Claymore Chapter 92

[Shiek927]

Originally Posted by MisterJB

Cloaked Helen in a city has 90% of chances.

She did that to Isley and let's face it, Dauf's head is a bigger target and slower too.

Roflmao, a city?

In my imaginery scenario, Dauf is awakened, he's not in his human form

[MisterJB]

Originally Posted by Shiek927

Roflmao, a city?

In my imaginery scenario, Dauf is awakened, he's not in his human form

remember, Dauf is much smaller than Isley.

GS: According to Helen and Deneve, they were going to die in the figth with Isley but maybe they were thinking about his Awakened Form.

Even so, a fresh Isley in human form destroy 79% Helen and Deneve, IMO

[Gangsta Spanksta]

I just can't see #6 Yuma being at the same level as #6 Miria. Jean had a special move and Yuma does not, so why I would rank her behind Jean. Cynthia and Tabitha also don't stand a chance against #6 Miria, IMO. Then again, I am using Clare's generation as a measuring stone. This generation doesn't compare, and even Teresa's generation 4 down doesn't compare to 4 down of Clare's.

[MisterJB]

Originally Posted by Gangsta Spanksta

Jean had a special move and Yuma does not

She has the Yuma Punch. It's so deadly it could kill Rigardo with one hit.
And Riful too...

[SagaraSouske]

@Gangsta: I will stop arguing about taste since it is a minor point for determining whether or not AB need to eat humans and I already clarify my stance on that.

On Yoki, or rather Ki, the interpretation of it being life energy and required for living things to exist is the uncommon interpretation. In both Ranma ½ and Dragonball, Ki are energy generated by body rather then energy the body depends on. Ranma ½ ‘s Ki is identical to the Chinese concept of Qi, where the Japanese version of Ki is originated. You can read more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qi

The anime and manga media usually take the concept to another level and make liberal interpretation of it to allow dramatic power boost – just like youki in the claymore world. Just on a side note, I also read Japanese and lived in Japan for a while. I may not be as proficient at the languages as Cyclone who seems to be currently living there, but I do have a solid grasp of the language assisted by the fact that I am Chinese and most Kanji have the same or similar meaning in Chinese despite being pronounced differently.

I see youki as energy generated by the Yoma body – thus Yoma, Claymore and ABs share this trait. It isn’t like a fixed amount of life energy stored in their body and once used up, they will die from lacking it. Their body will always generate youki. What food does for them is similar to what food does for any living things; it provides a fuel for the energy generation. Human as a food source may taste the most delicious for AB and yomas and also may provide the most efficient ‘fuel’ for youki generation, that doesn’t preclude other food sources being able to sustain them albeit less efficiently.

Memories are complicated. To a human it is more then just data stored on a hard disk. Long term memories are divided into two groups: Declarative or Explicit Memory, and Procedural or Implicit Memory. Declarative memory requires conscious recall, and is further divided into two sub-categories: Semantic memory, which concerns with facts independent of context; episodic memory, which concerns information specific to a particular context. While episodic memory deals with sensations, emotions, feelings and such, semantic memory deals pure facts and abstract concepts. Procedural memory on the other hand is primarily employed in learning a skill or improving them. When you practice something and gets better because you are drawing from procedural memories of the skill that you are practicing subconciously.

Thus when AB receives memories from their former selves, they will receive procedural memory, where they retain combat experience and skills learned. They will also receive episodic memory with former human emotions and feelings that they may or may not accept – Ritful may have rejected most of the human emotions, Priscilla and Ophelia do not seem to have rejected their feelings about their father/brother. And last, the semantic memories will give ABs the intellectual understanding of the concepts of human morality.

What would you do if a psychopath killed someone you know and ate the remains and his crime is exposed? Would you go to court and testify that he should not be punished by law because his sense of morality is warped? That he is innocent because his mind is different?

[Shiek927]

Haven't you guys argued about that long enough?

[SagaraSouske]

May be, but then again, this dwarfs in comparison to the Teresa Power level argument. That spanned multiple chapter threads and had a lot more posts from a lot of people.

[irvinethearcher]

Originally Posted by Gangsta Spanksta

Here is how I see the rankings.

