Death Battle: Guts vs Vampire Hunter D

Madness Abe: Alright, the votes are in and the combatants are set. Let's end this battle once and for all. Gentlemen, would you care to do the honors?

The Gentleman and Master of the Boot: IT'S TIME FOR A DEATH BATTLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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The Frontier

Within the moonlit dark forests and deserts of the Frontier, there only stood a single man. The man was a hulking beast of a man, covered in armor, assorted weapons, and a tattered black cloak around him. But the real defining features of the man were his single open eye, a single portion of white hair in his normally dark hair, multiple scars and bruises, and a single left arm made of metal.

This was no normal man. This man was a berserker, a beast, a true warrior. This man was the famed Black Swordsman and slayer of men and monsters, Guts.

Guts had taken days to venture to his single safe area of the wastelands known only as "The Frontier". It was only a few days ago that he had heard tales of a man or monster of sorts prowling the Frontier. This man was famed for being a slayer of his own kind...for the right price. It also appeared that in spite of the work he did, he still made many enemies, which is why he had a bounty on his head.

Guts himself didn't give a shit about the man, until he had heard that he had heard of other aspects of this man: unearthly beauty, skilled with a thin blade, and famed for having powers beyond one's own imagination. These were the characteristics of the bastard Griffith...or in the very least, an Apostle working for him. Regardless, Guts took the job to hunt him down and get any information he may have had on Griffith by force. Besides, he and his group would benefit greatly from the money.

But it was during his time in the Frontier that he had received a sudden and mysterious message: his target actually challenging him to a single duel. Reluctantly, Guts agreed and was now waiting at the spot that his foe had asked to meet at. So far, nothing happened....

Until he saw something come from the desert.

In the desert, atop a horse, was a tall lanky man wearing an oversized hat, black outfit, blue pendant, and black cape. Guts couldn't make out his face, but he could already tell that it wasn't Griffith. But that still didn't rule out the possibility of him being an Apostle.

The man got off his horse and soon let it wander to a safer area before turning to his opponent. At that moment, Guts saw the man's face...and it left him flustered beyond belief.

The tales that they spoke of the fabled hunter's beauty was true. Griffith himself was a beauty, but this man...his was more like of a godlike beauty. Guts found himself actually blushing before shaking it off and regaining his stoic and determined composure. He had to remember that he was fighting the famed hunter...D.

D himself had also heard of Guts and his fame, and similarly, didn't think much of him. It wasn't until he heard of the bounty on the man placed by some unknown party did he get interested and set off to find him. When he had discovered that Guts was also hunting him, D reluctantly took the advice of the parasite in his left hand to challenge him to a single duel, like real mean, he said. Surprisingly, it worked and now the two were here, ready to duel to the death.

The two merely looked at one another in silence, ready for the other to make their move as their respective capes flowed in the wind. Eventually both took out their respective swords.

Guts pulled out an enormous slab of a sword that would serve better to kill dragons than kill men. D took out a thin, long saber that looked like it was carved out of light itself.

The two gave one last look to the other before readying their swords.

The hunt was on.



FIGHT!!!

[Fear of the Dark by Iron Maiden]

With surprising speed for a man of his build and size, Guts struck out first with the Dragon Slayer. Taken by surprise from the attack, D quickly struck back and expertly blocked the massive blade coming down on him with a single strike, sending the Dragon Slayer flying right back.

Guts was surprised as well that not only the vampire hunter's blade didn't break from the strike, but the swordsman himself proved to be skilled enough to block the blade with expert skill. But he didn't care for his skill; all he cared for was beating him...

And soon, Guts was forced to put these thoughts away when D struck back, slashing faster than Guts had anticipated. The Black Swordsman was forced to block the strike...and then the next, and the next. Guts was forced to move quickly to block the blows coming from the dhampir, moving the blade to stop the saber's slashes.

The Berserker and the Frontier's greatest hunter began to trade blows with their respective swords: quick saber slashes and powerful Dragon Slayer swings. When D swung, Guts blocked and swung back as well, continuing the cycle of attack and defense.

