They'll fix it, Griffith decrees, like a god or a madman, or the startling, numbing combination of the both. Before him, another man was consumed by the sickness of the same hubris — the sole bearer of a crown that likely came to him by blood, rather than conquest. Griffith deserves it more, but threatens to lose it just as easily, for arrogance.

Guts' mouth brushes that of his — lover? paramour? &mdash friend again, in a gentle, trickling invitation to suffer through the next few heartbeats and their treacherous confession together. He closes his eyes.

"There are other stones on hills for you to conquer."

Whatever began here doesn't need to bury them. The cost isn't worth such a fleeting, modest gain. And though Griffith might call it hateful cowardice, Guts has tasted enough of empty victories to know this one would leave his mind and his bed hollow.

"Tell me I'm wrong."