(Author´s note: Oh, this one was a pleasure to write and quite difficult as well...

I hope you enjoy it...)


Chapter 50

"Official Submission"


They stared into each other's eyes as they clashed their blades and sparks flew from grinding edges. Grace refused to budge as she stared into the relentless and dominant eyes of Gloria, or the person she now had become.


Official…

The source of this alternative personality could be traced through Gloria´s past.

The difference between her and Gloria could be seen in her eyes.

Gloria had a light in her eyes, but she usually tried to keep it away from others. She had a tendency to look insecure and apologetic, like she always had been afraid to have insulted or hurt someone by accident. The lack of confidence and belief that Gloria never had overcome.

Gloria herself could be considered a sad example of the Organization´s warriors.

Just like most warriors, she didn´t had many, if any, friends to spend her time with. She was a lonely child even in her trainee days and had been a hybrid for as long that she could remember. In fact, she considered Staff to be her only home since she had grown up there and her handler had been like a father to her. But she had also been a very lonely child, her handler refused to let her interact with the other trainees other than for swordsmanship training. This had taken a toll as her shyness originated from her inability to interact with others properly.

Gloria had once asked her handler why she couldn´t remember the hybridization process that all the other warriors could never forget.

Monet had simply said the truth to her, that she had been abandoned by her mother at the Organization´s doorstep when she was roughly ten months old.

The Organization hadn´t exactly wasted time in her operation, but they did have the decency to wait until she became at least one year old.

That´s the reason to why she couldn´t remember it and it had been for the best that way.

But it had been a devastating experience, considering that Gloria had been six years old when she had asked that question.

This had been the beginning of the crack in Gloria´s soul.

She couldn´t compare herself to the other warriors, since they had families before their hybridization. Some had been abandoned, others had been bought from slavers. They all remembered the pain that turned them into warriors.

Gloria had been simply abandoned.

She had been a hybrid from the very start of her life, and couldn´t remember anything else.

This lack of real friends had been the reason to why she created an imaginary one.

This "friend" always stayed with her and kept her company during her boring missions. It has remained with her ever since and was the one who handled any of Gloria´s missions.

But now, due to the circumstances and external influences, it had become an independent personality.

It´s name… is Official.

The change could be seen in the lack of insecurity that Gloria had.

There´s no fear in her eyes, but there´s no confidence either. Official didn´t even know what that word meant. She had been shaped to handle the situations Gloria deemed herself incapable to handle. A way to escape her fear at first, but now lacked any comprehension of the subject. It made her insane and capable to use her strength and abilities for the fullest, now that she didn´t fear any opponent. But due to the circumstances, Official could be described as a monster, incapable to remember her friends and only saw enemies.

Official´s eyes were more narrowed then Gloria´s… and emitted the true potential that she possessed.

After all, she´s the main user of Gloria´s "invisibility" technique that Gloria also used.


Official prepared to use her lowest level of invisibility to finish Grace off. Her body began to shake and vibrate in a high speed on the spot while charging up.

Grace began to circle around her to the left, to divert Official from the bleeding Victoria.

To keep her safe and to focus on the incoming attacks.

Official activated it and she turned into a blurry shadow of herself.

Then she attacked.


The "invisibility" technique that Gloria possessed…

Since Gloria had never been allowed to participate in difficult missions, she had plenty of time to develop this technique to its current state. It was the true reason to how she had managed to sky rocket to her first rank as a number 19, right after her graduation despite the fact that she never fought awakened beings before. The generous amounts of time she was given were spent on tuning and honing her "Invisibility" skill while in her "official" mindset. This solitude provided her with even more time to improve her skills. Gloria also slowly rose in rank because of the deaths in the higher ranks above, so she had never the chance to display the higher skills.

It was quite complex and had three versions to be properly used in succession and sufficient yoki release.

The first level of "Invisibility".

"Blur"

First, she increased the concentration in her body as preparation. It was followed by multiple twitching motions like contractions or spasms through her muscles. These vibrations were really small ones which could barely be noticed by the naked eye if she did ten in a row. Once a pattern had been established, she increased the numbers of short vibrations until she did a hundred of them by the minute.

By then her body begins to visibly shiver and the spot and the tension spread through her shivering body like a river. This wasn´t enough to reach invisibility or even distortion so increased movements were required to achieve the first version of her ability. The numbers of contractions were now two hundred by the minute and now, the colors of her body blurred and turned unfocused. Her silhouette could still be seen, but the user was a blurry illusion without any separate lines or distinguished colors. Since it was a claymore that uses the ability, it became a silver blur with a dark spot that was her dickey. The only real distinctive feature on this blur would be the glowing golden eyes on its head.

For a yoma or a human, this sight alone could scare them enough for a flight response.

The user used fifteen percent of yoki and in return achieved an imperfect invisibility. It was effective in the dark and benefitting for energy conservation in prolonged battles.

She didn´t phase entirely out of sight, but it turned her into a blurry shadow instead.


CLING!

Grace blocked and pushed Official backwards across the sand dunes. She also refuses to pursue and attack her. Instead she focused on keeping Victoria away from further harm.

She tilted her head back to check on her.

Victoria hadn´t been cut so deep, but she still seemed to be in shock over it, like she had never experienced this kind of damage before.

But she would be fine as long that she didn´t receive further injuries.

Grace turned her attention towards Official again.

CLING!

She had to block another attack right in front of her and she managed to get a glimpse of her opponent´s face this time. A pair of golden eyes met hers and signaled that Official never went lower than ten percent in her attacks. She had barely managed to block it this time and had to remind herself to not get distracted.

Official didn´t hold back in her killing intent as Grace had to stay on her feet to not lose an arm.

Grace got more and more frustrated over her situation as her hesitation to strike back clouded her judgment.

No matter if Gloria had lost it, she was still Gloria and her body seemed so frail that one attack from Grace might break her in half.

Therefore, Grace had assumed a completely defensive attitude in this duel as she used her claymore as a shield. She couldn´t risk an all-out battle with Gloria.

CLANG!

Even if it didn´t muffle her frustration at all.

The attacks kept coming and Grace was forced to rely on her instincts for the appropriate counter against the unseen blade.

Official was the only one that actually showed aggression as she over and over again tried to strike Grace down, but she got countered at once.


Grace realized how beneficial her sparring duels with Faith really had been for her.

If it hadn´t been for that, she would have suffered more severe damages right now. She might not have even been able to block Gloria´s invisible attacks if it hadn´t been for her training.

Grace had been ranked number 45 on the day of her graduation for one single reason. It wasn´t because she was weak; she could still slay yoma when properly motivated. The reason for her low number back then had been entirely determined by one single major flaw she possessed.

All because of her close to non-existent yoki perception.

She could still use it, but it took every inch of her concentration to even track one single yoma down. And even then, it was just a faint trace of the real yoki aura. Grace had been a special case since she needed to know in advance how many yoma a mission involved, otherwise there was a risk she would miss a couple of them and fail in her assignments.

This absence of perception had always been a handicap for her. She couldn´t predict her opponents. She wouldn´t even notice them if she didn´t look directly at them.

Back in Natrice, the only reason she had managed to find the yoma there, had been because she had seen it with her own eyes.

Back in Tangea, she had not even suspected or noticed that her comrades been in trouble against the Centipede being.

There was countless of more examples during her life so far.

Most warriors would say that a warrior without yoki perception wouldn´t be long-lived.

Yet she was still alive.

Grace knew that she would be at a constant disadvantage. She had, back during her trainee days, been called a failure because of this flaw. Every time she tried to use perception, it just hindered her combat abilities. It clouded her judgment and hindered her combat effectiveness.

But her goal, her own wishes and the promise to her hero had spurred her on.

She had given up with her yoki perception, turned it into a minor secondary skill. Instead she had tried to compensate for it with an entirely different one.

Day after day of repeated lessons and exercises against her entire trainee class had been painful. After suffering countless of blunt strikes from the others that often resulted in several broken bones, she slowly grew a counter-measure towards them. The trainee´s swords weighed just as much as a regular claymore. They didn´t have any sharp edges and only caused blunt damage. The numerous times she had been hit by these had broken nearly all her bones at various and multiple different occasions. There hadn´t been a day where she hadn´t broken something while in sword practice. She experienced day after day of pain from healing these to prove that she was worthy to be a warrior.

