"Guts."

The gentle roar of the sea only seemed to accentuate her voice. Every time the waves would reach the sand, and soaked his boots in the process, the voice of the woman behind him only came in clearer. Guts lowered his head, the one eye he had left in his skull closed tight as he tuned her out. Each time she said his name, he clenched his fist tighter. Sand dampened her footsteps so well that he did not even realize that she was mere inches away.

"Guts..." Casca's voice ripped him open far better than any weapon he was ever struck with. He could face a legion of unholy abominations, fight an army of the dead, kill one hundred men in a single night, but hearing her voice drained him of all life. His muscles turned into stone, and whatever kept him on his feet the last few, long years was gone. For the first time in a very long time, all of the fury that pushed him vanished. Instead, he merely felt... cold.

"Guts!" Casca's voice was stern. He could tell she wanted to reinvoke that old tone she had when she was a commander. Pure authority and strength, the kind that made men follow your orders to a T. However, the shakiness was clear. It was as though she tried to command through her tears. Guts' throat closed tight, his fist shook as he clenched it once more. "Please, just say something!"

He felt her head as she placed it on his shoulder. Casca's forehead was buried into the sharp, rough armor that he wore. Part of him wanted to push her off, keep her from cutting herself on the edges of the plates, but his body was numb. His limbs would not respond, and his brain fought the idea of even thinking of touching her. He wondered where the others where. They had to have been looking for them. Hopefully Farnese would take Casca away and they could have fun somewhere...

"Without me," Guts finished the sentence in his head. Bitterness flooded his tongue at the thought, a sickly taste that made him want to spit. It was true though. She was better off without him. What they had was gone, and it was never coming back. It was time he accepted that. She suffered enough because of him. Everyone did.

"GUTS!" Casca shrieked before she grabbed his head and forced him to look at her. The dress the Elf Queen made for her was gorgeous. An elaborate gown made of flower petals that shined bright against the sun light that poured down on the two. Casca looked like she was ripped from a fairy tale, a beautiful princess that waited for a brave knight to save her from monsters. "Just... talk to me, please!"

Guts huffed before he pulled himself free. His gaze went down, and he stared at the sand that was washed up and swept away by the waves crashing against him. The endless swells of the sea made him feel so small. Even after everything he has done, all of the long, grueling nights of surviving and killing, he was just one man. One man who carved a path of death across his homeland. Once for money, then for vengeance, and finally...

Guts turned his head to Casca, his one eye burned a hole right through her. He wanted to reach out, to pull her close and never let her go again. But then it hit him like a cannonball to the head. All of the things he did. All of the killing, the people he murdered in his life. Images of Adonis, the boy he unintentionally assassainted all those years ago, of Rosine and her minions, a child apostle that converted children to be her slaves. Of all the innocent villagers he dragged into his war on demons.

The massacre at the Tower of Conviction, all of the screams as the demons devoured all life they could find. Yet he survived. By only thinking about himself, he survived. The fact made him want to puke. Guts looked down at himself, at the warped, cursed, and cruel armor he wore. His vulgar, metal arm, rusted and chipped from constant violence.

"Am I a good man?" Guts asked suddenly, the words fallen from his mouth before he could stop them. A ball tightened in his throat, his body shuddered as he closed his eye tight. They were the first words he said to her since she woke up. Since they were reunited... And she screamed at him. How many days had it been since then? How many times did he avoid her, slipping away from the group any chance he could find? Was he going to run away again? To throw away his companions in fear of losing them?

"Guts..." Casca whimpered out, the question having stolen her breath. Ever since her reawakening, she was desperate to find answers on what happened during her insanity. The rest of the party were enthusiastic to speak with her. All were kind, cordial, and in the case of Isidro and Isma, happy to play with Casca and treat her like a member of the family.

All except for Guts...

Guts, who looked so different from how she remembered. The man she once loved had changed. He was scarred, disfigured, half blind, and had a heavy weight on his shoulders. She find out that she was incapacitated for a while, at least a year or two... And Guts was left all alone in the dark. When she talked with the others, they would tell her strange tales. Of horrid beasts and battles with ungodly creatures. Of how Guts and her were cursed to be hunted until their deaths, and Guts brought her to a sanctuary to protect her from the army of the dead that wanted their blood.

She wanted to know more, but it was clear that Guts was just as social with them as he was to her. Anything to do with the past was untouchable. The only one that seemed to know anything was the weird Elf, Puck. That little bug looking guy that buzzed around playing games with everything he could see. Casca could recall the words Puck said when she asked him what happened to Guts.

