The first tendrils of dawn crept across the sky, painting the horizon with streaks of pale orange and soft pink. A hush fell over Cocoyasi Village as the motley group gathered at the docks. The air was thick with a palpable sense of unease. Guts stood amidst a throng of faces both familiar and new—his own party members mingling with the formidable figures of the Red-Haired Pirates.
He knelt before Robin, his massive frame somehow managing to convey a sense of gentle tenderness as he brushed a stray strand of hair from her brow. "Can you promise me something?" he asked softly. "Under any circumstances, do not use your Whisperer ability. Promise me, Robin."
Robin, her face etched with worry for her father, nodded nervously. "I promise, Father."
Guts then rose to his full height and strode towards the Red Force, where Shanks and Uta stood waiting. The ship loomed large in the pre-dawn light, a symbol of both hope and danger.
Guts turned to Shanks with an unwavering gaze. "Take care of Robin," he said, his voice devoid of emotion, but his eyes conveying a depth of unspoken concern.
"I will, Guts," Shanks replied, his voice filled with conviction. "I'll protect her with my life. And thank you... for doing this. I owe you more than I can say." He lowered his head in a gesture of sincere gratitude.
Guts merely nodded in acknowledgement. He extended his gauntleted hand towards Uta, his touch surprisingly gentle. Uta, her face pale and drawn, hesitantly reached out and placed her trembling hand in his. Together, they walked towards the Red Force, their footsteps echoing softly on the wooden planks.
Once they reached the ship, Guts paused, enveloping Uta in a brief but reassuring embrace. Then, with a surprising agility, he leapt onto the deck of the Red Force. He let out a sharp whistle, a piercing sound that carried across the still morning air, summoning Gargar, one of his most trustworthy party members: a colossal Sea King.
The ocean surface churned violently as Gargar's immense form rose from the depths, its emergence creating waves that threatened to engulf Cocoyasi Village. Guts wasted no time, barking out orders. He instructed Gargar to pull the Red Force far out into the open sea, as far away from any human settlement as possible.
The rationale was clear: Uta's power was volatile and unpredictable. Guts would not risk endangering innocent lives.
They sailed for what felt like an eternity, the Red Force slicing through the waves until Guts was satisfied that they were far enough from any inhabited land. He then instructed Gargar to maintain a safe distance, wary of the Sea King being affected by Uta's power.
Guts moved to the center of the ship, settling into a cross-legged position on the deck. He laid Dragon Slayer across his lap, its immense weight seemingly inconsequential to his powerful frame. "Do it, kid."
Uta, her face pale but determined, clasped her hands together in a gesture of supplication. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then began to sing.
Her voice, clear and ethereal, resonated across the ocean, its haunting melody seemingly tearing through the very fabric of reality.
ᚷᚨᚺ ᛉᚨᚾ ᛏᚨᚲ ᚷᚨᚺ ᛉᚨᚾ ᛏᚨᛏ ᛏᚨᛏ ᛒᚱᚨᚲ
(Gah zan tak gah zan tat tat brak)
The ancient runes in her song seemed to vibrate in the air, resonating with an energy that defied explanation. Her voice reverberated across the water, as if the very dimensions were being ripped asunder.
ᚷᚨᚺ ᛉᚨᚾ ᛏᚨᚲ ᚷᚨᚺ ᛉᚨᚾ ᛏᚨᛏ ᛏᚨᛏ ᛒᚱᚨᚲ
(Gah zan tak gah zan tat tat brak)
Blurry, black, wide, angelic wings began to manifest behind her, their form shifting and wavering as if struggling to solidify in the physical world.
Ame utsu kokoro samayou izuko
Karehatezu waku negai to namida
Tokihanatsu shu wo tsumugu kotonoha
ᚷᚨᚺ ᛉᚨᚾ ᛏᚨᚲ ᚷᚨᚺ ᛉᚨᚾ ᛏᚨᛏ ᛏᚨᛏ ᛒᚱᚨᚲ
(Gah zan tak gah zan tat tat brak)
The runes from her song began to fill the atmosphere, swirling around them like living entities, pulsating with an otherworldly power. Then, with a sudden jolt, Guts felt his consciousness unmoored, as if it were being pulled through a vortex, away from the tangible world and into the swirling abyss of Uta's dream.
As Guts opened his eyes to a dazzling spectacle, his gaze was immediately drawn to Uta, who stood bathed in a brilliant spotlight with her voice soaring through the air. He glanced around, taking in the impossible reality: a magnificent, seemingly endless concert hall, teeming with a cheering, adoring crowd. On stage, under a brilliant spotlight. The scene was idyllic, a paradise of music and adoration.
