Yuma

Yuma, sometimes romanized as 'Uma' in some manga translations, is Claymore No. 40 of Clare's generation. She is a defensive type. She is extremely insecure, considering herself weak compared to her companions.

Etymology
"Yuma" and "Uma" are transliterations of the Japanese "Yuma" (ユマ, pronounced like the English), meaning "evening pony."

In the West, "Yuma" is said to derived from a Native American phrase meaning "Chief's son."

In India, "Uma" is Sanskrit for "flax," suggestive of Yuma's hair color. It is also another name for the Hindu goddess, Parvati.

Appearance
Wears a ponytail during the Northern Campaign. After seven years, Yuma has long, straight hair which she lets hang loose. One strand of hair falls in front of her face. Before the time skip she wore the standard, Claymore uniform. Now, she wears the same dark outfit as the other survivors of the Northern Campaign.

Yoki Suppression
During the Seven-Year Time Skip, Yuma has learned to completely erase her Yoki to remain hidden from the Organization like the other "Six" of the Seven Ghosts.

Yoki Manipulation
Yuma has learned from Cynthia by manipulating other warriors' Yoki and using it to regenerate and heal from wounds. She first experimented this by aligning her Yoki with Cynthia which let her heal her wounds. She showed great potential in this area as she was able to fully restore a dismembered Cynthia to full health on her first attempt.

Advanced Sword Throwing
Among the seven survivors, Yuma is the most skilled at projectile throwing with a sword, striking down awakened beings on two occasions with great accuracy. Cynthia does tease Yuma about the disadvantage of that skill, namely that the projectile she uses, her sword, is the one and only weapon she has.

Personality
Yuma is a timid and insecure person. She believes herself to be exceedingly weak when compared to her six other comrades, having the lowest rank of them, all excepting Clare, (though Clare's actual powers far outstrip her formal rank). With the strength she has gained by the time she returns from the north she is able to easily defeat a No. 14 Claymore as well as Awakened Beings, but even so, Yuma doubts her ability to be useful to her powerful friends, and will go to great lengths to help them with what strength she can.

The Northern Campaign
Yuma was one of the 24 Claymore selected to battle in the Northern Campaign. She was placed in Miria's team, along with Queenie (No. 20) and Tabitha (No. 31). She was the only Claymore to be seriously injured in the first battle, losing her arm. However, she was able to regenerate it in time for the second battle. She was knocked unconscious during the second battle, which saved her life. Thanks to Miria, anyone knocked unconscious would appear dead, as their Yoki flow is stopped due to taking half a Yoki suppression pill. She is one of the seven survivors.

After Seven Year Time-Skip
Seven years after the Northern Campaign, Yuma is hiding in the mountains with the other survivors Miria, Clare, Deneve, Helen, Cynthia and Tabitha. Due to her insecurities, she feels very weak and useless compared to the other survivors.

After helping in the battle with Agatha in Rabona, she and Cynthia were asked by Miria to accompany Clare while she goes to the west to search for Raki. Despite being the weakest in the group, Yuma is able to single-handedly dispatch two handlers and three Claymores, the highest ranked being No. 14, while Cynthia and Clare fight an Awakened Being. She was also able to prevent the Awakened Being from escaping by severing its wings, which was done by throwing her sword over quite a distance and with perfect accuracy.

When Clare decides to save Renee from Riful, Yuma and Cynthia decide to go too. However, on the way they run into Dauf. They hide behind trees but Yuma, unable to hide her breathing properly, gets caught. Clare and Cynthia attempt to save her but Dauf's strength proves to be too much for them. Clare resorts to cutting off Yuma's leg, freeing her from Dauf and allowing Cynthia to carry her to safety. Cynthia helps Yuma to regenerate her leg before Helen and Deneve arrive. They tell Yuma to take care of the exhausted Cynthia while they go to find Clare.

After they leave Yuma and Cynthia are attacked by the combine Luciela and Rafaela Awakened Being. She tries to help the exhausted Cynthia, but Cynthia refuses her help. Yuma ignores her protests and picks her up, carrying her to safety. She comments on wanting to get a chance to look cool every so often. She carries Cynthia further into the woods but stops when Cynthia feels the presence of another Claymore nearby.

Yuma and Cynthia discover a severely wounded Beth, who Yuma tries to help. Cynthia warns her it is already too late just before Beth awakens. Yuma quickly backs away from Beth, who attacks them both while destroying the entire surrounding area in the process.

In chapter 98, Yuma carried away the severely mutilated and dying Cynthia from the place where Beth attacked them and attempted to save her life by synchronizing their yoki to let her regenerate. As revealed in chapter 101, Yuma's technique worked, saving Cynthia, but left her in a underpowered state, barely able to fend off the yoma spike creatures that are closing in on them.

As Cynthia's state is even worse, Yuma chooses to lead the creatures away, but is hit by a smaller spike in her right arm. Although she manages to eject it, stopping the corruption, her right hand is disabled and she realizes she has no chance to survive. As the creatures close in on her, she thinks proudly of herself for learning the yoki synchronization and regeneration, imagining what Miria and the rest would say of it, with tears in her eyes. At that moment, however, Dietrich steps in between her and the attackers, declaring the resolve to return the life debt she owes to Helen and Deneve by saving their companion.

Yuma tries to warn Dietrich about the Yoma spike creatures' power, but Dietrich does not intend to fight them herself. Instead, she has lured a number Abyssal Feeders to her location, and manages to sick them onto the spike creatures. Yuma is left to look in shock and awe at the Abyss Feeders apparently getting the upper hand in battle, not even affected by the parasites.

She is later seen with a fully regenerated Cynthia on a cliff face looking out towards the black mass, the Destroyer. While asking Cynthia what it was, Cynthia said that she could sense Helen and Deneve's aura. Dietrich then came up from behind. As Yuma was scolding her for acting so recklessly, Dietrich ran down the cliff face towards the Destroyer with Yuma and Cynthia close behind. When Yuma saw Deneve laying on the ground with Helen right beside her, she immediately ran over to Deneve, and started healing her arm. She was surprised when Deneve gave them her analysis to the team.

Yuma joins the group in going after Miria when learning that she went to the Organization alone. On the way, Yuma kills and Awakened Being alone when it ran away in fear of Anstasia's team whilst Cynthia was healing Phina who was injured during the Awakened Being hunt. Yuma continues with the others towards the Organization, where she and Cynthia calmed Miria's raging Yoki and healed Nike.

Seven Ghosts
Despite the bond the seven survivors share, Yuma feels insecure around them, seeing how their strength seemingly dwarfed hers. It wasn't until she fought one of the current generation claymores that she realized for the first time how much stronger she had actually become. This made Yuma wonder just how much stronger her other comrades have truly become.

Cynthia
After Cynthia saved Yuma from an awakened Beth's attacks, Yuma was distraught over her comrade's actions, especially after the former had expended so much energy in helping the latter regenerate her leg. When a critically wounded Cynthia made the claim to have the weakest will of the seven survivors, Yuma angrily tried to imitate her comrade's yoki manipulation technique in order to save her. In spite of the fact that Yuma had only ever seen the technique done and had never used it before, she successfully saved Cynthia's life. The two seemed to have formed a closer bond with each other ever since, with Cynthia showing confidence in Yuma's battle skills, as well as teasing her afterwards.