Elf of the Blue Sky

Jill fixes on the spot where Rosine vanished, certain that, like Peekaf, she will never reach home and that this was her last flight. When Zepek orders her back to the village and swings his cane at her, she slips aside easily and tells him to go alone, then runs off with Puck in the direction Guts fled, asking the elf to use his sixth sense to track the swordsman despite all the pain he caused her.

Guts has withdrawn into the mistier reaches of the valley, where Farnese presses on with a search Serpico calls futile. Jill finds him first, tucked behind large stones and pulling bolts from his body and armor, braced for any soldiers. She asks whether he means to travel somewhere far, and after a silence he tells her to leave, since staying with him can only bring her harm. She counters that she saw him drop a cocoon to shield her from the fire and pleads to be taken far from the valley and her village. In answer, Guts tells her to look at the shadows around him.

With night fallen, the spirits drawn by his Brand have gathered, and he warns that the only place he could lead her is into that darkness, the life forced upon him. When some of the shades drift toward Jill, he scatters them with his sword, wraps the edge of his cloak around her like a curtain, and tells her the battlefield is all he has to offer before ordering her home and walking away without looking back as she collapses screaming. By morning the fires have burned off the valley's mist, and sunlight pours between the cliffs under an open sky. Her innocence spent, Jill resolves that although she can neither fight like Guts nor flee like Rosine, she will struggle in her own way to change things. Puck, preparing to leave, explains he stays near Guts because the man cannot be left on his own, and the two part, the elf after Guts and Jill toward her father and home.

Jill refuses to return with Zepek and searches for Guts with Puck. She finds Guts and begs to travel with him, but he shows her the spirits his Brand attracts and sends her home. The cleared mist reveals blue sky, and Jill resolves to change her village in her own way as she and Puck part.

Featured in Young Animal issue 6 on March 13, 1998, this twenty-three-page Conviction Arc chapter closes the Misty Valley storyline and sends Jill home with a new sense of purpose.