Fifteenth Stroke – Disconcerting Moves

Sylvia avoided looking at the sunset; it brought back too many feelings of blood. It wasn't all that easy to achieve this, since they were rising in elevation and heading west. Victory had dulled the pain a little, but not completely, and now they had to walk with it. She tried to focus on aspects of the journey itself, as she usually did, but it was hard. She kept seeing Lynne's face everywhere; or the contorted faces of humans in pain.

It was strange, it was not the Claymore's tendency to brood, and she usually could divest herself of the past without great difficulty. Death was not unfamiliar to her, either of humans or Claymores, but something about all this crossed ordinary boundaries. It was very grating, especially as Tyrin seemed relatively undisturbed compared to the others.

Why is she more steady than we? Sylvia wondered. She did the deed, and told me she regretted it, so what is the difference? Following long miles of mulling she thought she might have the answer, and it was simple, if depressing. Failure, that must be it. Tyrin was not responsible for our failure, even if she had to pay part of the price for it. Sylvia gritted her teeth with it. We failed, and Lynne died. I've failed before, Sylvia was willing to admit to that much, but no one else has ever paid for it for me. That was the reason nothing would settle. A Claymore lived and died by her own sword. That someone else should have died because of the collective failure of the group, it was not acceptable. Had we been better prepared, planned better, it all might have been avoided, I should have done something more, Sylvia berated herself.

The end of the march passed on in silence, before they stopped for the day. Their campsite was nothing major, simply a hayfield by the side of the small road they were following. It had not been a particularly long day, especially for the three Claymores, marching at human pace. Somehow, though, there was little desire in Sylvia to keep moving. A month long march was hard to conceive of, but now that it had begun, everything seemed endless.

She sat on the ground, idly, not really feeling the desire to do anything. Halfhearted Sylvia scrabbled about at the base of a rock wall, picking out enough wood to build a pathetic little fire. No one was heating their meals tonight anyway, they had bought some fruit as part of their provisions before leaving on the trek, and it had to be eaten quickly enough or it would spoil.

Only when the stick clattered at the base of her feet, ringing audibly against her metal shoes, did Sylvia realize how deeply withdrawn she had become.

"You look tired," Tyrin's voice was filled with a strong twinge of exasperation. "That sure isn't fair, now is it?"

Sylvia turned to see the human warrior, devoid of armor, holding another stick. Both of the pieces of wood were, the Claymore realized slowly, about the size they usually used for practice swords.

Tyrin tossed the branch from hand to hand, and appeared to consider something. "I wonder, with you like that, is there…" she paused. "An opening!" then lunged.

Instinct took over, and the Claymore grasped the stick with a tight grip and blocked the thrust, shoving it aside.

Tyrin spun full circle, coming around for a wicked bludgeon aimed at the top of Sylvia's seated head.

The Claymore rolled backwards, kicking out to ward off the blow, and coming ot her feet swiftly.

Tyrin didn't pause, but came on, stance bleeding out furious energy. She charged again, blisteringly fast.

The Claymore blocked, dodged, and evaded, as blow after blow came on. Sylvia was confused, and only defended, not understanding, and not striking back. The defense was difficult at first, and she had to call on supernatural speed and strength to avoid the vigorous blows, more forceful than Tyrin had ever used with the practice blades before. Crack after crack between the wood split the air as they settled into a rhythm, one-sided as the human attacked her half-yoma opponent.

Sylvia's defense closed up, and soon she met the human soldier's assault with a more settled ease, only rarely having to rely on her speed to escape a sudden trick thrust or unanticipated swipe. Yet she did not attempt any real attacks, only feints and counters.

Dimly the Claymore was aware of Jessica and Racquel watching, their silent observation unnerved her. Do I appear comical to them?

Tyrin flashed a smile, sweat blazing on her brow. "Come on," she quipped. "You'll never win if you don't hit me!"