She didn´t heal herself just to stay alive, she healed herself just so she could get back to her training again.

Countless of days that turned into years as she slowly got better and better in battle, passed by. She began to notice in the corner of her eyes the subconscious movement in her opponents. Grace tracked small twitches in their faces, changes in their pupils, anything that indicated their next move. She had to focus on these things since they were the only indication she could use for her advantage.

And in the end, at the day of the graduation, her hardships had finally paid off.

She had developed a passive ability that provided her with faster natural reflexes.

These reflexes were nothing spectacular when compared with warrior standards. Her reflexes didn´t make her move faster. Her reflexes didn´t allow her to predict her opponent´s moves in advance. They only revealed that the opponent was about to do something within the next five seconds. It was all they provided back then, five more seconds to react to the next attack in the heat of battle.

Not as impressive as what her fellow warriors could do but had served her well.

Some warriors possessed a similar ability, but that version needed a high level of yoki perception to work properly, the "Excellent Yoki Perception" that allowed warriors to track the flow of yoki to predict the opponents´ moves in advance. In battle, it could make the warriors move so fast that any attacks would seem to miss.

It was an excellent ability, but it had one flaw in that it required actual awareness to work. Warriors needed to stay focused on both the battle and track down the opponent's movements at the same time.

But it was acceptable, since these kinds of warriors possessed the mental capacity to do so.

Natural reflexes alone could be seen as a weak ability, useless as perceptive warriors had the element of surprise with their yoki perception against their opponents. Most warriors preferred to use their perception and fuel it with their reflexes to finish battles quickly. Grace´s reflexes could be seen as inferior along with the really weak yoki aura she possessed according to all the others.

But there´s one thing that they had that "Excellent Yoki Perception" couldn´t beat them in.

Natural reflexes were a passive ability.

Grace had trained her mind to track down these small hostile signals in her opponents. Every day, little by little, she watched and let the experience carve into her mind until it got printed straight into her subconscious and give her more time to think in a stressed situation. By the day she graduated, she didn´t even have to think about it, since it came completely naturally in the heat of battle. She also barely used any yoki to use it either since it´s a part of her natural body. This also allowed her to use more of her yoki to finish battles in shorter amounts of time instead of thinking about the next move.

For everyone else, she appeared to act on pure impulses.

And funny enough, that was also the case, along with five seconds of slowed down time to react on.

And that was when she was sparring.

There was also second ability which she acquired from her trainee days, one that Grace never had considered to develop at all.

Her specialized healing ability.

The one that that allowed her to heal broken bones with ease.

A feat that was impressive on its own, considering that warriors saw a broken bone to be something worse than a bisected one.

Offensive warriors had to rest for a couple of hours, if not days, to get every broken fragment on the right place. If it was just cut in two then they manually had to align them and be up within minutes, ready to fight. But if it was fragmented, then it could take much longer to do so and exposed them for danger. A fractured bone needed to have all the pieces reasserted back in place through muscle force and yoki. A painful procedure that forced the warrior to feel every single piece move back in place through her flesh and that they wished to avoid. In fact, they preferred re-attachment instead of re-alignment. It took a shorter amount of time, Five minutes at most.

The reason to why it took so long was the re-attachment of the severed bone. Muscles and tissues could be considered the easy parts to manipulate with yoki. Bones on other hand weren´t that easy and if the re-attachment wasn´t done properly, the severed limb would fall off, since the bone within it hadn´t connected yet.

A broken bone for an offensive warrior is like a broken cup. The offensive warriors would rather use sticky sap to glue it together. The bone would still have signs of damage, but be stronger than before.

One would still see the cracks, but in exchange the bone got stronger in return.

Defensive warriors could heal a lot faster, but that was because of the structure of their bodies.

Their increased regeneration ability.

They also had a vastly different method to deal with their broken bones.

They used their yoki to break down the bone fragments into stem cells and reassemble them in place again. They then swiftly created a new bone in the place of the old one while using yoki to accelerate the process so it took a couple of minutes. Losing an arm was a minor inconvenience for them as they could grow new limbs in speeds the offensive types could only dream about.

To make things simple, if the bone had been a broken cup, the defensive ones would rather melt it down and make a new one instead. It didn´t need to be stronger since they always could make a new one when the need occurred.

Grace constant sparring and stubbornness gave her the option to heal even the most fragmented and broken bone within minutes. The method she used to do heal them could be considered a mix between the offensive and defensive ways.

She didn´t create new bones.

She didn´t realign them by force either.

She simply rejected the damage.

If she broke a rib, she just used her yoki to undo the damage entirely, pulling herself back together.

Metaphorically speaking with the broken cup, it would be like someone turned back the flow of time to prevent the cup from breaking at all. There were no cracks nor sign of damage since the damages never had occurred in the first place.

To summarize it, Offensive warriors received scars over and within their bodies, shaping it into new forms. Defensive warriors simply replaced them with new parts. Grace, and a few others, would remain in the same bodies they were born with for the rest of their immortal lives.

Another passive skill that been overlooked by the Organization. Because Grace never mentioned it to anyone and didn´t even knew she had back then, being a slightly passive ability, nobody had ever taken it in consideration.

But her passive abilities still had their flaws. Her natural reflexes only worked if she became aware of the danger and could see the opponent first. Her healing ability only worked as long that she had yoki to use it with.

But these passive abilities got overshadowed by her main active ability.

The ability that allowed her to use more force than necessary in close combat.

The one that always got her into trouble.


Another attack from Official.

Usually it would have inflicted great damage on the opponent but Grace blocked it with ease.

Official wasn´t fast, not when compared with Faith.

CLING!

Another block from the left. It was surprising that it was even possible to block an invisible attack like that. In fact, Grace should have gotten one or two cuts already and lost her arm due to her disadvantage.

Should, if it hadn´t been for one tiny detail.

"Guilty…guilty…"

Official still ranted her insane phrase while in her blurry invisible state, effectively ruining the element of surprise she could have had.

"…GUILTY!"

CLANG!

Official appeared in front of Grace for a second, and then disappeared within seconds. Grace kept her eyes on the ground, as there was still one more way to tell her position even if she remained silent.

It was still possible see the small dust clouds burst up over the sand dunes.

Fortunate enough for Grace, the desert proved to be a disadvantage to the "Invisible" technique.

A disadvantage that Official hadn´t noticed yet.

A shout from her right and Grace turned around on the spot to block the incoming attack.

CLING!

Sparks flew and Official jumped backwards as Grace pushed her away, only to disappear again.

This… is harder than I thought…

Grace´s urge to strike back really felt tempted her but she also knew that she had to hold back, otherwise there might not be a Gloria left to save.

I need to disarm her… I need to knock her out… I need to…

CLANG!

Grace´s thoughts got interrupted as she had to once again block the next attack. Official tried to catch her off guard but hadn´t succeeded yet. The threat of having her head separated from her body motivated Grace to not lose her alerted state of mind.

Grace´s more, "impulsive", voice began to take tone.

Who am I trying to fool… what I reallyneed… is to get the upper hand!

Grace changed her stance to an aggressive one at once and got ready to deliver a strong swing.

The dust clouds approached her and Grace attacked with one single swing from below. She only cut through empty air and the dust settled around her. A fast look in confusion that got interrupted by a shout from behind.

"Guilty!"

Grace immediately dived forward after that warning. Official appeared with her blade pointing straight through where her head had been and seemed displeased.

Another swing down to Grace from Official. Grace rolled across the ground to the right and the blade hit only sand. Official stood now fully visible and displayed her frustration. Grace acted immediately and grabbed a fist full of sand that she threw straight in her opponent´s face.

It didn´t work since Official still stared with a pair of relentless eyes as the sand hit her face.

That dirty tactic had failed due to the common nictitating membrane all yoki users had.

Official pulled out her sword from the ground and went for Grace again. Grace swung her claymore at her while still on the ground, used the broadside of it. Official jumped up in the air and out of the way of it.

Apparently that frail body made her into a lightweight fighter.

Grace got back up on her feet and Official landed a bit from her, still angry for her inability to execute her.

