The events described within are entirely ficticious. Any similarites to reality are pure coincidence. This piece contains acts of violence. Do not read if you are under 18 and/or not of the legal age in your area. The author reserves all rights. No part of this may be copied or used without the author's permission. Do not distribute without the author's permission.

The Awakened Blade

Chapter I

Bren. 14th in the Organization. My latest assignment, the village of Halmen, four Yoma reported, four Yoma killed, No others sensed. Next assignment, the hamlet of Merrin. Urgent.

High Pass Road, this is where my life ends.

As a Claymore I am forbidden from taking the lives of humans, unfortunately that doesn't mean that they cannot take our lives.

There was a band of men reported on this road, calling themselves the Bright Slayers. Men who hated Claymores simply because of what we are, because of what is done to us to make us this way. The taking of the flesh of Yoma, of monsters, into our own bodies.

I should have traveled off the road but the missive had been marked urgent. High Pass was the most direct route and the horse I had borrowed from Halmen wouldn't have been able to travel safely over the rocky terrain of the Tern Range.

They ringed me at the top of the gorge, six men in an assortment of armor. Leather and steel, thick furs to ward off the cold. Six men against a Claymore ranked in the top twenty? They wouldn't have stood a chance. But the penalty for a Claymore taking a human life, any human life even in the direst of circumstances, was death. They would have to submit to execution by other Claymores sent by the Organization.

I pulled my horse to a sharp halt, they had picked a perfect place for their ambush. A blind corner with a sheer drop on one side and a wall of stone on the other, I managed to stop barely three meters away from them.

Two men blocked my way at the top of the path. "Halt, Claymore!" one of the brigands shouted. The rest of the band that had been following me up the track though and fanned out behind me. I'd sensed them following me, but I was mounted and they weren't. I'd thought I would outrun them easily. I'd also sensed the other two waiting for me. The track was wide enough, I'd thought I'd just run my horse around them and carry on down the road, I wouldn't even have stopped except for the thing I couldn't have sensed, that both men carried huge longbows, nocked and drawn.

If I tried to push past they would shoot my horse out from under me and then hack me apart at their leisure.

"My name is Bren," I shouted, "Claymore of the Organization, I am on Organization business to the village of Merrin, allow me to pass."

"Can't do Claymore." The second man called back still holding his bow at full draw, sighted on my horses' chest. "The Bright Slayers don't recognize the Organization, we know what they do to you to turn you into silver-eyed witches. You're an abodimation. A crime against God."

"The Organization are peacekeepers, we keep the villages free of Yoma, if you do not let me past then you condemn innocents to death."

The men had obviously heard this before, none of them gave away any hint of doubt. I began to wonder just how many Claymores might have come this same way and met their fate on the pass.

"We've survived Yoma for years without help, Yoma are our problem - the problem of men, not the concern of half-breed monsters. The Organization was established with no reason."

I frowned, these were seasoned men, but perhaps I could bluff my way out. "Yoma pushed mankind to the brink of extinction, a Yoma is far more powerful than any ten men, and men cannot sense a Yoma's presence, perhaps one of you is a Yoma in disguise?" Even before the last words were out of my mouth I knew I'd made a grave mistake, the man laughed aloud and I saw the smiles of mirth among the others. "If there were Yoma among us you would have already killed them in order to gain our undying gratitude so that we would let you go - but you're the only Yoma here Claymore."

"You're right, I'm a Yoma and you know I'm strong enough to kill you all-"

"And then you would be killed yourself."

"But if you leave me no choice..." Reaching up behind me I unclipped the sword strapped to my back and began to draw it from its sheath.

"Then we leave you no choice." His fingers began to relax upon the bowstring. A standoff. A moment passed. I sighed and dropped my claymore back into its scabbard, then making sure that they saw every move I made I dismounted my horse. He sidestepped away from me. "Very well, do what you will, but know that if the organization ever receives a call of help from this region it will go unanswered."

"We'll survive, no one needs the Organization."

