Monster - By Kirika
Teresa and Clare return for more!
- Kirika
"Two days... perhaps three. But no more, I believe." Lenora toed through the ashes, black and grey flakes giving way as toiled earth to shiny steel sabatons, the young woman somehow divining sense from the remnants.
"Are you sure it was she who camped here?"
Lenora squatted at the small pit dug in the frozen earth and plucked something from amid the cinders and scorched wood. She held it up to the sun's light, caught between two of her fingers-a scrap of cloth. Pale grey, and charred around the edges, but unmistakable. If she'd thought to hide her past in this fashion, she should have ensured the fire finish the task. There was no other reason for the turncoat to start a campfire-it wasn't cold enough this far north for the nights to bother their kind, and there was seldom game roaming these barren plains to roast upon the flames.
No, there was one other reason-she did not travel alone. Peculiar that one such as she would bother with human comforts... No. The fire was to rid herself of her uniform, nothing else. They'd been bound to find it sooner or later; the merchant of death back at Deluthron had spoken of a 'witch' in rags buying armour from him. *Armour*... what was she thinking? Another effort to cloak herself among the humans, no doubt. But she had to realise the futility of it. She wasn't one of them-she could never be.
The portly armsdealer had shied away from mention of the girl, but Josel had seen in his nervous gaze whenever there was mention that the young human had been in his shop with the traitor. Shifty, that one had been. He had greatly feared Josel and the rest of her party, more than humankind usually did, as had the town's other inhabitants. Josel wondered if the murderer had terrorised Deluthron before passing through. In any case, the merchant had been content to point out the direction their prey had gone, and Josel and her sisters had been content to leave him and the town be.
Graadenhold had kept its secrets locked tighter; however there were not many young girls in the company of fighting women in these parts-or anywhere else, for that matter. After some scouring of the city's streets and attractions, and a little pressure on the right people, it was the Karesian military that had ultimately found itself submitting to the organisation's authority and aiding in the hunt. Mixing herself up in a human war-did her bloodlust know no bounds? She had even used her real name on the contract. The arrogance. Did she believe mercenary work would legitimise her slayings? Then she was not only a killer, but delusional as well.
The traitor's mercenary company had been destined for Kazaar, and so here on the outskirts of the apparently once besieged city Josel and her two sisters were, destinies entwined... until *her* head was removed.
"Why camp here when Kazaar's so close?" Elina mused, standing with her hands on her hips while she gazed at the great walled city, or what persisted after the human's squabbling. The sun rose from behind the broken parapets and crumbling towers, setting her silver eyes alight and turning her short straw locks to golden silk strands. She was young, and the lowest among them. The twenty-first. Not a bad rank for her youth, but for this assignment? Useless.
"To burn something that should not be burned," Lenora intoned without inflection, flicking aside the cloth and rising to her feet. "Away from those who might see." Rank fifteen, and climbing. There was a good head on those slight shoulders; constantly tempered, forever in thought, coolly evaluating everything-duty first, and nothing else after. Lenora understood her role. She was a weapon, a defender-that was her life, and there was no room for other things in it. As it should be. Still... Useless.
"Which direction?"
"I can't say," Lenora said. She skirted around the campfire, eyes intent on the dirt and patches of coarse grass. "The ground is too hard; there aren't any tracks but for those belonging to wagons and heavier."
"I'm sure she left a mark," Josel murmured, however her attention was not on the ground, but on the city dominating the pastel horizon to the north. "Somewhere."
Lenora and Elina followed her gaze and her train of thought, visibly steeling themselves, the youngest going so far to reach over her shoulder and touch the handle of her blade. Their prey had come here as a sword for the highest bidder-Kazaar was probably where she plied or had plied her butcher's trade, or at least where she was stationed or had been stationed between missions. If she was still within the battered walls, Josel would pry her out from whatever rock she had slithered under-and crush her with the rock.
The guards at what was left of the gate said nothing at the youma slayers' approach, and did nothing to bar their passage. The uniforms Josel and her sisters wore that the traitor had discarded-along with her honour and her right to live-and the identical swords on their backs granted respect from humans-no one interfered with a 'Claymore's' business.
There weren't any shortage of looks from the men, however. It was expected. She and her sisters were enigmas, mighty warriors, wielding a weapon an ordinary human would struggle to employ anywhere near the effectiveness they displayed-they fought that which the men, despite their martial pursuits, could not. Yet they were women; seldom found in military ranks unless freelance and unrestrained by convention. 'Silver-eyed witches' they were branded. Not a benevolent sounding title, but there was fear in the looks as well. That was natural too. They were right to fear-Josel and her sisters were but a handful of steps separated from that which they fought. The traitor had even less steps to spare.
The soldiers wore the crest of Karesia on their tabards. It boded well. If Kazaar had been in Alphonse's tenure it was unlikely the murderer would be here, unless in the thick of blasphemy, fighting the occupiers for those who had purchased her allegiance. Josel didn't hear the din of battle, and thus imagined Karesia had the territory well in hand for the most part. Wading into two warring human factions where stray blades and arrows were abundant hadn't been an appealing thought, and Josel was glad to cast the possibility aside for now.
While the humans continued with their scrutiny beyond the gates, it didn't keep them from whatever duties they had. A wagon filled with the dead; ravaged and dirty, and in their smalls for some odd reason; was being picked over by one soldier who chose his steps carefully perched atop the pile. He had a sleeve over his face while his other hand checked the sallow and rigid countenances of his kin, though for what purpose escaped Josel. The sleeve was easy though-the place was permeated with the reek of decay.
More soldiers, fully armed and armoured, marched deeper into the city in rank and file through an opening in a barricade haphazardly erected from everything under the sun; orphaned bricks and shattered barrels, split troughs and crippled carts-anything wooden or heavy that could be moved, stacked high. It smacked of desperation.
Lighter outfitted men criss-crossed the street, often burdened with a sack or barrel, or with the occasional corpse rolled up in a tarp, flies tagging along. In was then Josel noticed the mounds of dark ash at the curbs and in the sidestreets, blackened bones sticking up with burnt wooden beams from the filth. More mounds were being built all the time, yet to be lit. Soldiers and peasantry and those of class mingled in them together, all equal as fuel for the cleansing fire, and the flames soon to make them indistinguishable from each other if their wounds hadn't already.
None of it concerned Josel. The humans could do what they wished. But she regarded everything around her all the same. More and more she was becoming sure it wasn't discipline that kept the soldiers moving in the presence of her and her sisters. The men were used to the sight of them. They were used to the sight of 'Claymore'. Or one particular silver-eyed witch. Josel couldn't sense yoki other than her companions', but that wasn't a guarantee of absence. *She* could still be in the city. Perhaps they'd caught up at last.
"You there. Hold," Josel barked at the nearest passing soldier. He bore an injury, as many of the humans here did, his left arm strapped immobile to his chest with off-white sheets of torn cloth. But it seemed no cause for his hunched shoulders and shuffling gait. He appeared to glare at everyone and everything, and for a moment Josel thought he had been deliberately giving her and her sisters a wide berth. Unshaven, and his black hair greasy and gnarled, he looked... unclean. An officer might have been a better choice.
The soldier halted and lifted his head, revealing bloodshot and dark-rimmed eyes, a jittery gleam behind them. They widened somewhat at the sight of Josel's face, perhaps seeing it clearly for the first time, but then he went back to scowling. He came closer anyway, and Josel heard Elina's breath hitch beside her-he stank.
The soldier spat at the demon slayers' feet. "What do you want? No youma, here. The other witch *supposedly* cleaned them out." He scoffed. "Probably in league with them, she was. Her *and* the whelp. No one believes me. Fools. They'll learn, and it'll be too late." His eyes darted to his comrades in the street as he bared his teeth, and Josel wondered if he even remembered that she and Elina and Lenora were there. But let him have his delusions-*she* had been here!
"Where is she now? The other... 'witch'?" Lenora asked dispassionately, her gaze cold for the bitter soldier.
"What do I care?" the soldier snarled suddenly. "You and your kind... think you can do what you want. Bitch got the Sarge killed, and most everyone else. Look at what she did to my arm!" Spittle flew and his eyes burned, but Josel and her companions were unmoved. The wrath of a human was feeble when weighed against that of a demon's, and they had faced-and slain-dozens upon dozens.
"Be grateful that you have your life," Lenora sagely remarked.
"More Claymore in my outpost! And dressed the part, this time."
Josel turned to see another soldier approach, and by his uniform's adornments was a human of rank; at least in the higher echelons than the men she'd seen wandering about. He had wounds that were hard to overlook as well; one of his arms in a loose sling and an eye covered by a bloody bandage tied around his head. He limped as he walked, and Josel had an inkling it was more debilitating than he tried to make it appear.
