly as I can. "The girl is mine." Princess Mononoke screams and bites down on my arm, but the pain seems dull. I ignore her.
A sneer twists Eboshi's face. "I'm sure she'll make a lovely wife!" Sarcasm drips from her words.
"There is a demon within you. And within this girl," I say.
The phantom snakes blossom again on my arm. The spectators gasp, fixed on the scene before them. The wolf girl pulls away in my grip, this time trying to get away from the curse.
"Look on this! It is the form of the hate within me! It rots my flesh, and summons my death! Do not make the hate grow!" I shout to the crowd of people. I can tell they can sense the aura of death on the phantom snakes.
"Enough talk of your curse! I'll cut that arm off!" Eboshi snarls and goes for my face with an awl. I parry the strike and hit her in the gut with the end of my sword. She collapses onto me like a sack of potatoes. I pull the wolf girl towards me and knock her out as well.
The phantom snakes grow larger and larger, covering me as I struggle under the weight of the two. The people of Tatara Ba cry out in alarm. "Eboshi-sama!"
"Someone take her," I call out to the petrified men and women. A few women finally break the silence and dropping their weapons, they run to me. I carefully hand the woman to them. "Don't worry. She'll be all right," I assure them.
I sheathe my sword and shoulder the unconscious girl. The crowd starts to disperse concerned about their leader. I announce loudly, "I will take the girl!"
"Wait!"
I turn around. It is one of the women who had demanded vengeance in the middle of the square. Her hands shaking, she hefts the gun on her shoulder. "You won't get away. Nobody treats Eboshi-sama like that…"
I regard her for a while. Poor, brave woman. Her face is deathly pale, and even though she tries to hide it, it is obvious that she is terrified. Of me. Terrified that I might use the demon powers on her. Finally I turn away, walking from the mob.
"D-Don't move!" she shouts nervously, but I walk on.
Everything is frozen. I feel everyone staring at the woman, and at me, back and forth. A voice breaks the silence. "Kiyo, stop it!"
"Aah…!" The gun explodes behind me. The bullet shoots through my back.
Agony breaks loose like a wild animal. The blood spurts and pours out my front. I stagger, grimacing, but miraculously do not collapse. Regaining my stance, I put one foot in front of the other, walking from the men and women and down the main road, trailed by red. The distance feels like miles. Gasps of disbelief erupt from the crowd. They start to murmur.
Gonza bellows orders to the men. I can hear him from even far down the road. "They're not getting out of this alive!"
I'm at the building of the tatara bellows and furnace, where Toki and the women still remain. She comes to the entrance to greet me, but horror shows on her face as she stares at the blood. "Y-You…"
Smiling at her, I pass without a word.
The next moments pass through in a haze. My vision is getting blurred, and my entire body throbs. The shock of the bullet should've already killed me. But of course; it's the curse.
I approach the gates of the fortress. Yakkuru is behind me, ever so faithful. The orange-robed musketeers stand at guard. One of the cattle herdsmen whom I'd just shared supper with confronts me. "Sir, you can't pass through here," he says nervously. "This gate cannot be opened without permission." But the man stands aside and I walk up to the guards. They cross their guns in front of me.
"We beg you, go back," one tells me in a low voice.
"You helped one of us. We do not want to harm you," the other adds, pleading. "Please."
"I came here on my own two feet, and I will leave on them," I reply placidly. With that, I place my hand on the wooden gate, with the other on Princess Mononoke's wrist.
"It's impossible! It takes ten men to open that gate!" The first guard starts.
But I strain against the weight of the fortress gate, pushing all that I have. Blood drips onto the ground, along with my strength and energy. My arm starts to bulge again.
The cattle herdsman gasps. "Sir, stop! You'll die!" But despite everything, the gate inches back little by little.
"He moved it!" The people are astonished with horror.
One foot in front of the other. The gate groans and relents at last as I walk underneath.
Gonza marches towards me with a troop of musketeers.
"Out of the way!" he orders the spectators.
When the gate has been opened enough to let me through, I stand as two white wolves rush forward. They have been waiting.
"Wolves!" Gonza shouts and readies his gun. "Flint! I need flint!" But the townspeople back away as no one provides the flint.
Calling to the wolves, I announce, "Stop! Your princess is safe." The two animals stop in front of me, still snarling fiercely.
"I'm coming over there now. Come on, Yakkuru." He passes under the gates. I turn to the stunned humans. "I thank you."
Letting the gate slam behind me, I exit Tatara-Ba with Yakkuru, the wolf girl, and two angry wolf gods.