Guts. The word, the namesake. There is something about it that teeters close towards the realm of uncertainty, but that cannot be true, for you were the most decisive man I knew. The demands of destiny are consuming, but is it not cruel to sever our own so brutally, without a trace of remorse? What sweet betrayal, that you would have done to me what I would have never done to you.

You said, once, that the brighter the light, the darker the shadows around it. My long reminiscing on this statement has produced a final theory: It is you, Guts. You are both the light and the shadow, the interweaving of good and evil. It lives within you as an entity, fluctuating forever, never tasting freedom, as severely intoxicating as the love I have for you.

Mayhap it started soon after your initiation into the Band of Hawk. I wanted you, truly - you could say I even needed you. Your strength would be a promising asset, as was my original deduction from your arrival. But asset alone would not suffice; in subtlety, you were a warrior, and in truth, you were my friend. My only friend. The only person I could ever consider a friend.

I can still remember our first duel, long ago as it was, and how you outwitted me by biting my sword. I still chuckle whenever my mind wanders towards the recollection. I recall how you smiled at me through the crowds of nobles, as if to congratulate me, humbly, for finally achieving what we had: how we won the war, and in turn our nobility. These are the memories that bite into my heart fleetingly, threatening to overwhelm me with its evocation. It is not as if I had wished for resolution; no, rather, it is my own doing that had caused this fatal mistake. It finds its way to me now, and I lament only further the impending fact that there is nothing I can do.

It is laughable, and yet I cannot not bring myself to express any emotion separate from the cold void that now fills my psyche, festering itself in acute nature as languid as the state of my current mindsake. Come tomorrow, I am unsure how I would continue to live having absorbed such a blow, bearing the loss I had experienced in surfeit. Would I end my journey altogether, or would I continue living, purposeless and broken? This I do not know, but what I do know is for certain.

Out of the thousands of soldiers that fought alongside me, you were the only one to make me forget my dream. You, out of everyone, mattered to me. To us. We were something, together. Why are you leaving me? I cannot accept this. You cannot leave. I cannot allow you to leave.

I still have not moved. I am frozen upon the snow, and my sword lies near me, broken in two, recently defeated by his larger blade. It is a mutual shock; the others are also aghast, not daring to speak a word in the moment of tension that passes. Perhaps it was better that no exchanges were established, as any dialogue that would have passed their lips would have been forfeit.

Guts takes this as a cue to leave, and privately within my tumultuous, racing mind, I cannot blame him. He looks back, sparing one last glance at us - the Band of the Hawk, and I. Deciphering him has always been an easy feat, but as he looks at me, I wish for absolution, as I realize that now, to read his expression would be impossible. My body will not obey me; I desperately wish to go to him, to bring him back, and persuade him otherwise of his decision.

In the end, I betray my dignity.