It wasn't exactly a jab, not really, but it irked Sylvia. I can't win if I don't hit her, that's true, but I can't lose either, since she won't hit me. What is the point? The thwack of false swords against each other punctuated her thoughts. Does she think I can't win like this, not attacking? The Claymore thought that might be it. That Tyrin had seen something in her silence and thought her unready. I will do my duty, and I will prove it. Sylvia made her decision, and then waited.

Tyrin tried an aggressive series of strokes, advancing openly, hoping to pressure the Claymore. It was the kind of thing that would have forced her to go dashing backward early in their travels together, as the quickly linked techniques disrupted the more casual defenses of the Claymore, but not now. Sylvia held her ground, met blow for blow, and caught the timing. One stroke only, she decided. There!

Scraggly branch snapped out, twisted about in the air, and skidded against the human warrior's at just the right angle, knocking it aside. The half-human half-yoma's body twisted, shifted, and snapped against the strength of muscle. The point of her stick arced in to tap Tyrin in the throat.

They both stopped at once. Tyrin smiled briefly, and then frowned. "Not exactly what I hoped for," she shook her head briefly. "But I guess it'll do."

She was trying something, something intended to alter my emotions, Sylvia confirmed. She refrained from asking questions, it seemed a sign of Tyrin's goodwill, and it would not be right to probe.

The soldier put down her false weapon, and then walked over to her pile of gear to pick up her real one, and her shield as well. "Would you come with me for a bit?" she asked quietly.

Similarly discarding her own weapon Sylvia wondered what it was Tyrin wanted. They never practiced with real blades; it was too dangerous, mostly for the human soldier. "Should I bring my sword?" she asked cautiously.

"No, that won't be necessary," the response was swift and certain.

"Very well," Sylvia nodded briefly, and followed, though it felt strange to walk about without her weapons when there was another person armed nearby. Not that Tyrin was going to try and stab her or anything, even if the other woman had suddenly gone mad there was nothing to fear on that account. Even unarmed she'd be able to evade almost any attack, knowing the style as she now did.

"I didn't really want the others to hear," Tyrin explained softly as they walked back down the road a distance. "I'm not sure why, they're decent enough, but, well…"

"You should not worry about it," Sylvia spoke carefully. "This is a difficult time and a difficult situation, especially for you, we must make allowances."

"Thanks, I think," Tyrin shrugged, and then turned to face Sylvia. "I think I don't need to teach you the sword anymore."

"What?" Sylvia could hardly believe it, she knew she had not mastered the short weapon to the degree Tyrin had. I know the forms, and my technique has improved, but I surely do not yet have her practiced skill.

"You've learned how to wield the weapon, and the proper methods to do so, the rest is just constant refinement, endless hours of practice," Tyrin gave the ghost of a smile. "You won't avoid that, I know that much Sylvia. Your technique will improve to a master's level in due time. My helping you would hardly speed it up, in fact, it might make things worse, since you could become set to dealing with the method of a single opponent."

This made a certain sort of sense, though it was obvious to the Claymore that the human soldier was in part simply rephrasing what she had once been told by someone else. Nevertheless, there was an eerie puzzle to it all, for why had Tyrin brought her own broad metal blade out now then, if training was over?

"There are some things though," Tyrin continued. "That you can't learn that way. Special techniques with the sword, trick maneuvers you cannot learn easily, for they run counter to intuition. Masters develop them, learning them through countless hours of experimentation in their later years, when they have that kind of freedom. They get passed around among people who've got the skill to use them, so I know a handful."

"You want to teach me these moves?" Sylvia asked aloud.

"I think you could use them," Tyrin shrugged. "You might even be able to adapt them to your own sword somehow. Anyway, I need to do something to make it seem like we're preparing for what comes at the end of this trek, and this is what I can do."

"I see," Sylvia nodded. "But shouldn't I have a practice sword?"

"It wouldn't work," Tyrin shook her head, swift and certain. "You need the real thing for something like this. Here, I'll show you."

