Disclaimer: I do not own Claymore

Clare

Clare approached the man, she pulled her sword out of his stomach, when she threw it into his body it managed to miss the mans vital organs.

As she looked down at the man she had impaled she gasped in shock.

This man who she had just tried to kill was just a 16 year old boy, he looked so familiar, his face, his voice, the scar on his eyebrow…

"No…" she choked on her own words as the reality of what she had done finally dawned on her.

She cried as she called out his name. "RAKI" she cried.

"Clare…" she faintly heard him say.

She scooped up her long lost companion in her arms.

She needed to get him medical attention fast! But how? She was so far away from her cave that she would have needed to use her yoma powers to get back, normally she could do it easily, but she didn't think Raki's body could survive the shock of being carried that fast.

It began to snow, Clare knew Raki wouldn't survive long in the cold.

She needed to act quickly, he was going to bleed out if she didn't hurry.

She looked around, she recognized the area, she knew that there was a very small cave nearby with a hidden stash of supplies.

Holding tightly onto Raki's limp body, she began to run at a human pace.

She prayed to god that it wasn't too late, that she hadn't killed him.

"HE CAN'T DIE! NOT NOW! NOT AFTER ALL THIS" She reached the cave. Immediately she set Raki's body down on the ground. She ran over to the stash of supplies and grabbed some bandages to wrap his wounds in and some thread to give him stitches with. "YOUR NOT GONNA DIE" ordered clare. "I'M NOT GOING TO LET YOU DIE!".

Clare struggled for a bit, but finally figured out how to get Raki's strange armor off, now she could get to work.

Clare finished stitching and wrapping Raki, It wouldn't last for very long but it would be enough to hold Raki until Helen, the team's designated medic, could give him proper treatment.

Helen could sew better than most humans and for some reason knew a lot about human health and anatomy, especially that of a man.

Clare sat down, she looked down at Raki, at last now that he was safe she could finally relax and gather her thoughts.

She stared at Raki's face, he looked so much older now, "Had it really been five years? After all this time I spent thinking about what I was going to do when I finally found Raki, the last thing I EVER thought I was going to do was stab him" she thought to herself.

Raki, looked so much more mature than he did back then, his face was more defined. He also had a few new scars on him, down the left side of his head he had a scar that ran almost all the way down his face, it was very close to his eye. The cut was looked like hit had been left by a small knife. She looked down at his body, immediately she could tell he was much stronger than before.

But then something caught her eye. He had a large gash across his chest, her eyes moved down to his abdomen, she noticed more scars, small holes that looked like something had gone through, just like the one she sewed up on his thigh. The strange scars did not look like those left by arrows, but something far more dangerous. "Oh Raki, what happened to you?" her voice broke. She gently put her hand on his cheek; he was ice cold.

She lifted him up, careful not to break the stitches, and held him tightly from behind.

Raki began to stir, Raki began muttering something. Clare tried to listen to what he was saying, but it all sounded confusing, like mumbling.

Suddenly his breathing became very heavy "No...no...No!...NO,NO!" She tightened her grip on him "Raki" she said trying to calm him down. She felt his heart rate picking up "It wasn't supposed to be like this! Why are we all dying!" Clare felt a lump form in her throat. "Raki" she said once more "What happened to you?" she thought.

She couldn't take it anymore, she tried to lightly shake him awake. "Raki" she said it a bit louder this time, suddenly Raki calmed down… and his breathing returned to normal.

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Raki

Raki felt his boots sticking to the mud he was stepping in.

He had his gun in his hand and he was walking with his body lowered.

Raki stayed with his squad as they and the rest of the company advanced through the battlefield.

Raki had only been stationed on the front line for a year, so he didn't know much about the fighting. Raki did however hear information about the battle itself, from people that had been there far longer than he had, and apparently the battle of Hilford had lasted decades.

Originally there were small defenses, bunkers and trenches on either side of the battlefield, but as the years went on the defenses became greater and greater, until eventually on both sides there was a seemingly impenetrable wall defending each side of the battlefield.

The battle raged on for decades, throwing men against the other sides wall in a futile attempt of survival, each side knowing that if they stopped for even a day, then they would be overrun.

Raki knew it was a suicide mission, but every time he went over he always came back, he was a survivor.

As his company advanced all was quiet. "It's been two years since I've seen her. I need to keep my promise, I need to survive this so I can come back and find her." Raki thought in his head. "This is all for her, I have to keep living for h-"

ZIPP

a bullet zipped just past Raki's head.

Suddenly all hell broke loose. All around him he heard screaming and machine gun fire.

Raki quickly ran for cover. He closed his eyes and dived into a bomb crater, when he opened them up he was confronted with the body of a 12 year old boy, Raki screamed and jumped at the sight of the body. The boys body looked like it had been there for a couple of days.

