Prologue to the War Chronicle

Declaring that he will claim a kingdom of his own, Griffith rises skyward on Zodd's back. He calls down to Rickert that he will understand should the boy come to hate him once he learns what happened at the Eclipse, but if not, he invites Rickert to keep pursuing the dream at his side. Rickert, baffled, asks what truth he means, but Zodd is already carrying Griffith off. Guts fires his repeating crossbow, the bolts missing an unflinching Griffith, and Rickert restrains him. To Guts' demand for how nothing could have changed after he sacrificed his own men, Griffith answers only that the fault lies in Guts failing to grasp his true nature in time.

As he is borne into the surrounding mountains, Griffith once more feels the Demon Child's love for its parents, this time stirred by his nearness to Casca. With Griffith gone, Rickert presses again for the truth, and Guts at last recounts the Eclipse to him, the only other Falcon still living besides Guts, Griffith, and Casca. Rickert sinks to his knees, scarcely able to absorb the horror Griffith visited upon the band. Puck, hearing the full account for the first time, understands that the anguish radiating from Casca springs from the trauma she endured. When Rickert insists on joining the quest for vengeance, Guts refuses him, certain the boy could never bring himself to truly hate Griffith.

Erica, surveying her ruined home, flees in tears at the sound of the argument, and Rickert chases after her at Puck's urging, sparing Guts one last look. Left alone with Guts, Puck raises the problem now facing them: with the cave destroyed, Casca has nowhere safe to stay, and Guts cannot chase revenge while shielding her. He asks after other elf refuges but rejects the idea of caging her again. Then inspiration strikes Puck, and he seizes Guts' face to announce the safest place of all, his own homeland.