Chapter Text
remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return
"There's nothing here."
There was a note of surprise in her voice like she'd actually expected something else. Her hands were dusty from digging. Her sleeves were torn and ragged and streaked with blood. She'd hardly felt the stones cutting her as she pawed through the rubble.
"I'm sorry," Cynthia said, because she didn't know what else to say. She didn't know what it was like to have a family still alive. The yoma had killed everyone she'd cared about. She hadn't had a past to return to. But it was different for Yuma. Cynthia couldn't really understand why Yuma was so eager to return to a family who had sold her, but she wouldn't judge her.
"Maybe there are bones underneath..." Yuma looked around, more resigned than desperate, but the place was only ruins and more ruins. The only life there stirred in the birds and the insects humming about them. As for people, there were only the two of them; as for humans, there were none.
"They might have gone," Cynthia said. She reached out her hand a little as if to touch Yuma, but they were standing too far apart. "Moved. Just because the house isn't here doesn't mean they're..."
"It kind of feels like the same thing." Yuma kicked a stone aside. She wore not the metal shoes of their uniform but simple leather boots. Both of them had been traveling in civilian clothes. The world wasn't friendly to women with silver eyes. Rumors of the Organization's collapse had exacerbated fears rather than relaxed them; without the enforcement and rules, what was to stop the silver-eyed slayers from preying on humans as they liked?
"I'm sorry," Cynthia said again, and then she did step forward to put a hand on Yuma's arm. "I can't imagine. But you're sure this is the place?"
"As sure as I can be," Yuma said. She shook her head and tried to smile. "Who knows? Maybe I just can't remember right. Maybe the house is still standing somewhere."
"We can keep looking. We can search the nearby towns and villages...we can search the whole island if we need to." They had nothing but time.
"I don't know if I could remember what they looked like. Cynthia, I can't even really remember how long it's been. How long I was with the Organization, how long training was, how long I spent hunting yoma...I don't even know." She was still smiling, but there was an edge and a break in her voice, and her eyes were squinting. Cynthia glanced away to give her the semblance of privacy. "Maybe my parents are dead and my siblings all grown up. Maybe they have children now.
"This was a bad idea," she said, and she slowly climbed down off the pile of rubble. She sat on a loose stone, her long hair falling down in front of her shoulders as her head bowed. Cynthia followed, sitting beside her. "I'm sorry for dragging you out here."
"Why are you apologizing for that?" Cynthia smiled. "There's nowhere I'd rather be. You know that. I'm here because I want to be."
"I don't know why I wanted this. They wouldn't even want to see me, the stupid little sister that disappeared so long ago. They'd probably try to kill us too." Yuma was still trying to smile, but real tears were glittering in her eyes now.
"They're...not your family anymore," Cynthia said carefully. She didn't know if Yuma would react badly. Perhaps it was a sentiment best shared among those whose parents were the victims of yoma.
Yuma looked at her.
"I know."
She seemed to want to talk, so they sat there on the stones as she talked. Cynthia didn't say much at all, but her fingers were interwoven with Yuma's. The wind gained an edge and the sky darkened piece by piece, but the two were unaffected.
"I thought I was my grandmother's favorite. I was named after her—oh, that's a longer story, but I think she took to me because of it. I would always sit with her. She made me dolls and combed my hair. I remember I liked the way she smelled. For my parents I was just one among many, but I was her favorite.
"But she didn't argue at all when my parents decided. She just stood there. And when the man came, and they handed me over, she didn't even cry. And I—"
Yuma's voice broke and she looked away. Cynthia squeezed her hand. The tears were rushing down Yuma's cheeks. Cynthia wished she could cry too, but all she felt was a dull ache. All she could do was squeeze.
"What was the point? I wasn't any good at it. I wasn't angry. I was just scared. I couldn't kill yoma like Miria or Clare. And what was the point if we were going to end up dead all along? If we have to kill each other? All of this happened for nothing!"
There was more anger in her voice than sadness. The weight in Cynthia's stomach grew larger.
"After we destroyed the Organization, I thought it was better. I thought we were free." Yuma spat the word. "But we're still monsters. Someday we all have to go."
