Yuma

"I am so grateful to all of you! That someone low ranked like me, warrior number 40, could survive that battle, was only thanks to that plan!."

- Yuma, to Clare.

Yuma was Claymore No. 40 of the 129th generation in the Organization.

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 be 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
Yuma has long, straight, light blond hair which she lets hang loose. One strand is always seen falling 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 and alongside Helen, is the most conservatively dressed.

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 learn the technique while Cynthia synchronizes her Yoki to help Yuma's regeneration. Considering a technique that took Cynthia seven years to perfect and Yuma was able to fully restore a dismembered Cynthia to full health on her first attempt, it proves that Yuma is in fact very talented in this area.

Advanced Sword Throwing
Among the seven survivors, Yuma is the most skilled at projectile throwing with a sword thanks to her natural muscular strength and good sense in throwing. She's capable of striking down Awakened Beings and does so on two occasions with great accuracy, being capable of hitting even a flying Awakened Being's wings without releasing any Yoki. This also makes it into an effective sneak attack since both the movement and the projectile radiate no Yoki and, consequently, make it harder for foes using Yoki Sensing to notice it. Cynthia does tease Yuma about the disadvantage of the skill, however: namely that the projectile she uses, her sword, is the one and only weapon she has. This conclusion can be averted when fighting alongside her comrades as she can take on a supportive role and recover her sword when her friends attack.

Personality
"To see your comrades die right before your eyes... Do you think you're the only one who finds that painful?."

- Yuma, to Cynthia.

Yuma has low self confidence. She believes herself to be exceedingly weak when compared to her six other comrades, having the lowest rank of them all with the exception of 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. Despite showing low confidence in herself, she tends to prove her usefulness in the team by completing all tasks that are handed to her and eventually learning Yoki Manipulation.

The Northern Campaign
Yuma is one of the twenty-four Claymores selected to battle in the Northern Campaign on Pieta, Alphonse. She is placed in Miria's team, along with Queenie (No. 20) and Tabitha (No. 31). She fights during the first battle and was the only Claymore to be seriously injured in the first battle, losing her arm. However, she is able to regenerate it in time for the second battle.

Shortly before the battle, the Claymores hold a meeting, in which Miria tells the warriors to each use half a Yoki-supression pill. Yuma is knocked unconscious during the second battle, which saves her life after the medicine takes effect and prevents her Yoki from being sensed by the Awakened Beings. At the end of the Last Battle, after all the Awakened Beings leave Pieta, Yuma regains consciousness along with the other survivors: Tabitha, Miria, Clare, Deneve, Helen and Cynthia. After that, the seven Claymores bury their dead comrades and begin living in Alphonse, hiding from the Organization.

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.

Journey to the West
After helping in the battle with Agatha in Rabona, she and Cynthia are asked by Miria to accompany Clare while she goes to the west to look 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 is also able to prevent the Awakened Being from escaping by severing its wings, which she does 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 as well. 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.

The Ashes of Lautrec
After they leave Riful's lair, Yuma and Cynthia are attacked by the combined Luciela and Rafaela Awakened Being. Yuma tries to help the exhausted Cynthia, and though the latter refuses her help, Yuma ignores her protests and physically 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. After listening to Cynthia's death-wish, Yuma attempts to save her life by synchronizing their Yoki to let her regenerate. As revealed in chapter 101, the technique worked, saving Cynthia, but left Yuma in a underpowered state, barely able to fend off the Yoma-Spike Creatures that closed 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 make them attack 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 the latter's arm. She was surprised when Deneve gave her analysis to the team.

The Warriors' Rebellion
"To be honest. There is too much of a difference in fighting power. I'm not inclined to worry."

- Yuma watching Tabitha, Helen, and Deneve fight many weak male Awakened Beings.

Yuma joins the group in going after Miria when learning that the latter went to the Organization alone. On the way, Yuma kills an Awakened Being who, fearing Anastasia's team and the Ghosts, runs towards her whilst Cynthia was healing the injured Phina. Yuma continues with the others towards the Organization, where she and Cynthia calm Miria's raging Yoki and heal Nike during the Warriors' Rebellion. After Rimuto's death at Miria's hands, Yuma joins the Seven Ghosts in the journey back to Rabona in order to release Clare from the Destroyer before Cassandra's arrival. Upon Raki's advice, the group uses the Organization's ships and successfully arrive before the Abyssal One.