#1 Clare (Moved from Rosemary level to Rafaela level, Abyssal when Berserk)
#1 Luciella (Moved from Luciella level to Raciella level, will probably be a child)
#1 Miria (At Rosemary level)
#1 Miata (I don't know if she was even a #4 before, because she was useless to the org, but if she fights for a group that she is loyal for, the chances of her being out smarted like go away.)
#3-#2 Galatea (She may have been a #2 in Teresa's time, since she was as impressive to me as Irene. Seven Years of Yoki Supression and her new yoki sensing abilities make her more dangerous than before.)
#3 Helen. (One of the Troublesome Three. Her offensive capabilities look to be powerful enough to take an Abyssal in human form out with a lucky shot. We haven't seen her fight with Yoki yet)
#4 Deneve (Amazing regenerative abilties, not quite on the level of ZACS. Since she is the defensive type I haven't been able to judge her as well as Helen. We haven't seen her fight with Yoki yet.
#6 Cynthia
#8 Tabatha
#10 Yuma
#47 Clarice (There is probably something special about here, but it hasn't surfaced yet.)

As member of teresa's army i have to insist. Rosemary was AO. Her last moments were fittingly splendid for a number one. I think raffaella is after rethinking PERHAPS even stronger than luciella(claymore_form) as i think that beth is perhaps even stronger than alicia because the preserving one has the trouble in the soul link. If you see it this way that rafaella was better than a normal number one you are probably right but if you think that rosemary wasn't a worthy number one you are bad wrong or badong.

[Vulcannis]

Originally Posted by Methuselah

And I wonder if Raki will take in Isley's flesh (that is his armor) to become something more powerful.

The theory that his armour is made of Isley's flesh was mentioned way back, but if it's true Raki better hope that the ZACS that took Isley out have been retired. It would be an awesome source for some chaos though, if some of the ZACS suddenly leave Alicia's side and end up playing with Priscilla...

[Shiek927]

Originally Posted by Vulcannis

The theory that his armour is made of Isley's flesh was mentioned way back, but if it's true Raki better hope that the ZACS that took Isley out have been retired. It would be an awesome source for some chaos though, if some of the ZACS suddenly leave Alicia's side and end up playing with Priscilla...

I prefer the armor just being what Isley used when he was a Claymore. Besides, Isley's Awakened skin is black, and the armor is not.

[Arturro]

Guts as yoki source... Personally I think, that SagaraSousuke explanation is closest to Yagi idea of Yoki, but there is slightly another explanation. In many primeval cultures existed ritualistic cannibalism, where eating someones hearth or brain had important religious meaning. Mostly eating enemy (or relative) heart was supposed to give strenght and bravery of deceased, while brain - wisdom or magic abilities. Aztecs are an example of such culture (althought they weren't a primeval culture). Stronger (braver, wiser) human was considered a better "donor" than weakling. In mesoamerican cultures "value" of heart could be increased by torturing victim.
A variation of those beliefs, existing till today, is consumption of animal parts in some traditional medicines. There exists a black market for bears and tigers balls (yep. some people prefers to eat tigers balls than viagra...). The stronger, more powerful animal, the better. As someone pointed before, humans are probably biggest predators on Island (yeah, humans are omnivores, like for example, boars, but we are also an apex predators).
Eating prey heart (guts) will give strenght (yoki). Predator shoud torture his prey if possible (yoma likes to "play" with humans). Predator should first eat strongers representatives of hunted species (Raki, also Clares example - childrens were "saved" as a last meal).
It means yoma, as well as AB, probably could eat other animals, just cause of lack of large predators, humans are best source of food.

As of power levels of 7ghosts... I think Cynthia equalls or is even stronger than Renee. We haven't seen Renee in fight, but she must be between Rachel and Dietrich, and IMO her combat abilities are in that range. Cynthia is probably as good Eye as Renee, plus she is a skilled yoki manipulator. We haven't seen Tabitha in combat since Pieta, so hard to say, but she is considered by ghost as stronger than Uma. Uma encounter with current #15 prooved she is close to single number.

[iLney]

Originally Posted by irvinethearcher

.Rosemary was AO. Her last moments were fittingly splendid for a number one.

