A/N: Though I'd try and branch into a different fandom with this little character observation. Let me know what you think.
Guts had watched that boy die, the light slowly fading from his eyes.
He had seen it before in the faces of men; never in one so young, at least not by his own hand. He saw himself reflected in his eyes, both the boy he once had been, so desperate for his father's praise and the monster he had become. He had been fleeing more from that vision than the palace guards.
Now he stood on the steps, caught in the shadows as he watched him, his general, so impassioned by his own words that he emoted furiously with his hands while his audience, both intended and unintended, stood rapt.
Guts heard his words, swallowed them like hot coals. He'd been had, lied to by himself because he had been so eager to believe.
He had become the tool by which his owner would strike at those foes that he could not strike at in such an open forum. He had become a dog for someone else's dream and in obeying the request he had reduced himself to less than nothing in the eyes of a man he had considered his friend.
It was then he realised that he couldn't stay. Couldn't live while riding on the coat tails of those that came before him.
He almost wished that he had never learnt.