She turned to the end of the road, and picked out a small sampling growing there with her eyes, a clear target. The soldier turned to face the supple young tree, drawing her broad blade. The suddenly her stance shifted, and her blade moved back, appearing to vanish from Sylvia's sight. Metal boots clanged against the solid earth, and Tyrin burst forward in a streak of motion, stepping past the sapling in a sudden surge, faster than any of her normal movements.

Her sword was out extended when she stopped, and the sapling was sliced apart, its upper branches settling to the ground.

"I've seen that before," Sylvia blurted, recognizing the move Tyrin had used long ago, in the first hunt against yoma they undertook together. The moment was seared into her memory. "You called it Mist Phantom."

"That's right," Tyrin smiled brightly. "Don't ask me how it got that name, but it does bear it. It's a move that relies on speed and deception, to hit with a full power strike incredibly fast, and so they can't block. It's not a perfect move, you have to have a target held in place for an instant to use it, since to achieve the speed necessary you've got to move on a straight trajectory and time the move in advance, so if they're moving about, it'll fail."

Sylvia nodded, understanding that limitation even if she did not yet know the details of the move. Still, moments of immobilization came often in a fight, brief though they might be, especially if multiple persons were engaged.

"I chose this move for the first because it's one of the best I have, but also because I think you could use it more than some of the others," Tyrin's explanation was very sensible. "It won't be easy to learn though."

"How does it work?" Sylvia asked. "The blade appears to vanish, and only reappears as you move through your foe. I understand the burst of speed, it provides cover for the stroke, but how do you make an attack that quickly? Or hide the blade?"

"It's a trick, here, I'll show you," Tyrin took up the stance again, but this time moved not with speed, but very slowly, and so Sylvia could see.

She twisted back bringing her sword arm inward, tucked up and under the outstretched left, back behind the shield. "This is how the sword seems to vanish. You hold it in to the body, covered by the left arm and the shield. It doesn't really make the sword vanish, but the enemy will see it pass out of an effective position, unable to strike from there, so the eye, tunneled in to keep track of threats in battle, will lose it for a very short period."

That made sense, but it raised an equally grave problem, and Sylvia asked immediately. "But with the sword like that, any attack would be too slow, since you'd have to move it out from behind cover."

"That's the trick to it," Tyrin giggled slightly. "You don't move it out from behind cover, you attack from there. Watch." Carefully, making certain the Claymore could observe, Tyrin stepped forward, conducting herself in excruciating slow motion mimicry. Her sword arm moved forward and down, a simply outward crossing cut, but instead of waiting to move her left arm away, she struck into it, impacting her sword right at the border, striking the bottom of her shield.

"You hit your shield?"

"Exactly," Tyrin concurred. "And full force too, the attack doesn't stop at the shield, it simply pauses there until you hit the right spot to contact the enemy. Then you just remove the shield by pulling up." She jerked her left arm and snapped her sword forward. "The key point is that the attack never stops. It keeps going from beginning to end, there's just a tiny break in the middle for compensating the time to remove the blocking arm. It's absolutely critical that the attack not stop, otherwise the force will dissipate and you'll have to time your hit, which, done properly you aren't doing. Instead, you time your body, so that the attack lands where you know it will when the alignment is right. It's like hitting a practice dummy; you time yourself, not the attack."

"That seems…difficult," Sylvia grimaced. "And dangerous."

"It is," Tyrin agreed her voice low. "You're vulnerable when you do this, since you're putting everything into invoking absolute speed. If you don't bring the foe down, you're going to be vulnerable when the attack fails. If Mist Phantom works it's a huge success, but miss, and you're almost certain to get stabbed in the back. It's an all-or-nothing trick, like most trick maneuvers. That's why they don't get developed in combat."

"So how do you learn it then?" Sylvia questioned, recognizing that sparring and so forth would not be possible.

"Repetition," the soldier answered with a cruel smile. "Everything's in the timing for this move. So, practice, practice, practice. For now, here," she unbuckled her shield and held out the sword. Just go through the movements again and again. Once you've got those down we can stick some poles in the road and practice on those, but for now just get used to it. It'll feel weird at first, trust me."

