Chapter 6: Revelations in Rabona

Ryoushi cocked his head and took to the trees after they decided to search Rabona for Galatea, the region of Toulouse almost within range. At the same time, he could tell that something was very, very wrong. Even though he could not sense them as definitive presences, he could feel the animals at the edge of the boundary were extremely wary, almost as if they were expecting an attack from something big. That set him on edge; animals always knew better than people when the storm was coming. They slipped across the border between Lautrec and Toulouse – and he was bombarded by the youki of an Awakened One in the city. He cursed, put on a burst of speed to get there faster; Miria called, "Ryoushi-san, what is it?"

"It's Rabona," he yelled over his shoulder as the hanyoma increased their speed to keep up, "There's an Awakened One fighting a handful of warriors in the city!" Then, realizing, "One of them is Galatea!"

"Teacher," Kinatia whispered, leaping up next to him in the trees. She found that it was a lot fast jumping from branch to branch, changing heights, rather than having to adjust one's footing for the changing terrain below. "How is she doing?"

"Struggling. I think the claymores with her were sent to execute her, because the one that's fighting her is practically ignoring the Awakened One." Ryoushi cleverly flipped over the last branch of the forest and burst out of the tree line, now on a farming plain that would take them to Rabona. The hanyoma exploded out behind him, Clare and Miria in the lead, and they tore across the fields, managing to not destroy any of the crops in their passage, and Ryoushi successfully resisted the urge to deviate from his course and track the human farmers back to their homes for dinner. He did change course, however, to briefly hunt and slay the yoma that he could sense in a nearby town. The hanyoma continued on without him, but he knew that it would be best for them to get there first and explain about him before one of the uninformed claymores attacked him on accident.

"Do you not wish to see Galatea first?" he asked Kinatia when he sensed that she was tailing him, "It has been seven years."

"She can wait," the woman said as she pulled her claymore from its sheathe, "and as many times as I have proved to Miria that I can hold my own in battle…"

"…she doesn't want you to get caught up in the fight. Why does she think that running around killing yoma with a hungry Awakened One is any better?" He snorted, slowing as they reached the outskirts of the town where the yoma was hiding. Correction, where the yoma were hiding. They were so close together that they had seemed to be one youki, and they had obviously been together a long time; their youkis were incredibly similar, similar enough to make him pause and ponder for a moment. How, when yoma and their by-products were sterile…? 'Hmm. Thoughts for another time.' Ryoushi made a gesture with his hands; you circle around from that side. She nodded and disappeared into the crowd, and they hunted down the yoma one by one, tracking them silently after they left their mysterious little gang bang fest inside a warehouse by the river that ran through the area. It abruptly slammed into Ryoushi as he dumped one of the bodies in the river: this was Intore, the town that he had lived in so many times. It was only seven years ago that he had left this place, and already yoma were staking claims on what had been his territory. It aroused those instincts: 'Mine! This place is mine!' his inner beast snarled, but he pushed it aside.

One could not honestly expect the place to remain undefiled, he sighed, but at least he was there to clean it up and hopefully inhabit it again when their campaign against the organization was over and done. He flicked his claymore, cleaning it of the blood of the yoma, and sheathed the blade over his back, preparing to hunt the next one.

"Well, well, lookie here!" said a voice from behind him, one that he recognized with a sense of dread, "A little boy and a stolen claymore."

Ryoushi turned to face the voice's owner. At the mouth of the alley there was an adult with short blonde hair and eerie blue eyes. It was Yakuro and his gang, now grown up from the child bullies that they once were. They had always teased and picked on the weaker children in the town, and it appeared that they had reverted back to their degenerate ways in his absence, having taken the threat of severe punishment with him when he left for Pieta. "Gaki," he growled under his breath, reaching up and gripping the claymore's handle.