As they continued striking at each other, D came up with an unorthodox idea. After watching closely from the series of strikes they made, D purposely left an opening for Guts to take it. Right on cue, Guts swung the Dragon Slayer downward, hoping to bifurcate his opponent in half...

Much to Guts' mild surprise, D jumped and landed perfectly on the blade, akin to a tightrope walker.

Too bad Guts had seen this trick before.

Now it was D's turn to be surprised when only three seconds he landed on the blade, Guts BIT the longsword's tip, almost by instinct, and by pure will and strength alone, swung it right out of D's hands. Not allowing his opponent a chance to recover, he swung the sword sharply upward, sending D flying.

Using his mild gravity manipulation, D managed to correct himself in mid-air and landed gracefully on the ground like a cat. Seeing his sword feet away, D knew he had to get his sword, but the bulky warrior in front of him had the same thought as well. What D needed was a distraction. Thankfully, he had the right thing and soon reached into the pockets of his clothes...

Lifting the Dragon Slayer, Guts rushed forward to take down his foe before he could regain his weapon...and then his eyes widened when he saw a barrage of wooden needles coming at him.

And they were on fire as well.

Quickly thinking, Guts turned the Dragon Slayer at the right angle to protect his face from the flaming projectiles. The needles crashed into Guts, sending small crispy splinters across himself. Guts felt nothing from the mild distraction and set his focus back on D....who had disappeared.

Looking around, Guts had looked at every corner for his foe, readying himself for when the dhampir slayer made his next move...

Speaking of which, D was currently hidden behind some conveniently place boulders in the forest, coming up with a strategy for his next assault.

It was also around that point that a wrinkled face with a smug smile came out of his left hand. Of all the times that the parasitic pain in the ass that resided in his hand had to come out...

"Well D, looks like this beefcake is puttin' you on the ropes. Guess you're getting rusty in your old age and whatnot." said Lefty.

D remained silent, focusing on his foe instead and trying to formulate a strategy of sorts.

"Y'know what this reminds me of? There was this whole fight with the Cimmerian barbarian Conan-you remember him, right? Another beefcake like this guy. Anyway, way before your time, he met up with an old foe: Elric of Melnibone, who funny enough, was a pretty boy like yourself."

"Shut up." was D's reply. But of course, he knew that he wouldn't.

"You kinda share a lot of qualities: pretty boy look, sword that cut through anything, wearing black, being a stick in the mud..."

Crushing Lefty into a fist to shut him up, D could somehow hear nothing from the forest. Strange...he swore he could've heard him....

With a roar, Guts jumped down from the tree above D and brought the Dragon Slayer down. D managed to evade in time as the blade landed where his head was and was ready to fight back.

It was unfortunate that Guts had put a little too much force into the blow. Now the Dragon Slayer was stuck in the ground. Not that that was a major issue as he could get it out, but he would be able to at the speed that the dhampir was coming at him. Swearing under his breath, Guts switched to another weapon...

Just as D was within a yard of his foe, he saw something begin to fly right out of his arm...

THWACK!

D cut the flying crossbow bolt in mid-air before it managed to pierce into his skin...and then D was forced into performing a flurry of spinning sword strikes to keep the bolts away. However, it was only a minor distraction so that Guts could pull out his true plan...

SNICK!

D did not normally pain and didn't feel it much now, but he could feel something stuck in his leg...

"How the fuck did you miss that, D? Seems like you're getting rusty in your old age..."

D once more closed his left hand shut in order to rip the dagger out of his leg. D already knew that the dagger itself wasn't enchanted or engineered in any way to severely wound him, so he threw it away without a thought. Just in time...

With a roar, Guts swung the Dragon Slayer downward onto the hunter's blade, hoping to cut him down in a single strike. Evidently, this tactic didn't work too well and now the two were right back where they were: exchanging blows and trying to kill the other.

