AN* See previous chapters for disclaimer

A New Beginning

It had been months since they had faced the horde of awakened beings and they were all beginning to train to grow to a new level of strength. Most days that went by Christopher and Clare went off into the snow swept fields to battle in simple swordsmanship, slowly learning new tricks. Each of the eight survivors were focusing on learning anything that they thought would be useful from attacks to long range yoma detection without using youki.

"Keep your shoulder up." He said as he struck at Clare's side. This was their third sparring session that day, with Clare starting to learn to use Flora's signature attack, the wind cutter, to replace the quick sword that always required youki to function. By the end of their session Clare felt no closer to mastering the technique then when she had started.

"You worry too much." Christopher grinned "You have made astounding progress." They then returned to the cave that was their home. Each of them had changed out of the old uniform in favor of a new black leather outfit with black full body cloaks. Christopher's was more interesting in many of their eyes. He had gone into a town and raided an armory and retuned wearing the black leather shirt that they had found but now with the sleeves missing and black gauntlets on his arms. His black pants now also had black armor on them and around his chest were straps of throwing knives.

"Why did you take all of this?" Miria had asked as she tried to not ogle him.

"Well it's not doing anyone any good just lying in an abandoned armory so I thought that I could use it. The armor is great quality and could easily deflect a claymore, and as for the knives, there are always situations that require stealth so why not attack from a distance. With our increased strength imagine what would happen if one of those went flying through a yoma." Christopher explained as the seven women all stared at what was soon to become a god of war in the eyes of the organization.

It had been a month since then and he had added more knives to the straps around his chest and had trimmed his silver hair so that it was shorter than it had been and was now in short spikes, which Helen often joked saying that they were icicles growing upside down from his head.

"Evening ladies." He said as he went to his usual rock, grabbing a roll to sate his hunger.

"Welcome back." Deneve said as she set aside her two claymores, one that she had taken from Undine's dead body.

"Where is Miria?" Christopher asked as he looked about the cave.

"Still out training. She wants to perfect that new mirage." Helen said.

"Really? Well then I should go get her." Christopher said as he grabbed his sword and walked out of the cave. Climbing to a higher portion of the mountain he saw her trying to move with a speed that was close to what she used to have. He watched her for a few moments until he snuck up behind her and wrapped her in a hug.

"You work too hard." He whispered into her ear.

"You don't work hard enough." She said as she attacked him. Rolling to the side to avoid the kick that was aimed at his manhood, he watched as she tried out her new mirage but could only move so far. Drawing his blade he faced her and bowing let her take the first strike. Moving with as much grace as she could, she attacked him, while trying to use her new mirages. Christopher simply dodged the attacks until he decided to show her what he had learned over these few months. Taking a back stance (for those of you that have no idea what that is your back leg is bent while the front one is as straight as possible) he placed the blade so that it was lying between his forearm and bicep. Moving forward with one motion he pulled the blade out, drawing blood, and swung it at Miria. However she didn't block it as it was too far off, or so she thought as the front of her uniform began to split open.

"How?" she asked.

"A new attack I've been working on. By using my blood I swing the sword forward with all of my strength turning the blood on the blade into an extension of my sword and allowing me to attack from greater distances. I call it Crimson Slash." Christopher explained as he began applying pressure to the wound.

"Seems like a risky attack." Miria stated.

"It is, but with the proper timing it can be lethal." He grinned as they walked back to the cave so that Cynthia could apply some first aid to his arm.

The next day Christopher and Miria went to Pieta to gather some more supplies before they were scavenged. As they entered warehouses to search for any remaining supplies they found only old boxes filled with nothing of any use. Eventually they came up to the building that Miria had been using as the command center before they had faked their deaths.

"Feel like reminiscing?" Christopher asked as he headed for the building. Smiling coyly they entered the building to explore each other more thoroughly.

AN* Don't kill me now for this crappy chapter ending! I felt that this chapter should be more focused on their training then going into lemonz. I promise next chapter i wont jerk you around like this. Though i may do this again in the future who knows ^_^.