But Guts was not easily fooled.
A man forged in the crucible of suffering, he immediately recognized the lie.
The cheers were too perfect, the adulation too fervent. The smiles on the faces of the audience were glassy and empty, lacking the warmth of genuine emotion. The beautiful music had a dissonant, cloying undertone, a subtle discord that scratched at the edges of his hearing, sending a shiver down his spine.
This wasn't a dream; it was a gilded cage, a carefully constructed illusion designed to trap and ensnare. This was Tot Musica's first line of defense: an attempt to lull him into a peaceful stupor, to disarm him with false promises of acceptance and belonging.
Guts wouldn't allow it. With a primal roar, he shattered the illusion. "Show yourself, demon!" His growl reverberated through the concert hall, shattering the facade of perfection like glass, sending shards of shimmering light scattering into the darkness.
With its cover blown, Tot Musica abandoned the charade, revealing its true nature.
The concert hall fractured and crumbled, its joyful facade collapsing into a grotesque parody of beauty. The dreamscape violently reformed, twisting and contorting into Guts's ultimate hell: the Eclipse. The sky turned a sickening crimson, swirling with screaming faces contorted in agony, their eyes burning with eternal torment.
The ground beneath his feet transformed into a sea of mutilated bodies, the mangled corpses of the Band of the Hawk, their blood staining the earth a horrifying crimson. And then, it appeared before him: The demon, now taking the form of a twisted mockery of Griffith, or perhaps the ethereal horror of Femto, its presence exuding an aura of unimaginable power and malevolence, a being born from the depths of Guts's darkest nightmares.
The psychological assault intensified, Tot Musica twisting the knife in Guts's soul.
The demon didn't use claws or fangs to fight him; it wielded his own memories as weapons, forcing him to relive the most agonizing moments of his life. He was thrust back into the heart of the Eclipse, the air thick with the stench of blood and despair.
He saw his comrades fall, their faces contorted in terror as they were devoured by grotesque abominations. He witnessed the unspeakable violation of Casca, her screams echoing in the void.
"You failed them," Tot Musica whispered, its voice a cacophony of his dead friends, their accusations laced with venomous contempt. "You couldn't protect them then. You can't protect the girl now. You are nothing but a broken man, a struggling insect destined to be crushed beneath the weight of your own failures."
Guts, with a face contorted in anguish, slammed his fist against the ground, shattering the earth beneath his feet, and rose to his feet with hardened resolve.
He turned to Uta, who stood frozen in terror, her eyes wide with horror. He brushed a stray strand of hair from her face, forcing a reassuring smile to his lips. "You've done your job, kid," he said, his voice surprisingly gentle. "Let me handle the rest. Now, go. I might not be able to restrain myself after this."
Uta, understanding the gravity of his words, nodded slowly. With a newfound determination, she spread her ethereal wings and soared into the crimson sky, disappearing beyond the horizon, leaving Guts alone to face the horrors that awaited him.
As Uta vanished, the demonic entities began to emerge from the shadows, their grotesque forms a testament to Tot Musica's twisted creativity. These were not mere monsters; they were living embodiments of Guts's deepest fears and regrets, his personal demons made flesh.
The demonic entities lunged towards him, their bodies covered in writhing symbols of cursed music. But it was their faces that were the true horror, a mockery of everything he had ever held dear.
It was the face of Judeau, a sick smile cruelly stitched onto his lips.
It was Pippin, his gentle eyes now hollow and weeping blood.
It was Corkus, Gaston, Rickert... And at the front of the horde, its movements graceful yet broken, its expression a haunting mixture of longing and despair, was the face of Casca.
This was the trigger, the breaking point. The raw, unfiltered agony ripped through Guts's psyche, unleashing a tidal wave of rage that surged through his veins, transforming him into something more than human. Inside the dreamscape, the Berserker Armor materialized, a psychic construct of pure, unrestrained fury, a manifestation of his indomitable will to survive.
"So..." he whispered, a single tear of blood tracing a path from his eye, a testament to the agony that threatened to consume him. "You use my pain against me... I see... Wherever you are, you demons are all the same."
He tightened his grip on Dragon Slayer, the lump of metal already blazing with infernal magma, its heat searing his gauntleted hand.