I don´t want to hurt her… but she´s really pushing my patience.

She could also see that Official began to get sloppy, as she took longer and longer to return to "invisible" again. Her glowing eyes also showed that she refused to give in though.

"Guilty…not enough… thirty percent…guilty…"

Her face began to distort as veins budged out around it along with a little pointier teeth.

Grace braced herself as she charged up to ten percent on her own. She knew that even if Gloria could be considered a lightweight, it was still a claymore that she held in her hand. Its weight alone could be fatal in her attacks, and she had more power than she revealed.

Official had an advantage on the soft sand as she wasn´t hindered in her movements by it, not to the same degree Grace was at least due to her lightweight status.


The second level of Gloria´s "Invisibility" technique.

"Invisible sword"

By concentrating the numerous vibrations into a single body part, usually the sword hand. The number of vibrations could increase to nearly three hundred a minute and allow the sword to vanish completely out of sight. It made the user appear empty handed and allowed several surprise attacks on the opponent.

Gloria used this while executing yoma, since it was the only way she could use get some targets to practice it on.

It was difficult to track with the eye, but if the opponent had sufficient yoki perception, it could tell which hand held the sword. They only had to track down the hand with the highest yoki concentration to block the attack. It was still difficult to track it, since the user always changed hands in a rapid succession to assure complete confusion in the opponent.

But Official could perform that technique far better than Gloria could.

Yoki required for the technique, thirty percent and a higher amount of concentration.


Her sword vanished in her hand.

Official still stood there though, and it must have meant that she would use her "invisible" sword now. Grace took a moment to look around without turning her head away from Official. She realized that the battle had brought them further away from Victoria.

Grace smiled in a little relieved manner.

Official went straight for Grace as she swung downwards with both of her arms. Grace held up her own claymore and sparks flew by the clash of their blows. Official´s sword still remained invisible, since she didn´t have to stop her technique to maintain the illusion.

Official ranted with more aggression in her voice.

"Guilty…"CLANG!"…guilty…"CLING!"…guilty!"

For each time she said that word, an attack would follow one second later, each time from a different angle and direction. Official seemed to get more and more enforced as her ranting began to mellow out. She began to adapt to the circumstances.

But Grace didn´t had any difficulty blocking these attacks.

Grace still tried to avoid inflicting harm, but it didn´t stop her from thinking.

I don´t have to worry… as long as I can see her, I can change my stance to a aggressive one without a concern to harm her. I just need to whip that sword out from her grip and finish this in one attack…

Official swung with her hand downwards. Grace raised her blade horizontally to block it and deliver a kick in Official´s abdomen.

SLASH!

Much to her surprise, the attack came from below as a blade appeared for a short second. Official had managed to trick her, and cut up a tilted cut in Grace´s right side. It was not deep, but it still bleed to such degree that drops of it hit the sands below.

Grace gritted her teeth, with increasing anger in response. She also saw the opportunity to strike her opponent down now. She turned her sword from horizontal to vertical stance and swung down with it at Official´s neck.

Her blade stopped centimeters from it.

She thought while she held her own power back from the attack.

It´s still Gloria…

Her face still showed great displeasure and Official quickly moved for the next attack. Grace leapt backwards and a large mass of sand burst out where she had stood.

Grace focused on the wound in her abdomen as she undid it with her yoki. She still had doubts and couldn´t be angry at Gloria. Not even if she tried to kill her.

Her concern for Gloria´s safety prevented a proper attack to be delivered.

Come on!

Official still repeated her crazy "guilty", over and over as she tried to execute her mission. It didn´t seem like she would stop either. She attacked, straightforward this time.

Grace decided to try out a little trick she recently acquired.

She held her claymore with both hands and used her right hand to twist the lower part of it counterclockwise.

Click.

Immediately after that, she tightened her two handed grip around the handle and waited for the perfect moment to act. Official approached her in great speed and swung with both of her hands from opposite directions. There was a fifty-fifty chance to block her blade now and she attacked while ranting.

"…GUILTY!"

Whin!

No sparks flew this time, instead, Official´s blade slid down and away from Grace.

She was shocked.

Grace shared her expression, but for completely different reasons.

She had managed to divert the attack, by extending the handle with a whip-like rope. Her right hand held onto the false handle while her left hand held the real handle with the black whip in between them.

Grace hadn´t been able to use the gift from the Black Card Brigade properly until this point.

Official leapt back and allowed her sword to re-appear once more. She displayed hostile confusion as she failed to understand what just blocked her sword.

Grace kept her confidence up as she also looked down on it.

Back then, Fortuna had proved herself when she constructed this customization. She had removed the handle from the severed antenna of Brother David and replaced it with a hollow version instead. Then she had attached the outer tip of the whip down by the hilt and wrapped it around the original handle to create a new one. She had finished it by assembling this new handle into a two pieced one that needed to be unlocked before usage, almost like Danielle´s spear.

The antenna couldn´t be cut through, at least not without enough sufficient force. It was a permanent attachment to the hilt made it incapable of ever be used as a whip again, but that hadn´t been the point since Grace always improvised new solutions in the heat of battle.

And by attaching it to the sword, she had effectively removed the risk getting cut up in return.

But she still needed a lot of practice to handle it.

And a special customization that Fortuna had manufactured just to make it easier to use.


Grace lowered her right hand and realized that she would have to keep the handle this way. But at least she could shield herself even further now.

Official tilted her head and her sword vanished in her hands again. She went straight for Grace again.

"No…it doesn´t matter…guilty…you are still…GUILTY!"

She swung with both of her arms in her familiar fifty-fifty swing from both right and above.

Grace tilted her sword to guard her left side while she stretched the whip upwards.

CLING!

Official´s sword clashed against the blade. She attacked again from a different angle this time and Grace changed her defensive stance accordingly.

Sccrrcchhh!

The invisible edge slides along the whip from below and out to the right.

Another attack.

Cling!

Official unleashed a barrage of invisible attacks.

CLING!

SCCRRCHH!

CLANG!

CLING! SCCRRCCHH! SCCRRCCHHH! CLING! CLING! CLANG!

It didn´t work and she couldn´t land a hit, much to Official´s own frustration and increasing annoyance. Grace could block and parry her attacks now when she didn´t have just one way to do so. She seemed to have regained the advantage in this conflict.

But it was still one real challenge to keep up her defense since Official knew how to fight.

It was actually surprising considering that Gloria wasn´t even allowed on missions with more than five yoma at the time. But now, she displayed skills that could kill fifty if not hundreds of them.

It seemed like her handler severely underestimated her capacity in combat, but she still had the number to match her skills.

Another attack and this one managed to cut a small wound on Grace´s hand.

She had to stay alert as she tried to avoid decapitation and the challenge increased in difficulty by the minute.

They quickly approached a rock formation of sandstone as they moved further ahead in their duel.


Back at the shelter, Faith turned towards the hostile yoki aura that had managed to get her attention.

She didn´t had to say anything; her concern could be seen on her face.

Oh come on… what have they done now?

She sighed as she was still angry at Grace for their argument and the inability until now to let their frustrations out.

Another sigh from her, a tired one this time.

I can´t leave them out of sight for five minutes…

A quick turn towards the entrance and she left the shelter.


THUD!

The sound of Official´s blade against solid rock vibrated in the air as Grace jumped out of the way.

They had now reached the rock formations, a barely circular form with flat top and six meter tall walls.

Grace had leapt up onto the flat cliffs and out of Official´s sight, like she tried to escape.

Official leapt up after her and landed on solid ground. She looked up and noticed how her opponent waited at the opposite side for her.

Grace stood with small wounds over her body, holding onto her sword with one hand. The sword handle had retracted and returned to its normal appearance once again. She also had eyes that contained determination and defiance.

Official ranted in a more superior manner now as she assumed an aura of superiority around her.

"There´s no escape from me...guilty… all guilt must perish… that´s the order… And now, you are weak enough… resistance is futile!"

There was more controlled tone in Official´s voice, as it now contained slight arrogance.

No response from Grace as she instead kept her eyes directed towards Official who by now lost her patience.

"Guilty… there´s no escape for the guilty… You broke the rule… and even choose site of execution… no more to do… number…is found guilty… confirmation required of the guilty number…"

Grace muttered something from her stance with increasing rage in her eyes.