Yakuro laughed at his action. "You can't lift that, boy, so let us take it and no one will be the wiser." He took a step toward Ryoushi, appearing to look him up and down like he was appraising livestock. The Awakened One's lips curled, recognizing the look of one who sold humans into slavery, and whipped the longsword out of its sheathe, touching the tip to the adult's throat. All of the humans visibly recoiled; he looked like a child to them, but he was effortlessly holding a blade that was taller than he was.

"I am a yoma, human," he said in a deceptively soft voice, "and this is my hunting ground now. So unless you intent to become my next meal, I highly suggest that you leave."

Yakuro gulped, and the gang scattered to the four winds, desperate to get away from the monster child inhabiting their town. He resheathed his sword, muttering about degenerate idiot humans, and Kinatia took that opportunity to pop up. "What was that all about?" she asked, cocking her head.

"Baka ningen," he grunted, "trying to take my sword away." He stamped out of the alley with the still-hooded hanyoma following him, and they split up again, killing the three remaining yoma and walking out of the town in the direction of Rabona, holding hands to see how the battle was going…

Miria and company were almost there, but the extremely weak youki he could sense was attempting to kill the Awakened One. The yoma was not expecting the attack from above, and she managed to sever only a few strands of hair before the Awakened One counterattacked, shooting tentacles at her when she landed on a rooftop. The hanyoma sliced others and freed a pinned hanyoma that was much stronger than her, carrying her away from the immense yoma. She was clearly crying. "…don't want to die! I can't get away!"

The smaller Claymore reached up as if to comfort her, saying, "Mama…"

The weakest looked down as her, tears streaming down her face, "I'm afraid of you most of all! Why are you so much stronger than me when you're just a kid? This monster shows up and you fight her all alone! You've never been hurt before, and now you're all cut up!" Both clung to one another, weeping aloud.

"Oh, please. I think I'll level this town, just to get you to shut up." The Awakened One struck out with many tentacles toward the hanyoma – Galatea was pinned against the wall, warning them to run – and then Clare cut apart one of the eight legs that the Awakened One supported itself on. "What the?" Galatea's youki was equally confused; the deserters' youki had been suppressed so long that even she could barely detect it.

The tentacles cleanly missed the organization's warriors as Clare said, "This town is important to me, which is why I won't let you destroy it." When Agatha demanded to know who they were, she simply said, "We have no reason to give our names to one who is about to die."

"About to die? You can't just show up and start spouting off nonsense like that – "

Cynthia and Uma chose to hang back when the hanyoma lunged forward to drop Agatha to the ground, each of the seven attackers using their own skill mastered in the north to hack apart their limb of choice. The fallout from their attacks was that when she fell, Agatha's body crushed many of the buildings to rubble. Fortunately, the one that Galatea was pinned to was not caught in the crossfire, and Miria was able to cut her loose. The former Number Three was missing an arm and pierced through in several places, but other than that, she was all right. Miria asked about her injuries, but Galatea said that her eyes had been that way for a long time.

"?" That confused Ryoushi; he could sense nothing wrong.

"…have no reason to hold back against this foe." Miria whipped off her cloak as the rest of the hanyoma did the same, leveling her blade at the Awakened Number Two, and Ryoushi picked up the pace a little, sensing that this would be over fast.

"Strong…" Miata whispered.

"What?" Clarice was confused; the youki suppressants were still active, and so she could not sense anything.

"All of them are strong," Miata said matter-of-factly, "but two of them smell really strong. They surpass the others by far."

Agatha dissolved what was left of her Awakened body into tentacles – Ryoushi briefly wondered what was up with all of these tentacle Awakened Ones this week – and formed a massive body with it, replicating a human form, saying, "You'll get to die facing me in my true form. Not bad for a load of insects." She struck out with one arm, forcing the hanyoma to scatter while Helen said that she'd take off its head with the drill sword.

Tabitha, however, corrected their assumption. "She's lying when she says that this is her true form. The body we must destroy is just a decoration imitating human form inside the lower abdomen, but she moves it around constantly to prevent enemies from striking it. Its head is the weak point."

