Chapter 10: Duel to the Death

Any doubts about Ryoushi's intentions were laid to rest almost immediately, as the first thing he did was attack Priscilla. It rapidly became apparent that he outstripped everyone, even Priscilla herself.

"Eh?"

She did not even seem to realize that he'd severed her in two at the waist, but she swiftly reattached her lower half before attempting to dodge out of his way and out of his range. He pursued her with single-minded intensity, however, and the force of their auras colliding in battle was enough to wake Clare from her unwilling slumber where Helen was carrying her a handful of miles away. She vigorously shook herself, trying to clear her head of the grogginess, and the rubber-armed hanyoma set her down on a nearby rock, saying, "Jeez, Clare, I was wonderin' if you'd ever wake up."

The claymore pushed aside her throbbing headache and managed, "What's happening? These youki…"

"Ryuu-chan has Awakened and is fighting that one-horned 'Priscilla' woman," Helen replied, "Damn, they're strong." Even at that distance, they could clearly feel the immense collisions of youki, Ryoushi aiming for Priscilla's head and gut, but it was Clare who realized what he was doing. Despite the fact that she had a seemingly-limitless amount of youki, it took a lot more power to regenerate from vital-point wounds than it did limb wounds, and at a continuous pace like the one Ryoushi was using, it would not take long to wear her down to the point where she was sucking her own life force. The only question was how long was "not too long?" She closed her eyes…

Quicksword to the body – both arms and wings shredded, legs severely damaged; torso almost completely cut apart. Regenerated a second later, fingers extended to pierce the head – Ryoushi was no longer there. Instead, he was behind her, trying to do to her what she had been trying to do to him, but she unraveled her wings and managed to nick his fingers before he blurred away again. For all of Priscilla's power, she had none of the experience that the much older Awakened One did, and that gave him an enormous advantage, on top of his extreme sensory abilities, heightened through his Awakened state. Her fate was already sealed.

Ryoushi drifted.

He had no idea where he was or what he was doing there, but he was strangely apathetic about it; it was so blissful and relaxing in the void where he was drifting that he wished he could stay there forever. The darkness pillowed his form, feeling as comfortable as a cloud, and the air was just the right temperature to fall asleep in.

"…shi…"

He opened bleary eyes and peered around in the dark, barely able to make out a distant figure in the blackness.

"Ryoushi… my little Hunter…"

"Mom?" he whispered, squinting in an attempt to see her better as she walked toward him. She was exactly as he had remembered her before she died ninety-or-so years ago: tall for her gender, long brown hair that fell to her waist, and the most exotic blue eyes he had ever seen. He had his father's eyes, a deep flawless chocolate that made people smile just by looking into them. She smiled at him and knelt by his side, reaching out to cup his cheek. "You've grown so much, my little Hunter," she said sadly, "A man now, no longer my little boy."

"I'm a monster, Mom," he stated bitterly, looking away from her, "I became a hanyoma and then a monster."

She abruptly pulled him close and held his head against her chest, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and resting her head on top of his. "No matter what you are or who you become, you're always our son, our Hunter. And we're so proud of you." She tilted his chin so that he would look up at her. "You were the best, always in the top two with that Isley friend of yours, and after you turned into a yoma, you still were helping rid the world of evil. And you still had your human mind! Something none of the others can claim." She wiped away a tear that he hadn't realized had fallen. "You helped Teresa, she came and told us so in the afterlife; she was so grateful to you because the skill you gave her helped her meet Clare, and even now you're protecting her. And you've found love, of a sort."

"Love?" he asked, cocking his head, trying to keep his voice steady.

"Kinatia, Ryuu-chan. She loves you, even if she doesn't realize it yet. She doesn't think you're a monster, either, and I think that is a big plus."

"Mo-om!" He felt his cheeks heating. "You're embarrassing me!"

She covered her mouth with her hand and giggled. "That's what mothers do," she told him in mock-seriousness, "It's in our job description."

"Riiiiiiight."

Ryoushi's next attack slammed Priscilla through the trees on the outskirts of the small forest at the merged being's base; he swiftly healed his tail and lunged at her while she was getting back to her feet, tearing open her front with his claws while he darted invisible past. She spun to follow him as he bounded deeper into the ring of woods around the being's base; the instincts in temporary control of his body recognized the possibility of using the being against the Awakened One it viewed as having invaded his territory. He slowed himself enough to keep her attention on him but stayed far enough out of her reach that she couldn't hurt him, though he often cut down trees that collapsed on top of her and broke bones, harder to heal than cut limbs.

"Where are they – why is he leading her towards that thing?" Flora called to Miria while Kinatia reattached her arm, all of them hating the slow pace that prevented them from pursuing but at the same time knowing it was necessary; they dare not pursue the most dangerous Awakened Ones at anything less than full strength.

