when i first technically started my reread back in january i typed up summaries of each chapter as i went, making note of things i thought were particularly interesting. Â gonna put them here under a cut and honestly probably continue takin notes, as it rlly helps to have something to go back and reread exactly what happened when LOL
â1âł: BEGIN BLACK SWORDSMAN
Guts is fucking a demon lady. Â Demon lady moves to kill, but Guts blows her head off. Â
The men of Koka Castle are harassing Puck, whoâs tied up. Â Theyâre throwing knives at him in a bar. Â All the bar people are put off, but do nothing, because ânobody can touch the men of Koka Castleâ
Guts thinks thatâs BS and shoots them all up w his arrows. Â He tells the lackies to tell the Koka Castle dude that the âBlack Swordsman has comeâ. Â He then proceeds to cut ppl the fuck up w Dragonslayer
HEAP OF RAW IRON STATEMENT 1
Puck follows Guts out, kinda peeved that Guts didnât help him more. Â Guts slaps him away, as per usual Guts
Guts is taken captive by a bunch of guards and is cut up in a dungeon for a lil while.  (He doesnât make a sound.)  The Lord Mayor pauses the whipping.  He tells Guts that because he murdered the men the town will probably be fucking demolished.  âYou have no idea how horrible the leader of those men is ⊠no one can kill him⊠at least, not anyone human.â  Guts is like âya so thats why u made a deal w him right?  thats why ur feeding him wagons of women and children?â  The Lord Mayor is like fuck u and has the big guy continue torturing him.
The Snakey Dude is informed of Guts. Â He gets kinda excited
The Lord Mayor goes to beg forgiveness from the Snakey Dude. Â It does Not go well.
Cut to Guts unable to move in the dungeon. Â THEREâS DEMON FETUS! Â Guts is freaked the fuck out and fetus cries and squiggles away. Â Now itâs Puckâs turn. Â Heâs got the keys. Â Guts has is usual rant about not wanting to be touched, but Puck convinces him and uses his fairy dust to heal Guts.
Fairies have a strong sense of duty and a lot of powers. Â They can sense emotional energies.
Puck asks about Gutsâs brand, which he does not take kindly to. Â Guts is chill about being imprisoned tho - heâs ok with the castle dudes coming to kill him burning down the whole town. Â Heâs gonna kill Snakey Dude and as long as he does, thatâs all he cares about.
Puck is rlly upset by Gutsâs weaklings-should-die-perspective n leaves Guts in the cellar. Â Guts self harms? He scratches his arm? And then his brand lets him know demons are on the way. Â He freakily licks the blood off his own fingers.
Rampage of the Snakey Dude time! Â Heâs drinking blood straight from the child! Â Guts pops out from under a pile of bodies and starts shootin up the swarm.
âTo think that a mere mortal can oppose us isnât anything but folly!!â
Guts gets bodyslammed by Snakey Dudeâs tail. Â Realistically Guts would die here
Guts blasts Snakey Dudeâs head off and cleaves him in half. Â Snakey Dude doesnât know where the Godhand is so Guts leaves him to burn.
Puck watches Guts walk away through the burning city.
Puck finds Guts again with the help of a white bird. Â Puck says he wants to join Guts on his journey because all the monsters and shit are interesting, but Guts has another one of his âweaklings should dieâ tangents. Â Guts leaves Puck in the dust.
Itâs raining and Guts is walking down the road. Â That Old Guy and his Daughter roll up in their carriage and invite him aboard. He tells them its a bad idea but theyâre like âWeâve got God so weâll be okâ so heâs like âfine w/eâ. Â Puck is there
They talk about Gutsâs sword and shit. Â âI use it for my cookingâ Guts says.
Talk about mercenaries and living by the sword. Â Old Guy finds it distasteful and talks about his dead nephew. Â Guts thinks that even though heâs dead, he died doing what he wanted, so he was probably happy.
