Fanfic / Berserkr

"If it's just your own life, you can live it however you please. Fight like a madman and get ripped to shreds. Die fighting like a true warrior would. It doesn't matter. However, when there's more than one life, it's different. You've got many things to think about. The thoughts of surviving, the thoughts of protecting other lives... They all rest within your weapon, adding immense weight to it."

Berserkr is a multichapter A3 fanfic written by Legendary Biologist, stylized like the event stories found in the game: Script Fic consisting of 10 chapters plus 1 epilogue, with the play found in the ninth to tenth chapter. Taking a lot of inspiration from Berserk, expect a lot of Shout-Out to the legendary Dark Fantasy manga. This work was started on 2022-11-05 and completed as of 2022-11-29.

Featuring Homare Arisugawa as the lead and Azuma Yukishiro as the co-lead, this work starts out in a lighthearted manner like a typical event story. As the story progresses however, the Cerebus Syndrome kicks in. Homare receives a saber and a letter from his family and is distressed, as he has to avenge his father through a duel to the death.

Can be read at AO3.

Tropes found in the work (beware of unmarked spoilers for both the series and the fanfic):

• Abusive Parents: Magnus, Gunnar's father, forces little Gunnar to wield adult-sized weapons as a kid and is not above injuring him during their training sessions. Downplayed in that Magnus wants Gunnar to be able to protect himself from the arcane beings that care less about one's age and succeed him as a tribe chieftain, and regrets it when Gunnar runs away from him out of fear of being blamed for failing to protect his wife. Unfortunately, Magnus never gets the chance to apologize to Gunnar, and the damage has been done. Gunnar grows up into an insecure warrior who is unable to determine his own self-worth.
• Action Mom: Hilda fights off arcane beings as she recovers from giving birth to Gunnar.
• Amazon Chaser: Subverted. Astrid is a huntress with Improbable Aiming Skills and also a tribe leader, but Gunnar falls for Astrid because of her kindness.
• Anyone Can Die: By the end of the play, only two out of six of the casts survive.
• Barbarian Hero: Gunnar is one. His creation by Tsuzuru started from Homare's Wastelands & Wyverns character after all: a poetic, philosophical barbarian.
• The Berserker: Gunnar is one, hence the title.
• BFS: Gunnar's sword. The story behind this is, Gunnar was scripted to wield an axe. However, with a lot going on around the weight of Homare's saber, Homare asks the Arisugawa family's personal blacksmith to craft a giant sword because there is a message he wishes to deliver to his family in the play. Although the saber grows heavy due to carrying his loved ones in the blade, Homare later learns that everyone is also there to lift the saber together with him.
  • This is Magnus' sword as well. After Magnus' death, Gunnar picks up his sword.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Gunnar and Astrid. Astrid's gentleness defrosts the brooding Gunnar in the end.
• Central Theme: The Power of Love and what it means to fight for your loved ones.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Gets considerably dark and melancholic after the saber arrives. Homare agonizes over the stress of having to represent his family in a duel to the death, goes through Heroic RRoD periods, and avoids dragging others into his business as much as possible.
• Darker and Edgier: A typical Winter Troupe play is already this to other troupes', but this one takes it up a notch as it draws inspiration from the grimdark Berserk. Despite the script format, some scenes are still pretty gruesome.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: Grandparents variant. Sakae, Homare's grandfather, is the only person in the Arisugawa family who is known to treat Homare with much love and provide him with the emotional comfort everyone else fails to provide. However, the rest of the family does love Homare and feel sorry for their terrible upbringing of Homare.
• Doom Magnet: The brand left by Frode is this. Magnus and Gunnar are eternally damned to be swarmed by furious arcane beings until Frode is dead. These arcane beings will attack and even kill anyone around them. Hilda unfortunately suffers from the latter.
• Family Honor: And how. This is the very thing that causes immense stress to Homare and the entire conflict in the story. Homare thinks he cannot live up to it due to his lack of self-worth.
• Good Is Not Soft: Homare is a pleasant, passionate, funny guy on the surface, but utterly ruthless in the duel to the death against the person whose family committed a crime on his family. You might think he would back down when Genichiro's mother pleaded for her son's life, but instead he coldly reiterated that the terms of a duel cannot be retracted and ordered Takao to take her away. It does not stop him from shedding Tender Tears anyway.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Gunnar swings his BFS while Astrid fires her bow. Averted by Magnus and Hilda, who both kick ass with swords.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: Just as Magnus realizes his harsh upbringing of Gunnar and wants to reconcile with him, Rune shoots a bolt right into his mouth, preventing him from properly speaking to Gunnar as his life comes to an end.
• Heroic RRoD: Both Homare and Gunnar are notorious for their tendency to overwork themselves to the point of physical breakdown. Arguably, this is an attempt to compensate their lack of self-worth.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Both Rune and Astrid have this.
• It's Personal: Homare refuses to talk much about the duel and his upbringing. Not that anyone pushes him to anyway.
• Karmic Death: Rune shot Magnus' through his mouth. A grown-up Gunnar remembers that very well and shoves Magnus' sword down Rune's throat as revenge.
