Title: What Must Be

Summary: At the end of it all, Guts is 'killed' by Femto, but unexpectedly awakens among his companions from the Band of the Hawk. He wishes that his memories of the Godhand were merely a dream, but the Brand of Sacrifice remains.

Rating: PG-13 or T (It may move up to M in the future; it is Berserk, after all.)

Warnings: Minor violence, gore and language. Little or no suggestive or sexual content.

-Chapter Two-

When You Must Wake

Tongues of fire licked greedily at his insides, flowing within his blood and wrapping around his bones like a sinuous serpent of searing flame. The brand burned as though it were the center of the blaze, but the rest of his skin was cold, so very cold, enough to make the deepest winter snows seem capable of scorching his flesh.

Liquid trickled down his face, over his neck and chest, but he could not breathe, and the copper scent of blood was thick in his nostrils, the syrupy liquid pooling in his throat, and he was drowning in an ocean of blood.

… You will not die here…

Words echoed in the burning shadows, caressing and tormenting his ears in turn, even as they tumbled and contradicted each other, and the voice changed from opponent/enemy/rival to friend/brother/ally and back again in the space of a single heartbeat.

Eyes staring down at him, dark eyes masked behind a scarlet helm that had once been silver, and a fanged mouth parted in a sneer.

… His petty existence is beneath our notice…

Dark eyes flickered to blue, but it was all a lie, wasn't it? Griffith was dead, and all that remained of him was Femto, who would soon be dead as well.

But Guts was dead, and Femto was the killer, and was it even possible for the dead to avenge themselves upon the living?

Femto… The name was a growl, dark with the promise of revenge, and his throat was raw, his vocal cords feeling shredded, but he hadn't said anything, had he? How could he when he could not breathe past his own blood? I'll kill you… You'll die, Femto, and then …

… then I can die, too…

Hands, upon his shoulders, touching his face, and those eyes, the eyes of the being that had robbed him of everything, were staring into his own, a distant voice calling, and he thrashed to escape, the brand burning as a constant reminder, and he fought as a desperate animal fights, remembering a time almost beyond memory, and another man, with hands that held him down and dug into his flesh…

Don't touch me!

But more hands came, and the faces of the dead came with them to hover over him, voices that had not spoken in years calling, and their calls burned his ears, dark cries of damnation even as their hands gripped and held and bruised and cut into his skin, releasing the fire of his blood onto his flesh, but the flames of the brand merely burned hotter, his breath rattling in his lungs, and he could not escape.

DON'T TOUCH ME!

… then the hands were gone, but he still could not move, and there was a feeling of something cool against the scorching heat of the mark upon his neck, as light as the flutter of an elf's wings, and he thought he could see Puck leaning over his neck, and the elf's small hands were upon his jaw, growing unreasonably larger, prying his teeth apart.

He gagged as liquid, something bitter and gritty, poured over his tongue, and he coughed and sputtered and gasped for breath as the noxious taste lingered in his throat, but the welcomed chill was already flowing through his veins, damping the flames, and a blessed numbness was spreading through his body, chasing away the ever-present pain.

He was finally able to drift into an empty grayness where none of his demons could follow…

"… never seen such… brute! … unbelievable!"

Footsteps shuffled faintly somewhere near him, and several light clinks, like someone rummaging through many small items of glass and metal, came from further away. Muted grumbles followed, in a voice he had never heard, saying something about 'charge double' and 'this fracas.' "… it for now. What of my pay?"

Another voice replied, this one familiar, higher in pitch than the other, and sounding much friendlier, but his hazy thoughts were sluggish and not at all inclined to delve for a memory that would uncover a face or name. "The commander will see to it, I'm sure."

"He promised a horse for me as well. I do have other places to be, you know." The stranger's voice took on an annoying, petulant, huffy note that rankled Guts even in this gray place between sleep and consciousness.

"You'll have to speak to the commander about that. He might want you to remain a little while, yet. Your services have been invaluable."

"Hmph. Well, I'll still need to speak with him."

"I'll have one of the men show you to him. This way…"

A wash of gray, and an undetermined amount of time passed before he felt anything beyond that welcomed numbness, but his first call back toward consciousness was a dull stinging on the side of his neck, a throbbing in his skull, and a bone-deep ache in his wrists and arms. He was warm, but not uncomfortably so, and his shoulders, face and neck even felt chilled, but he either did not want to move or could not move; his body lay heavy and unresponsive.

He was warm, he learned with the slow, dull wit of one still lightly grasped by sleep, because he was on a sleeping pallet or bed of some sort, and covered with something heavy enough to count as three or four blankets… or furs, or rugs, or what-have-you. He had used them all at one time or another. There was the muted crackling of a fire, and the soft steps of someone moving about several yards away.