"I am Captain Sabatte," the newcomer greeted, "and I appreciate your more candid arrival. I imagine you were moments away from formally introducing yourselves to me... yes?" His tone was friendly, but his good eye spoke of something else. Humans and their perceived authority. Was it not enough, the sacrifice Josel's kind made to defend them? Human scuffles were children's feuds before the world's greater, *true* evil.
Meanwhile the first soldier spat again on the ground near the youma slayers' boots, and scurried off, muttering curses. But he had already been dismissed by all three women, no longer worthy of notice.
"We seek a deserter," Lenora declared.
"A murderer," Josel added.
"With silver eyes and flaxen locks, I presume? Yes, she was here," the captain said. "Did good work. Saved lives-one in particular; a young woman. And she's a murderer?"
"Of the most heinous sort," Josel said. "Beyond redemption."
Captain Sabatte smiled thoughtfully and rubbed the stubble on his chin. "I doubt anyone would label her 'murderer' here... except for Hans." He bobbed his head at the other soldier disappearing into what the signpost above door said was a tavern, but could be anything in the military's keep. "The woman she saved is still in the infirmary, if you want to talk to her."
"And how many humans did she kill to save that one?" Lenora asked impassively.
"There were bandits; natural in this environment; but it was self-defence I'm sure," Sabatte replied. "Ultimately they fell to the youma, and the youma in turn fell to her."
"It is not her place to judge the value of human lives," Josel snapped. "All are equal. And how do you know the youma slew them? Perhaps she merely *told* you that."
"I believe I know the difference between what a claymore and a claw do to flesh," Sabatte answered coldly. "She is responsible for one or two human casualties; that is all."
"No. That is too much," Josel growled harshly. The bodies in the wagon-youma handiwork, as she had suspected. So she had not abandoned her duty utterly. It changed nothing; she was still a murderer, proven by the words of her 'commanding officer'. Allying with humans to kill other humans... Sickening. Execution was too lenient for her.
"She's not here anymore, is she? Where did she go?" Elina piped up.
Captain Sabatte sighed and looked away. For a second Josel thought he would be... difficult. However- "North," he said at last, quietly. "My men saw her and the girl head north."
"Thank you, captain," Josel said, before striding past him back towards the city gates. "If we get lost, we'll be sure to return." If he had lied, she meant. She was confident the captain understood.
"She said they were going home," Captain Sabatte called after Josel and her sisters. She heard him well enough, but didn't react. Home? There was no home for one such as *her*, unless it was the grave. One day, one murder; she'd grow to like it. Maybe she wouldn't Awaken, but she'd lose herself and become a blight on humanity nonetheless. She was no better than a youma. Humans, sisters-she had killed both kinds. Irene, Noel, Sophia, and Priscilla; the last hunting party had been slaughtered by her, veterans and rookie alike. Josel would show her an equal measure of mercy.
Still... the party of Flash Sword Irene had been far more skilled than Elina and Lenora... and herself, if she stomached admitting it. If Josel's companions were apprehensive, they hid it well behind their zeal. But for all their fervour, they were weak. They would be cut down easily, but they had been the only sisters the organisation could do without-youma activity never ceased, and the stronger were needed. It would be up to Josel, the new number one. It was a rank earned through attrition however-the traitor still held the rank in her eyes. Pitching her claymore against the murderer's would determine if Josel was truly deserving of it.
Deep down though, Josel knew she'd win. No matter what it took, no matter what happened to her, she would lay the traitor low. She would kick and scream and *scratch* if she had to, but she would save humanity from this threat. The traitor could do her worst-Josel was a walking corpse already.
The soldiers still had plenty of looks left in them as the youma slayers' departed; the majority from sidelong glances aimed at Josel, those that didn't immediately turn downcast at the repugnant sight of her. The woman noticed her reflection in the dull hue of a gate guard's spaulder, mercifully distorted on the curved steel. Humans, even those with a warrior's discipline, usually hadn't the mettle to rest their eyes on her for long. Her fellow sisters had their own physical stigmas-there was no disgust or scorn from them, at least. Yet Josel did not hold it against the humans. Hers was not the face of a saviour. It was the face of a monster... it was the face of a victim. It was a memory, a vow, carved in flesh.
Josel had been human, once. She'd had a family, once. She'd had a home, once. The youma had taken everything. It had made her body its canvas, and drew a portrait of its twisted soul on her skin and with her blood. It had left her eyes, so she could see its artistry, and watch her home burn down around her once it had lost interest, the flames consuming the bodies of her ravaged loved ones. Josel should have died with them. But she had clung to life, *clawed* through the smoking rubble and the bloodied corpses, and eventually, been reborn as an instrument of vengeance, birthed with the very blood of her enemy. The face she saw in the mirror; the burns, the scars, the torn lips and rent cheeks, the patchy clumps of hair stuck to a disfigured scalp; reminders all of humanity's peril. No other young girl would be forced to endure what she had as long as she was alive. Youma, Awakened Ones, fallen sisters-every one of them a danger to humans, and every one destined for the edge of her blade.
"North... We'll be nearing the border to Alphonse, sooner or later," Lenora noted as they traced Kazaar's walls round to the northern trail beaten into the dirt by countless feet, hooves, and wheels. Closer to the human war, closer to their prey.
If Teresa of the Faint Smile had a taste for war, then Josel the Relentless would follow her into one... and bring her own, waged with her claymore, if she must.
The caravan trundled ever onward, the uneven ground composing a rocky ride. Teresa held Clare in place next to her as good as an iron bond, lest the scrawny girl be jostled off their wooden perch and under the hooves or wheels of the rest of the merchant train at their heels. It was an irrational precaution however; the pace of the train was barely faster than walking-Clare would have to fall not just off the rear of the wagon, but into deep slumber as well to end up crushed into the dirt. Of course Teresa would not sit there idly either should that remote chain of possibilities happen.
No, it was the cold that Teresa primary guarded against. The closer they got to Alphonse's border the more frost clung to grass and leaves, and the more breath became mist in front of everyone's faces. Fixed on their northern route, they could look forward to the temperature dropping lower still.
Shivers ran through Clare's body every so often, prompting Teresa to press the girl nearer to her and briskly rub an arm, as though it could magically instil the lacking warmth. Clare was bundled up in scarves and cloaks-glorified rags really, though kindly gifted by the head merchant's good-natured wife-so much so that only her eyes and a bit of the bridge of her nose was left for the north's chill bite. But what the lean girl needed most was more meat on her bones. Until she plumped up, Teresa had to lend her own body to Clare. The cold didn't bother someone of Teresa's sort, even as it crept ever below freezing. The demon caged inside her, its rage, was heat aplenty.
Teresa felt Clare move underneath her embrace, and then slowly sink into her lap. The woman touched a fingertip to an icy cheek below her, curling it across the soft skin for a brief moment, before draping her arm over the frail body. She smiled within her black hood and curtain of flowing golden locks, the cold air taking nothing from its warmth. The merchant train they had hitched a ride with may have been not much different than walking, and was sometimes slower in fact, but it was still an improvement. While Teresa had no trouble with tirelessly marching leagues on her two feet, Clare wasn't like her. She was human. She was young. She was... delicate. Even if their progress lagged, it was worth it for Clare's comfort. They'd walked enough.
The stark plains that had surrounded Kazaar had given way to a smattering of trees, with the occasional thicket to break the monotony of shrubs and tall grasses-a little more life, but not much more. The journey was still through a lonely land, and besides the merchant party there were no other travellers. Not a soul-not even Karesian patrols or fleeing refugees. The war must have scared off most, and those living on the Karesian side of the border close to Alphonse that were willing to evacuate probably had already. As for the soldiers... perhaps they had been driven back? Whatever-it wasn't Teresa's concern. In any case, it was likely an eerie atmosphere for her human companions, but the blonde couldn't fault the peace and quiet. She welcomed it. It was old times for her, harking back to her travels in long stretches of solitude with just her thoughts for company. But the company had changed, hadn't it. She shared the road. She shared... a great many things. And her destination didn't hold blood and violence as a certainty like it had in the past-it held hope. It was a destination Teresa would be glad to reach; one that *she* had chosen, and that ideally would be her last. The 'old times' she recalled were just that-old. Worn out. There wasn't anything fond to remember in them.
Teresa's head remained bowed; her vision filled by her new life snuggled on her lap. She had been mistaken-there was nothing lonely about this road.
