Dear. . You,

I have a friend. His name is Akane. He's a cat, really, but he talks. Over the past couple of months by RhyDin's standards, he taught me a lot about my powers and what I'm capable of. He taught me that my weapon, the Nodachi no Hi, is actually a soul weapon capable of cutting down immensely powerful creatures in the spiritual plane. It can hurt any mortal being the same a sword can. But it's primary purpose. . . is to slaughter souls. Evil souls.

I learned, over the several month time span, that my sword has another name besides just that. Hideo. There is a living soul inside of the weapon itself. A soul that gives it power, gives it its strength, and resides there, waiting for me to call to it or to see it. Hideo resembles a boy. . . Being a sword, though, I'm betting he's lived for a long time. . .

I've had memories of myself resurface. From back when I first came to RhyDin city. I remember a boy with awesome orange hair, incredibly cold eyes that resembled steel, and tall. I remember a girl with white hair, awesome green eyes, and who was around my height. . . I remember they were always together. I'm sure you know who these people are. . . This was four years ago now.

From them, I remember another boy that was sometimes around me, giving me a hard time. A kid with white hair, strange blue eyes, and would sometimes call me "Mayu-Hime". He claimed to have been from my school, Fuka Academy, but I never actually got a chance to fully verify that. I remember him having control over the mechanical choker that I was asked to wear before coming to RhyDin, and I remember him being the reason I was blind for six months.

His name. . . was Hideo.

They look similar to each other. Wearing tiaras, full of chains and condescending bull. Could Hideo have been my Tamashiken in the past. . . Watching me?

It came from a Dweller whose name I do not know. He is the same one that I believe to be my brother now. How are all these things related to each other? Was my brother somehow a Dweller even before I knew him? If so, would that mean. . . I'm a Dweller, as well? My parents?

No. . . That can't be true.

You don't realize how difficult it is to watch over an entire city that spawns warfare until you do it with your own two eyes. I've kept this city safe from Dweller attacks for a while now. Since I baited them into Shamanista with my most recent departure, things have been. . . quiet. I don't know what the importance of the city is, or if it's just because I live here, but things happen all around me that. . . seems more unusual than this entire world could possibly dream up. I can't explain it.

Wherever you are, I hope you know that I'm biding my time until I may see you again. There will be a day we'll see each other again. . . isn't there? I can't possibly imagine our ending being one where we never truly say goodbye to each other face-to-face.

I know I left with the impression I was going to stay in Japan. . . . I was only half-lying to myself. I went to Japan all right. And after a week, I went to Shamanista. Alone. I stayed there for. . . over one-hundred years by their clock. I don't know what caused me to come back to RhyDin a third time. I woke up here. My messages to Shamanista have gone unanswered and the Senkaimon does not open.

One thing at a time. . . Shamanista does not require my assistance at all times of the day and night. An entire military force was established to deal with threats following Flora's removal. A lockdown could mean any number of things. . . Try not to worry about it, should you attempt to go there in hopes of finding me.

This letter is short and to the point. . . An attempt to detail as much information that comes to me as I write it. I will do this again. As often as I can. I hope you don't mind it.

Yours,
Mayu

I've never tried to fully understand my past. The principles, maybe. Young girl, belonging to an unloving family that saw my brother as the future of the family name. They staked a lot in him and beat me every time they thought I was getting in the way of his learning. The worst of it came when he died while I was with him. For a while after his death, things were calm. My dad never lifted a fist to me. My mom never berated me. In fact, they didn't do anything at all?

I'd have rather been beaten until I was killed than see my brother die in front of my eyes.

Before my life in Japan, I apparently lived another life. A life of a young girl in Bristol, England, who went by the name Elisa Clarke. I lived a sheltered life, one behind fortified, closed doors and who wasn't allowed to go outside unless it was with company in the dead of night. I've never actually remembered this side of me. Only what I've been told and what little I've been able to research. I've found census papers of a "Clarke" family, the only one, in fact, who lived around 1396 in an outlying villa. There were only three residents of the town. A young woman and two children. According to several sources, the villa was quarantined from the rest of the city and no visitors were allowed on the property. An unexplained fire tore down the house and caused wide-spread damage to a large section of forest surrounding the home itself. It took weeks to completely kill the fire. Which would mean?