The arrow took me high in the side, just below the ribs. I felt the shock of it as it punched through my armor. A well made arrow, slim but heavy shaft with a massive but light broadhead. I felt it burst from my back, right next to my spine. It was a shot that stopped me cold, I could not have run even if I'd tried. The second man's arrow stuck in my arm. A fluke, I pulled it out, tendons severed, I wouldn't be drawing my claymore now.

The other men were there. Short swords, a broadsword an axe; that wasn't fair. Hit in the back of my knee. Down on my hands in the dust. I could feel my blood soaking my underclothes. My horse, gone up the pass, scared off at the smell of blood.

My pauldron was ripped half off my shoulder as a blade was shoved deep into my back, just above the arrow. My Yoma power was already flowing through my body, repairing damage, already I could almost use my arm again, not that it would help.

A ritual, a ritual of butchery, silent except for the grunts and cries of the men as they skewered my body again and again. I called my Yoma, shut the pain away, I would die without a sound. The axe, the blow I'd been waiting for, but not where I wanted it, the crunch of bone as the axe came down, my foot - gone. Yoma power flowed to seal the stump, there was a small jolt and I knew my eyes had changed.

Sadistic, they took parts of my body from me. Didn't they know? If I released my power - if I awakened... but they can't have known or they would have ended it with a single blow. But the others, those who came here before me, they can't have given in and awakened or else the band would have known. Or not been here at all. I wouldn't either.

My head was pulled back, a blade over my throat, not deep enough. I didn't see who did it, they'd long since taken my eyes.

I clamped down hard on my Yoma desperately keeping it under control as my body twisted. But it was so hard not to release it, it was so warm, a way out, endless pleasure, just had to give in. "Kill me, kill me now!" I wanted to scream aloud but I no longer had tongue nor teeth to speak with. The only reason I was still alive now was my Yoma power, but it had it's limit too.

In my mind a gray fog descended, the extra senses my Yogi power gave me were being blotted out as it was re-routed through my body, this was it. I'd done it. I hadn't awakened.

I let myself fall. I fell and fell and as I fell I died.

Chapter 2

I'm unsure if I did die there, at the bottom of the cliff, they'd thrown me off the path once they were done with my body, a hundred-foot drop onto jagged granite. They believed they had killed me, I thought they had too, I knew nothing until I opened my eyes. I was lying on my back; there wasn't a surface near me that wasn't covered in thick, sticky blood. I flexed my extremities and to my amazement received a response from my flesh.

My Yoma power flowed through me. I could tell I was at my limit, but with a sense of awe realized that it was under control, balanced on a knife-edge, but in my control. Slowly I re-immersed myself in my tortured flesh, regaining contact with the signals it sent me. Pain, agony, torment. I couldn't even feel the ground I lay on, there was nothing there to help me and I pushed it aside again, sinking back into the bliss of my Yoma power. Seemed like I had been lucky, they'd disposed of me just before my Yoma had given out.

My eyes had re-grown to the point where I could make out vague colours, but my vision kept blurring, it was some time before I figured out that it had started raining.

When I could see well enough again I looked down at my body, fortunately I'd fallen against a wall and it required only a small head tilt for me to see myself. Anything else would have been beyond me. My armor was gone, and my underclothes were barely there, I'd stabbed through and through so many times. Each wound leaked blood continuously. they weren't sealing either, despite several of them going right through my vital organs. I breathed on one lung and subsisted on a heart that only beat because of the Yogi being fed to it. I was about to close my eyes to concentrate on healing those wounds when I noticed my limbs.

Both hands had been removed, at the elbow and at the wrist. They were growing back along with the foot I'd lost. I could see the muscle and blood vessels as they pounded with Yogi power, twisting and splitting and reforming, rebuilding. But it was slow, too slow. It was hard to judge but I thought that I might die of the loss of blood from my other wounds before they hard re-grown.

If I changed my Yoma to stop the loss of blood and heal my more worrying wounds then my other limbs wouldn't heal properly and I'd end up stuck on the side of the pass until I died of exposure. I had to re-grow my limbs while the wounds were still fresh so I could walk off the mountain later.

