A/N: Just thought you'd all like to know that I consider yoma aura and yoma energy two different things; yoma energy is what the hanyoma use to fight, and yoma aura is what the use of that energy puts off, what the trackers use to hunt their "prey." They are referred to collectively as youki or yoma power.

Chapter 9: Half-Awakened

As the Number One joined her sister on the battlefield, Ryoushi knew that even those as strong as Alicia and Beth could not hope to stand against Priscilla for more than a few minutes, much less defeat and kill her, so he shouted, "Miria, let's grab Clare and get the fuck out of here! The moment Priscilla's done with Alicia and Beth, she's going to go after her or Riful!" All of the hanyoma present instantly looked horrified and began cleaning and sheathing their blades, the two Abyssal Ones and Dauf returning to their human forms as they, too, prepared to flee the western lands for Toulouse, and the smallest of the yoma whirled around to locate Clare within the chaos of the merged being's second firing. She was there, along with Helen and Deneve; the exhaustion in their youki clearly showed that they had been fighting the hell cats that had consumed Beth, and Alicia was–

The youki of the Number One was abruptly silenced, and Beth's screamed with the loss of her twin, with rage at the one who killed her, her auditory cries reaching their ears despite the distances separating them from her; Ryoushi barely had time to hiss, "Shit," before she was gone, too, her body shredded beyond repair. Priscilla was a monster, defeating both the Awakened Numbers One and Two without even too many injuries. They healed almost instantly, and she turned away for Riful, aiming for Clare's youki, which she would feel as Teresa's; Clare had taken Teresa into herself, and as such they had the same youki signature. That would not – would never – change.

"She's going after Clare!" he shouted, already on the move, thinking, 'Not again. Not like Teresa. Please, God, if you listen to creatures like me… don't let this end like that. And don't let her be stupid enough to attack Priscilla outright.' With all of the training that he had done in the north, his speed had drastically increased from what it had been before, even without his youki, and Miria was the only one who could truly keep pace with him; Isley was slowly falling slightly behind, Riful right alongside him, and the other hanyoma were dispersed in between them and Dauf, who was acting as the de facto Caboose of their little train. Ryoushi shredded a hell cat spike that was headed for him as Flora moved in between them and Luciela-Rafaela to cover their approach, using her windcutter on all of the parasitic spikes headed for their group and no more, trying to conserve her strength.

Priscilla was speaking but he could not focus on the flow of youki through her, not with so much going on around him, but whatever she said must have angered Clare, because she lunged forward without a thought, attempting to kill the much-stronger Awakened One. "Fool!" he shouted, putting on a burst of speed and reaching her location just in time to sweep her out of the way of the foot that Priscilla tried to bring down on her to pin her in place. His lips curled up off his teeth, making him seem more intimidating than the female Awakened One when he snarled at the now-sitting hanyoma, "You idiot! What are you doing? Teresa was the only one who treated me like a human; why in all the blazes would she want you to throw your life away trying to kill her if she did something like that?" He jabbed a vicious finger in Priscilla's direction, who opened her mouth to say something before Ryoushi rounded on her. "And you! Shut up before you say something stupid, if you haven't already!"

She looked mildly affronted but said nothing, so he turned back to Clare, anger slowly burning itself out. "Clare, you have people here who would fight by your side, no matter what. Even if you intend to die here, you're not going to face her alone. And you're not the only one who lost something that day, brat."

The hanyoma's eyes widened as she lost control over her youki, receding back to a normal state, a single tear sliding from her eye as she realized the truth of his words; he had trained Teresa, become her friend. He felt her loss just as keenly as she did; he was just better at hiding the pain. She then caught sight of the other recent arrivals, Dauf puffing along in the background to keep up with Riful, who was now standing between Isley and Miria. Flora and Kinatia were next to their leader, slightly closer to herself and Ryoushi than the others, but still behind him, and Helen and Deneve were somewhere behind her, watching the exchange. It was almost painful to realize that all of these people – with the possible exceptions of Riful and Isley – would miss her if she was gone, possibly more than she missed Teresa because they had had so much longer to get to know her, to grow to care about her.

"Who…"

Everyone turned to Priscilla, who seemed not to notice any of the gathering, save Clare.

"Who are you?" she asked, "I thought if I followed your scent, I would regain my memories, but since I have not…" She cocked her head. "There are not many choices available to me."