If I was part of this Clarke family, I died once before. In a fire.

I never believed in reincarnation, even as a Buddhist. I guess that'd make me a non-believer of my faith as a child. Children do that sort of thing, ya know? Knowing this, and seeing the facts in front of me, I've slowly come to terms with the fact that I may have been Elisa in another place at another time.

When I first came back to RhyDin from Shamanista, Rin gave me a body that resembled what Elisa would have looked like in her early 20's. She said she'd had the vision for a while and couldn't let me return to the living world without giving the thought a chance. I admit, it felt unsettling to be tall, to have long blonde hair and blue eyes?

Almost as unsettling as invoking my Divine Maiden powers that used to give me that exact image.

I wish I could remember what that past was like. If life was better back then than today. Rin's told me that my life in Bristol was quiet and rewarding, where I had so many things available to me. ?I was only 9 when I died. ?I don't know how rewarding my life could have been?

I don't know what's possessed me to write this to you. Maybe I just needed to vent. Maybe I just needed to put these thoughts on paper and try to make sense of them?

?Maybe I just need a break from torturing Evan into telling me why the Exorcists are still after me after all this time. I know they want something other than to punish me for something that's past the statute of limitations.

I'm worried that they know something more about my Divine Maiden transformation than even I do. Blazing hair, flaming eyes? these fiery wings I can materialize when I think about them and how I was pushed toward releasing it all?

Having you at my side, things can be easier. I think I'll rely on that for the time being. Until then, I'll keep interrogating and pushing that soul weapon to tell me everything he knows. ?I'll get what I need if it costs me his life.

Yours,
Mayu

Dear. . .

I haven't written you in several days and I apologize for that. Things have been. . . complicated.

I've never fully explained anything about my friend Toby and I, have I? I'm sure that's been a question that have been on peoples' minds for a long time. I've always shut it down and never put anything out there. I do not believe there is one shred of information about him and I other than what people have seen of us. I admit I've never. . . spoken about him very much. Not since we met. Not even after I left RhyDin a few months ago.

It's never been a subject that I've been comfortable bringing up.

Over the years, a lot of people have pushed to learn about us. Pushed so hard, in fact, they've been obsessive over it. Rudely obsessive. They've pushed him more than myself, but there were those seldom few that sought my input. . . It's a rarity to find anybody that's interested in learning a story about somebody from both parties involved. But in our case, with our relationship, I don't know that I'd have ever wanted to tell somebody everything that's on my mind about him.

We met several years ago merely by chance. I don't remember exactly what the story surrounding our meeting involved. But, even way back then, I could see we had something in common that we could connect on. Our histories were complex. We were misunderstood by those around us. And we didn't have a thriving, breathing world that was willing to accept us for who we were. And I knew that, even after learning that Toby had a girl that was breathing down his neck as if she owned everything concerning him. We weren't acceptable people.

We bonded on those fronts. It took me a while to figure out that he was different from me, though. Inside of him was the blood of a demon - a creature they call a yoma. I guess it was more appropriate to say that he was a demon in disguise, in a sense, and he had a friend called Lisa that was just like him. I guess she saved him from his hometown after it was attacked by these yoma and, together, they came here.

I don't think I ever met Lisa, but he would talk about her a lot. As if he had this. . . thing for her. It was more brotherly of him than anything, though I'm certain there were others that thought of it differently. She was part of an organization that called her a "Claymore" because of the weapon she carried and used her own demon blood to destroy these yoma that attacked towns.

His world was bleak and. . . a little scary, even to think on it today.

Tylor is one of these people. These. . . Yoma/human hybrids, and I guess he was once a Claymore like Lisa. See, they use their demon blood to give them strength, but they have to be careful not to use too much of it. If they do, they start to go crazy and the blood takes them over. They become as savage as the yoma they're fated to kill.

