Pre-emptive Youki Sensing Ability (PYSA)

[Arasor]

Moderator message by: Ancy

I've decided to merge two existing threads - How could Teresa stop the flash sword & Does Teresa have the Pysa? - and rename them in order to leave room for broader discussions when it comes to Pre-emptive Youki Sensing. So please feel free to discuss and compare PYS with any other technique here.

After the recent events with Rafaela and her handling of the Windcutter technique, i began to consider past events:

Every opponent of Clare's Flash Sword (and later Windcutter) that survived it seemed to either be too resilient for the attack to work or able to somehow suprise Clare herself before she could direct the sword to that direction (or in the case of Ophelia, who still lost but put up a good fight-block the technique with enough mass as to exhaust Clare before she reaches her target).

The only exceptions to this were Rafaela and Teresa. Rafaela's special attributes or skills were never directly stated but it was made very clear that the only reason Teresa can match the flash sword was through her incomparable yoki sensing capabilities.

So far so good, but how could Teresa, who didn't even release her yoki once when facing Irene's quick sword (the strongest user of that skill so far) be able to deflect an attack with such speed? to take it into a bit more realistic context, even if someone told me right now that in 3 seconds my house will completely explode, i wouldn't make it to the exist in time. In that vain, how can Teresa possibly block an attack that much faster then her even if she knows where to block? It's not like she awakened her own arm to be able to act with that speed.

[Goral]

I've debated on this countless times on animesuki. Basically Teresa had to be faster than Irene and that's it. Not only she had to possess immense strength and speed but also motion sensing, reflexes and thought process that were at god like level. The best proof of that is when she was fighting four warriors at once. Even then Irene couldn't injure her!

You can find more arguments going by the links below:
1) http://forums.animesuki.com/showthre...44#post2571444
http://forums.animesuki.com/showthre...52#post2573852
http://forums.animesuki.com/showthre...70#post2575970
http://forums.animesuki.com/showthre...52#post2578852
http://forums.animesuki.com/showthre...48#post2580648
http://forums.animesuki.com/showthre...13#post2590813
http://forums.animesuki.com/showthre...92#post2585092
http://forums.animesuki.com/showthre...95#post2586995
http://forums.animesuki.com/showthre...33#post2589033

If you want to read all discussion start with link #1 and then follow my next posts. I've omitted deliberately some of my posts that are in between and there are many more arguments that indirectly answer your question. Indirectly because they're about Priscilla being slower than Teresa and not because of PYS (Pre-emptive Youki Sensing).

[Arasor]

Wow, talk about an efficent response! Thanks mate, if nothing else this are bound to be an interesting read.

[Zefyris]

There is some info about this in the claymore databook.
It's because of her youki perception actually.
here is a C:C of a rough translation of it :

TECHNICAL SKILL

Detailed youki perception

An example of a specialised application for battle of an high ability in youki perception.
Even the youki-raging flash sword is accurately perceived and overwhelmed.
This is an high level technique which cannot be handled by anyone except Teresa, surpassing all abilities.

Because the kousokuken is all about awakening your arm, there is a lot of youki in it, therefore, for teresa, countering it is easy as pie.
She does have some problems with people that she CANNOT perceive (like priscilla). Other are just no match for her (except if they are overwhelmingly fast, like the awakened priscilla, but that's just an exception).

It's just like how clare was able in her first fight against an awakaned being to avoid being it by his attacks.
Teresa is a godlike Warrior even without her perception skill, so she's freaking fast, and really skilled with her sword. And because of her perception abilities, even the few people which move faster than her can't win.

[Goral]

I can't agree with you on that. Firstly, I wouldn't rely on databooks too much if only for the fact that informations written in it are from organization's point of view and they don't know everything. The stats are only inexact estimations of power. Inexact because for example Ophelia's first three stats (youki, strength, agility) which were all A allowed her to win against SS Female AB. 1 quite strong warrior + 2 average + 1 weak warrior managed to kill SS male awakened being, Teresa S/A warrior easily killed SSS+ Awakened Being (or even stronger, Duph was SSS+/SSS warrior). In particular case of PYS I don't see how the org could know how did it work. For all we know they could ask Teresa (and she could lie about it because otherwise it would mean she was too strong, just like she lied when she defeated Rosemary). Also when estimating these stats they had to compare to sth (maybe themselves ), so the question is Alicia's power is S relative to whom ? Don't think they had an eye such good as Galatea in Teresa's era so direct measurement was impossible I think.