"Have you anything to add, God Eye Galatea?" Miria asked, "If this were a team, you'd be the leader of it."

"No. Just to save this town, Phantom Miria."

"Of course. No one else will die."

Ryoushi detected Galatea's surprise when the team leader used her new phantom to split Agatha's body in two at the waist, but the shocks did not stop there: Flora and Jean blocked attacks from the Awakened One to enable Deneve to cut the torso along its lateral line, and when Tabitha directed them to the right half, Helen used the drill sword to tear open the arm where her form was hiding. Clare attempted to decapitate her from behind while she was distracted, but Agatha dodged the strike, getting only a thin cut on her arm instead of a missing head. She hooked an arm around Galatea's neck and lunged back, threatening to tear her throat out if they came any closer. Miria demanded to know why she thought that a hostage would work, to which Agatha replied, "This wouldn't work if I was fighting regular warriors, but since you said that no one would die…"

Clare ignored the threat to Galatea's life and took a step forward, sheathing her sword over her back, "There's nothing you can do that will stop us from killing you."

The Number Three recognized Clare's voice then and asked, "I assume I am correct in saying that you can still use that technique from before, right, Number Forty-Seven?"

"Indeed. The power's dropped, but the accuracy's increased greatly." She sliced the Awakened One's arm to free her comrade, and when she commented on the unintentional hair cut, Clare replied, "I'll be more careful about it if that's what you want." She didn't give the Awakened One a chance to say or do anymore, simply cut her to pieces in the space of a second. It was then that Ryoushi and Kinatia entered the city through the western gate, "hearing" Clarice say, "Nine… Nine unknown warriors with claymores… are they the ones missing from the north?"

Cynthia stepped over to help Galatea regenerate her arm, and when Miria asked about the eyes, the stronger warrior said that too much time had passed for them to be healed, it depended largely on one's memory, and if she'd wanted to heal them, she would have done so long ago. Clarice picked up her claymore and pointed it at Galatea, shaking and crying, and Galatea said, "You can have my life if you want it, Dark-Hair. I've done what I needed to." Before anyone could react, Clarice slumped to the ground, crying harder.

"Why? Why do you have to say things like that? I can't kill you… not when you're not evil," she sobbed, "I don't know what I should do…"

Ryoushi and Kinatia entered the new courtyard just as Miria said, "Simple. Don't go back to the organization." The hanyoma darted over to her teacher from the Awakened One's side, kneeling to help Cynthia accelerate the regenerative process. Said Awakened One merely hovered on the edge of the proceedings, listening as the Phantom spoke with everyone. "That's really the only option you have," she told Clarice, "If you return and Galatea's still alive, they'll execute you on the spot, and saying that you could not find her is not a valid excuse."

"But… we'll…"

"Yes. They'll call you traitors and mark you for death. However, they won't be able to get their hands on you if you remain in Rabona; they know that the city is strict with its refusal to allow half-yoma inside."

"It's a temporary solution at best," Galatea said, waving her good hand, "The organization could take down this entire city if they chose."

"A temporary solution is all we need," Miria said, "because we've come to destroy the organization."

"WHAT?"

Galatea, however, took the news calmly and was not afraid to speak her mind. "That's a foolish idea. You're willing to fight the organization's current warriors to get revenge for the fallen of Pieta? And," she said, when Miria opened her mouth to say something, "even if you don't intend to fight the warriors, the organization will still dispatch them to fight you. There is no way that hasn't occurred t you. And what about the yoma? Without the organization to create hanyoma, humans will just be devoured as before. The safety of the humans depends on us being created to fight them."

