PROXIMITY
Claymore Short Story Project #1
Credit goes to all the writers at Animesuki who helped me with technical editing & plot development: T35, Yosei, Hell, Fenrir, Tenken, NobodyMan, Mikke & Bishou...Hope I didn't leave out anyone. Also to Dreamreaper who has been bugging me to post something new :)
Burden
1.
Number 8 "Windcutter" Flora carried with her a tiny wooden cross. It was strung through the centre by thin, fraying leather rawhide, and she had connected the ends in a hasty knot to create a loop. The loop was large enough for her to wear the cross around her neck. But that was against the Organization's regulations, so instead she kept the cross stuffed in the hilt of her sword, with her Black Card.
When she and her team rested for the night, she would take out the cross. She would examine its chipped edges, and run her thumb down the contours of the now worn away figure in the middle. She would make sure no one saw her with it. They might interpret her obsession with the symbol as a sign of weakness, as proof that she was not an able leader. So she always kept the object stowed away.
Sometimes when she was certain she was alone, she would wear the object, looping the ends around her neck. It would fall and hang loose just above the symbol of identification the Organization had given her. She kept the cross, and wore it sometimes, not because she was religious. She could hardly tell what the word "religion" meant. But the cross had belonged to a young gentleman from a village in the far south. She had cleansed the young man's town of yoma, saved him from his yoma posing as his neighbours. At the end of the assignment, the young gentleman had offered her the tiny wooden cross as a token of thanks. Purely symbolic, he had said, but more so because you have a beautiful soul that bears much burden. She had waved him off, and told him to submit all payments to the Organization's man in black. But she kept the cross. And she often wondered about that young gentleman.
It was uncommon for her kind to receive gracious comments of thanks. His token gesture (purely symbolic, was it?) was her first, and her only one. She kept the gift stashed away. But sometimes she would wear it, adorn herself with it, wondering loftily and idly, but wondering, whether that young gentleman had worn it also, and if he did so, she wondered if the cross hung right in the space right under his neck, and she wondered if he often caressed, and ran his hands over it like she did. And she often held the object in her palm, knowing it had once belonged to him, and that his human hands radiating their human warmth must have done the same.
2.
They were called Claymores. Most of them bore the name without complaint.
They bore the name like it was their label, like there was no other way to describe the occupation they committed themselves to do. They bore it with a muted indifference. Some bore it gladly. But most could not really care.
Most of the things they were burdened with were the results of combat requirement, the necessity in being a Claymore. They bore on their shoulders splaulders, twin blades of cast iron armour, which were heavy, but felt much heavier during hunts and missions. They bore on their arms vambraces, so that a desperate yoma could not wound their exposed arms. They had to strap them in place, yet during fierce battles they always ensured the exposed area where arm braces and the splauders met were always covered.
All of them bore the weight of metal sabatons, and the click click click of metal against earth when they made their long trips. Any footwear would've been fine, but it was standard issue from the Organization, and it added more weight to each foot. They were tough to run in, and weighed more in the water. As a final compliment to their armour, all of them wore faulds, the metal skirt meant to protect their thighs. They bore all that arnour silently, many believing its weight would mean the difference between life and death should the critical moment come.
They bore the standard list of stipulated items their handlers supplied them. They had been trained never to leave their contact points without these: a black cloak and several yoki suppressant pills. Most carried five, enough for a week. But the exact number of pills they were allowed to carry depended mostly on preference. Number 47 Clare carried fifteen pills. Number 3 Galatea carried only one. For the sake of emergency, I always carried ten. As for the black cloak, most carried with should the need to mix and mingle with humans arose. But it could serve other purposes too. For example, when Number 46 Eugenia was killed, Flora and her team wrapped her body in her black cloak and then buried her.
Most importantly, all of them bore the weight of that unmistakable sword, that deadly blade, their Claymore. It sheath they strapped to their armour, and with the Claymore in it, it weighed at least one stone. It was a willful, unfortunate burden they had to carry. It was by all accounts the heaviest burden of all. So much so that when Number 46 Eugenia was killed she fell under the weight of all that armour – and never got up again. Burdened to the point of death, one of her comrades had said.
By the time they had graduated from the academy, most of them could already bear the weight of that massive sword on one hand. In the case of Number 9 Jean, they said she had become adept at using her Claymore with both hands during her academy days – a skill only one or two in a generation would acquire. Then there was Number 11 Undine, who carried two Claymores, and she used them on anyone who challenged her self-imposed strongest of the Claymores title.
They bore their responsibilities to the Organization and humankind without so much as a complaint. And they bore themselves with a quiet understanding of the weaponry they could unleash.
3.
Flora bore the heavy, pressing weight of armour and weaponry during an Awakened Being hunt in the Southwest. With three fellow warriors – Number 17 Eliza, Number 24 Zelda and Number 46 Eugenia – they bore their equipment and armour and silence and contempt for their Awakened foe across three provinces, nine days of travel on foot, across streams and up mountains and through the valleys which followed. This was the country they knew well – the country of the sword, the country ruled by sword and yoma.