The woman looked up and saw that she was being watched. The driver of the caravan following them regarded her with unmasked suspicion and askance frowns, probably trying to hit the right angle to see through the shadows inside her cowl, and all the while his imagination altering the face and secrets contained beyond. It had been a stroke of luck encountering the merchant train, and another that its leader, Gaelan Amon; a plump man with a bushy grey beard and balding scalp; had been a pleasant and welcoming fellow. The majority of the merchants with him were too, families included, at least on the surface. There were a few however who weren't quite so free with their friendship, or tenuous with their distrust. Teresa had been a warrior in the middle of a warzone with only a young girl as her company when she and Clare had run into the merchants, plus a warrior that kept herself cloaked and hooded at all hours. Moreover, the men and women of the caravans were not natives of this land, but of Alphonse, caught unawares and far from their home when the war had broken out. They had naturally been a little wary of her in the beginning... but once they'd realised she wasn't going to butcher the two dozen or so of them, the merits of an extra sword on hand, and a competent one at that, had swayed most opinions of her to favourable. And then there had been Clare, innocence to Teresa's dubiousness. The girl's presence had likely soothed several nerves-a mass murderer or Karesian spy wouldn't be looking after an orphaned girl now, would she?
The price for a ride on the rear steps of Gaelan's caravan that doubled as his home away from home, and for a share of the merchants' provisions every day, was that Teresa was expected to fight if trouble happened upon the party. The merchants' guards were simply members of their families-sons and nephews-with chipped blades or crude clubs strapped to their belts; Teresa's employ was probably a relief to them most of all. They would have sufficed though, with the road ahead looking as desolate as that behind it. The blonde couldn't see herself being called to fulfil her oath.
The driver in front of Teresa wrinkled his nose and idly beat his indolent and indifferent horses with a switch, giving up on unravelling her mysteries for now. Suspicions aside, the Alphonse people were kind folk, contrasting the stories of uncouth barbarians she'd heard Karesians tell. Yet Teresa had seen the uninhibited carnage in Kazaar... Merchants and soldiers were worlds apart.
"Ahh... That's a sight I feared we'd never see again!" came a shout.
"Gods be praised! War's at our backs, now!"
"Not long now, gentlemen!"
Teresa drew her claymore slowly, so not to alarm the edgy driver, and turned its polished blade so that she could see around Gaelan's caravan, putting a picture on the steel of what lay ahead that had enamoured the humans. Snow-capped mountains had emerged through the mist on the northern horizon, ranges associated with the city states of Alphonse. No wonder they were happy-home, the sanctuary that was always ready to embrace you, was a welcome sight for anybody.
However, there weren't just mountains waiting for them on the horizon. Perhaps only her silver eyes could make it out, but there was a wooden palisade blocking the pass ahead-an outpost. It could be Karesian, but in a key strategic area like the border mountain pass and this far north it more likely held allegiance to Alphonse, the dominant force in the war. It shouldn't be a threat... not to a sister; to a 'Claymore'. There were no borders for her kind, no locked doors, even for a deserter. That would mean revealing herself though, and leaving a trail that she wasn't doing well in obscuring thus far. And it meant startling the merchant train, which suddenly might not be so hospitable.
The caravans and wagons ate up the miles all too quickly despite their lumbering pace, and it wasn't long before everyone else not gifted with a youma's sight could see the blockade. There was no cause for the merchants and their families to mirror even the small concern Teresa had, however-the standard that flew from the battlements did indeed belong to the city states of Alphonse, its mountain peaks in front of blue skies the crest for its united soldiers. If Alphonse's military were truly slaves to bloodlust as Kazaar's streets had told, it was still doubtful they would unleash their appetites upon citizens of their own land... for the most part.
The merchant party eventually threaded through the open gate of the palisade, until stopped by the raised head of a soldier who walked in front of the head merchant's caravan from Teresa's left, triggering Gaelan and the rest of the line to rein in their horses. From underneath her hood Teresa eyed the tops of the walls and wherever else soldiers loitered, and was surprised at the bored looks cast upon her and the merchant train, or the complete absence of any regard whatsoever. Perhaps they didn't think simple traders were a danger, but in a time of war it was strange. It could be the soldiers had been at their post too long and seen nary a hint of the battles devastating the southern territories. Whatever the case, they didn't seem like berserkers capable of vicious atrocities. They looked just like Karesia's people, really.
Yet it shouldn't be forgotten that humans were duplicitous by nature. The human heart could hide any measure of abominations in Teresa's experience. None were to be trusted offhand, and when trust *was* earned, it should be given in piecemeal until judgement was absolute... if that time ever came. Teresa had encountered only one exception in her long life. Only one.
"Ho, travellers," greeted the soldier who'd brought the caravans to a standstill. Teresa couldn't see from the back of the Gaelan's caravan, but she heard the head merchant's four horses snort and the soldier's heavy boots crunch on the ground as he approached. Other soldiers drew nearer too, a small handful, casual curiosity and having nothing better to do rousing them from their duties' monotony. They poked under covered wagons, pried the tops off barrels with the tips of their swords, and generally snooped around. They weren't shy about their nosiness, nor were they quiet, and it was a flat of a blade banging against the side of a crate that eventually jerked Clare awake.
"Shh..." Teresa shushed, bidding her to remain still. She laid her hand on Clare's head, gently coaxing the girl to let it drop back into her lap. No point drawing unnecessary attention to themselves.
"Where do you hail from, and what brings you here?" the soldier at the front of the caravan line demanded to know.
"Why, we call Alphonse home of course!" Gaelan answered jovially. "City of Lavore, myself. Trade had taken my friends and me far, but with this... 'conflict' all of a sudden, we thought it best to return to familiar places... and customers..."
"Oh, yeah? Not armsdealers, are you? Selling to the enemy? Or spies? We've had the higher-ups on our arses about outsiders and spies for weeks... Not really one of them, are you?"
Gaelan laughed heartily, and there wasn't anything nervous about it. He was too good-natured to perceive the subtleties of an authority's intimidation tactics. "Oh, no, no, no, no, *no*! Nothing like that! Hah, me, a spy? That's a good one! And armsdealer? I don't think so! Why, what's to stop my customers using the weapons on me?"
"Hmm... What about your 'friends'?" the soldier persisted. "Can you speak for them, too?"
"I can, I can! Like family, they are! We always take on the road together. From Pieta to Rabona, to-"
"Alright, alright!" the soldier shouted impatiently, Gaelan's buoyant spirit apparently not infectious. But then- "Any Claymore with you?"
It was asked in a cavalier fashion, as though the soldier was reading from a checklist or posing a well-worn question. But he had Teresa's complete attention.
"Claymore?" Gaelan's voice was hushed now, as though speaking too loudly of those who hunted youma would cause them to appear. He needn't worry if Teresa had her way. "Why would we travel with... with...?" He couldn't even say it again. "Rather, why would they travel with *us*? Th-They keep their distance from... from us... They work-"
"Yes, yes," the soldier dismissed, lacking patience for the merchant's verbal flailing. "Together with outsiders, Alphonse is barred to the witches."
"Why? Something to do with the war?"
"Bah, hell if I know," the soldier spat. "I just do what I'm told. Bad news if you've a youma problem, heh heh!"
Teresa heard the rhythmic tapping of metal on wood getting closer, and then one of the inquisitive soldiers appeared from around the right side of Gaelan's caravan, sword unsheathed and held limply in one hand, the point scarring the already flaky paintwork of the merchant's mobile home. He started at the blonde's shadowy image, and glanced back in the direction he'd come from; probably at the soldier asking the questions. Teresa didn't move but for her hand on Clare's head, stroking it soothingly. She hoped he'd fail to notice the long shaft of steel jutting over her shoulder.
"Got anything good?" the lead soldier yelled.
Another soldier jumped down from the wagon he'd been rummaging through, dusting his hands after he'd landed. "Nah, it's all peasant stuff, Lieutenant. Candles and pots. Few knives, but like I said; peasant junk."
The lieutenant emitted a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. "Nothing at all to donate? Wine? Ale?"
"I'm afraid trade was profitable in the south..." Gaelan said, his tone grovelling.
"Fine. I'll not keep you any longer. On your way! Bring something for us if you travel this road again. A little appreciation for your homeland's soldiers, right boys?"
A cheer went up, one that the soldier before Teresa joined in on, lifting his blade in the air.
Meanwhile Gaelan needed no further prompting, whipping his horses to trot onwards with anxious shouts. For all their sakes Teresa hoped his horses would sense their master's mood and not be as lazy as they had been.
The soldier watched Teresa roll away on the back of the caravan... but that was all. And he didn't do it for long, his attention diverted by orders barked from the lieutenant to get back to their duties. Perhaps the soldier thought her part of Gaelan's family; a mother with her child, or something equally innocuous. Humans could rationalise anything, sometimes even when the truth was staring them in the face... or from underneath a cowl.