Secondly, QS is special. It doesn't matter that there is youki in the arm since all of it is stored there and you can't know the difference between the attacks because of constant flow (always at maximum). It's berserker's arm, where there is an infinite amount of slashes and unless you would have at least equal speed as your opponent you would be dead. Read my comments on animesuki forum and you will better understand what I mean.
As for Clare, PYS was working only on long-range, spread attacks, we don't know whether Teresa used it in her fight against Irene and co. in cases other than sneak attacks. And explain to me, how come Teresa could defeat four warriors at once if she was slower? That's just stupid way of thinking that PYS can give you that much of an advantage. Besides, PYS is not 100% effective and somehow Teresa was never hit during the fight. Seriously, before you get into argument with me read my previous comments please. I don't want to repeat myself and there are tons of arguments I've came up with.

[kaliayev]

Inexact because for example Ophelia's first three stats (youki, strength, agility) which were all A allowed her to win against SS Female AB. 1 quite strong warrior + 2 average + 1 weak warrior managed to kill SS male awakened being, Teresa S/A warrior easily killed SSS+ Awakened Being (or even stronger, Duph was SSS+/SSS warrior). In particular case of PYS I don't see how the org could know how did it work. For all we know they could ask Teresa (and she could lie about it because otherwise it would mean she was too strong, just like she lied when she defeated Rosemary). Also when estimating these stats they had to compare to sth (maybe themselves ), so the question is Alicia's power is S relative to whom ? Don't think they had an eye such good as Galatea in Teresa's era so direct measurement was impossible I think.

While it's true that data book is designed to reflect the org's estimation, thus limiting its overall accuracy, of various warriors' stats, if it were as severely limited as you think it is, there would be no point, from the author's standpoint, in going through the trouble of creating it as supplemental material.

Ophelia's victory over the awakened being she encountered during the events of endless gravestones isn't really relevant. We are primarily examining the stats of those who use the QS, PYS, and those involved in the battle from marked for death. However, since you chose to include Ophelia, I will counter your doing so. Ophelia won because the awakened being underestimated former and chose not to decapitate the former. Thinking the former was dead, the latter allowed an opening for the former to use a sneak attack. One then needs to combine that with the former's special technique, the rippling blade. In essence, it would be nearly as deadly as Alicia's makeshift chainsaw. Due to the similarities between the two techniques, Ophelia's rippling blade was a perfect technique for chopping up opponents with tough hides (even more effective than Jean's technique because of the latter's charge time). Regardless of Ophelia's other stats, this technique enabled her to rise to #4 and easily incapacitate/destroy awakened beings whenever such opponents left an opening.

This brings me to my point about the databook: the importance of a claymore's technique. Let's say that the stats of each claymore are meant to serve as complements to each claymore's respective technique. The windcutter would be complemented by Flora's stats. The qs would be complemented by Ilena's stats. The most important item to catalog is the technique. The stats recorded are important insomuch as they complement the claymore's technique and measure the raw talent of a given claymore (you probably don't want to deal with this, but Priscilla time).