It was around there that Guts decided that if he could win a (un)fair fight like this, he had to fight dirty.

As he continued his assault against the vampire hunter, the Hundred Man Slayer took the chance to kick up a large amount of dirt into the dhampir's face. Said attack managed to distract D long enough for Guts to counter once more with a strong headbutt into his face before spinning around...and slamming D's back with the broad end of his sword.

But just in the nick of time, D managed to encase himself with his cape and harden it into a makeshift armor...

SLAM!

D was sent flying back various feet by the force of the blade smashing into his back. Although the cape protected D, he could still feel as if he had his own back broken.

"Y'know, I am your right hand man, right? Well, left hand man actually...and not really a man, but I think you know what I mean."

D decided to actually for once to listen to his hand's advice and rely on him for now. When the Black Swordsman reared up once more and rushed at him, D let his hand suck in a breath of air...

And just as Guts was closing in, he pointed his hand, palm first, at Guts and let loose his surprise.

In an instant, Gut was sent flying back several feet from what he could only describe as the winds of a storm. Landing on the ground with a great thud, Guts only groaned silently as he got himself back up and decided to try to keep taking the guy out from a distance.

Pulling the cord in his left arm again, Guts unveiled his arm cannon and aiming carefully, he fired a cannonball at his opponent...who just cut through it at blinding speeds. As he approached closer, Guts unveiled a second addition to the weapon: a flamethrower.

Unleashing a stream of fire, Guts looked on with his single eye and saw as the dhampir was engulfed in the fires, ending him....

And then luck came once more to fuck Guts once more.

Guts' eye opened wide in shock as the fire was sucked right into D's left hand, disappearing into his palm as if his own fucking hand ATE the fire.

Guts just looked in complete bafflement before just saying one thing:

"You got to be fucking kidding."

Seeing as how most of his tactics weren't working right now, the Hundred Man Slayer decided to do the only other thing he could...get the hell out.

D's eyebrow rose as he saw his foe run away, but regardless, he had to finish this job. Gripping his sword tightly, D chased down his foe.

"Uh, D...dontcha think this might be a tra-"

D shut his parasitic companion up with a simple making of his fist as he continued to chase down his foe. It surprised him when he suddenly couldn't find his opponent anymore within the dark woods of the forest. Looking around, D observed carefully in order to find where his opponent may have been hiding.

Hiding behind a tree, Guts breathed deeply from running, whilst at the same time preparing his counterattack. All he had to do was light his next tool and count...

As D looked around his landscape, he could hear the faint noise of something familiar...a match? What would his opponent need a match for?

One...

D looked to where the sound came from: a large tree. He wandered to it out of curiosity.

"Uh, D?" said Lefty.

Two....

"This might not be a good idea..."

Immediately after he said that, Guts leapt from his hiding spot with speed beyond that of any normal man's and lobbed something at D: a collected mass of spiked orbs. And a flame was coming down onto them, like a bomb...

D didn't react fast enough.

Three...

BOOOOOOM!!!!

The form of the Frontier's greatest hunter disappeared in a fiery explosion, sending large mounds of dirt around the entire area. Guts wasn't going to give his opponent any chance to recover and with a great roar, he rushed forward with the Dragon Slayer to take his foe down...

SHLINK!!!

Guts almost smirked with satisfaction as he finally felt his sword go through his opponent's body. And even more so when he could hear his foe wheeze slightly and spit out some blood. With another roar and using his strength to the fullest, Guts swung his sword upward and hurled the impaled dhampir across the forest.

As the bleeding D lay on the floor, the face on his left hand came out once more.

"Told ya it'd be a trap."

"Shut up." was his host's only response.

D needed to help up quickly and to do so; he struck his left hand into the ground and let Lefty to eat up the dirt. As Lefty consumed the matter, he could feel his own body beginning to heal itself back up....but he needed only a bit more of Earth in order to dash out his counterattack...