Raki quickly ran out of the bomb crater and took cover behind a rock, when all of a sudden he heard a whistling noises coming from the sky "That can only be one thing" he thought.

"ARTILLERY" another soldier screamed

"GET DOWN" cried Raki but it was too late.

The artillery had struck hard and fast, it landed in a mass of soldiers and it blew them to bits.

Raki was deafened by the sound, he was surrounded by smoke, when he looked up he was horrified at what he saw. The artillery had blown bits of people's bodies into the sky, so much so that the sky began to turn red.

Raki stood still as it came down, all around him the blood of his comrades and the blood of his enemies rained from the sky.

This was true despair, nothing that ever happened in his life could ever compare to what he saw that day. Never in Raki's life had he ever felt so much anguish and sorrow. He looked up and saw that it was raining blood.

Raki's entire body was now stained red. Raki screamed louder than ever before "NO!... NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO NO!"

He fell to his knees, put his head to the ground and slammed his fists down.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this! How could we all die like this? What is it all for? WHY!"

"RAKI" he heard a voice call out.

He looked around, who could have said it? And how did he hear it? All he heard in his ears was ringing.

"RAKI" he heard it again, louder this time

"RAKI!"

Raki's eyes shot open, he was no longer on the front line. He was somewhere else… somewhere safe.

Raki felt the warmth of another person behind him as his body was held from behind. He looked down and he saw a pair of pale hands wrapped around his abdomen.

"Shh… it's okay, your safe with me now. Everything is going to be okay"

That voice! It had to be her!

"Clare?" he asked, his eyes beginning to water, he turned around and was face to face with her.

Clare tried to hold back her tears, but couldn't, she smiled "What took you so long?"

Raki tried to answer, but how could he? How could he even begin to explain what had happened to him?

Tears began streaming down his face "I-I… I don't-" his mumbling was quickly silenced as Clare pressed her lips against his.

In that one moment Raki felt all the pain and all the suffering he had experienced over the past five years melt away, every ounce of pain and fear he felt was replaced by love, warmth and comfort.

Raki never wanted this moment to end, he wanted it to last forever.

He wrapped his arms around her in an effort to pull her closer, but as he shifted his weight he felt a sudden sharp pain in his lower abdomen. He was taken off guard and he jolted back off of Clare.

He looked down and saw that he had bandages wrapped around his stomach.

Suddenly the memories came rushing back. He remembered fighting his way out of a prison cell and to an escape pod, and falling into orbit ; he remembered shooting Claire's friend in the leg. "Did I really do that?" he thought. He then remembered almost shooting Clare and then her… kicking him off a cliff… and impaling him with her sword.

He put his hand on his wound and looked back up at Clare. Clare's joyful look was replaced with a look of guilt as she turned her head away from him. "Did she really do that?" he thought.

"It doesn't matter, i'm here now with her and i'm safe."

"I'm so sorry Raki, I didn't know it was you, I never would have thrown my sword at you, or kicked you had I known." Clare said in a very serious yet apologetic tone.

In an instant she regained her emotionless composure, which Raki remembered all too well. It was clear that she was trying to hide her emotions.

Raki quickly spoke up "No Clare, don't be sorry, its okay. It's not your fault. You didn't know…"

Clare looked back at him, he looked deep into her silver eyes.

Raki then looked down and said "I'm sorry about your friend, I was being foolish, I should have heard what she had to say before I attacked her."

He looked back at Clare; she was still staring at him with those silver eyes.

His voice broke, "Oh, god Clare I've missed you so much!" He wrapped his arms around her. "Every time I thought I was going to die I thought of you and I somehow survived."

Clare's eyes widened, she now wrapped her arms around Raki, she began to show her emotions again.

"You were the thing that kept me alive every time! Every time I was on the verge of death your memory brought me back!" said Raki.

Tears began running down both Raki and Clare's faces.

"When everyone else around me was dying I stayed alive just for you!" Exclaimed Raki.

Clare took a shaky breath in. "Raki… what did they do to you?" she choked out.

"Everything!" he cried.

Raki began sobbing. "They took everything away! Why?! All for nothing! They stripped me and so many other young men of our humanity simply for pieces of the ground!"

Clare closed her eyes. "I don't understand! Who did this? Was it the organization? Where have you been? What were you doing? How did all this happen?"

Raki took a shaky breath in. "How can I begin to explain in to you Clare, I can't even begin to put into words everything that happened to me. The truth is no matter how hard I try to explain it, you will never even begin to understand what I saw."

Raki pulled back off of Clare,

"I don't want to think about this anymore, lets just enjoy the moment we have here. Lets just enjoy the fact that we found each other!"

Clare hesitated, but then nodded her head in agreement.

She put her hand on Raki's cheek and looked him deep in the eyes. "Your so cold…" she said.

