Bonfire of Dreams

As Casca strips away his bandages and applies the elf dust, Guts reflects that cutting down a hundred foes means less than fighting for something worthy, the way she and Griffith do. He observes that every mercenary in the band carries private hopes, comparing those small ambitions to the camp's bonfires: fragile flames snuffed out by any gust, which is why the men gather around Griffith's larger, steadier fire. Guts admits his own flame does not burn there. Casca grasps at once that he means to depart, though he promises to remain until the campaign is finished.

Rickert and Pippin arrive to report that Griffith, relieved to learn they survived, has hurried back to camp. Casca meets him first and apologizes for riding into battle while ill, only for Guts to puncture the moment by slapping her rear and mocking her theatrics. He then leaves with his men for a drink, and Casca watches him go, uneasy about whether he truly plans to abandon the band. Later in the war, Midland's army besieges Doldrey, a Tudor-held stronghold reputed to be impregnable. A foot soldier warns one of Midland's generals that losses are mounting and that Tudor has dispatched its finest regiment, the Holy Purple Rhino Knights, against Midland's field headquarters.

This twenty-two-page chapter belongs to the Golden Age Arc and appeared in Young Animal issue eighteen on September 10, 1993. In a Gamebiz.jp interview, Kouji Mori recounted that the bonfire scene grew from a memory of a high school festival: standing apart from the celebrating crowd, he and Kentarou Miura vowed to wield their pens for themselves alone, feeling that a solitary struggle still had to be fought somewhere beyond the warmth of the group.