A/N: This is my first story. I noticed nobody had made a Berserk and Goblin Slayer crossover yet, despite how similar the two are.

Criticism is welcome. I failed English GCSE, so don't expect a masterpiece. Don't expect regular updates, either. I'll work on this when I feel like it.

That said, I hope you enjoy the story. Put your grasses on, because everything is gonna go wong.

The sky was bleeding.

The land was bathed in a blood red light, the ground seemed to be made up of living faces, and a black sun hung in the sky.

He stood in a pool of blood and gore, half naked, while a stench of death invaded his nostrils. A banner, white and blue but stained by red, displaying a winged sword was clutched by a severed arm coming out of the pool. This was the blood of his former comrades. Their mangled corpses lay around him. Judeau. Pippin. Corkus. Gaston. His burning anguish, which was already close to boiling over, grew ever more.

All he could hear were the laughter of demons, and the muffled, feminine screams of someone familiar. His rage and grew even further.

And when he saw the man standing in before him, garbed in a purple outfit made from an unknown substance and modeled on a hawk, with an indifferent look on his face, his fury reached its breaking point. He screamed.

"GRIFFIIITH!"

Guts woke up in a cold sweat.

He'd accepted the nightmares as a part of life ever since the Eclipse. In their own, twisted way, they were a blessing. They made him a light sleeper, which left him less open to being attacked in his sleep.

That didn't stop them from being a pain in the ass, though.

He looked around, and noticed he was in a cave. There was very little light in here, so he blinked a few times until his eyes were adjusted. This wasn't where he remembered going to sleep. If he slept in a cave last night, he would know. He got up and looked around for his gear, his sword-

He stopped.

His body was already covered in the Berserker Armor, and his sword rested comfortably on his back. His prosthetic arm was in place. All of his equipment was on him.

What?

The last thing Guts remembered was arriving in Elfhelm, and finally going to sleep on a real bed with no demons to torment him. Well, outside of his own mind of course. He had taken all of his gear off beforehand. So if someone had plucked him out of bed, equipped all of his gear and carried him into a cave, they would have certainly woken him up.

There was no sight of his comrades. Shit. He was in an unfamiliar place, separated from his friends, and something told him calling out for them was a bad idea.

He had no idea how he got here, and he didn't plan on sticking around to find out.

Guts knew that the tight space he was in made wielding Dragonslayer impractical at best, so he mounted his repeater crossbow onto his prosthetic hand and loaded it with bolts. Hand on the crank, he ventured into the darkness with a slow, cautious stride.

There was a new piece on the board.

The gods surrounded their table, wondering where this new piece came from. Illusion asked is anyone had brought it here, but none of them had. It had literally just appeared on the board.

One of them among their number threw a dice, wanting to see what would happen, wanting to try and control it. It landed on a two. He would be suddenly swarmed by goblins and eaten alive.

But nothing happened.

The gods were perplexed by this. Only one other piece could ignore the results of dice throws, but that one was part of the plan. This one was completely unprecedented.

Truth reached out to pick the piece up, but his eyes widened as he saw his fingers go straight through the piece as if it wasn't there in the first place.

The gods' confusion gave way to worry, that there was something on the board beyond their control. As they looked closer, worry gave way to fear, as they saw the mark on the piece's neck. A mark all of them hoped they would never see on their board again.

The Brand of Sacrifice.

"Is this the place, Orcbolg? It doesn't look like much."

"Don't judge a book by its cover, Elf. All the other adventures who took this quest never came back."

Priestess sighed at Dwarf Shaman and High Elf Archer's constant bickering. She loosely clutched her staff in one hand as she came to a stop in front of the cave entrance. Goblin Slayer and Lizard Priest both stood there silently. Dwarf Shaman took a swig of wine while High Elf Archer continued.

"Whatever. We won't fail like they did. This can't be worse than what we've experienced before, right?"

"When it comes to goblins, always expect the worst."

Everyone turned to look at Goblin Slayer, who had just spoken up, his voice muffled slightly by his helmet.

"There. We'll use that one to mask our scent."

Goblin Slayer pointed forward, and there was a singular goblin standing at the cave's entrance. It hadn't noticed them yet.

"Wait, we need a pla-"

High Elf Archer swiveled around to look at him, but her words died in her mouth. Goblin Slayer was gone. They looked back at the goblin, only to see it had its skull caved in, courtesy of Goblin Slayer's club.