"Memory loss and regression to childhood," Isley said lowly, "It's a common symptom immediately after Awakening, but hers set in later. It appears to have lasted longer as well; nothing but an extreme jarring could change her state of mind now, but there's no telling if it would make her sane or not."

"Perhaps…" Priscilla continued as if she had not heard Isley; maybe she had not, "if I kill you with my own two hands, I'll remember something…?"

"Yeah, that would do it…"

Taking offense, Helen extended her arm to attack the monstrous Awakened One, aiming for her head, but Priscilla dodged and grasped her arm, intending to rip it off. Clare retaliated, not wanting any more friends to be hurt, and successfully sliced off her left arm before she was kicked back to earth, the force breaking up part of her shoulder and side. "What's this?" Priscilla said as she regenerated her arm, all of the other hanyoma and Awakened Ones coming to Clare's defense, Cynthia and Uma appearing from wherever they had been squirreled away, the former going to heal the injured party. "Why… are you working together with her…?"

All of those who still had them leveled their claymores at her, resigning themselves to a possible battle to the death with her. Alicia and Beth, Numbers One and Two, had been unable to defeat her, and even all of the organization's warriors combined would not be able to take her head. Possibly Miata, yes, but only if she Awakened and Priscilla held her human form in the battle; Isley, Dauf, and Riful had no intention of doing the same and instantly reverted to their Awakened forms, though Ryoushi did not.

"What's this?" Priscilla seemed not to realize that they had Awakened before, because she continued, "Once you cross your limits, you can't turn back." Clare lunged forward, pushing herself right up to her limit, just this side of Awakening, but Priscilla threw her aside with ease, where Miria flashed over to catch her and prevent further injury. "Boring. You are very boring."

Riful used the female's momentary distraction to plunge all of the blades at her that she dared, but they did practically nothing despite the fact that they pierced every part of her body save her head. Priscilla broke them with ease, and as she turned her attention to the three Awakened Ones, Ryoushi growled, "I apologize, but all who were ranked higher than Number Ten must retreat to a safe distance until we've worn her down."

"What? But we can fight! Miria said – "

"I know what Miria said, Helen, but she said you could defeat the organization's warriors. Priscilla… is in a class all her own, far above everyone else. Please… take Clare and run to the base of the fused being, but take care not to get too close. It cannot fire within a certain radius of itself, and you will be safe there. Just don't attack it." He pointed his blade in the direction of the massive being in the center of a virtually untouched spot of land. "You will be close enough to prevent Clare from deceiving you with the state of the battle but far enough away to prevent Priscilla from getting to you, too." He turned to look at them over his shoulder. "And I only said retreat until she's weaker. That doesn't mean retreat until we've killed her."

Helen reached back and grabbed one of the immense spikes that Luciela-Rafaela had fired and hurled it at Riful, calling the Awakened One's name as she did so. Riful saw and understood, cutting the thing so that when it fired its mini-projectiles, they were aimed squarely at Priscilla, providing cover for Deneve, who snatched up Clare and began to sprint away, Kinatia following close behind. The monstrous being extended her arm after the twin-sword user, but Helen launched another one. Deneve split it in two length-wise, and at the speed it was going, it fired scores of the tinier spikes just as the halves passed on either side of Teresa's murderer. The projectiles shattered out of her body, narrowly missing the Awakened Ones and Numbers Six and Eight, clattering to the ground as all but the monster began to pray to the goddess of fortune for help, just as Deneve had said they should.

Ryoushi could sense hell cats headed in the direction of the fleeing hanyoma but knew they could handle it. The real problem was in front of him.

Uma was the first to encounter the hell cats, having been separated from the others as she had, and managed to dodge the first few strikes from one of them, hacking off its arm. However, that meant that it fired some of the smaller projectiles at her, only one of which actually reached its target: her right arm's elbow joint. It immediately began to attack her body, taking it over, but she slammed one end with the handle of her claymore, sending it out the other side but rendering her right arm – her sword arm – useless. It was then, as she was about to meet her end, that Dietrich arrived, bearing a piece of cloth. "I will return the favor that I owe Helen and Deneve twofold," she said, calmly explaining her origins and demotion, as well as the reason for the cloth. "I brought them with me, since they seemed to have lost track of their target, save for this." She tossed it into the center of the group of hell cats just as more Abyssal Feeders emerged from the trees, following the scent that the cloth carried: no doubt that of Riful of the West.

