Hey there. I've had some problems lately, not the least of which being school, and have decided to discontinue Claymore: Raki's Return. Sorry, but I really can't come up with anymore ideas for that story, it was just a what if Raki and Clare met up in Rabona, and I played it out too far. So sorry, but i've decided to try something new out. Hopefully I'll be able to finish this one the way I want to, since I actually have an idea for how I want this one to go.
Also, a friend of mine recently came up with an idea for a Claymore fic I haven't seen yet. No I won't be telling you what it is because one o' you buggers might try and steal it from me :P Any way, on with the show.
Disclaimer, I do not own Claymore, Rurouni Kenshin, or anything else that might pop up in here aside from the plot.
Chapter 1: Broken
This was not good.
This was beyond not good. In fact this was FUBAR on so many levels it was previously unheard of.
I mean how do you describe a situation where you have to stare down the most powerful monster ever to exist. A creature that's slain countless half-human, half-monster warriors who were created with the sole purpose of killing it and it's ilk. And are you one of those special warriors? Nope, you're just some guy with a sword.
Alright it is a big sword, I'll give you that, but come on!
She took another swing at me as she thrashed around in a blind rage, her hunger for blood, finally overcoming her willpower.
I don't think she even recognizes me anymore.
I barely dodged that one, ducking and rolling to the right, coming up right behind her, my sword held defensively in front of me, sweat pouring down my face, soaking my clothes.
I took a deep breath...and let go.
And she came, fast. Swiping, biting, slashing, slamming, crushing everything that stood in her way. She was out, she was free, and she wanted guts.
I ducked under a horizontal slash and rolled away from the follow up chop. Springing forward I swung my blade at her head, which she deflected it by springing a yellow green blade out of her wrist. Flipping away from her, I landed with a good ten yards of separation between us. My legs trembling with fatigue. I wouldn't be able to fight for much longer.
I had already been going at it for the past hour and a half, and we had demolished half of the town. So many pointless deaths.
"I'm hungry... so hungry..."
I had to get her away from here, away from these people. God, I such an idiot, I should have seen the signs, I should have known that she was at her limit.
"Really, well if you behave yourself and follow me I'll make you something really tasty." I call to her, a smile on my face. God, how can I smile at a time like this? Think man, think!
She turned to regard me, her glowing gold eyes flashing to the blade I held in my hands, which I promptly put in a non-threatening position. "Tasty?"
"Oh yeah, I cook you up a right feast, so much food you'll be a balloon for the next week! But you need to change back so I can cook for you!" Please work, please work, please work!
"But...I want...I want..."
I heard a crunch behind me, and turned to see a little girl, no older than 5, clutching a soggy red Teddy bear to her chest. Her hair, face and clothing covered in blood; her eyes frozen in a look of indescribable, paralyzing terror.
"No..."
"GUTS!!!" And Priscilla surged forth, maw wide open revealing row upon row of razor sharp teeth as she flew straight as an arrow towards the girl.
"NO!" I cried as I leapt in front of the girl, swinging my great sword with all my might at Priscilla's once pretty face, but she was the quicker. And her hand darted forward with a sickening back hand.
There was a flash of blinding light, and the sound of something cracking. And then nothing.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Scar~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The winged monstrosity had finished her meal, her dark purple body covered in the life blood of the village, it's men, women and children sating her fel hunger. The monster swung her head around, a muted look of confusion crossing her vaguely human face, as if she were looking for something that had become lost to her.
A violent ring of purple light flashed around her, and her body began to shrink from it's hulking ten foot form. The wings folded into her back, her horn shrunk back into her forehead, claws became fingers and her purple carapace reverted back to her naturally pale skin, her hair returning to it's chestnut splendor.
The young woman looked turned her head left and right, searching the rubble for the person she cherished most, the boy she had lived with for the past seven years.
She became more desperate with each passing second. Where was he? She had lost track of him while she had fed herself, but he couldn't have gotten too far. He was only human, after all.
She tried calling his name, but there was no answer. Oh no, what if he had been attacked while she was busy? He was a strong human, but he was only human, and they oh so fragile. What if something hurt him? What if he was alone, scared and injured? Gasp, what if he succumbed to his injuries before she could get to him.
