I do not own Claymore.
Chapter 7
A persistent rapping sound at the door, woke the warriors just before dawn, Teresa opened the door to find one of the town's watchmen standing there with a note in his hand.
"What is it? Is something wrong?" asked Teresa, the watchman smiled and said, "The holy city has replied to our message, they are sending an armed escort for the prisoners. So you're free to go at your own pace."
After some hurried "goodbyes and good lucks" Sheila and Teresa were soon miles away from Torilo, their legs were a blur and the dust shot back from their booted feet, Teresa grinned at Sheila and increased her speed. Sheila laughed and pulled ahead of her trainer, her long legs eating up the miles. Teresa tore past her with a taunting "Hah!" and once again, Sheila caught up to her and grinned as she passed by.
This went on until they were approaching the great stone bridge that crossed the river Toulouse. Clustered at the bridge there was an orderly chaos of wagons and carts all waiting their turn across. It was the great market festival and people were coming from all over the land, to buy, sell and trade. To see and be seen at the great market festival in Rabona was important to traveling merchants. Slowing down to an easy walk, the two shook the dust off of themselves and pulled their hoods over their flaxen locks after rehanging their huge swords lower on their backs to hide them from watchful eyes. The bows and arrows were left in their cases as archery was little known in the inner lands.
As they passed some bushes growing out of a clump of rocks, there was a blur of motion and a huge sword was pressing against their throats while a voice hissed,
"Don't even think about it!"
There was three of them, warriors in black, their faces hidden by hooded cloaks.
Without hesitation, Sheila punched the warrior to her left and reached for her sword, there was a sudden clashing of blades and the sounds of falling bodies as Teresa simply flattened the remaining mystery warriors. With her trademark faint smile firmly in place, Teresa stood over the warrior who had spoken, the spiky haired woman was much like herself, a powerful, experienced warrior.
After a moment or two, she opened her silvery gray eyes and looked up at Teresa without fear, she had accepted her fate.
She squinted at Teresa and asked,
"Just who are you? I didn't know the organization had such a powerful warrior as you."
Teresa smiled at her fallen adversary and replied,
"I'd like to ask you the same thing, you're very good at hiding your youki, I almost missed your presence."
Teresa squinted at the warrior for a few moments and said,
"Your youki is very complex, almost that of an awakened being yet not the same."
The recumbent warrior shrugged and replied,
"My name is Miria, I was formerly a number six, they called me the phantom. My youki, like my story is very complicated indeed."
The other two had recovered their senses and were watching the exchange between their captain and the two strange warriors.
Miria politely asked Teresa, "May I ask you who you are?"
Teresa smiled and said,
"Sorry, I forgot my manners for a minute there. My name is Teresa and I was formerly a number one, my friend here is Sheila and she is a former number forty seven."
With one voice, the three warriors cried out,
"What!? You can't be Teresa of the faint smile, she's dead!"
Teresa glanced over at Sheila and remarked,
"I get this reaction all of the time!"
She smiled at the gape mouthed warriors and said,
"The organization found a way to revive me somehow, apparently awakened being flesh was used. They had intended for me to do their dirty work out of gratitude. I felt differently about that and we left in a big hurry."
The warriors got to their feet, dusted themselves off and put away their blades. One of the warriors reached into a pouch pulled out a red apple and took a bite out of it, she grinned at Teresa and Sheila and said,
"Name's Helen, former number twenty two and this here is Deneve, a former number fifteen and I think Clare is going to lose her mind when she sees you Teresa!"
Teresa grinned and replied,
"And I'm going to be torn between hugging her and putting her across my knees for being so stupid as to join the organization!"
The warriors chuckled for a few moments then Miria looked at Teresa for a few moments and asked,
"How is it you knew to come here looking for Clare?"
Teresa smiled and said,
"Rubel alluded to me one night that you seven ghosts just might be hiding out in Rabona. This was when he asked me to escape and kill Dae on my way out. Sheila beat me to it though and we both took off in a heavy rain. We've been on our own over a year and a half now."
Deneve looked closely at Sheila and asked her,
"Just what exactly, did you do to Dae?"
Sheila answered simply, "I punished him for all of the girls he had ever touched and then I beheaded him."
"Punished? How?" asked Miria with a raised eyebrow, Teresa chuckled and declared,
"She crushed his jewels! She squeezed them so hard I heard her knuckles cracking, then he screamed like a little bitch while his eyes popped out of his head. The front of his robe was all bloody when she blooded her new sword on his neck. I had already knocked out most of the folks at the organization, so it was a while before we had any sort of pursuit."
