scene V

THE OVERWHELMING ABSOLUTE DARKNESS

part III

The Claymore's blood coated the darkness in red. The arrogant dagger-thrower Sid and Galk, a man of few words yet ample conviction, stood staring as the Claymore's body collapsed to the cold stone floor. She had been the only thing standing between them and that enormous yoma – a Voracious Eater.

The yoma's claws dripped with Claymore blood. Its maw was yawning open, its tongue tasting the scent of blood on the air, whetting its hunger. A guttural growl hissed between the yoma's sharp, exposed teeth as it set its burning gaze on the pittance of human men.

"Wh... What... the hell?" A cold sweat dampened Sid's fair hair to his forehead. "Is that a yoma? Where could it have been...?" His stunned gaze took in the Claymore that had just fallen in battle, cloak laying over her prone body. The pool of blood beneath her was still spreading, getting bigger. Too much blood to lose, and still live. Words completely failed Sid then. The Claymore was dead. She had killed herself to protect them. It didn't make sense to him; Claymore were half-monsters.

"Here it comes!" Galk shouted, raising his sword, reclaiming his senses.

With a snarl the yoma charged across the empty cathedral hall at them. It was almost on top of them in no time. "D-Damn, my sword won't-" Sid struggled to remove the cinquedea stuck in its sheathe at his lower back.

Sid would have been half-eaten by the time he'd freed the dagger. The only reason Sid stayed alive was that the yoma had jerked to a stop. There was a dirk in its eye. The long knife was plunged halfway up the blade. When the yoma realized this, it screamed in pain and outrage.

The men stared, Sid's mouth falling open, as they saw the Claymore on her feet again, alive. Her chest cliimbed and plummeted as she grappled with every new, painful breath, snatching lungfuls of air where she could. Her posture suggested she was prepared to push this fight even further, but she looked to be in bad shape. Still...

Galk and Sid stared.

With a sickening sound of pulpy tissue sucking around the long knife, the yoma yanked it free from the socket. Blood coursed freely. But the yoma didn't look hurt. It looked angry. With a thrust of its muscle-strapped legs, the monster seemed to next disappear.

"It's gone!" Sid shouted.

The Claymore spun around, one heel anchored to the floor as her other lashed out. The precision of her kick landed her foot square in Sid's gut and the weasel staggered back. "Hey!" Sid choked on his fury, "Why did you-"

WHAM!

Enormous chunks of masonry erupted beneath the maul-like fists of the yoma. Its clenched hands were buried in the floor where Sid had been standing moments before. The Claymore used her momentum to thrust her dirk at the yoma, but the monster was just as fast. It blocked with its own flesh and blood, letting the blade carve into its forearm.

Galk saw this as an opening to attack. The Claymore saw Galk making his move."Stay back! There's nothing you can do!"

Galk wouldn't have believed that. He had to witness it himself, the futility of man against monster. And even then; one sweep of the yoma's arm shattered the knight's bastard sword and still, Galk couldn't quite grasp it had happened. He stood looking at the jagged blade, the hilt still tightly gripped in both gauntlets, even as the yoma spread its fingers and shot them forward like pikemen would thrust a spear.

Although these humans were nothing but trouble, who were deaf to the Claymore's urgent commands, still she sought to protect them. Galk would have had four gaping holes in his head to go with that scar by his eye, if the Claymore hadn't dropped on top of the yoma's arm with her entire body. Her knees pinned its limb to the floor, her dirk sliding into the muscle to extend that effort, forcing its lethal digits to go astray of its mark.

"Run!" She managed to shout, "Get out of the way!"

It was good advice. But too late for the Claymore to follow suit; she seemed to have forgotten how equally deadly the yoma's other hand was, and she had allowed that hand full mobility. A mistake. It wasn't the first time Clare experienced pain, then. Egon forest wasn't a distant memory. But this...

The yoma's lancet-like fingers pushed through her chest and exited out her back, puncturing her lungs and threatening to clip her heart free of its bindings, like a plucked apple. She had saved the human. It was only her blood she saw, her own blood she smelled and tasted. But there was no condolence in that. As her body was lifted into the air by the bare-bone strength of the Voracious Eater's claw, she could find none. She had failed her mission. Clare really would die this time.

"What..." Galk and Sid witnessed it all. They saw the shock on her face, mirroring their own. The monster flexed its fingers, which became pliable, and allowed the Claymore's body to slide free. She landed on her back, unconscious if not dead, the horrible punctures in her chest soaking her dark clothing. There couldn't have been much left in her veins.

The throb of yoki emanating from the yoma was almost tangible, perceptible even to the humans. Galk and Sid stood useless in the face of it, their ability to turn and run arrested by the yoma's fixated stare. Certainly, they would live only as long as the creature chose to toy with them. It would crack open armor like a tin can and suck the insides out like it was a delightful game...

"Hurry!" Voices shouted from unseen corridors, "Did you round up every available soldier?"

"Yes sir!"

Guards began crowding the archway of the nave, spilling inside as their numbers welled. Sid recognized some of those voices. It was their reinforcements!