Ryoushi could tell that everyone was thinking the same thing that he was; the yoma couldn't be allowed to run rampant with no Claymore to stop them, but he trusted Miria to at least have an explanation for her plan. She sighed, then said, "All right. I'll tell you everything that I've learned. I was consumed by rage after the death of a friend, so much so that I decided to take revenge on the organization, but I quickly realized that in the organization's absence, what Galatea just described would happen. So while I was doing my duty, I began to investigate the organization, and at first I had no way of judging them. I slipped into the archives at headquarters and journeyed to the remotest edges of this continent, and in the southwest, I discovered a village that had seemingly been forgotten by the rest of humanity. They were shocked at my appearance and had never even heard of yoma." Ryoushi could guess what was coming and stepped closer to hear better. "So I came up with a hypothesis.

"Yoma… are created by the organization itself."

There were many sharp inhalations of breath, and Helen actually fell back onto her rear without even so much as a gasp of pain at the sudden impact. "That's madness," Galatea said, unsettled, "How could that –"

"We've all had our doubts regarding the existence of yoma; it's crossed our minds at least once. It was explained away so simply with the preying on humans, them being the greatest predators alive. The stories slowly became reality as those who could remember a time before yoma died off."

"That's just a wild supposition. There is no proof."

"There is. It's so close we didn't see it, something that we all carry." Miria pulled her sword from its sheathe over her back. "This claymore… isn't it a little much for just killing yoma? I've never seen one bent or broken, not even chipped. It's as if from the start, these were meant to be used on Awakened Ones or something even greater." She gazed down at the blade, continuing to speak, "I've been all over this continent, and I never once found the place where this metal was mined, and there are no facilities for processing it. This sword should not even exist on this continent."

"But-but does that mean it's not of this world?"

"Another example of how the organization manipulates information. Though countless ships have set sail, searching for other continents, they have returned empty handed, so people concluded that this was the only land. But there is another, and it is not peaceful by any means. That land is wrapped in constant war, but a century ago, all of the fighting nations came together into two alliances battling for supremacy. One side had allies in the form of nonhumans thought to be the descendants of dragons and quickly gained the upper hand. The other side, hoping to increase their combat strength, raced to develop a new weapon, and their research bore fruit. It was an infernal weapon that changed humans into monsters." She shook her head. "However, it was so dangerous that the weapon could risk wiping out its own allies. The decision was made to take research from the continent and contain it on a small island."

"But… that would mean…"

"Yes. This land is nothing but a test site for creating Awakened Ones."

All of the hanyoma from the north simultaneously turned to look at Ryoushi, who was standing stock-still in shock, staring at Miria with his mouth slightly agape, eyes wide with horror. He had pulled down his hood, letting them see his now very white features, and the wind whistled through the momentarily silent courtyard, rustling their cloaks and hair. The Phantom continued her narrative to draw attention from the child-sized Awakened One, "Originally they were sent onto the battlefields of the mainland as warriors with abilities far beyond those of normal men, and they were only allowed to unleash their full power when they were facing the dragons' descendants deep behind enemy lines. They would release their yoma energy, as we do, but for the males, unlike females, that energy was almost impossible to control. They went rampant almost instantly. Their birth came about as an attempt to create warriors that could fight the dragons' descendants on equal terms, but they were unable to return to being human or being warriors because their Awakening changed them so much. They were not even permitted to come back; they would have had to keep fighting until their deaths at the hands of the enemy, and most did. Because of the fact that when and where and how they Awakened could not be controlled, it was decided that more research was needed and continued it here, in hopes that they could create an Awakened One they could control."

Galatea's youki twitched in realization. "Alicia and Beth. They were able to cross their limits and come back."

"Yes, we heard, but they're twins, which means it's only a special case. But their connected psyches make an easy weakness to exploit; if the enemy finds out, it's all over." Miria nodded. "It's a milestone, but they're still far from developing a controllable Awakened One."

"You're very well informed," Galatea said, "How did you manage to learn so much without help?"