There was almost a palpable aura of relief once the last wagon had cleared the fort's second gate. Teresa understood-seldom had she seen an authority not abuse its power. Moreover, the relief was somewhat shared by her. If she'd been discovered it wouldn't have been her and Clare's doom or anything near it, but it was inconvenience she was glad to have avoided. Gaelan's hospitality had done more than allow Clare's feet a rest.
"Why would they not want Claymore here?" came Clare's small voice as the girl sat up, Teresa's protective arm following her.
As the palisade became a dot in the distance, Teresa asked herself the same thing.
The day was dying, what feeble sun there was bleeding orange across the otherwise dreary skies in its fall towards the earth. In these lands the nights were dangerous, but not specifically from wild beasts or roving bandits that were the common terrors of the dark in the south. When the sun left it took its heat with it, and though small, it made a difference in the daytime here. Already, not many miles from the border, the ground had disappeared under a carpet of snow, with more piled on branches and leaves of evergreen trees and plants that grew in abundance in the northern clime. Exposure could claim a human life in Alphonse quickly-and that was during daylight hours. Stopping at sunset was a must, as campfires were a must.
Frailties to the cold weren't worries of Teresa's. A night out in the open claimed *human* lives swiftly. She could have sat in the snow in pitch black if it suited her. The blonde had a place in front of one of the roaring fires stoked high by the merchant party nevertheless. Teresa had shared the merchants' and their families' fire and their company whenever they made camp, if only to appear friendly-as one of them. But she could never forget she was not. If given the choice the woman would have kept her distance. Several of the humans probably would have preferred it that way too; Teresa's quiet and ominous presence in their midst was not exactly the perfect show of friendliness despite her intent. They had been on the road many days and nights together now though, and most were used to her enigmatic aura and one word responses, along with her limited appetite. Gaelan and some others that had remained sociable in the face of Teresa's reticence seemed forever compelled to try and feed her however regardless of her polite refusals. Perhaps they were attempting to make her fat to better ward the cold? There had been comments on how lean she was in her armour.
The camp was nestled in the middle of one of Alphonse's frequent forests, just off the road that was barely noticeable in the snow. A few fallen logs had been dragged over to keep bottoms off the wet ground until the fires warmed a comfortable radius, and pots with supper inside them had been hung over the flames. The merchants and their families gathered around the warmth, spooning stew from the pots into bowls, all the while talking; their tongues loose as though Teresa was an accepted part of their group, or the blonde's silence rendered her invisible among them. They talked about home, and what awaited each in their respective sanctuaries. They talked of long unseen relatives, long unseen sights, missed comfy beds, and longed-for foods that hadn't been tasted in months. It was all so very human.
Teresa could not talk of such things even if she'd wanted to join in. Her thoughts were mired elsewhere, on the border outpost and the banning of her sisters from Alphonse. There were few places in the world where 'Claymore' were not welcome, but they *did* exist. That said, her past pursuit of youma had taken Teresa into the northern lands before, albeit not many miles past the border, but she had roamed freely during those times, her service appreciated everywhere it had been sought. The restriction now had to be because of the war, but war was not a legitimate excuse. This was unheard of. If anything youma thrived in the whirlwind kicked up by warfare, feasting on the freshly dead and killing indiscriminately at and near battle sites, where a corpse was seldom offered much scrutiny. Teresa's kind were needed in the chaos more than ever-humans could kill other humans en masse as far as the organisation was concerned, but *youma* killing humans by the dozens was abhorrent to them. Karesia were still allowing sisters within their borders; why had Alphonse adopted this unwise policy? Was it simply fear and mistrust of the 'silver-eyed witches' raised to fever pitch due to the conflict, or...? Or what?
Teresa sighed softly. Politics wasn't her thing, and *human* politics? She shouldn't strain herself thinking about the 'why' and just deal with what was. She supposed it wouldn't be much of a change for her-she was already hiding herself under hood and cloak; Alphonse's 'witch hunt' wasn't really an inconvenience. So there would be more who sought her out-the human authorities were nothing compared to the organisation's hounds.
"Would Clare like another helping?"
Teresa raised her head to the rosy face of Gaelan's wife, Merlotta, the rotund woman-her stature a mirror of her husband's-holding a full bowl of stew in her pudgy fingers. The blonde had been pleased that Clare was happy to indulge the mealtime pampering where she had not-the other 'scrawny girl' to be fattened up. The generosity seemed to call for Teresa's permission every time for some reason however; as though the merchant party thought she would fly into a rage or react in some horrible manner if Clare was approached without her knowing. But it wasn't like Teresa wasn't accustomed to the apprehension of humans.
Teresa turned to look over her shoulder where Clare was playing with the other children. Perhaps 'playing' wasn't the right word. The girl usually just sat and watched while the merchants' juvenile offspring ran amok and did whatever it was that amused the young. They were several years younger than Clare though, if that mattered. Did that matter? For a moment Teresa tried to hark back to her human years, to almost her first memories... but they were insubstantial, alien things. It... didn't feel right to touch them, to hold them in her mind. Quickly, she banished them.
"Perhaps later," Teresa said, without looking from Clare.
As Teresa watched, a pair of small boys ran up to the swaddled girl, one of them proffering his wooden sword to her and speaking eagerly. Clare laid her hand gingerly on the whittled handle, speculative, her fingers wrapping slowly around the wood. They were toys to the children; to those who didn't know better. They were not too young to know, however. You could never be too young for that. It was something you could learn at any age, and typically was a brutal lesson that you were not quick to forget. These children were fortunate that such things were still toys to their eyes.
Clare took the sword to the boys' collective delight, and lifted it in front of her face, as though there were mysteries in the carved blade. There weren't, though. Teresa could have told her that. The sword was made for nothing else except to kill. It wasn't a tool to work the land; it couldn't be used to hunt for food; its singular purpose was to rend flesh and spill blood-to end lives. There wasn't anything noble about the sword.
"You should wash."
The boys took one look at Teresa suddenly there beside them and ran off, leaving Clare with their 'toy'. Clare simply looked up at the blonde and nodded, before pushing off the boulder she was sitting on and wandering over to where buckets of water hauled from a nearby stream were being heated over fires. The sword she dropped in the snow.
Under Teresa's gaze Clare joined the women and other girls waiting for their turn behind the caravans with a hot pail of water and scrubbing rag. She would be fine alone for a few minutes, or so the blonde assured herself. Teresa couldn't think of accompanying the girl, not here, not now, when Clare was with her own kind. Teresa's place was elsewhere, in seclusion and solitude.
It was easy to slip away with the fading twilight, and the trees hid what the deepening darkness did not. Teresa headed for the stream, a convenient find, but further east along its banks so she wouldn't be seen nor disturbed by the men still dragging water back to the camp. No one must see her.
At the stream's edge Teresa pulled down her hood and undid the ties of her cloak, letting it crumple into the snow. Her armour and claymore was next, every buckle undone until the leather and steel were strewn across the ground. The air was an icy caress over her skin, and the snow pressed underneath her bare feet and pushed between her toes would be numbing to anyone else back in the camp, but Teresa was unmoved. Even when she waded into the stream's frozen currents her breath did not hitch nor did she shiver. She felt the extreme chill, and there were goosebumps, but it didn't pain her or send a rush to her senses. Her body was different. Looking down upon it, naked as it was now, there was no mistaking the difference.
The stream was somewhat narrow, but it came up to Teresa's midriff when her feet were flat on the mucky bed. The running current kept the surface from freezing solid, and it also kept the waters clear and clean. Teresa immersed herself in the depths, dunking her head, before standing again and wiping her hands over her chest and stomach, taking with them the grime of travel. Her hands encountered more than just dirt however, the uneven skin that spread like a spider's web across her stomach and pubis the price for being able to sustain the abject cold. In truth, the deformity didn't bother Teresa. She'd lived most of her life bearing it. She felt no shame. Or she hadn't, before-
Teresa abruptly whipped around, seizing her claymore's handle in one fluid turn and raising it before her, the crunch of footsteps in the snow still in her ears. But the woman's grim expression fell and softened when the intruder was revealed to not be an intruder at all.
"You bathed quickly," Teresa remarked dryly as she deposited her blade on the stream's banks and promptly turned back around. There was a smile on her face however, not that Clare could see it. "How did you know I was here?" she asked as she splashed more water on herself.
"Your footprints."
"Ahh..." Teresa hummed knowingly. She hoped none of the merchant party would be as shrewd. They had no reason to seek her out, though. "This water is too cold for you. You should go back."
There was silence behind her, and Teresa believed Clare had gone. That was until she glanced over her shoulder to find the girl watching. Teresa sighed deeply and squeezed out the water from her blonde tresses. It would be troublesome if the water froze in them. "If you don't want to wash, that's fine, I suppose. But you should at least return to the campfires." When Clare didn't move, Teresa smiled reassuringly at her. "Go on. I'll be there soon."