"One."

Guts traversed the darkness in a slow and purposeful stride. His eyes had fully adjusted now, so he could see near-perfectly the incredibly tight passage he found himself in. Using Dragonslayer here was definitely a bad idea, not because he wouldn't be able to swing it - the sword would just go straight through the cave wall - but because if he did he might cause a cave-in.

He heard a skittering noise from in front of him. Looking down, he saw a pair of tiny green creatures with long noses and ears, hideous faces and beady yellow eyes, armed with rusty blades and garbed with dirty loincloths. One of them made a babbling noise, presumably in its own language, before both of them let out a war cry and charged at him. They were stopped dead in their tracks and fell to the ground lifelessly after two crossbow bolts found their place between their eyes, in less than a second.

He heard a noise come from behind him, as a third creature leaped onto his back and attempted to stab him with its blade.

It didn't even scratch the armor.

The creature didn't even have time to realize its mistake as Guts grabbed it in one hand and brutally threw it on the ground before him, its bones cracking, before its skull was pulverized by Guts's armored foot.

Guts stared at its remains for a short time. He remembered Schierke mention something about an astral creature called Goblins, and these things matched their description to a T. But why are they here? Did he wake up in some sort of interstice? Too many questions, not enough time. His first priority was getting out of this cave, then figuring out where the hell he ended up.

He saw a light ahead. He rushed towards it and turned the corner, expecting to see daylight, but what he saw made his blood freeze.

The light came from a large, open cavern with torches mounted on the walls. Totem-like structures could be seen near the back of the cave. There was a large horde of goblins, skittering about as they seemed to be preparing for war as several large, muscular goblins appeared to be doing the same. One goblin with a hood over its head sat on some kind of throne, brooding, while a massive goblin even larger than the other ones was standing over the others, barking orders to its subordinates in its own unintelligible tongue.

But to the left, he saw a row of women. Human women. They were completely naked and tied up with ropes, and nearly all of them were being brutally violated by the goblins. Some of which were heavily pregnant with these monsters' offspring. His anger tripled for every second he looked at them. He tore his eyes away from them to look at the right side of the room, which contained the remains of both male and female humans, some of which were currently being feasted on by the smaller goblins. Immediately, he was reminded of the trolls of Qliphoth.

And him.

It took nearly all of his willpower to stop his inner beast from coming out.

He had made up his mind. These things had to die. Nearly all of the goblins in the room had taken notice of him now and were beginning to brandish their weapons, but he didn't care. He unsheathed Dragonslayer, watching as some began to cower in fear at the sight of his weapon, and with a roar, he leaped into the horde. Hacking and slashing, ripping and tearing. He would let none escape.

Something wasn't right.

Priestess walked forward through the empty caves, in a tight formation with the rest of her party. They were hugging the walls of the cave, and their eyes darted in all directions, prepared for an ambush.

After Goblin Slayer had killed the first goblin on the outside, there were none inside the cave. There was evidence of their recent presence, however, with the rotten stench of goblin feces that would have made her gag had she not been used to it. That, and some of their makeshift equipment was left behind.

Lizard Priest knelt down and looked at their footprints.

"They left in a hurry."

Goblin Slayer hummed in agreement, as Dwarf Shaman decided to voice his opinion.

"Looks like we weren't as stealthy as we hoped, Beard-Cutter. They must have gone to warn their friends deeper i-"

Priestess jumped as Dwarf Shaman was interrupted by a deafening, inhuman howl, one she recognized as belonging to a hobgoblin.

It was a howl not of rage, but of agony.

She took her hands away from her ears and the rest of her party did the same, minus Goblin Slayer.

"What the hell was that?"

No one took the time to answer High Elf Archer's question, as they were already rushing toward whatever made the sound.

A/N: Here's a fun fact: I wrote this chapter over half a year ago. I remember working on it for one day, making it up as I went along, before giving up and forgetting about it. I only just remembered it existed, and after thoroughly proofreading it, I decided "that'll do" before slapping this author's notice on the bottom and publishing it. Goblin Slayer's party and Guts will meet in the next chapter, you can be sure of that.

That is if I can be arsed to make another chapter. I'll be honest, I'm more of a reader than a writer. Still, if this gets enough attention, I'll probably be more motivated to put actual effort into this story. No promises though, this isn't something I'm devoting my life to.

This is Jaalco, signing off.