Here now! Had a bit of a delay with this. So, glad to have it here! Enjoy!

Episode 03

"Here we go…"

RCHT!

"ErrRah!" Guts growled out before pulled the Dragon Slayer blade back… to bring a first wide swing that horizontally bisected the row of skeleton soldiers in front of him.

With the swing came the sound like that of a mighty bell toll.

He wasn't done yet.

He stepped forward and swung again a wide arc that took the row of ghouls ahead of them. He repeated the process again.

As many times as he had to.

The Dragon Slayer blade cut through pieces of ribcages, severing spines, and tossing mangled heads in the air.

He cut through the gathering vanguard, before long they started to close in around him. Guts grunted, before he tilted his blade down and swiped at the ground. At least several skulls were swept off from the ground before Guts used the distraction to plow through the encirclement. He swung the blade left and right, before he brought it down in front of him on a group of skulls. There came a loud crunch along with the pounding metal of the Dragon Slayer.

His brand still bled more.

Guts looked to see floating accursed spirits hovering in the air. They were circling him like vultures.

He barely even scratched the surface to what the night would bring.


From her spot next to Casca and the campfire… Erza could only stare at what she was witnessing with petrified amazement.

The monsters had come back, still more after the other night, and this time they brought weapons of their own. That did little to intimidate the tall swordsman… who walked out to meet them head-on… as if he were going out to plow the garden.

It was the second time Erza was seeing him in action, and this time she was making sure to see with detail on his movements.

The ability he had… to wield that sword… let alone carry it… was still a mystery to her. And the way he persisted in swinging it back and forth through the crowd of reanimated skeletons was nothing short of…

"Dah! Mayday! Mayday!" The 'fairy' Erza now knew as Puck started flying around in alarm. "We got incoming toward our base camp!"

Erza gasped and turned… to see more skulls coming from the other side… towards her and Casca.

"AWU!" Casca cried out.

But before they could…

"Erah!" the swordsman yelled as he jumped in front of the group and horizontally swiped his sword and bisected the first row of skulls into pieces.

Erza gasped.

"They may be coming from all sides…" Puck shivered.

"You…" the swordsman glanced at Erza. "Take this."

"What?"

The swordsman quickly bent down to pick up a burning rod from the campfire, before he passed it to Erza, the girl holding in shock.

"What… what's with this?!"

"Hold on to that… then they'll think twice of coming near you." The man said, before pulling up his sword smash through invading undead.

"Hey, wait!" Erza exclaimed.

"Incoming, nine o'clock!" Puck screeched.

Erza quickly turned before Casca screamed as a skull crawled near, and the girl quickly extended the torch…

"Grrr!"

The skull hissed, backing away a bit to evade the burning flame.

"Dah! One o'clock now!" Puck yelled.

Erza quickly swung the torch to push away a skull holding a wooden club.

"Eeep! Now there's more coming at three…!"

Erza instantly turned to swipe the direction of the flames at a trio of sword-bearing skulls approaching her and Casca.

The girl had to turn back to keep the previous skulls from coming close. It didn't help when some were started to join in surrounding them from all sides, nor was it that Erza could only scare them back with the torch and not strike them down.

"This is stupid!" she clenched the torch she held. "I need something stronger! A sword! A mace!"

"Uh… Uh…" Puck pondered nervously for a moment… even more as the skulls came closer towards Erza. "I got something!" The 'fairy' flew and dropped into Guts' bag that was sitting close to the fire.

"Got it!" Puck lifted out from the sack a material by the handle. "Take this, girl!" The 'fairy' was able to lift it with all his might to throw it towards Erza to catch it.

"Stay back!" Erza yelled before pointing towards the skulls her new wea… pan.

Erza blinked twice.

It was serious what she was seeing.

Her new weapon… that she was holding in defense against the skulls… was a pan.

A cooking pan that Puck had tossed her.

Sweat Drop…

"Huh?!" Erza turned back at Puck…

"Uh… awkward…"

Casca crouched by, blinking in confusion.