The Last Battle
Afterwards, Yuma and the other Ghosts, along with Galatea and Raki, assemble before the Destroyer cocoon. Galatea informs them that she could no longer discern Clare's Yoki from the swirling pool within the mass. Raki steps forward and speaks to the mass, inciting a reaction. Several tentacles puncture him and Galatea calls for assistance, but he explains that the mass was simply trying to recognize him. Eventually, Clare emerges from the cocoon. The other warriors run forward to help, as Clare's stigma was in its unprocessed form, and they barely manage to prevent Clare's guts from spilling out of her body. Deneve asks Raki to hold the skin together as Yuma and the other warriors sewed the wound shut, explaining the origin of the stigma while doing so. Soon afterwards, Clare wakes up, reuniting with her comrades, and tears up as she recognizes a crying Raki, finally reunited after seven years.

After Priscilla fully emerges from the cocoon and attacks the assembled Awakened Beings, Yuma helps the other Ghosts with fending off the monsters that attack Rabona. She is later seen with the warriors who confront Chronos and Lars, and she is stunned at Chronos's power.

When Cassandra arrives, Yuma joins Cynthia and Tabitha in trying to synchronize their Yoki with that of the Abyssal One's. They try to bring forth Cassandra's consciousness, but it does not immediately work and Yuma is quickly exhausted. Once the Abyssal One's consciousness is freed from Priscilla's control, the three warriors are shocked at her true power. Yuma is surprised when Europa subsequently flees past her, Tabitha, and Cynthia to the Holy City, but the creature's speed was so great that she could not immediately tell what had just happened. When Miata Awakens, Yuma and the other Ghosts sense the No. 4's great Yoki, but they do not join in the fight.

Versus Priscilla
Once Priscilla has reverted to her human form and defeated Raki, the Ghosts, Cassandra, Octavia, and Chronos all gather to attack her. Yuma throws her sword at Priscilla from the cover of a strike from Cynthia, but the former No. 2 evades easily. Clare then begins to use her Quick-Sword, and Yuma joins the other Ghosts in helping her, to no avail. Priscilla outmatches both the Quick-Sword and Miria's Awakened Phantom, and Yuma is slashed across the chest when she tries to attack Priscilla again.

Soon, Priscilla begins to assume her Awakened form, and Yuma desperately throws her sword at her. Miraculously, it finds its mark in the former No. 2's chest, and Miria surmises that the transition during Awakening has impeded Priscilla's sensing skills. It does not take long from that point for Priscilla to fully Awaken, and when she turns to cut down Clare, Yuma tries her sword-throwing technique a second time alongside a strike from Helen, but it misses.

The tide of battle turns with Tabitha's dismemberment, and Yuma, along with Miria and Cynthia, gathers up the former No. 31's body parts. Together, Yuma and Cynthia try to heal Tabitha with Yoki Synchronization, but they both, upon Tabitha's request, focus on re-attaching the warrior's right arm after realizing that she would not recover. After Tabitha dies, Yuma cries over her body.

Nearby, Priscilla devours and assimilates Cassandra, and after wounding Clare, she beheads Octavia. Yuma is the first to see Octavia's head re-emerge from Priscilla's body, and the Ghosts, sans Clare, begin another assault. Yuma is badly wounded by Chronos after he, too, is assimilated, and when Teresa of the Faint Smile emerges from within Clare, she can sense the former No. 1's enormous Yoki, but continues to fight. Eventually, when Teresa engages Priscilla, Yuma joins the other Ghosts as they watch in awe of the former No. 1's transcendant strength.

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 fights one of the current generation Claymores that she realizes, for the first time, how much stronger she has actually become. This makes Yuma wonder just how much stronger her other comrades have truly become. During the final battle with Priscilla and after Teresa's revival, she is told by Teresa how Clare feels a great familiarty with Yuma since the two shared similar rankings within the Organization.

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.