Haha. You're funny.

You meant her first moment?

[SagaraSouske]

If Rosemary was AO, someone from the Org would have detected her when she released to full AB form. As seen in this chapter, tons of people detected Racilla's youki. Also in earlier chapters, Galatea was able to detect a large youki source (Isley) from far away even from Rabanon.

Although I am kinda of surprised that the Org didn't send anyone to examine the dead body of Rosemary. If they did, they would have found AB flesh.

[iLney]

She had fully awakened before Teresa came.

[Throne Invader]

Poor Rosemary. And to think Claymores dreaded becoming ABs. She's a different kind of pie

[irvinethearcher]

Originally Posted by SagaraSouske

If Rosemary was AO, someone from the Org would have detected her when she released to full AB form. As seen in this chapter, tons of people detected Racilla's youki. Also in earlier chapters, Galatea was able to detect a large youki source (Isley) from far away even from Rabanon.

Although I am kinda of surprised that the Org didn't send anyone to examine the dead body of Rosemary. If they did, they would have found AB flesh.

you don't know where the eye was stationed at that moment or could it be ... the current eye was teresa herself
And despite that, the mib asked teresa if she had finished the clean up. And she responded with yes, her last .... you know the stuff.
Alicia was already in the west and galatea has a disability superpower and can sense yoki like no eye before.
And despite that... what do you think was the purpose of this chapter? To show how weak rosemary was and what an unworthy number one she was despite we saw her the first and last time in this chapter ever? Or perhaps it was meant to show how strong teresa really was?
The mib beliefed theresa for one reason. The reason of the unthinkability that a number one could defeat an awakened former number one also known as dwellers of the deep or abyssal ones.
A bold assumption of mine would be that rafaella told teresa to hold back, because of her own bad experiences with the organisation, and met her in the forest several times. Perhaps we will soon see more about teresa's past.

[SagaraSouske]

Originally Posted by iLney

She had fully awakened before Teresa came.

I was referring to Rosemary release to full AB form when Teresa confronted her, not when she awakened. If you count her awakening, then there are two chances for someone from the Org to detect her.

If Miria can detect Alica and Beth moving from east to west, Alica and Beth able to detect Racilla from the Org, it seems to indicate you don't really need an eye to detect monstrous youki like AO when they are fully released in their full AB form. So when Teresa fought Rosemary, even if the eye is far away, there bound to be some other high ranked claymore close enough to detect Rosemary at full youki level if she emitted large amount of youki comparable to that of an AO.

[haegar]

gee
that's what I get from staying of the net to get some studying done for a couple of days...
admit it, you're going for the post record with this thread

anyways - I'm gonna stay out of that hunger/human flesh/ki /chi thingy discussion, that's too far over my head, though it does make for an interesting read xD

on the matter of claire falling in love with raciella, I'd like to denounce that on the follwing grounds as "is not gonna happen":

imho claire already carries enough of a burden around with her: theresa, priscilla, raki, her relationship with the ghosts, all this places responsibilities on her - and also on the mangaka who has to follow up on what he started with her character. I'd guess that most of the background for WHO clare is, WHAT drives her, WHAT endangers her to fall, it's already there. It just has to be further clarified. As I mentioned a couple of pages before I believe what follows now is her better coming to terms with all those burdens.

Adding a NEW huge burden, looking after someone as powerfull as priscilla (potentially), might be too much, not neccesarily for her to handle, but for us the readers to take for serious - if more and more of those big ones get 'dropped' on claire to solve it might make things go too complicated ...

more importantly, her 'emotional makeup' so to speak, her characterpsychology in other words, has been developed with so much care and time as being a consequence of her relationships of the past(theresa, prissy, raki!)that I just find it hard to believe Yagi would tear all that down by "overwriting" her own emotions with raphaellas. "falling in love" is what I would understand as "overwriting" clares old emotions, because although love for theresa and raki might not be erased by love for raciella, byt adding that new love to the old ones surely clare's psychology would change drastically. So my bet would rather be along the line of her getting two things:

