A/N:

To all the people who have kindly reviewed:

Thank you very much for your reviews! I have decided to continue Death Flower after quite a while of hiatus, mostly because of your constructive comments, and partly because I have managed to remember a little of the initial plot for DF.

I have decided to remove the last chapter after seeing the reviews (will work on it so that it can help the story progress quicker and not come to a standstill) and I will re-edit Chapter Six (initially five, before the addition of the prologue) when I have the time. In the meantime, I've also decided to add a prologue, as a means of paying respect to my original plot for DF. We'll see how it goes. My writing style may well have changed after so many months, but I hope it's still recognizable!

Once again, thanks for your reviews, they were the main reason I decided I'd pick up DF from where I left it off and re-edit some parts. An edited Chapter Five and Six will be up soon (they'll be uploaded at the same time, for convenience)!

Note #01: Death Flower takes place in an alternate universe. Information on the Claymore world and otherwise, starting from Chapter 70, is null and void here.

Disclaimer: Claymore is not owned by me, and that's a sad thing by the way.

Note #02: I researched much on Claymore, and what I know is only as much as I was able to find. So if there are any discrepancies or errors whatsoever, please have the heart to inform me, thanks. (:

Full Summary -After successfully creating Alicia, the organization tampers further with such hybrids, becoming braver. They succeed, but at the price of near-annihilation. As the survivors of the Northern Campaign return to the South on the wills of the 17 warriors who died, the Abyssal Ones – with the exclusion of Luciela – prepare for war, and the organization pulls itself back on its feet.

As destinies intertwine, and the world faces impending doom, two Claymores must combine forces with the seven who survived the Northern Campaign to face the two Abyssal Ones, Priscilla included, but what can be done to overcome such a colossal enemy?

xXx

"In this world, there is no such thing as coincidence. There is only what is termed hitzusen… inevitability."

-Yuuko, xxxHoLic-

xXx

Prologue

Centuries Past

Year 2010

Excavation Site

Death Valley

"Plain of Tears"

The young archaeologist dug fervently under the blazing sun.

It was sweltering hot, and the rest of his teammates, leader included, were taking a break and sipping a cold drink at base camp. The camp itself was barely a speck in the horizon now. It spoke something about the distance he was from the rest of humanity in this forsaken place.

Dressed in a simple polo-tee and comfortable khaki shorts, he dug with nothing but a spade, combat boots sinking into sand. He had stumbled upon a mass grave, each grave marked with what had initially seemed like small, black tubes. But by digging them out, he realized they were swords. The swords were identical, save for the unique symbols engraved on them. He had managed to dig the body of one out, and found that the skeleton was tall, way taller than an average man, and it was female. The sword's full length and weight proved to him beyond doubt that it was a claymore.

But as far as history was concerned, Scottish people certainly did not populate this area of the planet. In fact, no one did. Some villages, medieval-based, had been found in the mountains to the North. The West and South had also been populated. But the East, where they were, held no sign of life, save for a strange, castle-like structure. None of them, not even himself, had dared to venture in, for a most eerie aura surrounded it, and anyway, there was a poorly-erected sign that merely said one word:

"Remember."

Remember what? He wondered to himself quietly as he dug, beads of sweat along his brow. He paused to wipe his perspiration, slamming the spade down into the sand beside a claymore. And then suddenly, the sand began to cave in.

"Wha –" he gasped, grabbing his spade. "Hel – help…" he spluttered, before realizing the base camp was too far from here for anyone to hear his cries. He hurriedly tried to wade through the shifting, collapsing sand to what seemed like firm ground. As the sand plummeted beneath him, he realized he would never reach safe ground in time.

Looks like this is it; how foolish am I? Father, mother, sister, I'm so sorry I have to die in this forsaken place of hell…

He closed his eyes.

The sand was still trying to swallow him. It was up to his knees.

And as abruptly as it had begun, it stopped.

He opened his eyes.

I'm… alive? The archaeologist stared quietly at himself. I'm… alive! Astonished, he gazed down. And then he gazed up.

The sand had caved in, revealing the actual geography of the place. What he thought was a flat platform of sand, with graves dug into it, was actually a large indent upon the surface of the plain. He could now see parts of skeletons poking out of the yellow sea, all similar to the one he had first uncovered, with those claymores nearby.

What is this? A mass grave, I know, but why choose a hole like this to bury them? Now that he thought about it, the skeletons seemed to have been buried in the hole itself, but years of shifting sand and wind had buried the hole beneath a firm floor of sand. Something had happened here in ages past. But what?

He walked the full length of the hole, before coming across a skeleton of a male child at its border, curled in fetus position. The archaeologist had missed this, probably because sand had hidden it. But after the 'cave-in' of sorts, the boy was revealed. He noticed a fragile, rotten book that the skeleton was hugging, and a small medieval sword next to him. Quietly, the young man bent down, and eased the book out of the skeleton's grip, mumbling an apology to the dead boy.

With almost reverence, he opened the crumbling pages, taking photographs of each and every page, before returning to the first and starting his read.

"Records of the First Cataclysm, I am told, can be found in the Organization's Headquarters. And because the Claymores do not have the luxury of time, I have decided to record the events of the Second Cataclysm. Someday, in the distant future, I hope that this record will be found, and read, so the people of this world know that once upon a time, the tales that may have – or may not have – faded into legends and myths, are in fact, real. This is all the evidence you will need.

I will first begin with what the Yoma, Claymores, and Awakened Beings are –"

It was going to be a long read, but this was very intriguing. He skipped the pages, stopping at somewhere in the middle.

" – I later learned that they were going to meet, at this very place, the 'Plain of Tears'. When I reached here, a sorry sight greeted my eyes. In her dying moments, my beloved told me of what had transpired. I recorded everything I could remember here. Everything that I can ascertain, I have recorded. I shall now begin, of what happened after seven years of separation…"