I don't know when Toby acquired these abilities of his, but I know he lost them some years after we met. He kept all it from me, probably because he figured I didn't need to know that about him. I. . . guess that's all right. I wouldn't have wanted to know he was a demon at some point, no different than I wanted to learn that I'm a demon, myself.

Over the years, we did an awful lot together. We were inseparatable. A team, you could say, that would stand against the world and everything it tossed at us. He'd sometimes act as a shield to the plights against me, even going so far as to stand up against our own friends who would sometimes target me for whatever reason. . . I remember when I first met a woman called Ixora. They were friends, apparently, and she had a really. . . huge vendetta against me. At the time, I figured it was just because I was some new girl that was close to Toby, but the more I looked at it, and the more I talked to her, I realized that she was mostly acting the way she was because another woman was saying things about me to her. Rather than believe anything Ixora had to say about me, he stood up for me to the point that he'd get violent any time she threatened to harm me.

. . . I realized a long time ago that he was going to be the one true friend I'd have in my life, if there was going to be anybody.

And I tested that friendship an awful lot at any time I thought I needed to. I'd do silly things like call him a dog, a slave, or dump ice down his shirt. I'd beat him up when he got really perverted looks on his face, or would say something that embarrassed me. And, in turn, he'd do things, too. He did them mostly in private, I guess because he was worried that people would think we were flirting if it was done out in the open. I remember he took my shoes from me one day when I was changing after the kitchen sink started to leak. The whole floor was soaking wet. I had to stomp through the water, which was really, really cold, for about an hour. He laughed at me the whole time and I remember being so angry and huffing at him a bunch. He just kept it up. . . . That was our friendship. we did things to each other, and it became personal -- an inside joke just for us.

I remember other people seeing our relationship and making nasty comments about how badly I treated him. I got to see for myself that nobody attempted to learn what our story was or why we acted the way we did with each other. They just wanted to paint me in a bad light and do whatever they could to alter his perspective. He'd come home and tell me and we'd just shrug it off. Always laugh at the things people would say. I knew I could trust him with stuff like that.

And I don't know that I ever trusted somebody besides him. . . Not to the degree I did him.

The more people tried to push us apart, the closer we got. We continued to grow together, learning that we'd only have each other to lean on when things got bad. More times than not, things got terribly bad. Between the constant arguments with my sister because of his and my relationship, or the random times I'd try to go out in the world to date somebody that needed to take the crazy train to the nearest asylum, we'd just. . . seek each other out.

Nobody ever knew that for three years straight, he came to my apartment really late at night and just sit with me, talking about nothing in specific. There were nights we'd just sit near each other, a candlelight on my table, saying nothing to each other. After a few hours, I'd be asleep and he'd just go without saying a word.

That was our friendship.

I was constantly approached and told that he had other feelings for me. That he loved me, or that he respected me greater than himself. That I was a Goddess in his eyes. . . . And you know? I knew he did. I knew he did years ago when we sat alone in my apartment. We'd hold hands sometimes, or I'd fall asleep leaning on his shoulder. When those times happened, he wouldn't leave for anything. I'd wake up in the morning and he'd still be there, supporting me up. Like he hadn't moved at all.

I told these people that shared those feelings that they were crazy. That they were wrong. . . . All along, though, I knew. And, you know? They had no business to say anything about his feelings to me. His feelings were his, and his alone. He needed to tell me himself, when he was ready. That was his right as a person.

So. . . Why did I always push him to somebody else, when I knew he had feelings for me? Because he needed to. He needed to see other people. He needed to date girls, have a life, and explore the options that were out there. He needed to have the opportunity to move past an obstacle that he couldn't ever seem to get past. I wanted to help him. I wanted him to accept the idea that he liked me and tell me. If he couldn't, then I wanted him to just. . . move on and find his happiness.

I wasn't so oblivious that I couldn't see the sadness in his eyes when we were together. It was only when we were alone, sitting somewhere on the side where nobody could ever find us. He was so much different in front of me during those moments. And I could tell. . .

