Thp. A plated greave striking filthy mud, sloshing mortal essences like water about steel. Never seeping, never moist.

Flaxen struck at hardened cheeks of ivory, silver hues of untold stories; with everlasting history, watching with profound interest. She, that Witch of the past who had been called, was no super hero masquerading as a simpleton of the world. She was not bound to the restrictions of aide when requested for. For mere chances, those things called coincidences, only came in the guise of miracles.

For whom, pray tell, whom would this miracle benefit in the ever after?

The beast of a woman, her lithe figure; her small height, not pronouncing the lingering ferocity of a bear, had come. Tink, sabatons rattling with unspoken unpleasantries, thick steel capable of such aggravation, of those things the silver-eyed witches were rumored to be without, but a foreshadowing of what she may consider to come; to sink deep teeth into the bareness of a skinned apple.

To deem such a task so easy, was it possible? To proclaim a solution without means of urgency?

"You speak with the foul viciousness of a primate," Lisa callously expressed for whom spoke her name aloud. "Are all of your sorts so liable to bark this season?"

Her rhetoric was not intended to find means of an answer. Silver spheres glowered, an impatient mood already at a limit she had not set; but predetermined many ages since passed when she first signed on as a hybrid. No longer a human, but against all her odds of the demon, of the yoma, that clenched her heart instead.

"So soon you are to call for I. I hope, in any interest of yourself, you have suiting reason," she ruthlessly warned. Of Lisa's sort, under the protection of The Organization, she must maintain vigilance. These pitiful things, these "House Calls" as she'd express them to be, were beneath that of a hunter; her prey far superior than effete tears or wholesome love triangles.

It all came crashing back to one singularity. One atom in the chain that eradicated all others; he who defied his purpose to live and succumbed to the depths and desires of another.

Toby.

What he will pay?

She eased to one side, mercury-filled hues drinking in the pleas, the urges. Were it so, that she be asked, questions of filth like the mud that gripped with suction to the graves she wore? A jerk, a motion, flaxen cutting the air as she shook her head; droplets of water casting a similar shower to the one she was graced with.

There was no solution to the question. "You ask for miracles," miracles that nobody in her line of work could, or would, assist with. Those who did the deed may have other secrets; methods of removal. To remove the heart, how does that life beat, to refresh and continue on? Steel didn't seize the moment of clarity, glowering all the way to the bank. Were it an expression, doubtful; but a vivid reminder that she was but one of them.

A beast to a beast.

"Do not forget your Toby is a hunted criminal of the Organization. Should I see him, I shall end his darkness myself. As will we all."

A hint, a taste, that her words her bitten upon. A false declaration? Or something much deeper; disdain at the heart, the core. A penny in a jar of quarters, seen, uncared; a minuscule soul against fierce titans.

Lisa did not recall the woman. By name, by face, a blur to the intoxication of her memory. Were it sober, life carrying them separately, those devilish things called miracles might possibly be granted; a face in the most crowded of stadiums remedying poor or sheer forgetfulness.

"A choice to beat one's heart with the demon blood, of yoma; an infusion. He has chosen his fate, and you yours to cling to such uselessness," Lisa answered her questions in one swoop. Those dreams she must have cared for deeply. They were not Lisa's to protect, ants amongst grains of sand in similarity. "You pay the fine with your bindings to the human life; and that child did what we all must? pledge to it. To be amongst the very monsters we once cringed at."

The eyes of the witch did not falter; her dark gaze on Katt like a hawk seeking a mouse for her young.

"However, to subdue the tainted soul; the dark clutches of that yoma heart, is not unheard of. The cost is greater." She spoke from experience, the years of which bore down on her greater than sabatons of heavy steel. "Passion is a weapon, and men are particularly at a disadvantage. They cling to their urges to release, that sexually driven disdain of mortality. Has he done so?"

She questioned Katt with a sense of knowing; unable to believe that he, the child, if even a fraction of their absoluteness, was under any different circumstances. Were he not, she would not consort with the silver-eyed witch. Her inquiries befitting bindings of user manuals and "How-To's."

Lisa visibly sneered.

"His choice began the very moment he accepted his fate. To pray for an outcome is not progress," her hatred for that word pray oozing from a sharp tongue. Aspects of a life forgotten, or soon to be discussed, did not prevent even the coldest from breaking metaphorical bones like twigs. "And to encourage this feeling that rides his heart; to mount his soul, I see little hope."

Lisa did not tend to wounds inflicted, licking the salt clean or disinfect the grime that prevented clotting. The seeping, proverbial blood would run freely, color the soaked earth a dirty, bittersweet burgundy.

