A/N: This is the re-written and updated chapter 2 for "Familiarity."

For the sake of you getting to read, Author's Notes and other information will be given at the end of the chapter, please read it once you finish reading the chapter.

~ Chapter 2 ~

~Awakening~

Her consciousness was returning. Along with it came the mist which briefly clouds the mind before one really wakes up. When Helen's eyes opened, the first emotion to surface was relief, and joy over being alive. They were unfortunately not to last, as they were soon replaced by fear when the faces of her comrades came back to her. Was anyone else alive?

She sat up and looked around, half in panic. She could feel that her body was too injured to stand up and search, so instead she called out.

"Miria, Clare, Deneve! Is anyone alive?" She felt a pain surging in her chest, forcing her voice to - against her own will (and uncharacteristically) - keep a weak volume.

She heard no responses, except for the cold wind of the north. Calling a second time only to get the same result, she made herself stand up despite the horrible condition her body was in. Being an offensive warrior, her healing factor wasn't the best to begin with. While still far greater than that of a human's, she was still required to consciously focus on the task in order to heal anything beyond a bruise within a reasonable amount of time. Having been unconscious, the broken ribs, the missing right arm and the massive gash in her shoulder still remained from the battle.

It would seem she really did get lucky. The only reason she was still alive was that the blow which had crushed her ribs had been the one to send her unconscious. She'd already closed the wound where her right arm used to be before getting knocked out, and the gash in her shoulder was apparently not deep enough for her to bleed to death while unconscious. It was through sheer luck that the broken ribs hadn't pierced any vital organs, either.

As if that luck had just run out; her legs caved in, and she collapsed back onto the snowy ground on which she had started.

Realization of just how much luck had been involved hit her, and the odds of her closest comrades having the same amount struck with enough force to break her ribs all over again, causing her eyes to widen in denial for a few seconds. She shook her head in an attempt to clear it and started to heal herself at least to the point where she could walk without risking suicide.

"Shit, don't you dare have died on me Deneve! That goes for you too Clare, Miria!"

Despite focusing on the task, she found that in her current state, regenerating at all was far more difficult than usual due to the effects of the suppressant pill. If she pushed too much, her Yoki would come rushing back and light her up like a forest fire to both the organization and whatever awakened beings were left in the area. What should have been a few minutes to recover from most of her injuries became an agonizing quarter of an hour just healing the worst of it. 15 minutes was all she could tolerate before standing up on legs that shook enough to clearly indicate her impatience. She didn't care though, as finding the others was far more important at the moment.

"OI! DENEVE, CLARE, MIRIA, ARE YOU ALIVE!?" Now that her lungs no longer risked being pierced by her ribs, the shout held more power. Though, just like her first attempt, this too yielded no response. Fear struck her at the thought that she could feasibly be the only survivor. If that was the case, what would she do?

Train in the mountains? A lot of the warriors were loners by nature, but even the most extreme of them felt solidarity with other warriors to a certain extent, with only a handful exceptions.

She herself just so happened to be the probably most social warrior to have ever been trained.

Spending possibly decades on training in the cold north for what reason? Hope to one day defeat The Organization by herself? This uncomfortable speculation shot through her mind endless times until a voice salvaged her hopes and brought more relief than she could recall to have ever before experienced

"Helen, was that you?" The wind calmed a bit, and the voice which she could easily identify as that of her closest friend penetrated the snow-filled air and reached her ears.

"Deneve! Where are you!?" Her voice sounded more desperate than either of them could perceive at the time.

"If you are where I think you are, keep going down the street."

She turned in the direction that she had been sent flying from and, with revived motivation, backtracked her way to where she and the other 5 last warriors had made their stand. Now she knew that at least Deneve had survived. No, she said "us", so there's at least one more. The sole reason she did not sprint the distance was that she feared might actually fall unconscious again from that kind of strain.

The "street" around her was more like rubble at this point. In fact, despite having gazed in every direction, she could see but a single house with a roof still standing. Granted, the "roof" was really just the floor of the building's now non-existent second level, it appeared to be the only building in the whole city that could still be considered remotely intact. That information was gathered subconsciously though, as the conscious part of her mind was completely focused on closing the distance between herself and her fellow survivors.

