Roxanne

"Hmph! Go ahead and eat shit for the rest of your life!"

- An Awakened Roxanne in her final stand, to an Awakened Cassandra

Roxanne was Claymore No. 1 of her generation, and one of the eight most powerful No. 1 warriors of all time. During her lifetime, she became known as "Roxanne of Love and Hate" (愛憎のロクサーヌ, Aizō no Rokusānu) due to her volatile relationships with fellow warriors, and, according to the Organization leaders, her troublesome behavior.

Alongside Hysteria and Cassandra, she was resurrected by Dae to stop the uprising of the current Claymore generation against the Organization. Of the three, she is the only one who remembers her name and past.

Etymology
"Roxanne" is a transliteration of the Japanese "Rokusānu" (ロクサーヌ).

"Roxanne" is a French feminine proper name, from the Latin Roxane, from the Greek Rhoxane, and of Persian origin, associated with the Avestan word raoxšna meaning "shining, bright."

Claymore
Roxanne has pale, wavy hair pulled tight into two pigtails with straight bangs swept to the left. She has silver eyes, prominent lashes, and a notable beauty mark below her right eye. She wears the standard warrior uniform and what appears to be dark red lipstick.

Awakened Being
Roxanne's awakened form is tall, robotic, and slender humanoid. Her body is composed of metallic, overlapping plate-like structures, similar to plate armor. She also possesses thin, segmented arms tipped with sharp claws, and three pairs of wing-like appendages adorned with rows of feather-like blades. Her head has a hooded, sphinx like appearance.

Personality
Roxanne appears to be scheming, sadistic, and manipulative, displaying sociopathic tendencies similar to Ophelia. While on an Awakened Being hunt, she simply watched as the being tortured and eventually killed one of her teammates, who happened to be Claymore No. 35 and a close friend of Cassandra. After discovering the circumstances surrounding her friend's death, Cassandra, in her grief, attacked an amused Roxanne, who killed her with a twisted grin on her face. After their revival, Roxanne openly ridicules her for her unchanged battle technique and her Awakened form's configuration. She continues laughing hysterically even after she is dismembered by the Abyssal One.

Roxanne would also befriend warriors she admired and take advantage of those connections to learn their skills. This was especially true of her almost infatuated reaction when she heard of and later met Cassandra, the No. 1 warrior before her. She was extremely eager to see Cassandra's technique and went to great lengths to secretly watch her. Another example of her obsessions was when she intentionally injured her right eye to better emulate Neideen's fighting style.

However, as she became more powerful, she would come to hate both her imitated abilities and their inventors, deeming them "ugly." Coincidentally, each of her "friends" would mysteriously die in an Awakened Being hunt soon after she mastered their techniques, but Roxanne never expressed any sadness. It is implied that she was directly involved in their deaths, evidenced by the timings, her apathy, and the nature of Cassandra's demise. Her resulting reputation seems to be the reason she was nicknamed "Roxanne of Love and Hate."

Her "bond and kill" behaviour suggests that she might have been suffering from bipolar disorder. Alternatively, she may simply have a disire for rank and power.

Claymore
Roxanne is a very capable warrior and is shown to be skilled enough to emerge victorious seemingly effortlessly against twins utilizing Soul Link, although it must be noted that the two are just trainees.

Roxanne is exceptionally gifted in Yoki Synchronization, allowing her to copy and master other warriors' techniques with ease. Among the techniques and fighting styles she copied were the "Blade of Evil" of former Claymore No. 31, Uranus, the yoki-sensing-dependent style of former Claymore No. 9, Neideen, and the "Beautiful Sword" technique of former Claymore No. 5, Elizabeth. It is unknown if Roxanne has copied other techniques, and how much time is required for each one.

Roxanne also has the ability to completely erase her presence from a specific target.

Abyssal One
As an Abyssal One, Roxanne possesses tremendous yoki, enough to make Claymore trainees shake in fear. Her main weapons are her long, bladed appendages, capable of moving at incredible speed and effortlessly cutting through solid earth. The blades may also be fired as high-speed projectiles. By launching them from several arms simultaneously, she can cover a much larger area, making evasion extremely difficult. The digits at the end of each appendage also appear to be particularly sharp, as they are shown piercing the fallen body of a warrior with as much ease as a sword. Her major disadvantage is that her blades take time to regenerate.

Life as a Claymore
Roxanne was initially Claymore No. 35 of her generation. She had a knack for openly expressing adoration for and befriending higher-ranked warriors. As her power grew from learning and mastering their skills, she would grow to hate them.