Teresa returned to her washing, but she could feel Clare's continual gaze at her bare back. She wasn't going to leave. Teresa drew out her bathing just in case, however the girl was stubborn. The woman sighed once again, standing there in the stream. They would be in complete darkness if this kept up. Perhaps the darkness was what Teresa wanted though-something to hide what she was... so those green eyes wouldn't be repelled when they rested on her flesh.
With one foot on the bank Teresa hoisted herself out of the stream, her forearms lingering around her midriff. She didn't look at Clare but at her clothes, seeing salvation in them if she could only put them on fast enough.
Suddenly Clare was thrust up against her, her slender arms pushing past the blonde's forearms. The girl enveloped Teresa in an avid embrace, flush against the skin that should have repulsed her, as it did most humans. But Clare wasn't most humans; she pulled back and looked upon it, she touched it, she traced her fingers through the vile and unholy warping. There wasn't any repressed disgust on her face, nor was there hidden horror; there was... wonder... and then pity... and all the while acceptance. And for the briefest of moments Teresa felt more human than she had in... in memory. Clare loved her not in spite of what she was, but because of who she was. It included the scars, and the demons, within and without.
Teresa smiled faintly and brushed her fingers through the auburn hair in front of her, smoothing her hand to behind Clare's head. "Perhaps it's time we set off on our own again. By ourselves."
Her scarf lowered, Clare beamed brightly up at the warrior, those green eyes moist. Teresa had had a feeling she would agree.
The walls became a flurry of activity the closer Josel, Elina and Lenora came to the palisade, their silver eyes honing in on soldiers frantically dashing about on the other side of an array of sharpened stakes, stopping only to point and shout at the warriors' approach. Josel was vaguely aware that the standard that flew above the human heads and their flimsy fort was different from that in Kazaar and in the other cities further south. The other faction in the war, was it? She wondered what they were fighting about. Josel often mused of humanity one day uniting against youmakind, instead of their strength and their lives being squandered in rages against one other over pitiful grounds, and whether the organisation and her tainted breed would still be needed in such a utopia. A dream, Josel knew; the idealism perhaps part of the little girl that still survived in her. It would never happen. How could humanity be so ignorant to the greater threat? Youma plagued their lands and preyed on their people like an invading army, yet it was the 'Claymore' that were the opposing force. Josel and her sisters were humanity's weapon, their enemy turned against itself. Because they were stronger, the humans said. Because they wouldn't fear. But Josel was certain the humans didn't need to corrupt themselves to defeat this unnatural foe, if only they had the spirit to try. She'd seen too many do nothing in the face of the demon, peasant and soldier alike willing to cower as they are slaughtered and gorged upon as cattle. It is not their place to fight, they say as they perish, but the Claymores'. And with each cowardly death, humanity's spirit died a little as well... while the demon thrives.
"We seem to have caused a stir," Lenora remarked in her typical monotone, though none of Josel's number slowed their pace.
The soldiers scrambled at the base of the fort, heaving the wooden gates shut with urgency as though it was their southern enemy arriving on their doorstep. Archers appeared in a loose formation at the walls, a handful of them in a row, arrows nocked and bows half bent. The humans' frontier placement apparently had them tense. Or maybe this was how every traveller was greeted in times of war.
Suddenly an arrow was loosed, its flight followed by six silver eyes before it embedded itself harmlessly in the ground at the youma slayers' feet. Josel stopped in the same instant Lenora and Elina did. The humans had their attention now.
"Y-You there!" an Alphonse soldier yelled from the walls. "Go no further! It is my duty to inform you that by the rightful and *dignified* authority of the Council of Twelve, Lords of Alphonse, Keepers of the Hearth, Defenders of the Pass, Noble heads of Pieta, Melucia, and... uh, all the rest of them, Claymore and their agents are henceforth barred from the lands of Alphonse until we say otherwise!"
"So turn around and go back where you came from, witches!" another soldier shouted, inspiring similar jeers from his comrades.
Meanwhile Josel shared similar looks of surprise with her own comrades. Alphonse was rejecting the organisation? A strange turn, what with a war on. The youma enjoyed the open bloodshed found in large-scale battles. The northland's people would suffer even more because of this decision, as if the ravages brought on by warfare with their neighbours weren't already enough.
"For what purpose?" Lenora demanded. Josel would have liked to have believed that it was because Alphonse was finally willing to face the youma with their own force of arms and mettle, but whatever idealism lingered within her, it didn't make her a fool.
"Because it was so sanctioned by those above me *and* you! That is all you need to know!"
"This is the nearest path through the mountains," Lenora said, the humans dismissed as she turned to address Josel. "There is not another for many miles. Unless she has taken an indirect route through the wilderness to a different pass to elude us in spite of the extra miles, or has braved the mountainside itself, she must have come through this way."
Josel considered her sister's words. From what she'd heard of Teresa of the Faint Smile, she was not one inclined to cowardice and trickery. Then again, Teresa of the Faint Smile, number one in the organisation, shouldn't have been inclined to murder either. She also had a human girl with her by accounts. She could have cut a path through the wilds or scaled the rocky mountains if facing the hardships alone, but with a young human as her burden it wouldn't be wise-that was, if Teresa in fact cared about the girl. *If* she cared.
"Well, technically she's not part of the organisation anymore. The exclusion doesn't really apply to her," Elina quipped unhelpfully.
"Tell of who has come through here before us," Josel ordered the commanding soldier, or any soldier, her voice rising to an imperious booming.
"None..." the lead soldier started weakly, before clearing his throat. "None of your business!"
"We look for another of our kind-"
"I *told* you, you harlots are not permitted among us good folk! Now begone!"
"If she wanted to get through, she would have," Elina said, leaning this way and that with her hands on her hips as she appraised the human palisade, and seeming to not think much of it.
"Not alone," Lenora amended. "Our kind is easily recognised. She would have been discovered, and if she had forced her way I'm sure these humans would have had a different reception for us. She must travel with someone, a large party, one large enough that she can bury herself in. She flees us like a common criminal; it is no surprise she hides like one."
"Travelling with others, at another's discretion, would slow her down," Josel surmised. "She will not stay with them long, now that she's across the border."
"No. She will not," Lenora darkly agreed, she and the disfigured warrior sharing another, this time knowing look.
They included Elina in their regard, and then all of sudden the three blondes sprung into the air, their nimble feet balancing on the top of fort's walls' sharpened stakes for a moment before their powerful legs saw them leap again. Bow's twanged and arrows joined the women in the air, along with the human soldiers' screamed outrage. But like the steel volley their protests were futile-the organisation's authority was above *all* others, and the only a sister heeded. The weapons of humanity did not bend to a single nation's or state's politics. For the sake of the lives in those nations and states, they could not afford to.
The youma slayers sailed over the entire outpost and landed on the opposite wall, then used that as a final springboard to propel themselves into the lands of Alphonse, all three hitting the hard ground in a dead run. Their quarry was closer. The gap was narrowing.
The camp had settled for the night, those families with caravans not too cramped with unsold goods or souvenirs from the south blessed with slumber under a wooden or canvas roof, while the rest not so privileged had the starry skies overhead instead, with the night's wintery touch a tad crisper against their skin. The fires persisted however, sentinels against the silent killer, with three or four of Gaelan's group taking turns to remain awake to ensure that those sentinels did not wane in their crucial duty, and to watch that no more killers should emerge from the dark. Teresa heard the men move as quietly as they could through the camp, adding more wood for the flames whenever needed. They tried not to disturb anyone sleeping, but the blonde's ears were too sensitive to human inelegance.
Teresa lay with Clare amongst the sleeping humans, supine as was their custom. It still felt alien to her, awkward, but Clare seemed to prefer it, supine herself and pressed against her side. The girl was human, after all. But while she slept peacefully along with her kind, Teresa was wide awake.
The warrior kept her face wrapped and her eyes closed, playing the part, but she didn't need to sleep as often as humans did. However, Clare found slumber easier with her near, and lately more often when they were bundled together underneath a pile of blankets. True it was cold in these lands, and warmer next to each other, yet Teresa didn't believe that was all it was. While with the merchant train their clothes stayed on unlike in Kazaar, which was the cause of some uncomfortable poking now and then, but human eyes weren't normally as compassionate as Clare's were on the mark the bonding with youma blood left on a sister. Teresa supposed in these bitter nights the extra layers on the girl was for the better anyway.