"You do not understand the process of Claymore when they rile their powers, do you?" The question could have been innocent enough, were she not speaking so sharply that her saliva could shatter glass. The sneer could not find means of letting up. "You can relate that feeling to dire, sexual passion. Men, feeble and disgusting as they are, cannot fathom the understanding of controlling such a release," again, her words judging experience rather than bedtime stories. "They want that climax. They? pray for it."

Lisa judged proximity, a mine threatening to go off, ticking from a closeness she was not comfortable nor shying from. Of matching height, Katt one inch her greater, Lisa's gaze hardened. A fluctuation, unstable jitters from the Claymore, brought on a radical change to the woman's mercury eyes, opaque citrine flooding; the dam disintegrating and unleashing the fierce powers that lingered within. No longer a fox, but a rabid jackal.

"Filling ourselves with but even ten percent of the filthy blood alters us in such a remarkable way," displaying the power that she could judge Toby unleashed, yoki as thick as the crust beneath. "He only obtained this level, and already he lost control of himself."

She ensured Katt was paying attention to her here; a nose so close that breaths as hot as a summer day puffed against smooth skin; grazing of flesh to flesh. That judged proximity a lost wonderment, once-upon-a-time now forgotten. "Each time this power is used, we feel the desire of pleasure, not unlike the climax of sexual desire? of orgasms and screams. Of release."

Fear was not a weapon of a Claymore; for their unspoken rumors and devastating history did far greater damage. Their presence boiled fear greater than they needed to. This was Lisa's intent to display; to be the seer of fortune and diminish once and for all these unruly questions.

"And each time we touch on this power, the closer we become to that which we all must eventually face." The citrine washed away, blanched silver. Airborne quakes, disturbances in the airflow across her shoulders, calmed to a soothing brush of wind. She sidestepped Katt, greaves snapping through gunk frosting the ground; earth's wedding cake. "The time when the yoma consumes us; and we must meet our death by another of our ranks."

Mere words were like gnats to her ears; a constant buzz that she'd swat were waves of sound tangible to physical conflict. The Claymore snapped, "Do not try to lie to yourself in hopes that he will be preserved because of it. This situation is more dire than your hopes and dreams can fathom."

She turned to Katt, leather crinkling as her hands tightened into fists, bowling balls of maximum weight; of tremendous mass. Twenty stories of pressure in nothing greater than a hand capable of sinking inside a jar of pickles. "He is progressing faster than they anticipated, thus is why he is to be beheaded and forgotten. The child will AWAKEN if he is not tended to. These are not times for expectations. Should he awaken beforehand," The Claymore paused, a gesture so strong even for she. "Not even I will be able to draw a closure to this story."

Fingers loosened from their balled homes, escaping the clenching wildfires that burnt taut muscle. A heavy burden was in that gaze of Lisa's, years of regret she couldn't so easily let up like she would given any other circumstance. She despised very a many thing, a hornet's nest aggravated by the thrown rocks of ignorant children.

"Awakened Claymore are an entirely different species from what you may think. If you believe you have much to fear now by losing him, you've seen nothing yet," there was no mistaking her seriousness. It corroded the callous intentions in her voice, leaving nothing but naked truth. "When his body gives out, that is when the next phase of his existence begins; when evolution destroys him and leaves in its terrible wake something so foul, demon does not describe it."

She turned her back to Katt, a hand held to haphazardly catch a glimpse of the rain that no longer fell. Nature was not crying for she, or they, this time. It cast a gloomy shadow in the sky that was falling into darkness, a tale only the tarot readers tell. "He will not escape that outcome if you continue to believe he is only afraid. He's afraid because he is well-aware how his story will end. He will stop at nothing to prevent it. I know that much." And she did. She didn't lose faith in Toby. She lost faith in the overwhelming power that dented the shields of powerful knights, the armor of the most sturdy crusader, and left them in nothing but a shallow grave. "But he does not choose when, or how."

"He will require training; to put it crudely for you. Training to prevent himself from activating the power of the yoma in his heart. A technique I have mastered," she explained to Katt. "It is ill of you to assume I will be providing it. Already I have done much to contrast this situation; for you because you ask on his behalf."

A turn, a pivot in her step, grinding muddy prints into the base of the slick earth, to face Katt. She was hard like granite, and had no intentions of putting her own self into further danger. She was willed by the Organization; and the ticking clock of death loomed its nasty pendulum closer and closer. "You have the information set before you. The keys on your ring. But I will not hesitate to eradicate his presence before it threatens not only this city, but myself.

"Now go. I risk much by conversing with you so openly about this subject." Fingers inching a motion to suggest she be on her way.