His eyes slid open, focusing drowsily on a shadow-smothered ceiling crossed by heavy wooden rafters highlighted with the reddish light of a dying fire. The red tint was slowly fading away into gold, and the rasping sound of logs being added to a fire attested to the fact that someone was stoking the flames. The musky scent of smoke permeated the air, as well as the slightly less overbearing scents of sweat and something that smelled bitterly of herbs.

A bit of effort, and he managed to tilt his head toward the source of the light –he was on a bed, as it turned out, — and his eyes fell upon a shadowy, slender figure highlighted by firelight. A woman, he was certain, but she was clad in the nondescript clothes of one of the lower class, her hair tucked beneath a worn scarf, and he knew that he had never seen her before.

A peasant woman tending the fire in a large room complete with fireplace… a large room that belonged to one so well-off as to be able to afford the multiple rugs upon the floor and the wood for the fire and a bed… That added up to a castle of at least a minor noble as surely as one and one added to make two.

But… he had died, hadn't he?

… images of Judeau and Gaston leaning over him, matching expressions of concern on their faces…

… the searing pain of the brand burning against his neck…

A jolt of adrenaline brought him to full awareness, and he realized with a lurch in the pit of his stomach that he could not move because there was something wrapped tight around his wrists and his hands were bound to the bed.

His arms were by his side, hidden beneath the blankets, but he knew the feeling of restraints, and he understood with brutal clarity the source of the ache in his limbs that had helped bring him to awareness.

He must have made some sort of noise –a growl or snarl, most likely— because the woman had whirled around with the air of a rabbit discovering the presence of an extremely ill-tempered wolf behind it. The chunk of firewood she had been holding beneath one arm clattered against the rug-covered stones with a muted ba-clunk.

And, like a rabbit, she emitted the smallest of noises before bolting for escape, hitching her skirts away from her feet and fleeing to a heavy, wooden door that Guts had not noticed and wrenching the portal open before disappearing.

Guts let out a bellow of sheer fury. "Get back here!"

He forced his upper body as far upright as his pinned wrists would allow, his legs tensing uselessly with the movement, his head spinning as his fury drove him on, sending the blankets sliding down his bare chest as he strained his arms until whatever had been used to bind him creaked with the strain.

"Guts!"

A young boy sped into the room with as much alacrity as the woman had shown in exiting. A flash of blond hair and bright blue eyes startled Guts enough to ease his struggles. The boy eased closer to the bed, moving as though he were approaching a wild animal, slowly and with no sudden movements. "Guts?"

The swordsman abruptly slumped back against the bed, dark, cruel laughter bubbling in his chest and bursting past his lips like the tainted, bloody froth coughed up by men dying of chest wounds. Guts' eyes roved over the petite form, noting the knife on the boy's hip and the familiar, wide blue eyes. There was even a small scar just beneath the boy's jaw line, a scar that Guts remembered seeing the boy receive in a skirmish against an opposing mercenary force.

"And here I thought he was just going to kill me," Guts said at last, those dark chuckles still squirming in his chest. His eyes rolled toward the shadow-shrouded ceiling. "What's wrong, Femto? Death not good enough for this petty existence?"

"Guts…?" A few more timid steps closer, and the boy leaned into his field of vision, looking distressed and pale. "Can you hear me?"

The swordsman smirked. "Of course not, idiot. You're dead. How'm I s'posed to hear it when a dead person talks?"

"Dead?" The thing-that-looked-like-but-could-not-possibly-be-Rickert paled until his golden-blond hair seemed darker than bronze. "I—But I'm not! Guts, it's me!"

Guts ignored the phantom, looking past the rafters and shadows above him, imagining that he could see the crimson-armored demon looming overhead, amused by the show. "You know, Femto, if you wanted this to be realistic, then you should've had him untie me by now. You're slipping."

What was this? A hallucination, a dream, or some demon-magic hoodoo to push him over the edge? Femto was cruel, but Guts had never fancied him as the cat-playing-with-an-injured-mouse type. Even Griffith in his darkest moments toyed only briefly with his prey. Nothing so drawn out as this farce appeared to be.

What are you expecting, Femto? Me to break down and cry

Another voice intruded from the direction of the door. "Sir? Is he awake?"

Rickert disappeared from Guts' sight, and the swordsman could hear a weary sigh. "Awake, yes. Lucid, though…"

"… Do you want me to fetch Phemlin?"

"No. I… He's finally awake, so I don't think we should drug him again. Keep an eye on him, and I'll sent a couple others up in case he gets out of hand."

"Yes, sir."

Footsteps retreating and fading, and a strange-yet-familiar presence lurking within the room, but Guts kept his gaze trained on the ceiling, steadfastly ignoring the ghosts from his past, losing himself in the mottled shadows.

Death is supposed to end everything. Couldn't even kill me right, could you, Femto?