Reaching her destination brought both joy and sorrow in almost equal quantities. She saw Deneve standing strong, and Miria laying at her feet having seemingly just been put there by the former. Slightly to the right, Clare was laying immobile. Besides them, there were 2 warriors sitting next to them. She thought she could see the corpses of 6 other warriors spread out in the relatively small area as well.

At least, she hoped it was just 6. Clare and Miria weren't moving. With hesitation and dread, she asked the most urgent question and prepared herself for the worst answer.

"O-oi Deneve, are they…?" Her heart sank, and her expression tensed at the loaded inquiry.

"Miria is alive, she just hasn't woken up yet, but Clare is…" There was hesitation in Deneve's voice. Confusion, which alarmed her long-time friend that something was off. Helen gulped in preparation for the inevitable continuation.

"…Is what?"

"Alive." She shook her head as if to clear it, and then continued. "We'll discuss it later. Right now we need to focus on recovering."

Helen breathed out in relief, and her expression softened as her worries for the most part subsided. She had thought that the relief she felt earlier was the greatest in her life, but what she felt right now could at the very least rival it.

Redirecting her gaze towards the two wounded comrades who were sitting nearby, she struggled to remember their names and ranks. Was she the last survivor to get here?

"Are we all who survived?" A nod from Deneve told her that she was right. Her reply would only come to confirm it.

"I woke up first so I went and searched for others. Clare and Miria are the only survivors I found outside of those already here, everyone else was dead. I was about to go search for you again when you shouted." Having known Deneve for so long allowed her to hear the slight differences in her voice that gave away how emotionally challenging it must have been to walk around and confirm the deaths of their comrades. Knowing there was little she could respond with besides the sympathetic look that she made sure to send, Helen turned back towards the other 2 survivors. The first, she recalled, used to have her hair in two braids over her chest. One of them was missing, she noticed, and the remaining one had loosened to the point where it could untangle at any second. The other survivor had just one braid, which had survived without much battle damage, over her right shoulder.

Aside from a number of relatively superficial injuries, they both seemed to be far better off than she herself was. They had all of their limbs left and no open wounds. Their injuries had probably been mostly internal, she reasoned, and seemingly not directly lethal to begin with.

"You're… Cynthia, right? Number 14?" A weak nod from the one missing her left hair-braid confirmed the vague memory of a name, though it didn't help in remembering the other. Having forgotten who her second comrade was made her feel sheepish. Turning to the comrade in question, she gave an apologetic grin and unashamedly asked;

"Ah, sorry, I don't remember your name. Could you…?"

It was difficult to tell whether or not the unnamed warrior had taken offense. Her expression was fairly solid to begin with, and didn't seem to change much as she spoke.

"Tabitha, number 31."

Her expressions gave little hint, but her voice sent a definite "I take offense to that" vibe.

"Right. Sorry." A subdued response and a smile was probably the best way to answer to that. Funny how easy it was to get embarrassed despite the situation...

"It's alright, my rank is fairly low. It's understandable that you wouldn't remember." She didn't sound very surprised, so she was probably used to being dismissed by higher ranking warriors. Not wanting this "new" comrade to have a bad image of her, Helen quickly tried to correct the misunderstanding.

"It's not because of that, I really did try to remember everyone! I'm just really bad with names, that's all."

Tabitha's eyebrows rose with interest at the friendly grin which Helen was now sporting. She decided it was a sign that her intent had gotten across. Good.

"Do you remember my name or rank?"

Helen jumped slightly as the "corpse" next to Cynthia spoke up tiredly. Judging by everyone else's lack of reaction, it would seem she was the only one not to have realized that the "corpse" was a survivor too. She seemed to be the one who was worst off, even worse than Helen herself had been, which was actually the reason she had thought the laying comrade dead to begin with.

It would appear that she was laying down because she was simply too injured to sit up. She was probably the reason why Deneve had decided to gather up at this specific spot, Helen realized. Since she was awake, she should've been healing herself for a while, so her injuries had probably been even worse before. Probably too serious for her to be moved.

After a somewhat awkward silence on Helen's part, she regained her ability to speak.

"…It begins with a U, right? You're the one who lost your arm in that first fight." A sigh from Deneve told her she'd just messed up. Again.

"Yuma, number 40. Yes I was, and don't worry about it." She gave a slight smile, a sign (which Helen missed) that her question was intended as mischief before closing her eyes again, presumably to resume healing herself as Helen just sighed in defeat. Her shoulders slumped (something which reminded her that she was still missing an arm herself) with the annoyance of having just flunked another "first" meeting.