1) raphs memories (the safe bet xD)

a)they'll contain important imformation on the org that only someone such as the orgs ex-cleaner would have - we might see them in one of the next chapters, but from the mangaka's perspective they would be a great tool to feed the readers further input on the org when needed later on in the story - so I'm thinking we might see those in later chapters as flashbacks.

b) they'll contain info on Theresa's youth that helps claire understand her predecessor better - and that's one of the more imprtant parts I guess
(there was a chapter around the late 70's I believe where we see flashbacks of Rubel and Raph, and in on of those Raphaella encounters a young girl training for claymore who has run away from the headquarters to be outside - Theresa! There's not much in there as far as I remember but I'm willing to take it as evidence that there might be a yet unknown connection between Raphaella and Theresa - I'll start digging for it, but if anyone remebers it feel free to gimme a hint

c) they'll also contain info on Irene and probably on her death. There is a remote possibility that there's also more to Irene's and Theresa's past that Raph might have known about, or learned about from Irene when she found her after claire's training.

d)they'll contain information on Raph's techniques and skills, possibly more then mindlink

2) raph's emotions (the speculative part )
My theory: Raph's "emotional" memories will all be made available for claire. She will retain them later on, and be able to call on them as if they were her own. For her to be able to do that however will require a certain ordeal.

Basically Raph "mentally" violates her (the scene in this chapter were raph tells her what she's giving her). I imagine that like a process of sharing another's complete consciousness, only that claire has no choice in the matter and isn't asked for her opinion anyway. Like with this notion of dying and seeing your whole life pass by in an instant, but nontheless completely, all of it rushing through you, clare is forced to endure EVERY SINGLE FEELING raph has ever had. That's what I mean by "ordeal" and "violated" - basically she will "relive" raphs life. She will follow up on every thought, feeling and decission that raph has ever made. And there are a couple of parallels in their respective lives that'll make claire realise things about herself.
I totally agree that once she gets out of it, Claire will be dazzled, confused, and potentially instable for the next fight, I believe what she gets from Raph will leed to her making diffrent decissions then before, even to FEEL differently then before, maybee even so far as not being able to raise her sword against raciella awakend, but I totally renounce this idea of Raph's love simply being "copied over". Rather Raph's feelings will influence her OWN feelings. So she might not be able to kill Raciella "knowing and feeling" what Raph has been thorugh with her, but that wouldn't be because she attains "Raph's love for Racy (how 'bout that one?) but rather because Rath's emotions will be something that brings out her own emotions in new ways.
To get at it from another angle: Raki's emotionality sort of "rubbed off" on Claire and thus in a way served as a kind of "catalyst" for her emotional development. Raph will be simmilar, though that what Claire gains from Raph will be more along the lines of emotionaly dealing with the "awakend" side of Claire, whereas Raki's responsibility so to speak was Claire's "human side".

So that's my five cents on that question.

That leaves one big problem though, for this understanding of the Clare/Raph linking does give no viable indication of the outcome of the probably soon ensuing fight.
I still have a gut feeling that the trouble might be circumvented by Racy waking up "human" (rather improbable though)or by her dying rather quickly - in a way, by raph sharing with clare, lucy/raph/racy's purpose might already be served.

I'm still pretty certain that Riful has built up this rather pronounced urge to kinda cut claire to shred's - and with relish ^^

so my fight theory based on those two ideas above:

1. riful rushes back in to salvage her "experiment", senses that something "is off" since she gets some kinda lingering scent or rather feeling of the mind-meld, concludes that yet again little miss claymore has thwarted her schemes in a most provocative and ignorant way and comes right out with an obliterating blow aimed for claire - who is saved by Raciella awakend - in the ensuing skirmish claire and raciella take on riful, alicia arrives and joins in dealing out damage indescriminantely to all sides involved being in a kind of bloodlust stirred by some many powerful adversaries- at which point all bet's are off to how it goes on


-------------
edit: damn, I forgot the power level discussion xD
I'll agree on Miria and Claire beeing roughfly on par before the encounter with Raph, although I too would say that claire has been minimaly stronger than miria since rigaldo's end.

