Winds of Nostalgia

Chapter 11: Wind

Miria

Miria's sweat-soaked skin shined like marble in the shimmering noon sun. It was exceedingly rare for a Claymore to drip with sweat as she was now. Usually, her Yoki would regulate her temperature, but her powers had been all but depleted.

Her eyes getting heavy with exhaustion.

Miria recalled a legend of this great desert. In the years of the Twin-river rebellion, Jonah the cunning had tricked a western army of thousands into marching through its harsh, unforgiving sands. Jonah, secretly an agent of their enemy, promptly abandoned the army in the middle of the great sands. The army lost it's way, searching in all directions for an exit before being swallowed by the dust. No survivors lived to avenge their betrayal.

Men disappeared in the desert often, no stones to mark their graves.

Sometimes, an enterprising trade caravan would brave the journey, and recover a bent sword or a piece of armor that lent evidence to the legend, but the desert had swallowed all things flesh and bone. There were no corpses to find.

Miria panted. How many times have I used it? she wondered. Too many times. I've lost count.

While her endurance with the technique had improved since Pieta, she was still far from able to use the technique recklessly. Rafaela would have killed her a dozen times if it weren't for Miria's phantom and she had gotten sloppy as her exhaustion mounted, using her technique to avoid death blows that she should have been able to avoid with better swordplay and footing.

Rafaela read her Yoki when she phantomed and could wheel to Miria almost instantly after her attempts. She was extremely fast and her head was a stubborn thing to chop off.

Should I try the other technique? The thought of attempting the technique raised a dark dread in her that spoke of worse things than death. No, never. The risk is too great. Miria gulped and shut her eyes, desperately searching herself for strength.

She found enough to prevent her legs from shivering, but it was just saving face at this point. Rafaela could see plainly that Miria was finished.

So this is how this Odyssey will end? Miria narrowed her eyes. She was not going to die like a coward. She was determined to die with her sword in her hand and on her two feet.

Before Rafaela stepped in for another set of attacks, a tingle of Yoki appeared from the northwest. Hilda and the others! They must have liberated the school! Miria felt a rush of energy.

There's still hope.

In half a heartbeat, Rafaela was upon her. She intends to finish me quickly. With a sick feeling in her gut, Miria sluggishly parried Rafaela's slashes and thrusts, at some points relying entirely on guesswork to determine Rafaela's next whistling strike.

Miria's instincts served her well. Either that, or she was getting very lucky.

The difficulty of keeping her speed on par with Rafaela's was just as troublesome as keeping her arms firm against the power of Rafaela's determined swings. Miria's arms were beginning to numb and soft, like noodles. Desperate hope sustained her.

Miria gulped mouthfuls of air, stumbling back dizzily from Rafaela's strong sweep.

My friends are almost here.

It seems like there is less Yoki signatures than those who set out. Did some perish in the attack?

Miria's eyes and wits came into focus just soon enough to duck a block by Rafaela, but the duck had killed her mobility.

It was a rookie's error.

Miria was forced to phantom, but the process was sluggish with her exhaustion. The burst put her twenty feet behind Rafaela, but not before her sword had slash Miria's shoulder below her armor. Miria winced, a red hue spreading down her uniform.

In an instant, Rafaela was upon her. Miria moved to block, but Rafaela slammed her fist into Miria's jaw.

Miria felt a crunch in her mouth and stumbled back, but not rapidly enough to escape the slash which tore through her arm. Miria's dominant arm fell to the dust, blood spraying into the air. Miria's vision went red as blood splashed into her eyes. The world turned, and rushed up to meet her.

For a few moments, all she could hear was her stubborn heart hammering away, and each haggard breath she drew. But muffled voices began to sound through the symphony of her dying body. "Protect our captain!" Miria heard. She spat sand, spittle dripping from her lips, but the sand's gravelly taste remained. My arm.

She grasped her dispossessed arm, but realized she couldn't re-attach it. She didn't have the strength.

She wheezed on the dusty air, her Yoki serving in place of her blood-splattered eyes. The familiar Yoki signatures of her comrades, her fellow revolutionaries, began to vanish like the flicker of fireflies in the midnight fields. They were all so weak and so vulnerable in comparison to the malignant Yoki which tore into them like a feral dog.

Hilda! Miria remembered. She struggled to get up with all her might. She could not reattach her arm, but her left arm, sore and throbbing, would have to do. She did her best to smear the blood from her eyes and fluttered her lashes open to the red-hued sting of her surroundings.

Blood seeping down her chest, she recovered her sword from the dirt which had nearly reclaimed it with jaws of sand and ran towards the crashing steel which marked the ongoing battle. But when her eyes finally drank in the scene of half a dozen slaughtered comrades and Hilda, it was already too late.

Rafaela swept Hilda's sword aside like a blade of grass and Hilda's head tumbled to the dirt, mouth frozen in a silent scream.