"Idiot. You didn't even notice she was alive, did you?" Deneve was as blunt – and deadpan - as always it would seem. Since everyone present already knew as much, Helen chose not to retort since it would probably just dig her hole deeper. She instead turned back to the 2 people she had now relearned the names of with a slightly apologetic smile.

"Really, I am sorry."

Yuma had already made it clear that she held no grudge, thus Tabitha was the only one who felt a need to answer.

"It's fine." This time, there was genuine sincerity in her voice, and Helen breathed out in relief.

Though it would appear that the act of interrupting her relief was going to be a common occurrence on this particular day, as Miria stirred back into consciousness, drawing the attention of everyone present.

"Taichõ/Nee-san!" Was the unified and verbal reaction, the former coming from Tabatha and the latter from Helen. The first sight to greet Miria's eyes as they opened was that of Deneve towering over her form. The first words to leave her mouth voiced that sight, with all the grogginess that came with waking up.

"…Deneve?"

Not being the talkative type, the woman in question simply nodded in response and kneeled down to offer their injured leader aid in sitting upright. Doing so by herself might have become problematic with such a large gash running from her left hip, across her stomach, over the right side of her ribs and ending just below her breast. It looked fairly superficial, despite the size.

"Thank you." Her voice was stronger this time, the grogginess of her awakening quickly wearing off. Her eyes closed as she attempted to regain her bearings. After having seemingly composed herself, she spoke again. "…Do you know how many survived…?"

The reply was short and stern.

"All of the survivors are here. Clare is the only one who's yet to wake up."

A silence followed, and the captain brought a hand to her face, covering her eyes.

A brief silence.

"How many?" The atmosphere was suddenly tense, and becoming more so as time passed. Another silence ensued, and though everyone besides Clare was fully capable of speech, it felt important that Deneve be the one. She, being a straight-forward person, didn't conceal her intentions in the least.

"Open your eyes and see for yours-" She was interrupted by Miria showing more emotion in her voice than any of them had previously heard from her.

"Deneve." Her tone was desperate, almost begging. Almost.

Deneve's eyes widened marginally, a sign of surprise that, out of the people present, only Helen was familiar with enough to notice. The stoic warrior aimed a serious look at the still unseeing captain and seemed to ponder over whether or not to reply. She closed her eyes and sighed inwardly.

"7."

At this revelation, Miria's eyes opened again and, for the first time since awakening, turned its gaze in the direction of her fellow survivors. She barely caught a glimpse of Helen before guilt closed them once more.

"…7? There were so many of us… and only 7?" Never before had anyone present witnessed their captain's tears, nor had they seen her vulnerable. "There were 24 of us, and this is all I could do? I couldn't save any more?" Not since Hilda's death had she experienced such frustration and grief.

Seeing their captain's desperation, a single communicative glance from Deneve held all the instructions Helene needed. She, like Deneve had done, kneeled down next to the crying Miria and helped her stand upright, though the distraught leader had to lean on the blonde's shoulder in order to remain in said position. Miria's eyes widened slightly in confusion, and the hand which had covered her face instead dropped to her side.

"…Helen?"

Deneve locked a serious gaze with her captain's confused one.

"Look, Miria. Here are the lives you saved." Nowwas the first time that her gaze truly met those of the other survivors, and she saw no blame in them. What she saw instead was worry. Concern for her well-being, empathy towards her feelings and most strikingly, relief at her survival. Her tears had not yet stopped, and they most certainly would not do so now. Deneve straightened up from her position on the ground and spoke again.

"We are only alive right now because of you. You saved our lives in a situation where we would otherwise certainly have lost them. You brought us a miracle, Miria, and no one blames you for the comrades we've lost."

It took several seconds for her mind to truly process that information. Once it did, the arm that had fallen to her side once again came up to meet with the flow of tears that was now receding. The former number 6 of The Organization now felt, for the first time since Hilda's awakened hunt, emotionally overwhelmed, only this time there was joy mixed with the pain.

"Thank you. All of you." As her gratitude voiced itself through sobs,relief was the common emotion to surge through the gathered warriors. Tabatha and Cynthia sat back to rest, while Yuma again closed her eyes to resume healing.