A race then, I had to heal my limbs and then stop the bleeding before I lost too much blood.

I concentrated, felt through my body, feeding power where it was needed most. The afternoon wore on, it began to get dark and with the darkness came the realization that I couldn't go back, I was loosing blood far too fast. I was past the point of no return.

Late in the night I saw the first skin begin to cover the tissue of my reconstructed limbs, it was now or never. I cut the Yoma power to my limbs, even though they weren't finished and pushed it instead into the worst of the punctures. It didn't seem to do anything for a long time, then slowly, so very slowly the largest wound, the one that had grazed my heart, stopped leaking blood. The next was the one that had nicked the lung I was using to breathe, I closed that one too and began to work on the three that had collapsed my other lung.

I was already at my limit though, I couldn't do it, I had so many holes in me and no longer had the time to close them all, I had lost too much blood. My vision darkened suddenly like someone had blown out a lamp. I felt myself slip into anemic shock.

How pitiful, I'd struggled to restore three whole limbs at the same time, more than I knew any Claymore had ever done before and now I would die because I couldn't heal a few gashes fast enough. Out of time, I could do it if only I had a little more power, just a little more...

It happened so suddenly. I felt an enormous rush of power, more than I'd ever released before. It felt so good, I was powerful beyond measure. With a laugh I healed every one of my wounds and healed my limbs completely. What had taken me hours to accomplish I completed in a single second as the sun rose over the mountain. It was so good. I had so much power. So. Much. Power.

Idly a thought crossed my mind, I'd kept my limit under control but now I had so much power. Far, far beyond my limit. Was it possible that I had awoken? "No! No, impossible!" I screamed again and again in my mind. The words though floated away from me, they lost their meaning. Why had I been so distressed? Why when I was healed, there was no threat to me. No threat, except that I was hungry, I was hungry and I wanted... yes, I was hungry for entrails.

Chapter 3

I flew away from the ridge. Flying, I had wings. Yes, I had wings. I felt unsettled at this for a moment for some reason, though I couldn't think why, I started to try to figure this out but, then, what did it matter to me? I let the thought go.

There were men camped on the ridge, they had been dangerous for some reason, couldn't figure that out either. Their presence was merely a flicker, too small to hold my notice. I had to have bigger prey.

I knew where I could find the prey I sought too, I could sense them. There were many, like a well of lights within my mind. Merrin. I knew the name of my destination. Why? Had it been important? I didn't care. The hunger was increasing, the urge to feed.

My body was powerful. Not just with the Yogi power that coursed through it but with raw physical strength too. My wings beat solidly, without hesitation. My eyes were powerful, I could see the veins in the leaves of the trees from high above. My eyes though were nothing compared to my hearing, if I concentrated hard I could even hear the water that pushed like blood through the roots of the trees all the way to their leaves. The earth was alive below me, and I flew above, master of my realm.

The mountain was far behind me, forest now, then plains and farmland, then, my destination. A palisade wall surrounded the village, supposed to keep those who were inside it safe. I flew so high above it that it looked like the barest squiggle of writing in a scribe's book.

Tipping my wings forward and tucking them to my body I stooped into a dive, travelling so fast that the clouds split apart even before I hit them. The ground slapped up at me and in a split second I twisted my head toward the green space of the Town Square. Even with my wings fully flared out I hit the ground so hard that I felt the earth bend beneath me. My bones strained as they absorbed the impact, tendons screamed and snapped, muscle tore but that was okay, I was healed by my Yogi by the time I stepped out of the shallow crater I'd made.

I could sense every human in the town, and there were others too, six of them - like me. They all scrambled around like ants, running and hiding from me. I let out growl of annoyance and tore the roof off a house, tossing to into the fields at the edge of the town.

A man huddled in that house; I reached in and plucked him out. He was unconscious now. How stupid - to fall asleep out of fright. I threw him aside.