The Abyss Feeders leapt onto the bodies of the hell cats, tearing with their bare hands at the enemies' flesh, and the projectiles launched at them did nothing but remove the limiter that forced them to eat only their prey, permitting them to start munching away at the hell cats themselves, and Cynthia arrived to start helping Uma heal as Dietrich began "battle shaping."

Meanwhile, Deneve and Helen had arrived at the forest's edge, carrying Clare, just as Dauf attacked Priscilla for injuring Riful, having been pierced accidentally by one of the projectiles that the Abyssal Ones' battle with her send spinning up into the air and crashing down. "Dauf!" the Abyssal Female called, intending on reaching out to stop or help him, but Ryoushi leapt up to grab her "arm."

"Riful. I'm sorry, but he's beyond saving." He held her arm as she – as all of them could do nothing but watch as the now-mindless former Number Three tried to beat Priscilla into the crumbling earth; he was stronger now, but not strong enough. Ryoushi felt the flare of Priscilla's youki as she reverted to her Awakened form and shredded Dauf's right arm to ribbons, leaving nothing but a stump.

"You… are in the way…" the Awakened monster said, "and all those who get in my way should just disappear."

Dauf roared and punched her with his remaining arm, slamming her through a cliff, but she extended her fingers and shattered the arm and shoulder, saying that she shouldn't spend time fighting such weaklings. What was left of the Number Three apparently resented that comment, because he snarled in fury – real or imagined – and began pulling the poles into his body, using their mass to form new "hell cat arms," which Priscilla promptly declared disgusting. He struck out at her with them just the same, going for something like a punch, and she lifted a hand to stop the blow, realizing too late that the hell cat's mouth had opened to launch numerous medium-sized "parasite poles" at her. The poles pierced her body, but even the least sensitive of the watchers could tell that it did little damage to Priscilla's overall strength. With the other "arm," Dauf tried to punch her, but she dodged by leaping into the air, enabling him to launch more of the parasite poles at her. They penetrated her body and just as before had no effect, but he fired one of his own "posts" from his mouth. Priscilla stopped it with ease and hurled it back at him, but he had already moved to attack again.

"Wow," Isley said to Riful, "You got quite the catch. He's lasted longer against her than Rigaldo did."

Ryoushi snapped his head around to look at Isley. "Were you and Rigaldo sleeping together?"

"Uh, no. Why?"

"Okay, good. I used that kind of thing as insults against him in Pieta."

"He always did take offense to those kinds of things. Not to speak ill of the dead or anything."

Dauf's punch obliterated almost half of her body in one strike, showing the incredible power the "Infection" added to his form by the hell cat chomping away at her. She was already regenerating, however, and looked at her already almost healed right arm, watching as her wrist began to rebuild. She called a time out, but Dauf ignored her, unhearing, attacking again and again – and Priscilla remembered. 'Ah, yes… that which I had forgotten. Amidst the pain and ecstasy, a head and torso, separated… but no matter what I do, I cannot remember the face of the person. It is as if the void where the face was has been sucking away all of my memories, the more I try to remember it -!'

In an instant, Dauf's hell cat arms were torn from his body and landed, shredded and bleeding, so score of meters behind him, and Riful cried out in concern, all of those present leaning forward to see the resolution of the conflict, to see what would happen, and Priscilla spoke, "What an awful thing… To flood me with all of the other memories to erase the thing that I want to remember most… I guess that means it was a despicable thing. However…" she abruptly appeared behind Dauf, his body shredded beyond repair by her unraveled wings, "I suppose I can kill all of you before I go after her one more time."

"What does she mean, 'one more time?'"

"Teresa. Because Clare and Teresa share the same youki signature, she thinks Teresa is still alive. And she's going to try and kill us first."

"Wait, what? How do they share the same youki-?"

"A story for another time; if we live, I'll tell it to you, now MOVE!" He shoved both Riful and Isley out of the way and jumped to avoid Priscilla's attack, having unraveled her arms to strike at the Awakened Ones, but she simply split the "tentacles" into three parts, sending the parts after separate Awakened Ones. Isley blocked with his shield and quickly galloped out of the way, Riful dodged in such a way that it sent the tips deep into the ground, and Ryoushi used a windcutter to protect himself in the air. Miria helped accelerate his return to earth, and Flora moved to their sides, her own blade sheathed in preparation for the same attack.