A minute passed before she wiped away the last of her tears and straightened up as much as her body allowed, once again gaining the unified and full attention of everyone present.

"What do we do now Nee-san?"

She took a few more seconds to collect herself as much as possible before answering.

"The cold will slow down out healing factors. Our first priority is to find shelter until we've recovered. What we do after that can wait for now." Her glance fell on the most wounded of them, Yuma. "Can you walk or stand yet?"

The warrior in question nodded in response. "Walking is probably my limit, but yes."

The verbal exchange was interrupted by Deneve.

"Before that, we have an issue. Two, in fact."

Miria raised an eyebrow at the comment, unable to conclude what she was referring to.

"It's Clare." Deneve clarified. This drew the captain's gaze to the only survivor who had yet to wake up.

"Besides being unconscious, I don't see anything wrong with her."

"Look at her chest, in the center."

Another gaze was directed towards her comrade's body. Suddenly, Miria's eyes widened in surprise and confusion. There was a faint, blue glow emanating from the center of Clare's chest, just to the left of her heart. The confusing part was that it didn't come from her skin. It looked as if there was something embedded deep inside of her that was glowing through her flesh, as if it was some form of darkened glass and not solid organic tissue.

Helen was the first to speak her mind.

"What the hell is that?"

"I have no idea. She was like this when I found her, but that's not the only thing that's odd. Look at her again." The gathered survivors did as instructed but did not catch on. "There isn't a single scratch on her." She elaborated.

Now that it had been pointed out, the revelation did strike them as strange. Her healing factor was average at best. There was no way she'd completely healed herself in this amount of time while both under the suppressant pill and beingunconscious. How was she in such perfect condition?

"Which also raises the question: If she's fully healed, why hasn't she woken up?" Deneve asked.

Miria pondered over their current situation. The most urgent matters would need to be attended to first.

"In any case, there isn't much we can do about that here. We'll carry her for now, and think about this more once we've found a place to rest."

A sudden memory surfaced and made itself known in Helen's mind.

"Oh! I saw a place on my way here! The building's mostly destroyed, but it looked like there was a room still standing. We could rest up in there!" It felt good to be loud again.

It was a solid plan, the captain concluded. In fact, it worked out perfectly.

"Having to carry Clare will slow us down, and we're already a bit short on time. A place so close by would be ideal." She turned her gaze in the direction of their most injured comrade. "Yuma probably can't walk very far either."

"Sorry." An apology was not the expected reaction. In fact, it was a reaction that did not sit well with the warriors present, least of all the captain.

"Don't apologize when you have done no wrong, Yuma." The former number 40 seemed surprised for a few seconds before cracking a sheepish grin, despite her condition.

"…Sorry." This earned her a loud laugh from Helen and a sigh from Deneve.

The moment ended though, with Tabatha pointing out a forgotten topic.

"Then what is our second problem?"

Miria's gaze turned back to Deneve at this reminder.

"Right, there was another problem wasn't there?"

Deneve's hand came up to her shoulder, and an outstretched thumb pointed to the direction in which her back was facing.

"There are two humans lying unconscious in the snow over there." This information earned her full attention.

"That's impossible!" Came an outburst from Helen. "There's no way humans could have survived here!"

"Helen's right." Miria chipped in. "If they weren't evacuated before the battle, there's no way they could have lived through it. Even if they got here after the fighting stopped, supposing they by some miracle didn't get noticed by the Awakened Beings, there wouldn't be anything here to knock them out."

"No matter which scenario, they should be either dead or conscious." Tabatha offered her two cents. "Even when we hybrids prepared specifically for surviving less than a third of us managed it, and we only did so because of a brilliant leader and a miracle. That doesn't even account for the fact that the awakened hunt down humans with far more motivation than they do us warriors."

Trying to ignore the casually dropped compliment, Miria once again found herself having to ponder over their plans. This was the first time she'd ever had to rethink the same plan thrice in less than five minutes.

"Yet there they are." Deneve retorted monotonously. Miria again turned her gaze in her direction.

"Are you certain they are not awakened beings?" Miria asked.

"I couldn't sense any traces of yoki in their systems."

"The pills are messing with our sensing abilities and they might be suppressing it to begin with though." Helen inquired, characteristically loudly.