"…don´t you dare say it…"

Official didn´t pay any attention to her words.

"42! You are…GUILTY!"

Official leapt forward while delivering her usual blow, eyes narrowed down and radiating a killer intention. She swung with both her hands as the distance between her and Grace.

It would be a killing blow.


CLANG!

Grace blocked the swing with her own claymore, but with more strength behind it then before. It took Official completely with surprise since she hadn´t encountered this kind of resistance before.

Grace spoke with a slightly furious voice.

"That´s it…"

She pushed Official backwards with sheer force alone with an aggressive move this time.

Official withheld her next attack, as Grace spoke with a slightly changed tone.

"I don´t know who you think you are… but it doesn´t matter… I underestimated you…"

Her voice contained a tranquil anger that steadily increased in intensity.

Official ignored it and attacked her once more.

"No more talk!"

Grace swung with her claymore to the left and clashed with Official´s blade again, but it was only for a second or so, as Official flew back from the force.

Being a lightweight warrior had that as a disadvantage.

Grace continued, unfazed by the latest attack, with increasing tranquil rage in her voice.

"… I forgave you the first time… but now you have done it…"

Official actually began to show signs of breaking again, like a echo tried to break through her identity.

A familiar feeling.

Official shrugged it off as she remained determined to stay in control.

"AAAHHH!"

She attacked Grace again, only to get her attack interrupted by another block.

CLASH!

Grace continued while she held Official off.

"… because you did two fatal mistakes… One, you underestimated me…and…"

Grace pushed Official with even more force this time, nearly off the ground this time. Official fell down on all four as she roughly landed again.

She looked up in slight shock as Grace´s anger began to boil within her. She assumed an aggressive stance a she spoke and charged her yoki up to fifteen percent.

"…dared to call me…"

She clenched together in anger as she disliked her number to such a degree. Official stood clueless about what was about to happen but she wasn´t afraid, since she was unable to feel fear.

Grace shouted the last word with her slit golden eyes glowing in the dark night. She also raised her sword towards Official with determination.

"…"THAT"!"

The last word turned into a shout with rage that clouded Grace´s judgment. Grace could only see the red mist fill her vision and illuminate the darkness around her. She could see her opponent like a shadow now, armed with a blade.

When Grace got angry, really angry, it didn´t matter who her opponent was.

All the anger from the last two weeks in frustrating isolation finally erupted within her. Her desire to save Gloria got clouded by the red mist within her and only left frustration and anger to have free hands.

Official had signed in on a death match, bolstered by her own madness and obligation to fulfill the execution.

This duel had become a serious matter now as neither one of them would surrender.

The moon finally appeared above them, as a signal for the duel to begin.


Victoria sat in the sand with a hurt expression and a hand over her cut shoulder. It wasn´t the problem as it already had healed. She didn´t feel the pain from her wounded legs either, which had healed properly as well.

It was her disappointment and guilt that hurt her the most.

I just…I just tried to help…

The knowledge that she had actually brokenGloria tormented her.

And now, both Grace and Gloria fought with each other with pure killing intent in their swings. There was no way to get a yoki reading of Grace, it was Gloria that surprised Victoria from where she sat.

To imagine such force within that little shy Claymore had been an unbelievable experience. She had never seen it before and it was like a different person altogether.

…but it was still a broken soul beyond repair.

Victoria despised herself as she was the one responsible for this.

Why… I just tried to follow Grace´s example… then why did it end up this way?

It felt like she was about to cry over how bad everything turned out.


Official stood and observed as Grace waited for her with an angry stare that had scared the Centipede once it saw this.

Official didn´t budge from it as she still refused to surrender or give up.

Her official orders would be carried out. No matter what.

"Resistance… the guilty refuse to obey official orders…unacceptable…the guilty have no voice in this…"

Her will strengthen itself once more and removed the doubts within her mind.

"Guilty!"

She went straight for Grace while she performed a swing from the right at her, sword in the right hand.

Grace countered with a swing from the right.

CLING!

Their blades didn´t clash this time, instead Official nearly got her shoulder dislocated as she spun around clockwise from the force. Grace followed this up by a direct attack towards Official´s sword arm, with the flat side turned at it.

Official didn´t try to stop her spin or block the attack. Instead she added the speed to it as she stood on her toes like a ballerina.

SWOSH!

Grace missed her by inches and Official´s blade approached her neck from the right now.

She dodged it by a dive forward and it passed right above her head.

Official still spun around and raised her left knee as Grace dodged forward.

SMACH!

Official´s knee struck right into Grace´s chin from below and upwards.

Grace flew back from the hit while it also stopped Official´s spin. She also seized the moment to attack with her sword in a swing from below.

It struck Official´s raised knee with the broadside up. Official´s feet lifted from the ground by the impact and into the air.

Official didn´t wait for the attack to finish as she used quickly put her right foot on Grace´s claymore, assumed a sure foothold and leapt further up in the air from Grace´s sword as it finished its swing.

Grace looked up and noticed that her opponent didn´t have a sword in her hands. Official descended quickly towards her for the next attack and showed no signs of halting it. Grace raised her blade in a thrusting move to impale her opponent.

CLING!

Official´s sword re-appeared as it blocked the attack with its broadside, right in the middle of the claymore, and aligned it horizontally in the air as well. Official, being lightweight and all, used her own sword as a foothold and balanced in the air for a short while. She crouched forward and with the moon behind her back like a nocturnal predator from above, still with her sword in hand. Grace anger supplied enough force to actually hold Official up for longer if she wanted.

Official then grabbed around the tip of Grace´s claymore and used her own muscle strength to spin around. Official tilted her claymore so its tip pointed above Grace´s head. Official moved her left foot forward and her claymore now tilted down.

It now aimed directly towards Grace´s neck.

A slightly smug grin began to appear in Official´s face as she quickly began to slid down at her.

Grace quickly grabbed the tip around Official´s claymore and used both of her hands, while she held both swords, to swing Official down at the ground.

Official changed her attack, and slide down on the sword to stomp on Grace´s face instead, with her left foot.

Bash!

Before Grace finished her current attack, Official stepped down on her head with the other foot, used it as a new foothold and leapt away and the force made Grace fall forward. Official turned in the air and sung with her claymore in an arc towards Grace´s spine.

RISCHHH! CLONG!

Grace´s cape tore in half and the sword bounced of the armored piece on her back, the piece all warriors had to carry their swords and to protect their backs.

If Official had used more force, she would have cut her spine in half, and that´s an injury very few, if any, could survive from.

Official displayed displeasure over the failed attack and allowed her sword to go invisible once more.

Grace, in her anger, prevented herself from falling forward by acquiring a new foothold. She charged more yoki through her body and swung a horizontal swing from her left while turning around.

SVICH!

To her surprise, Official wasn´t there anymore, only empty air. Grace had swung her claymore in a nearly complete circle around her and missed.

Unknown to her, Official had not only dodged the attack.

Official now stood on the broadside of Grace´s sword, still turned horizontally. She stood crouched forward and with her left hand on the blade, her own claymore in a firm grip and seconds from a decapitating swing.

Once again, Official displayed a dead serious expression as she wanted to finish this fast.

Grace tilted her sword hand counterclockwise immediately, Official lost her foothold and her attack missed Grace´s neck.

It cut her left shoulder instead.

SLASH!

Grace clenched her teeth in visible frustration as she now got angrier from it. She aimed a kick backwards and Official blocked it with the claymore instead.

One moment without attacks, that was what Grace needed.

She immediately turned around with her claymore ready for another attack. She wouldn´t hold back now when her blood had been shed.

CLING!

Official blocked the attack, but not without a visible strain on her frail body.

She increased the levels of yoki within her.

"Forty percent…"

Official´s sword vanished again as she headed straight toward Grace again, much faster this time.

Grace, temporarily blinded by her anger, swung her claymore with the sharp edge toward Official´s face and take half her head with it.

Official shouted as she counterattacked and increased her yoki.

"Forty-five percent!"

CLLAAAA-!

…followed by the soft sound of flesh torn by the blade.