Helen grinned at Sheila and declared,
"I like you already! C'mon, I'll buy you a drink when we get back to Rabona!"
Teresa laughed and said,
"Hold your horses there! Sheila's only just about sixteen, don't let her size fool you."
Helen frowned and said glumly,
"Is fruit juice okay?"
Sheila grinned and replied,
"Fruit juice would be great!"
After rehanging their swords and adjusting their cloaks, the five warriors crossed the great stone bridge and slipped into Rabona amidst the crush of humanity.
Neither Teresa or Sheila had ever experienced an actual city and the crowding was a bit daunting at first. So they followed the other three and slipped through the burgeoning market place, pausing only briefly while Helen and Deneve made several purchases from food sellers and stuffed them into their net bags.
Miria remarked,
"This town really gets crowded during the great market season, in a couple of more days it will be very difficult to get out to buy food. So we're stocking up now while we can."
"I guess it's a good thing we don't eat that much, this crowd is nuts!" commented Teresa.
Helen chuckled and remarked,
" We do most of our patrolling and hand to hand training at night, up on the roof tops. Sword training is done outside of town, clashing blades make noise and attract attention."
Deneve smiled slightly at Teresa and said,
"We have an agreement with the temple, we don't bring attention to ourselves and they don't ask us to leave. The guards know we're here and we've trained with them to where some of them are pretty good with a sword, not up to fighting a yoma good, but good enough to hold one off until one of us can finish the job."
Teresa smiled and remarked,
"Sheila and I have brought something with us that could help even things up in terms of fighting yoma or awakened beings, not so much for us warriors because we still have get in close and wield our swords. It would however, give ordinary humans a real leg up in a fight with a monster."
Miria opened a side door in back of the massive temple and soon, they were climbing a steep spiral staircase built inside one of the thick, stone piers of the temple.
Wordlessly, the five warriors climbed, the only sounds being their breathing, the treading of booted feet and the occasional muted clank of a heavy sword in its holder. At the top of the stairs was another heavily built door, Miria opened this and the five emerged into sunlight once more. Teresa and Sheila gaped in amazement at the view that greeted their eyes, they gazed out over the rooftops of Rabona, the walls they had climbed via the stairs were higher than nearly all of the other buildings in the the Holy City of Rabona. The great bell towers reared above their heads another one hundred feet or so, Miria led them towards a door in the juncture of the bell towers and the great temple. In this portion of the building was the former monk's quarters for the temple, now the seven ghosts of Pieta lived there, hidden from the eyes and reach of the organization.
What greeted them was the sight and sound of a naked, flaxen haired, silver eyed young girl being chased by another nearly naked, young woman with brown hair and silver eyes. The girl was yelling,
"I hate baths! I hate water! I don' wanna take a bath!"
The brown haired woman yelled back,
"Miata! You stop this! Young girls take baths to be clean and smell good! You don't want to be smelly, do you?"
Miata yelled, "I don' care! I hate baths!" and she ducked behind Teresa. The brown haired woman stopped suddenly and declared,
"Fine! Don't take a bath, be smelly, I won't let you sleep with me then!"
The girl began crying and she pleaded, "No Mama! I want to sleep with you, mama!" she struggled with herself, her fists clenched and silver eyes streaming tears until finally, she caved in and allowed the brown haired woman to lead her away to her bath.
For a moment, nothing was said, then Teresa exclaimed,
"What the hell was that all about? Are those two warriors? And what's with the brown hair?"
Miria shrugged and said,
"They came to Rabona looking for Galatea, a former number three and got mixed up in a big fight between us and a real monster of an awakened being, Bloody Agatha. After we drove her off in greatly reduced form, they couldn't justify to themselves their orders to execute Galatea, not when she had sacrificed so much to save Rabona. So they stay here and try to cope with life in general."
Sheila asked quietly,
"What are their numbers?"
Miria said quietly,
"Miata, the young one, is a former number four and Clarice, the color head, is a former number forty seven. Miata is very powerful and can easily kill yomas with her bare hands, she is pretty unstable mentally and emotionally however. Clarice was assigned to be her nursemaid of all things. Clarice does keep Miata pretty stable and is able to keep her in line for the most part. I do worry that if Clarice ever got badly hurt or worse, killed in battle, it would cause Miata to lose whatever self control she has, and she could awaken."