010 | Darkness in Paradise 06

[priscilla]

Summary First Appearance: N/A Now that's what I call weak! The yoma seems quite unimpressed with Clare's declaration of war, and the real battle begins. With her sword, Clare is much more formidable against the creature, managing to lop off an arm, not to mention doing a good deal of damage to the stone floor. All this is done despite her injuries, leaving Galk in awe of the true power of the Claymores. Raki, however, is concerned - she's straining, he says. She's fighting beyond the point where she should have stopped. Also noticing this? The yoma. He realizes, now, that Clare was showing her flashiest moves in the hope of making him panic so she could get him with his guard down, thereby avoiding a long fight. And when she cut his arm off, she had missed - she was going for a head shot. Emboldened by the realization, the yoma attacks her again, shoving its extended fingers through her shoulders and taunting her for her lack of speed. He lifts her from the ground with his fingertips, and then slams her back into the ground. He then makes a similar attack on Galk, punching through his armor and skewering his shoulder. Sid retrieves Galk's sword, now discarded by the yoma, and throws it back to its owner, who uses it to sever the yoma's fingers, freeing Clare and himself. He admits that he and Sid are no match for the yoma, and tells Clare to make use of their lives however she needs to in order to defeat it. Just then, the yoma impales Sid as well, and then Galk when he tries a frontal assault. The view is good, but probably not much else. This, however, turns out to be have been a ruse - with the yoma's one remaining hand occupied with the two humans, Clare is free to attack it, severing its remaining arm. ...and then the yoma impales its own chest on her blade. The move sort of surprises Clare, until the yoma's gamble becomes clear - from where the blade is, she can't hit any of his vital areas and he doesn't intend to allow her to withdraw the blade, thus locking them in a stalemate. However, he hasn't accounted for Clare's yoki powers. She draws them out, her eyes turning to gold and her face rippling with veins, twists the blade within his body, and pulls it up. The yoma is bisected vertically, straight through to his head. Notes and Comments Like "mother" like "daughter?" 01. Clare's flashiest fighting style heavily resembles that of Teresa, complete with acrobatics of the sort we rarely see in most soldiers. While it isn't especially noteworthy at the time, in retrospect it seems to foreshadow the reality that Clare patterns much of her fighting style on Teresa's - at least the parts of her fighting style that come out during moments of true danger/duress (e.g. the Rabona yoma and the six-armed male later on). 02. The physical strength of the characters in claymore is difficult to overestimate. As of right now, we're seeing a fairly weak warrior... but the yoma she's fighting is easily able to punch through plate armor with his fingertips. Consider how easily a high level warrior mows down dozens of yoma, and how easily a powerful awakened beings mows down dozens of high level warriors. For that matter, consider how strong a person has to be to carve through solid stone floors the way Clare does, and bear in mind that she's both injured and the weakest in the ranks. 03. The extended fingertips weapon seems to be, for lack of a better explanation, the default yoma weapon. The most basic, with the least flare. Interestingly enough, the two 'types' that use it are the weakest monsters in the series - base yoma, and Priscilla, the most powerful creature around. That probably says a good deal about her, but that is for another day. 04. This is the first time, but not that last, that Clare will have it driven into her head that what she truly needs is increased speed. It's a theme that will prove quite significant later on. Fact-Checking N/A ☩ ☩ ☩ Back