Teresa wasn't bored during her time awake at Clare's side. As the girl slept it was a chance for the blonde to spend time immersed in her own thoughts, to close her eyes, and while not sleep, to rest just the same. A little bit of peace before the road again. A time to think back to her past decisions... and to be glad of them. To feel the presence beside her and know that it had been worth it. To understand that her life before those decisions, before Clare, had not been a life at all; that her life had truly begun back then, with Clare, when *she'd* chosen her life's purpose, and not left it to the robed men of the organisation to decide. Teresa had never daydreamed before; never dreamed; it had been too human for her, perhaps. But with her eyes closed and her mind adrift, she felt she came close.
Teresa sensed them before she heard them, their rapid footfalls beating the earth and kicking through snow. Their yoki gave the woman the direction of their approach and the velocity of it. Like the others before them, they came to rob her of her raison d'être, and of her life. They, whose destinies were not their own, but slaves to the bidding of a select cadre of humanity. Teresa had been like them. She didn't hate them, in fact she felt little for them. They were... nuisances, like bad weather, something to be dealt with but not raged at. If there was any emotion she had for her would-be executioners, it would be pity.
Teresa grabbed hold of Clare and rolled the two of them underneath Gaelan's caravan, through to the other side where the lights of the campfires didn't reach and the snow was still deep. Clare waked with a start and a yelp, the sudden tumble away from the blankets and frosty and wet replacement no doubt not a pleasant way to rise.
"Shh," Teresa shushed, getting to her feet and tugging the girl upright with her, their backs to the caravan. "We've been found."
Clare's face was a window into her fright, but Teresa was calm. Her yoki was suppressed to the point of non-existence. Consumed no doubt in their self-righteous zeal, her pursuers might think nothing of a human camp and run right by her.
But no sooner had Teresa finished the thought-the hope-the swift footsteps ceased and she heard voices.
"There are no tracks on the road beyond that I can see, and no fresh snow has fallen," one spoke, devoid of warmth or vigour. "Unless the forest is her home, then she is close... very close."
"I don't feel anything," another said in doubt, her voice young.
"That doesn't mean she's not here. She hides with those she slays," the first voice again spoke, this time with a sliver of passion behind her icy tones.
"Oi! What's going on...! ...Here...?" the watchman's voice petered out, the sight of 'Claymore' probably robbing him of his tongue.
A second watchman banged on Gaelan's caravan door until the merchant appeared, none too pleased judging by his grumbling. "What is it, now? I swear if it's just another wild dog, I'll-" Seeing it wasn't a wild dog or any other mundane animal, his manner abruptly changed. "C-Claymore? B-B-But they said you weren't allowed-!"
"We search for a deserter. One of us. Or she used to be." It was a new voice, a third, and Teresa recognised it. Josel, rank seven. Hers was a face you could not forget. "If you name her among you, then shelter her no longer. She is a slayer of humans, a butcher of your kith and kin. But we shall see you safe from this monster."
"There... You... This is..." Gaelan struggled. Others in the camp were rousing now thanks to the disturbance and Josel's bold words, a trio of 'witches' in the flesh before them likely seeming pulled straight from their nightmares, blurring the lines of sleep and awake. "There is no one like you here!" the portly merchant at last hurled out. "We are as... as f-family! All of us!" A similar declaration as back at the fort, but these women were not soldiers to be charmed. Sisters were above that. Or rather, they did not possess the means to relate to it.
"Not all of us!" someone shouted angrily, desperately. "What about her, the *mercenary*? The stranger! Not to be trusted, I said! It's her, it has to be!"
That was it. They wouldn't blunder past her. Not now that Teresa had been undone by human suspicion. She didn't blame the speaker, though-it was predictable human nature. Most of them had probably been thinking of accusing her. She was not one of them. The merchants and their families were probably scared too, though they had nothing to be afraid of from the warriors assembled in front of them.
"Yes, her! Her and the girl!" a woman screeched. "The swordswoman! *Teresa*!"
Teresa considered simply fleeing, bolting with Clare in her arms, letting the depths of the forest cloak her. Clare's weight was negligible, not at all an encumbrance. It would still be difficult outrunning able-bodied sisters, but it could be done. *She* could do it.
Teresa pulled the scarf across her mouth and nose down and breathed softly, the night air fogging in front of her face. A battle was inevitable. She could run, but not forever. They were too close now. Only the blade would dissuade them. At least if she fled she could take the clash into the woods, away from the merchants and clump of potential, however inadvertent, casualties-she had learned from Gagarak and the destruction her abandonment of the organisation had wrought upon the town-and away from Clare. It meant leaving the girl to the mercies of their former travel companions, but they wouldn't hurt her. Or would they? The girl who journeyed with a Claymore? Humanity was capable of anything, especially against their own kind. Clare could hide in the forest Teresa guessed, but there it was cold and far from the fires.
There was not much of a choice. Teresa would not risk Clare in the freezing cold just because of her ill faith in humans. The blonde would just have to end the fighting swiftly... and return swiftly. Surely the humans knew what would happen should she come back to find Clare abused. Teresa was a 'butcher of their kith and kin' after all.
"Stay here," Teresa whispered to the wide-eyed girl beside her, and bent her legs, preparing to unleash her yoki to attract her pursuers and launch herself through the snowy treetops.
"No!" Clare cried, grabbing onto Teresa's cloak first, before throwing her arms around the warrior's waist. "No... please..."
Teresa looked in surprise at the girl, her arms raised awkwardly over the slender figure that was clinging at her so. When Clare raised her head, the fright had become open terror, and her wide eyes had tears streaming from them.
"What if... it's like last time... with her... Pr... Priscilla... What if... you..."
Clare had learned from Gagarak as well. She had learned that Teresa wasn't invincible. That she too could bleed, and her sisters were the ones who could make it happen.
Teresa clicked her tongue and sighed resignedly, staring up at the stars. Silly girl. Well, whatever. So some merchants would soil their breeches. At least they'd go home with a tale to tell.
"Stay back," Teresa reworded, smiling wryly down at Clare.
"Mm!" Clare squeaked, bobbing her head as she smiled back. The fear was still there on her face together with her tears, but her gaze was bright and hopeful. And Teresa was reminded of why there were former allies after her, and why she, pride of the organisation, had turned her back on everything that had defined her-there were better reasons to fight.
A heavy clomp sounded from above them, and instinctively Teresa looked over her shoulder and up to the top of Gaelan's caravan behind her. A sister stared back, dressed in the uniform Teresa had come to dread the sight of, and eyes that were similar, familiar; a matching set; met.
"She's here!" the sister proclaimed, her cry warping into a roar as her face grossly contorted, becoming a beast's fang-filled maw, and her gaze suddenly shining with feral intent.
Turning back to flash Clare a last small smile, Teresa then leapt towards the sky, letting her momentum and then gravity pull her head over heels. She twisted as she dropped; drawing her claymore and bringing her body around to the face the campfires and her opponents they illuminated; and landed on the roof of the caravan with the gentleness of a feather's touch. She held her weapon by a single hand, precisely perpendicular to her body, observing her foes over the flat of the blade while the reflection of flames painted the steel orange and red.
The sister there on the roof with her had her own claymore unsheathed also, brandished in a two-handed grip with its tip levelled at Teresa, on the brink of striking, the leap and landing leaving the former number one youma slayer open to attack. Suddenly the sister's demonic visage registered shock, and immediately after, pain. Her chest erupted in a shower of blood and she screamed, her swing faltering along with her footing. She fell backwards onto the ground metres below, frantically trying to stem the gushing with a hand. She hadn't known that Teresa of the Faint Smile didn't leave openings, or at least ones that an attacker was capable of taking advantage of.
Teresa shook her head and crimped flaxen hair free of her hood. The face she wore for Clare was gone. She was as she'd been before meeting the girl; the porcelain doll-flawless, expressionless-except no one held her strings. The merchants and the rest of the humans looked on in awe and alarm, seeming rooted to wherever they stood. The sisters on the other hand were grim. Their claymores were drawn, and not with reluctance. Teresa wasn't a wayward ally, or a fallen comrade to be pitied. She could presume no quarter.
"Elina..." Josel's remaining companion breathed. Teresa didn't recognise her. But she'd had very little interest in her fellows while she'd still been in the organisation. She was aware of the greats of course, the ones whose names you couldn't help always hearing, even if they had succumbed long ago to the rigours of duty. However she'd had none she could call friend among the forty-six other warriors who'd still clung to their hollow lives alongside her.
"The new numbers one, two, and three, I imagine?" Teresa said, her blasé tone in contrast to her businesslike countenance. She'd expected more. Especially since these were lower ranked sisters bumped up the ladder courtesy of Priscilla's culling as an Awakened One. She'd half expected the organisation to reinstate Rafaela into service and to be squaring off with her right now.
"It doesn't matter who we are," Josel replied, hatred pouring from her. She was always a hot-blooded one, Teresa distantly recalled. "We're here to avenge those you've killed."
