Chapter 1 –

They'd been walking for what felt like an eternity at that point, not that his legs ached for it. Like they might have, years ago. Back when he'd been human. The Scarred Prince sat with his back propped against his Claymore, arms folded across his chest, and watched the sparks leap high towards the darkened treetops. Off among the undergrowth, an animal cried. A stiff wind rattled the leaves, carrying with it the smells of wet earth and dry leaf litter; rich and nutty and lighting a fire of nostalgia deep in his breast for autumns spent playing with his older brother, as a boy. Back when he'd had a family.

"You're frowning again, Raki." No. He still had a family. Or as much of one as a halfling could. The Warrior who'd rescued him from monsters. Who'd taken him under his wing upon discovering that he, too, had become half. Who'd been the first to give him his moniker and who shared a kinship with him that none of the others had bothered with and had pulled him back from the very precipice of darkness. "While in my presence, I prefer to see you smile. It's an uncommon warmth."

They were the only ones left, now, of the original generation. He and Isley. Number 1 and Number 5. All of the others had become monsters. Awakened Beings. Voracious Eaters, as they were publicly called. He'd come so close to joining their ranks. Becoming nothing more than a mindless, savage beast. And he still didn't feel quite the same. Hungrier, and more easily.

It frightened him.

"All things considered, it's hard to muster one." One of the logs in the fire between them gave way with a pop. "I'm scared, Isley. Scared of myself. I don't even want to release enough Yoki to change the color of my eyes for fear I'll-."

"You won't." The Silver King cut him off, stern and sharp. "I won't allow it."

"It already happened once. If you hadn't gotten there the moment that you did-."

"We agreed not to speak of what happened in that village. And I was there. As I am here now." His tone brokered no argument. "You will not lose you humanity again. I won't allow it."

There was only so much that could be done, Raki knew. And only for so long. None the less, he bowed his head and changed the subject. "Rigaldo." His voice was quiet. Reluctant. He stared, hard, into the flames with a creased brow.

"We knew it was inevitable." As they had with all the others. But that didn't stop it from hurting. A raw and bleeding wound like might be caused by the blades they carried, if one that wasn't physical. Deeper with each one of them who were lost to that darkness. "I'm surprised it took this long."

Raki could remember the last time he'd seen the other warrior. The man had refused to see reason. Had mocked him for suggesting that their powers might be dangerous. That their control might not extend forever, single digit rank or not. "What are we going to do, Isley?'

"You," the Silver King said, "are going to trust me. And I'll take care of everything."

Sunlight spilled through the dusted glass windows, the slant of it speaking to the fact that the day had aged well passed morning. He'd slept in later than he'd meant to already, but the prospect of getting up wasn't one he relished. Not now. Not after remember that conversation. What had ended up being their last conversation, before…

Raki grunted and threw an arm across his eyes in a futile effort to block out the glare. Why now? After so many years. After he'd given up. Resigned himself to insignificance and obscurity out of fear of himself, and of his powers. Of being found and executed by the Organization or, worse, by Isley and restored his position of 'Prince', another monster to walk at the Abyssal's side. Why would his mind dredge up those memories?

The ones that he always wished he could forget but never managed to. In spite of every concerted effort made to do so. His ghosts chased him. Speaking in his head. Calling him a failure. A coward. A bad omen, tainted by the blood of his family. The smell of death. The monster guts they'd shoved inside him like ago, kept in place by thick string down his front. His brother's voice. The voices of the people of the town that had sold him. Of those here, in Douga, who he hadn't lifted a finger to save despite knowing the monster lurking among them.

Isley's voice.

Raki huffed, sat up, cracked his neck and forced himself to his feet. His hair a mess, as usual. Sticking skyward and in all directions. Untamable no matter what he tried. It might have been brown, once. Or straw blonde. It had been pale for so long, now, that he honestly couldn't remember. And his eyes…hazel? Blue?

Silver, now. Though the people of Douga, as had those of every town he'd settled in before, believed him blind. Disfigured.

He'd tried using pills, decades ago, but had run out quickly and efforts to reproduce them with herbs had failed. Bandages had served him ever since and Raki had gotten to be quite adapt at wrapping them around his face in a way that didn't actually impede his vision.

Securing the wrappings in their proper place at the back of his head, Raki finished off one of the last apples he'd purchased on his most recent trip into market and exited his home on the outskirts of town. Headed towards Douga's square. Tapping the walking stick in front of him as if he really needed it. The tack! tack! sound one which had long ago become familiar.