"I think… he intends to try and get Raphaela-Luciela to attack her. It might work." Number Six focused on Ryoushi's location to the best of her ability; Priscilla's aura was so intense that she almost completely masked the other Awakened One's now-low aura. "They've just passed Clare, Helen, and Deneve; at this rate we'll never catch up to them." She gritted her teeth – then a tentacle wrapped gently around her waist, Riful lifting her into the air as she did the same with Cynthia. Isley had picked up Kinatia and Flora, holding them in his now-normal arms so that the former could keep healing the latter, and Riful said, "Hang on!" Then they were speeding after the duo at a pace that seemed incredible for Abyssal Ones low on youki, attaining a pace that Miria could not sustain for long periods of time even with her youki, and for all the jostling that Kinatia expected, Isley was a surprisingly smooth runner, enabling her to continue. Riful held the two claymores well above the trees went they entered the forest, adjusting her tentacles so that they hanyoma were effectively sitting down while she carried them, and when Miria asked why they were doing this, she replied, "We all do what we must to survive. Ryoushi might need our help, all of our help, and if he fails to defeat Priscilla because we were not there, that means the end of all of us."

"Sou ka…"

"Yo."

"Rigaldo? What are you doing here?"

"Call this a 'near-death experience' or something," the GinGan no Shishio grunted while he crouched next to the sitting unofficial Abyssal One, appearing to look off into the distance. Ryoushi's mother had said goodbye, telling him that there were others who wanted to see him while his mind hovered on the border, and Rigaldo had shown up next. "I just wanted… to come and say thank you," he sighed finally.

"'Thank you?' For what?"

"Killing me." He turned to look at the other Awakened One. "You… never knew my story, I guess, but before I became a hanyoma, I was going to be wed to a girl named Lilith in my hometown, Sutrec in the west. People from both of our families had come to stay in our village, numbering about twenty, and ordinarily yoma wouldn't have touched our group. But… a temporary band of them – about fifteen, sixteen – was passing through, and they decided that our group was the perfect meal, plenty for all. To this day, I don't know how I survived or why they let me live; I just woke up on the day of the wedding, and everyone was dead, even my fiancée. But now, because you killed me, I've been reunited with her and my family, so thank you for that, I guess."

"You're welcome." Ryoushi said, a faint smile twitching his lips, before her frowned. "I think we now know why you lived, though."

"Really?"

"Yes. The organization – we think they're the ones making the yoma. They must have been told to let any potential trainees live."

"What? Those bastards!"

"Quite. I'm working with Isley and Riful and a couple of claymores to take the organization down. That way no one else will have to meet our fates."

"Good luck, then." The Silver-Eyed Lion King nodded to him. "What ever happened to that Priscilla bitch, by the way?"

Ryoushi frowned again. "I think I'm fighting her… or at least, my body is, anyway. I keep getting these brief flashes of me attacking her."

"Good luck with that, too."

The pair of Awakened Ones darted past the fleeing threesome without even noticing them or the fact that the trio had to scatter to avoid getting run over by the powerful nonhumans, Helen yelling, "Hey! Watch where you're going!" Deneve clamped a hand over her mouth to shut her up, and Clare began sprinting after the duo, making a strange "Mmooup?" noise when Riful picked her up as they raced by. They had done a brief pit stop to pick up Uma and Dietrich, the latter of whom had finished off the last of the escapee Abyss Feeders and was now being held by Isley and healed by Kinatia. Despite their speed, it was obvious that the two enemies were going to reach the merged being first, and at the request of Miria, the Abyssal Ones changed their course slightly in case whatever Ryoushi did to make it attack went straight out behind him; it would have risked hitting them as well.

Ryoushi launched a three-sixty Quicksword, and it hit Priscilla as well as the merged being, provoking a violent reaction from the latter. He leapt, dodged the tentacle strikes even as they shredded the forest to pieces, and three of them pierced Priscilla's body. "Tch," she hissed, "One thing after another." Much to everyone's – except Ryoushi's – surprise, she dug her fingers into one of the penetrators and extended her fingers through it, cutting it to bits but following it back to its source. Much of the externals of the merged being was destroyed in the attack, but the rest of it dissolved before their very eyes, leaving a form of horrors behind. What looked like hundreds of bodies of hanyoma had been mangled and twisted together, seemingly made of thick black tentacles woven together, and the thing struck violently, making the others believe that it was fortunate that they had gotten out of the way in time; it sucked the life out of the trees it touched as it aimed for Ryoushi and Priscilla, who had reengaged.

The male Awakened One spun out of the way with ease, but Priscilla lost her wings to the thing though they were regenerated almost instantly. "It sucks away life force…" Clare whispered just loud enough for them all to hear, "He knew. He's using it to wear her down even faster."

"Dacien?"