Having me near him never was enough. But, at the same time, it was all he could ever hope for. He suffered every single day with that.

There were only a few times I thought it was possible. At first, it was with Katt. I got to see him happy, and I thought, for a little while, he'd be able to settle with that. But he got hurt by something that happened between them - something that broke his heart and injured his trust. I never asked him. And I guess it was something that Zenny had said, which. . . I never asked her, either.

There was Star, where I knew he was happy for a little. But it didn't take long for me to see that there was something missing. It happened with Kingsley, as well. There was so much resentment for all that - and it wasn't even his fault. I pushed him to try these relationships out. Things don't always work out. That's understandable, you'd think. . .

Toby eventually told me how he felt. It was. . . a few months ago now. At the inn, in the kitchen, when we were alone where nobody could hear us. I was already involved with somebody, but he said he'd intended to share that with me regardless. Because there didn't seem to be another moment.

I admit. . . I was surprised. So surprised, I didn't know what to say or do. I remember feeling scared and. . . I hit him.

I've never been very good at dealing with my emotions and my feelings. There's always been something. . . not quite there. Like something's severed inside of me. is it because my father was always drinking and hateful any time I tried to talk to him? Because my mother wouldn't talk to me and acted like I was never around? I never grew up with friends in school besides Wakana. And that wasn't until just a couple of years before coming to RhyDin.

. . . I guess I just. . . didn't know how to handle something I had already come to expect. And I remember being angry. . . . angry that he hadn't told me sooner. That I couldn't do anything at that stage. I was already involved. . . I had no. . . I didn't have a choice.

It was one of the last times I ever spoke to him. He left the city a little after that, taking a job for R&D in Shamanista. Melissa told me that she's in contact with him periodically, but she doesn't let me speak with him when I ask.

Our relationship hasn't changed, I don't think, but we as people have.

If I ever saw him again. . . I'm not sure I would know how to react. Hit him again? Hah. . . I wouldn't do that a second time.

I'd probably be more prepared. To accept something that. . . I wasn't sure I was willing to accept in the years before now.

Until then.

Yours,
Mayu

When I was seven. . . Maybe when I was six. . . I was pushed into learning how to dance. To be a ballerina, specifically. I was excited to try something new, but I don't really remember any of my first experiences with it. Like all kids, it's something that you know your parents are really eager for you to do and you really want to follow anything they say to a tee. I only really remember my teacher putting most of her focus on the kids that had been there for longer than me, while I did everything in, as I called it, 'himitsu.' A few years of that didn't offer me any kind of marvelous payoff other than being allowed to perform a bravura once or twice. Doing solo acts aren't anything to be disappointed in. Only the most skilled are given the opportunity, the same way you would earn a soloist role in a choir or get to perform a fancy guitar solo with killer riffs and head banging until your head hurts. I never really liked having that kind of spotlight.

Have you ever heard of something called 'Dyspraxia?' Probably not. . . It's not exactly a well-known disease. I was diagnosed with it when I was two years old. It made things like walking and speaking very difficult for me, which is why I always used to stutter and fall over myself every single time I tried to do anything that involved my legs. There are different forms of it, and today I don't remember what they all are, but motor control was my real problem. So you can see why dancing would be something I should have been proud of. I never really was. My doctor told my parents that it would help me develop better than if I were to be treated for it with medications and other therapy methods.

Inclined to music, I eventually gave into joining the Light Music club at the academy. I played the bass guitar alongside another girl as a rhythm guitarist, and we had a lead singer, a drummer, a girl on the synthesizer and another, lead guitarist. We weren't very good in the scheme of things, but I learned a lot about what I could do. For the longest time, I thought I would grow up to either be a professional dancer, or a musician. Things my parents would not have approved of. With my father being an accountant for a large corporation, large numbers and a strong understanding of math and numbers are essential to make it. Dyspraxia pretty much put a stop to that thought in the early years of my conception.