Guts goes to sleep.  He has a dream about running through a corridor with high walls⊠the ground is watery⊠heâs being chased.  Heâs balls nude.  He steps on a spike and empales his foot - and a huge Fetus child looms over him. He screams.
He awakes. Â An incubus is giving him bad dreams and feeding off his energy.
His brand alerts him to the fact that there are definitely shittons of demons all over the fucking place. Â The skeleton guys. Â Colette gets stabbed bcause she cares for horses too much
While Guts is busy fucking up a bunch of skeletons, Coletteâs body is possessed and she beheads her dad.  Guts is shocked by this young girlâŠâs body.  She stabs Guts.  Guts plays baseball with her torso.
Puck is very upset and cries while Guts fights the skellies until dawn.
They look at Coletteâs body. Â Puck tells Guts itâs not his fault, and Guts busts a gut. Â Cue Guts being a dick
Voices start to speak to them⊠claiming ownership of Guts and his body⊠and his heart.  Guts shoots the air.
âThis is the world Guts lives inâŠâ Puck remarks to himself⊠and follows Guts.
opens with the beheading of a lady. Â The Lord Mayor is trying to appease Slug Guy. Â
Guts PICKS UP THE HEAD and looks at it wtf Guts?? Â The brother of the lady beheaded cries and makes a scene while guards harass him. Â A guard asks Guts for the head and Guts spits in his face. Â Guts throws the head at Slug Guy and he catches it. Â The severed head has a brand on it.
Slug Guy takes this as a declaration of war and crushes the head. Guts wanders off but is pursued by soldiers who say some shit about heretics. Â Guts slices n dices when they make a move at him.
Puck shows up again to help Guts out. Â Just after, Lord Zondark threatens to bust up Gutsâs sword with his war hammer but Guts has soo been through this shit before. Â He busts Zondarkâs helmet off, leaving his face pierced with all kinds of shrapnel. Â Guts presses his face into the ground by stepping on his head. He kicks him in the face and wanders off, leaving the mutilated Zondark to cry âkill him! Â Kill him!â
Guts follows the Ugly Old Guy into his cellar of wonders.  When the old guy asks him questions, Guts shoves him to the ground.  Guts asks the questions.  It comes to light that the nasty old man is missing a leg and like half his faceâŠbecause apparently mr Sluggo ate them⊠ and also Old Man has a behelit in his cellar!
Guts starts to choke out the old fucker, but heâs like âitâs not my behelit! Â I stole it from the count!â
The ugly fuckâs name is VARGAS. Â He explains how the Count used to just be a rude fucker, but ever since he got the behelit 7 years ago heâs downright nasty - his inquisition of heretics is just an excuse to gather up more bodies to torture and fuck and eat. Â he ate Vargasâs wife and sons, and also half his face. Â Vargas took a drug to fake his own death and slipped out of the castle with the behelit. Â
Guts explains what a behelit is!  âa key that opens a portal to another world that overlaps with their own⊠it summons demons from that world that have been manipulating the dark side of human history since ancient times.  The Godhand.â
Back to Lord Zondark, whoâs losin his mind with his fucked up face. Â Sluggo comes in and tells everyone to get lost and leave Zondark (whoâs bashing his head against a pillar) and he alone.
Sluggo tongues his Daemon into Zondark. Â Sluggo tells Zondark that itâs time for him to enact his revenge..
Cut to Puck whoâs studying Vargasâs behelit. Â Guts berates Puck for calling it art and tells him that itâs a living tool, but he doesnât know how it works.
Guts asks where Sluggo got the behelit - apparently from travelling merchants years back who knew nothing about it themselves, but thought it came from the east.
Vargas tells Guts to take a secret entrance into the castle and avenge him, but he makes the mistake of touching Guts, which Guts SHITS over. Â He says he looks like a monster etc etc, Puck gets mad - but Vargas says as long as Guts kills Count Sluggo, he doesnât care.
