Confession

Secluded together, Casca warns Guts to brace himself and lashes out, though he keeps his greatsword sheathed and parries only with its exposed edges, baffled by the assault. The ferocity of her strikes convinces him she truly intends to kill. After absorbing her reckless blows, he hooks her leg and sends her sprawling, then demands to know why. Casca holds him responsible for Griffith's downfall and the band's collapse, insisting his abandonment of Griffith caused all of it.

Guts denies it, arguing Griffith would never be shaken merely by his leaving, but Casca counters that Guts made the once self-hardened Griffith weak and unable to carry on without him. The claim staggers Guts, who remembers Griffith's defeated posture after their clash outside Wyndham. Amid the exchange her blade slips through his armor plates and cuts him shallowly; he seizes the naked steel, draws it from the wound, and says he merely did what Griffith himself would do, chasing a dream. He grips the edge until his own hand bleeds, forcing her to wrench the sword free.

Casca confesses that her vow to serve as Griffith's sword was a bluff, abandoned the day she accepted he was no god and she was a woman who longed to matter to him. Aware he would wed Charlotte to reach his ambition faster, she had tried instead to make herself indispensable, only to realize when Guts left that no place beside Griffith remained for her. Spent and hopeless, she tips backward off the cliff toward the falls, but Guts catches her hand and hauls her up, his injured palm bleeding, then flings her to safety and forbids her ever to near a ledge again. Weeping that he always wounds himself over her, Casca presses her head to his chest; he holds her, and beneath the waterfall their embrace turns into a kiss.