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 Three-

What You Must Know

Perhaps it should be depressing, Guts thought to himself, that he had lived for nearly thirty years, and during the whole of those thirty years all of his earthly possessions consisted of the clothes (and weapons) carried on his person, one rucksack filled with necessities, and a sword.

He knew that it should be depressing to think that there had been many years when he had not even had the rucksack.

Chill air brushed over bare skin as he knelt before the possessions in question, and he held up a well-worn under-tunic that his mind steadfastly refused to believe would fit over his broad frame.

He pulled it over his head and tugged it down. Perfect fit.

Now my mind's playin' more tricks on me. Damn, damn, and double damn this whole mess! And damn Femto, too!

He shook his head and reached for the thick, leather breeches, making short work of sliding them on. A warmer over-tunic was found beneath the pants, and he wasted no time in donning that as well, feeling the chill creeping up out of the stone floor to slide insidiously through the soles of his feet and up his legs.

A leather jerkin, the ragged strip of cloth used to wrap his sword-hand, the familiar, thick belt and his old dagger…

Beside the rucksack sat the empty shell of his armor, looking like a strange sort of skeleton, and he hesitated only for a moment before reaching for it resolutely. Even if this was a dream, he would bet whatever remained of his soul that a knife in the ribs would hurt just as badly here as in real life.

Then he spent the whole of a minute wondering where his bandolier of throwing knives had disappeared to before he cursed himself for crazed fool and wondered once more at his own sanity.

This could not be real. He had died! He remembered feeling his heart stop! Even if he had not felt that, a gut wound as severe as the one gifted to him by Femto-once-Griffith was not something that a human being could bounce back from without near-miraculous help.

But there was no scar, no pain… so sign at all that he had received such a wound. Indeed, there was a definite lack of scars: no claw-marks from the inukami he had fought a month past, no puckered flesh over his ribs from in the castle dungeons where the hot iron poker had seared his skin… and he still had his right eye, and his left arm was as healthy and functional as it had ever been.

But the Brand of Sacrifice…

The mark was still tingling, not quite painful but annoying enough, and how else would he have gotten that unless he had really survived the Eclipse?

This can't be real!

…a hand on his shoulder as he lay coughing up his own blood, faces long-dead watching him with worry, voices he had last heard raised in screams of betrayed agony now entreating him, calling his name… the pain of the bindings upon his wrists, the mark burning against his neck… bright blue eyes and scalding blood, drops of ruby pattering onto his skin… shouldn't be able to bleed, right?...

With his lips pulled back form his teeth in a silent snarl, he reached out blindly for the next item, possibly the metal gauntlet that had shielded his left arm in so many battles, but instead his fingers brushed against cold metal, and his arm shifted of its own accord, his hand settling around the pommel of something that was possibly more familiar to him than his own heartbeat.

He had noticed that his sword was against the wall beside the rest of his belongings, but he had not spent any length looking at its familiar shape, more concerned with getting dressed before his blood froze.

Lifting the blade from the floor with a dull scrape of metal against stone, he shifted his stance automatically to counter the immense weight of the weapon, and with his free hand he slid the leather harness off the greatsword, letting it fall limply to the floor.

His mind pondered over the oddity that this greatsword was as much a strain on his body as the dragonslayer sword had been, even despite the fact that the greatsword was half the dragonslayer's size and less than a third its weight.

And his heartbeat slowed, his frenzied thoughts settling, his frustration quieting as he gazed at the simple, elegant lines of a sword he had not held in nearly fifteen years, felt its steady, reassuring weight pulling at his arms and across his shoulders.

Real, his mind whispered. This is real.

A feral grin tugged at his lips, and he leaned the greatsword against the wall, grabbed the harness from the floor, and fastened the sheath securely over his armor.

For now…

The sword hissed as it slid home, its immense weight resting solidly against his back and, instead of bowing him beneath its weight, it somehow drew his head higher, straightened his spine, pulled his shoulders out of their distressed hunch.

…for now, I will let it be real.

And I'll see where it takes me.

It was not Rickert who brought food up to the room, but instead a servant maid. She laid the plate of meat and bread upon the bed, dropped a wineskin beside it, and bolted, much in the same fashion as her predecessor from the night before. Guts watched all this from the far corner of the room, wondering if the woman would faint should he sneeze unexpectedly.

Though extremely hungry, he ate only the smallest bite each of the bread and meat, and barely let the wine touch his tongue. He tested all for abnormal flavor, and then waited for several minutes. Once he deemed it safe enough, he filled his complaining stomach until it ceased its complaints.

He had finished the meal and set both the plate and the skin next to the hearth and was wondering if he could find his way out of the castle and to the courtyard without a guide when voices intruded from the hallway.

"… really… no need, I'm sure… leave now, I… What are you—Let go of me!"

A short knock, and the door opened to admit Rickert, followed closely by the resisting form of a portly, balding man clad in the simple clothes of the middle class and bearing a medium-sized leather satchel escorted by a man that Guts recognized from his Raiders. The stranger caught one look at the swordsman's conscious form and blanched to an unhealthy shade of white-green. The mercenary saw that Guts was awake and grinned broadly, saluting.

"Good to see you awake, Captain." The mercenary nodded to Rickert. "I'll be just outside if you need me, sir."

The soldier slipped back out the door and closed it firmly, despite the stranger's attempts to catch the door and pry it back open, his hands scrabbling uselessly against the door latch which refused to budge –due, Guts suspected, to a certain Raider soldier holding it firmly in place from outside.

