Who Isn't Crazy?
Ilena raced across the rocky and boulder strewn ground with Noel and Sophia at her back. Her long pale hair streamed back with her short cape, exposing her sharply pointed ears as she sought out the feeling of clashing yoki powers.
She and her three companions had been sent to kill the rogue warrior, Teresa of the Faint Smile. Before going rogue, Teresa had been ranked as the Organization's number one, so it was deemed appropriate to send numbers two through five to dispose of her. Surely their combined power would be enough to overcome her.
So they had believed, but Ilena's recent experience proved how painfully wrong they'd been. When they confronted her in the nearby town, Teresa handily defeated all four of them. Simultaneously. She didn't even need to exert her yoki as she disabled them each in turn. So great was her superiority she refrained from killing them, saying that they could attack her as often as they liked. They had no chance of defeating her.
Well, that wasn't entirely true. Priscilla, the rookie who had supplanted Ilena herself as number two, did have the power and potential to someday surpass Teresa. What she currently lacked was the experience. Teresa recognized this and nearly took Priscilla's head to prevent it from happening, but then surprised both Ilena and herself by sparing the young warrior and departing with the girl who had indirectly caused her to go rogue.
Ilena and her contemporaries were grateful to emerge with their lives, free to recover and fulfill their mission another day. Priscilla however, showed her youth by going berserk in the face of defeat at Teresa's hands and her own terror. She couldn't conceive of losing to a woman she regarded as nothing but a murderer, so she raised her yoki and charged after her.
Ilena, Noel, and Sophia ran to try to stop Priscilla before it was too late. In her current berserk state the best that she could hope for would be a quick death at Teresa's hands. It was frighteningly likely that in her rage and inexperience she would instead draw out too much of her yoki, surpassing her limit. If that happened she would become an Awakened Being, a monster, and her comrades would have to kill her themselves before she began feeding on human entrails.
They were close enough now that Ilena didn't have to try to sense yoki. She could hear the sound of swords clashing with deafening force. They slowed to a stop as they approached the rise the furious sounds of battle were coming from. It was so intense that they could actually feel impact shockwaves in the air.
"These yoki, they're...!" Noel started to say before breaking off, at a loss for words.
"I know what you mean," Sophia told her. "Those two are like monsters! What the hell can we possibly do against them?"
"Both of them are stronger than I imagined possible," Ilena admitted.
But one is far stronger than the other, she concluded to herself.
As they finally crested the rise Ilena saw two figures locked in combat, both wearing the uniform of the Organization's half bred warriors. That is, a snug white cloth body suit with plain metal paldrons, a short armored skirt, a waist length cape, and armored boots. Each wielded the blade of a warrior of the Organization, an enormous two handed sword called a claymore. These similarities aside, the two fighters couldn't have been more different.
Teresa fought with absolute composure, her flowing hair unmussed, and her appearance nearly immaculate. The only injury she had was a shallow cut over her right eye that had already stopped bleeding. Judging by the fact that only her eyes had changed color she was drawing on just ten percent of her yoki.
Priscilla's clothing, on the other hand, was torn and dirtied and her boyishly short hair was wild. She seemed to be uninjured, but judging by her glaring golden eyes, fanged mouth, and grotesquely malformed and muscular appearance she was drawing more than seventy percent of her yoki. Her enraged attacks were savagely powerful and terrifyingly fast, but seemed to pose no challenge for the rogue number one.
"Is that Priscilla? Are we too late?" Noel asked, aghast.
"She could still revert if we stopped her now," Ilena told her. The point of no return was eighty percent after all. "But I don't see how we could hope to do that now," she concluded.
A considerable distance away from the fight Ilena saw the girl Teresa was traveling with fearfully watching from the shelter of one of the the innumerable boulders scattered around the area. Her presence was only to be expected. What was surprising was the fact that there were two more observers to the battle. She would have expected any bystanders to have fled long since.