The girl began searching in earnest, dashing all over town, looking high and low, sifting through body parts, moving aside rubble.
What if he was dead?
No. NO! He couldn't be dead ,she had already lost her mama and papa. She had lost her knight to those monsters, and now...
What if you did it?
What?
What if you ate him? Such a tasty human, surely he would have had some tasty guts?
WHAT!? NO! NO!! She couldn't have eaten him, she just couldn't have, he's-
A human as you said yourself, and you did lose track of him while you fed...
No...goddesses no...
And she tore into the rubble with abandon throwing multiple ton pile of rubble around as if they were feathers.
Please...no...
And she found him at last. The boy turned man had been buried under a pile of rubble that she threw halfway across the town in her mad attempts to move him. But once she had, she instantly regretted her decision.
Told you...
His clothing had been torn so severely that it was nothing more than a pile of rags, his armor ripped apart. Every square inch of his body seemed to be covered in blood and open wounds. His arms and legs were bent at odd angles, bones spearing from bloody tears in his flesh. Discoloration on his chest revealed that several, if not all of his ribs were broken and probably spearing his lungs, drowning him on his own blood.
And then finally she noticed his face, and the tears began to fall.
His right eye was closed, the entire right side of his face looked as if he had merely drifted off into a peaceful slumber.
His left eye was gone, replaced with a bloody gaping whole and two jagged slashes that went deep enough to scratch his skull.
The world stopped turning, the sun had gone out. The girl collapsed to her knees and stared at the broken body of her companion. Memorizing every wound, every scar, every broken bone.
Everything you did...
Her world erupted in a cacophony of images and sounds as her form was surrounded by a familiar pinkish energy that warped her body back to it's ten foot winged splendor. Her families death at the teeth of the yoma. Her joining the Organization. Her training. Her first mission to kill the traitor. Losing her self to her rage and slaughtering her companions. Her dark knight, the man who swore he would find her family. The little boy she found in the frozen north, whose smile had claimed her heart.
The same boy, growing into the masculine perfection, training with her knight in the art of swordsmanship, as she watched and swooned over their shirt less, sweaty torsos.
The fell beasts, the creatures that she couldn't sense, that tracked her knight down; driven by the scent of his flesh, hungering, slobbering. Her knight screaming for them to leave him, for the boy to take her an go as far and fast as he can.
Their travels together. The man comforting her at night when the nightmares took hold. The strength he obtained with his own two hands. His ever present smile...
The same man, pleading to her, begging her to stop as she lost herself to her hunger once more.
The sickening crack as she opened up his face.
All because she wanted to eat that little girl's guts.
You did this...
It's your fault...
No...
Please...no...
His chest rose and fell with a shuddering sigh.
Yes! YES! He's alive! Oh thank you goddesses! Yes!
Wait, his wounds are too much for a normal human to heal...
I know, if I give him some of my flesh he can become like me right? Right?
Without any further hesitation, her claws sunk deep into her face, and popped her own eye out. Half of her world went dark, but it was a small price to pay for his life. She placed her eye into his bloody socket and waited for the energy from her donation to heal his body.
A moment passed. And then another, each second an eternity to her.
Why wasn't it working? Shouldn't his body have taken the eye by now.
You put the eye into a corpse...He's dead you twit. You killed him.
Shut up! Just shut up, I gave him my flesh, he should heal. It'll only be a matter of time...
You are powerful ,the most powerful being in existence, but even you cannot bring back the dead...
SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!
HE'S DEAD. BY YOUR HAND! YOU KILLED HIM!
"NOOOOOO!!!" with a howl her world shattered. She had become a monster, like the ones that had killed Mama and Papa. She had killed him and hadn't even batted an eye to the fact until after she had finished the entire bloody town!
Her bones bent and broke, reforming to massive extents as her skin shifted from pale peach to deep purple. Her muscles boiled and rippled, expanding to new lengths and condensing as the power kept flowing, more and more. A limitless well she screamed to heavens proclaiming her sorrow to the world.
She was Priscilla the monster, she had betrayed her comrades to death, she had lost herself to the hunger, she failed her knight.
And now, she killed the only man she ever loved.
She was Priscilla, hear her roar.