As Hilda's lifeless body tumbled to join its missing head, Miria dropped to her knees. "AHHHHHHHHH!" Miria's anger and pain burst from her lungs in a ragged scream. Before, Miria had asked "why", but since then she had learned the futility of that question. She knew why Hilda's headless corpse lay in the dust, already preparing itself to be forgotten.

Miria knew that she could only blame herself.

Her guilt tempered itself into a pulsing anger which seized control of her. She pushed herself up with her one hand, grasping her instrument of wrath and charged through the strewn bodies towards the woman Miria should have dealt with from the beginning.

But Miria felt the wind stop blowing, the sand beneath her feet vanished and was replaced by void. A great black mouth swallowed her and drowned her in nothingness.

Teresa

Teresa could not sense the emotions of others all that well, but the power she had trained was empathy in its most raw and dangerous form. Reading the flow, she knew Rosemary better than Rosemary knew herself.

Empathy was a double-edged sword. It could be used to understand the pain of another, a skill which Teresa lacked, but it could also be used to find out the best way to inflict pain upon another. This fact was little known, for those sensitive to the feelings of others rarely went out of their way to hurt them.

But Teresa had trained her sense with the sole purpose of doing harm.

Rosemary's Yoki flooded from her like heat from a fire. Teresa, her powers restrained to the quietest whisper, was just a small ember floating above the flames. As Rosemary slashed, Teresa was no longer there. Teresa knew where to strike and how to move. She knew how to step, when to duck and which strike was least expected. She had developed this secret talent throughout her training and she revealed it now that she needed it most. Teresa and Rosemary danced together, swords speeding through the air.

Teresa's eyes were frozen ice and her sword was a storm. Rosemary had not been able to get close to Clare. In fact, Teresa drove Rosemary back. You won't have her.

Rosemary's frustration mounted as the fight went on. The more power she released the more powerless she became. Teresa could see he mounting frustration in her swings.

Teresa slowly closed the noose around Rosemary's neck. With each strike, Rosemary grew more confused and Teresa more confident. Teresa's attacks sang against Rosemary's steel in a twisted crescendo.

Like a key clicking into a lock, Teresa felt a channel and raced into it. The opening was brief, but life and death was decided in instants such as these. Teresa swung for the kill.

But as she swung, she looked down and saw that her hands were empty. She raised her gaze to see her world was swept aside. A black curtain had fallen on Teresa's performance. There was no sound. There was no ground. There was only nothing.

She was alone. Even her clothes were gone in this imaginary place. Is this the power of the number one? An illusion that she can blind me with in order to set up a killing blow? Teresa shifted her weight, feeling dizzy. Without any reference in this black place, balance came with far greater difficulty. What am I standing upon? Can I even fall?

She stood-though, she did not know what she stood upon. She narrowed her eyes, peering into the darkness, but she could not pierce it, no matter the sharpness of her stare.

"Teresa."

Teresa spun around, ready to fight.

"Clare. . ."

Clare stood behind her, naked body lit up by sourceless light, wet lines where tears had run down her face. Teresa's shock melted away and she felt rage taking it's place. "Enough of your illusions! Haven't you toyed with me enough?"

Teresa made for Clare. She would beat Clare to death if that was what was needed to end these games.

"Teresa, your hand. . . ."

Teresa brought her hand up to see her fingers slowly melting into the darkness. Half of a finger was already gone, melting painlessly away. She was turning into nothingness. Teresa would have taken it for an illusion, but she could feel her Yoki dimming within her chest as well. She was fading. "What is this?"

"You'll be gone soon. The illusion is fading away." Teresa searched herself and felt what was happening to her body-to her soul. She's right.

Was she telling the truth this whole time? "But my whole life. . . this can't be a lie."

"Just because it's an illusion doesn't make it a lie."

Teresa shook her head. "Your story is a fool's tale. This is nonsense. This makes no sense."

"We got to see each other again." Clare smiled.

I can't help but feel cheated by this illusion. Clare knows and remembers things I will never experience. She feels enough happiness to smile and I am just left with this confusion? But Teresa had always felt faint whispers of this story. She had just refused to listen, and now the moment was wasted.

This isn't fair. This isn't logical.

She felt an emotion that she did not want to admit. She was afraid. The uncertain was calling her back into a void, robbing from her the only form she ever knew.

Clare reached out with her hand, clasping Teresa's.

Teresa's eyes shot up to Clare's, open conduits to Teresa's fear and regret-to all the things she had no time to say. Teresa could feel herself dying. The strength upon which Teresa had built her life, her entire philosophy, was bleeding from invisible wounds.

Clare's eyes glimmered and she wrapped Teresa in her arms, holding her tightly. Teresa returned the embrace. Naked skin met naked skin, pressing smoothly together. It felt like a sister or a daughter rather than a lover, but most of all, Teresa knew that she belonged in the arms of this over-serious, emotional girl.

She could feel no fear as she basked in Clare's warmth. "It takes death for me to see the truth. . . ." Teresa mused darkly.

"You will live in my memories forever, Teresa."

That's little comfort. Can I feel happiness in your memories?