"I sat down and checked them thoroughly specifically for those reasons. Not a trace. I'm not even sure Awakened Beings can suppress their yoki while they're unconscious to begin with, and I think I would still sense it from that distance even if they could." This at least lessened the possibility of them being Awakened, though it didn't answer much else. "I can't find anything that points to them being anything other than human."

As Helen stood at a loss for ideas, Miria took another minute to think things through. Fourth time, it would seem. She subconsciously wondered if she'd hit five.

"Alright." And four gazes turned to her once again. The fifth figured there wasn't much point in interrupting her healing just to lock eyes with whoever spoke anymore, it was obvious she'd never get done if they continued to be so frequent.

"We can't just let them freeze to death out here. We'll bring them with us to that "building" that Helen talked about and leave them to recover. If they wake up before we leave, we tell them to forget about us, and if we're good to go before then, we'll leave them there. They should be fine by themselves whenever they wake up as long as they're out of the cold." A quick look around showed no objections, and a nod from Deneve confirmed a unified understanding.

"I'll go pick one of them up then." Deneve voiced, awaiting a second volunteer.

"I'll take the other one. Besides you, I've healed the most." Cynthia added quickly while standing up. After getting a nod of acknowledgement from the stoic former number 14, they both took off towards the mysterious survivors, who luckily weren't lying too far away.

Miria's eyes briefly closed, her focus now changing towards her own self for but a short moment. "I think I can walk on my own now. Thank you for your help, Helen." She spoke up, gratefully thanking her substitute crutch for the aid.

"You sure, taichõ?"

A short pause was spent on searching herself once more, just to be safe.

"…Yes."

"Alright." The glutton stepped away from the group's leader, making sure to observe whether or not said leader would fall over as a result of it. As fortune would have it, she did not. "I won't have to carry you there then!" That sounded an awful lot like relief, be it faked for comedic effect or not.

"Instead, you may carry Clare."

"God damn it."

Because of their positions, Tabatha alone was placed properly to be able to catch the hint of a smirk on their captain's lips. Despite the complaint, the now significantly-less-happy glutton bent down and, with some noticeable effort, picked up their unconscious comrade and slung her over her shoulder, just in time for Deneve and Cynthia to return with the humans carried in the very same manner, albeit with less obvious strain.

"I've never seen clothes like these before. They don't seem suited for the cold." Cynthia spoke up, referring to the man slung over her right shoulder, who oddly enough seemed to be dressed in some form of damaged white clothing, the thickness of which would seem to be made for considerably warmer weather.

"This guy isn't much better. He's got two layers, but they're thin and it's almost more torn than the other guy's. I have no idea how or why they would even be in the North like this to begin with." Deneve continued.

"We'll figure things out later. First, we follow Helen and rest up." Miria responded, getting an agreeing nod from Deneve and a "yes" from Cynthia.

Glancing in the direction of the remaining two survivors informed Miria that Yuma and Tabatha were up and ready to head out.

"Alright, Helen lead the way." And so she did. For about ten feet before stopping because of their captain nearly faceplanting the snow, if not for a very quick reaction from Tabatha.

"I thought you said you'd be fine, Nee-san!" Helen half-shouted worriedly in their direction, and short silence followed before the response came.

"…I thought I was." She felt a bit embarrassed at her own lack of judgment, and for having to rely on someone else because of it.

"You shouldn't overexert yourself, taichõ. Here, lean on me until we arrive." She had not pinned Tabatha as the caring kind. Such a physical display of worry came as a slight surprise. Ordinarily, she would have refused, but she knew that her current state would hardly stand for that, and so she was instead forced to accept the situation.

"Thank you." Her new crutch substitute merely gave an affirmative nod and began walking with her captain's arm slung supportively over her shoulder.

Teaser from the next chapter:

It ended when the shorter-haired warrior walked around the counter to peer down into the gaping hole between her distressed companion's legs with curiosity.

A/N: So yeah.

In case you haven't yet to notice, I've rewritten these first two chapters after it got to a point where I just couldn't stand how horribly written they originally were in my opinion. If you have already read the original chapters, I still highly recommend you to reread the new versions.

If you find anyone to be OOC at any point, (or find any grammatical issues) please do mention them in your reviews along with your opinions or experiences of the chapter/story overall/development/etc.

I've run into a few problems with this, but that will be further addressed in the ending A/N of the next chapter. Please read it whenever it comes out. Do not be alarmed though, this (most likely) doesn't mean the story is getting canceled.