Victoria stared in shock towards the place of their duel. Her perception had allowed her to track Official´s movements but now, the yoki aura had changed.

"Oh…no…"

A familiar aura appeared behind her and asked.

"What happened to you, Victory?"

She didn´t have to turn around to know who it was and it was obvious that the question had been directed towards the bloodstains on her tunic.

"I broke Gloria… and she tried to break me in return."

Faith had caught up with them, glanced up at the sandstone rocks and spoke with slight comfort in the eyes.

"You didn´t break her…"

"Don´t try to make me feel better! I broke her! And now…"

"Victory… Glory was already broken before our intervention…"

Faith still stared towards the battleground and actually looked worried now.

"Can you feel it too?" Victoria asked.

"Yes…"

"What is that?"

She talked about the aura that they could feel from the battleground, a very intense aura.

Faith replied with a concerned voice…

"That´s Glory…"

They remained where they stood, as neither of them wanted to get near to that yoki aura.

… It was just too scary.

Faith remained on her spot, while she prepared a plan to solve this problem…

Not yet…

…and for the perfect moment to strike.


It was like time itself froze in the moment their blades had clashed against each other.

Official stared in surprise and with her mouth half open; Grace stared with an equal amount of shock over it.

Grace´s sword edge had managed to cut into the right side of Official´s face.

Her blade had been blocked by Official´s blade at the very last second and held it away.

The edge of Grace´s blade rested on Official´s right cheek-bone and at the surface of her cranium on that side.

Blood began to flow from the cut in her cheek and over the lower part of her face there.

It had been so close that Official could touch the edge with her tongue within the mouth. The blade had cut straight through the soft parts there.

Grace looked straight into the terrified face of her opponent and all her anger suddenly vanished in the realization.

No... What did I do?

The force in her sword arm vanished for a second and Official pushed her blade away from her face. She then leapt backwards, away from Grace while she used her left hand to cover the wound.

Grace breathed heavily while in shock over what she nearly did. She once again had began to listen to reason.

It´s still Gloria… it´s still Gloria… I ALMOST KILLED GLORIA!

That realization hit her like a hammer in the head and her anger dropped immediately. Grace also used her right hand to get a grip on her head while her yoki levels dropped below ten percent. Her eyes turned back into silver.

Her shoulder still bled but it slowly closed and healed while she remained in shock.

Official stood a good bit from Grace, and with the moonlight illuminating her front. There was only shock in her narrow eyes as blood flowed from beneath her hand. Her mouth, hidden and covered by her attempts to cover the wound, still remained half open. Her yoki levels dropped to twenty percent.

She began to mutter.

"Violent resistance… lethal… the guilty one is deemed too dangerous… have no choice… I must become serious now…"

She turned her head to the right so it appeared in profile. She spit out a large chunk of blood and used yoki to save the muscles in her face and to stop the bleeding within her mouth.

She held her head down and the right side of her face remained hidden in the dark.

"You…are now…guilty…"

Grace didn´t move as Official, with the moonlight shining in her face, slowly turned to face her.

Grace covered her mouth in shameful shock as she now could see the full extent of the damage in that last attack.

The right side of Official´s face had only one single cut. A very nasty looking cut, which went from the corner of her mouth and nearly all the way to her ear. It had been a straight cut at first, but had arced from the healed face muscles and resembled a long smile or the closed maw of a yoma, but more disturbing. There was still blood on the lower mandible, like rivers on a map, it felt like she had two rows of sharp fangs beneath that smile.

Gloria had never been any good at the healing process, since she barely got hurt during her common missions.

Official didn´t seem to mind the injury as she showed little to zero interest in closing it and heal.

Grace now felt so bad about herself right now since she had harmed Gloria like that.

Official couldn´t care less about it, instead she prepared to unleash her next attack.

Official changed her stance and stood straight up while raising her sword so it covered the left side of her face. She didn´t close her eyes and slowly began to charge up her yoki until it reached the levels she desired.

"Forty-five percent… Fifty percent…"

The amount of yoki that now flowed through her body began to alter accordingly to it.

Gloria never needed to go further than thirty percent in her previous missions. There was no need to use more when the targets were single yoma.

So this could be considered the first time for her.

Her yoki reached new heights as she concentrated it into ever single part of her body now. The wound in her face began to bleed again from the strain it put on her body. She began to shiver rapidly like a mirage and her armor loosened up. Metal parts shivered and fell down on the ground with the exception of her wrist protectors and iron boots. She prepared for her "True Invisibility" technique.

"…sixty-six percent… Official orders...no…I order…"

It only took less than a minute and Official now stared directly towards Grace now. She was dressed only in the grey bodysuit, her dicky, boots and wrist protectors. The rest had just fallen off into a pile around her feet. The eyes glowed from the force and turned her appearance more inhuman by the yoki within.

She spoke with a serious voice and her new grin only made it sound worse.

"…Execution."

She vanished in the blink of an eye.


Grace looked around in her confusion as she couldn´t see anything at all. Not even the nocturnal vision from the hybridization could see her. No footsteps, no sounds, only darkness and an uncomfortable feeling.

SLASH!

Grace clenched her teeth in pain as a long cut appeared across her right leg.

She focused on the healing process as she looked around in tensed confusion. She hadn´t even seen anything at all.

Official now used her "True Invisibility", and this duel was about to end.


The third level of the "Invisibility" technique.

"True Invisibility"

It was the most dangerous version of Gloria´s technique.

The user allowed every part of her body to move with five hundred vibrations per minute. This rendered the user invisible to the naked eye as it vibrated out of the visual spectrum. The vibrations also untied any unnecessary armor in order use the yoki to its fullest potential

It required sixty-six percent of yoki and a tremendous concentration as it put a heavy strain on the user´s mind.

Not recommended for prolonged battles…


Three more slashes at Grace´s back, below the armored piece now.

Official´s swings hadn´t got any stronger only moved faster.

Blood flowed as Grace had to stay alert on an invisible barrage of attacks from Official.

She definitely didn´t appreciate the situation as Official could use Gloria´s "Invisible" technique far better than Gloria could. And to make things worse, her non-existent yoki perception robbed her of the only advantage other warriors would have in this situation.

It was difficult enough to fight Gloria with yoki perception intact, something the yoma could agree upon. But it was even harder when there was no yoki perception at all to rely on now.

Grace had to stay focused and refused to let her anger blind her own judgment again. She had gotten too angry before and she didn´t want to have Gloria´s death on her conscience.

Slash!

Another cut appeared on Grace´s right forearm. Grace clenched her teeth in response over the short pain that followed.

A hopeless scenario, since Grace now had become blind in more way then one.

SLASH!

Another cut sliced through her shoulder but left her arm mercifully attached to it.

She decided to not fight Gloria anymore. She had tried to do it but just couldn´t get through with it. If she had managed to cut her head off in that last attack then she would have failed her own ideals.

Her anger couldn´t solve this problem.

Another shallow cut cleaved through her injured shoulder and threatened to take the arm with it.

Grace wondered about something while she tried to find a way to win.

Why had her opponent not just cut her head off?

Official had already had plenty of opportunities to do so already, but had failed to do so this far.

Official wasn´t the kind of person that played with her prey, so what stopped her?


Official circled around Grace, completely unseen and with her blade drawn. She frown her eyebrows in confusion and began to feel a headache within her mind.

Must…kill…her.

The strain that she experienced from her technique made it harder to breathe. She also began to sweat a little as her body tried to keep it up. She didn´t had much time while she used it, five minutes at most, and knew she had to finish this quickly.

She leapt forward to decapitate Grace.

A sharp pain went through her head, like lightning from a blue sky.

Her attack only cut up a relatively small wound on Grace´s pauldron instead.

Official ran past her and stopped as she grinded her teeth from the mental pain.

Why… she must…die!

Official´s mind slowly began to weaken from the prolonged battle. She had been forced to fight for far longer than she was used to.

But…there´s not…enough time…

At first, she tried her "Blur" to finish it off in an instance, but Grace had outmatched her and blocked those attacks.

Official had been forced to put a strain on her mind to use her "invisible sword" to outmatch Grace. It seemed to have worked at first, but then Grace regained the upper hand by exploiting the flaw in Official´s technique.

They had fought and fought, for every attack another strain began to affect and push Official´s mind.