Upon seeing his foe beginning to get himself back up, Guts could only just swear, thinking he finally had him on the ropes, and decided that he should just end him right now, regardless of what he had come here for. Lifting his sword up, Guts rushed forward to take down D...

But as he swung down, the famed hunter had sped out of the way in time, his speed and strength back to its full power...and before Guts could even blink, D had swung his longsword upward into Guts' chest, using the full power of Earth.

CRASH!!

Guts wheezed out a weak breath as he felt as if his own chest and organs had been crushed into themselves from the strike of D's saber. The Black Swordsman was forced to lean on his own sword for support, shocked by the sudden turn of events.

But D wasn't letting up yet.

Within short time, D had launched a continuous assault of slashes and strikes upon Guts' body with his longsword. True, he couldn't pierce through the heavy and surprisingly impenetrable armor, but he didn't have to. He would win by simply forcing death by trauma.

Guts was frustrated to no end by this assault. As he reached out to try to stab his foe with a knife, he parried and struck from elsewhere. Even the famed swordsman's incredible durability had its limits as he slowly felt ever single part of his body scream in agony from the assault of strikes and blows. The bones in his legs broke, his arms rendered useless, his own back smashed in half...

By the time D finally stopped his assaults, Guts was barely standing on his last broken legs, defiantly trying to keep going forward with a look of determination and rage on his face. But in the end, it just wasn't enough. Guts, slayer of men and monsters, fell unceremoniously on the ground and stopped moving.

D just simply overlooked his foe's body and just simply turned, his cape flowing in the wind.

"Uh...D? Aren't you forgetting something? Like maybe showing some proof that you killed this guy?"

"His body won't be going anywhere. I'll need to rest soon and can collect his body in the morning."

"I guess you could do that..."

But little did they know that Guts was NOT dead yet...

Even as he lay on the ground, Guts was still defiantly fighting and struggling from death itself. There was no absolute way in Hell that he was going to die NOW! He still had to save Casca! He had to make Griffith and the God Hand pay! HE HAD TO KEEP GOING! HE WASN'T DYING TODAY!

With this declaration, the armor's helmet and visor encased over Guts' head, and great growling noise began to emanate from his throat...

D's enhanced hearing soon caught the sound of the growling and he turned around, in surprise, at what he saw. Guts was not only getting himself back up...he looked much different. His head was encased with a helmet resembling a monstrous hound's, his body seemed to be right back in shape, and his stance looked more animalistic than that of a warriors.

It was then that D soon peered into the eyes of the helmet. Even through the distance and darkness inside the armor, D's enhanced sight could see Guts' own eye...and what D saw sent a twinge of fear in his heart. Guts' single eye was pure white, lacking any soul or anything remotely human at all. Almost immediately, cracks opened up at where the eyes should be on the hellhound's face on the helmet, glowing red like the fires of Hell itself.

And then he roared.

That roar...the roar was the single most frightening thing that D had ever heard in centuries. It has inhuman and monstrous in a paradox that he couldn't explain. All he knew was that Guts was no longer in control of his actions.

Guts was truly a berserker.

"I think you just pissed him off."

D was barely able to put his sword up to block when Guts had soon rushed forward at an even greater speed that he been before. The dhampir hunter narrowly evaded the sword strike, whose force alone now sent a massive crack on the forest floor.

And not too long after that, the berserker swordsman that was now Guts had started his assault of massive sword strikes, and it was now actually forcing D back. The more shocking thing to D was that Guts was just not stopping. When they were originally fighting, he could see when his opponent was getting tired. But now, he just didn't stop attacking. At the rate, it was going; D would be the one getting tired instead.

Leaping away to get some distance between the two, D grabbed a handful of wooden needles from his cloak and hurled them at Guts, hoping to actually make a single blow...the needles merely bounced off Guts, who didn't seem to even care of the flaming splinters that may have hit him.

Switching to another tactic, D allowed Lefty to inhale a large amount of air before blasting it once more at Guts, hoping to send him flying...