I see from the links you've provided that you insist Priscilla never would have been a match for Teresa (forgive me, I haven't read all of your posts and the counters because the discussion appeared to devolve into flaming). Using the point above, your argument concerning Priscilla's ultimate potential falls apart. The only ability Priscilla had been able to adequately master was yoki suppression, which is a fairly standard technique and is generally mastered during periods of exile. This technique alone has great potential for defeating Teresa's PYS, and in itself was a great accomplishment for someone who had just been certified (becoming #2 just after certification, without any personalized techniques, illustrates her ultimate potential). When Clare was certified, she became #47 with barely any understanding of Teresa's PYS. Yet, given the proper amount of time, she has risen to the point where she can easily challenge conventional single-digits and most awakened beings. To do this, she partially awakened (several times), appropriated the techniques of several other claymores, and gained the arm of a former #2. Miria rose to #6 through her mirage technique. Meanwhile, Priscilla had only just begun her ascent and Teresa had essentially reached her peak, though only two individuals knew its height. Teresa's "peerless" PYS was useless during her initial fight with Priscilla. Both fighters had to rely upon their eyes and combat experience. Obviously, at the time, Teresa was superior in this regard. With a more personalized technique, especially one that doesn't rely on Yoki flow (i.e. Flora's windcutter), or more training, primarily in fundamental swordplay, Priscilla would have been able to dispatch Teresa (hell, between Priscilla and Teresa, the former ultimately had the first opportunity to deliver a death blow in marked for death. However, the former chose not exploit Teresa's aloofness in that case. The irony permeating marked for death really is precious).

Like you properly argue on animesuki, Ilena's comment that Priscilla would surpass Teresa should be dismissed. However, this doesn't refute the argument that Priscilla would surpass Teresa in time. There were two people capable of gauging Teresa's power: Raphaela and Teresa, obviously. Because of this, we can only rely on the predictions of these two individuals when it comes to determining who has the potential to challenge Teresa. This negates Ilena's prediction. However, Teresa did in fact make a prediction: "blah blah blah not sure I'll win next time." I see this outlook as no better than Riful's prediction that she only had a 50-50 chance of defeating the merged abyssal early in the latter's awakening or Alicia's prediction that she'd only be able to cause 50% damage to Riful during purgatory, and I doubt Teresa saw it differently than I do. Additionally, time ultimately would be on Priscilla's side. She could grow rapidly in the future, while Teresa would fail to improve anything but her yoki suppression while playing mommy to Clare. That is, Priscilla's blade would have sharpened and Teresa's would have dulled.

Finally, there's the org's assessment. Again,, in theory, we can't rely too heavily on it. However, the evaluation stated that Priscilla's yoki potential surpassed even Teresa's. You are working under the assumption that the org made that evaluation based on the most current data they had available. Why would they do this if they were aware of Teresa's false representation of her power (because it was so hard to figure out that Teresa was lying to them)? Instead, yoki potential would be fairly standard from the completion of hybridization. This reading wouldn't likely change too greatly during a claymore's career, unless one cheated by partially awakening XD. The initial reading of Teresa's yoki potential would be more reliable than her contemporary stat assessment, as Teresa would not have been in a position to present false data shortly after the hybridization process. This makes it more likely that, in its evaluation of Priscilla, the org compared Priscilla's post-hybridization data with Teresa's.

Secondly, QS is special. It doesn't matter that there is youki in the arm since all of it is stored there and you can't know the difference between the attacks because of constant flow (always at maximum). It's berserker's arm, where there is an infinite amount of slashes and unless you would have at least equal speed as your opponent you would be dead.

There are a lot of holes in the above argument. First, you argue that the qs is a berserker technique. This would be based on the statement Ilena made when she was teaching Clare the qs. The sword is only berserk if one doesn't have the spirit to control it. In the case of Clare, whose spirit is lacking, it would be a berserker technique. Even so, Clare, an amateur with the qs technique, was able to perfectly direct it against the yoki of an opponent in purgatory. By combining PYS and qs, she could gain some control over the latter. However, this only really works against awakened beings. She still lacks proper control when using it against claymores. This would not be the case with Ilena. Ilena was the creator of the technique and remarked that her stats/skills were perfectly suited to the qs. This means she was able to control it.

Second, because the qs can be directed, by default, it can be read. Otherwise, it would always be a truly berserk technique, with both warriors being completely oblivious to the yoki flow/movements. If the qs couldn't be controlled by Ilena, she never would have been placed in a group. The risk of her injuring her allies would be too great to justify such placement. Instead, the manga shows her making precise cuts whenever she uses the technique (i.e. chopping up the tree in fit for battle, not killing Ophelia, and not mistakenly killing Clare during fit for battle). Since Ilena can consciously direct the blade, Teresa can consciously read it through PYS. You seem to be projecting Teresa's inability to properly perceive Priscilla's post 50% release attacks onto Teresa's battle with Ilena. The former involves an entire body releasing so much yoki that the flow can't be read. The latter involved Ilena's yoki being released and then isolated to a single arm. Because that energy was directed into one arm, Teresa, in regards to Ilena, only had to worry about reading said arm.