"I did have help. I can't give you the details, but there are no inconsistencies between what I was told and what I learned. This is accurate and all that I have learned up until now. But…" She turned to look at Ryoushi. "When you showed up with Kinatia in the north, I began to suspect the organization's intent, Ryoushi-san." Galatea visibly sat up straighter when she realized that he was there. "I believe that they were hoping to see if you were strong enough to be sent to the continent, once they knew that you could be bargained with. Perhaps, if you had slain all of the Awakened Ones there, if we had returned from the northern lands…"

"…They would have captured me and shipped me off," he said bluntly.

"More than likely. But not without rigorous testing to see what gave you the ability to keep you human consciousness strong enough to control your yoma instincts." Miria sighed. "That means that if they find out that you are here, that you survived, they will stop at nothing to 'acquire' you for study."

"I have no desire to be picked apart on a lab table. I may be a defensive type, but even I can't regenerate like that." He padded over next to the former Number Three. "Long time, no see, Galatea-san." He helped the newly healed warrior to her feet, ignoring Clarice's whispers.

"No way… an Awakened One that still has its human mind…?"

"I supposed I'd sound crazy if I said the same, so I'll settle for 'you better not kill any humans while you're here, bastard.'"

He grinned. "Only if they try to attack me." He stayed at Galatea's side when she turned to Miria.

"Is there anything a blind woman can do to help you?"

"I'd like you to stay here and look after the dark-hair and the young warrior for us. It's unlikely that the organization will come for them so soon, but I have no doubt that you could handle it. The likelihood that they have developed someone of your skill is very slim."

"I'm not sure if that's true," Galatea said, closing her eyes, "but I'll take the compliment."

"Now… here's hoping the city is willing to negotiate with us."

While Miria was off making nice with the city, Flora and Cynthia backing her up, the other hanyoma were given all the food and drink they could possibly desire. Ryoushi merely sat in a corner of the tavern that their group had claimed, drinking water and declining food, while the others ate and drank freely. Helen, unlike the rest of her companions, was swiftly drunk and flushed with alcohol, and when she came over to bother him after Deneve, he merely flicked her forehead and set her toppling over.

His sharp ears picked up Sid saying, "I didn't think Claymores could get drunk," and Clare explained that they could wipe toxins from their systems at will, but it was a matter of personal choice. "And how much are you letting in?"

"About half. I have a natural tolerance, it seems."

Ryoushi sensed Sid's gaze on him. "Hey, Clare, I've been meaning to ask you. Do you make a habit of picking up strays? That's the second kid we've seen following you around."

"No." Clare took another sip of her drink. "Ryoushi is… different."

"Oh?" Galk seemed interested as well. "How so?"

"Because I'm a yoma."

Simultaneously, all of the hanyoma turned to give the utterly calm Awakened One an exasperated glare, while Galk and Sid simply looked shocked. "You've got a yoma traveling with you?" Sid gasped, hand automatically flying to his weapon, before Clare rested her hand on his.

"If he was a threat to humans," she said coolly, "do you honestly think we would have let him live?" As the two soldiers relaxed reluctantly, she continued, "Besides, he's actually a Claymore that turned into a yoma a long time ago, back when there were male Claymores."

"Semantics," Sid said, waving a hand, "How did you all meet up? And how did he convince you not to kill him right off the bat?"

"All of us here were sent to kill off a large group of yoma gathered in the north, and the organization you call 'Claymore' set him to help us. They ordered us not to harm him, so we didn't." Something appeared to click with her. "And there's something I'd like to ask you two."

"Right. That kid that was with you last time you were here, Raki, wasn't it?" He smiled. "He came through a year ago, asking around about you. When we said we didn't know where you were, he moved on."

"I see. So he's still alive…"

"Yup. Had a little kid with him, a girl. When I asked, he said that relatives dumped her with him. He didn't seem to want to talk about it, so I let it drop."

Galk spoke then. "It has been seven years since you were here, and he's a grown man now. He did say that he was revisiting the places you two went. He headed west after he left here. You're both alive, so you're bound to meet again."