And here I was looking forward to it.

He dozed at some point, because the next time he opened his eyes the fire had died down to red embers, and there must have been a small window-slit somewhere behind him because gray light filtered into the room, softening the sharp shadows of the night before.

Turning his head, Guts saw that the unseen guard from the previous night was gone, and in his place stood the Rickert phantom, leaning against the wall beside the door, blue eyes watching Guts' every move with an intent concentration that was out of character for the boy.

Guts raised one eyebrow. "You gonna' untie me this time?"

The boy shook his head slightly, not in denial but more in worry. "Do you still think that I'm dead?"

Guts sneered. "I saw you die. All of you, torn to shreds, while he made me watch."

The ghost bit his lip, and one pale hand crept to the handle of the knife at his waist. The blade hissed as it was drawn from the sheath, and the boy slowly made his way toward the bed. Guts' eyes locked onto the glinting steel, and his entire body tensed as he watched its approach.

"If I'm dead, that would make me a ghost, right?"

Sunlight dancing along the edge of the blade…

"So, I shouldn't be able to…"

Heartbeat thundering in his ears, growl vibrating in his throat, and the bindings upon his arms creaked as he strained against them, his instincts screaming, and he thought that perhaps this was something born from Femto's maddened mind.

The knife bit into flesh…

"…bleed, right?"

…and Guts felt the scalding drops of Rickert's blood pattering onto the bare skin of his upper arm.

The man known as the Black Swordsman shuddered, staring the crimson drops trickling between the boy's clenched fingers, looking at the stain upon the bright metal of the knife, watching the pain hiding at the back of the blue eyes.

"So… this would mean that I'm not dead, right?"

Drip.

"Tell me, then. Who am I?"

The burning hot drops pooled and slid down the outside of his arm, tingling unpleasantly, and Guts managed a hoarse answer. "… Rickert."

This can't be…It can't be real…

"And who are you?"

Drip.

"Guts."

Can it?

"Name the other four captains of the Hawks."

Drip. Drip.

Slick blood sliding over his skin, faces of the dead looming in his mind…

He had never been weak of stomach. He had been covered in the blood of the dead and dying from the crown of his head to the toes of his boots and he had never so much as flinched, but this was different. His stomach flip-flopped in uneasiness, and he could smell the blood, Rickert's blood, Rickert who was here, alive, and still staring at Guts with those pain-darkened eyes.

"Rickert—"

"Name them." The boy's expression was as grave as Guts had ever seen it… graver even than when the boy had learned that Guts was leaving the Hawks… but that hadn't happened, had it? Or it hadn't happened yet?

The brand tingled as a perpetual reminder of the sheer impossible nature of this conversation, but the blood was warm and sticky and real, and those blue eyes were so familiar, the voice exactly as he remembered, and Guts shook his head and answered, his voice hoarse. "Judeau, Pippin, Corkus, Caska."

"And the commander?"

"… Griffith…"

Nodding shortly, some of the tension draining from the set of his shoulders, Rickert pushed up the blankets from the side of the bed, slicing neatly through a thick cord that seemed to be made of three ropes plaited together. Guts hand jerked upward at the sudden loss of tension.

The swordsman blinked momentarily at the ridiculously thick cord circling his wrist before his eyes focused further, settling upon the red-stained dagger that Rickert was extending toward him, hilt-first. He accepted it with the slow wariness of a man not quite sure of his own sanity.

Rickert must have read his expression, because he smiled apologetically, wearily. "Had to be sure," was all he said.

Guts scowled and rolled away to fumble after the cord still binding his other arm to the bed, making short work of it once he found it, and then he set to the task of getting the wickedly knotted ropes off of his wrists without severing an artery –a severe headache and unsteady hand were not recommended for when handling a sharp object,— but he found that several layers of cloth had been wrapped around his wrists before the ropes had been tied, sparing him any truly injurious rope burns… and now helping to spare him from an ugly cut.

Beneath the cloth, both his wrists sported spectacular bands of bruises that ranged from green to blue to violet, yet the ropes had not been tied any tighter than what could be considered 'snug.' Quickly, he took one of the scraps of cloth and wiped the cooling droplets off of his bicep and the red stain off the blade of the knife, and a glance at Rickert's clenched, bleeding fist prompted him to hand the other to the boy. Rickert nodded and made short work of tying the cloth over the ugly cut.

He returned the knife –Rickert had one hand extended pointedly— and glared at the bruises as though he could cow them into explaining exactly what was going on.

"Rickert… What…?" He shook his head, feeling too many conflicting thoughts swirling inside his overfull skull.

What happened? Where am I? What's going on?

What's wrong with me?

Am I really awake?

…Is this real?

But Rickert was walking away. "Your things are in the corner by the fireplace. Go ahead and get dressed. I'll see about some food."

To Be Continued…