"You're still using that armor," Skull Knight said as they raced up the steps on his skeleton horse.

"What're you doing here?" Guts spat out. He had no idea what was going on now.

"I haven't been to this city in centuries, nigh, perhaps a millenium. I was feeling nostalgic."

Guts ignored the fact that didn't make any sense and rested as much as he could. The Skull Knight, while not being a calming presence, wasn't needling his rage. It was almost like he wasn't alive at all. Like he was just some thing on a mission, an automaton set on its course. Passionless, but still stubborn.

"Do you still have that behelit?" Skull Knight asked.

"Yeah."

"You're about to make a choice," he said ominously, "Check the saddle bag. There should be some fairy dust. Use as much as you need."

Guts helped himself to the fairy dust and felt more like himself.

"Can't you see what's going to happen?" Guts asked.

"No. After tonight all is dark." Skull Knight didn't seem worried, but Guts could never get a read on him. It wasn't like he had a face exactly. The answer made enough sense to Guts however; after tonight the world would never be the same.

They reached the top of the castle and the skeleton horse galloped into the hall. There, sitting on the throne was Griffith.

The Falcon of Light doesn't look like a man nearing thirty, no, he almost looked younger than before. Like how he'd been when Guts last saw him. The real Griffith, not the one tortured or the one back from the dead. His feminine beauty enhanced to an inhuman amount. He was trying to reign the demons in. He was failing.

Guts launched himself off the horse towards Griffith. The sight of him filled Guts with so much rage that the Berseker armor took over and even the charm that this new Griffith exuded couldn't affect him. It could've been Casca standing in front of him and he wouldn't have been able to stop.

Skull Knight stood back and observed.

Griffith smiled a forced smile, like he was still trying to deny the feelings he had. Guts could tell, he could feel the pit of emotions they both had. Before Guts could get close enough to bring his sword down, he was thrown to the floor by a flick of Griffith's hand. He got up and growled.

"You pulled a fast one on me," Griffith said, not standing up. He fixed Guts with a look from his cold blue eyes. They were like the eyes of a dead man. "I should've known you were just a puppet."

Guts rushed forward again, and was ready for whatever power Griffith had over him. He forced Griffith to rise and draw his sword. The king of Falconia moved quickly, but with the Berserker armor Guts was able to match him. The Dragon Slayer should've cut through the falcon of light's own sword, but through magic or some other force it was able to block and parry attacks.

Guts swung hard and fast, inhumanly so, but it was all he could do to fight against Griffith. Sooner, rather than later, Guts found himself on the defensive, blocking and taking more damage than he was dishing out. Infact, Guts could tell, most of the blood on Griffith was Guts'. Guts wasn't even sure if he'd been able to draw blood on the man, though he'd cut through the armor.

Did Griffith even bleed?

Guts was losing. He was already tired from his day of fighting to get up there, and even with the Berserker armor pushing his past his limit, his heart would give out before long. There was nothing magic armor could do to stop that.

Just let me kill him, Guts thought, let me avenge all the evil that had been done to me. Let me finish this.

Rip and tear, the Beast of Darkness bellowed, release me! Let me bathe in blood. Release me!

It was almost as if Griffith could sense his inner turmoil and laughed.

"And you're going mad right before my eyes, here I thought you'd done that long ago."

Guts gnashed his teeth, he snarled, he bit. He did everything in his power to hurt his most loved and hated enemy. In the end, the Beast of Darkness didn't need to be freed. With their goals being the same at that moment, it just merged back into the rest of his psych. It was then that Guts truly went Berserk.

Like a mirage, Griffith moved around the throne room, never staying in one place long enough to be killed by Guts. Guts chased him like a rabid dog, not caring anymore what happened to himself, or even the promise he made to Casca. Letting go of his humanity didn't bring him any closer to victory.

At some point his leg had been broken, and his body was battered. He was limping badly and it was then that Griffith started to gloat.

"It was Casca who came up with this little plan, wasn't it?"

Guts could only hobble forward, even not feeling the pain, his leg was still mangled. Just as he came in range, Griffith smiled wickedly and slid out of the way, pulling some of the berserker armor off. It felt like his own skin being pulled off and Guts howled in pain.

"It was, I can tell, her and those witch friends of yours. I should tell you want I plan to do with them, what I'll do to you, I had all day to think about it." He went to grab another piece of armor, but Guts managed to slash with his sword. He knew if any more of the armor came off he'd lose consciousness and he couldn't afford that. Not yet. Griffith moved out of the way, and put a finger thoughtfully to his chin, "Oh, and my wh*re wife too."

Griffith went on, but Guts wasn't listening. He was focusing on his cannon arm, which still had one shot in it.

BAM!

The cannon went right towards Griffith's head, but the demon of a man simply turned his body out of the way,

"I've gotten good at torture," Griffith continued without missing a beat, "I have, after all, recieved planty of it!"