And much to his dismay, Guts was just not being blown back. He was just simply walking through the wind itself without a single sign of being exhausted.

"Well, so much for that. Any other ideas, genius?" said Lefty with a great sense of dry wit in his vocal tone.

"Burn him." was D's sole calm response.

"Gotcha."

Lefty opened his mouth wide, with a glowing light slowly coming out...and in an instant; he unleashed a violent stream of flame (the fire that he previously consumed from Guts' flamethrower) at the Black Swordsman. In a single instant, Guts was engulfed by the flames, his form disappearing from view.

D, for a single minute, breathed a sigh of relief. He was confident now that Guts was dead...

RRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

D and Lefty looked in absolute shock as the metallic form of a hellhound rose out of the flames, its "eyes" filled with bloodlust as it carried its sword with a single arm.

D swung his saber, aiming to get a blow in...Only for Guts to do the unthinkable: he grabbed D's sword arm. This surprise the dhampir as he honestly didn't expect that his opponent would do something as unexpected as this. As he heard his opponent growl and pull, D's eyes opened in shock as he realized what he was doing. D struck at Guts with his other arm, trying in desperation to get him to let go, but the berserk swordsman wouldn't budge and just ignored him. D kept trying to keep his foe from doing what he was going to do....

And then it happened.

With a single roar of rage, Guts tore D's arm out of its socket. D did not cry out in pain. He merely looked in horror as he saw his arm flail in his opponent's grasp whilst blood splashed across the area like a fountain.

And the assault still wasn't done. Guts quickly decided to weaponize the arm and with a single strike, he smacked D across the face with his own arm, sending him flying back from the force. And just like that, Guts simply threw the arm at D again, discarding it like garbage.

Then there was the unfortunate luck that Lefty was in the torn arm.

"Well....fuck." was his only response at his current predicament.

With the remaining strength that he had, D struggled to get himself back up to his feet as his healing factor struggled itself to seal up his horrific wounds. He managed to hobble over and regain his sword and turn in time to see Guts approaching him....like if he was a wounded animal.

For that moment, D wondered to himself if this was how he made so many of his past foes over the years feel before he ended their lives: to feel weak and vulnerable at the presence of a foe who could kill them at any moment. But as he pondered these thought, he also knew that at his current state, he wouldn't last too long against someone who just wouldn't tire out. Reluctantly, he decided he had to resort to one last and dangerous trick up his sleeve...

D began to actually breathe in a much harsher tone as he began to shake and convulse. The change was taking effect as D's eyes began to turn into narrow red slits and his fangs began to elongate outward. And soon enough, his glamour, which could easily sway women and men to his side, became an aura of fear...

The Hellhound within Guts' soul stopped itself to see his foe transform into a beast himself...and then it truly saw what he was becoming. The effects of D's aura caused the Hellhound to see D contort and mutate into a...a....thing. He saw his foe become a monster that it couldn't describe. A thing that shouldn't be. A creature so horrifying that the God Hand themselves would scream and flee from the sight of it. In fact, it was actually making the Hellhound tuck its tail between its legs out of fear...

Fear turned into rage. The Hellhound was now more furious than it had ever been in its existence. How dare this pale pretty-boy son of a bitch DARE to SCARE him?! Only he could have the title of being the most frightening creature in existence and now this bastard was trying to steal his throne! The Hellhound would have just been satisfied in chopping his foe into pieces...but now that its pride was wounded like this, he was not going to stop until not only did he make this pretender feel every ounce of pain he could muster, but until he devoured his soul....

The two hunters, now beasts, looked at each other with nothing but pure hatred and bloodlust. Both men had seen the very worst of their own race and had sworn never to become the monsters they were...and now they had.

Guts lifted the Dragon Slayer.

D lifted his longsword with his single arm.

The two roared simultaneously with inhuman snarls.

And to top it all off, the moon was now at its highest point, setting the battle's mood to perfection.

And now it was time to end it.

