Roar of the Sea

In his mind Guts sinks through a black ocean toward a pit ringed with teeth, blade angled downward to defend himself. The vision mirrors reality: he has charged straight into the makara's gaping jaws and vanished down its throat. An instant later the Dragon Slayer punches out through the beast's wrecked eye socket, Guts riding the blade free, and the makara falls dead. He leaps to the sand and splits the skull of a nearby crocodile in one blow.

The surviving reptiles turn to watch, and through the Beast's distortion Guts sees only a yawning maw of fangs. He drives his sword into one open mouth and cuts the body clean in two, then spears several more as they flee toward the water. His companions look on in alarm. Isidro admires the raw power yet recoils from its cruelty, while Serpico recalls tales of berserkers, fighters so consumed by rage that they cut down comrade and foe alike.

With every direction closing in on him as another toothed mouth, Guts slashes at anything that stirs while the Beast urges him on and he fights, uselessly, to reclaim himself. Once no crocodiles are left, he turns toward his allies by the ruined cabin, seeing them only as dark silhouettes. As Isidro begs Schierke to hurry, Guts lunges and Serpico moves to shield the group, but the clash never lands: a small, child-sized being, visible to Guts alone, has stepped into the space between them.

"Roar of the Sea" runs twenty pages in the Millennium Falcon arc and first appeared in Young Animal issue 12 on June 11, 2004. It pushes Guts to the brink of striking down his own party under the armor's influence and introduces the mysterious figure that will pull him back from the edge.