Despite these thoughts, Teresa felt a certain comfort in the gesture, nonsensical as it was. Teresa was almost gone, fading from Clare's arms.

Can I make up for my sins in your memories?

"Don't stop yourself from being happy on my behalf. I'm not wo-" Teresa said. And she was gone.

Miria

Miria's eyes fluttered open, brushing the thin film of snow that dusted her eyelids. Her eyes opened to a view of a clear, starry night, wayward flakes drifting slowly down towards her. As she lay, she clenched a fist with her right arm, wiggling her fingers. Attached. Snow.

A misty fog poured from her mouth as she breathed calmly.

But as realization swept her, Miria grasped her sword and launched to her feet. A large Yoma had been standing over her, yellow eyes foggy with concentration. Your true form is revealed.

But seeing her rise, it stumbled back in surprise. Miria knew the dangers of hesitation with this enemy. She made two rapid swings through the stale winter air.

The Yoma's arms dropped to the ground and the Yoma let out a cry of pain.

She brought her deadly talon to the creature's neck.

"You wish to speak before you kill me?" the Yoma asked in a curiously level tone. Still, the beast huffed in pain. It was not entirely calm.

Miria pressed her blade into the Yoma, forcing it from it's feet and onto its back.

She stood above it, eyes as hard as her blade. "How?"

The Yoma coughed, purple blood spurting from it's grizzled mouth. Deep lines etched his face. This Yoma was old-older than Miria had yet seen, yet it had not grown large despite its age. "Y-you Claymores know that when a Yoma devours the flesh of its victim, we gain their memories. We gain their minds."

"Go on."

"I learned how to steal the memories from just the Yoki of my prey. Instead of just one set of memories, I have collected scores of them. I could steal memories without devouring flesh. I could steal them as the trees steal wind. When I was a young hunter, I found that I could project these stolen memories through my Yoki and create elaborate memories in which to entangle even strong witches, some even as strong as yourself. I gained more of your minds over the years. But just as the emotions and thoughts of the host-mind sometimes interfere with Yoma possessing the bodies, as I housed more Claymores within my Yoki, they each became a part of me. I was forced to stop acquiring new minds. I was teetering on the edge of losing myself to the many voices within me that all wanted to be heard."

To think that this beast contains over twenty of my comrades from multiple generations. He is a scourge, a killer, but at the same time, he contains them. . . sustains them.

"Recently, I found an armless, silver-haired woman who had been cut down by a purge. I passed her by, of course. I could house no more souls. But there was something about her face. I saw a grim satisfaction on her lips. She had the kind of face of someone who was content with their demise. I had never seen such a thing on a Claymore. On your dead faces I see shock, fear, hatred, determination. . . things of that nature. But I had never seen satisfaction before. Curiosity compelled me to absorb the whispers of her Yoki."

"Irene."

"Yes. That was her name. She had a magnificent set of memories within her." A look of pleasure went over the Yoma.

This brought disgust to Miria's face. "Why have you tracked us here, beast?"

She hoped he would answer with brevity. She wanted to see this abomination slain.

"As magnificent as the silver-haired one's story was, there were too many questions floating in her mind. It was not just her mind that beckoned though. There were many questions-countless questions. I came here to seek answers for those questions."

"And when you found your answers. . .?"

"I pulled you from the illusion. I did not want Clare to die." The monster gave Miria a curiously familiar look. "Neither did I want you to die, Miria. I wanted us to fight together as single digits. I promised you that much, didn't I?"

Miria's breath caught with shock. "You have Hilda within you?"

"I am many," the creature said. "I am whispers of the past. I am the scent of nostalgia on the wind." The wind blew hard, biting through them both with so many teeth. "I am dying."

The gushing purple blood which dripped into steaming pools from each confirmed that fact. Miria knew this monster had to die. It was too much of a threat to her and her comrades. "Was the dream real?"

"It was a dream. I'd think that is answer enough. If you ask whether or not it was accurately represented-if the real world would have been the same, then I must confide that there were elements of fiction in this dream."

"Which parts were fake?"

The Yoma grinned, revealing a mouth filled with long, deadly teeth. "So long as you can't tell, then I have done my job well."

The Yoma was too weak for Miria to press him further. "Any final wishes?"

"Keep Clare safe. The one with silver hair loves her. She wants you to watch over her with your blade. Clare is very reckless."

"She is." Miria sheathed her sword and stared with distant eyes. "I will do my best not to fail her. Let Irene rest easy."

"As I said. . . ." the monster said softly, "she died content." The Yoma's eyes began to mist over. His senses were failing.

Clare only stirred minutes after the Yoma passed. She sat up, brushing the snow from her hair. Miria offered Clare a hand which Clare took. Neither spoke. No words were necessary. They returned to camp. The fire was out by now. Cynthia, Deneve, Helen, Tabitha, and Yuma slept peacefully around it's remains. What had been months to Clare and Miria had passed as minutes here.

They knelt down, joining their comrades. A strong whipped in from the north, tussling their silver hair, reminding them of memories past. It had been a good night for a walk.