"Spring Flower of Days Long Passed (3)" is episode 331 of the Berserk manga series.
Synopsis[]
Guts is led out of his cell, uncuffed, and presented with armor to wear against the nobleman's son. After donning the armor, Guts is led outside, where he is made to enter a small arena that is surrounded by onlookers. Inside the arena is the nobleman's son, a large, thickly-armored boy wielding a mace.
A man allied with the nobleman presents Guts with a dull sword to use and delivers a warning that the nobleman's son has a bad temper. The fight begins, and both combatants move toward each other. The nobleman's son strikes first, and Guts blocks it. However, Guts finds that despite being rid of his fever, he is still weak and cannot utilize his full strength. He is forced to move away from and deflect subsequent attacks. Eventually, Guts is knocked back into a wooden post, his back to the ground.
After a moment, Guts stands again, checking to make sure that Chitch's flower, which is now hidden beneath Guts' scarf, is still there. The nobleman's son strikes again, but when Guts dodges, the large boy's mace is stuck into the wooden post. Guts uses the opportunity to strike, slashing at the back of his opponent's head, but his dull sword does little damage.
The nobleman's son removes his mace from the post and strikes again. Guts dodges and drives the point of his sword into the other boy's knee. Again, little damage is dealt. With no way of dealing damage to his opponent, Guts remembers a old battle he partook in with Gambino. In the battle, Gambino also fought against a heavily-armored man, and so he offered Guts advice on how to beat such people.
Utilizing Gambino's advice, Guts deflects the next mace strike, shoves the tip of his sword down his opponent's glove, and dislocates the other boy's arm. Then, wielding his dull sword by its blade (i.e, mordschlag), he uses the crossguard to pierce the nobleman's son's eye.
A chance gust of wind allows Guts to survive being shot at.
Before the onlookers can react, Guts removes his opponent's helmet and holds his blade to the boy's throat, taking him hostage. Despite orders from the nobleman not to attack, one of the spectating guards fires his crossbow, hoping to hit Guts. However, a gust of wind dislodges Chitch's flower, and when Guts moves to catch it, he moves out of the arrow's flight path, and it instead hits the nobleman's son. The guard atop the tower is suddenly killed by arrows fired outside the walls of the castle.
The main gate is opened, and a large force of mercenary troops led by Martino enter, killing the nobleman's soldiers. When Guts and Martino come face-to-face, Guts ultimately decides that he and Martino now owe each other nothing, since Guts has been allowed to leave the castle.
Looking down, Guts finds that Chitch's flower has been trampled on by a horse and now barely has any petals left. Guts picks it up and, like he'd promised, brings it to the field full of identical flowers, wondering whether Chitch will be able to meet other spirits such as herself among them.
Leaving both the field and Chitch's flower behind, Guts is left wondering whether his encounter with the spirit truly happened or whether it was simply a hallucination.
Appearances[]
Notes[]
- This episode was originally published numerically as episode 330. It was bumped up to its current official numeric position in the series after the then-episode 331 was moved to its current position of episode 328 in the volume 37 release.