With a flap of her mighty wings, Priscilla took to the skies, flying as fast and as hard as she could away from this place of death and blood. She flew to the lands of the south, her energy still spiraling around her. She flew away from Isleys North, away from Riful's West, and away from the Organization's East.
She flew South, to find a good place to die.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Scar~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
In the frozen North, seven cloaked heads lifted their faces to the sky as a horrid pulse of Youki assaulted their minds.
"What the hell was that?" Helen called out to her comrades, pulling her cowl down and revealing her short hair to the rest.
"A being of immense power," Tabitha replied, closing her eyes so as not to be distracted from the energy she sought to find. "The strongest Youki I've ever felt..."
"How far is it?" Miria asked, her tone urgent.
"Far to the South-West, and moving further South still," Tabitha responded.
"How far?" Miria pressed.
Tabitha opened her eyes and returned to captains silvery gaze with a shrug, "Thousands of leagues."
Her revelation was met by a chorus of shock the loudest being Helen's "What?!"
"How were we able to sense it if it was so far away?" the ever-calm Deneve inquired to herself, her steady gaze never leaving the skies.
Miria looked impassively at the heavens before turning away to regard her comrades, "Well, if it's that far away, then we shouldn't have to worry. We'll just have to be extremely careful and avoid anything that even remotely feels close to it's youki signature in the future."
"No kidding, considering how powerful it must have been that we could feel it all the way out here," Helen grimaced, "Makes me wonder if heading south was such a good idea after all."
Deneve turned to regard her oldest friend, a single delicate blond eyebrow raised, "Really?"
"...Nah. Just messing with y- hey Clare! Wait up!"
In their discussion the six others had failed to notice their seventh companion had paused for only a moment to regard the foul youki, and then had continued on at a slightly faster pace, getting far ahead of the group.
Miria sighed in annoyance and sped over to her impatient ally, firmly grasping her shoulder and halting her, "Clare, i know you want to get to the South, but we can't afford to get too far apart."
Clare didn't respond, save to regard her friend with an unreadable expression on her face. She couldn't tell Miria, or any of the others this, but while she felt the youki like they had, unlike them she was able to recognize it.
Priscilla. The monster who had destroyed her happiness.
The beast she had sworn to kill..
The others had caught up to them, and they started off again.
But something nagged the back of Clare's mind.
Why had Priscilla, a being of immense evil, someone so terrible she take Teresa away, felt so sad?
And why do I suddenly worry about Raki?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Scar~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The skies dimmed as the sun left the sky tired and seeking rest, giving the moon her her children the stars their time to rule his domain. Pale moonlight filtered through the trees to shine down upon the broken town, as the nights creatures came to feed upon the feast the Scary Thing had left them.
'Bout time those damn humans got the fear of a predator out in them, serves 'em right it does.
But the animals steered clear of one corpse amongst the pile.
The body of a broken young man, a warrior who failed in his duty to protect his charge.
The body of a broken young man that was reeking an aura of wrongness.
The body of a dead young man that was suddenly engulfed in an aura of blackness, whose form the shadows covered, swirling, spinning and boiling around.
The body of dead young man that suddenly opened his eyes, one brown, one a glowing yellow.
The body of a dead young man who leapt at a nearby doe, so petrified by fear that it could not flee, and tore the poor beast asunder, feasting upon it's bloody entrails and muscles, gorging himself on the protein his body needed to fuel his regeneration.
The body of a dead young man who stood up and and roared the shadows exploding out around him, driving the animals into a frenzy as they trampled and killed one another in their haste to flee from this thing.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Scar~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Where am I? What is this place? I look around and see nothing. Nothing but the inky blackness that seems to go on to eternity.
Monster...
Wha-?
Killer...
Who?
Arise...
Who am I?
ARISE...
There is much you must do...
What? Why?
You must go West...
To wake the sleeper...
What are you saying?
You must go East...
To end man's crusade...
Please...tell me who I am...
Arise Creature... Arise Beast...
Please tell me my name.
...
Tell me my name!
What's my name!
WHO AM I!
You are the Key...
You are their Focus...
...
Who...am I?
...
I promise you... I won't die. I'll live... and I'll find you...
So stay alive! I swear I'll come looking for you!
Until then we both have to stay alive!
Clare...
ARISE!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Scar~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