"What's this? Warriors working with yoma? That's…" Her youki level began to increase. "… against the rules!"

Ryoushi lunged forward to block the attack aimed for the three of them, Isley and Riful doing the same, but it was the smallest of the lot who noticed it first. "Everyone… I've been thinking back on Priscilla's history, and only once did she ever fight more than one person at once, though certainly not as many as we have here. We might be able to use that against her, but take care not to get too close." Cynthia and Kinatia had come back and were hanging around in the background, so he added, "And if you're injured, only go back to them one at a time; it would be too much of a liability to those still fighting if there were too many getting healed at once."

"Right." And then they all charged in, using their own weapons and forms of attack, Riful shredding with her blades, Isley morphing his right hand into a reasonable facsimile of his old blade to use, Ryoushi and Flora using windcutters like crazy to shatter anything sent their way, and Miria striking and retreating repeatedly with her Phantom skill, which was enough to confuse Priscilla, what with all of them coming from everywhere at once. Their chosen method of attack enabled them to damage her body severely, but no matter what they did, they never felt as if they were even coming remotely close to beating her. Miria and Flora were both slowly pushing at the limits of their youki, using everything to their advantage, as were the Abyssal Ones, but to no avail. Their wearing-down of her strength only forced her to use drastic measures that much faster, unraveling her wings and hands to strike with her full power against them. Riful's "body" support was gone in an instant, as was half of Isley's body (again), a hefty chunk of Miria's right leg, and most of Flora's right arm; only Ryoushi was able to continue fighting, having evaded the attack entirely because of his ability with youki sensing. Though Priscilla had an absolutely ridiculous amount of youki, he was much more sensitive than Teresa and thus able to detect the flow, regardless of how much there was.

"Go! Get healed quickly! I'll hold her off as long as possible!" he snarled, chopping the monster's next attack to nothing, focusing on conserving his energy for the long fight ahead; even with the both of them working at top speed, it would take Kinatia and Cynthia a while to assist all of them without their youki, and he heard Miria tell them to forget the suppression, it would do them no good if they were dead.

He blurred to his left, dodging another tentacled strike, and hacked off the ends of the fingers, forcing her to use up more youki to regenerate the lost parts; 'no matter how bottomless her strength seems, there's a limit to everything, even her,' he thought, managing to get close enough to brutally kick her in the face just as Miria rejoined the battle, 'the only question is: are we enough to find the bottom of her reserves? Once those run out, she's sucking her own life force, and that most definitely has a limit even smaller than that of her monstrous youki.' He performed an elegant back handspring, regenerating the two fingers that she cut off like the defensive type he was before charging back in to assist Flora in cutting apart everything sent their way. They were doing a fine job of it so far, and when Isley and Riful finally rejoined the battle after about a five to fifteen minute break, their ratio of hits-to-misses increased greatly, but that, as before, made Priscilla throw a momentary burst of everything she had against them.

As before, everyone but Ryoushi was injured even slightly, but this time Miria was able to heal herself and keep on fighting, focusing on being as unpredictable as possible. The Awakened One still had not released his youki, and the pressure, the urge was building inside of him, his inner beast screaming to be set free, to let it take down the monster before him; and what was worse was that Ryoushi actually thought that he might be able to do it. Even when he Awakened in front of Rubel, Galatea, and Kinatia, he had forced a limit on the amount of youki he could release, and the reason for his regression back to human form was because he reached that self-imposed limit. Ninety-six years ago, when he Awakened in the Northern Land of Alphons, he had been trying so hard to turn back that there was a possibility he had more strength yet untapped.