One of the techniques Roxanne copied was that of Claymore No. 31, Uranus. Her sword technique, dubbed "Blade of Evil" by other warriors, utilized the sword's hilt and cross-guard as well as the blade in order to compensate for a lack of speed. Another was that of Claymore No. 9, Neideen. Her fighting style was dependent on Yoki sensing in order to compensate for a lack of depth perception. Yet another was the "Beautiful Sword" technique of Claymore No. 5, Elizabeth, the leader of the first Awakened Being hunt Roxanne had ever participated in as No. 35.

Curiously, the warriors from whom Roxanne copied from would usually die during an Awakened Being hunt soon after Roxanne had mastered their respective techniques. It is unclear whether Roxanne herself had a direct involvement in their deaths, but what was noted was that she never showed any sadness at the deaths of the warriors. By the time she was No. 11, Roxanne's reputation had spread, and she had been labeled by many as "very creepy."

In time, Roxanne became No. 5. It was then that she met Claymore No. 1 of her generation, Cassandra. She tried to befriend Cassandra, even adopting a left-handed style to express her adoration. Cassandra was flattered, as most other warriors kept their distance from her and the two managed to strike a friendship of sorts. While sparring, Roxanne noted that Cassandra's swordsmanship couldn't even match that of Elizabeth's, mystifying Roxanne just what the higher-ranked warrior was hiding. Despite seeing her as a friend, Cassandra refused to take Roxanne with her on hunting missions. Roxanne, however, managed to secretly watch Cassandra battle an Awakened Being. It was then that Roxanne gave Cassandra the nickname "Dust Eater."

Some time later, Cassandra became very close to the new Claymore No. 35 after saving the latter from an Awakened Being. One day, this No. 35 went on an Awakened Being hunt with Roxanne, who was No. 2 at the time. Roxanne allowed the creature to capture and torment the young warrior, even after nothing was left but her head. The remaining members returned from the "failed" hunt without a single injury.

Knowing that Cassandra would find out about her crime, Roxanne let on to the Organization that the No. 1 was plotting a rebellion. Many warriors, including Roxanne, gathered at Staff in order to subdue her. When Cassandra used her Dust Eater technique in an attempt to kill Roxanne in retaliation, Roxanne merely laughed and stopped her with the Blade of Evil, slamming the hilt of her sword into Cassandra's head. She then participated in cutting Cassandra to pieces with the other warriors present.

Unlike Cassandra and Hysteria, it is unknown how or when Roxanne eventually died.

After Resurrection
Roxanne is among the three Claymores revived by Dae, the other two being Hysteria and Cassandra, whom she killed before. Her aim is to stop the rampage of the current warriors against the Organization.

After injuring or possibly killing most of the warriors, she engages in combat with the Unnamed Twins being trained as the future's Alicia and Beth. Roxanne quickly dispatches the two, cutting one of the sibling's arms and one of the other's legs. She then allows the twins to reattach their limbs, intent on fighting them again later. Meanwhile, she watches Cassandra's progress against Audrey, Rachel, and Nina, noting how Cassandra "hasn't changed at all," and begins to reminisce.

After watching Cassandra defeat the three single-digit warriors, she is shocked to see Cassandra miss Audrey when delivering the final blow. However, she is quick to discern to something fishy was going on. She senses that it is coming from the Organization's headquarters, where Raftela is using Sensory Control on Cassandra to alter the course of the latter's attacks in order to make them miss Audrey.

Eventually, the twins that Roxanne defeated before recover enough to try and continue fighting, but Roxanne expresses disappointment in seeing that they have not fully healed even after she has so "generously" waited for them. She berates them for going all out and not being wise in conserving yoki, and that it was for this reason that she hated having children as opponents. Bored with their weakness, she moves in for the finishing blows, appearing to pierce both of the siblings through their heads. However, she soon realizes that the technique affecting Cassandra that she had sensed and analyzed earlier was now, in fact, affecting her. Her attacks had caused only superficial wounds on the siblings' faces.

The twins come at Roxanne together, and the Sensory Control continues to affect her movements and vision. Annoyed, she soon realizes that the reason for this is because Cassandra had stopped attacking Audrey, allowing Raftela to redirect her focus. It soon becomes apparent that Cassandra is remembering her "final moments," and Roxanne seems to be overjoyed at witnessing the event.

After seeing Cassandra's Awakened form, Roxanne erupts into maniacal laughter, noting how even in this form, Cassandra was still a "Dust Eater." Her laughter is cut short when one of the headed tentacles attacks, easily ripping off her left arm, left side of hair and part of her torso, and is surprised that the Dust Eater is now eating her. After Cassandra devours Roxanne's arm, the former comments that it tastes "like shit." Roxanne screams in rage and engages Cassandra in battle.

After a short time, her dismembered body is flung close to Miria, who has just finished her battle with Hysteria. Cassandra's human-looking portion approaches Roxanne and licks her, reiterating that she really does taste like shit, to which Roxanne retorts that she's one to speak of things like that when she's drooling all over her. Shortly afterwards, she Awakens as well, though it doesn't appear to be a voluntary Awakening.