Third, this requirement of equal/greater speed you argue for. While Teresa's speed, while suppressing her yoki, would have to be near Ilena's, the former's speed would not have to be equal to/greater than the latter's (Teresa could certainly dwarf Ilena's speed by releasing, but she's the type to only exert as much effort as a situation calls for. To deflect the qs, she needn't surpass Ilena's speed). If Teresa intended to go on the offensive and kill Ilena, things would be different. However, it requires less effort to deflect than to attack, especially given Teresa's swordplay skills, which implies having an expertly designed defensive stance (in general, the PYS reduces the amount of effort necessary to counter a yoki reliant opponent. Ilena testified to this herself. Before Teresa released, Ilena said that her own technique surpassed the speed of Teresa's sword, just as Noel and Sophia's respective strengths surpassed Teresa's in the respective categories. For Ilena to make this statement, Teresa would had to have held back every time, including their fight in the hotel room, they faced one another. Even if Teresa could surpass Ilena's speed while deflecting the latter's qs, Teresa would have always kept her speed lower than Ilena's in order to hide her true power). If Ilena tries to exploit Teresa's left side, Teresa need only make a slight movement and make contact with Ilena's blade at the correct spot (when her opponent attacks, Teresa, through her PYS, can exploit any weak point in the delivery. To literally stop the qs, she need only hit it in the right place). After this, Ilena would have to find another point to attack. She would have to wrap the blade around to this new point, while Teresa would have to make another slight movement to compensate. Of course, all of this would occur at lightning fast speed. A normal claymore would have to be able to read the attack and match the qs in speed and power (we saw this with Ophelia, who failed primarily on the first count, as her unique technique would likely be able to keep up with the qs if Ophelia could properly read it). However, we're talking about Teresa's practically peerless technique, not Ophelia's ripple blade or Miria's mirage.

1 quite strong warrior + 2 average + 1 weak warrior managed to kill SS male awakened being, Teresa S/A warrior easily killed SSS+ Awakened Being (or even stronger, Duph was SSS+/SSS warrior).

That's just stupid way of thinking that PYS can give you that much of an advantage. Besides, PYS is not 100% effective and somehow Teresa was never hit during the fight.

Inconsistent. The first two examples illustrate that PYS does give one a significant advantage.

While the link provided does illustrate one of PYS's weaknesses, it doesn't support your line of thought. Clare was in a unique environment, which was specially designed to limit a claymore's ability to fight. She was surrounded by Duff's rods, which confused her PYS. This is why she was unprepared for Duff's attack. When they later fought in recent chapters, Clare could easily anticipate and deflect Duff's rods. Granted, she had grown more powerful since witch's maw, but the simplified environment of the latest encounter worked greatly to her advantage. It's incredibly unlikely that she'll ever again be placed in an environment similar to Riful's fortress in maw/purgatory. She'll sooner encounter one of the PYS's other weaknesses: overflowing yoki in a single body.

Seriously, before you get into argument with me read my previous comments please. I don't want to repeat myself and there are tons of arguments I've came up with.

Sigh, since it's your argument, I'm afraid you're responsible for sifting through relevant posts on the animesuki forum and copying the necessary text to form the body of your argument in this thread (the amount of time it would take for everyone interested in this thread to sift through the relevant posts far exceeds the amount of time it would take for you to copy relevant materials, as you are far more familiar with the forum you provided links to). Had you originally posted your argument on this forum, I would agree that everyone should read your posts. However, since this isn't the case, you're responsible for properly defending your argument here.

p.s. I do commend your use of proper Fillion.

p.p.s. Feel free to counter the holes you perceive in my argument.

p.p.p.s. This thread has been commandeered. Bwa ha ha ha ha.

[Goral]

Sorry for the late response but I didn't have time to do it earlier (heck, even now I didn't write all I wanted and I'll have to write supplemental later). Before I begin you can find all images I used for my arguments in this gallery.