Douga was a small, rural village without much in the way of money but it was beautiful in its own right and quiet and its citizens largely left him alone. Though of late, understandably, they'd been more suspicious than usual. The still semi-stranger who'd settled there three years before and hadn't done much to bond with those who lived there.

What point was there in making ties when he'd inevitably have to leave, unceremoniously and without a word to anyone, lest the humans around him catch on to the fact that he'd never aged a day past 18 and the Organization realize he'd survived their decision to 'retire' him before he could Awaken.

Some retirement having his head divorced from his shoulders was. The wound he'd been left with should have killed him. Would have, if it hadn't been for his time beyond his limit. They'd healed a long time ago, now, but thinking of them, of the clash in the mountains along Mucha's border, made the ghosts of the injuries and his stigma twinge.

Behind the bandaged wrapped around his face, Raki winced.

The streets were thin and curved. Cluttered and dirty. There were very few people out for the time of day that it was, other than a few children. One of them crashed into his leg with force enough to stumble a human but Raki stood firm. The boy, perhaps around the age of 11, rebounded off him and landed in the dirt with a huff. Looking up with wide eyes.

"S-Sorry!"

He shook his head and offered the child a hand. Pulling him back onto his feet. "Don't concern yourself with it. I was a boy too, once." He weighed nothing, in the face of his massive strength, but Raki kept it carefully restrained to be passable-if barely-as human. "Go play."

The child was off like an arrow from a bow. A wistful smile curled his lips as he continued on his way. Could hear the yelling from well down the street.

All eyes in the room turned onto him as he stepped in through the door.

"Blind Raki," the man tasked with overseeing the general affairs of Douga was old, hair grey as storm clouds and in the midst of a determined retreat from the top of his head. Though a crop of it still clung to his upper lip like a tenacious caterpillar. "You're late."

"Apologies." He bowed his head and gestured to his bound eyes. "It can be difficult, at times, for me to find my way to precise places. Especially when I'm not used to visiting them." The other men around him grunted. Many crossed their arms. Eyes of a multitude of colors darted about; skittish and suspicious of the true natures of everyone around them. All except for one. "Pardon my thickness, alongside my tardiness, but what's going on?"

"I called this meeting in regards to the attacks which have been plaguing our town for almost a year, now." A sliver of what might have been guilt, if Raki had been so inclined to name it, wound itself in and out of his ribs. "Another family was wiped out last night." The Yoma had taken on the form of a young man. Maybe 17. Had he been able to recall his brother's face, he might have thought he looked like Zaki. It didn't notice him. Didn't feel his gaze. A wolf unknowing of the presence of an old collie-dog, grown too cold and tired to bother shielding sheep. Raki considered it enough that he wasn't the one eating them. Didn't want to go tempting fate anymore than he needed to for fear she'd turn around and bite him. "They've answered our letter and agreed to send someone to help." He slid a narrow strip of paper across the desktop as proof and many of the men leaned forward to read it. Raki didn't bother. Could see it from where he stood. Knew enough of what it said.

"A Claymore!?" Someone shouted.

"A warrior." The correction slipped free without him noticing. The Yoma, who turned to look at him through narrowed eyes, was the only one who heard.

"But they're monsters too! They cause more problems than they solve!"

It was always the same. They pledged their lives to being living shields. Breathing weapons. Took the flesh of monsters into their own bodies in the hope of being heroes. Gave everything they were and ever would be, and ultimately sacrificed their humanity to protect these people. And for what? Demon. Witch. Bad omen. Monster.

Such strange creatures. Isley had once said. To call the hounds which defend them wolves.

Sometimes he wished he was one, like the rest of them were, just so he could show humans like these what a real demon was. But those thoughts stemmed from his Yoma half and were quickly quieted. The guilt that followed them, though, would ring in the caverns of his heart for days.

By the time Raki pulled himself back from his thoughts the majority of the yelling had ended, and a new ruckus had begun outside. Without waiting for dismissal, he stepped back out onto the street. Those who hadn't bothered to attend the meeting, or hadn't been invited to, stood posted close together in a murmuring crowd, all looking out towards the distance. Raki turned his head to follow their gaze.

A thin figure was drawing ever closer towards them, clad in the pale uniform of the Organization though the armor bore notable changes from that of his era. She was waifishly thin, as all female warriors seemed to be thought what it was about women which led specifically to that trait he couldn't begin to guess, and wore her hair in a pageboy style. Her eyes, though, were what drew the most of his attention.

