Berserk Wiki
Register
Advertisement

"Red-Eyed Peekaf" is episode 102 of the Berserk manga series.

Synopsis

The children's spirits slowly walk towards Guts, moaning as though in pain. He kills one using the Dragon Slayer, but vomits blood right after. He then raises the Dragon Slayer high into the air and brings it down on his campfire, trying to kill the Demon Child, but it avoids harm by floating into the air, away from the Dragon Slayer.

Puck, who has been picked up by Jill, guides her to Guts through the dark night. He assures her that while she remains near him (an elf), no nearby beasts will attack, though she has suspicions of whether or not he truly is an elf. As they walk, Puck asks if it is a good idea for her to be going to the Misty Valley, which is infested with inhuman creatures, among them possibly Jill's friend, now a monster. Jill decides to press on, knowing that she will have regrets whether or not she stays in her village.

She and Puck come to the crest of a hill where the only things they can see are small lights in the distance. They are the fiery children attacking Guts, who has lost himself in a berserker rage and is cutting them down. He mercilessly swings his Dragon Slayer through their bodies, which dissolve upon contact. As he moves towards another spirit, he finds it crying for its mother. After a brief hesitation, Guts destroys it.

NearlyDeadJill

Guts is so absorbed in battle that he nearly kills Jill.

Jill has closed the distance between the hill and Guts' camp, and she gets a much better glimpse of what is happening - with a manic smile, Guts almost gleefully cuts through the innumerable spirits of the young children. His movements bring him ever closer to Jill, and he mistakes her for a spirit. He brings the Dragon Slayer down over her head, but manages to stop it before she comes to harm.

The pause in both their movements allows a few spirits to spring and clamber onto Guts' back. He is pinned down, and as the rest of the spirits jump overhead to finish him off, he grabs Jill and jumps from the path of the attacking children. While out of harm's way where the spirits are concerned, Guts hasn't aimed his jump, and as a result he and Jill go tumbling down a rocky cliff.

SleepingOnGuts

With no way of being able to move her, Guts allowed Jill to sleep on his body for the whole night.

The next morning, just as the sun rises, Jill wakes and finds herself lying directly on top of Guts. She hears his voice telling her to move, and she complies. Guts shielded her from harm during the fall, and as a result cannot move himself and is coughing blood. He asks her to sprinkle Puck's elf dust on him so he may heal quickly.

As Jill does so, he breaks the silence by asking about the person the moth-Apostle mistook Puck for: Peekaf. She tells him the children's story from which Peekaf originates.

Peekaf was a young boy who lived in a village. His parents and the other villagers were all human, but Peekaf suspected he himself was not due to his red eyes and pointy ears, for which he was bullied. One day, Peekaf wandered into the nearby forest, a forbidden area, in search of his real family. In the woods, Peekaf came across the elves, who had the same red eyes and pointy ears as he did. However, the elves also rejected Peekaf on the grounds that he had no wings, as a real elf has. One of the elves realized who Peekaf was; an infant was once brought into the forest by his concerned parents. The infant was dying, but the parents asked the elves to save him using their magic. They did so, but as a result, the child's appearance was altered to resemble both an elf's and a human's. The child was Peekaf. Overcome with great sadness, Peekaf ran back to the village, but despite his being in the forest only for a few moments, a hundred years had passed in the village. With nobody in the village knowing who he was and being forbidden from living with the elves, Peekaf spent the rest of his days an outcast, crying from loneliness.

Guts is not impressed by the story, but Jill claims that her friend-turned-Apostle Rosine used to love it.

Characters in Order of Appearance

Advertisement