He threw his head back and unleashed a roar of pure, undiluted agony, a sound that echoed across the ravaged landscape, shaking the very foundations of the dream. The helmet of the Berserker Armor writhed and contorted, morphing into the wolf-like visage of the Beast of Darkness, a primal expression of unrestrained savagery.
Guts was no longer a man; he had become the epitome of carnage, a force of nature unleashed upon a world teetering on the brink of annihilation.
His executioner's Haki surged outwards, a palpable wave of destructive energy that warped the very fabric of reality, twisting the already nightmarish landscape into something even more grotesque.
Above, the crimson sky churned, and then, it appeared: The Red Moon, a celestial abomination that hung like a festering wound in the heavens. The moon's surface cracked and split, revealing a gaping maw that dripped with viscous blood. And then, as if the universe itself were mocking his suffering, the moon laughed, a chilling, discordant sound that echoed in his mind, driving him further into the abyss of despair.
What followed was not a battle.
It was a slaughter. The Berserker didn't merely fight; it destroyed, it tore, it shredded. With every swing of Dragon Slayer, he cut down another demonic entity, each strike cleaving through the faces of his fallen comrades. And with every cut, a tormented scream ripped from his own throat, a visceral expression of the agony that gnawed at his soul.
He was destroying the demon's puppets, but he was also reliving the horrors of the Eclipse, forced to kill those he had sworn to protect, over and over again. Each swing of his blade was a fresh wound, a reminder of his failure, a testament to the darkness that threatened to consume him. The battlefield became a charnel house, littered with the mangled remains of his past, a testament to the cost of survival.
Dragon Slayer, now a searing river of magma, crashed against the Femto-like figure, the impact unleashing a deafening, discordant musical note that reverberated through the dreamscape, creating a shockwave of pure sound that sent Guts sliding backwards across the blood-soaked earth. Despite the ferocity of the attack, the Femto-figure remained seemingly unharmed, a mocking smile twisting its ethereal lips.
"You cannot cut a song, Struggler," Tot Musica's voice echoed through the dreamscape, a chillingly familiar cadence that adopted the tone and timbre of Griffith, Guts's former comrade, now his most hated enemy. "You cannot kill despair with rage. Your anger only makes my symphony sweeter. Every scream of yours is a note in my masterpiece."
But despite its arrogant facade, deep within the heart of Tot Musica, a seed of fear began to sprout. It recognized the futility of its efforts, the realization that drowning Guts in agony only served to further enrage him, to fuel his unyielding will.
The Femto-Tot Musica then lashed out with terrifying speed, driving its hand into Guts's chest, piercing through the unyielding armor, and tearing into his very heart. But as the demon reveled in its apparent victory, Guts, completely consumed by his berserker rage, lunged forward, clamping his teeth onto the Femto-figure's face. He mauled and tore at its flesh, ripping its head in half with a savage ferocity that defied comprehension. As the demonic entity crumbled, Guts's wound healed itself, and the ravaged Berserker Armor reassembled, its power surging once more.
With each swing of Dragon Slayer, Guts chipped away at Tot Musica's soul, weakening its grip on reality, diminishing its power.
In a desperate attempt to halt Guts's relentless onslaught, Tot Musica unleashed a devastating blast of sonic energy from Femto's mouth, obliterating half of Guts's body in a single, earth-shattering attack. But Guts, fueled by his unyielding rage, simply reconstructed himself, ignoring the searing pain that coursed through his veins, and continued his relentless assault on the demon.
Time and again, Tot Musica tore Guts apart, ripping his limbs from their sockets, severing his head from his shoulders, vaporizing his flesh with blasts of sonic energy. But each time, Guts refused to yield. He clawed his way back from the brink of oblivion, piecing himself back together with sheer force of will, and pressed onward, his determination unwavering, his hatred burning brighter than ever before.
The battle raged on, an endless cycle of destruction and regeneration, until finally, Tot Musica, its power waning, abandoned the guise of Femto, its arrogance replaced by a desperate fear. The demon recoiled from Guts, its ethereal form flickering and distorting as it prepared to flee.
"What are you?!" the demon shrieked, its voice a discordant symphony of terror and disbelief. "Why can't you die?!"
With a desperate cry, Tot Musica turned and fled, its form dissolving into a chaotic swirl of musical notes as it sought to escape the relentless onslaught. But Guts would not allow it to escape. Driven by his burning hatred, he pursued the fleeing demon, his every step shaking the very foundations of the dreamscape.