One of them was simply the largest human Ilena had ever seen. He was dark haired and beardless, as well as being tall and enormously muscular. His arms were crossed casually under a grey cloak and he bore a sword slung over his shoulder of similar size to, though of slightly different design than a claymore.
The woman next to him was about the same size as Ilena. The fit of her dark leathers was somehow reminiscent of a warrior's uniform and she bore a sword over her shoulder as well. Her pale hair was cut to chin length, her face was expressionless, and it was with some surprise that Ilena realized she didn't just resemble a warrior. Her silver eyes and the faint feel of yoki coming from her meant that she was one.
The strange warrior was obviously suppressing her yoma power, making it harder to detect. Given the gargantuan amounts of yoki the battling pair were putting out it was understandable to Ilena that she hadn't at first recognized what the other woman was. Focusing on her for a moment Ilena found something eerily familiar about her yoki aura, despite the fact she was certain she had never met her before.
There was also a discontinuity in the aura, telling Ilena that one of the woman's arms didn't belong to her. The aura it put off was also maddeningly familiar. It was Sophia who clarified the feeling for her.
"Ilena, if I didn't know better, I'd swear that warrior over there has your right arm."
The strange warrior turned and flicked her silver eyed gaze over Ilena and her companions before obviously dismissing them for the moment to watch the fight again.
Ilena briefly observed the fight again before concluding regretfully that if they tried to jump in and stop Priscilla they'd just get themselves killed and accomplish nothing. She edged her group towards the two strangers, while keeping an eye on the battle in case it shifted in their direction.
As they got closer she could hear the big human talking.
"...no offense meant - I don't think I've ever met a warrior of the Organization who was what most people would call sane. Helen comes closest I think. At least she has a sense of fun." He spoke with a slightly absent tone and kept his eyes on the battle in front of him.
"Her idea of a friendly hello is to attack me with her sword," the warrior responded with no real heat in her voice. She likewise kept her eyes on the battle.
"Only if you haven't seen each other in a while. And it isn't like she's serious about it."
He hurriedly justified himself, "Besides, I said she came closest to being sane, not that she actually was."
"Just because she's smiling when she attacks me doesn't mean she isn't serious. Galatea is much more reasonable."
"Galatea is much more even tempered than Helen," the man said with emphasis. "I don't call anyone who cuts out her own eyes as a disguise sane. Granted it was a really good disguise..." He trailed off as Pricilla launched a particularly vicious attack at Teresa only to have it effortlessly countered.
"Yuma then. Perfectly sane and even tempered," the unfamiliar warrior suggested tonelessly.
"She throws her sword at Awakened Beings. That is her actual combat specialty. Throwing your only weapon away when you're facing an Awakened Being doesn't strike me as being terribly sane. Anyway, I notice you haven't put your own name forward for sanest warrior?" he inquired with a thread of amusement in his voice.
Ilena recognized none of the warriors they had mentioned.
"You know me too well," admitted the warrior with the slightest of smiles on her face.
"You did attack one of the Creatures of the Abyss while you were ranked number 47. Repeatedly," the man pointed out.
"You don't have any room to criticize me Raki."
"Hey, I never attacked a Creature of the Abyss. I just took sword lessons form one. And it's not like I knew what he was at first," Raki said defensively.
"That's not what I was talking about," the warrior commented. "Although that was also insane." As she spoke she seemed to relax slightly from a tension Ilena hadn't been aware was present in her.
"What was I supposed to do? Tell her to go away? Anyway, she stopped eating people for the entire time she was with me. She hardly gave anyone so much as a nasty look, and we were together for a while." Ilena realized that this Raki human's intention for the conversation was to distract the so-far nameless warrior. Her apparent blankness was a mask over powerful emotions of some kind.
"For seven years. With an Awakened Being stronger than the Creatures of the Abyss. Knowing that it was only a matter of time."