The two rushed at each other at blinding speeds, slashing and striking at the other with their respective blades, surprisingly countering and ignoring the pain of the blows that the other made in spite of their current mental states.

Guts felt every strike that D made onto his body; each individual strike breaking his bones, only for the armor to forcefully and painfully force the bones to mend together.

D felt every slashes and strike onto his own body, but his enhanced healing factor curing each slash and blow to his body.

The two monstrous swordsmen clashed for what felt like hours, days, years even, without any sign of exhaustion. In spite of the immense strain they put their bodies through; it was clear in their eyes, animalistic white and bloodthirsty red, that they would NEVER stop until the other was dead at their feet.

The two fought for a long, long time. Longer than anyone could ever count...but in the end, the two still stood, breathing heavily but still ready to fight.

The end was closing in.

D's vampiric berserker state was slowly fading out and letting his rational sane mind take back control. Throughout the entire fight, D had been trying to find a way to find a chink in the Berserker Armor, and had now found one. The only issue was getting to it. Once more in reluctance, D decided that he to put all his chips on the table to perform one last, incredibly stupid feat to win this fight.

Hoping to enrage his foe, D mocked his foe with a "come on" stance.

It worked.

With a howl, Guts rushed forward and to keep to his promise to make him suffer, he swung his sword at an angle...

D winced in agony as he felt his upper torso separate from his lower.

It was horrifically painful...but it was exactly what he needed to do to win.

Using his amazing reflexes and gravity manipulation, D put his longsword into his mouth and extended his remaining arm forward to grab onto the Dragon Slayer.

Guts just looked in confusion as he saw his foe, still amazingly alive, hanging onto his sword and holding his sword in his mouth. But it didn't matter what he was doing. All that mattered was getting rid of him. Guts swung the Dragon Slayer around to try to get his foe off, but he wouldn't budge. It was almost darkly comical.

D held on to the sword with every ounce of his strength that remained, even as he bled across the forest floor. He had to wait until he had the right chance to deal the killing blow...

And at last, Guts decided to put him closer, changing the sword's angle in doing so...

And right where D needed.

With all the strength he could muster, D swung himself towards Guts, turning the sword in his mouth to point the blade forward....

And struck the blade right through the open mouth of the helmet.

A dead silence rung in the air as D hung by his mouth, hoping to have dealt the final blow onto his foe.

A few moments passed...then blood actually spilled out of the helmet, as well as a wheezing noise. D finally fell off, letting go of the sword in his mouth, and he actually began to crawl away from his foe.

D looked on carefully as he saw his foe stagger, spitting out blood and looking as if he would still keep fighting....before he finally fell on his back, slowly.

Guts struggled to breathe as he felt the blade in his throat clogging up his lung with blood. He could feel the Hellhound trash and trash as it wanted to keep fighting, but by this point, Guts had finally strained his body to beyond any reparation. He could no longer fight. Now he was facing true death...

As he struggled and fought against the impending death that was coming for him, Guts could suddenly see images of his past...but they weren't the horrific ones that he kept locked away. They were the good memories that he always remembered. His days with the old Band of the Hawk, celebrating after a successful battle. The night he and Casca made love. The companionship of his new group of friends...

As his body began to go prone, Guts caught one final image: he saw himself sparring with a young boy...his son. He could see Casca, back to her old self, seeing from afar with pride, alongside with all of his allies and friends: the only Band of the Hawk...his new companions...he saw the final image of himself and Casca holding their child, the two smiling with great smiles of pride for their son....Guts managed to take a final peaceful smile as his soul departed from this world, free from all the suffering of this world.

D was still alive, bisected and in agony, but still alive. As he lay on the ground, taking heavy breaths of air, he felt something pop right back into where his left arm used to be....it was, well, his left arm.

"He did quite the number on ya, didn't he, D?" smirked Lefty.

D stayed silent as Lefty consumed more and more dirt and anything he could find to restore D's health. After quite a long time, D had managed to restore his health and reconnect himself to his legs before going over to reclaim his sword.

