Girl I Remember

Jill opens up about growing up alongside Rosine, four years her senior and like a sister to her. The boyish older girl loved catching bugs and small creatures, and among her forest finds of shells, honeycomb and animal teeth was a curious face-marked stone. Listening in, Guts and Puck recognize it as a Beherit but say nothing. Jill goes on: the pair played until nightfall largely because Rosine avoided her parents, whose constant fighting centered on her, and she would often show up bruised by their hands.

One day Rosine claimed the Peekaf tale was wrong, that he had truly been an elf living happily with his kin, and declared herself an elf who belonged among them, though her smiles saying so were forced. Jill explains that enemy soldiers had once violated many village women during a wartime flight into the forest, Rosine's mother among them, leaving doubt over who Rosine's father was. Soon after comparing herself to Peekaf, Rosine tapped on Jill's window one rainy night in a torn dress with only a lantern, said she was leaving for the Misty Valley to live with the elves, gave Jill all her belongings, and walked off into the dark. Search parties failed to find her, and days later her parents vanished as well; among the left possessions, Jill saw the face stone was gone.

Now grown, Jill says she understands the wish to leave. Puck fishes the Beherit from Guts' satchel and asks if it matches Rosine's stone; when Jill confirms it, Guts explains that Beherits summon angels who grant power to lowly humans. He reasons Rosine solved its use to gain her moth form and that her parents disappeared because such a transformation demands a sacrifice, one she paid with them. The revelation stuns Jill, and he wounds her further by warning he will not check his sword if she blocks it again, calling her a nuisance. She swings to slap him; he catches her wrist and tells her this is no fairy tale for children. Walking off, Guts assembles a small stone cage and stuffs the protesting Puck inside before sealing it. As the fairy struggles free of the gaps, he sees Jill near tears, and his comfort fails until a great winged shape descends before her. It is Rosine, who walks up smiling, presses a fist to Jill's brow, and lifts it to reveal a harmless frog, then bursts out laughing, kisses her cheek, and greets her by name.

Jill recounts her sisterly bond with the abused Rosine and the face-marked stone she found, which Guts and Puck recognize as a Beherit. She recalls Rosine fleeing the village one rainy night to seek the elves, followed by her parents' disappearance. Guts reveals that Rosine sacrificed her parents to gain her apostle form. He cages Puck and drives Jill to tears just as Rosine descends to reunite with her, playing a lighthearted trick before greeting her old friend.

This 19-page Conviction Arc chapter ran in Young Animal issue 14, dated July 1997. It anchors Rosine's monstrous choice in a childhood of abuse and yearning, and confirms that the Beherit she carried was the twin of Guts' own. The tale sets up the direct confrontation between Guts and the apostle.