DISC : I don't own Claymore.

As usual, italics blah blah... Hope you'll enjoy this one. Thanks for reading :) Don't hesitate to review!

CHAPTER 4.

At midnight, Alice was in the wheat field mentioned by 9. Nobody was there. She quietly began to wait, watching the stars, wondering about the battle of the next day. If the Org was not even sure that there would be Voracious Eaters, what could justify the presence of four Claymores and especially, of a Single Digit? Will they meet again an Awakened Being, with inferior demons? The simple fact that there were several of them was strange; demons generally avoided being in a group… there was something wrong in this configuration, but she couldn't precisely get what.

9 wasn't there yet. Alice began to get used to the idea of a stupid joke when suddenly, she sensed a hybrid Yoki flow jetting right behind her! She jumped aside, barely avoiding the attacker, and turned round straight away, drawing her claymore, her senses in alert.

Here was 9, who now looked at her in astonishment.

"Did you hear me?" she asked.

"No."

"So… you sensed me?"

"Your Yoki was as discreet as a clumsy oaf's one."

In the moonlight, Alice saw 9's face scowling. She didn't expect that such a low-ranked Claymore could so precisely sense a restrained Yoki flow, and answer her back in such a harsh way; Alice didn't seem impressed in the slightest. 9 gave her a steely, challenging look, then rushed towards her with her brandished sword:

"Let's see what you're worth, you brat!"

Alice parried straight away, flexed knees, her sword horizontally up in the air to hold the attack back. She saw in 9's look that this fight was not a simple spar, but an attempt to strengthen her position of Captain; and an attempt to humiliate her. Alice pushed her back, jumped backwards and prepared herself to a new assault.

Then 9 plainly got to the heart of the matter: her moves, her jumps, her blows were quick, accurate, smooth, and yet powerful; the rhythm of her sword blows was so high that Alice couldn't even strike back and barely parried. She tried to increase her speed but she soon understood that the only way to surpass her opponent was to use her Yoki… and for a simple humiliating session, it was out of the question. So she tried her best to avoid, parry the blows, while 9 increased her speed and power again… that, without releasing the slightest ounce of Yoki!

Suddenly 9 vanished; although Alice sensed straight away, with her Yoki flow, that she'll be on her right side, Alice was too surprised and exhausted to move in time. A fraction of a second later, a thin, warm trickle of blood was slowly flowing out her temple, where she could sense the steel tip of the sword. The whirling air, the turmoil created by the fight suddenly died down. As if Alice was suddenly deprived of the support that her mind had found in that stormy atmosphere, she fell down to her knees, out of breath and, for the first time, clearly conscious of her inferiority.

Beside her, 9 was jubilant. Alice didn't need to look at her to know that she had a huge satisfied smile on her face. Then, resigned and anyway too exhausted to stand up, Alice silently waited for 9 to vanish and for the humiliation to end. Once 9 was gone, in a flash and without any comment – which was eloquent – Alice collapsed in the wheat, overcome by sleep.

The Claymore was now half-Awakened. Long growths of flesh, endowed with blades, had just spread out her back as sharp wings, which could move quickly enough to allow her to fly. She was walking slowly, threatening, on the cliff. Her long slender legs, which the gradual transformation endowed with hoofs, were nervous, trembling, ready to take her to the opposite side of the battlefield in a flash.

But this time, at that moment, running was out of the question; it wasn't the time to frantically chase the despised enemy anymore. The Claymore stopped, rising up with all her height. Her distorted mouth, widened by the transformation, was drawing an infernal smile. The glimmer of revenge was shining in her flaming yellow eyes.

She looked down: right in front of her, a little thing stayed on all fours, trembling, moaning, covered with blood. Just a few minutes ago, that sickly tiny thing had been the most powerful Awakened Being of all times… and there, at the bottom of the warrior, all that left was the body of a little girl.

The Claymore brandished her sword, slowly, as if to savor the taste of revenge and each second of that moment she waited for a lifetime. Her distorted smile widened again. Her voice came from beyond the grave. Broken by sepulchral death rattles, it was nothing more than the shadow of her human voice; the Claymore repeated:

"You… You killed… her… I'm gonna… I'm gonna… kill you!"

The sword was now completely risen, high above the avenging body. All that body was shivering now, the veins stood out her skin almost cracking it, cat's pupils were completely dilated, the face hardly recognizable. The Claymore was making the torture instant last and the little being in front of her was unable to move…

In a corner of the battlefield, sheltered behind a rock, a little girl kneeled down in the dust was watching the scene. She was both horrified and fascinated… This half-Awakened she only knew as a human until now was terrifying her… However, she was enthralled by that dark, tragic beauty… gaping at the half-Awakened, she became immersed in everything she could see. She did know that she never forget this disaster.

The little thing, the real Awakened Being, suddenly looked up at the Claymore. Something abnormal was happening… The Claymore's smile stiffened while her enemy was suddenly getting her horrible shape back…

Abruptly the little creature's claws stretched and, in a flash, even before the Claymore could have given a hint of move, they pierced through her shoulder. The two creatures stayed fixed for a second and then flew away; the fight reopened, ferocious and raging. A piece of the Claymore's body fell down in the dust with a sound of tortured flesh.

The little girl behind the rock scanned the sky where the two enormous figures were vanishing. They finally disappeared, and a deafening quiet returned on the battlefield. The little girl was crying.

She stood up and slowly headed to the piece of bloody flesh.

She let herself kneel down in the dust and, trembling, she picked up the sharp piece of wing. She didn't care about the slashes she was digging into her hands. It was warm, the nerves still seemed to convulse… the blood was trickling down and spread her clothes, joined her own… she closed her eyes and, still crying, she held the piece of wing tight against her little body, as if to merge it into her own flesh.

"Hey, 13, look at that… she moves in her sleep, as a dreamy dog!"

"She's having a nightmare, how pretty she is…"

"What a drag!" 9 cried out. "A nightmare. And she thinks she can face Awakened Beings!"

Alice was huddled up in the wheat, her body vaguely tossing and turning in her sleep. 9 strongly kicked her in the shins; the pain abruptly woke her up.

She opened her eyes to see in the early dawn light three mocking smiles. She stood up, trying to save a little dignity, flicked her cape off and put her sword in its holster. 13 and 22, who were eagerly waiting for a violent reaction from her part – 9 should have told them the humiliation session of the night – seemed disappointed by her silence and that expressionless face she had learned to show in every circumstance.

"Let's go" 9 grumbled. "And don't slow us down, 47!"

Alice quickly understood the meaning of that remark: if she herself, thanks to the powers inherited from the demons, could walk really fast – far faster than ordinary humans –, the other Claymores easily surpassed her and she almost had difficulty to follow them.

Once again, she had the feeling that she was living someone else's life.

But she didn't care about her difference, and about being roughly handled by her congeners… She perfectly knew where this "weakness" came from, and her situation was intentional… She wasn't like the others, not really born of the same process, and hers was so much more noble and pure that the simple assimilation of demon's flesh and blood…