AN* sorry for the delay but I have been feeling uninspired for this story so expect later updates. I will update whenever I can.
The Holy City
They travelled for aimlessly for several days until they Christopher finally asked the question.
"So where are we heading?" He asked as they sat around a fire one night.
"I don't know." Miria finally answered.
"Well going to the organization right away would be suicide. We should take this time to at least prepare ourselves for whatever is to come." Christopher noted.
"True." Deneve agreed. As they sat Clare finally spoke up.
"I would like to retrace the steps of my journey from the last time I saw Raki. It would be the most logical thing to do." Clare remarked.
"Well let's put it to a vote." Miria said.
"I say we do it." Helen remarked.
"Why not." Deneve remarked.
"Ok." Cynthia sighed.
"It's fine by me." Tabatha agreed.
"It's ok." Yuma nodded.
"Better than wandering around aimlessly." Christopher pointed out.
"Then it's settled. Lead on Clare." Miria replied. For the next two months they retraced the path that Clare had walked until they finally arrived at the one place that shunned their kind more than anywhere else, the holy city of Labona. As they arrived they saw an awakened being attacking the city.
"Looks like it is show time." Christopher grinned as all of them except Clare pulled up their hoods and leapt into the city with Clare destroying one of the eight legs that the creature was using to stand on.
"A town that I have links to will not be destroyed this easily." Clare said.
"Who are you?" the awakened being asked.
"You do not need to know. For you will die here." Clare replied.
"I'll die? Just when I'm still thinking about how you all appeared so suddenly you start with the silly jokes already…" the woman remarked.
"Those leg like things support your huge body. There's eight in all. I've already destroyed one so that leaves seven. A nice number, first of all I'll have you drop to the ground." Clare said as the rest of them leapt off the rooftops and each of them targeted a leg while dodging the tendrils that she shot at them. With a deafening boom the giant body that she was attached to fell to the ground. Once Miria rescued Galatea who was now blind and missing an arm they all removed the cloaks revealing who they really were to the town and the two claymores that were wounded and against a ruined area.
"Can we get to destroying the old hag yet?" Christopher asked as he swung the sword around a bit. Suddenly the red tendrils wrapped around the woman and she became huge with the flowing tendrils.
"That I'd actually fight in my original form. You're just small fries but pretty entertaining." She laughed.
"Are you shittin' me?! Her true form is this freaking huge?!" Helen shouted as she launched the tendrils from her arms at Helen forcing her to leap back "Deneve, Clare cover me! I'll hit her in the head with a tornado sword!"
"Wait! Don't be fooled! She's…" Galatea shouted.
"The real body is located within the abdomen but to prevent targeting it floats around constantly. This being her 'original form' is a lie. The awakened body is merely a façade that she envelops herself with. Her real body remains human in both size and shape. That body too is but a decoration imitating human form, her weak points are the human body's head itself and the hair that connects to the awakened body." Tabatha said.
"That's how it looks. Anything to add, God-eye Galatea?" Miria asked.
"Nothing in particular. She is absolutely correct… maybe one thing. The hair is the connection to the awakened body. So as you'd expect: if you want to take her down with one blow, aim for the real bodies heads itself." Galatea replied. Miria then started using her new mirage and cut the giant awakened being in half at the waist.
"Which part?" Miria asked.
"Upper half left chest." With that Cynthia and Yuma leapt up and tried to attack but the creature opened its mouth and sent dozens of tendrils out at the two, holding them back. Leaping into the air Deneve cut the upper body in half asking "Which part?"
"Right half, moving from the shoulder to the left arm." Tabatha reported. Helen then used a tornado sword to release the real body of the awakened being while Clare attacked from behind. However she dodged the slash and grabbed Galatea as a hostage.
"Don't move, or I'll rip her head off!" she yelled.
"You think taking a hostage will work against us?" Miria asked.
"It would not if I were against regular warriors, but judging from those outfits, that's now what it seems to be. You also mentioned how you wouldn't allow any more casualties. I was thinking that doing this might have a correlation to the amount of bullshit you spout." She said. Clare then took a step forward causing the awakened being to shout "STAY BACK! DON'T YOU CARE WHAT HAPPENS TO HER?!"
"Futile. There is simply nothing that you can do." Clare replied as Christopher took out two throwing knives.
"I see. You are the one from that time." Galatea remarked.
"It's been awhile. I'm glad we could meet again, Galatea." Clare replied.
"Warrior number 47 huh? Can you still use that move from before?"
"Of course. The power has dropped but the precision has gone up compared to before." Clare said as she sheathed her claymore and started walking forward.
"I TOLD YOU TO STOP RIGHT THERE! ARE YOU FUCKING DEAF OR SOMETHING?!" she shouted as Clare unleashed the Wind Cutter on her arm.
"I thought that the accuracy went up. You cut my hair." Galatea complained.
"I wasn't paying attention to the hair." Clare commented as Christopher got bored.
"Well as amusing as this was I'm going to end this." He yawned as he threw the two knives with all of his strength, completely destroying her head.
"That was unnecessary. I was about to kill her." Clare noted.
"You took too long." Christopher grinned as he walked over and picked up his knives "Good to see you again Galatea."
"Number 0 as well. So you both survived." Galatea laughed as Cynthia came over to help heal her wounds. Suddenly there was a splash as one of the warriors had gotten up and was facing them shaking like a leaf in a whirlwind with tears running down her face.
"What's wrong kid? You want to fight?" Helen asked.