"Who speaks for this town?" I tried to say but all that came out of my mouth was a roar. I tried again, "Who speaks for this town?" It wasn't speech but I knew I'd been heard all the same.

I didn't receive a response so I started to reach for another dwelling. This one had fire in it, a blacksmith's forge. If the fire got loose...

"_Bring me whoever speaks for this town or I will burn it to the ground and allow no one to leave."_Slowly I began to push the house over.

"Please, stop, I'll speak!" It was a young man, he was like me. I lifted a hand and killed him.

"I'll speak to a human." I said lifting my paw and displaying the Yoma that I had skewered on my claws. I felt their surprise as the man's body twisted into that of a Yoma's. "A Human." I repeated.

"Dragon?" this man was older, and he was human. I lowered my head to him, "A dragon? I am no dragon. I am hungry."

"Not a dragon?" the man asked, "You look like one."

"I'm not a dragon, I don't know what a dragon is." Even as I said it an image appeared in my mind, a picture from a book. I twitched my wings and was airborne again.

A few seconds later I hovered over a lake, staring down at my reflection. I stayed there for several moments and then streaked back toward the town. "Very well," I said when I'd landed, "I am Dragon, and I am hungry."

"What would you have us bring you?" the man asked, "You can have anything from our stocks if you promise to leave the town intact."

"Your town will be left intact, if you serve me." I replied, "But I don't want your sheep or cattle, I want you to bring me fourteen of your townsmen. Ones worthy of me."

Shock crossed the man's face, "W-what will you do with them?" he asked. He already knew the answer, he'd realized what I was, that I had been truthful when I had said that I was no dragon. I could see it written on his face, but I answered anyway. "I will eat them - I am a Yoma."

"I cannot agree to that." The man replied instantly, "To sacrifice people just so the rest of us could carry on living? Where would it end? Would you come back - take more of us? Or perhaps other Yoma would." He shook his head, "None of us could live with that threat hanging over us."

"Then you condemn yourself and all those in this village."

Slowly the man raised his head and looked me straight in the eyes, "Then we choose death." Stepping forward the man spread his arms wide. "Come then Yoma." He spat, "Massacre us all. Start with me, I am not afraid to die - my life will buy time for the others."

My head snapped back at his words, I realized my body had begun to shake, "Afraid to Die!" I screamed and lifted a claw. The five bone spikes suddenly stretched, striking toward the man faster than a snake. "No!" I screamed in desperation and at the last second the bone spears veered off, scything into the dirt around the man. Imprisoning him in a bone cage.

"No!" I howled, "NO NOOO! I did it! I didn't awaken, I can't have! I died, I died!"_I stared down at my hand, at my paw, at my stretched nails, that - that was a Yoma skill! _"No!" a golden pane of glass shattered in my mind, my Yoma power tore apart as though it were paper thrown in a raging river. "I didn't AWAKEN!"

Summoning all my will I forced my Yoma back, it fought me but slowly I regained my body. There was a man between my claws, a human. One twitch and he would be dead. I pulled my paw back, forcing my claws to retract. The shattered gold in my head was liquefying, flowing. I couldn't keep a grasp of it, drowning, drowning in my power. "No!" I lifted my hand, shaking with the effort, placed it against my breast. My claws sliced through my scales, deep into the tissue beneath. The wounds, the pain. Horrendous. My Yogi power surged, trying to heal me.

I couldn't let it, couldn't let it take me. Dug my claws in further. "No! Yes! NO! YES!" I had it! I gripped my own heart and screamed and screamed as I began to tear it from my body. "Awakened! Please, while I can still do this!" the golden bliss flowed all about me. I pulled myself into a tight ball. Resisted with all of me that was still human.

"Haven't awoken! Stay alive. I have to live!" I was being killed, had to fight, fight the enemy. My Yogi, more power, release more power, keep me alive.

"Awakened. Haven't. Live. Die. Human. Yoma. Tear out my heart. Stop, have to stop... Have to..."