Silver, like his. Like those of all warriors. Cold and calm, on the surface, but below that veneer Raki saw the same fire which had fallen long ago to ashes within his own heart. Maybe it was this recognition that drove the impulse, maybe it was the near century of pent up loneliness, maybe he'd just gone stir-crazy at this point, or developed a subconscious death wish, because he extended a thin tendril-little more than a trickle and no thicker than a strand of spider's silk-of her Yoki to lightly prod at hers. Investigating.

Shallow. Though the floor of it was more like a thin layer of glass spanning a trench than a solid lakebed. Raki had never seen anything like it before, a signature buried within a signature, but he didn't get the chance to investigate further. The warrior stopped mid-step and turned her head, not directly towards him but starkly close, and swept searching eyes across the crowd. Showing no reaction to the fearful withdrawal of the humans around them. Raki reeled the tendril back in and shoved his aura down deeper.

Young. Low ranked. High 30s, at the most. The same ranged he'd have found himself trapped in had the strongest of their kind not seen something in him and dragged him along behind until he found his feet enough to run. But she managed to sense me, even after I've hidden for so long. Buried my Yoki so far. Incredible.

Whoever this woman was, she'd been training her ability to pick up on the aura of others. Hard. An ability which became more useful the stronger the foe one found themselves facing was. And there was only one thing strong enough to make such a skill necessary.

A towering beast, like a twisted shadow from a fairy tale. The body of a horse, melded to the torso of a man. All black. Skin light armor plating. Arms able to shift their form at will to weapons: sword, bow, shield.

In her, he saw the shadow of himself. A ghost of what he'd been, before he'd clashed with his former mentor and failed to bring him peace. To free him from the monster he'd become. Before he realized he was too weak to be of any use, even after reaching the rank of 5. Unworthy. Before that fire, that bright blaze at both ends, had gone out. Leaving only a charred wake behind.

It stirred something in him. Pulled him to her. But he sensed danger in that draw and held himself back. This woman burned like the sun and if he reached out to her, he knew, he'd burn. He'd burn and he'd fall and that fall would end, all but surely, in breaking on the ground. So, he turned away. Weaved between the staring members of the crowd. Not caring to keep up the façade that he couldn't see them or that the Yoma was watching him go.

Failure, they'd called him.

Weak. Unfocused.

He'd been able to lift the swords they'd trained with but had no instinct what to do with it. Would stare at the heavy, brutal thing in his hand while the boys around him swung them about and laughed. He'd been able to move at speeds he'd thought impossible, back when he'd been human, but every single one of them outpaced him by leaps and bounds. It had been luck, and nothing more, which had seen him out of the other end of the final exam alive.

47. Below the former holder of that rank by two tiers. Dirt, compared to the others. Unworthy to hold a sword. And yet Isley had come to him when he'd been active for less than a week. Had remembered the boy that he'd saved from death and sat with as he'd cried. Inexplicably, had taken him under his wing.

24th, within a year. By that rank their association had been noticed, and he'd received his moniker.

12th, eight months after that.

It had been the first Awakening that had granted him his final rank of 5th.

Raki hadn't paid mind to where he'd been going, and as he trotted to a stop in the middle of the road, he sensed her presence. Looked up. The woman was a few yards ahead of him and walking at a steady pace.

"There's nothing out that way but the borrasca." For the second time that day his tongue acted without permission from his mind, or consultation from his better judgement. "It was an iron mine, from what I'm told. Before it ran dry and took most of the town's income with it." Her silver eyes were on him, now, and he felt as if he were being run through with a spear. "But that was three decades before I got here." He'd been born in Douga, 115 years ago, but no one there remembered.

Everyone who'd known him was dead, or as good as.

Worse, really.

"This is the edge of town?"

"It is. Though I wouldn't advise it as a place to rest." He didn't attempt to suppress his grin at her look of surprise. "Unless you want to become the new object of attention for the children. Scared or not, it's only a matter of time before you're discovered."

"I'm tired. I've walked 70 hours to get here." Raki remembered that sort of exhaustion well. Always dull. Never more than an annoyance. But nettling. Like hunger. "Do you know of a better place than this one?"

Speaking of hunger, he should probably eat something else when he got back. It wouldn't do for him to slip up, do something stupid, in the presence of an active warrior because his stomach was keeping his mind distracted.

"You're welcome to join me at my home. It's not far outside of town and it offers quiet, as well as a meal if you're hungry."

Yeah. Something stupid. Like that.

The fact she was attractive certainly wasn't helping matters.

The woman stared at him as if he'd sprouted six additional heads and a tail. "What's wrong with you, boy? Are you not afraid of me like the rest of your kind?"

