City of the Demon Beasts (2)

Serpico clears the first rush of Daka in one sweep while Isidro and Roderick finish the stragglers. Having learned in the ballroom to strike for the eyes, Roderick banters with Isidro, who advises the newcomer to hang back; Roderick refuses, unwilling to watch Farnese fight without him. Magnifico and Casca stay out of the melee, and when a Daka lunges at Magnifico, Schierke intercepts and hypnotizes it.

Neither Guts nor the makara has moved. The beast fires a jet of water from its trunk, which Guts dodges before lobbing a charge that bursts by its right eye and half-blinds it. As it thrashes in pain, he severs its trunk. He slips a swipe of its fin but feels the Beast of Darkness pressing into his mind, and forces the influence down before resuming, though Schierke sees he is already slipping.

Backed against a storehouse wall, Guts remembers how he killed a makara on the beach and finds his answer. To Schierke's horror he lets the makara's lunge slam them both through the wall. For a moment he vanishes, then reappears atop the roof, having used the crash to reach the stairs. He leaps down and drives the Dragon Slayer through the beast's skull, but it does not die and thrashes with the blade still buried and Guts clinging on. In a pause he wrenches the sword back to widen the wound and fires his cannon arm straight into it, killing the makara at last.

Sliding down the corpse, Guts vaults off its outstretched trunk over Schierke's head and lands among the Daka, hacking them apart. The others suspect the Beast has claimed him, given his ferocity, but he insists he is clear-headed and simply racing to save Roderick's ship from the flames. They believe him and set to felling the Daka as fast as they can.

Roderick adapts by aiming for the pishacha's eyes, and Schierke hypnotizes a Daka to protect Magnifico. Guts half-blinds the makara, severs its trunk, then deliberately lets it drive him through a storehouse wall so he can strike from the roof, finishing it with the Dragon Slayer and his cannon arm. He plunges into the Daka horde with sudden fury but assures the group he remains lucid, driven only by the need to reach Roderick's ship in time.

This is chapter 266 of the manga within the Millennium Falcon Arc, running twenty pages. It first appeared in Young Animal issue 1 on December 23, 2005.