As he gave chase, an illusion materialized before him: Casca. But this was not the broken, traumatized woman from his memories; this was Casca as he remembered her from their happiest days, whole, sane, and radiating a warmth that threatened to melt the ice around his heart. Her face was filled with a mixture of love and sorrow, her eyes pleading with him to end the madness.
"Guts... please stop," she said, her voice a gentle caress that tugged at the deepest fibers of his soul. "The fight is over. It's alright now. Just rest."
For a fleeting moment, Guts faltered, his resolve wavering as the illusion of Casca threatened to break through the wall of rage that surrounded him.
But the Berserker Armor, sensing his vulnerability, tightened its grip on his mind, plunging him deeper into the abyss of madness. With a roar of pure, unadulterated anguish, Guts unleashed a blast of destructive energy, obliterating the illusion of Casca, shattering the fragile hope that had flickered within his heart. He could not afford to yield, not even for a moment. He had a demon to kill.
With a surge of adrenaline, Guts lunged forward, leaping onto Tot Musica's back. He plunged Dragon Slayer into the demon's flesh, the magma sword searing its ethereal form, causing it to shriek in agony. He clamped his teeth onto Tot Musica's wing, tearing and ripping at its flesh with savage abandon, shredding its very essence with his bare teeth.
The battle devolved into a grotesque ballet of dismemberment and regeneration, a macabre dance of death in which both Tot Musica and Guts were locked in an endless embrace of violence. Limbs were severed, bodies were torn asunder, only to be miraculously reassembled moments later, the cycle repeating itself ad infinitum.
The only constant was the laughter of the bloody moon, its chilling, discordant melody growing louder and louder, its influence seeping into the very fabric of the dreamscape, corroding Tot Musica's soul with each passing moment.
Each time Tot Musica managed to break free from Guts's grasp, it would attempt to flee, seeking to gather its strength and replenish its depleted energies. But Guts, driven by his unyielding hatred, would give chase, his roar echoing through the void, a promise of unending torment.
The pursuit would continue, an endless loop of hunter and prey, their destinies intertwined in a tapestry of blood and despair. And as the cycle persisted, the line between reality and nightmare began to blur, their sanity eroding with each passing moment, their souls teetering on the brink of oblivion.
Tot Musica's body began to convulse and distort, its immense form shrinking and collapsing in upon itself, its power rapidly waning.
And then, the void that had served as their battleground underwent a profound transformation.
The crimson sky receded, replaced by a serene night sky, a canvas of velvet black sprinkled with countless shimmering stars. The bloody moon, that harbinger of madness and despair, relinquished its grotesque visage, transforming back into a beautiful celestial orb, its gentle light bathing the scene in a soft, ethereal glow. The bloodied wasteland vanished, replaced by a verdant meadow carpeted with wildflowers, their delicate petals swaying gently in the breeze.
Then, a song filled the space, its melody haunting and familiar, washing over Guts like a soothing balm.
Doushite ano hi asonda umi no nioi wa
Doushite sugiru kisetsu ni kiete shimau no
Mata onnaji uta wo utau tabi
Anata wo sasou deshou.
The voices of Uta and Robin intertwined, their harmonies resonating with a purity and sincerity that cut through the lingering darkness in Guts's soul. Their song was a beacon of hope, a testament to the power of connection and the enduring strength of the human spirit. It was a lullaby that drowned out the howling of his demons, a promise of healing and redemption.
Then, a hand grabbed Guts's armored shoulder, shaking him roughly.
"WAKE UP, YOU DAMN BASTARD BOSS!"
The familiar voice, the melody resonating deep within his soul… it was a lifeline. Guts felt the madness begin to loosen its grip, the infernal whispers fading as a flicker of his old self reasserted itself.
Shinjirareru? Shinjirareru?
Ano hoshiakari wo umi no hirosa wo
Shinjirareru? Shinjirareru kai?
Asa wo matsu kono hane ni fuku
Oikaze no izanau sora wo
The Berserker Armor retracted, its power fading as Guts's consciousness returned to him. The Dragon Slayer, the sword that had nearly cleaved Buggy in two, reverted to its normal form, its molten surface cooling, its destructive energy dissipating.
He looked around, his eyes widening in surprise as he took in his surroundings. He was surrounded by his party members—Robin, Buggy, Cabaji, Mohji—as well as Uta, Shanks, and the entire crew of the Red Force.
The realization washed over him: the battle was over, the nightmare already fading into memory. A newfound clarity settled in his eyes, hardening his resolve. He turned back to Tot Musica, and with a final, decisive swing, ended it.