"Yo! It's good to see you again, taichou." The claymore gave him a grin and an informal salute before he flopped down in front of him, eyes bright. "It's been a long time."

"Indeed it has," Ryoushi said warmly, smiling at the higher numbered hanyoma, "And what did you get up to after we parted ways, you hooligan child?"

Dacien grinned and rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Well, I got into some trouble for forgetting that I'd put some garter snakes in Rimuto-sama's bed, and then I switched the sugar for the salt so that Horka's cakes for the elders tasted horrible, and then – "

Ryoushi snorted in amusement and shook his head while his comrade went on about his inglorious pursuits after the wretched mission in the north, but he noticed the moment that Dacien fell silent. "Tell me," he said softly, simultaneously a request and an order to the lesser claymore.

The other looked away, unable to hold his gaze. "I Awakened… about a year, maybe a year and a half after you did, taichou. I was the bird that you killed in Intore."

Ryoushi's eyes widened, then softened sadly. "Oh, Dacien… I'm so sorry…"

"It's okay," he said with false cheer, "At least you kept me from hurting anyone else, and I've been reunited with my family."

Ryoushi cocked his head. "If you don't mind me asking, how did it happen?"

"The organization… just thought there was one yoma in the town that they dispatched me to, but there were five. I wasn't prepared, and they jumped me from behind, injured me right off the bat. I made the mistake of misjudging my limit, and…" He gestured; there was no further need for explanation. He sighed. "I did manage to kill them, though, and I caught your scent on the breeze. It was familiar, so I decided to follow it. The rest is history."

The male's claws tore open her stomach again as he raced past, using the confusion of the merged being's focus on Priscilla to escape unscathed, and there was a distinct slowing in the speed of her regeneration, a drop that they all noticed. Ryoushi renewed his attacks on her, as did the merged being, and they realized that he must have been using youki manipulation on it, a skill that he'd become surprisingly proficient at during their years in the north but rarely used. Because it had no consciousness of its own, it did not know how to escape his grasp, kept bumbling along under his control, incapable of learning how to break free (and it most certainly could have; it had the power).

Riful struck; Priscilla just barely managed to evade the blades aimed at her head, and the Abyssal of the West pulled back almost instantly, the merged being swirling to cover them while Isley set Dietrich and Kinatia down to launch his arrows at the monster beyond the black mass. It was a good thing that he could control the direction that they went in, as with the mass constantly changing shape, he had to redirect some of them. The hanyoma used their attacks to slip in and join the close-range assault; Ryoushi didn't even notice them, but he sure as hell would have if they didn't keep evading him whenever he raced by.

Helen was able to get a little more distance between her and Priscilla because of her extendable arms, but the others had to use either their Quicksword or Phantom to attack and leap away before Priscilla could strike were like wolves circling their prey as it began to die; they could feel her weakening now under their assault, but she still managed to catch hold of Ryoushi and began to crush him against her, making the other Awakened One let out an inhuman scream of pain and fury.

Clare saw her opportunity. While Priscilla was distracted, she began closing the distance between her and the monster, still circling so she didn't give herself away, but the moment she was in range from behind, Ryoushi seemed to realized what she was doing and seized a firm hold of Priscilla's midsection, making it look like they were hugging. He plunged his claws through her gut, ripping and tearing and shredding everything that he could reach with his arms crushed against his sides, and Clare once again focused her power into her right arm, reading the flow of Priscilla's youki to the best of her ability and responding only there with the Quicksword.

Her long-time enemy shattered in Ryoushi's embrace, her head and gut chopped into thousands of tiny pieces.

Ryoushi's mother had returned after Dacien had gone, and she was now running her fingers through his hair while his head rested on her lap. "Never forget that we're proud of you, my little Hunter," she whispered as the constant gentle tugging began to lull him to sleep, "We all miss you, and you've helped so many be reunited with their loved ones, saved others from a terrible fate. You are not a monster, Ryoushi…"

"…shi…"

He furrowed his brow slightly, then smoothed his forehead. That voice…

"…Ryoushi…"

Kinatia? Kinatia, what's wrong?

"Ryoushi!"

He blinked; sun blinded his eyes for a moment before they adjusted to the change in light. All around him were his claymore and Awakened friends, but Kinatia was at the forefront of the pack, looking uncharacteristically anxious. "Kina…tia…?" he whispered, his voice distorted by his Awakening. Instantly, looks of utter relief crossed everyone's faces, and several of them let out breaths that they hadn't realized they'd been holding. Ryoushi swiftly realized what must have happened – and collapsed to his knees in sudden exhaustion, slipping out of his Awakened form, noticing that Clare and Flora were shredding some kind of immense black thing in the background before he passed out and knew no more.

A/N: I'm back~! For the moment, anyway. I pretty much know how the story is going to end from here, so my Halo fanfic is going on temporary hiatus until I finish this one up.

Ciao~!