On Helen and Isley, my take is that she never had a chance, but that it has to be granted to her that she not only managed to survive (big feat actually if you consider it ^^) but also managed to engage him seriously enough for Isley to have to mobilize some precious youki which he then lacked against the feeders. So she did her share in bringing him down. When I think of her and Isley I have to think of that scene where a MIB and Alicia are secretly watching Riful go after some claymore's. Asked whether she could beat Riful Alicia replies she would "probably have delt about 50% damage to Riful before dying" and that at a time where she had not yet been completed. So my guess on Helen would be she might, with some considerable luck, have been able to deal him about 20-30%max. before she went down for good.

As for the ranking, for the fun of it:

Absolute top three, super abyssal
#X1 Priscilla
#X2 Raciella (I place both of them above the top three which is where I see them IF in full control of there powers. however Prissy keeps on shrinking and Racy is in any case gonna be unpredictable, so basically i give them an X and leve them out of the ranking)

#X3 Alicia (also kinda out of the ranking, but basically ABOVE the top three. In short, I think we're underestimating the orgs last remaining real weapon. I'd believe her to be fully capable of bringing down Riful in a fair 1vs1, although that would leave her considerably weakend - however she too is highly unstable and unpredictable due to the need for beth's control and since the last we saw of her indicated more initative and bloodlust than the org might like. She kinda reminds me of Ophelia with her battle hunger and I have a very strong feeling she's gonna go berserk sooner rather than later.

#X Riful - out of ranking but I'd place her inbetween here...

Top three, #1 / #2 level, ranging from as good as abyssal to coming pretty close to weaker abyssal
no.1 Claire (by now beats everything , except those three above, might even beat Riful in 1on1 AFTER Raph's psycho powerup
no.2 Miria (will take down anything not abyssal)
no.3 Miata (I don't see either Miata or Miria surviving an abyssal like Riful by themselves, still as far as the org's regular claymores are concerned they both outmatch any of them by far. Not to mention that in a group fight against superpowerful one's both Miria and Miata would be (besides claire obviously) the one's able to actually inflict serious heavy hits from time to time, as long as they survive, which they would for a considerable time, but not indefinetly. I place miata under miria because of her lack of skill and instability in terms of raw youki potential she might in time surpass miria though...)

no.4 Galatea (I find her a bit hard to place. In terms of youki reading, her perception has become frighteningly strong, she's definetly #1 Reader, the OVER GOD EYE
however in a fight she might be somewhat limited by her lack of sight, at least against an opponent skilled a surpressing youki or fighting with very little release. In terms of the "old" ranking I'd say that despite the fact that Galatea herself has somewhat evolved and thus is herself in #1-#2 regions, Miria has developed her powers so freakin much that she has surpassed her former #3 superior by far. I do think that when it comes to actually "acting" according to power level, of the 4 most powerfull among the ghosts we'll see the least fighting from galatea, since she herself pointed out that by going into hiding she chose a different path than the ghosts. I take it that while in the future she will differ to Miria's lead, she will become more of a support character, providing inteligence through her perceptions to the ghosts, and managing the safe-haven at Rabona for whoever among the old and new claymores wants to hide their from the org. Still from her fight with Miata (which she fought with the disadvantage of having to look out for the AB) we can take it that everything except Feeders and Alicia/Beth the Org might send for her would perish, and swiftly.

------------Here's the first big line, consider it like the difference between "#1 and #2" and the "rest of infamous top-five "-------------------------------------------------

Lower Top: averaging #3 -#5 Level

no.5/6 Helen (I'd assign her the combat prowess roughly equivalent to former Galatea's #3 or Ophelia's #4 position, her attack power comes probably rather close to what Miata or Miria might deal out, she lacks strategy and self-control though, which is a weakness)
no.5/6 Deneve (While not quite that strong her regeneration makes her hard to get rid of, plus enemy's will only notice that once it's too late mostly - also she's got the speciall power of serving as Helen's brains if needed
(I've given them both 5/6 number since due to their different styles it's hard to say whose stronger - acting as a pair that balances out each others weakenesses Helen and Deneve might come a little closer to the top)

noX Dietrich I#d put her in about here. if I remember how Miria might have got slaughtered by that six armed awakend if it weren't for claire, I'd say that Dietrich's power might perhaps be even a tiny bit more than that of Miria back then. She seems very strong and confident for a below-top five warrior, while her topspeed is at ~50% of Helen and Deneve, her stamina is higher which I take to indicate she is not quite as strong over all, but closing in on their level.

