Arrival

The figure crowning the tower's rubble seizes every eye and silences the battlefield. It is Griffith, bare and serene in the morning glow, his flesh unmarked and whole again as though the torture never touched him. He looks entirely human and exactly as he did at the height of his power.

Zodd is the first to react, striding to the White Falcon and dropping to his knees, and Griffith answers by resting a hand on the beast's head like an owner soothing a pet. Guts starts toward the man he means to kill, but his legs falter; only Casca's faint cries behind him hold him in place after two years of chasing this moment.

Griffith is exactly the man Silat has been sent to seize, so he orders his scouts to take him. Zodd hears the command and hurls himself back into the ranks, tearing the Kushan apart in Griffith's defense. Azan pulls Serpico, Farnese, Isidro, Nina, Jerome, and Luca clear of the slaughter, cutting down any scout in their way, though Farnese lingers, transfixed by the carnage. Isidro spots that Guts and Casca have been left ringed by enemies.

Casca drifts toward Griffith with her arms raised, and Guts seizes her before she can reach him; her pull is not hatred like his but something closer to reverence. When Griffith finally turns and opens his eyes, they reveal the single sign of his God Hand nature. The pupils are slitted like Femto's, no longer the eyes he had before the Eclipse.