Departure of Flames

Sheltered by Flora's sigil, Schierke stands beside the flickering ember that is Guts' remaining self. The wisp mutters bleak, hateful words and refuses her plea to reclaim its mind, insisting sanity would change nothing. Refusing to give up, she raises her staff and cuts a window onto the outside world, showing him Serpico and Isidro barely holding off apostles while Farnese and Casca wait at the edge of the domain. The sight of Casca stills the flame at once, and it admits that it knows her. Schierke seizes the moment, naming Casca, then naming Guts himself, and reminding him that he shields her. With each word the frail fire swells until it clearly takes his shape, cut loose from the Beast's grip.

Awareness floods back into Guts' body. He spots his two companions losing ground and moves, sparing Grunbeld only a glance as the apostle exhales a column of fire that Guts simply leaps through. He hurls the Dragon Slayer to behead one attacker, lodges it in a second, then vaults the falling corpse, wrenches the blade free and finishes the other. Rushing on, he drives the huge sword clean through the skull of the apostle bearing down on Farnese and Casca. When Farnese asks who he is, the wolf-head helm peels back into his cloak, baring a face nearly drowned in blood and a shocking new streak of pure white hair above his right eye, the price of straining the armor. Casca cowers behind Farnese, snarling, and Guts only holds her gaze.

As the party regroups with Grunbeld at their heels, a wall of fire erupts to shield them and resolves into Flora, no longer wrapped in flame but wholly made of it, her face rejuvenated to youth. She tells Schierke to flee before the woods are consumed, says she is proud of her, and calls their shared days some of her finest. A falling burning branch nearly crushes the girl, and Guts snatches her up just in time. He carries Schierke off with the others as Grunbeld finds, to his frustration, that Flora's fire refuses his control. Looking back toward the mansion, both witch and pupil hold a last thought of a quiet picnic once shared beneath a tree.

Schierke restores Guts' mind by invoking his bond with Casca. Guts regains control and kills the apostles threatening Serpico, Isidro, Farnese and Casca. His hair turns white over one eye from overusing the Berserker Armor. Flora transforms fully into living flame to hold off Grunbeld, sacrificing herself so the group can escape her burning forest. Grunbeld cannot manipulate her flames as he does ordinary fire.

A twenty-one-page chapter of the Millennium Falcon Arc, published in Young Animal issue 19 on September 26, 2003. It marks Flora's death and the debut of Guts' signature white forelock, a lasting mark of the armor's toll.