Sorry, love, but I'm older than you are by a big margin. Sticking to the role of curious teen, Raki canted his head. "What do you mean?"

"Can't you see?"

A retort made in haste. His grin grew even wider. "No, actually." He couldn't keep a chuckle out of his voice. "There is a reason they call me Blind Raki around here, after all."

The woman let out an exasperated sound, but deep in her eyes he saw a glint of what might have been embarrassment. "Most humans are frightened of me."

"Because you're a Silver-eyed Slayer?" He refused to call her 'witch'. Even if this woman didn't know it, they were comrade and he'd respect her for that much. Siblings, of a sort. If distant ones. "And I'm sure your beauty rivals that of the Twin Goddess, Clare and Teresa."

She looked alarmed, now, though whether that was due to his comment or the very faintest shadow of a smile they'd dragged onto her face Raki wasn't sure. All he knew was that he was enjoying himself, immensely, for the first time in decades. "For all you know, I look like a horse." A bark of genuine laughter leapt from his throat and clattered to the street like falling coins. "If I decline?"

"I think we both know the answer that I'm going to give you."

The exasperation grew stronger. The woman glanced up into the sky, though whether the purpose of the action was to check the position of the sun or pray for patience he'd never know. "Fine."

"We won't have far to go. Not from here." Light on his feet, Raki stepped around her and started down the street.

She watched him go for the space of two heart beats, reconsidering, then trailed in his wake. Watching him. He was tall. Taller than most of the other humans in the little village. And powerfully built. Shoulders broad and back muscled. Neck thick and jawline sharp. With his eyes concealed beneath the bandages, the only real visible feature of his face that she could make out was the scar on his right temple. But what had drawn the most of her attention was his hair. Wild. Pointing in every direction at once and waving drunkenly in the breeze. Frost blonde.

A shade she'd never seen on a human.

A shade she'd thought only warriors had. Halflings. Like her. But it wasn't possible that this boy, this 'Blind Raki, could be anything of the sort. The Organization didn't make men.

"What's your name?"

She blinked. Refocused. He'd turned his head towards her, walking stick a constant tap before them. If she hadn't known better, she might have thought that he could see her. "It doesn't matter." She said. "It's a name that will soon be forgotten."

That answer clearly didn't please him, but it seemed to be one that he'd expected. "Perhaps." He said. "But it doesn't have to be."

Briefly, the notion that she should tell him, or at least tell him he'd already spoken it and have him guess, flared within her but Clare pushed it aside. What reason was there for her to do such a thing? A handsome face? A warm smile? The fact that he might be the only human that wouldn't run away screaming because he wouldn't be able to see the mark of inhumanity on her body? Even the barest semblance of a bond would ruin him, and make her weak. Like she'd made Teresa weak. And if she let herself be made any weaker than she was, she'd never kill Priscilla.

"It's better that it is."

Raki's lips pulled down into a frown. It didn't mar his face. Not really. But the air felt colder, suddenly, as if it had taken all warmth present with it when it had vanished. "Maybe if you're running from something."

Indignance lunged forwards, but the deeply buried kernel of understanding, of empathy, stopped her from commenting on it. They were shadows of each other in all the ways that made no sense and Clare didn't know what to make of it.

They walked in silence, after that.

Raki's house, it turned out, was a lopsided wooden cabin wedged between a stand of crooked trees and a narrow stone well thickly carpeted in emerald moss. He scaled the stairs out front in two bounds and pushed the door open for her, as if she needed or wanted the courtesy. The inside was spartan. A bit dusty. But comfortable. Inviting.

"I have some fruit," the door clattered shut behind him, replacing the sunlight which had filtered in with an orange dimness. Like torchlight viewed through lantern paper. "And some wine. Make yourself comfortable."

It was a half-childish impulse which prompted her to drive her sword blade directly into his floor. Raki glanced towards the sound of breaking wood and sighed but didn't question the matter. There was a bottle in his hand. Dark glass, with a yellowed label. Its shoulders covered in dust, like grey snow. "I'm actually 25, you know." A comment likely in response to the look Clare was giving him, given that her memory of human custom on alcohol was not to allow children to purchase it.

Wait. How had he seen her look, or noticed that he was looking at him at all? "How did you lose your vision?"

Most would take offense to being asked such a thing so directly. Especially by a 'Silver-eyed Witch'. Raki just handed her a cup of beaten tin, filled to the brim with liquid the color of blood.