"YOU GOT TO BE FREAKING KIDDING ME!" Erza yelled which caused the fairy shrink away. "WHAT IS THIS?!"

"What?! You want the ladle, instead?!" Puck countered.

"Gerargh…" The undead skulls resumed their march towards Erza. The first one made a swing of his sword.

Erza reacted and ducked.

Another skull lunged for her, until she brought her torch up and the fire caused undead to back away. Then the skull that Erza had ducked swung his rusty sword for her head when…

CLANG!

Erza reacted quickly when she pulled the frying pan up to her face when the blade clashed with the metal surface. Saving her.

The girl's eyes widened at this, now realizing the merit of the cooking tool she now held.

She narrowed her eyes, now focused.

She batted the blade away with the pan before she pulled the torch back and jammed it into the open ribcage of the skull. The undead screeched in obvious pain as the fire spread through its body.

The other skull came at Erza again, only for her to block his strike with the pan, before striking him with her burning torch. She brought the pan up again to whack it, bringing out loud cracks.

The skull stayed down, and Erza regarded her pan…

"Huh…" Erza lifted it up. "I think I'm getting the hang of this…"

"Watch out, Red!" Puck screamed.

Erza quickly pulled the pan to block the hard blow of an ax coming down on her. The blow was hard it sent her to the ground.

She fell to the ground on her flat back, looking at the undead still coming for her.

She turned to see something of interest lying a few feet from her.

A sword. A rusty one… but a sword within her sight!

A real weapon.

She instantly extended to her hand to grasp it…

…only to pull it back when the undead brought its ax down and embedding it on the ground where Erza's wrist would have been.

She pulled his ax and went strike again, forcing Erza to roll away… causing her to roll and facing something opposite of her.

Something both grotesque and terrifying.

A hand.

A severed skeleton arm. Lying in front of her. Its fingers still moving and grasping for something to grab onto…

The towering undead soldier lifted his ax again…

Erza reacted…

The redhead grabbed hold of the reanimated arm before rolling out of the way.

The girl glanced again at the sword a meter from her. She glanced at the skeleton hand in her grasp… and her mind lit up a candle.

She extended the skeleton hand forward to her right… where it was able to grab ahold of the sword for her.

The girl quickly rolled away with her new spoils. She quickly stood up and went to pull the sword out of the bony hand's grip. When she finally pried it out, the bony fingers of the skeleton hand sensed her, and moved toward her…

Erza yelped, realizing the reanimated hand she used was now grasping for something. Her throat, without a doubt.

She quickly threw the skeleton hand far away, allowing her to hold up the sword she had acquired.

A sword.

It was of a different design than the ones she had last wielded. For one thing, it was a bit worse for wear. Its blade and hilt had to have been buried in the ground for some time. The blade had chips along the edges and the color was dull. The hilt may have been a copper color, but had faded into a gloomy color, and had scratches around its 'V' designed hilt.

But it was a sword, and that was what matters.

A real sword to wield again.

To fight.

Erza gripped the sword in her right hand, while keeping the frying pan in her left, acting as her makeshift shield.

She glared at the undead figures gathering around the camp. She was now ready… to fight for real again.


Guts growled as he pulled up Dragon Slayer again to make a stab towards another undead; the colossal blade tearing through the skull and collarbone of the skull. He pulled back from the cracking bones to swipe and decapitate another undead.

Again. Again. Again.

Guts grunted as he swiped the blade across half a dozen more undead coming at him, before going in to strike the other half of the dozen. The Dragon Slayer ripped across the broken ribs and severed spines of the skulls like cutting through branches. Their accursed heads and chipped weapons sent flying.

It was far from clear.

The black swordsman noticed that there were more undead than usual. More than what he would expect for nights on end. The reanimated corpses kept piling back up.

This was turning out to be better than last night.

"HIYA!"

"Huh?!" Guts paused… when a red blur past by him… to slash at an approaching undead with her sword.

Wait, what?