While it's true that data book is designed to reflect the org's estimation, thus limiting its overall accuracy, of various warriors' stats, if it were as severely limited as you think it is, there would be no point, from the author's standpoint, in going through the trouble of creating it as supplemental material.

Oh, but there is a point, very pragmatic at that - money. Databooks are for most loyal fans that would like to have everything with Claymore label on it. It's more logical to not add informations that would be revealed later on so to not spoil the fun that comes with reading it in a manga. Simply stating that Teresa was 2.4375 times stronger than Priscilla wouldn't bring that much joy as seeing how Clare squashes her. And I fail to see Yagi's name on any of the databooks. I doubt tat Yagi had to draw anything new for the databooks and as for the content, well it was written from MiB's point of view so many things can be (and most probably are) inaccurate.

Ophelia won because the awakened being underestimated former and chose not to decapitate the former. Thinking the former was dead, the latter allowed an opening for the former to use a sneak attack.

Nonetheless this AB was so weak that he couldn't rip her head off just by twisting it. Ophelia SURVIVED a twist *like this* made to her NECK by awakened single digit. That in itself is something. How many claymores would have still their heads on their necks if sth like that happened to them ? I doubt this awakened used only enough force to twist her neck, what would be the point of that? He wouldn't even know how much strength he has to use. And your argument about rippling sword being almost as deadly as Alicia's chainsaw only supports my statement - these stats are inexact (according to Ophelia almost no one knows about her technique or even no one). I have to disagree though, it's not even close to the power of Alicia's attack (otherwise AB would be dead earlier, when she first touched his head), what's great about it isn't power but unpredictability.
And as for the databooks, they have Yagi's blessing but it wasn't his initiative that led to publish them. And Yagi likes to mislead us, whole Teresa's arc is a proof of that (or that we were led to believe that Isley was stronger than Priscilla, that the Island was the whole world and MiB the only powerful side, that Rosemary was stronger than Teresa etc.). Yes, it's true that techniques complement to the raw talent but the same goes for awakened beings. For example Dauf can shoot rods, Riful can be cut vertically without any damage, Isley can change his arm to almost anything and can shoot homing arrows, and turtle AB can use manipulation technique that is above Galatea's level. All of them have also increased toughness/hardness so it's harder for claymores to injure them then it is for AB to injure claymores. So again, you proved nothing.

Using the point above, your argument concerning Priscilla's ultimate potential falls apart. The only ability Priscilla had been able to adequately master was yoki suppression, which is a fairly standard technique and is generally mastered during periods of exile.

Here's where you're wrong: it's not a standard technique, we know only 9 claymores that managed to do that. Priscilla has an exquisite talent for it and even after she awakened she was able to hide her true power even better than Riful could (which should be impossible). So it's not common. And as we've seen it didn't work on Teresa. The case that you've brought up (Priscilla not using sneak attack on Teresa) would fail. Teresa that never lied (ok, we know one case when she lied) said that she could maybe wounded her. I doubt that though and I'll prove it later on by showing how much faster Teresa was. Putting that aside, you're making a big mistake by using Clare as an example of a warrior whose stats have risen. For starters Clare has Teresa inside so it's not strange that her power would rise and that she managed to defeat Riguald. It was a given she would become incredibly strong. Also she partially-awakened and that changes things a lot. By doing so enough times one can (according to Deneve) use youki that normally would be available at 80% release without any consequences. Now that's not a fair case. If anything you should have used Yuma as an example. Sure, by training you can improve yourself but what claymore would have the luxury to do that, huh? Claymores had to fight youma and awakened beings constantly and they couldn't allow to try out new techniques in real fight with stronger opponents. Yuma had no such restraints. She could fight more powerful adversaries and strengthen herself without worries and by fighting different claymores she could really improve her stats because every one had different techniques and strength. If Teresa had 7 years to train with abyssals I guarantee you that she would improve no less than Priscilla would. The problem was that Teresa fought only small fries - youma. We don't even know whether she fought AB (other than Rosemary). And we know that in Teresa's times AB hunts were exceptional (even #4 and #5 didn't know about it). So how could Teresa gain experience? How could she have advantage over novice Priscilla? Besides that she knew her youki limits she had no advantage over Priscilla *experience-wise*.