"Yes, but in the mean time she was a great spotter. I couldn't have killed nearly so many yoma without her to point them out." He waved that aside for the moment. "Anyway, my point was that we shouldn't judge this girl too harshly. All warriors are at least a little bit crazy."
Priscilla's enraged attack had failed yet again. She lay half collapsed and panting, her body horribly distorted by the excessive amount of yoma power she'd drawn. She was saying something to Teresa, but due to the distance and the speech of the two strangers, Ilena couldn't really make out what it was. Something about her Daddy and entrails.
Most likely it was the story of why Priscilla became a half bred warrior. Eviscerated family members tended to be common in such stories.
"My point is that I know insanity when I see it. Priscilla is insane."
With a shriek Priscilla drew on still more of her yoma power, swelling her body so much that her uniform burst open in the back under the pressure.
"Not compared to Ophelia. She still deserves a chance. Besides, think how much easier things will be if you can get her on our side."
Whatever the strangers might have thought, Ilena realized it was too late for Priscilla. She'd surpassed her yoki limit and could never regain her humanity now. She was moments away from being an Awakened Being herself.
The foolish girl seemed to finally realize she'd gone too far. The sword dropped from her hand as she fell to her hands and knees, her body continuing to distort from excess yoki.
With tears streaming form her red-gold eyes and mingling with the drool coming from her fanged maw she begged Teresa to help her.
Before the renegade number one could reply, the unknown warrior made her move. She covered the distance to the doomed young woman in an eye blink and seized her by the shoulders.
"Synchronize your yoki with mine!" She demanded in a commanding tone completely at odds with everything Elena had heard from her up until then.
The desperate number two struggled to obey as yoki writhed and flared around the two women.
Ilena noticed that as focused as the unknown warrior seemed to be on Priscilla's struggle, she had at the same time she seized her, stepped on the girl's dropped sword and kicked it out of reach with a good deal more vehemence than a simple precautionary measure seemed to warrant.
Ilena felt her eyes widen in amazement as a heart beat later a drained and confused, but human Priscilla sprawled where moments before had crouched a twisted monstrosity.
"That's impossible!" Noel gasped. "Once you go past your limit there's no turning back!"
The strangely familiar warrior answered in an almost whimsical tone, "Then either you're mistaken, or you're hallucinating."
There was a moment of stunned silence.
"It seems unlikely that so many of us would share a hallucination," Teresa observed drily. "So I have to ask: What happed to her just now stranger?"
Given the bizarre situation, Ilena had no problem letting her former superior and current target speak for her.
Standing and facing Teresa squarely, the unnamed warrior's face visibly lost animation, becoming as cold and distant as that of a statue.
"It is possible to retain your humanity even after surpassing your yoki limit. Not easy, but possible. It is significantly easier to revert with the help of another warrior who is able to use yoki manipulation techniques."
"I have never heard of such a technique. Who are you?" Teresa asked, her eyes sweeping over the unknown warrior's face and then gazing over at the face of the little girl she was traveling with.
Ilena realized with some startlement that, barring the differences of age and the coloration common to all half bred warriors, the two faces were identical. The degree of similarity was far too great to be coincidental. The warrior with the strangely familiar aura had to be closely related to that girl.
"It is a technique related to the one you use to predict your enemies' movements. If, rather than killing some bandits and declining to be put to death for it, you had actively attacked the Organization you would have discovered that number ten is very familiar with the technique indeed. Of all the Organization's warriors, only number ten is given anti-warrior training."
"Are you saying that the Organization is hiding this information? Why would they do that?" Ilena found herself demanding.
The stranger turned away from Teresa to answer: "I doubt that the Organization is aware that the technique can be used in such a way. They are aware that it is most effective in battle if it is unsuspected. Assuming the user isn't massively more powerful than the target, it is best used to redirect the targets movements. For example..."
Sophia's had been reaching up to sweep the hair back from her face when her hand suddenly stopped and pinched the end of her nose between her finger and thumb.