"You?!" Guts exclaimed at the redheaded girl, standing with her back towards him. "What are you doing?!"

"What's it looks like?!" the girl said. "I'm fighting!"

"You're supposed to be back by the fire with Casca!" Guts yelled, stabbing the sword into a skull. "Get the hell back!"

A skull growled as it lifted it long spear up, ready approach when…

SLICE!

It didn't get the chance, when the girl jumped up in front, used her sword to cut off the top of the spear, leaving an opening…

"HAA!" the girl yelled as brought up her barefoot to make a strong kick… that was strong enough to smack the reanimated skull's head from off his bony shoulders.

"…" Guts widened his eye at what he was witnessing now.

"Wooh!" Puck flew by Guts' ear. "You saw that, Guts! I think this girl's an athlete!"

Guts noticed the sword in her hand, obviously taken from one of the undead. Then he noticed in her other hand was…

"What… HEY!" He yelled.

"What?!" the girl questioned.

"That's my frying pan!" He pointed at his cooking tool in her left hand.

"Yeah, so?!"

More undead came again.

One came to strike the girl with his sword, only for her to quickly raise Guts' pan to block it.

"Yeah, so?!"

"…"

Was the girl really using his only cooking material as a shield?

"Hey!" The girl protested when Guts grabbed her and pulled her back. "Let me go!"

"You think this is a game?! You think because you can swing both a sword and something absurd, you think you're going to survive?! You don't even know what we're dealing with!" the swordsman grunted before dragging the girl back near where Casca was crouching. "Stay by the fire!"

He dropped the red-head girl almost very rudely with a thud to the ground, as he quickly went back on the defensive with Dragon Slayer.

"YOU BIG JERK!" Erza yelled in anger.

Guts ignored her as swiped Dragon Slayer horizontally to break apart a dozen skulls in front of him. He felt pain on his neck, just as his instincts took in…

SLASH!

"Hey, what are stabbing at in the air?!" the girl called out. "There's nothing there!"

"You couldn't be more wrong…"

Guts grunted as he pointed Dragon Slayer upward to stab at one of the accursed spirits floating in the air above him.

"Now they are starting to double up…"

Guts smirked.

He yelled before dashing in to slash through the army of bones coming his way. The satisfying crack of bones filling his ears. And after that, he would back up to stab at the astral ghouls floating overhead.

All the while…

"Dah, still more coming!" Puck yelled as he sat near Casca's shoulder.

Another undead started coming near the other side of the campfire when…

SLASH! PAN!

Two loud strikes of blade and metal pan.

Guts looked to see the girl had dashed the second the new threat was detected… and made short work of it.

"Grrr…" it looked as if the girl started panting with sweat. It didn't stop from crossing her rusty blade with another skull before she evaded and used her momentum to cut through it.

"Wow… she's handling herself real nice!" Puck cheered.

Guts regarded her… thinking for a moment…

"Errregghh…"

Suddenly, plowing through the army of skulls, came a very familiar sight…

"WHAT THE!" the girl cried out. "IS THAT THE TREE?! THE MONSTER TREE IS BACK?!"

"…"

The bulky trunk laughed with the many malevolent faces sprouting from its chest, before making its way towards them. It extended its vine-branches towards them…

SLICE!

"Don't have time for this again," Guts groaned as he brought up Dragon Slayer to sever the appendages from coming near him and the girl, blood sprinkling out from the wounds.

The tree groaned in pain, turning to Guts anger, ready to bring down more vines on him. Guts wouldn't let it. The swordsman dashed and swung his blade to slice at the trunk. The tree faces screeched as they felt the edge of colossal blade seep through the wooden bark and into their interior. Guts retracted the blade a bit, causing the cut-open wooden surface to squirt out blood.

Guts lifted the blade again to slam horizontally into the open wound. The blade was buried into the exposed flesh growing inside the wooden trunk. The ghoulish faces cried out and pulled their roots towards Guts. The swordsman dodged, before standing back up… this time to swipe his blade across their faces.