• Mama Bear: Hilda is fiercely protective of Gunnar and certainly does not hesitate to criticize Magnus' harsh upbringing.
• Muscles Are Meaningful: The muscular Tasuku is noted to swing the BFS more smoothly than the slender Homare. Granted, Homare deliberately invokes this trope by asking the Arisugawa personal blacksmith to craft a huge sword that is heavier he can actually handle to bring out the contrast. Doubles up as a Shout-Out to Berserk, to Miura's note about the unrealistic portrayal of BFS in other media and the lack of weight of such swords, due to the unsuitable build of the wielder.
• Obviously Not Fine: As noted by his grandmother, Homare has the tendency to hide his weakness and avoid dragging anyone else into his affairs.
• Papa Wolf: Despite his extremely harsh treatment of Gunnar, Magnus is visibly pissed when Gunnar is threatened.
• Parents as People: The Arisugawa family is not the best caregivers to Homare and acknowledges it. Because Homare is the long-awaited male descendant of the Arisugawa family, he is expected to be the future head. Homare was not only sent to various classes, but also expected to ace in various subjects, pressuring him so much that he grew up with a flimsy grasp of his own self-worth and a huge "Well Done, Son" Guy tendency.
• The Power of Love: The running theme of the whole story and even the play. Love is a double-edged sword. On one side it makes one weak. On the other side it gives one strength. Both Homare and Gunnar learn how to transform it into pure strength by acknowledging the love from their loved ones.
  Homare: The power of love is such a beautiful cliche.
• Revenge: The plot outside the play is, the Arisugawa family wanting revenge on the Minamoto family for a murder case. Homare is to challenge the family head into a duel to avenge his father, who was the victim of the murder.
  • A little blurred on the play itself as Gunnar's reason of killing Frode is mainly for "Well Done, Son" Guy reasons, but at the same time Frode was involved in cursing his bloodline. Said curse was why Gunnar's parents died.
• Shout-Out: What do you expect in a work that takes a lot of inspiration from Berserk?
  • The Signature Line above is based on Guts' quote: "If you’re alone... if it’s just your life, you can use it however you please/ Wear yourself out, get cut to ribbons, doesn’t matter. But when there’s two, the blade grows heavy."
  • Homare hugging his sword in his sleep, which is echoed by young Gunnar in the play, is based on the same habit of Guts'.
  • The armor analogy of Homare's Stepford Smiler nature is "You have the strongest armor because you are the weakest."
  • The constellation scene is not only a nod to MANKAI STAGE A3! Winter Troupe Live 2022, but also to the Guts' and Casca's exchange in Bonfire of Dreams.
  • Homare's grandmother lamenting that there is no way to reverse the impact of their terrible upbringing of Homare is based on Guts' quotes "Why do I always realize it... when I've already lost it." and "Even if we painstakingly piece together something lost, it doesn't mean things will ever go back to how they were."
  • The iconic "That thing was too big to be called a sword. Too big, too thick, too heavy, and too rough, it was more like a large hunk of iron." for the BFS Homare wants to use in the play itself.
  • Homare's speech during the huddle is based on Guts' "Unforgettable things, unforgettable people, and all of it by the tip of the sword..."
  • The play itself is chock full of shout-outs to the manga on its own. The brand is based on the Brand of Sacrifice, Magnus forcing Gunnar to train with an adult-sized sword is based on how Gambino trained little Guts, the aforementioned Gunnar hugging his sword in his sleep, and Rune pointing out that Magnus' BFS will get stuck in trees is based on Guts vs Serpico in Vritannis.
  • One non-Berserk reference is the epilogue title Letters from Home.
• Stepford Smiler: Both Homare and Azuma are this, but in a different way. As Hisoka notes, Homare has an aura that discourages people from reaching out to him unlike Azuma. Hisoka likens this aura to a very strong armor, which makes its wearer look capable on his own, but is also to protect his vulnerable inside.
• Tender Tears: The reason Homare quietly weeps after executing Genichiro? Witnessing a mother's love.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Let's face it, has Magnus raised Gunnar less harshly, everything that leads to his death will not have happened and Gunnar will have grown up with a way better sense of self-worth. The reason Gunnar ran and hide and was found by Rune? His fear of Magnus' wrath. Where did that fear come from? Magnus' extremely harsh upbringing. This inadvertently resulted in Magnus' death.
  • Sakae also counts. He believes everyone should be allowed to choose their partners at their own volition and thus challenges the Minamoto family head to a duel for freedom. He wins and marries Miyako, leaving the family indignant. What's next? The family murders Homare's father, leading to Homare having to avenge him through a duel to death.
• Warrior Poet: Noted as a poetic, philosophical Barbarian Hero, Gunnar kicks ass just as well as he composes poems and waxes poetic about life.
  • Homare definitely, definitely counts. He is not only able to wield his saber equally well with both hands and murder a man on-screen, but also composes various poetry. Similar to Gunnar, he also loves waxing poetic about life.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Gunnar has this in spades. His main reason of going after Frode is simply to earn his father's forgiveness for failing to protect his mother. He does not even care if he perishes after killing Frode.
• World of Badass: The play stars numerous barbarian warriors. And the women kick as much ass as the men, even right after giving birth to a child.