"No. Her mission is to kill me." Galatea explained "I'm sorry about before. But since I've done what I have set up to do my life is yours." This got an unexpected result as she stabbed her claymore into the ground and started weeping.
"What is this… what is this… Why do you say that… Can't you be at least a little terrible… How can I kill you after hearing all that… Orders from the organization should be followed, the one I'm supposed to kill is right in front of me… tell me what I should do…" she wept.
"Then just don't return to the organization." Christopher said bluntly.
"Of course if you don't kill Galatea and return to the organization, that's disobeying the organizations orders, also known as treason, you'd be killed on the spot. If you said that you couldn't find Galatea or that she got away… The organization would never believe those words. Then there's one path left, and that's too not return to the organization." Miria explained.
"Bu…but if we did that…"
"Yes. At that moment, you'll become traitors and they'll come after you. If we stay here, the organization won't come after us. When all is said and done this is still the saint capitals, and it is widely known that they discriminate us Claymores." Miria continued.
"It is a temporary solution. If the organization wants to kill us they'll completely destroy this town." Galatea noted.
"I think so too. But even if it is just temporary, we have to stay." Miria remarked.
"What?" Galatea asked.
"We are here to topple the organization." Christopher grinned as he finished cleaning the knives and sheathed them on the strap.
"WHAT?!" the claymore shouted.
"Are you serious? And if you are then I've got to say that you're foolish and reckless. To defeat the enemies of the warriors of the north you'll fight the warriors from the current organization?" Galatea remarked.
"It's not like that. Our target is the organization we will not fight the warriors." Miria replied.
"That's one thing. To fight against the organization the current warriors will be sent out, a pointless battle between the current warriors and the original warriors will ensue. Original number 6 Phantom Miria surely wouldn't have overseen this point. And what are you going to do about the yoma? Even though we are hated and despised by humans the purpose of our existence is to hunt yoma. If there is no organization then the humans will be defenseless and will be wiped out by the yoma…" Galatea began as Christopher started laughing.
"What is so funny?" the claymore asked.
"You guys don't know do you? The only one who knows is Miria." Christopher laughed holding his sides as they looked at him like he was crazy.
"What is he talking about?" Galatea asked.
"You all forget. I'm from the original claymores; I was one of the first ones to be brought here from the mainland. This is an island hundreds of miles off shore from a massive land that is at war. This island is only a testing weapons facility so that they can create the perfect weapon to use against the dragon warriors on the mainland."
"How do you know this?" Clare asked.
"Like I said I am from the mainland. Me and the rest of the first male generation were brought over from the mainland, we all knew what would happen to us and we had all accepted the fact that we might not be able to remain in a human form. They then made us fight the yoma, their own creation, waiting for one of us to do something amazing that they could use in the war, their only major breakthrough is that woman work better than men for this project." He explained. Miria then gave a more detailed explanation and asked Galatea to look after the two defecting claymores. Christopher then walked over and looked at the two closely.
"It's ok. Nothing bad will happen now." He promised as the child looked at him.
"Papa." She said as she hugged him.
"What the…?" He muttered shocked that this little one was hugging him.
"She really likes you." The claymore with the colored hair remarked.
"She's only seen me for maybe ten minutes." He muttered as they walked off, Miria and Cynthia to the church to begin negotiations with the church, Galatea and the two claymores back to the children's church while the rest of them went with some of the soldiers to the bar to go drink. Christopher was sitting at the bar asking for the strongest drink that they had and was downing it by the bottle.
"I forgot how good this stuff is." He grinned as he felt the buzz coming on.
"When did you get the chance to drink?" Tabatha asked.
"Isley and I used to go out drinking all the time. Back then we were allowed to go to the nearby town and drink if we wanted to. Those were the good days, just sitting in a bar cracking jokes with Isley and Rigald." Christopher sighed as he remembered those days. Later that night Christopher walked out of the bar towards the cathedral to sleep. Lying back on his bed he slept almost instantly and woke to feel a form nestled up against him. Cracking open an eye he saw that it was the young claymore that had called him papa and she was curled against him in such a way that he couldn't move away.
"Clever kid." He muttered as he made small movements to move away but she moved back against him every time. After a few moments the door opened and the other claymore came in and picked her up, despite her whining protests.
"Sorry about that." She whispered.
"It's ok. Who are you anyway?"
"Clarice, and this is Miata." Clarice said.
"Christopher the former number 0." He said as he stood up and grabbed the straps of knives and his sword.
"I thought that there were only 47 claymores." Clarice remarked.
"Technically yes. However I have been able to resist awakening the longest so they kept me around as number 0 for special assignments, until I was sent to the northern war and faked my death along with my seven comrades." He replied as he walked off and headed to meet up with Miria while those two went to go take a bath. He arrived on the wall surrounding the city with the others where Miria gave the order for anyone that wanted to go take care of any regrets to go now.
"Well I don't plan on sitting around here on standby waiting for Clare to come back. So I might as well go back to my hometown. Your hometown is actually pretty close to there to Deneve." Helen remarked.
"I have no interest in visiting my hometown but I will go with you." Deneve replied.
"Anyone else?" Miria asked. When each said that they wouldn't be heading to their hometown Miria gave orders "Alright, Cynthia and Yuma, go with Clare. Christopher go with Helen and Deneve."
"What?!" Clare and Christopher said at the same time.
"Clare the rule of two applies to you as well, and with those two you wild tendencies will be cut down. Christopher, I want you with them since they are heading south. For the reason that we discussed." Miria explained.
"What reason is that?" Helen asked.
"The silver king." Christopher sighed. With those final orders they six went off three to the west and three to the east.