They had not talked much. All they needed were introductions and queries about ranks to establish who would lead the hunt. Throughout their nine days' trek, led by Flora and a persistent order to eliminate a rogue Awakened Being, they did not talk much. They did not know it then, but one would not make it out of the hunt alive, and the other three would not talk about the hunt till their reunion in Pieta.
As they stopped for their final rest on their seventh day, Flora had quietly excused herself from the detail. She was not in the mood to talk. She had known all three of them for only a week anyway, and their socializing had consisted of nothing more than walking.
Away from prying eyes she had unlocked the hilt of her sword, and she fished out the wooden cross. For a while she imagined the young gentleman, his wowed eyes, his gentleman's gait, his soft-spoken tone. She imagined the young gentleman as he had strode up to her, unafraid of the stains of yoma blood on her tunic or debris of slaughtered yoma strewn all around her feet. She imagined him as he placed his gift into her open palms, brushing his hands against hers. Would he have felt how delicate her small hands were? Would he have seen the hands of human, and not a Claymore?
She imagined these things as she held the small wooden cross up to the light of the falling sun. Some birds were arguing in the trees nearby, and she was sure her comrades were not watching. So she slipped the cross over her head and wore the object, displaying proudly what was – and would be – the only gift she would have ever received from a human.
4.
They bore their burdens silently, mutely, for there was no one to tell, and there was no one to listen – save each other.
To some extent some of the things they bore were unnecessary, part of their imagination, mere good luck charms to keep their mind off the numbing repetition of missions. As the highest ranked of her team, Flora had her tiny wooden cross. Flora did not know it then, but before she died Number 46 Eugenia always carried with her a handwritten note from a fellow trainee. Number 24 Zelda was in the habit of plucking flowers, especially dandelions, and curling their little stems around the hilt of her Claymore, even in the midst of battle. Number 22 Helen carried extra rations, mostly in the form of apples. Number 31 Tabitha would pick mint leaves off the shrubs and crush them in her hands. She honestly believed they would bring her good luck in battle. Before she was killed in the northern skirmish, Number 7 Eva would anoint her Claymore with fresh water before going into a fight.
And Number 47 Clare bore the weight of a human life – a boy named Raki – willingly, beautifully (and some would say lovingly) through battle, hardship and separation.
Call it superstition, but they were Claymores, and they believed no power would save them, no divine hand could rescue them, save their own belief in such meaningless, pointless rituals. The mere act of doing them kept their mind away from the horrible reality of being killed on a mission, or worse, awakening to a general darkness, a sharpened sense of desire and a voracious hunger for human flesh.
And so many of these superstitions passed into lore, and eventually became the truth, the means to which these young women lived their short, anguished, blood-filled lives.
5.
On the ninth day, Flora and her team were ambushed by an Awakened Being.
Early in the morning, along a rocky stream – it used the cover of the long grass to launch an attack which separated Flora from her team. The monster was not very smart, and from what Number 17 Eliza said, the battle just took a mere fifteen minutes, and a double onslaught of Flora's signature move – the "Windcutter" – before the creature was reduced to a lonely blinking head in the middle of that distant meadow.
But before it attacked, Flora was not thinking about the mission, neither was she thinking about her team-mates. She had ventured ahead, lost in the morning and the meadow and the scenery, lost in her thoughts. At that very instance, moments before the Awakening Being attacked, Flora would admit she was thinking about the wooden cross dangling from her neck, the young gentleman who had probably worn it below his shy smiling face and the way his hands had probably caressed the wooden emblem whenever he was deep in thought – like she was doing now –
And then the Awakened Being struck.
It looked like an ordinary yoma. Only bigger, with a tough outer carapace of hardened spikes and armour, and longer arms. It had extended its fingers in its first attack. But by making the first move it had given away its position, and standing out from the tall grass like a sore thumb, Flora could sense the uneven yoki, its indecision.
Her hands were still pressed over that tiny wooden cross hanging around her neck as she recalled their battle strategy: in pairs, attack the monster from both sides. But now separated from her other three teammates by the yoma's extended fingers, she was exposed, alone, an easy kill. Without thinking she motioned for Eliza and Zelda to engage, and for Eugenia to join her. And they obeyed.
It all happened very fast. Eliza and Zelda sprung at the monster. Eugenia used this distraction to join Flora. The Awakened Being saw the move. It struck its arm out at Eugenia. Its fingers extended. One hit her square between the eyes. She stopped running and, weighed by all that armour, fell down and did not get up.
For a short moment Flora could not believe what had happened.
But being a leader, she had a mission: kill first, then tend her teammate later. After all, Eugenia was just injured, wasn't she? So she advanced, and when she was in range, drew her sword at the monster so fast that the offending arm that had struck at Eugenia disintegrated. Eliza and Zelda had made short work of the other. Outnumbered and limbless, the monster made a foolish attempt to run, but Flora, frowning for the first time, struck one last time, cleaving its legs at the knees. And Eliza and Zelda chopped all the way up, leaving a torso and a head lying in the grass.
