Episode 56: Bakiraka (1)

The Bakiraka number five dark-skinned figures: a cloaked woman of ordinary build, a hulking strongman, a shorter and thickset fighter, a spindly giant with unnaturally long limbs, and a tiny man perched on the strongman's shoulder. Two wear turbans that recall Silat. Guards trade rumors about them, noting they come from lands east of Midland and rank among the deadliest of assassins. The king orders them to run down the Band of the Falcon and kill Griffith by whatever means they can, while leaving Charlotte unharmed.

The rescue party has lost track of Guts, who has doubled back into the mausoleum, cutting through any soldiers he meets. They find him at last slumped on his sword and gasping from exhaustion. Seeing how Charlotte flinches from his blood-soaked face, Casca gently wipes it clean with a handkerchief, a tenderness Griffith quietly registers. Charlotte privately hopes Griffith's wounds will mend so they might one day be together.

Back in the tunnels, and unaware they are being tailed, the group is halted when Guts feels an unease he cannot place. He spots the lanky assassin clinging above him like a spider, and barely parries the creature's plunging strike before it retreats into the darkness overhead. Casca then glimpses a face beneath the water at her feet; the stocky Bakiraka lunges up with a trident, which she blocks before he slips away. Judeau names the attackers as the Bakiraka, assassins reputed to be inhuman monsters. As he speaks, Charlotte sees the smallest of them wriggle from a drain and level a blowgun at Griffith. She flings her arm across the shot, taking the dart herself, and the sound of her falling into the water draws every eye.

The king dispatches the five Bakiraka to kill Griffith while sparing Charlotte. Casca cleans the exhausted Guts as Griffith notices the growing closeness between them. The assassins begin picking at the party from above and below, and Charlotte is struck when she blocks a poisoned dart aimed at Griffith.

The fifty-sixth chapter of the Golden Age Arc runs nineteen pages and appeared in Young Animal issue eight on April 14, 1995. The Bakiraka's turbaned members and eastern origin tie them to Silat, a fighter introduced far later in the series. Charlotte's willingness to take a killing blow for Griffith cements the depth of her devotion.