Gingerly Sylvia grasped Tyrin's sword and shield. It felt odd to hold the weapons. She had practiced briefly with the sword before, back when they began lessons, and had held the shield to get an idea of the area it defended, but never both at once, never the complete kit of the human warrior. It felt strange to carry those weapons; a legacy not her own.

Not really certain of the value of this, but wishing to please Tyrin's intention to do something, and still eager for her own distraction, Sylvia began to move into the form for the first time, taking things very slowly.

"Wait!" Tyrin said suddenly, and then smiled sheepishly. "Just watch the force you put into okay. I mean, it's supposed to be done full force, but well, you might just break the shield if you did that."

"Why do I think that's going to make this harder?" Sylvia spoke spontaneously, almost joking, feeling suddenly lighter even though the remark highlighted their differences. She could not have explained a reason why.

"Probably," Tyrin laughed. "Now get to work."

Sylvia did, and it was incredibly frustrating. Feel weird, yes, incredibly. It felt alien, jarring, and frightfully insane all at once the first time she tried things at even a modest speed. Everything fell apart, and the Claymore ended up stumbling and falling over her own feet, tangled with the shielded arm. It was a mess. Tyrin managed to avoid laughing, but it was hard to continue, and things did not improve rapidly. Soon Sylvia suspected she was far more grateful than the human soldier for having moved away from the others. It would have been shaming to be observed by other warriors struggling so much. Lynne would never have let it go, she thought at one point, bringing on a storm of shame, yet mixed with resolution. For her sake, I will master this, Sylvia determined.

It did get better, slowly, and by the time darkness fully enveloped them she had managed to at least nick a few of the severed saplings Tyrin stuck in the road. Then, knowing they should rest, they stopped together.

"Really not bad," Tyrin muttered. "It's not simple, none of them are, or they wouldn't be trick maneuvers. I'll teach you one each night, to vary things up as we go, but you should concentrate on the ones you feel most useful. Hopefully you can master one or two by the time the month is over."

"I understand," Sylvia replied, not having much will to say more. Yet she did, Mist Phantom was awkward and complex and she doubted it would ever be used on a yoma, but there were other dangers. She had met awakened beings twice before, terrifying memories both, and now they marched toward what was surely another. In a world with such creatures as that, strange methods such as this might prove useful. At least, it helped to think so.

The others at the camp were not asleep when they returned. Jessica sat calmly, staring into the few embers of their tiny fire, expressionless, but Racquel was not so idle. The youthful Claymore was balanced upside-down, hanging with her feet high to the starry sky, full adorned by armor and sword, using only the tips of her fingers. She twisted her legs through strange contortions as she did so, extraordinarily flexible.

"What are you doing?" Tyrin blurted when she managed to close her open mouth. Sylvia felt that rude, but had to admit to her own curiosity, so the question gladdened her.

Racquel's elbows bent and she thrust upwards, flipping through the air to land with knees bent, properly upright once again, and facing them. "I figured you two were training at something, so I thought I might as well too."

"I recall no exercises of that kind," Sylvia kept her voice even. "Has the organization changed what they teach us?"

"I don't think so," Racquel shook her head. "This was something I learned from my father," even in the darkness, Sylvia could see the young warrior's expression tighten in pain. "He was an entertainer, tumbler, and juggler. It helps build flexibility."

Sylvia only nodded, but Tyrin was more forceful. "It works well for you," she told the young half-human half-yoma. "You've made it fit your style."

"Thanks," Racquel managed, clearly surprised.

"Enough," Jessica broke in. "Training is fine, but it is dark now and we should all rest."

"Right," they all replied, recognizing the implicit command.

Sylvia felt better as she settled down to sleep. It was not that the pain had gone away, but that she had managed to at least focus on something else for a while. That is perhaps the best I can hope for, given our fate.

Notes: I have no idea whether something like Mist Phantom would actually work, given the description, in fact I suspect it probably wouldn't, but this is a fantasy so I'm not going to sweat those particulars.