She hadn´t considered Grace to be such a stubborn opponent.

She´s…a…42…

Official had underestimated her, and even received another mental blow as her opponent actually managed to land a hit on her. This had forced her to use the full potential of her "invisibility" technique.

Official now touched the wide cut in her right cheek, it wouldn´t heal as long as she used her yoki to stay invisible.

A weak excuse that she denied immediately.

She could heal it but refused to do so.

It was her very first injury in a battle and Official enjoyed how it felt.

Official quickly reflected on her current form of existence as she touched her wound.

It´s mine…

She knew that time steadily grew short and it took more and more of her concentration to remain conscious. She knew that if she lost it, then she would go back to sleep once more, become a part of the weak one´s mind once again, a fragment of imagination.

Official had, by the latest events, been able to achieve her own self-awareness, without the weak one that called for her help whenever she needed it.

It felt…so good.

She didn´t wanted to give up her identity.

Her fingers carefully fingered on her injury´s edges, from the cut open corner of her mouth and all the way up to the tip by her ear. She carefully imprinted it into her self-image as she touched every inch of it to get a mental image. It still hurt, and still bled, but she wanted to remember it.

She made this wound her own possession.

That wound in her face. It would become her lifeline. A token of her ability, a proof of her existence.

Even if she failed to kill 42 tonight, even if she went back to her long dream, she wouldn´t worry.

As long as she could remember this wound, Official would be able to return.

To complete her execution of 42.

Official´s control began to falter and she decided to use it for the fullest.

She tried to attack Grace again with a lethal strike.

It got interrupted by another unbearable headache just as she delivered the swing.

She missed entirely this time and the only evidence of it was a small breeze next to Grace´s ear.

It…won´t do…

Official held her head in pain as the splitting headache made any thought process difficult. Her yoki perception got distorted as well and began to appear like small stars in front of her eyes. The strain her own technique put her through increased and her facial wound began to bleed again. She decided to skip the fast option.

One…more…time…

Official approached Grace as she decided to finish her off without a fast attack this time. She stood now right in front of Grace, still invisible to the naked eye and looked down at her. She used the undamaged side of her mouth to display her displeasure and mental pain in contempt.

It´s…

Official slowly raised her sword high above her head, while she panted heavily from exhaustion. This battle had worn her out, but she refused to give up.

Her orders must be carried out, no matter what.

Official now held her right arm up and with her sword aimed towards the night sky and she just needed to swing it down. It would bisect 42´s head in half, and her orders would be carried out in that moment.

Grace looked up and directly towards Official´s face.

nothing…

Official shrugged it off, since she was still in her invisible state, any illusion that Grace could still see her should be shattered at this point.

Official smiled a slightly crazed smile, enforced by her wound, as she spoke out loud.

"…personal."

She moved down with her raised arm and a satisfied smile appeared in her face.


Thump!

Official got interrupted in her execution as an open hand grabbed her left shoulder from behind.

Official got shocked as her distorted yoki perception didn´t provide any warning. Her already fragile control to stay in charge struggled to remain intact, but it wouldn´t take much more to break it.

What!

Official gets turned around by the owner to this hand, counterclockwise, and she could now see her.

Who is-?

She caught a glimpse of Faith, before an open palm rose up in the air and a shout followed.

"What do you think you´re doing!? GLORY!"

SMACK!

Then she slapped Official on the left side of her face…

…and Official´s mind shattered.


Grace stared in disbelief over what just had happened.

Faith had arrived and walked right up towards Grace, then stopped and grabbed the empty air in front of her. Official had appeared as her technique ceased to work anymore, hindered by Faith´s intervention.

SMACK!

…And then she had slapped her.

Official now stood with her sword in the ground, still holding onto it, with her head turned to the right. She bowed forward as well and didn´t say anything at all.

Faith actually looked angry, just a little, and told Official off.

"You can´t do something like that! What´s wrong with you! Isn´t Claymore your friend! And why did you hurt Victory! She did nothing do deserve that! Answer me!"

She actually sounded upset and concerned, like a mother who had discovered her child to be playing with fire.

Grace just sat there and didn´t know what to feel.

One part wanted to thank Faith for her arrival.

The other wanted to scold her for what she did to Gloria.

But there was still the problem with Official to deal with.


Official stood there, with most of her face hidden in the dark, with the exception of her lower right facial half.

The part Grace could see from her point of view at least.

There was no response or movement from Official, like she froze solid on the spot from Faith´s hit.

A noticeable change began to occur.

The long cut on her face began to slowly close together again. She spoke with a slightly shivering voice.

"I…"

Her voice sounded shocked and confused, like a lump slowly built up within her throat. Her wound had closed halfway now.

"…I-I…"

Her head began to shiver and she dropped her sword to the ground. Her voice sounded like it was on the verge of tears.

"…I-I-I…"

She slowly lifted her head up to face Faith.

The grievous wound had vanished without a single proof of its existence. Tears began to roll from her silver eyes, slowly blending in with the blood in her face. She was teary eyed and her face twisted into a hurt confusion. The intimidating and imposing aura she had before had scattered like flower petals in the wind. There were several emotions that went through her head in this moment.

Eyes empty of any reconnection but brimmed with pain and hurt feelings of shame. She knew Faith good enough to know that she must have done something terrible to deserve that.

Her silver eyes burst out in tears that washed the blood from her cheek.

…and with a truly hurt and sincere apologetic voice, she said.

"I´m…so… sorry!"

A deep sigh of relief from both Grace and Faith.

Things had gone back to normal once more.


A barrage of apologizes followed as Grace couldn´t even get a word in the air.

"I´m so sorry! I´m so sorry! I´m so sorry!..."

She couldn´t believe of much she had missed those words. Gloria constantly bowed down with her head while apologizing as much as she could. Faith actually found herself bothered by it.

Gloria repeated once again.

"…I´m so sorry!"

Faith managed to stop her.

"Don´t apologize to me, she´s the one that got hurt…"

Gloria turned around and noticed Grace, still with several cuts from the battle with Official.

Her eyes went wide in slight shock as she turned towards her instead and remarked.

"Ah… I´m so sorry!"

She then nearly threw herself at Grace while providing a hug around her neck, like she tried to enhance her apology and heal those wounds with it.

It didn´t work.

But it didn´t stop Gloria from her apologies.

"I´m so sorry Grace! I´m so sorry! I don´t know why but I´m so sorry!"

Another sigh of relief as Grace heard her name instead of that god forsaken number. This was definitely Gloria. The warrior who now cried waterfalls of regret over Grace´s shoulder while she tried to be forgiven.

Grace had to ask.

"Gloria… do you even know the reason to why I´m hurt?"

"No… but it must have been my fault… so I´m sorry! I was so scared!"

The grip around Grace´s neck tightened and Grace had to distract her before she got strangled.

"Glor…Glori…Gloria I can´t breathe!"

The grip eased immediately and resorted to simple crying over the shoulder.

Grace wondered how much Gloria actually remembered.

"Uh… Gloria… if it doesn´t sound too strange… but do you know where we are?"

"In Lautrec… right after you killed Trish… I´m so sorry!"

That was three weeks ago…

Grace wondered what had happened while she attended that tea party with the Empress, but decided to not bring it up now.

Gloria needed to cry out.

Grace sighed as she put her arms around Gloria in comfort. They stood there while tears flowed from Gloria's eyes.

It was so strange, considering that mere minutes ago, they had tried to kill each other. But that wasn´t Gloria back then.

"It must been that inner demon she mentioned…"

A couple of minutes passed by and Gloria refused to let go of Grace. She had at least stopped crying.

"Gloria… you can let go now…"

No response.

"I guess she´s just trying to calm herself down…"

Faith, who until now just stood there while Gloria cried out after the nightmare she had been through, moved around to check.

She tilted her head and notified Grace.

"Uh…Claymore?"

"What is it?"

"She has passed out."

Grace seemed surprised and let go of Gloria for a short while.

"Are you sure about that?"

Faith now stood in front of Grace and helped to bend off Gloria from her. She was like a ragdoll with tears down her cheeks and slept like a child.