----------------another big line--------like between "top5" and "normal single digit"---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Significant Power but definetly a league below - averaging "single-digit" #6-9 power

no.7 Cynthia a little bit weaker than Miria's old #6 power perhaps?
no.8 Tabitha roughly at Flora's #8 level perhaps?

no.9 Yuma still weaker, but probably on par with the organisations recent #9 / #10 level

--------------------------BIG BIG LINE------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

# 47 Clarice - definetely no match for any of the ghosts, about as strong, or rather as WEAK a clair at the beginning before her first near awakening in rabonna
However, Her rank being the same as claire's, and her haircolor indicate she might be "alike" clair in more than just looks - suspecting "CLAYMORE INSIDE" ^^
might rise quickly in power under the ghosts influence, if true....

[SagaraSouske]

Originally Posted by irvinethearcher

you don't know where the eye was stationed at that moment or could it be ... the current eye was teresa herself
And despite that, the mib asked teresa if she had finished the clean up. And she responded with yes, her last .... you know the stuff.
Alicia was already in the west and galatea has a disability superpower and can sense yoki like no eye before.
And despite that... what do you think was the purpose of this chapter? To show how weak rosemary was and what an unworthy number one she was despite we saw her the first and last time in this chapter ever? Or perhaps it was meant to show how strong teresa really was?
The mib beliefed theresa for one reason. The reason of the unthinkability that a number one could defeat an awakened former number one also known as dwellers of the deep or abyssal ones.
A bold assumption of mine would be that rafaella told teresa to hold back, because of her own bad experiences with the organisation, and met her in the forest several times. Perhaps we will soon see more about teresa's past.

I doubt Teresa is that generation's eye. Alicia was moving west - we see Miria detecting them moving from east to west from Rabanon. Helen and Deneve are moving west from south and they also detected Racilla's youki. Even given Galatea is better then previous eye, she detected something literally half an island away. Since there are 47 districts and 47 claymores assigned to them, do you think there are no claymores station in nearby districts when Teresa fought Rosemary? Some are bound to be close enough to detect the enormous youki Rosemary emitted when she went all out.

I never said this chapter is meant to show anything about Rosemary. I doubt Yagi sensai had Rosemary in mind when he wrote this chapter. What this chapter showed is that when an AO level or higher AB is born, the world generally knows. Such power would not go unnoticed.

Teresa holding back has no bearing on whether Rosemary's youki was powerful enough to be detected. If Rosemary was indeed AO level, then someone would have noticed either when she awakened or when she fought Teresa in full force.

[Awakened]

Originally Posted by haegar

gee
that's what I get from staying of the net to get some studying done for a couple of days...
admit it, you're going for the post record with this thread

anyways - I'm gonna stay out of that hunger/human flesh/ki /chi thingy discussion, that's too far over my head, though it does make for an interesting read xD

on the matter of claire falling in love with raciella, I'd like to denounce that on the follwing grounds as "is not gonna happen":

imho claire already carries enough of a burden around with her: theresa, priscilla, raki, her relationship with the ghosts, all this places responsibilities on her - and also on the mangaka who has to follow up on what he started with her character. I'd guess that most of the background for WHO clare is, WHAT drives her, WHAT endangers her to fall, it's already there. It just has to be further clarified. As I mentioned a couple of pages before I believe what follows now is her better coming to terms with all those burdens.