It was then that Guts truly despaired. His consciousness was waning– would he drop into sleep or death? He wasn't sure. Blindly, he scrambled with his metal arm for something to throw, something more to try when his hand closed around something round.

He pulled it away from his body to see the behelit. He made eye contact with it and its face began to come into shape. Its eyes began to cry blood and the world around them began to shift.

No longer in the gleaming halls of Falconia, no, it was now a dreary place like the Tower of Conviction. The land around was writhing with corpses and wailing demons.

Standing in Griffith's place stripped of all his rage and hate, was Femto. Now he was just cold and calculating.

"So, he made his choice," came a seductive voice from the shadows, "I told you, I know a man's soul." It was Slan.

"Men are such fickle creatures, one moment vowing to destroy something, the next becoming that very thing," said Conrad, melting out of the shadows.

Ubik said nothing.

"Now now, just because he's gotten this far does it mean he'll make the choice he still must decide," Void spoke, "You wish to destroy the one once known as Griffith?"

"You'd let me do that?" Guts asked. Except he didn't need to open his mouth.

"We wouldn't let you, as we deserve the right to defend ourselves, but we could give you the power to have a chance."

A chance? A chance was all Guts ever needed.

"All we need," Conrad explained, "Is a sacrifice."

"But I'm a sacrifice."

Void snapped his fingers and the brand was gone. In an instant his pain lessened.

"If you accept and kill Femto he will no longer need you and if you are killed then you will still go to the vortex of souls and complete the sacrifice."

Guts wondered if they made up the rules as they went along.

"So, do you sacrifice?"

The power was at his fingertips, the power to kill Griffith. He would become a monster, but how was that any different from what he's done before. He could taste it. He hadn't been able to taste anything in a long while. His consciousness was running out too, he could feel it. Do or die time and he was going to –

Then suddenly a light.

It was familiar and warm. Playful like a child. He looked into it and he saw Isma fighting for her life. He saw Isidro defending Schierke while she launched desperate magic attacks. He saw Serpico dodging and weaving while Farnese lost herself to the hellfire. He saw Casca, beautiful and strong, commanding from a line that grew thinner and thinner. And last he saw Philip, asleep in shaking arms.

Guts started laughing. He must've lost his mind if he even considered for a moment sacrificing everyone he loved. The self loathing would've set in had he been able to stop laughing.

"You put him under too much stress," Slan said, "He's even more broken now."

She looked up to Void just in time to see Skull Knight strike his behelit sword through him. This made Guts laugh even harder. And then the world started to unmerged. The tree had been destroyed.

The Godhand were sent into a panic and Femto was being pulled in two. He was trying to disappear into the ether to escape the light, but the playful light refused for him to go. It held him even as Falconia reformed around them, dingyer and less impressive than before.

And so Griffith was now decidedly human. Or at the very least mortal. He threw the light across the room and it fell near Guts. Guts crawled to it and saw the moonlight boy only for a moment before it faded into the demon fetus.

"No!" Griffith cried.

Guts' eye went wide as he reached out to touch the fetus. The armor receded and Guts touched his child.

"I'm sorry," Guts whispered, knowing it wasn't enough, it could never be enough. "I'm sorry."

It seemed to smile at him, and with its last vestiges of power, healed Guts. It wasn't a lot, but it was enough. And with the last scraps of sunlight his first son was gone. Guts felt a piece of his heart break in a way it hadn't before.

He stood up. Now knowing he could end the fight.

"You can't beat me. Not without their power," Griffith said, reaching for his own sword. "This doesn't change anything."

Guts only smiled. "I wanted my freedom all those years ago. Why can't you just let me go?"

They readied for the strike, one that would end at all. Once and for all.

A breath. Then two. then –

The Dragonslayer came down and any pitiful magic that enchanted Griffiths sword stood no chance. The blade was snapped into like a toothpick in his body followed after.

Guts didn't cleave his head as he planned but his blade did find it so deep in Griffith spotty. His arm was nearly falling off and his heart could be seen beating. It was a mortal wound surely, but Griffith wasn't giving up and dying. And then his body was trying to regenerate. Guts swung again and was able to land another wound to his legs.

Guts turned away from his friend who lay crippled once again. He looked down at him and felt only exhaustion. This was it, this was what he'd been working for for all of these years. This is what would fix it all.

Except, it wouldn't fix anything. The band of the hawk was still dead. The dead couldn't be brought back, they couldn't. All the revenge and hatred were just hurting him, they had helped him at one point, but what led to defeating Griffith hadn't been rage, it'd been love. Guts could never forgive Griffith, but he could do him one worse; he could forget about him. So, for the second time, Guts walked away from the man who had once been his only friend. He then collapsed On the breezeway exiting the hall, the full moon is bright overhead