The exhaustion from the lengthy battle finally took its toll on Gloria, and she had fallen asleep almost immediately. She had after all used far more yoki and effort that she ever had done in her entire life so far. It was only natural that it would have worn her out.

"I think we just confirmed that…"

They let her down on her back and let her sleep in peace.

She deserved it.


Faith turned her back at Grace for a while and seemed to be distracted by other issues. Grace instead provided a careful look at Gloria as she remembered the previous battle.

"And I thought that I was underestimated…"

She began to realize why Apsley had assigned Gloria to supervise her. Gloria could still be seen even in her invisible state by yoki perception, but since Grace lacked that, it meant that Gloria could achieve complete invisibility, a perfect assassin in case Grace decided to disappear again.

A perfect combination, since Grace couldn´t get angry with Gloria.

"I nearly killed her…"

Grace felt burdened by guilt over what she almost had done to her.

"Is she going to be fine?"

She turned her head to her left and only now noticed Victoria, who had silently approached her.

Victoria didn´t seem to feel any better than she did, but at least her bloodstains only darkened her clothes. She also had these heavy eyes of shame and guilt while she avoided meeting Grace´s eyes.

Grace replied.

"She will be fine… she just exhausted herself, that´s all…"

"Good to know…"

A minute of shameful silence and Victoria spoke with a determined and repenting voice.

"I will never use my Sensory control on her again… I promise that…"

"Victoria… stop blaming yourself."

Victoria actually got a little angry over why Grace refused to put the blame on her. She couldn´t understand why.

"But I broke her… If it hadn´t been for me then she wouldn´t had attacked you…"

"…nothing could have prevented that, and you just tried to help me… I don´t blame you for that…"

"But it didn´t work! It just came back to hurt me…"

"Do you know that there´s one thing that´s far worse than that?"

Victoria listened as she didn´t know what to expect.

Grace spoke with an honest voice.

"…to not be able to help at all."

Victoria had a hunch of the meaning, but let Grace tell her instead.

"… Before I became a warrior, I saw how a yoma attacked my little sister in our shared bedroom. I could hear her cry, and I wanted to help, but I also knew that there wasn´t anything I could do. I tried to get my brother to help her but it only got him killed. Then I tried to get my mother to help, but instead she helped me to get away. I tried to get anyone outside the house to help, but our village got attacked by awakened beings and yoma. It was chaos and everyone tried to save their own hides…. Complete chaos…"

Victoria listened with great attention and sympathy for her. Grace talked away, with some difficulties since she had to remember everything that happened…

"…all I could do… was hide until every scream for help had silenced… That was the worst hour in my entire life… and then, as I left my hideout and noticed that everyone had been killed, that yoma found me. I ran… it felt like hours… and the yoma just chased right after me, toying with me since it knew that I was helpless…"

A deep troubled sigh left Grace´s lips.

"That was the worst part of it… to be helpless and unable to do anything… The yoma knew that and went in to kill me when it grew tired of the game… but then… someone helped me… a male warrior saved my life that night… and I knew what I had to do to never be helpless again…"

Victoria only thought one thing as she let it sink in.

"She became a warrior voluntarily?"

Grace smiled a little as she now looked up towards the stars.

"I became a warrior… because I wanted to help others."

She turned her face towards Victoria who didn´t look so burdened anymore.

"…so stop blame yourself… you tried to help and that´s better than to not try at all."

Victoria thought about it for a short while. Her eyes flickered a little in great consideration.

She spoke with a voice that didn´t carried such emotional burden with a dead grip, but still not accepted the idea of letting it go.

"I have to think about this…"

She then turned around and assumed her semi-awakened form while she slipped out of her tunic with ease. Her wings glimmered a little from the moonlight and that fearsome mark on her back appeared at once. Grace provided a slightly wondering expression as she wasn´t surprised at all.

She knew that Victoria took flight during the cloudless nights.

Victoria turned her head slightly back to Grace, without revealing it to her. She spoke with a voice of sympathy after what Grace had told her.

"… And Grace…"

Grace waited in silence as Victoria tilted her head slightly forward as she had to think it through, like she tried to sort out her entangled thoughts with a single sentence.

"… don´t wait up for me."

Her copper plated wings then opened up and she disappeared up into the star filled sky.

Grace looked up after her and then felt a little better with herself.


Grace felt a little exhausted as well when she considered sheathing her claymore once again.

She also looked around and noticed that this site couldn´t be ambushed, with a free view on all sides.

It was perfect.

She made up her mind as she needed some sleep after all and stabbed her sword into the sandstone instead. She gave the handle an extra thought as she remembered of badly her performance been with the whip earlier.

She knew that she needed more training in order to use that new function better. It would be a hindrance otherwise.

The sun would rise in five hours, until then, she should get some rest.

This place would do just as well as any other place, considering that they could set up camp anywhere.

Faith still looked away from Grace as they still had some tension from the quarrel earlier, but they could at least talk with each other now that Official had been put out of the picture.

Grace would rather sleep for now and removed her armor, piece by piece until she only wore her grey bodysuit and dicky. It was more comfortable to sleep without the armor once in a while and she really needed it.

She put it in an organized pile just within reach and leaned her back against the broadside of her blade.

It had been an exhausting duel for her…


Faith stood somewhere behind Grace as she tried to determine if a sandstorm would arrive or not.

But judging from the star filled sky, there wouldn´t be any more unpredictable weather tonight.

She turned her head towards the spot where Grace rested.

Faith remembered how their last conversation had ended and knew what she had to do.

"This…will be awkward…"

A minute of consideration followed by a sigh and she walked over to her.

"Mind if I sit down here?"

Grace just spoke with a calm and exhausted voice…

"I won´t stop you."

Faith then sat down with her back against the other side of Grace´s sword and leaned against it…

There was a little awkward silence between them, just as expected…

Faith broke it.

"Claymore…"

"You didn´t break Gloria."

Grace initiative in the conversation had cut straight through like a blade and Faith listened instead.

"Victoria told me earlier… and apologized for it."

"Don´t be angry at her… I was the one that…"

"I´m not angry… It wasn´t Victoria´s fault that Gloria broke…"

Faith remained silent as she listened to Grace.

"It was so stupid… but it wasn´t either of you who broke her…"

Grace sighed in acceptance and regret.

"I was the one who broke Gloria…"

Faith remained silent until that point and began to protest.

"What? That´s just ridiculous!"

"Not really… It´s so stupid… but if I hadn´t accepted that mission with Trish, the Lamprey, you remember? Gloria wouldn´t have broken in the first place…"

Faith tried to talk her out from this.

"You can´t blame yourself for something like this…"

"But it´s my fault! It was I who accepted the mission, It was I who lingered for too long by that lake, I was the one who got left behind because I didn´t watch my step. If I hadn´t then you wouldn´t had to try that rescue attempt…"

Faith actually lacked arguments now.

"Well, when you put it that way claymore… you´re right, it was your fault."

Faith knew she couldn´t say that out loud no matter how right it sounded.

"Don´t sound like that Claymore, I mean… something good must have come out from it…"

Grace thought about it for a minute and then confessed something.

"Well… I did meet a lot of people in there… warriors, awakened; I even made some friends back there…"

"Claymore… you were gone for five days…"

"So?"

Faith wanted to tell her that she couldn´t be friends with someone she barely knew.

Then she remembered Victoria and kept her mouth shut.

"Okay… maybe it´s possible… but come on! That was an exception!"

Grace talked away.

"I even fought with Alice…"

Faith stopped to think for just a moment…

She did what?

She considered the odds of survival against that Abyssal one and deemed them really low.

Well… it´s Claymore… I guess she could have gotten away with it…

"…and won."

Faith held back a disbelieving laughter as the mere thought and didn´t say a word about the absurdity in her claim.

"Claymore… don´t take this the wrong way… but don´t push it. There´s limits to what I can believe in you know…"

Grace sighed again as she now got the ultimate proof that nobody would ever believe in her victory back there.

She changed topic.

"And then we had to get here… Faith… I´m sorry for what I said back then."

"Don´t be so hard on yourself… there´s things that you couldn´t possibly have done differently…"

She thought about the hoard of awakened beings that headed north, and the reason to why their trip to Mucha been the best option.