An attack aiming for his head suddenly direction, and he mentally thanked Kinatia for her intercession before he leapt into the hair, hacking off Priscilla's entire arm and shredding the wing-blades that whizzed in his direction, tearing off the remains of his cloak as he did so; it was meant to hide his appearance but was only hampering him now, getting tangled in his legs when he tried to move at almost-invisible speeds. Though there were fewer serious injuries that round, it took longer to heal due to the synchronizers' beginning weariness, and Ryoushi flicked away Kinatia's attempt to augment his still-suppressed youki with her own, thanking her for the offer but declining just the same; the others needed it more. The heal-fight-dodge/fall back-and-repeat continued for two more rounds before Cynthia and Kinatia were forced to begin oh-so-carefully drawing on Prisccila's seemingly-bottomless yoma energy to heal their comrades, but it was almost painfully slow going with the hanyoma; unless taken a pinprick at a time the Awakened youki risked sending their comrades over the edge, but for Isley and Riful it was almost no problem, just small signature conversion.

One the round after those, however, the regeneration became perilously slow, and Priscilla seemed to realize that if she defeated him then, their resistance would collapse, thus enabling her to pursue "Teresa." She redoubled her efforts against him, almost tripling the speed of her attacks, and Ryoushi's dodges and blocks became narrower and narrower as he began to struggle to keep up, still in human form. He was determined to only use his Awakened form as a last resort, but it was swiftly coming to that point; even he could not match Priscilla in his human form, only hold her off for a limited period of time.

The impossible happened then: he tripped backwards over the chunks of Dauf's hell cat arms, and Priscilla took the opening, lunging forward and bringing her hand back to plunge through his head –

'No! I don't want to die!'

"Ryoushi!"

-Her nails were almost touching his forehead –

'I DON'T WANT TO DIE!'

His yoma aura exploded outward around him, utterly unrestrained, sending everything flying back away from him, and Kinatia instantly noticed the quality difference between now and the time outside of Intore. The "texture" of his yoma aura – and quantity of yoma energy, tightly coiled within his body – was clearly not the same as it was before; it was so much stronger, there was so much more of it, like a hidden limit had been torn away as a dam by and immense flash-flood.

However, it was Miria who realized what had happened. "My God… before now, he was only half-Awakened…?"

The two Abyssal Ones and three other hanyoma turned their heads to look at her in an utter lack of comprehension. "…what?"

"If you think of Awakening as a cliff, all hanyoma are still standing on it, most a safe distance away from the edge. Half-Awakened hanyoma are much closer, standing possibly right on the edge. Half-Awakened Awakened Ones are over the edge entirely but are still hanging on to the cliff, and completely Awakened Ones are in free fall. When he first Awakened, he was trying to turn back, preventing himself from going completely over the edge as you two have. But now… he's effectively let go."

Even when he Awakened in front of Rubel, Ryoushi had been holding back rather severely. During his initial Awakening – one of only two times that he was pushed over the edge before Pieta – he was unable to stop the flow, but he was able to arrest it, limit how much he went over: just barely enough to Awaken his body, making him substantially weaker that the two Abyssal Ones. But, with eighty-nine years of training, improving, bettering, and seven extremely intensive years of the same, he had grown much stronger, strong enough to rival his Abyssal kin in his half-Awakened state. With an equal number of years suppressing his aura and energy –oddly enough, two completely different things – the "two" sources of yoma power had built and built within him, making his core change, and as the yoma power grew so did his "beast," forcing his mind to become even stronger to continue to hold it in check.

Now, with this Awakening, there were no limits, no repressions, no restrictions. The energy rampaged through his body even as his aura broke up the ground around him with its force, the Awakened One himself slowly climbing to his feet, claymore still in hand. His Awakened form lost all semblance of wolfishness; he was almost a pure dragon-being now. The only ways he did not resemble something like a Western dragon were that he carried his claymore, stood on two legs, and had heavily armored plates all over his body, forming a reasonable facsimile of a knight's armor. His neck had lengthened and thickened, face forming a true dragon's maw, and a row of spines ran from the crown of his head down his spine to the tip of his tail, where two blades made the end look like a trident. His wings were webbed properly now, and incredibly shark talons tipped his fingers and toes. His legs were entirely draconic, having grown another joint o each and gained length on the toes to maintain his center of balance. There were sharp blades running up his legs to his knees, starting out small but turning into two-inch-long curved blades on his knee caps, and there were similar arrangements on the outsides of his forearms and the outermost support spines on his wings. He had no horns with which to protect his head, but his hair had grown and taken on metallic qualities.

His brilliant golden eyes slowly slid open, slitted pupils contracting at the sudden increase in light, as everyone present stopped to watch and feel the birth of a creature whose strength rivaled that of Teresa's murderer.