There were two people capable of gauging Teresa's power: Raphaela and Teresa, obviously. (...) However, Teresa did in fact make a prediction: "blah blah blah not sure I'll win next time." I see this outlook as no better than Riful's prediction that she only had a 50-50 chance of defeating the merged abyssal early in the latter's awakening or Alicia's prediction that she'd only be able to cause 50% damage to Riful during purgatory, and I doubt Teresa saw it differently than I do. (...)

Firstly, Rafaela wasn't capable of gauging Teresa's power because Teresa almost never released any youki. Her estimation wouldn't be better than Irene's (in fact it should be worse because for all we know she met young Teresa only). As for Teresa's words: "I might be able to beat her now but next time who knows"
IMO Teresa was referring to her 0% youki release state. She didn't want to show even 10% of her strength to others, because that would show what a monster she really is and cause mayhem and destruction (in Isley vs. Priscilla fight it was shown that the fight between 2 abyssals is not good for the environment and what if there were two opponents much stronger than abyssals?). She might have been afraid that to defeat awakened Priscilla she would have to use a lot of youki. Teresa had a unique ability to read youki and thus she knew quite well the extent of Priscilla's power. If Priscilla was such a great threat then definitely Teresa would kill her when she had a chance - before Priscilla awakened - because she knew that the organization wouldn't stop until Teresa's dead or until there wouldn't be a claymore who could take her down. Since the day she met Claire she had a real reason to live, so I don't think she would just throw it away. In that case all of her previous effort would come to waste (like executing savage bandits thus drawing blood hunt on her). Do you think she would value Priscilla's life more than Clare's well being? A moment ago she massacred whole bandit group, I don't think she would hesitate to kill some crazy bitch if she knew she wouldn't be able to handle her in time. The fact is she was confident she could defeat Priscilla every time but at some point she could be forced to use her youki (which was extremely rare in her case). Also notice that not much later Teresa negated her earlier statement by saying: "You can come after me as many times as you want. I will cut you down every time" (vol. 5, p 17, and yes it's past Teresa's comment "I may be able to beat her down, but next time who knows").
Additionally it was the first time when someone with power not infinitely weaker than Teresa's appeared and she was no longer fit for battle because of Clare. Her maternal instincts dominated her warrior ones and Teresa knew that she changed. She just saw a worthy opponent at last, but that doesn't mean that Priscilla had more power. To be honest her statement was very strange considering how easily she defeated 0% Priscilla as well as 80% Priscilla. It seemed to me that she was just being mathematically precise, of course you can't be 100% sure that you will defeat someone that normally you can overpower with one hand tied behind your back. Ultimately she was right, she lost not because she was weaker but because Priscilla used a sneak attack when she had her hands tied (figuratively).
Besides, the whole sentence "I may be able to beat her now, but next time who knows" makes no sense. Why wouldn't she be sure that she could beat rookie Priscilla ? She was leagues above her at the moment she said that and she must have known it. That's another argument that proves Teresa had in mind herself in 0% youki release. Of course it could be that translator took liberties with the original text (according to Sagara Souske it should be sth like this: "Even though I can beat her this time, next time we meet, I won't know what will happen..."). What's most important though are actions not words. For example Teresa referred to Rosemary as "monster" but she squashed her with ease. However I look at it, it seems to be the case here as well. And we've seen Teresa dominating over Priscilla in the whole fight. You can choose to believe her words at this point and ignore her later statement and actions that came with it, that's your choice.

Finally, there's the org's assessment. Again,, in theory, we can't rely too heavily on it. However, the evaluation stated that Priscilla's yoki potential surpassed even Teresa's. (...)

But the thing is that Teresa's stats were greater than Priscilla's:

Teresa of the Faint Smile: No.1 (180 CM Tall)

Yoki: S
Agility: A
Strength: A
Mental: A
Sense: S
Leadership: B

Class: Offensive Type, Pre-Emptive Perception, All-Rounder.

