Guts, who had not shed a tear even when hacking off his own arm, now felt a searing heat in his eyes, his vision blurring with water. The terror of the Eclipse nightmare, the crushing loss of Casca and his comrades, collided violently with the sudden, overwhelming safety radiating from this stranger.
Without thought, his body moved on its own accord. The primal instinct of the child within him took the reins.
Johnny lunged forward and embraced his mother. He wrapped his small arms tightly around her waist, burying his face into Marilla's apron-clad stomach.
"Mom..."
His voice cracked. Hoarse, pathetic, and raw with honesty.
"Johnny?!" Marilla gasped, stumbling back slightly. She had never seen her son act this way. Usually, Johnny would swat her hand away, embarrassed to be seen as a mama's boy.
"Mom... I had a nightmare..." Johnny sobbed, clutching the fabric of her dress as if it were the only lifeline dangling over a cliff. His shoulders shook violently. "It was so bad... Everything was dark... Everyone died..."
Marilla fell silent. Her maternal instinct told her immediately that this wasn't just a dream about ghosts or monsters under the bed. Her son was terrified to his very core.
Slowly, the shock on Marilla's face melted into a gaze of pure compassion. She didn't ask what the dream was about. She didn't tell Johnny to stop crying.
She simply returned the embrace. She pulled Johnny's head against her chest, her hand gently stroking his spiky red hair, now matted with sweat.
"Shhh... it's okay," Marilla whispered, her voice trembling slightly, soothing the storm raging in her son's heart. "Mom is here. It was just a dream, honey. Just a dream. You're awake now."
The scent of cheap laundry detergent and a mother's sweat filled Johnny's nose, banishing the stench of blood and rot that haunted Guts' memories. For the first time in his long, blood-soaked history, the Black Swordsman felt... safe.
And on that gloomy morning in Sector 7, Guts wept without restraint in the arms of a mother he had only just met, allowing himself to be a child for one fleeting moment before the world forced him to become a warrior once more.