"I don't wanna make it sound like Guts is a bad guy," the words echoed in Casca's brain, "I mean, yeah, he's a total grouch all the time. But he's really changed."

"He changed..." those were the two words that terrified her. Puck talked as though Guts was some kind of villain, like he was convincing Casca to not throw him in jail or have him executed. She simply wanted to know what happened! If the stories were true, Guts was left all alone to fight an armada of monsters that defy imagination. No matter how strong someone is, they couldn't keep sinking into horrors that deep. Not without losing something they could never get back.

"What did you do?" Casca asked sternly, like a mother would scold a child. Her brow was furrowed, and her tone was strong. Any patience she once had was gone. It was clear Guts was only going to respond to an order, and she was still the leader of the Band of the Hawk. What was left of it... "Answer me!"

Guts stood up straight. Slowly, but surely, he turned to face Casca. His expression was blank, just an empty face that was aged beyond its years. The striking, white stripe in his hair immediately drew Casca's gaze. His slimmer physique was blatant, still built like an ox but clearly withered compared to his younger self. The lack of an eye hurt her heart to look at, like a nail was driven in her chest.

"I..." Guts started, his voice cracked like glass. Where once she finally wrestled a sentence from him, he was back in his turtle shell and unwilling to come out. Every attempt to push a word out made Guts want to fall to the ground. All of his strength flowed from his body as one more wave crashed against his legs. As the water washed back to the ocean, his spirit went with it. "I've been having a dream lately."

Casca raised her eyebrow at this. Half of it was curiosity while the other was frustration at his continued reclusion. Seeing the man who was once so confident and strong be reduced to a hollow shell made tears well in her eyes. Casca fought off the urge to get as she listened further.

"It always starts the same," Guts said as he stared down at the sand once again, "we're together. Away from everything. Still have my arm and my eye. We have a house in the middle of nowhere, just us." Guts felt warmth flow to his cheeks, he wanted to stop where he was before he looked any more pathetic, but it was too late. "You're cooking dinner while I'm outside, cutting a tree down. It's... peaceful." Guts sneered as he clenched his fist. "Not like now... Not at all."

He heaved one large sigh, Guts unable to find the words to describe what happened next. Tears flowed down his cheek as the image burned back into his brain. The heavy, potent stench of blood filled his nostrils all over again.

"I go inside the house, to show you I have firewood," Guts continued, desperate to finish his story. "You don't look at me, just happily singing a song to yourself while you boil soup on the stove. I walk over to you, just to drop the wood into the fire to keep the oven going..."

Guts' eye went wide as the scene was painted all over again.

"You turn to look at me... And you scream," Guts raised his gaze to Casca, seeing her face go pale when he mentioned a scream. "I'm not holding a log of wood. Not covered in dust and sweat. It's blood and brains, and I'm holding a severed arm." He grasped at his metal arm with his only hand left, and felt a twinge of pain from where the limb was supposed to be. Even after it was taken from him, and after so long, he could swear that he felt his fingers touch sometimes. "You run outside, terrified of me. I chase after you, and I see you standing in on an ocean of corpses. Stretched on for miles. Rotted, swollen bodies. Of soldiers, villagers, innocent men, women... children. And you ask me 'Why?' The only thing I can say back before I wake up is..." Guts fell to the beach, only kept up on his knees. His hands pressed hard into the sand.

"'I did it for you.'"

Casca became a statue. Motionless, barely even able to breathe. The only thing that moved was her hand, slowly stretched out to rest against the large man's shoulder. No words could describe what she felt. Guilt? Confusion? Horror? All she could really decipher out of everything was that Guts became something he should never have been. When she left him alone in the nightmare she was too weak to face with him.

Before he could push her off, Casca wrapped herself tight against him. She buried Guts in her warm embrace, and fell to the sand with him. Sea water washed against the two of them as the waves became stronger. Neither could say a word, merely feeling the warm they were deprived of for so long. To be able to hold each other... and cry. Their wails of anguish drowned out by the roar of the sea.

After an eternity, the two finally released each other. Where the sun was once high in the sky, now only the orange glow of dusk remained. Guts and Casca both rose to their feet, still unable to say anything to each other. All Casca could do was raise one of her slender hands and cup Guts' cheek, and hope the moment would last forever. Even after all that happened, everything they did to reach this exact spot, every corpse buried, friend lost, drop of blood spilled, Casca could not help but feel truly happy.