A soft cough from Rickert had the strange man jumping like a startled squirrel and whirling to press his back against the door. He glared at Guts –who was busy examining a rather spectacular spread of bruising on the man's neck, taking in the man's altogether too nervous attitude— who returned the look with a mildly venomous look of his own. The stranger gulped, and Guts wondered if he imagined it when the stranger darted a look down at his unbound hands with an expression of near terror. "Y-you cannot keep me here like this! I never agreed to remain so long; I promised a diagnosis and treatment, and I delivered! I demand that you release me!"

"You've done admirably," was Rickert's polite, unimpressed reply, reminding Guts that no matter how innocent or naïve Rickert might seem, each member of the Hawks had a core of steel within them that had been tempered in the fires of war. The boy turned to Guts. "Guts, this is Phemlin Maer. We found him shortly after the last battle; he was staying in a nearby village, and lucky for us, he has some training as a physician. He agreed to lend us his help. I thought that maybe he should have one more look at you."

Guts digested that. "I've been sick, then?"

A loud, derisive "Hah!" came from the physician.

Rickert tilted his head in a sort of apologetic shrug. "You've been unconscious for over a week. Today is the ninth day."

Guts' stomach twisted in surprise. His hand rose almost of its own will to touch his neck, his fingers brushing against the band of soft cloth wrapped over the brand. Guts had no doubt that the mark was there, though. Rickert's eyes noted the movement, and the glint of worry in the blue eyes grew.

Guts allowed a small, humorless smile to cross his face. "So, doc… what's wrong with me?"

And I will swallow my own sword if you somehow manage to get it right.

"Some fever of the brain, no doubt," was the stiff reply, but though the doctor was still facing the bed, his hands were busy behind his back, pulling on the latch. "Obviously some sort of dementia."

Guts smile widened into something wolfish. "You think I'm insane?"

The doctor gulped loudly. "I-I-…"

"Hah! Close, doctor. Very close." Guts chuckled darkly deep in his chest as the brand tingled upon his neck. "Rickert, give the man his pay and have one of my men escort him from the castle at the good doctor's convenience."

One watching might not have noticed the slight, relieved sag of the doctor's weakened knees, but Guts was watching and took much grim amusement from the simple movement. Rickert spared Guts a glance before nodding in acquiescence and walked over to the door, rapping sharply on the wood. The door opened immediately and murmured words were exchanged while the doctor was all but plastering himself against the boy's back in his eagerness to leave the room.

Rickert stepped away from the doorframe, and the doctor was halfway out the door before Guts' call brought him up short, stiff and trembling like a frightened horse.

"Hey, doc, you might want to put something on those bruises. Bad thing for a doc to not be able to take care of himself, you know?"

The portly man all but ran from the room, Guts' dark smirk chasing him down the hallway like one of the hounds of hell.

Rickert closed the door again, leveling a curious glance at the older man, but Guts merely shook his head, the smirk still lingering upon his face.

"Rickert…" Guts waited until the young boy had fully met his gaze. "I want you to tell me what's happened. Everything, understand?"

The boy nodded, ever obliging. "How much do you remember?"

Every day and every death and every scream…

"Start with the battle," ordered the swordsman tersely.

"Well…" Rickert rubbed his bangs back from his forehead, looking thoughtful, "it took a while for the battle to end, an hour at least –we won, of course— and everyone headed back to camp as soon as Griffith gave the order to withdraw."

Rickert made an expansive gesture with his hands, blue eyes wide and somewhat disbelieving. "When they brought you in… talk about pandemonium! Your men were frantic; they're used to you being hacked to bits, but seeing you collapse without even being stabbed is a reason for real panic, I suppose. I thought you had died, the way everyone was shouting, and all the captains came to see what the fuss was. Caska couldn't believe it… actually, no one could believe it.

"And then Griffith came riding up, asking what was wrong. He took a look at you, and then took charge. He had you taken to your tent, sent all the captains back to their duties, questioned Judeau and a few of your men to see what was going on, and sent for the Hawk surgeon, all within about two minutes!

Rickert's eyes dimmed. "You were running a horrible fever for the first day, but the surgeon couldn't find anything abnormally wrong beyond the wound on your neck. It wouldn't stop bleeding." Rickert's eyes fastened on the side of Guts' neck. "Do you—"

"I know what it is," growled Guts. His tone clearly said that the subject was not open for discussion. Rickert nodded.

"We couldn't wake you up. Sometimes, you struggled and attacked anyone that came near, kept talking about ghosts and dying, and no one could calm you down. We tried to keep you still when it happened, but that only made things worse. Judeau had some medicine that helped cool that mark –it was almost always burning hot— but it only worked for a while before it had to be used again, and Corkus kept saying that you were cursed.

Guts simply could not restrain a loud snort at that. Rickert gave him an odd look.

"Your fever kept getting worse, and then it started to snow, and… well, you know what our tents are like in winter." A small, humorless smile appeared on Rickert's face. "Griffith negotiated with a local lord: shelter and supplies for the Hawks in return for subduing a small rebellion in one of the lord's villages. Griffith left myself and part of your Raiders here and took the rest of the Hawks on the campaign… that was two days ago.

"The lord is the one that pointed us toward Phemlin, but even he couldn't really do anything for you. The only medicine he gave you was sedatives, and that was probably because—" Rickert broke off, and Guts watched a slight flush travel across the bridge of the boy's nose.

"Rickert?"

"Ah, nothing at all. Phemlin probably just didn't know anything else that would help. Griffith certainly made it worth his while for you to get better, so Phemlin really did his best, but…" The stream of words trickled to an uncertain halt, but Guts had clearly heard what the boy hadn't said.

He snorted. "So I did give him the bruises."

"Well… that was when we were only using one rope…"

To Be Continued…