It had been a bitter reminder for all of them. Who could have seen it coming? It had been months ago now, maybe even a year, but the sting was fresh. They all remembered Audrey's awakening, the screams of the innocents of Rabona, the disorder in the absence of their captain. Miria had been out with a hunting party, Clare with Irene, and the valuable time before Deneve pulled them all together had been time enough for too many corpses.
Rachel had been at the bottom of the pile. They had buried her and the pieces of Audrey together. Then they had withdrawn once more to the caves and seclusion. Innocents could not be allowed to die.
"I broke the first rule, you know," Cynthia said. She couldn't look at Yuma when she said it. She kept smiling. She tried not to focus too much on the memories.
"What?"
"I killed a human. I was just a trainee."
Yuma was clearly confused by the direction their conversation had taken, but her tears seemed to have slowed as she watched the woman at her side.
"What happened?"
"Some of the Organization's men would pick out girls. Pets. I'm sure you saw it happen," Cynthia said. Her voice was light. She was still smiling. She remembered a smile and a beard scraping her head. He had smelled good when he hugged her.
"You killed one of them for touching you?" Yuma sounded almost in awe, understandably so; Cynthia hardly looked capable of killing a human now, let alone when she was little more than a child.
Cynthia laughed a little. "Not really. It went on for months. I didn't really do anything. But one day I'd gotten hit really hard in the stomach during training, and I felt sick and tired, and when he came...I don't really remember how it happened. I was angry, and he had his sword, and the next thing I knew I was holding it and he was hacked into pieces and there was blood everywhere."
"...That's..." Yuma struggled to find words. Cynthia's lips were still smiling, but her silver eyes were distant. Now it was Yuma's turn to squeeze Cynthia's hand.
"None of the other girls turned me in. It was pure luck. But I kept thinking about it. He probably had a family, I think, a wife and children, and he was just working to support them. And then I took him away. A little monster steals his life."
"You blame yourself? But he...he was hurting you. He deserved it. They cut us open, Cynthia, and turned us into this. That's the price they pay." Yuma's tears had dried on her cheeks, leaving them salty. Her fear and sadness were anger now. Cynthia's anecdote had done its work.
"My family was dead. If the Organization hadn't taken me in, I'd be dead anyway. Life as a monster or death. I don't know what's better," Cynthia went on. Then she turned her head and looked straight into Yuma's eyes, and her gaze was clear and beautiful, though her face was serious. "But I am grateful to them, Yuma. To the Organization."
"What? How?"
"I kept wondering when I was going to die. How long it'd take a yoma or Awakened Being to kill me. I thought I deserved it. But somehow it never happened. I thought at Pieta for sure, and then when the Destroyer was born." Cynthia smiled again. The intense gaze of her silver eyes disappeared as she closed them. "You brought me back. And when I woke up, I realized that I didn't really want to die. I wanted to see you again. To be by your side. And that feeling hasn't gone away."
A blush was more evident on the pallor of a Claymore, and so it was when pink flushed Yuma's cheeks. Cynthia's smile widened.
"We're monsters, Yuma. Or at least I know I am. And maybe someday one of us will awaken. But we have right now. We can't change the past or know what's coming. But being with you, here and now, that's what matters to me."
She was blushing a little too. She could feel it on her cheeks. But Cynthia wasn't thinking about that. She wasn't thinking about the rubble about them or the blood in her past. She was thinking only about Yuma.
"You're right," Yuma said. "And you were right before, too. Even if they are alive, they aren't my family anymore."
The sun was setting behind golden clouds as they kissed, and it was only when the moon rose high above them that the two finally stood to depart. Cynthia took a few steps toward the cover of the trees, then turned back when she noticed Yuma wasn't following.
"What?"
"I was just thinking," Yuma said. Her smile was a little sheepish. "It's nothing."
"Tell me."
"Well, last time I was leaving here, I was leaving home. But now when I'm leaving, I'm going home."
Cynthia smiled. She walked back toward her comrade, and they interlaced their fingers and left the place together.