"I don't want to lose anymore," Guts said simply as he grabbed Casca's hand with his much larger one. "Everyone: Schrieke, Farnese, Serpico, the bugs, Isidro... You." He pulled Casca in for a hug, being careful not to crush her against his armor. "I can't lose anyone else. People I care about keep getting hurt, and I want it to stop."

"You won't," Casca said, nestled in Guts' embrace. "And you're not a bad man. Bad men don't throw themselves into danger to protect others." Casca raised her head to meet his gaze. "I think you're a hero."

"Hero..." Guts said weakly. He never once thought the word and him would ever be used in the same sentence. If anything, he felt like a boogeyman. Back when people called him the Black Swordsman. All the time he spent being feared, and bringing destruction to wherever he happened to go.

"You took a bunch of strangers," Casca explained, her head turned back to the island behind them, "and gave them a reason to be human. You showed them how to live, how to survive, and carried them out of danger and into a place they can be happy."

"Human," Guts said to himself. It was a long time since he felt the same. So many days he spent wallowing in hatred, just swinging his sword like a madman? Vengeance being the only thing he could ever think about. Desire to see Griffith's body cleaved in two was all that kept him on his feet. And now...

"Really," Casca said with a short giggle, "I'm shocked you didn't replace me with Farnese. She's a good woman."

"What are you talking about?" Guts asked, his face twisted and confusion written clear on his face. Farnese was a good comrade, but she want a leader. Far too meek, and when she was a leader, Guts killed most of her men. Besides, she seemed more happy to study magic and care for Casca. No need to burden her with command on top of that.

"You're all she talks about," Casca said with a small smile. A twang in her chest made her hesitate to continue, like she just made a mistake. Still, it was cute to think about how loyal Guts was to her, like a puppy following its owner. "And she steals more than a glance or two when she knows you aren't looking."

"Huh," Guts simply huffed, like he just learned the world was round. He shrugged his shoulders, the heavy weight he felt for so long slowly melted away. "Never noticed," he said, as he felt a little embarrassed to gossip about subjects like romance. But romance with Farnese? Maybe if things turned out differently it wouldn't seem strange, but the idea sounded alien to him.

"Maybe in another life," Casca said tersely, a tiny shred of jealously leaked into her words, "but until then you're mine." A smile as bright as the sun was on her lips. Guts stared down at Casca's loving face, and he felt a cold breeze go down his spine.

"I'll live with that," Guts said, his tone distant, as his head turned back to the ocean. Across it was Midland, and Griffith was there with his 'New Band of the Hawk.' Made up of the bastards that murdered the original. They would come. He could feel it. Just as natural as the sun rising in the sky, Griffith would come to Elfhelm. Guts knew it was inevitable. And when they do, they'll burn everything to cinders. Tear every living thing in the island to pieces, and rape what's left.

"But not if I reach you first," Guts thought to himself. His face became stern, jaw clenched as the idea of Griffith taking his new home away rampaged in his head. "Maybe I'm about to make the same mistake," Guts' sobering thoughts echoed in his brain, "and I know if I leave, I won't make it back home again..."

Guts tightened his grip around Casca, and drank in the softness of her body one last time.

"But dying to protect someone I love doesn't sound like such a bad thing."

He wouldn't leave to find a purpose. And it would not be for revenge. It was simply a strategic approach. Kill them before they killed Casca. Don't let them reach Elfhelm. The others finally have a place to belong, to whittle away their days in peace and joy. Casca would be happy too. They need to enjoy the gift they were given. Anyone would have killed to live in a literal paradise. True heaven on Earth.

But none of it was for him. He knew ever since that banquet, so many years ago. Where the Band of the Hawk were announced as nobles. They were promised status and civility. A lifetime of fancy dinners and no longer needing to worry about death on the battlefield. And it all... terrified him. Guts was a mercenary, through and through. He never knew quiet, or tranquility, and it scared the life out of him to find it.

"Guts," he heard Casca say softly, still pressed tight against him, "are you okay? You got quiet all of a sudden."

"It's nothing," Guts said as he lied as best he could. He knew she'd try to stop him. To say they could move on together and grow a family, far away from war and blood. And he knew it's what he wanted too. But none of it belonged to him. And the Godhand would come to tear away what was left of his life when he least expected it. Guts knew, deep down, he would not survive it a second time.

"Just hold on tight."

I keep reading a lot of "Casca Is Back" stories that tend to be very fanservicey and full of fluff. I get the appeal, but I decided to write a thing that I feel would probably play out closer to how it would actually be written in the plot.

Dunno how accurate it really would be, but now I have thing.