Just then, Zondark busts in!!  Guts gets busted up too.  Guts immediately understands that heâs not human anymore.  He slices one of Zondarkâs arms off⊠but it immediately starts to regrow.  Zondark starts to whip his axe around so fast it canât be seen⊠but Guts still manages to block every blow.  Guts moves to strike and cuts off Zondarkâs OTHER arm, and a large part of his head.
Sluggoâs Daemon crawls out of the skull hole. Â He gives a little speech about how great Guts is, but heâs only mortal, so heâs fucked. Â Then Slugdark gets crushed by rubble anyway. Â Guts, Puck, and Vargas escape. Â Guts demands the behelit and then just, leaves.
Puck feels bad and tells Vargas that itâs important to keep living. Â He tells him that living for the future is more important than trying to avenge the past.
Puck leaves, and then an eely arm slithers out of some water and grabs Vargas. Â Eyes in the darkness.
Puck is mad at Guts for being mean, as always. Â Guts says allying with the maggoty creep would just lead to his own demise. Â Same w Puck.
Thereâs word that thereâs going to be another execution as a warning.  Puck flies off.  Guts thinks on how Vargas talked about how Sluggo took his eye⊠took his wife and sons⊠how he was nothing but a prisoner of fear.  Guts gets so emo he punches some bricks out of a wall.
Vargas is going to be executed. Â Sluggo figures that Guts has the behelit. Â Puck is trying to figure out how to stop the execution. Â He sees Guts and gets excited!! Â But Guts only came to watch him die.
They have a long dialogue about Guts and his motivations and why heâs such a horrible asshole. Â Puck thinks Guts is actually just afraid, afraid of admitting heâs fighting a losing fight too, that he came for a better reason. Â Guts threatens him and he flies off.
Guts questions whether or not he should feel compassion.
Puck tries to interrupt the execution himself. Â He fails. Â Vargas makes a call for the Black Swordsman to kill Sluggo and hold up his head before them all. Â Vargas is beheaded.
Guts slips away, making sick sounds.  He sees⊠fetus child.  With Vargasâs âfaceâ.  He is, of course, freaked the fuck out.  He thinks on Vargasâs dying words.
Sluggo is thinking on Gutsâs absence.
Some dudes are out in the night tossing Vargasâs body on the corpse pile. Â Guts shows up and kills both of them, telling Vargasâs lifeless head that he wonât fail like he did.
Being out at night at a corpse pile of those executed isnât a good idea, as Guts learns. Â He gets possessed by an angry spirit, because of course. Â However, he steels himself and falls to the ground. Â He refuses to have anything in common with deadass spirits, even revenge. Â Heâs gonna kill the Count Sluggo with his very own flesh and blood.
Puck is being held captive by Sluggo. Â Heâs crying about Vargas - he feels guilty that he couldnât save him. Â He imagines his fate where heâll be put in a cake. Â
Puck is presented to a mysterious pretty girl. Â Sheâs Sluggoâs kid! Â Puck is a gift to her, Theresia. Â Sluggo tries to touch Theresia and she shudders and shrieks. Sluggo is very put off and in a horrible mood after his own kid recoils from him.
Slugdark slithers up to Guts. Â He is back and more slug than ever. Â Guts remarks on his beauty. Â He pumps Slugdark full of arrows. Â Slugdark whips his arms around a lot but Guts dodges. Â Guts moves to strike and cuts Slugdark up. Â He thinks heâs won - but Slugdarkâs tendrils come back with a vengeance. Â Slugdark makes some comment about how Guts canât kill him unless he cuts off his head - and in the very next move, the head has been severed.
The half-head clings to Dragonslayer, trendril-ing its way up it towards Guts, attempting to feed off of him. Â Guts flattens it between a brick wall and Dragonslayer.
The dying head whispers that the remainder, Sluggo, is waiting for Guts upstairs. Â Guts is weak and weary from bloodloss - but he pledges to trudge on until he kills Sluggo.