When the knights caught sight of the Voracious Eater, their voices fractured into shouts of alarm. In no condition to take on a host of soldiers, the injured yoma regrettably leaped into the shadows hanging between the columns and escaped.

"Galk!" Their comrades clanked their way into the great hall. "Sid? Are you okay?"

Sid's brows were knotted in consternation, his teeth clenched and bared as he entertained how infuriating the yoma's escape was, now that they finally had enough power to take it on. Where on earth it was hiding inside the cathedral, they still didn't know. Sid looked over as Galk walked away from him. Galk and went to stand over the Claymore's body.

"Is she dead?" Sid moved to stand behind Galk, as the knight bent to one knee. Sid had just assumed she was. No one could survive those wounds. Not that he cared all that much. Sid sounded as unconcerned as he felt. The yoma had always been the guardmen's responsibility. They never asked for a Claymore's involvement.

Galk bent down and put his ear to the woman's chest. He listened intently. "No," He finally answered, "Her heart's still beating." He scooped his arms beneath her body and stood.

"Galk! What are you doing? Why don't you just forget about her?" Sid exclaimed, "She's part monster!" That was the scandal. That was what made everything about this different.

"She saved my life. I owe her. Even if she is part monster."

Sid shut up.

In the morning, Raki sat up in bed and saw that the bedroom was empty. He'd thought he'd heard something. It had awoken him. "Clare? Is that you?" The chair by the window was vacant. She hadn't returned.

Raki ran down the stairs, his feet beating creaks out of the wooden boards. His hair was still mussed from the pillow even when he'd made it to the table the inn-master sat behind. "Hey mister, is my sister back yet?" The man looked surprised to see Raki – but then, the inn-keeper always looked surprised with that white tuft of hair standing straight up on his head.

"Eh? Your sister?"

"She's not here!" Raki exclaimed, panic rising.

"But you came in together last night." He'd told the foreign travelers about the city curfew. "How could...?"

Raki recalled that warning. Only he knew that Clare had gone out into the city streets after dark despite the city law. Was he about to blow Clare's cover? "Eh... uh..." As Raki fumbled, he didn't hear the inn's front door open behind him.

When a hand curled its fingers into Raki's hair, his dilemma with the inn-keeper dropped to the bottom of his list of things to worry about.

"You, boy," Sid said in a chilly voice, "Come with me."

Raki twisted against the grip on his hair to get a look at the guy talking, even though he knew just who he'd find looking down at him.

"Let me go!" Raki defiantly thrashed his arm, freeing himself from the weasel. "Come to finish what you started last night, huh? I won't let you lay a finger on my sister! Got that, pumpkin head?!"

Sid was all too willing to shut the impertinent brat up the quickest, most efficient way he knew. Raki's head snapped to the side under the abrupt force of Sid's fist, as the slender guardsman landed a punch on Raki's cheek. Raki crashed to the ground, the room tilting away from him.

"Hey! Stop that!" The concerned inn-keeper stood up from his chair. But the insignia on etched into Sid's leather vestment, proclaimed his status as a Rabona soldier and so the old man did not further interfere.

"Ugh," Raki sat up, grimacing past his dizziness at Sid, "What was that for?"

"Get your things." Sid ignored the question, "I'll take you to your sister."
Raki quickly got to his feet. "How do you know where she is?" He blurted.

"Shut up and follow me." An icy glare accompanied the coolness that had slid back into Sid's voice. "You want to hear her dying words, don't you?"

Raki was taken to the cathedral. He followed Sid not because he wanted to, but because he had no choice. If he was the only person who knew where Clare was, then he'd bow his head and go anywhere he had to to meet her. He watched his own feet while moving through the connecting corridors, up winding stairs, through rooms that were cold and unfeeling with their tapestries and statuettes looking flat and colorless. Humans sacrificed so much for the promise of security; but how well has that worked out, when a Voracious Eater has proven Rabona's walls and swords are only delusions?

How could Raki ever accept it, if Clare has thrown her life away for these selfish people? Raki tried to keep his dark thoughts at bay. No way could Clare die, she was just too strong. Until he saw for himself, he would never believe it. And so Sid had an obedient boy following on his heels. The marksman finally stopped in front of a door and opened it.

There she was. Lying so still atop the unruffled sheet of a priest's hard, plain bed. Clare could have been a painting of the goddess herself. Daylight caressed her, tendrils of sunlight glowing through the rosy window, dusting her cheeks a mocking shade of pink - a color reserved for the living, not a corpse. She was so pale, like a statue carved from opal.

"C... Clare..."

Raki ran to be by her side. She didn't move, she didn't seem to sense his presence. That scared him. "Clare! Wake up! Say something!"

Not a twitch of her lashes betrayed that she'd heard him, was simply pretending, that she wasn't already out of his reach.

"Father, what happened?" Too shocked and angry for tears, Raki turned on Father Vincent. "Is she all right?" He demanded, "Well?"

"I tried to help, but given her physiology I didn't know what to do. All I could do was bandage her wounds." Guilt caused the priest to avert his eyes.