Looming over his opponent's corpse, D could see that the helmet mysteriously disappeared, showing that Guts had died peacefully with a smile.

"Remember what I said about Conan and Elric? Well, turns out Conan won that fight...too bad this poor bastard didn't...." said Lefty, his vocal tone turning more somber. "You know all the pain this guy had to go through, right?"

"....Born in blood. Baptized in blood." said D, his tone staying solemn and glum.

"Yeah. The shit he went through...lost everyone, got his girl raped in front of him, and lost most of his body...I wonder how a guy like him could just keep going forward."

D looked over Guts' body as he pulled his saber out of his throat, swinging it to the side to remove all of the blood on it. Looking at his fallen foe once more...

D wept a single tear for him. The first he had ever wept in centuries.

The dhampir hunter closed his fallen opponent's single eye and lifted the Dragon Slayer and planted it at Guts' head, turning it into a makeshift gravestone.

"Due to the dead." muttered D.

With the improvised funeral completed, D whistled sharply and the cybernetic horse he rode in on arrived forth. Putting his hat back on, D looked once more to Guts, tipped his hat as a final token of respect, and got back to his horse.

The dawn began to break just as D rode off into the desert and into the nearest town to recover.

The long hunt was finally over...

K.O.!!!
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Madness Abe: (sniffling and holding back tears) I'm alright...just fine...

Master of the Boot: Hoo-boy! I need a glass of water after all that, or a cigarette.

The Gentleman: Speaking personally, I admire Guts, far more than D, a man who - far as I'm concerned - has the personality of a lobster. While it saddens me that Guts has lost this match, at least he went out fighting, and with a little dignity.

Madness Abe: Damn right, he did.

The Gentleman: For all of Guts' warrior prowess, even his abnormal strength and legendary durability could not compete with a man of D's power level. D's own vampiric berserker state granted him a power boost far beyond even what the Berserker Armor could contend with. On top of that, outside the Dragon Slayer, all of Guts' other weapons were virtually useless.

Madness Abe: Not only that, but Lefty, in spite of being an ass, was superior to the Berserker Armor as not only did he not make D go insane, but he actually could heal D from mortal wounds. Adding in that D's centuries of experience heavily outweigh Gut's own and his own aura of fear could terrify and further enrage his own Hellhound-rage, and you could see that D had the upper hand from the start.

The Gentleman: And the Berserker Armor's concept of "healing" is, frankly, more likely to kill Guts than help him. It's cursed for a reason.

Madness Abe: Regardless, the two men proved to be the other's equal in both swordsmanship and intellect, strategizing and pushing the other to the edge. But sadly, the still very mortal Guts would sadly tire out first.....no joke for today, folks. We'll just give a moment of silence to anime's greatest badass mortal so far.

Master of the Boot: They say only a man can kill a monster, but in cases like this both fighters are part man and part monster.

Madness Abe: And only the strongest could walk away this time.

The winner is Vampire Hunter D.


VAMPIRE HUNTER D
+Was Guts' equal in swordsmanship
+Many more years of experience
+Physically stronger and faster
+Lefty served as a far superior tactical aid
+Could regenerate from the most mortal of wounds
+Vampiric berserker state actually made him even stronger than Berserker Armor Guts
+Intellectually, matched Guts as well
+Could actually SCARE Gut's inner rage with his aura

GUTS
+Was D's equal in swordsmanship
+Better long range weapons
+Wore a strong and durable armor
+Was not above playing dirty in battle
+Bersker Armor put him on even keel with D
+Dragon Slayer could actually hurt D
+Extreme willpower and durability put D on his toes
-Dragon Slayer was the only weapon that could kill D
-While heavily experienced, Guts did not have the centuries of experience that D possessed
-Berserker Armor, while an excellent trump card, hurt Guts more than aided him
-Stubbornness only prolonged the battle and left him exhausted
-Hellhound inner-self could be exploited to D's aura of fear
-Was still only human