"Hey!" she exclaimed, snatching her hand away from her face. In embarrassed anger her hand started for her sword only to stop as a wary look came over her.
"If you are prepared for the possibility, you can overpower the attempted redirection. If, on the other hand, you had never imagined such a thing was possible and in the middle of a fight you suddenly found yourself unable to block..." the warrior trailed of suggestively.
It was an uncomfortable thought for Ilena. If she'd still had the notions of honorable combat that Priscilla had, she might have called such a technique cheating.
"It can also be used to enhance another warrior's healing, although defender-types tend to be better at using it that way."
"That is interesting," Teresa admitted. "But you still haven't told me who you are. Are you here for the girl?" she asked in a carefully neutral tone.
The little girl looked panicked at the idea, but remained silent.
Raki broke his silence with a big grin at that point. "I think that's an absolutely fascinating idea, if a little confusing around dinner time."
The leather clad warrior gave him a quelling look before explaining, "My name is also Clare. I am not a warrior of the current generation. Some years ago I learned things about the Organization that made me profoundly unhappy. If you want details, I'm going to need a promise from everyone here not to attack each other, or me, for the rest of the day."
She coldly addressed the still dazed Priscilla, who hadn't even stood up yet.
"Do you think you can do that?"
Priscilla swallowed, visibly gathering her wits before answering. "I...Yes. I owe you ...more than my life. I'll do whatever you say."
Ilena saw the strangest look pass over the warrior's, Clare's, face at those words before returning to it's customary blankness.
When Priscilla stood up, her tattered uniform gave way, leaving her bare to the waist. As horrific as the sight was, it was nothing Ilena hadn't seen before. All warriors bore the same marks. She was morbidly curious about the the human male's reaction, however.
With no signs of disgust or even embarrassment, Raki calmly removed his cloak and handed it to Priscilla.
"Here you go. I know you can't catch cold or anything, but you should still cover up."
His friendly concern for a woman he couldn't have met before, who he'd just seen come a hair's breadth from becoming a cannibalistic monster, reminded Ilena bizarrely of a brother's solicitude. Combined with the odd things she'd overheard him saying, Ilena was forced to conclude this man was entirely lacking self-preservation instincts. Or possibly was completely insane and unable to perceive the world around him accurately.
"Does anyone have a problem with that? Appearances to the contrary, I don't like making long speeches or repeating myself, so if you're not willing to hear me out, say so now."
Raising an eyebrow at the confrontational tone this Clare had taken Ilena stated, "I don't think we have any business that can't wait till tomorrow. Right?"
The prospect of getting some answers out of this likely insane deserter (who's aura felt like Teresa's, face looked like the little girl who shared her name, and arm apparently belonged to Ilena herself despite the fact that she wasn't missing one) was far more attractive than being beaten by Teresa a second time today.
Noel and Sophia were still too shocked to offer objections, and Teresa of the Faint Smile was living up to her name.
"Alright then. We have a camp on the other side of those rocks. While we're walking let me ask you this: Have you ever wondered where yoma come from?"
*Author's Note*
If you aren't familiar with Claymore, you probably aren't going to know what's going on in this story. If you are familiar with Claymore and you still don't know what's going on, then I screwed up somewhere. This is a time travel fic in case that wasn't obvious. I'll leave the explanation of how and why Clare and Raki time traveled for if and when I continue this story. Which won't be anytime soon if it happens at all. I almost named this John Jacob Jinglehiemer Schmidt. I decided at the last moment that most people wouldn't get the joke and that it was more of a side issue to the main thrust of the story anyway. If it can be said to have a main thrust.
1/10/12
I corrected that little problem with Ilena's name. (I think. I hope.)
This first part pretty much wrote itself. The next bit, not so much. I wouldn't say it's kicking my ass, but it is definately putting up a great struggle. That being said, I still think I can have the next part out by the end of the month.