"But..." Raki's mind spun. Without better treatment, Clare really was going to die! "Then Clare -"

"-will die." Sid read his mind, with a certain relish that was nigh sadistic. Even Father Vincent heard it in his tone and turned to look at Sid. The marksman had his arms folded and stood beside the taller, more powerful Galk. "Like I say, she's dying. Treating her won't do more than comfort her." The corner of his mouth curled, "It's just monsters and half-breeds killing each other. Nothing to get worked up about."

Raki turned and slammed his fist across Sid's jaw. The kid had lashed out so fast, even Galk raised his eyebrows in surprise. Raki was easily half the size of Sid, and Sid rarely dwarfed anyone.

"Damn..." Sid stayed on his feet. He cradled his jaw with one hand. For an insolent pipsqueak like this to actually hit him, it was an insult to pride. "Y-You..."

"Shut your mouth! What do youknow about Clare?!" The tingle and burn in Raki's fist hadn't satisfy him. He was fired up, ready for more. He'd take on all the injustices Clare had to face from ungrateful humans!

"She's prepared to die fighting!" He shouted, "She's risking her life to protect us humans!"

"You little-!" The preachy little shit! Sid shut him up with a retaliating blow across Raki's own jaw. The kid would have matching bruises and a swollen face after Sid decided he was done with him!

But Raki fought back. His fist connected, but however hurt and mad he was, his punches lacked the potency to defeat the weasel. Though Sid did back off, a concerned hand gingerly addressing his handsome face.

"Clare took me in when a yoma killed my family. My village threw me out. When I had no one left, she said I could come with her! Do you have any idea how happy that made me?! Clare is kinder and more gentle than any regular person!" Tears swelled and ran hot but did not weaken the judgment blazing in Raki's eyes, and perhaps that's what egged Sid.

One last, powerful punch threw Raki across the floor and his formerly bold words garbled into groans of pain.

"Tch." The corner of Sid's mouth was dabbed in blood and his cheek already showed signs of swelling. Sid glared down at the kid. "This is pathetic. I'm going back to my post." He walked as if he lived above the barbarism of disputing with fists, as if he'd been in perfect control all the time, and let himself out of the priest's chamber with a far more telling slam of the door behind him.

Galk had never said a word the whole debacle. It wasn't unusual for Sid to work himself up like that. Father Vincent remained stationary for less certain reasons. But now that the violence had come to an end, the Father went to Raki's side. The boy had managed to prop himself up against the wall, his legs slumped across the floor in defeat.

"Are you all right, my boy?"

Raki tried hard not to sob, grinding his teeth together and squeezing his eyes instead, but still he cried. For his loss, or perhaps for Clare? Galk wouldn't let him mourn already.

"Stop crying." The knight commanded. "It's not over yet."

Raki looked up.

"I owe her my life too." Galk's admission created a pause. "I can't let her die before I've paid my debt. A faithful heart draws strength. However faintly it may beat, there's still hope." He turned a stern eye sharply down at Raki. "So have faith! It's the only way to help her!"

Raki somberly nodded, his cheeks still wet, his nose still dripping red.

Night crept over Rabona. By then, only Raki remained at Clare's beside. He remained kneeling on the floor, his elbows sunk into the edge of the bed with his hands entwined tightly together, eyed closed in ardent prayer.

Father Vincent found the boy this way each time he entered the tower room to appraise the condition of the Claymore. He had noticed the scrapes on the boy's hands. Raki hadn't bothered bandaging his own injuries, inflicted by Sid. He chose to pour himself into praying for Clare instead. Was it coincidence that it worked?

Clare finally opened her eyes. Somehow, Raki sensed it and opened his.

"Clare!" Eagerly he tried to pull himself up, though his legs were cold and hardened. "Clare, you're awake! Clare!" He looked into the Claymore's flat silver eyes and cried with relief.

"Raki..."

Legs buckled and Raki willingly collapsed at the bedside, burying his face. "Clare! Thank the Lord! Clare... Clare...!"

Was this real? Could Raki really be... so... happythat she was alive? She stared and listened to his grateful sobs. She had never met a human that could truly care about a Claymore, as Raki seemed to. They were truly rare...

"Oh, you're awake!" Father Vincent entered, summoned by Raki's cries. "Thank the Lord!"

"I'm sorry Father," Clare looked up at the priest as he approached the bed. "I've been an inconvenience."

"No, how could you say that? It's great that you're conscious now."

Her pale blond hair shifted against the pillow as she turned her head. She spoke over the small sniffles that escaped from the blanket and Raki's face pressed there. "During the days that I was unconscious, what happened? Can you please tell me the situation?"

"Of course; you have been out for two days. When Galk and Sid were carrying you back, I spotted them and had them put you here in my room. Since then, Raki was constantly by your side and has been praying diligently for you to wake up." Father Vincent smiled.

Clare considered this for a long moment. Then, her hand appeared and she gently touched Raki's hair.

"Forgive me, Father. I have a favor to ask..."

scene V

THE OVERWHELMING ABSOLUTE DARKNESS

part III

end