In truth Raki hadn't noticed, he had been cold everyday for the past five years, he had slept on the mud in the pouring rain, he rarely had a roof over his head, he forgot what warm felt like.

"Do you want me to warm you up?" Asked Clare.

"You can do that?" asked Raki "Yes, my comrades and I can raise our body temperatures to whatever we wish." said Clare.

Raki paused for a moment "I would like that" he said. Clare wrapped her arms around Raki and pulled him close to her body. Raki could feel warmth radiating off of her, a warmth he hadn't felt in a long time. He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

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Helen

Helen and Deneve searched everywhere for Clare and the man in the woods, but so far found nothing.

Helen walked beside Deneve and decided to let her thoughts go, despite how badly Deneve did NOT want to hear it.

"Did you see that guy Deneve? He was so tall!" Said Helen in an upbeat voice.

"Yea, I did Helen,and I REALLY liked the part where he nearly took Miria's leg off." Said Deneve in her most sarcastic tone. "That's all you ever think about Helen! Just guys! You rarely talk about anything else!" exclaimed Deneve.

Helen looked back at her friend "Yea ok sorry, but I've been out in these god forsaken mountains for FIVE YEARS, and it is pretty hard to not think about that stuff when there is a tall, strong, probably very attractive, space man standing in front of you!"

Deneve looked at Helen and said "Allow me to reiterate HE COULD HAVE KILLED MIRIA."

Helen looked away quickly, disgruntled at her friends lack of imagination.

"Huh?" Helen noticed blood in the snow. "Hey Deneve look what I found" she said as she pointed to the blood on the snow.

Deneve looked over at Helen and noticed a small object behind her.

Deneve walked past Helen and picked up, what appeared to be a small sphere, from Helen's point of view anyway.

Deneve turned around and showed the object in her hand to Helen. "This was the helmet that the man was wearing. Clearly it was knocked off, probably by Clare" said Deneve.

"And these tracks over here look like they belong to her as well." Deneve pointed to imprints in the snow that were below a tree where the newly fallen snow couldn't touch.

"If they had fought, only one would have made it out, and seeing that there is nobody here that can only mean that Clare injured the man and took him somewhere" said Deneve

"Well now we've got something, at least." said Helen "So, if Clare was still hanging around this area with an injured man, where would she take him?" asked Deneve.

"Probably that one cave we hid all those supplies in!" exclaimed Helen.

"Let's head that way then" said Deneve.

A few minutes later Helen and Deneve approached the entrance to the cave. There was clearly someone inside because there was a fire lit.

Deneve entered the cave. "Clare, we've been searching everywhere for you, what happe-" Deneve's voice stopped abruptly as she immediately recognized the man Clare was holding on to.

Helen swaggered in with her hands behind her head. "Oh Clare! I'm glad you made it back in one piece, we looked everywhere but we couldn't find that hottie that ran into the woooddsssss…" Her voice seemed to trail off as she saw the body Clare was holding in her lap.

Something was very off about him, he seemed oddly... familiar. "UMM who the hell is that!?" she asked with her eyes widened.

Deneve had a similar reaction. "That's the boy Clare used to keep around" murmured Deneve.

If Helen's eyes weren't wide before they were now, so much so that her eyes seemed like they were about to fall out of her head.

"THAT…THAT MAN RIGHT THERE! Is the brat!?" Helen seemed confused.

Clare quickly said "Yes, this is Raki. And he won' wake up! he- blah, blah, blah blah…. BLAH BLAH BLAH! Blah? BLAH BLAH!?" Clare's words seemed to fall away as Helen kept looking at the man laying in front of her, she was staring at every small detail of him, admiring everything, from his well kept hair to the scar on his eyebrow.

Inside of Helen's head she was pretty sure she heard a song sounding much like You're the Inspiration, by Chicago.

Deneve looked back at Helen, who was making googly eyes at Raki. "Hey!" she pushed Helen. Helen snapped out of her trance "Did you get all that?" Asked Deneve. "No" admitted Helen.

Deneve quickly said. "You need to give Raki medical attention! Clare helped him out as best she could but you need to get to work right now, Clare's losing him!" Helen looked back at the man "Oh shit" said Helen as she ran to grab her sewing kit and then back to Raki. Immediately she got to work.

Authors Note: Hey sorry if this seems a bit rushed, I was trying to get this published before the weekend was over, so I didn't get to spend as much time as I needed to go over grammar and reading flow. It's pretty cool that I got some reviews as fast as I did, I really appreciate the support. This is my first time doing any form of creative writing outside of class. And I really want to know what you guys think. And yes for all you metal heads out there I included "The sky began to turn red" as a reference to Slayer. Anyways, feel free to tell me what you guys like about the story so far and what you might want to see more of, or don't want to see. I'm already working on chapter 3 and I will try to get that released for you guys.