"Ahh. You're wasting your time," Teresa dismissed. "They aren't worth avenging." Criminals and worse; humans who had embraced their corruption more than others and had been deserving of the punishment Teresa had inflicted upon them. Humanity was richer without them.
The growling presence of Elina staggered from around Gaelan's caravan, her blood dotting the snow a stark red. It stained her uniform, spilling over the hand she kept to her chest to hold the gash Teresa had cut into her flesh closed. "Traitor..." she panted through her sharp teeth, plumes of hot mist bursting rhythmically into the air from her mouth as she tremulously lifted her sword in her other hand, willing to fight on. She was healing fast, the injury gradually closing before Teresa's eyes, and her hold strengthening on her claymore. The youngster's youma half preserved her, making light of a wound that any human would surrender to. Nevertheless, Teresa could have killed her outright earlier; she could have taken her head, or her heart, or maimed her beyond hope of rejuvenation. But Teresa had chosen not to. She didn't want to kill her executioners. They would merely be replaced, time and time again. Besides, Clare wouldn't like it. They just had to be stopped.
"Your own tongue betrays you," Josel snarled. "It tells how far you've fallen! It is a *pleasure* to end your existence!"
There was really no point to words; there was no point in venturing to explain why she stood here now, before past allies, her claymore wielded against them. They wouldn't understand. They could not feel as Teresa did. Were they even capable? Then again, Teresa herself had not believed her heart could still speak to her. All the more reason to try and spare her old sisters' lives.
Josel, and the other sister a second behind, threw themselves at Teresa, blades leading the charge. Teresa deflected one and then the other, and whipped around, tracing their flight. She watched as the pair deftly corkscrewed through the air, then somersaulted over until their feet touched upon the nearest tree trunk, shaking snowflakes like confetti from the branches. Their legs bent naturally with the force of their initial jumps behind them, and when the limbs would bend no further, the women thrust themselves back at Teresa.
However Teresa had not remained idle. She was already in flight herself, Josel and her comrade's intentions as battleplans laid bare to her. Steel flashed and sparked, and it was Teresa this time that corkscrewed and somersaulted, lunging from a trunk of a tree after her foes.
She saw Clare below her, looking up as she flew by, snowflakes scattering and pine needles trembling in her wake. Reflected in the girl's gaze was emotion akin to the rest of the humans-wonder and fright. But the fright had a different font; its source was the heart. For Clare, Teresa was proud to fight. She faced former allies, she was barely better than a bogeyman to the majority of humanity; however she plied her claymore still not because of any of them.
Teresa smiled as Clare watched; her faint smile she was named for; and it was a title that finally had real meaning.
Josel gritted her teeth, skidding on the balls of her feet to a halt through snow and soil, on solid ground once again. As anticipated, Teresa of the Faint Smile lived up to the legend, and in more ways than one. She was truly corrupted; a stain on the land and a pestilence on humanity. If salvation was at *all* possible, it could only be in justice exacted-in the penalty of oblivion dealt on the end of a claymore.
Teresa landed in front of the disfigured sister moments afterwards, displaying acrobatics that had her glide like a diving swan through the air before agilely hitting the earth, her black cloak fanning out around her. Her skill was phenomenal-that legend was almost as grand as that of her crimes. The greatest always had the farthest to fall.
"Lenora; we must strike simultaneously. Get around her, come from her blindspots," Josel barked.
"My... apologies..."
Josel looked to her right to find Lenora down on one knee, gasping; her weapon's point embedded in the dirt-the only thing holding her upright. She bled profusely from her side, the discolouration on her uniform almost reaching mid-thigh. She toppled, the severe bun she kept her hair tightly wound in coming loose and spilling out around her head on the ground.
Josel turned back to her enemy, only to then see Elina pounce upon Teresa like a wild animal that happened to have a sword. She'd opened herself up more to the youma blood that constantly sung in every sister's veins, her body bulging with grotesque brawn. Her swordsmanship was brilliant, on a level that belied her age... and yet she still looked young next to Teresa; brilliant, but merely defiant. More wounds appeared on Elina, and she leaned against one of the human caravan's before sliding away, smearing blood on the woodwork until the ground was there to cradle her ruined form.
"Get up," Josel sneered, her gloves grinding into the metal handle of her claymore, squeaking. "On your feet!" Her head snapped between her two felled comrades, willing them to feel what she felt, and to *feed* off of it. "If not for your own lives, then for the lives at risk! On your *feet*!"
Two creatures that looked more like youma than women arose-albeit slothfully and trembling-answering Josel's summons. The human onlookers scattered around them moved at last, a fat male superfluously bellowing to stay back as everyone scrambled to put distance between the spectacle that had invaded their camp. But Elina and Lenora were not the monsters. It was beauty that hid the genuine beast here.
Josel joined her sisters as they attacked, choosing a frontal assault while they tried to get at Teresa's flanks. Josel didn't see which of the traitor's blurred thrusts and slices connected, but suddenly the fury of Lenora and Elina's onslaught was snuffed out, and the frail bodies of two young women crumpled under the weight of a dozen wounds, drained of even their unholy strength. The battle had become a duel. Elina and Lenora had been useless after all.
Josel brought up her claymore in the nick of time to parry a chop at her shoulder, and tried to counter by spearing her own blade under Teresa's left armpit. However too quickly the scarred warrior found herself on the defensive again, desperately deflecting another and another blow, the former number one's sword coming from all directions, aiming at even her legs and arms-superficial areas. Josel couldn't stop them all, and cuts materialised over her body with the suddenness of a whip's lash. Seconds after they appeared though, the torn flesh meshed together again. Her body had endured more tortures, more scars, than anyone else's-there was no room on her flesh for any more. That was the gift the youma who had killed her family and destroyed her home had bestowed upon her-pain and mutilations were no more a danger to her than water was to a fish. She could not be stopped. She *would* not be stopped. She would rise again and again, always clawing towards the light. She was relentless.
Josel roared as her claymore locked with the hilt of the traitor's, finally terminating the barrage against her for the time being. The face she glared into was so beautiful, so different from her own. Yet their hearts weren't a reflection of their features. "You would kill them as you did the others!" Josel accused, her arms quivering as she fought Teresa's might, the steel of their weapons rasping together. Elina and Lenora were in the corners of her eyes, bloodied and broken-more to be avenged.
"They're alive," Teresa said coolly, as though she weren't in a fight for her life at all.
"Murderer! *Traitor*! You'll pay for them all-every one that you betrayed, every human life you took! This is the judgement of the righteous! Irene, Noel, Sophia, Priscilla-they will rest easier when I send you to join them!"
"I don't regret the lives I took," Teresa said, her voice serious for once. "Not one. I killed no one that hadn't earned it. Your companions, *you*; none of you have to die here. I-we-just want to be left alone."
Josel was already shaking her head halfway through Teresa's speech. "You don't get that right! To the ends of the *world* justice will hound you! *I* will hound you! Your life was for *them*, don't you understand? You betrayed not only us, but *them*!"
Teresa pushed harder on her blade, and Josel felt herself giving ground, inching backwards before the immeasurable strength. "My life is for her," she said.
Teresa was worse than a youma. She was worse than an Awakened One. She had not lost control. She was not a beast of instinct, she was not a creature born into evil. She had *chosen* her sin. The reasons didn't matter. The price had to be paid. *Justice* demanded it. The lives lost demanded it. *Josel* demanded it!
The woman reached into herself, where the killer of her family resided, and feasted on its ferocity, letting it gouge its talons and teeth into her flesh once again so that she might use it for a better purpose. She let it take everything of her but a sliver; she *became* it; she wore her nemesis's face and dressed in its form. She would not be stopped. She would *not* be stopped!
Teresa hopped back at the sudden explosion of yoki she felt, if the metamorphosis taking place before her eyes wasn't enough reason. The youma inside Josel had manifested, so much so at first Teresa believed she had Awakened. She had to be near her limit-the immense power that radiated from her was too great otherwise. Josel risked losing herself wholly to the beast. Moreover, if she remained in this state long enough, she wouldn't find the way back to herself.
Josel slashed at Teresa as the other blonde darted away-the youma wearing a sister's skin was a hulking monstrosity, but it was not clumsy. The extra vigour suddenly in her limbs caused a massive over-swing however, and her claymore and the fist that held it smashed into the side of Gaelan's caravan with Teresa's absence, terrifying the merchant's horses. The caravan was rocked on two wheels, and then the wood buckled and splintered as though it was rotten. Lacking the support of four walls the roof caved in on Josel's arm. But the enraged sister pulled her arm out without looking, hauling snapped planks and an assortment of crushed junk outside onto the ground with it.
