What's up with Rickert, bro? Last time we saw him wasn't he leaving the capital and one of Femto's men chasing him ?
Why is he working with the Kushan army ? I thought they were all absorbed by Femto ?????
It's been so long....
Bro don't you remember Daiba, who was a stablehand in Falconia, and Silat and the Bakiraka helping Rickert when Raksas was sent to assassinate Rickert because Locus got super butthurt after seeing Rickert reject Griffith with the slap heard around the world even though Griffith himself was okay with letting him leave Falconia with Erica to fend for themselves without the Band.
Silat and the Tapasa stopped Raksas after cracking his mask but he comes back to kill Rickert again the next night, but this time Rickert asked Silat for help so they were waiting to Intercept him and immobilized him by spraying gas or oil out of the fire hose he invented/fixed/upgraded to get rid of any shadows and darkness, and when he went for Erica Daiba saved her for being nice to an old foreign stablehand who was actually a beast master sorcerer lol
Last we saw of any of them (Rickert, Erica, Daiba, Silat & the Tapasa/the new post-Golden-Age-arc Bakiraka), they were flying away on the Garudas Daiba tamed and was keeping in the stables he minded and that Erica played around in, after Rickert shot Raksas in the face with a cannon when he started flying after them.
Also, Luca and the other pros from the Conviction arc ran the inn Rickert and Erica were staying at and saw all of this go down, but as far as anyone knows, she was shown staying behind in Falconia, but as far the Band knows, she had no involvement and at most was keeping Erica company and hidden so she wouldn't get dragged into it until Raksas found her.
More likely than not, she might end up being the reason Guts (after getting his shit together) and the rest of his party plus Rickert, Silat and the Tapasa, Daiba, etc., are able to sneak into Falconia when they inevitably try to rescue Casca, kinda like when Charlotte was their inside contact at Wyndham when they rescued Griffith.
Luca will probably see Elaine/Casca looking out the castle window or just around the castle or even Falconia in general and wonder why Guts isn't with her or something, or notice she's acting weird, or see her freaking out at some point like when Casca was first brought to Falconia.
Either that or Rickert will contact her somehow after finding out what happened on (and to) Skellig, since he knows she stayed in Falconia even after seeing what went down with Raksas and Rickert and learning about Griffith and the new BotF/BotH's true natures for whatever the reason she stayed was lol
We're still only two chapters into the final arc but its still hype since we finally got a new chapter again lol even if the storybeats seem predictable just because they're pretty logical moves to make storywise, it doesn't take away from the story itself, at least for me.
I mean, it would make sense, since all Kouji Mori has to work with is the general outline of the series endgame based solely on the many one on one conversations with a good friend, and not an actual professional work meeting with notes and minutes being taken by an assistant. But at the very least, he did reassure everyone that while it was mostly a general outline, it's still a really detailed one.
Plus the art has been steadily improving with each chapter release post-Miura's-passing too, but on top of that, with Kouji's general yet detailed outline, Studio GaGa worked with Miura for years, so they know just as much if not only just a bit less than Kouji, plus they've been training and apprenticing and assistant-ing under Miura for years, so even if it's not 100% the complete full amount of content (since they straight up said they're only covering content they know for sure Miura was planning on covering, as long as they have a fully detailed and outlined course to follow, and would unfortunately skip over any parts that they only heard or know extremely little details of, since they don't wanna end up turning a vague Miura plot line into assistant fanfic), it's still gonna be covering Miura's intended and planned events, just being a little more streamlined and possibly even faster paced, since Miura's the only one who can cover various minutae in each chapter since he's the only one with the knowledge of what to cover when, where, and why, since he's the one writing it and all.
But I'm still hyped. So much so that it got me rambling, and I only do that when I'm actually really into something, enough to the point of rambling, like I am right now, because I'm hyped lmfao
Nah for real though. I really am hyped to see what's to come. We actually got back onto the boat and triggered everyone's PTSD, but surprisingly enough, our return boat voyage only lasted for six chapters, and now it looks like next chapter is gonna be the party landing in Kushan.
Speaking of, we also finally get to see Kushan after, what, 25 years since it was first mentioned, either at some point during the Midland vs Tudor (Chuder lol) War, or during the tournament Guts joined when Silat was introduced?
Plus I wasn't expecting Skellig to be in Kushan waters, especially considering how long the boat ride from Vrittanis to Skellig took, both in series and in real life lmfao but also because Kushan invaded Midland by land, so they share borders, so they're close enough together and share a coast or ocean at least, but considering how the ocean was drawn throughout the boat ride, you'd think they were sailing outward, away from the continent Vrittanis' port and Midland are part of, which also implies Kushan sharing the same continent as well.
Then again, we also don't know how much time had been passing during these last six episodes, so it's still possible they sailed full speed in the they came frin just to get closer to the mainland before fine tuning their course towards any friendly ports to land at, and due to the crazy shit they just want through and the amount of wounded and injured, they weren't able to pay full attention and didn't realize they reached Kushan waters maybe? Idk. It is what it is lol
But at least that meant they had a way to bring Rickert back into the main story after getting his own mini-arc in Falconia and implying he was gonna try to join up with Guts eventually after escaping with Silat to Kushan and repaying his debt for taking him and Erica in.
Hype lol /rabblerabblerabble.