Flag of the Flying Sword

Stunned to see the Band of the Falcon back after a two-year absence, Mule orders his men forward to help, then halts them just as abruptly. Without looking up or hearing a thing, he somehow knows arrows are inbound and stops his soldiers from stepping into their path, and the shafts bury themselves in the dirt just ahead. Baffled by his own foresight, he turns and spots mounted guards escorting a young girl who watches him with strange familiarity before fixing her gaze on the battlefield, reading the movements and likely paths of both armies from her vantage.

Griffith spearheads a cavalry thrust into the Kushan, who rally to wall off their general. It does no good: his horse vaults clean over the barrier and carries him in a lone rush at the general, whose head he takes before the man grasps what is happening. Raising his visor, Griffith proclaims the general dead, heartening his troops and breaking the survivors, who try to flee. As his men cut down the routed enemy, Griffith removes his helmet and locks eyes across the field with the astonished Mule.

The last Kushan flee into a dark stand of bare trees, their leader determined to warn the invasion headquarters of Griffith's return. Instead he notices shadowy figures deep in the wood and more perched in the branches overhead. These are the members of the Band who sat out the main battle, led by Rakshas and carrying an inhuman air, and they set upon the survivors and massacre them.

That evening the Band makes camp and takes Mule and his soldiers in. Watching children play and women and old folk living among the fighters, Mule can scarcely believe he is among mercenaries at all, thinking the camp closer to a living village. The girl from before interrupts his thoughts, answering a question he had only thought, that their joy comes from being led by Griffith. She names herself Sonia, admits that apart from Griffith none of them served in the original Band, and leads Mule off to meet the White Falcon.

Chapter 193 runs nineteen pages within the Millennium Falcon Arc, published in Young Animal issue 01 on December 28, 2001. It introduces Sonia and her uncanny perception, and stages Griffith's clean, almost effortless execution of the Kushan general as a display of the reborn Band's power.