Back to Puck and Theresia in the castle.  Theresia tells puck that she knows what itâs like to be caged and that Puck can come out.  She tells Puck how her mother died when she was but a baby, but that her father, Sluggo, told her it was a group of heretics that did it, sacrificing her alive.  She says that Sluggo may have been a tough ruler, but he was loved by all, even as a father⊠but then he got worse and started hunting down heretics like nothing else mattered - and now nothing else does matter, because itâs like he enjoys hurting people.  Itâs like heâs not even a person.
Cut to Guts who has snuck into the castle. Â The Lord Mayor is there with a ton of men who warn him that heâll be killed if he moves any farther. Â Guts tells them simply: Â Move.
They try to shoot Guts up but he blocks with Dragonslayer. Â They try to stop him and he cleaves em to bits. Â Even Gerico, whoâs supposed to be tougher than Zondark, gets DEAD. Â Guts busts him right through a stone pillar. Â Guts is left alone with the Lord Mayor.
Cut to Puck and Theresia, who are totally buddies now. Â She asks Puck what itâs like to fly. Â Puck canât tell her because itâs a normal thing for him, nothing special. Theresia has apparently been locked up in that high room for seven years - Sluggo never lets her leave. Â
Thereâs a commotion outside and Puck figures itâs Guts. Â He tells Theresia heâs gotta go, she has a mini break down, and then regains her composure. Â Puck says heâll be back, and that next time, heâll take her with!
Guts is in Sluggoâs chamber. Â He approaches - and Sluggoâs actual body erupts from the ground. Â Heâs huge.
Puck doesnât even know where Sluggoâs headquarters are, but finds out when rubble erupts away from a wall, revealing lots of Sluggo skin. Â The simple act of becoming his true self is so powerful that the castle starts to crumble, allowing Theresia to slip outside her room.
Sluggo is fucking massive. Â Heâs doing all he can to crush Guts, but instead crushes the Lord Mayor, allowing Guts to get a hit off on him. He cuts off some eye stalks.
However, itâs a surface wound. Â Sluggo goes on a mortality rant. Â He grabs Guts and whips him around, hard enough to shatter stone.
When the chapter ends, Guts is likeâŠ. legit dead.
Chapter opens with Guts KOâd with Sluggo looming over him and Puck a ways off, shocked. Â Puck swoops in and calls for Guts to get up, but Guts is OUT.
Sluggo mocks Guts for being a weak human, and Puck calls him out on the grounds that Sluggo himself was once a weak human, and that heâs just become a monster now to escape his own pain. Rats Theresia out. Â A behelit falls on Puckâs head and he dashes off with it, to Sluggoâs great upsetness. Â Sluggo takes Puck out with a rock, but before he can totally crush him, Theresia shows up.
Theresia is DISGUSTED by Sluggo. Â She shrieks and cries and runs. Â Sluggo also cries. Â He is Very Upset. Â His sadness is converted to anger almost immediately. Â Heâs gonna murder the fuck out of Puck. Â
If not for Guts being somehow alive enough to combat Sluggo, Puck WOULD be dead! Â But Guts is in fact still kicking.
Guts charges towards Sluggo, and Puck tells him not to be reckless and die, but Guts just smiles.
Guts takes more hits without death, somehow. Â Before Sluggo can land a finishing blow, Guts grabs Theresia and shields himself with her. Â He uses the momentary distraction to take a second to blast half of Sluggoâs face off. Â His hand gets broken somehow? Â So he just. Â Wields Dragonslayer in his mouth. Â Totally possible. Â He beheads Sluggo like this.
Guts starts to cut up the severed head with a knife while Theresia watches. Â
Theresia cries for Guts to stop. Â Puck cries for Guts to stop. Â Guts threatens Puckâs life if he tries to interfere. Â He continues to mutilate Sluggoâs head as they watch, noting how he just wonât die. Â Guts keeps going until he breaks the knife and Guts falls to the ground, spent. Â
He sits himself up and laughs for a long while.