"Doing something dumb." He offered her an apple, next. When she denied it, he took a bite of it himself. His teeth were white, like milk-glass. A tickle of clear juice rolled over his bottom lip and down his chin. He swiped it away with the back of his hand. "A childhood dare involving embers. I burned his eyes beyond repair and disfigured my face pretty badly. I was 11."

It didn't ring true, but Clare couldn't pinpoint the precise reason why. He wasn't a Yoma. Just a human. At least as far as she could tell. Her eyes drifted up to his hair again. To the way he seemed to watch her through a thin chink in the bandages he'd wrapped his face in, though it wasn't large enough for her to see through. It was all so very strange.

"Who was it?" Clare went very still against her blade. He was definitely looking at her, his unseen eyes intelligent. Curious. Far too knowing for her comfort. She felt those things in his gaze, and again the absurd notion that they were the same wrapped itself around her ankles like an affection seeking cat. "That you lost. And were they taken from you, or was leaving you their choice?"

Pain. It was old. Buried. But there. Plain in the broken cadence of his voice.

Long, pale ringlets hung over her arms. A severed head clutched to her chest like a lifeline. All that remained of the last person in the world who'd cared anything for her. "You ask about things that aren't your business."

And, like that, the strange moment passed. Raki went back to playing blind, looking vaguely in her direction but not quite at her, and then moved away. Busying himself with something in one of the other rooms. Outside, the sun dipped lower. When the edge of night unfurled itself across Lautrec, and leaving the cup of wine almost untouched, Clare exited the cabin without sparing her odd host a word.

The trees around the cabin cast the surrounding area in even deeper darkness. The leaves around her whispered and swallowed the tick of her steps against the hard-packed earth. Her journey back to Douga was one which passed quickly, only to discover that the citizens had all already retreated into their homes. Locked the doors and shuddered their windows. Not that it would help them much if a Yoma wanted in.

Or was already inside.

One Yoma, if a firmly entrenched one. It would be an easy job. One simple to complete for a warrior of any rank. All she had to do was find it, and then she could continue on her way to her next job, in the next town over.

She'd probably have found it before sun down if that strange 'blind' human hadn't posed such a stubborn distraction.

Pushing thoughts of Raki from her mind, Clare extended her awareness over the town. Searching. Catching a brief glimpse of its aura vanishing beyond Douga's outskirts.

Back towards the cabin she'd left.

Clare was off a moment later. Running through the undergrowth. Knowing she wouldn't reach it in time. Hoping she could stop the beast from slaughtering the occupant. Clare cleared the tree line. Broke through the clustered undergrowth. Could see the cabin, now. A hole punched through its face where the Yoma had barreled through it. Clare pulled down her Claymore. Directed a surge of Yoki to her legs.

She only made it three steps before a dark form came flying back through the gaping hole in the building. Thudding against the earth when it landed in a cloud of dust and rolled end over end in the dirt. The Yoma Clare was hunting scrambled up onto all fours, yellow eyes wide with panic and fanged mouth agape. Clare followed its gaze.

Framed in the hole was Raki. The bandages formerly wrapped around his face clenched in his fist. The moonlight collecting in his silver eyes. A warrior. A male warrior. But that wasn't possible! He stepped down from the ruined structure. His footsteps an ominous thud in the dark. Gaze predatory and intense. Full of cold anger. And in that moment the Yoma seemed to voice her thoughts.

"W-What are you!" It raised a clawed hand above its face in a very human gesture of defense. "They don't make men!"

"Not anymore." He vanished. The Yoma's head exploded from the force of his blow, violet gore splattering in all directions. He landed a few paces from her and Clare acted on instinct. Half fear. Half the recognition that, whatever Raki was, he was dangerous. He caught the blade of her sword in a motion that looked effortless. The blade meeting his palm with a dull noise but not cutting his skin. Forced to a stop by the thin layer of Yoki he'd coated his hand in, like armor.

Massive. Deep. A yawning cavern, lined with stone teeth. A great, fire breathing beast from a child's tale sluggish from being newly roused after a long sleep but still very much a threat. The same seeking, inquisitive presence she'd noticed earlier. He stared her down, contemplative, like a mountain cat might when deciding whether it wanted to waste its time toying with a lesser predator, then stepped away and turned his back. Cracking his neck and walking away. Melting into the night drenched trees like a ghost.

Clare didn't dare to follow. Whatever Raki was, he could over power her with ease and dying in the pursuit of some unknown element who, to her knowledge, had only killed a Yoma would do nothing to further her goal of avenging Teresa. So, she remained where she stood, staring after him, for a long moment before turning and walking away in the opposite direction.