Cannon Arm

The Cannon Arm is a device Guts wears in place of the left forearm he lost during the Eclipse. In its resting state it works as an ordinary prosthetic hand, but it doubles as a compact cannon, and it has repeatedly proven its worth in battle as a secondary weapon beside the Dragon Slayer.

Rickert assembled the device from odds and ends found in Godot's warehouse, with help from Erica, and gave it to Guts as a parting gift before the swordsman set out on his two-year campaign against the apostles. The hand conceals a small magnet to steady the massive Dragon Slayer and, above all, a hidden cannon that has saved Guts' life many times over. Resembling a miniature cannon or a large-bore musket, the weapon fires by matchlock; a flick of the artificial wrist folds the hand aside to bare the barrel. Guts loads powder and rams a ball home with a dedicated rod, then pulls a cord that drops the hand below the barrel and ignites the charge, a cord he can tug with his teeth when he cannot spare a hand. He has acknowledged that the prosthetic is more limited than his lost limb, since the hand normally holds a fixed position, though the magic of the Berserker Armor lets him move its fingers freely. Because it is mechanical, it demands regular upkeep with powder, ammunition, and cleaning tools that he keeps in his bags, and it can also mount a repeater crossbow for rapid volleys.

Guts is the sole user of the Cannon Arm, which has become a signature part of his arsenal as the Black Swordsman. In the first Dark Horse English release, the translator had Guts greet the new arm with the line Groovy as a nod to Ash of The Evil Dead, a reference later changed for a plainer rendering in the Deluxe edition. Within Casca's dreamscape, her mental image of Guts carries a cannon inside its mouth rather than on a prosthetic limb.