Sluggoâs bleeding out and pleas to not die⊠trigger the Behelit.  The group is sent to the hell-stairs dimension and the Godhand is there.
A vortex has opened over the castle in this town. Â The Godhand is present. Â Femto is jacked.
Guts is instantly triggered. Â Femto mind-throws him to the ground.
Femto says some shit about Guts being pathetic.  He begins to turn away and Guts practically begs for his attention⊠but Femto does not spare it. Â
The Godhand turns to Sluggoâs mutilated head. Â He begs them to take Gutsâs life in exchange for his own. Â They tell him they canât, because his desire is lacking any actual hatred for Guts. Â Heâs only afraid of death. Â
Even though Guts has killed tons of apostles, itâs inconsequential to the Godhand. Â They donât give a shit about Guts.
Guts thinks this is just hilarious. Â He gets up despite all his wounds (impressive to the Godhand) and has a go at Femto, who again says heâs nothing but a âsquirming sacrificial offeringâ.
Guts canât even get close to Femto.  The pain associated with his brand is way too strong, and he keels back over⊠but not before he swings his great sword.  Femto throws him across the room.  When Guts hits the wall, the rock crumbles.  Everyone assumes heâs dead.
However, the Godhand still wonât use Guts as Sluggoâs offering, because heâs already been offered, and Sluggo has no real ties to Guts. Â Offerings must be someone very important. Â Femto points to Theresia.
The Godhand exposes that Sluggo actually sacrificed his wife after discovering her in a Pagan orgy fucking a goat-headed god⊠after killing all of the people at the orgy.  He couldnât kill his wife, however.  But he could sacrifice her when his despair activated the behelit.
POINT - those sacrificed⊠unable to take their lives by oneâs own hand⊠the ones loved and hated the most⊠so that one can bury their fragile human heart.
The Godhand threatens to brand Theresia⊠and Guts asks Puck for him to heal his right arm.
opens with GRIFFTH pulling Guts out of a pile of bodiesâŠâŠ
âMartyrdom for a merciless god. Â What a waste.â
Griffith is giving Guts one of his token existential speeches.  Guts is like â⊠âŠâ
Griffith tells Guts that heâs the first person heâs ever spoken to like this. Â Guts thinks heâs beautiful.
Snap back to reality. Â The Godhand is demanding Sluggoâs answer. Â Guts continues to beckon Puck, who is torn.
The Godhand reminds Sluggo that even if he dies, he wonât rest in peace. Â Heâll go straight to hell to disappear into the sea of other souls that get caught up with demonkind.
holy FUCK CONFIRMED that if Guts dies he goes to hell. Â Puck looks at Guts and Guts is fearful of this realization.
The Godhand tells Sluggo that only two paths remain- hell or sacrifice.
Sluggo takes too long.  The dead and damned come for him⊠and Vargas is there to personally drag him down to hell.
Theresia cries and reaches out for her father, but it is in vain. Â The dead grab at Guts, too. Â Femto looks and turns away from him. Â Guts manages to shoot his cannon arm at him. Â Femto explodes the ball before it can reach him. Â Guts watches as the Godhand departs.
Puck tries to go to Theresia, but she shrieks and cries. Â Sluggoâs mutilated body is before her. Â She wants to go back to her room. Â She wishes she were dead.
Guts tells her to kill herself.
Puck slaps him. Â Guts continues on, telling her that sheâd probably go to heaven anyway, though both her parents are in hell.
Theresia considers slitting her wrist, but stone crumbles away beneath her before she can. Â Guts offers his sword for her to grasp, and she does. Â Her hands bleed. Â Guts flings her back to safe ground.
Guts is emotionally impacted by his own actions.
Puck goes to heal Theresiaâs wounds, but Theresia whips around to face Guts.  She projects all of her recent misfortune onto him.  She swears that one day, she will kill Guts.  Guts tells her heâs ready whenever she is and walks away⊠but really, heâs CRYING.  Iconic pepe look.
Puck sees heâs crying and Guts bats Puck away.