---

"Are you alive?" Someone's hand was on my brow. I opened my eyes. It was the old man, he stood in a pool of blood - my blood. I stared up at him. "Who - who am I?" I cried, howled aloud and my tears ran into my blood.

"I - I'm sorry." the man replied, "I don't know, you - you were a Yoma, then human, and a half breed. Now though? I don't know what you are." I rolled over onto my feet, shook out my crushed wings, felt the bones snap back together as they healed. "Please?" I asked, "I'm so hungry."

The man gritted his teeth, "I'm not going to let you eat anyone!" he exclaimed. His words turned my stomach, "Humans?" I shuddered, "I'm not a monster, not a Yoma."

Relief relaxed the old man's face, "O - of course, I'll see what can be found." He turned and headed into the streets beckoning to faces that hid behind glass windows. My scales were sticky, blood. I leapt into the air.

The lake was large enough for me to land beside and then wade into, a roll in the mud of the lake bottom and then a swim in the clear water saw me clean enough. I returned to the village.

A great pit had been built in a corner of the square, tied cattle waiting beside struggled as my shadow fell across them, but there were men to keep them restrained. I landed on the clean grass, turning so that I couldn't see the patch of blood that had marked where I'd lain. The townsfolk were throwing wood into the pit under the supervision of the old man.

"Bring them to me?" I asked the man, he raised an eyebrow, "Unprepared?"

A young calf was untethered and led over to me, the man who did it was shaking. The cow struggled as it was dragged over. Its eyes rolled and it grunted loudly. It was suffering. I took a step forward, the man dropped the lead and ran, but that was fine. I slit the animal's throat with a quick slash of a claw.

Turning it onto its back I slashed it breast to groin. Buried my face in the carcass and slurped down its innards. I ate the whole animal, bones, bladder, brains. And then another, and another. Blood turned the grass where I ate red. The hunger abated.

It wasn't gone, but it no longer drove me, I could control it. I released the next animal that was offered to me, it made it as far as the edge of the grass before it collapsed and was caught again. "Well, I was wrong after all." The old man stood next to my paw, he had watched as I'd eaten. "You are a dragon, you ate more than I though you physically could have."

"_It's the Yogi, I fed it too"_I replied.

For the first time I heard I heard something other than awe or terror in the old man's voice. He laughed, "though not all."

I frowned, trying to puzzle out the meaning of his words then moaned as he poked me in my swollen belly. Coiling my head I growled at him but he laughed again and skipped away from me. "Temperamental dragon."

Suddenly his face turned serious. "Now, we held up our end of the bargain. You must leave us now, and never return."

"I shall," I replied, "But first..." the spikes on my forelimbs shot out in the blink of an eye. Screams echoed from the villagers gathered on the edge of the green as five of them were struck through and through. With a squelch the spines withdrew back to me and five bodies collapsed to the ground. Before anyone could react I lifted my head and yelled "Watch the bodies!"

The corpses twisted, deformed. They were the other Yoma I'd sensed. The other villagers stared at the dead Yoma for a long time and then one by one they began to clap."There are no more Yoma in your town." I declared, "Mount their bodies at the entrance to the town along with the notice that this town is, from now on under the protection of the Dragon! I shall not require any sort of payment, and I shall not return unless I sense Yoma here."

Turning into the morning sun I lifted my wings. "Wait Dragon!"

"What?" I asked looking back over my shoulder at the old man.

"I wondered, would you take someone with you, as a companion?"

I tilted my head, "A companion? A Claymore travels alone, and a Yoma would not be good company to keep."

"But you're neither of those things." The man replied, "At least not anymore, you aren't bound by rules or instinct. Please, won't you consider it?"

"Alright," I said at last,"Though know that I cannot guarantee their safety. Who did you have in mind?"

"We cannot guarantee our own safety." The old man laughed, "Look what happened to our town this morning. It's my grandson I'd like you to take with you, this village is too small for him."

"Very well," I replied,"Have him waiting at the gates in an hour for my return, ready to leave."

With that I flicked my wings and was returned to the sky once more.