The screeched turned to agony as five or six of the jack-o-lantern-like visages were cut and split open. Seeping out in their place were masses of yellow liquid mixed with red blood.

"…!" the redhead almost choked at the gory site. "What the…?!"

Guts yelled as he swung Dragon Slayer again across the trunk, making more of a sound that splitting between metal cutting and flesh being torn apart. Guts brought up Dragon Slayer to swung it deeper into the heart of the ghoulish tree, before he brought back again a final time to…


SLASH!

Erza gasped.

With a final blow, the tall swordsman bisected the monster tree completely. The upper trunk with the long branches fell down, while the lower half collapsed… before pouring out its contents out.

It was enough to almost cause Erza to drop her weapons and cover her mouth from the bile attempting to rise out.

The abdominal sight was both unnatural and appalling. Blood poured in place of tree sap, and the solid center was like that of human's anatomy. Erza was ready to throw up when a sack-like material collapsed with a green acid substance seeping out. Something that looked like the monster tree's thing for a stomach or liver.

Witnessing the aftermath of this tree monster's demise was worse than the one she witnessed the night before. She thought before glanced at the one responsible…

"Stop staring, kid," the swordsman replied, without even looking at her. "It's not over yet."

"WHAT?!" Erza cried out.

"GRRRRRR!"

Erza gasped and turned… and her eye widened in horror.

To see the incoming company… of three more monster trees!

"DAAHHHH! OH, NO!" Puck screamed.

"Awu!" Casca cried out.

"Gruwu! Gruwu!" Erza would have turned too late… when the horde of accursed hounds were upon her when…

SLASH!

The swordsman stabbed his sword at the hound that had lunged in the air before it could pounce on Erza. The large blade cut through the neck of the accursed canine; its head fell off when hit the ground with a thud. The tall man swung his sword again in time to decapitate another lunging hound; its head bursting off in a sprinkle of blood.

The blood sprinkled upon Erza's torn shirt.

"Stay close to the fire!" the man instructed Erza. "Stay close to Casca! Do it!"

Erza didn't get to reply as the man dashed in to cleave through the incoming wave of skulls and demon hounds coming their way.

CRACKLE! SLISH! BLUR!

He swirled his blade from left to right, before going from his right to his left. Bones and old weapons clattered on the ground. The blood and heads of the hounds were rolling on the grass. He dug through the waves, before he would set his sights on the incoming trees.

Erza and gibbering woman were not spared as the more skulls started ambushing from the other side.

"Watch out!" Puck cried out. "To your…"

"Stop it!" Erza clashed her pan and sword against a club. "Let me focus!"

The girl panted hard, before she braced herself dash towards a skull…

Two slashes of sword and pan.

The skull broke apart.

She breathed hard and turned…

She was dashed far away… then…

Erza blocked again from another skull, raining his sword on her. She thought to evade till another came near her. She brought her sword and pan to block the strikes; not getting either chance to hit them or back away.

"AWU!"

Erza turned to see the woman being approached by more…

"NO!" Erza broke away, till…

"AHHH!" The girl cried out when she felt a spear graze her side. She dropped down, and she felt blood dripping down her leg. Looking up she saw the skull who scored a hit on her with his bloody spear.

Erza gritted her teeth, before looking back to see the skull raising his sword upon the woman…

SKIT! PAN!

"WHOA!" Puck cried out as Erza threw the frying through the air and hit the skull flat in the face, causing it to fall back. Saving Casca.

Erza turned back and gripped her rusty sword with both hands to parry the incoming strikes of the skulls gathering around her.

The swordsman had already come upon the trio of monster trees now besieging them and was intending on replicating the process he had done on the first monster tree.

However, it didn't help when all of them and the other ghouls started ganging up on him from all sides. The tree roots sprouting from the ground, causing him to fall back and dodge.

Erza blocked with hard blows of metal colliding, as she felt herself being back up.

"GAH!" the swordsman yelled as he swirled the sword to take out a demon hound and bisect another seven skulls, before lunging at the nearest demon tree.

