One Who Clings, One Who Struggles

The refugees watch in dread as the spirit mass creeps forward again, the protective fire wholly gone, and they beg Mozgus for deliverance. He is far too absorbed in the battle to answer. Guts drives the Dragon Slayer down onto his head, but the dense armor shrugs it off, and Mozgus counters with two club-wing blows before spreading his wings to loose the fist-flurry once more. This time it lands, dropping Guts to his knees, unable to locate any vulnerable spot or to reload his cannon arm under the assault. A club-wing uppercut then buries itself in his gut and launches him skyward, dropping him in a heap at the priest's feet.

Mozgus gestures to the sea of pleading refugees below and tells Guts to hear them, insisting they await the hour of God's victory and asking whether he would let them all perish to spare the witch. Rising unsteadily, Guts refuses, saying the crowd does nothing but pray and should not fasten themselves to one woman. Enraged, Mozgus screams for him to repent and resumes his barrage, but Guts has noticed a shallow gash on the priest's chest beneath the branded hawk of the Holy See, a leftover from the earlier stab that his scripture only partly blunted.

A heavy fist to the face rocks Guts, and as he reels he plants a hand on Mozgus's chest as if to steady himself, dragging it across the wound. Mozgus laces his feathers into one enormous club and drives it into Guts's back, slamming him onto his stomach hard enough to crack the bricks beneath, and terror washes over Isidro, Puck, Casca, Jerome, Farnese, and Serpico.

As Mozgus stokes his fire for the finish, Guts stands with a faint grin and remarks that the priest's faith, his wellspring of power, is also his ruin. Mozgus glances at the hawk on his chest and the gaping wound below it, now packed with studded explosive spheres whose fuses burn, planted there when Guts leaned against him. Because his flames gather in the chest before venting through his mouth, charging his attack lit the fuses himself. Guts shields his body with the Dragon Slayer as the charges blow, not lethal but enough to rip the wound wide and strip away the chest scales. He surges in, hacking downward again and again until the gash becomes a near-hole, and as it glows with fresh fire he tells Mozgus to carry a message to his God, "Leave me the Hell alone," and rams the blade through his chest.

Mozgus's armor and club-wings beat Guts down and an uppercut floors him. Refusing to trade Casca for the refugees, Guts spots a hidden chest wound and, feigning a stumble, packs it with explosives. When Mozgus charges his fire, the fuses ignite, blasting the wound open and stripping its scales. Guts widens the hole and runs the Dragon Slayer through the priest's chest.

Printed in Young Animal issue 20 on October 13, 2000, this twenty-two-page chapter resolves the Mozgus duel through cunning rather than force, letting Guts weaponize the priest's own fire against him. Its title contrasts the refugees who cling to faith with Guts, who struggles against fate on his own terms.