Mansion of the Spirit Tree (2)

A small golem seizes Isidro from behind, and his panicked kick shatters it, yet the fragments knit back together. Guts lops the head from another with the Dragon Slayer only to watch it regrow moments later. From a mansion balcony, the young witch and her elf observe that the effectively immortal guardians should eventually exhaust or scare off the intruders, though she notes uneasily how at ease this band looks against inhuman foes, and how they crossed a barrier no ordinary person could pass. She wonders whether the cause lies in the strange condition of Guts and Casca or in Griffith's return to the living world.

When a golem breaks apart before Casca, she kneels and lifts a tiny intact figure from the debris; even held for a while, it never regenerates. Serpico grasps the truth: each golem carries a core that cannot be remade, hidden beneath the symbol on its chest. Aiming there, the group swiftly dismantles the host. The witch's next plan is cut short by a voice within the mansion ordering all attacks to stop.

The golems freeze, and the young witch steps into open view. When Morgan pleads to be heard, she answers by inviting the whole party inside to meet her mistress. Isidro enters first, and only Guts' urging draws the wary others after him. Amid strange instruments and creeping plants, the girl introduces herself as Schierke, apprentice to a far greater witch, and her companion as the elf Ivalera. Isidro's teasing over the monkey hypnosis earns a sharp retort that he only got it for groping her, and Guts finally cuts in and asks to be brought to her mistress.

Schierke leads them to a sunlit room where a gentle old woman greets them warmly as Flora, her teacher. Morgan nervously asks if she recalls him from long ago, and she does, washed by nostalgia. Turning to a troubled Farnese, Flora tells her not to fear, since the people Farnese burned as head of the Holy Iron Chain Knights were never truly witches, so she holds no grudge. At last Flora faces Guts and Casca, names them the branded pair, and declares she has been waiting for them.

Serpico discovers each golem's unregenerating core, letting the group defeat them. The mistress of the mansion halts the guardians and invites the party inside. The young witch and her elf are named as Schierke and Ivalera. Flora, an elderly witch and Schierke's teacher, recognizes Morgan and Farnese, then reveals she has awaited the arrival of the branded Guts and Casca.

This eighteen-page Millennium Falcon chapter appeared in Young Animal issue nine on April 26, 2002. It resolves the golem fight, formally introduces Schierke, Ivalera, and Flora, and pivots the arc toward Flora's mysterious foreknowledge of Guts and Casca, setting up the exposition that follows.