Erza backed away when some of the demon hounds came toward her now. Their heads were not like that of ordinary canines. Their faces were flatter, and their cheeks were puffed up, like that of starved old men.

The first of the pack approached Erza, growling. It barked before going to take a bite…

SLASH!

The inhuman hound whined in agony when Erza slashed through its nose. Its agony turned to anger, and made another attempt to…

Erza extended her blade straightaway till it buried itself between the hound's eyes and lodged through the back of the head.

The girl almost froze when she felt the body go still. She heard the other hounds growling, and she went to remove her sword.

It barely budged.

Another hound was approaching Erza. Its mouth was drooling with saliva that ran down its gray tongue.

The girl pulled harder, feeling the blade ripping out of the hound's skull and spilling out blood.

She was on time when the drooling hound lunged, and she swung her blade to…

WHINE!

Erza winced when her blade severed the drooling tongue from the hound; the slimy thing fell to the ground, still moving.

The girl didn't waste time as the injured hound was whining with its head up…

…giving Erza the get-go to slash hard and stab…

…more blood spilled out.

The swordsman was approached by another skull warrior. A taller one. Its bones were thicker and carried a long claymore. It fell the blade on the swordsman, who lifted the flat of his colossal blade to block the strikes.

That was when more of the smaller skulls lunged onto the swordsman.

"Grrr….!" The man growled with annoyance.

The man rolled onto the ground, breaking against the skull's clutching onto him. He whipped his sword to cut open the femur bone of the taller skull, who had been ready to bring down his claymore.

"AH!" Erza cried out when she felt a sword cut at her shoulder, causing her to fall.

The swordsman had already stabbed a hound through its belly, lifted it up, before slamming it into the row of skulls still coming toward him.

Erza tried getting up, before looking at the scene unfolding before her.

The undead were not only upon them… they surrounded them. They outnumbered them to no end in sight.

The gibberish woman could only crouch away, even when more undead were approaching her way.

The ghoulish faces on the trees were laughing.

The swordsman was swinging his sword relentlessly, lest he get ensnared by the multiple tentacle-like branches the demon trees were raining down upon him. It was only when he pulled something that…

BAM!

A small explosion was made, causing him to take the moment to dash and make a slash on one of the trees. It didn't last long as the other two demons came upon him, forcing him to evade…

They were surrounded. They were outnumbered.

Erza started to tremble.

Just like before… when…

Grandpa Rob…

!

Standing in front of her.

Stretching his hands out.

His back facing her.

His back that was imprinted with the red guild crest of…

BLAST!

The scorching blast of magic that engulfed him instead of her.

Even though they were about to overpower her and her friends…

All she could think about was Grandpa Rob…

That was when…

"Err…" Erza closed her eye as she bent down. "Errrr…"

The undead upon her. Upon all of them. Ready to overpower and take them…

"I… won't… let you…"

She growled, as lifted her head, as her one eye snapped open…

"I WON'T LET YOU!"

It was then the glowing ruby circle appeared under her.

All things paused upon that…

The glowing red circle caught all their attention.

The gibbering woman. The 'fairy'. The swordsman. And even the undead…

They all looked in…

Erza felt the ground shake and the wind swirling around her. She didn't care as she glared at all the accursed monsters willing to kill her and the people around her.

All the fallen swords, spears, axes, clubs, and broken shields…

The weapons the fallen skulls had used to attack them…

They glowed pink as they levitated in the air around Erza…

They shifted in the direction towards the accursed…

Erza glared… before she yelled… and the weapons burst through the air…

What transpired was a storm of swords… raining upon the undead during the dark of the night…


There!

Stop right here for that turn of the battle. Young Erza is getting a better glimpse of what Guts' world is like during the night…

Just as Guts is getting a glimpse of what Erza has in store… and what she could become…

Both of them have seen nothing yet...

Only a little more before this introductory arc is finished! See you next time!

Happy Late Halloween!