Thunder Emperor

The three combatants fall from the burst Kundalini. Serpico glides across the harbor in a controlled leap, while Guts and the beaten mage drop limply, Daiba snatched from the air by a pterosaur-like Garuda. Guts alone splashes into the water, surfaces, and shares a brief moment of triumph with Serpico. Schierke cuts it short, distraught that Guts cannot feel the strain he put on his body, since her presence inside him meant he bore the physical toll of her spellcasting. She tearfully swears off such dangerous techniques.

Fleeing on the Garuda and vowing to keep pursuing his dream of a nation of mages, Daiba receives an angry message from his superior. A great bank of fog then gathers around the harbor and rises into the shape of a giant, hazy Ganishka, whom Guts at once recognizes as an Apostle. The emperor chides Daiba for squandering so many makara and the Kundalini, then punishes him with a non-lethal lightning strike before turning his attention to the swordsmen.

Ganishka praises the pair for slaying his forces and asks whether they serve the White Falcon, inadvertently confirming to Guts that he and Griffith stand apart, exactly as Owen had suggested. Getting no answer, the emperor assumes an alliance and looses a heavy bolt, only for the sylphs woven into Serpico's cloak and sword to raise a shield that blunts the blast. He strikes again, both men dodge across the drifting wreckage, then a direct hit lands on Guts. The shock forces Schierke's astral body out of his mind and back into her own, and with her gone the Berserker Armor withdraws its power, the wolf helmet vanishing. Astonished that Guts has now weathered lightning twice, Ganishka readies an even fiercer blast at the defenseless swordsman.

The twenty-page chapter sits in the Millennium Falcon Arc and ran in Young Animal issue 11 on May 26, 2006. It marks the full introduction of Ganishka as an Apostle emperor and establishes the crucial split between his empire and Griffith's reborn band. Schierke's vow highlights the hidden cost of riding inside Guts: her caster's fatigue passes silently into a body that no longer registers pain.