A/N: Because it's my favorite manga that cruelly snipped potential yuri canon in the bud.
Disclaimer: Claymore and its characters belong to Norihigo Yagi and his licensed vassals. Derivative work is, however, mine.
She has been walking, walking for so long. Clothing, eating, sleeping, pissing, or shitting does not matter. Only breathing, walking, and searching matters.
And the ghost she holds in her hands. She looks ahead and sees a city before her. If gods existed, she should see one of them in the town. There is bound to be one in such a big place. She leans heavily upon a dead tree on the side of the road. The sun is beating heavily upon the parched earth. Her lifeless eyes roll upon the desolate landscape, she is too far from where she started but by some cruel irony, she also is not. She is left with what she started: nothing.
Well, close to nothing.
She tucks her knees behind her and sits upon the hard, hot ground. If she feels the heat of the dry rock, she does not show. The ghost in her hands, her small piece of everything gifted her with a faint smile. The spectre's beauty does not fade, that tiny fragment in her lap is as perfect as she remembers it whole.
"I'll find him today, I know it," she says softly and returns the smile. She leans down and kisses the beautiful, severed head on the lips. With shaky feet she stands up, and continues her lonely search.
Soon, she sees a flash of black.
It is only the beginning, but the end is certain.
For leaving only her spectre's smile, the One-Horned Beast must die.