Zelda wondered if Eugenia was all right. Worried that she had not seen her, Flora would have walked back to where her teammate – the lowest and weakest of her team – was lying motionless in the grass. Her hands would have been still clasped around her sword, all her armour would have not been penetrated. But her entire right cheekbone would have been blown away, and Flora would have grimly pulled out the monster's finger from Eugenia's face. It had gone clean through the bridge of her nose, exiting her temple at the other end. There was hardly any blood. It was a clean kill.
And Flora screamed. A long, single chorus of unrestrained anger.
6.
Together, as sisters, they bore the stigma of being a Claymore. They all bore the burden of being thought of as more monster than human.
They would walk among humans using every restraint and every last bit of their self-control, bearing the names they would hear whispered from the tongues of frightened men, jealous women, angry mothers and crying children. Witch, demon, monster, beast, infidel, jezebel, temptress, scum, heathen, unsaved, killer, evil one, dweller of the dark, child of the devil. They bore the names; they bore the collective shame and scorn; they bore the disdain, the hate of their fellow humans.
They bore their public disgrace in private, moving from town to town, killing the same foe, mission after mission, a continuous eternal cycle of service for those who hardly gave a word of thanks.
And they bore the tense burden, the immediate fear of waking up to become something that they were not. Something darker, more sinister than their own public degradation – the personal descent of the soul, the going-under into a point of no return, the giving in to the indwelling of an evil spirit, which made them do things that they had been taught as abominable, the very things they were meant to protect humanity against.
7.
As Flora prepared Eugenia's body for burial she wrapped her comrade in the black cloak, and ordered Eliza and Zelda to prepare a shallow grave. She removed the black card from the hilt of Eugenia's sword. And there she found two pieces of parchment, yellowed and torn, as thin as leaf, filled with unintelligible scribbling, in a language Flora herself could not understand.
As she removed all of Eugenia's armour, as they lowered her into the grave, as Zelda insisted on plucking flowers and lining the grave with it (because ditching a body into a hole in the earth was just wrong, she insisted), as Flora took the letters, the mysterious good luck charm that had helped Eugenia survive until now – she wondered how things would have been different had she been paying attention, had she not been thinking about that young gentleman, about her own token symbol.
But there was nothing to be done now, and there was nothing that could be undone either. All there was to do was for Flora to return to headquarters at Staff and report another Claymore killed in combat and return her comrade's black card to her handler. But for now, as they sunk the sword atop Eugenia's grave, Flora stooped low at the freshly dug earth, her fingers running over the wooden emblem still hanging from her neck. Zelda was plucking flowers. Eliza stood nearby. None spoke, not wanting to appear impatient.
8.
But above all their burdens, the weight of their own armour, the loads heaped upon them by their human brethren out of spite, they bore their own personal grievances. They bore ambition, grievances, personal trauma, promises of their fellow slain, and most of all, revenge.
Flora bore the burden of her own mistakes, and the resolve not to put the lives of those under her in danger. Number 11 Undine, strongest of the Claymores she might have been, bore the desire to feel strong, and in doing so wipe away that treacherous feeling of helpless weakness. Number 15 Deneve bore a similar helplessness: a crazed self-destructive guilt which, she claims, is as threatening an emotion as awakening. And they all bore their tragedies: yoma intruders consuming family members, brothers, sisters, mothers, husbands – the unforgotten fear, the panic, pure and undefiled, and the blurring of all memories with tears. They drove some into recklessness: before she died, Number 46 Eugenia's held bitterly onto one wish – to live out the promises detailed in the letters which she carried, to have her own family, to be admired for being a young lady, to laugh and not be laughed at.
But she did not get to fulfill that promise.
9.
In the evening after they had buried Eugenia, the remaining three warriors from the hunting team gathered around a fire. Flora kept watch all night, even after sleep overtook both Eliza and Zelda.
Then she opened the hilt of her sword, took out the wooden cross and the pieces of parchment she had found with Eugenia. She cast the parchment into the fire, watching the flames lick the browned paper into ashes. She watched gingerly as the ashes died in the glow. And then she thumbed the wooden cross, and burned it too.
Morning would come, she knew, and they would have to trek nine days back to their rendezvous, and perhaps several more to reach Staff. She would report Eugenia's death. She would take full responsibility for the error, for her dead comrade. Whether or not she would receive a censure she didn't bother, at least not then. She was a team leader: she needed to show both Eliza and Zelda she was capable of accepting her duties.
She was also a Claymore, and warriors such as her had no need for dreams. No need for crosses or flowers or letters written on parchment. No need for fantasies involving grateful young gentlemen from previous missions. No need for thanks or sympathy or empathy or grace. The mission – yes – all that mattered was the mission. Kill the yoma.
Yes, that was all that mattered.
Edited: 01 Sep 2008. First posted on Animesuki.