"I guess the Empress got bored and let Claymore go, probably to invade Alphonse instead. I mean… there´s no way that Claymore could be responsible for…"

"But at least I freed every single one of Alice´s prisoners… that would be the only positive thing I did back there…"

Faith remained silent.

"Oh come on! How can she cause this much damage in so little time!?"

Grace sighed and continued.

"I got a mission earlier… we will deal with it the first thing in the morning."

"As usual then… and I guess we will head north next?"

"Yes… do you have any shortcuts?"

"Well… considering the position of the stars… I would say that we have to cross the eastern borders to get to Alphonse."

"How soon?"

"It would probably take… a couple of weeks at most… maybe seven. If we have to use human speed…"

"And how fast can it go for us?"

"Two-three weeks…"

"Thank you…"

Faith couldn´t see it, but Grace smiled from that news and whispered.

"Just this mission… and two more weeks…"

Faith didn´t need to ask, she knew who Grace had such concerns about. Grace talked away.

"I guess I blamed you back there… because I didn´t wanted to admit it… somehow it felt like it was my fault, that I couldn´t go after Eliah… It´s a silly thought isn´t it?"

Silly? Claymore, youarethe reason.

Of course Faith had to alter her answer once more.

"Really, I didn´t notice… but Claymore, I wouldn´t be so worried about Eliah if I were you…"

"Why not?"

"Because…"

She´s an abomination of yoki that scares me more than the Empress ever did?

"…she´s a tough little girl."

Grace chuckled a little over that comment and Faith kept her initial thought sealed far away in her mind.

Claymore would probably never believe me if I told her…

Faith actually began to feel good with herself as she enjoyed the company. This had been something that she missed during those two weeks with Official in charge.

Grace spoke again.

"Do you remember when I said that you weren´t worth a thousand pieces of gold?"

And there the mood dropped again.

"Yes, and I also recall that I said you weren´t worth those three thousand pieces either…"

Grace bent her head down a little as she remembered that part. They had really been interrupted at the worst possible moment.

Faith asked.

"How come you mention this again?"

Several minutes of silence followed and Faith began to wonder if Grace had started to calculate a precise value in her head.

Then she spoke.

"Do you remember how the life of a warrior is?"

Faith did and it had been a lonely life or would be if she didn´t have her two comrades back then.

She sighed as she missed them both so much.

"Yes… it´s still the same now isn´t it?"

"… A lonely life without anyone to rely on but yourself. A life where everything loses its value and you forget the things that made you human…"

"That sounds like it…"

"… Do you know what the most valuable thing a warrior can have in this life?"

Faith didn´t have to think about it for long as she saw the silhouettes of two shadows of her past.

The insight could be seen in her face as a slightly happy smile.

"Comrades…"

Grace smiled as well, unseen by Faith.

"And that… is worth far more than every single gold piece in Tolaine..."

Faith didn´t knew what to say since it had actually moved her emotionally. It had been such an imprint in her soul.

Grace bowed her head down and whispered with great gratitude in her voice.

"Thank you… for being my comrade."

Then she went to sleep.


Faith sat there and could hear Grace´s words within her mind. It had really a effect on her as she still tried to grasp it.

When was the last time I was called that?

Faith considered that thought for a while and realized that the last time had been back in her warrior days.

It had been so long that she nearly had forgotten how it felt.

I never imagined I would ever hear that word again, not after my awakening…

She leaned her head back against the hilt and looked up towards the moon. Her smile went a little happier as she tasted the word.

Comrade…

She held back a happy little laughter to not wake the others up.

it feels good.

It felt strange to know that Official didn´t kept an eye open to watch them, satisfying somehow.

Faith took a moment to consider what had happened tonight…

This couldn´t have been solved better… Victory´s suppressant turned Official into a separate individual. Then Claymore wore it out until it reached the breaking point so it could be defeated. I just had to wait until I could push Official back into whatever infernal place she came from…

Faith provided a concerned look at Gloria now.

But, what we did can´t repair what´s already broken. Only suppress and subdue…

She narrowed her eyes a little…

Let´s hope that it will stay suppressed when she wakes up. I don´t want to cut off Glory´s head if she tries to cut off Claymore´s…

She began to gaze upon the stars again…

I have missed this…

She knew that she could spar with Grace know, since Gloria wouldn´t stop them. All those restrictions that Official put down on them had vanished when she did. It was so strange but now when she once again had regained her freedom after two weeks, she began to appreciate it.

Sure, they would have to finish the duel they started two weeks ago but that could be done tomorrow.

Victoria maybe would felt a little bad over how they had to break Gloria for a couple of days, maybe she could get over it when she saw how it turned out. She would be back soon.

In fact, Faith could see a moth shaped silhouette break the blanket of stars, high above them.

I guess she just needs some privacy where no one can follow her.

Faith looked down and then thought about what grace had said.

A lonely life… you don´t know the meaning of that Claymore… Sure, you are shunned by humanity, but you have at least a chance to have comrades among your own peers. If you´re lonely among them then it´s because you chose to be lonely. But the life of an awakened one doesn´t have that choice. We live solitary and painful lives because we would be seen as monsters among other claymores. No… I lived a solitary and painful life as a awakened… I didn´t had anything when I woke up. My friends where gone, dead or worse, and I couldn´t return back to the Organization either…

She looked down on her right hand and turned it slowly into its semi-awakened bladed form.

Most claymores have a choice when they finally reach the limit. They could allow it or to deny it, to be killed by their comrades or to embrace the change or fight it in desperation. No matter what, it´s their choice…

She stroked a finger across the mantis-like sharp blade. It felt like she stroked a snake along its scale covered body. Her insect-like exoskeleton felt so smooth and cold, so unlike the warmth of her human body.

My choice got robbed from me… I woke up in this body, it took a while to realize it… and when I did… I despaired. I had turned into what the Organization called a monster; I would be hunted like an animal by the others… And since we are immortal, I would thrive in that despair until the day I would get killed… And it hadn´t even been my choice... I didn´t even know how this happened…

Her finger ran along the sharp edge of her awakened arm.

A small sting of pain across her fingertip followed.

Faith looked down at it as she could see a tiny red cut across her finger tip.

And to make things even worse… The wound healed immediately and she sighed. I got a body that´s nigh immortal as well.

She chuckled over the irony in it.

I knew my number matched my abilities but I never could imagine that this would become my superior skill. I wasn´t even the type who specialized in this kind of ability…

She crossed her arms over her chest and thought…

Whatever higher deity there´s up there… it must have a bad sense of humor.

She considered if she should go to sleep as well. But as she rested with her back against the blade, she realized how comfortable it felt.

It was like back in the warrior days.

Faith smiled a happy smile as she rested her head against the hilt.

It has been a while… I have forgotten how comfortable this was…

Her eyelids felt heavy and she nearly fell into the world of dreams.

Three thousand pieces of gold… but you aren´t worth that, Claymore.

Her breathing slowed down as she calmed down and slowly reached a peaceful slumber.

To see me, an Awakened, as a comrade… to treat me like a human again… that made you invaluable…

She smiled a really happy little smile as she closed her eyes and moved her head forward.

I got your back… comrade.

Then she entered the land of dreams.

The peaceful silence of the night remained unbroken, a calm night they all truly had deserved.


Gloria slept with her face turned up towards the stars and her tears had managed to wash away some of the blood from it.

She had cried due to the humongous amounts of pain she had experienced and the sense of guilt that she felt.

But she also couldn´t get rid of that headache, as it lingered like phantom pain from a bee sting.

She frowned her eyebrows in her sleep as a really small sting of pain went through her mind. The right corner of her mouth changed, just a little, with an inch of scar tissue appearing from it in a narrow triangle shape.

It grew just an inch, remained there for three seconds, and then reverted to her unharmed appearance once more.

"Next time…"

Her headache faded away and her dream became a happy one instead.

She sighed in relief as the short pain in her head subdued once more.


(Authors note: And there´s chapter 50...

I hope you enjoyed this one since I had a hard time to write it, to make things sound right and all.

Please review with your opinions about this chapter and the story so far...

And thank you for following the story this far...

I´m also preparing a special surprise for you all, so stay updated.

Next chapter in progress... even if it can take a little longer than usual...

Note: updated.)