Adding a NEW huge burden, looking after someone as powerfull as priscilla (potentially), might be too much, not neccesarily for her to handle, but for us the readers to take for serious - if more and more of those big ones get 'dropped' on claire to solve it might make things go too complicated ...

more importantly, her 'emotional makeup' so to speak, her characterpsychology in other words, has been developed with so much care and time as being a consequence of her relationships of the past(theresa, prissy, raki!)that I just find it hard to believe Yagi would tear all that down by "overwriting" her own emotions with raphaellas. "falling in love" is what I would understand as "overwriting" clares old emotions, because although love for theresa and raki might not be erased by love for raciella, byt adding that new love to the old ones surely clare's psychology would change drastically. So my bet would rather be along the line of her getting two things:

1) raphs memories (the safe bet xD)

a)they'll contain important imformation on the org that only someone such as the orgs ex-cleaner would have - we might see them in one of the next chapters, but from the mangaka's perspective they would be a great tool to feed the readers further input on the org when needed later on in the story - so I'm thinking we might see those in later chapters as flashbacks.

b) they'll contain info on Theresa's youth that helps claire understand her predecessor better - and that's one of the more imprtant parts I guess
(there was a chapter around the late 70's I believe where we see flashbacks of Rubel and Raph, and in on of those Raphaella encounters a young girl training for claymore who has run away from the headquarters to be outside - Theresa! There's not much in there as far as I remember but I'm willing to take it as evidence that there might be a yet unknown connection between Raphaella and Theresa - I'll start digging for it, but if anyone remebers it feel free to gimme a hint

c) they'll also contain info on Irene and probably on her death. There is a remote possibility that there's also more to Irene's and Theresa's past that Raph might have known about, or learned about from Irene when she found her after claire's training.

d)they'll contain information on Raph's techniques and skills, possibly more then mindlink

2) raph's emotions (the speculative part )
My theory: Raph's "emotional" meories will all be made available for claire. She will retain them later on, and be able to call on them as if they were her own. For her to be able to do that however will require a certain ordeal.

Basically Raph "mentally" violates her (the scene in this chapter were raph tells her what she's giving her). I imagine that like a process of sharing another's complete consciousness, only that claire has no choice in the matter and isn't asked for her opinion anyway. Like with this notion of dying and seeing your whole life pass by in an instant, but nontheless completely, all of it rushing through you, clare is forced to endure EVERY SINGLE FEELING raph has ever had. That's what I mean by "ordeal" and "violated" - basically she will "relive" raphs life. She will follow up on every thought, feeling and decission that raph has ever made. And there are a couple of parallels in their respective lives that'll make claire realise things about herself.
I totally agree that once she gets out of it, Claire will be dazzled, confused, and potentially instable for the next fight, I believe what she gets from Raph will leed to her making diffrent decissions then before, even to FEEL differently then before, maybee even so far as not being able to raise her sword against raciella awakend, but I totally renounce this idea of Raph's love simply being "copied over". Rather Raph's feelings will influence her OWN feelings. So she might not be able to kill Raciella "knowing and feeling" what Raph has been thorugh with her, but that wouldn't be because she attains "Raph's love for Racy (how 'bout that one?) but rather because Rath's emotions will be something that brings out her own emotions in new ways.
To get at it from another angle: Raki's emotionality sort of "rubbed off" on Claire and thus in a way served as a kind of "catalyst" for her emotional development. Raph will be simmilar, though that what Claire gains from Raph will be more along the lines of emotionaly dealing with the "awakend" side of Claire, whereas Raki's responsibility so to speak was Claire's "human side".

So that's my five cents on that question.

That leaves one big problem though, for this understanding of the Clare/Raph linking does give no viable indication of the outcome of the probably soon ensuing fight.
I still have a gut feeling that the trouble might be circumvented by Racy waking up "human" (rather improbable though)or by her dying rather quickly - in a way, by raph sharing with clare, lucy/raph/racy's purpose might already be served.

I'm still pretty certain that Riful has built up this rather pronounced urge to kinda cut claire to shred's - and with relish ^^

so my fight theory based on those two ideas above:

1. riful rushes back in to salvage her "experiment", senses that something "is off" since she gets some kinda lingering scent or rather feeling of the mind-meld, concludes that yet again little miss claymore has thwarted her shemes in a most provocative and ignorant way and comes right out with an obliterating blow aimed for claire - who is saved by Raciella awakend - in the ensuing skirmish claire and raciella take on riful, alicia arrives and joins in dealing out damage indescriminantely to all sides involved being in a kind of bloodlust stirred by some many powerful adversaries- at which point all bet's are off to how it goes on

I like your theory.