Chapter 1: Awakening
The sky held no sun, no moon. It was constructed of pulsating flesh, dripping blood onto an earth that had transformed into a deep, crimson lake. In this world, hope was not merely lost—hope had been murdered, minced, and devoured entirely by the darkness.
Amidst that genocide, one man still stood. Or rather, he refused to collapse before his duty was done.
Guts swung the remains of his broken sword with a strength that defied logic. SNAP. The dull, rusted blade smashed into the skull of a demon attempting to pounce on him. He no longer felt pain. His left arm was gone, destroyed up to the elbow. His right eye was blind, pierced by the claws of the demon legion, leaving his vision of the world dark on one side and drowning in blood-red on the other.
His breath sounded like a grater against rusted iron—heavy and suffocating. Every intake of air carried the metallic stench of death. Yet, beyond the fog of agony, his remaining eye caught the silhouettes that gave him a reason to keep his footing: Isidro, Schierke, Farnese, Serpico, and their resistance forces. They were still breathing. Wounded, trembling, but alive.
And Casca... Casca was there, behind the protection of her comrades, safe from the rotten touch of the Demon King.
"Go..." Guts whispered, his voice barely audible over the roar of monsters. "Run!"
The Skull Knight opened a portal far behind the battle lines. Guts knew this was his final offering. If the first Eclipse took Judeau, Pippin, and Corkus, then this third Eclipse would only take one thing: himself.
"GRIFFITH!!!"
Guts looked up, staring at the peak of the giant hand protruding from the ground. There, a figure with jet-black wings—Femto—stared coldly down. The Hawk of Darkness wanted everything, but this time Guts would ensure Griffith received nothing but his own broken life.
Guts leaped into the horde of demons surrounding his friends, becoming an impenetrable shield of meat, allowing his body to be torn apart to grant them one small opening to escape this hell. His feet dragged. His muscles, usually capable of cleaving through steel and monsters, now screamed in fatal exhaustion. He wanted to run, he wanted to slash, he wanted to tear those black wings apart. But the human body had limits, and Guts had surpassed those limits a thousand steps ago.
A giant insect apostle slammed into his back. Guts crumbled. His face hit a pool of blood.
"Get up," he barked at himself. "Get up, you fool! If you sleep now, your comrades... Casca will die! They have to escape!"
He tried to stab the remains of his sword into the ground to rise, but his fingers were numb. Dozens of other demons began to pile onto him, sharp teeth tearing at his armor and flesh. The vision in his left eye began to narrow, drowned out by the sound of monsters chewing all around him.
"I'm sorry..." he thought, his consciousness drifting away. "I am only... human..."
He had lost, yet his lover, his comrades, his squad... they had managed to escape.
The Brand of Sacrifice on his neck bled profusely; the pain burned down to his marrow. Total darkness finally arrived. Not the darkness of sleep, but the darkness of death. His soul was pulled from its shattered vessel of flesh, dragged toward the swirling black wind in the sky—the Vortex of Souls—where eternal hell awaited those who were sacrificed.
Guts questioned his existence. Is this hell?Is this retribution for defying the Hand of God?Or is my soul being devoured by the monsters tearing my body apart?
God… Deities… or whatever you are…. Do you exist?.....
Suffering. That is all I have known. My life spent at the edge of a sword—fighting, running, then fleeing again. An endless cycle. Only two months have passed since Casca was healed in the Skellig Isles... and only for these past two months did I taste a sliver of the sweetness of peace that felt so alien. And you destroyed it again?
If there is even a shred of mercy…
Give me one chance.I want parents. Not like Gambino.
I want to feel the warmth of a home, to have children and raise them.
I want to live in peace… not in endless war.
I want to cry, but I have no tears.I want to pray, but no voice comes out.
God…Give me just one chance…Just one…
However... something strange happened.
A light—very faint, almost unreal—appeared in the distance. Warm. Gentle.
On the threshold of dimensions, just as his soul was about to be swallowed by the black vortex, an emerald green light broke through. The light did not come from this demonic dimension. It radiated from below, from the depths of a distant earth, from a different universe entirely.
The green current was warm. It smelled like wet earth after rain, like an ancient forest, and like... life.
"This soul..."
A voice echoed. Not the voice of a God, nor the voice of a Demon. It was the voice of thousands of lives merged into one. The voice of the Planet.
"This soul is too heavy for Hell. Too defiant for Death."
Guts felt the pull of the Vortex of Souls snap. Instead, he fell. Falling through space and time, passing stars made of memories. He saw the faces of his smiling friends, he saw his bitter childhood, he saw his greatsword. All of it slowly faded, stored away deep in the drawers of his memory.
The pain in his body vanished. His explosive rage was dampened by a blanket of soothing green energy.
"Sleep, Warrior," the voice whispered again, soft as a mother. "Your war is not over, but your battlefield has shifted. Here... you have a second chance."
"Help us... Protect her... Aerith..."
The whisper caressed Guts' soul like a cold wind on a slaughter field. Faint. Desperate.
Guts fell silent. He knew the scream of death, but this was different. This was the scream of life refusing to be extinguished.
"Who..." his mind raced. "Who is she?"
Darkness. Silence.
Then... noise.
Not the sound of the Hand of God, Demons, Apostles, or monsters. Not the sound of swords.
The sound of hissing steam. The sound of metal wheels clashing against rails. The sound of a truck horn in the distance. And the smell... the smell of oil, rust, and exhaust fumes.
"Hhh... hhh..."
The eyes opened.
Not in a lake of blood. Guts stared at a cracked and dusty wooden ceiling. An old fan spun slowly with a rhythmic click-click-click. The dim light of a yellow lamp illuminated the cramped room.
He tried to clench his hand. The hand clenched. Complete. Five fingers. He felt his left arm. It was there. Whole. Not severed.
He touched his right eye. He could see. His vision was clear, though slightly blurry from just waking up.
His heart beat fast, pumping blood into a body that felt... small.
Light. No scars. No muscles as hard as rock. This was a body that had never been forged by war.
Guts tried to sit up, his breath ragged with the confusion sweeping his brain. Where were the demons? Where was Griffith? Where was his sword?
He turned toward a small mirror on the wall.
A teenage boy with spiky red hair stared back at him. The face was unfamiliar, but the gaze in the mirror was his own—the gaze of a wild dog, severely wounded but ready to bite.
"Johnny! Are you awake?"
A woman's voice came from behind the door. A strange voice, but for some reason, it made his tight chest feel a little looser.
Guts—or now, Johnny—looked down at his small, trembling palms. He was alive. Hell had spat him back out.
And in this world that smelled of iron, the Black Swordsman had been reborn.