After Awakening
After Awakening, Roxanne tries to eat one of the surviving warriors but the warrior is saved by twin trainees. She attacks the twin carrying the warrior to safety, only for Cassandra to attack her and devour a piece of her hand. Cassandra declares that all the warriors present were hers to eat, and that a No. 2 like Roxanne should just eat shit. Roxanne spits back that she became No. 1 after Cassandra was chopped up miserably, to which Cassandra replies that she tasted worse than shit now, and that shit like her should only eat shit until she became shit herself. The two Abyssal Ones then engage in combat. Roxanne lashes out at Cassandra, but the latter manages to avoid all of her attacks while using the Dust Eater, all the while saying that compared to her, Roxanne was just a No. 2 that was worse than shit.

The two Abyssal Ones appear evenly matched until Roxanne begins firing the small blades attached to her appendages. Cassandra manages to evade those from a single arm though the blades puncture and cut off some of her tentacles. When Roxanne releases the blades from several arms simultaneously, however, Cassandra suffers far greater damage, thus allowing Roxanne to step on the human-sized portion of her awakened body and mock her. Later on, it is shown that Cassandra had recovered quickly from the damage and was taunting Roxanne that, since the latter couldn't regenerate her blades instantaneously, she wouldn't dare use all the remaining blades at once. Roxanne counters that she was merely playing around up to that moment. Roxanne unleashes an attack just as Miria flees the battlefield, having successfully lured Hysteria into the middle of it.

Roxanne gloats after her attack and expends her last armful of blades on Miria. Cassandra appears, having waited for Roxanne to use up all of her blades and t wo of her tentacles impale Roxanne through the chest. It is revealed that Roxanne hesitated to use all of her remaining blades, and thus, released blades from only two arms. Cassandra says Roxanne might have won had she used all three arms and goes on to say that indecisiveness at a critical moment was what separated a No. 2 from a No. 1. Roxanne, in a final act of defiance, tells Cassandra to "go ahead and eat shit for the rest of [her] life" and is immediately devoured.

Cassandra
Roxanne and Cassandra were warriors of the same era. She was the one who landed the finishing blow on the latter.

Roxanne befriended Cassandra and was also the one who gave the latter the nickname "Dust Eater" after secretly watching the her fight an awakened being. Despite being an object of her obsession, Roxanne never learned Cassandra's technique, feeling that it was the ugliest, saddest technique a No. 1 ever had, and something she didn't need.

It was eventually revealed that Roxanne allowed an Awakened Being to torture and kill Cassandra's friend. She showed absolutely no remorse and even seemed pleased with herself, laughing at and then killing Cassandra when the No. 1 tried to avenge her friend's death. Given Roxanne's willing disposition and insane eagerness at killing Cassandra while having the rest of the warriors to back her up, it can be speculated that Roxanne deliberately orchestrated this macabre chain of events in order to overthrow Cassandra and usurp the top position. This explanation can be plausible since Roxanne, true to her nickname, ended up hating and mocking Cassandra after secretly witnessing the latter's technique, and the Organization later promoted her to the No. 1 after an uncertain time after the latter's death.

Uranus
Roxanne met Uranus during her first Awakened Being hunt. Uranus had a lot of experience with Awakened Beings, as she was assigned in an area with a lot of them. To survive, she created her trademark sword technique, the "Blade of Evil." Roxanne saw the technique for the first time during her first hunt as No. 35, and was utterly impressed despite the skill being looked down upon by other warriors. They became friends shortly after that hunt due to the fact that their districts were near each other, and Roxanne began to copy Uranus's sword style. Later, however, as Roxanne's skills began to surpass Uranus's, she began to hate Uranus as well as the sword technique she had mastered. Uranus died soon afterwards during an Awakened Being hunt, just as Roxanne was promoted to No. 24, and Roxanne showed no sadness at her former friend's death.

Neideen
Neideen became the leader of an Awakened Being hunting party that included Roxanne. During the hunt, Roxanne seemingly permanently lost her right eye. Neideen, though initially suspicious, grew to like Roxanne, who admired her and even began to copy her fighting style. The two then formed a partnership that even the Organization acknowledged, and the pair went on numerous hunts together. As Roxanne's abilities began to approach Neideen's, the latter died during a hunt for a single, low-ranking Awakened Being. The other warriors were shocked that a single digit would die from such an easy battle. They were more perplexed, however, when Roxanne's right eye returned to normal the instant Neideen died.

Elizabeth
Elizabeth was the leader of Roxanne's first Awakened Being hunting party. She died shortly after Roxanne had stolen her "Beautiful Sword" technique. Given the pattern of Roxanne's history, it may be possible that the two also became quite close while Roxanne copied her skills. Later on, Roxanne would assume her rank of No. 5.