Teresa heard squeals over her shoulder; unsurprisingly recognising Gaelan's and Merlotta's as the loudest. But she was quick to block them out, along with everything else that was trivial around her. Lenora and Elina hadn't been a threat; if they were ranks two and three, then the organisation had fallen on hard times. Teresa sensed the danger from Josel, though. She could still read Josel's yoki, yet it was a design smeared with mud-she had to uncover the intent through instinct and anger. There was indeed still a conscious mind powering that demonic form, and its every thought was bent on destroying Teresa.
Teresa made sure she wasn't where she'd been standing when Josel's overhead swing came after her head and the rest of her body, lithely leaping aside. The earth erupted where the steel struck, solid clumps of frozen grass and dirt flying into the sky. Teresa's predictions of Josel's attacks had her seem fast and the beast slow, but it was closer than the humans probably suspected. Eventually one of her predictions would be wrong, and she'd pay in blood. Teresa had to put her opponent down as soon as she could; Josel had to be crippled as her companions had been, and only then would Teresa and Clare regain their freedom.
Josel hacked at the more experienced warrior again, her blade obliterating a campfire in its path. Flaming logs, ash, and cinders assailed Teresa as she dodged the claymore, ducking and diving to within Josel's reach so she could have a reach of her own. Josel had the sense to try and parry, but Teresa saw it coming and didn't give her foe a chance. Her claymore cut just inside Josel's pauldron, where the metal didn't cover any skin, and she followed through until the razor edge had hewed through to the top of the sister's heart.
Josel howled-a wounded animal's cry-and thrashed at Teresa with the talons she had grown. Teresa flipped over the berserk fighter-pulling her sword with her-and was only half surprised that she didn't feel the sting of claw marks in her flesh.
Teresa frowned just a little when Josel turned and the injury she had inflicted, grave as it was, healed in no more than two seconds, making a mockery of her attack. Teresa hadn't encountered regeneration of its like before, apart from in Awakened Ones. But, undaunted, she was willing to put it to the test.
Josel came barrelling at her, knocking aside a wagon in her path and overturning it and its contents everywhere while people jostled one another to get out of the way. Teresa didn't rush to meet her, but was ready to strike when she came into her claymore's arc. She didn't hold back much-she stabbed, she chopped, she sheathed her sword in Josel's body over and over again, all the while evading the sister's retaliation. But no matter the number of wounds, no matter how much it must have hurt, the flesh knitted and blood clotted. And Teresa feared what she might have to do. Clare would have to understand.
The former number one sister retreated, a single backwards leap putting the feet needed between her and Josel, while the sister slashed angrily at the air that no longer contained her. Then Teresa was running, rushing towards Josel with every intent to end the duel once and for all. She kept low; she kept her arms and her blade out; ready to alter her swings however required. Josel's claymore was thrust at her-then it flew away from her. Josel's right arm followed it, severed just above the elbow. Teresa's body twisted, and her sword arm fluidly delivered a second blow. Josel toppled, her right leg detached at the knee, and the blood that flowed no longer clotted as swiftly.
Teresa lowered her arms to her sides, claymore in hand, and turned back to what she had done. Josel roared and screamed, prostrate on the ground; beating it with the two limbs Teresa had left her. It had to be done. Some sisters simply necessitated more grievous wounds than others to take the fight out of them. At least Josel had her life. With her unparalleled talent at healing, she could probably reattach the arm and leg too without ill effects. But of course, Teresa and Clare would be long gone by then.
The battle over, the merchants and their families looked merely to Teresa with wariness, as though she would now live up to Josel's accusations. The woman sighed. Again, she supposed she couldn't blame them. Their camp was in tatters, and there might have been an injury or two among their number. But no corpses. They too should be thankful for having life.
"T-Teresa!"
Clare's cry snapped Teresa back on guard, and she looked where the girl's eyes did-at Josel. The sister screeched and quivered, possessed by fits and spasms, and to Teresa's sheer amazement she saw a right arm and leg grow where there was none. It should not have been possible. Had she Awakened after all? The new limbs were bare of clothing while the maimed originals still wore it, and Teresa could make out scars and scrapes and other old wounds mottling the flesh-it was not flawless skin that regenerated. But it was a mystery for another time, and probably one she'd never get an answer to. If Josel wouldn't abandon her lust for Teresa's head, then Teresa would just have to take hers. It was a shame, but Teresa wouldn't fret over it afterwards. She'd given Josel her chances. She wasn't so selfless as to keep on giving them, not when she was forced to weigh them against her own continued life. Or Clare's.
"I will not be stopped!" Josel roared, her voice not human.
Teresa wouldn't be either.
Josel grabbed her claymore, ripping her old arm off of it, and all of a sudden was upon Teresa, her weapon locked with the other blonde's once again. It was Teresa who was driven back this time, her sabatons raking the earth as she vied for traction. She stepped back, hoping for a foothold-but it was loose debris it found. She tripped, losing her footing entirely, and before she knew it she was falling and Josel was looming over her, storming forwards to cleave Teresa in half.
"TERESA~!"
Clare appeared between her and Josel's claymore, arms outstretched, as if her small body could be a shield. The claymore wouldn't slow however-not before it collided with Teresa's, raised in front of Clare with time to spare. What a silly girl.
"I said to stay back," Teresa said through a longsuffering breath.
"L-Leave her alone!" Clare continued, unafraid of the steel that had clashed before her eyes, glaring at Josel.
Teresa put an arm around the girl's waist, about to hurl her clear of the duel. But Josel had stopped. Up this close to the sister Teresa noticed the burns and the scars were still there on her skin, though they were harder to see with the youma aspects altering her features and figure. Slowly however, those unearthly traits receded, Josel's body becoming that of a woman again, and her face kin to Teresa's.
Josel lifted her sword from Teresa's and stepped away, turning her face away as well. "People have looked at me as though I was a monster many times in the past," she said softly. She looked about the camp, where the merchants' feeble guards had nevertheless erected a staunch perimeter around the women and children of the party, with even the men who were rather over the hill to fight and without weapons of their own joining the line. "But it's the first time I've felt like one."
Josel looked back at Clare, who still held her arms out wide. "She... reminds me of someone..." she whispered, and even with her gifted ears Teresa had trouble hearing the scarred warrior. "Someone who... might have been, if for the grace of fortune... and a protector." She blinked, and her glassy gaze had vanished, steely silver focused instead on Teresa. "Flee," she said. "Flee, and find the girl a home. Then face your judgement."
Lenora and Elina had roused, raising themselves up on elbows on blood-soaked ground, their expressions telling of their disbelief at their comrade granting clemency however temporary-as was the merchant party skeptical that the battle was finally over. The humans' guard relaxed somewhat now that monsters weren't at each others' throats and their belongings weren't being tossed haphazardly about. Still, there wasn't a welcome in their chary looks.
Teresa carefully got to her feet, and slowly sheathed her claymore, her watchful gaze never leaving Josel. It was rather startling, but the exiled sister would take the offer, though not wholly accept it. Clare's place was with her. She doubted the girl would ever consent to being left behind anyway.
"Collect our things," Teresa said, and Clare obligingly hurriedly over to where they had been sleeping before the executioners had arrived, bundling up their blankets and hefting their packs onto her slim shoulders. When she had everything, Teresa at last walked past Josel.
"Your face..." Josel began as Teresa moved by her, "...it's prettier than mine. But underneath is the same monster."
Teresa stopped for a moment and smiled faintly. "Perhaps. But I feel like less of one when she looks at me."
Teresa continued over to Clare and walked with the girl back to the road under the gazes of many. The sun still had some time before rising again; as soon as they were well clear of the merchant's camp, they'd have to stop and prepare another fire. Hopefully Clare would be able to get to sleep again; Teresa would remove her armour this time before getting under the blankets, if it would placate the girl more-and she was certain it would. Alone again at last-it was how it was meant to be, and how they preferred it. They were outcasts, Clare included in a fashion. Humans did not travel with Claymore. And they definitely didn't love them.
"I will find you again," Josel called after them-after Teresa. "Your time is finite. Every day you live is a *gift*."
Teresa smirked and pulled up her hood. That, she already knew.
Darkness and falling snowflakes eventually erased the camp behind them-it was snowing, and a good time to stop and settle down once more. As Teresa looked for a suitable spot off the road, Clare spoke up.
"Why do you think she let us go?"
"I don't know," Teresa replied. She turned her head to Clare and touched her cheek tenderly with a finger, before adjusting the scarf over the girl's mouth a bit higher. "But maybe she felt it was the human thing to do."
The End... for now.
Author's ramblings:
Next chapter should have less action, and more Teresa/Clare bonding stuff and fluff, I think. I hope the fighting in this chapter was alright; it's tricky since Teresa is so tough, so coming up with entertaining conflicts requires a bit of thought.