Armor on the Chest

Charlotte stirs in her Wyndham bedchamber to find Anna at her side and asks at once what became of Griffith. The handmaiden reassures her that more than half a day has gone by since his escape with no word of his recapture. Before Anna slips out to fetch the head court lady and the physician, the princess stops her to apologize for the grief she has caused. Fighting back tears, Anna waves the apology aside and shuts the door, unable to bring herself to say that the band is being hunted despite the king's promise to call off all pursuit. At the window, Charlotte revisits the rainy night a year earlier when Griffith knocked to come to her, along with his vow to return. A shape drifting across the afternoon sky, which she first takes for a bird, reveals large black wings and horns instead, unmistakably Zodd.

The mercenaries begin the slow work of recovery after the Black Dog clash and Wyald's rampage. Inside a covered wagon, Casca stitches Guts' wounds while Judeau tends to Griffith, the two men bickering over the swordsman's refusal to ever back away from a fight. When Guts shrugs that a mercenary must always live ready to die, Casca rests her head against his shoulder, a gesture Griffith quietly registers. Once she and Judeau step outside and out of earshot, Judeau breaks the news that the damage to Griffith's tendons means he can no longer walk or wield a blade. The revelation shakes Casca before she turns and throws herself into ordering the men about. Nearby, a soldier admiring Wyald's colossal corpse notices its motionless hand and decides it means nothing.

Lying beside the seated Griffith, Guts grouses about Casca's rough stitching and reminisces with him about their duel against Zodd, then offers to remove the heavy iron mask. Rather than agree, Griffith tips his head back toward his old armor and then down at his ruined body. Guts understands the wordless request, laughs at how odd it is, and helps him into the armor. Back in the depths of the forest, the still-living Wyald drags himself away from the mercenaries he has just butchered. The chapter belongs to the Golden Age Arc and first ran in Young Animal issue 21.