Takuya eventually took up that mantle, and he was very smart for his age. He could do just about anything my parents wanted of him. It was like he was a gift sent to them to make up for my failures. I never resented him for being able to do what I couldn't. It made me feel. . . inclined to protect him. To be there with him, to love him, and be a sister. I was always glad to be. I remember, this one time, we were eating dinner and he didn't feel like eating horenso no goma-ae. It's a kind of spinach dish with sesame dressing. I switched out all these kinds of dumplings for the horenso when our parents weren't looking. Really. . . I never liked them, either. I always threw up when I even smelled it being cooked, and my parents loved to cook it.

I don't know what he'd be doing today. He died when we were pretty young. I'm almost 20, if you were to follow the world of the living's calendar, so that would have made him 18. He'd probably still be in school, lots of girls following him around everywhere, griping and moaning and groaning about how women are a disaster. . . He'd be loving every minute of being alive.

It reminds me of somebody else that I know used to love every minute of being alive. . .

You.

I have thrust so many strange and terrible things on you over the years, haven't I? All because you couldn't fathom an idea other than being at my side. From the day we met, it was as though you knew in your mind what you wanted. For that, I really am sorry. For not seeing things the way they should have been seen. For not simply taking you away when I could have. I might not have made any sort of absolute promise, but. . . It never felt right, you and I. You know? That I would be hurting somebody, stabbing them directly in the back and through the heart, if I even fathomed the idea. I turned those thoughts off early. I never once thought about waking them back up. Not until. . .

I don't know if I want that anymore. I don't know if I want you roaming the world like you are, acting as my substitute. You're so much more than that to me. . .

You always have been. . .

Wait for me. I'll find you . . .

Toby.

It has been some time since I've written anything to you. I told myself that if I was going to get over feeling anything at all, I should stop. I haven't sent any of these letters, anyway? I always pretended there'd come a day that I would. I don't know why.

I pulled away from the city a few months ago. The Juunin have gone silent. Whether they have moved or are simply biding their time, I don't know? I have enough of a lifetime to wait for them.

Until then, I've been restructuring the Tengoku no Tochi to be spiritually aligned with Shamanista. Long ago, it was once used as a facility for growing Divine Maidens, and was, before that, a sanctuary my mother and father used to escape Shamanista's judgment for their actions of falling in love?

Rin has entrusted me with it, to form a new order of Divine Maidens. She thinks, with effort, a war against the Juunin, the demons that once lived in Shamanista, can be prevented.

Reunion?

I didn't have to heart to tell her that Flora thought the same thing and that's what got her killed?

Flora had? fallen in love with a Juunin. A man called Enmerkar. He was the leader of the Juunin that were outcast by the Ruler during the First Passage Age, and a subordinate of my father's. When they were separated, she vowed to him that she would take over the Ruler's position at any cost, and reverse the curse that sent them to the Hells. As you know? she succeeded in taking over Shamanista by having my powers as the world's Shrine Maiden used against him. A power that only worked because he was a demon -- something I didn't learn until much later?

She required me to finish what she had intended, though, and spent years honing Shamanista until my eventual return. Despite everything I tried to do, she was able to capture me and tear the spirit world's power from my body; tearing the fabric between Shamanista and the Hells in half to bring him back to her.

He? murdered her in front of me and left with thousands of Juunin to the world of the living. Their entire goal is to bring down Shamanista's balance, at the cost of the living world. The two are harmonious. If one is broken, the other breaks too.

I? agree with my mother to a degree. Seeing angels and demons reunite would bring a stable peace that everybody can benefit from. But my agreement with that principle doesn't justify being hopeful. The Juunin Albrecht showed me their hatred for our kind.

War? is an inevitably.

I know you're out there, somewhere, doing the same exact thing I am. Akane told me everything. ?I never meant for you to become a substitute of mine. To be a Divine? anything. You're just supposed to be that boy to me, who's always a little quirky because he has secrets he doesn't want to share.

I guess when you told me that you loved me, you meant it?

? I'll try not to let you regret that. I promise.