Technique: Detailed Aura Detection

--------------

Priscilla: No.2 (165 CM Tall)

Yoki: A+
Agility: A+
Strength: B+
Mental: D
Sense: A+
Leadership: C

Class: Offensive Type, Yoki-Supression, Rapid Growth.

If these stats were measured just after hybridization process then Priscilla would still be weaker than Teresa (in all domains, maybe besides agility). So even if they compared Priscilla's stats to Teresa's according to databooks Priscilla would still be weaker. And again you're making a BIG mistake by assuming that the org was aware of Teresa's power. I'm sure they knew she was lying after the fight with Rosemary but I'm also sure they didn't know what she was lying about. Actually I'm pretty sure they didn't know Rosemary awakened for a simple reason - Teresa wasn't stupid. Because Teresa wasn't stupid she wouldn't lie about it if she wasn't sure that Rosemary's and her auras (which would be immense) couldn't be sensed (because for example she had the whole area under her supervision and the only one that could sense from such long distances would be her or Galatea). We know that MiB can't sense youki (otherwise Orsay wouldn't ask Teresa what happened and Ermita wouldn't bring Galatea along and there's definite proof of that which I won't bring up unless you will be stupid enough to argue about it) so they wouldn't know what happened.

This implicates another query, how did they evaluate each claymore's and AB's stats? I don't know, maybe they used the first combat experience as a base of their evaluation (Extra scene 4)? For example they measured how much time (but there would be a problem how to measure time) it would take for each claymore to know who the real opponent is and where he is and how much time it would take to strike him down (sensing and strength/agility could be measured there). Also whether one would be charismatic enough to unite other claymores to help and to face the opponent together (leadership and mental). They would have many occasions to do that.
But the most important is the fact that the organization sent Priscilla, Irene, Noel and Sophia to kill Teresa confident that they could manage that. That shows without any doubts that they knew about Teresa next to nothing. Priscilla had a chance only at over 80% (and assuming Teresa wouldn't use any youki) and because it was the point of no return MiB would have to be crazy or retards to sent her knowing that.
Even if we would assume that MiB could measure youki it would still give us insufficient data for a simple reason: the most important stat is youki and almost all other stats depend on it. For example Galatea's combat stats (agility and strength) aren't particularly impressive but once she releases her youki everything changes (before she released youki she couldn't penetrate Dauff's armor, after she did that she cut Dauff a lot, his shoulder's for example). That is because the factor by which Galatea's power increases is one of the biggest of all claymores. Now what if Teresa's factor exceeded everyone's expectations? That would explain why MiB couldn't properly evaluate her power and it would fit my theory that Teresa was referring to her 0% state. And that there are many arguments that support that I will prove later on.

There are a lot of holes in the above argument. First, you argue that the qs is a berserker technique. This would be based on the statement Ilena made when she was teaching Clare the qs. The sword is only berserk if one doesn't have the spirit to control it. In the case of Clare, whose spirit is lacking, it would be a berserker technique. Even so, Clare, an amateur with the qs technique, was able to perfectly direct it against the yoki of an opponent in purgatory. By combining PYS and qs, she could gain some control over the latter. However, this only really works against awakened beings. She still lacks proper control when using it against claymores. This would not be the case with Ilena. Ilena was the creator of the technique and remarked that her stats/skills were perfectly suited to the qs. This means she was able to control it.

I was thinking the same thing (about holes in your arguments). No. What Irene said was "In short quicksword is a technique where one arm goes berserk with full youma power and the rest of the body strives with all it's might to control it", i.e. arm goes berserk but you can still focus this berserk on certain targets. The arm GOES berserk and THEN you try to constrain it to a certain limit. There is nothing that could indicate it's like you're saying and plenty of things that prove my point (e.g when Irene attacked Ophelia, instead of going after her vital spots she attacked her whole body, why? Because she couldn't control the attack perfectly, what she could do was to tell her arm WHEN to stop), the main being that this sentence means exactly that (unless we will start playing the game "let's prefer our own interpretation over literal meaning"). That's like having an aggressive dog. While you can't fully control it, you can constrain it's movements and targets. QS is similar, in Irene's version you can't control the precise movements of it. What you use your mental strength for is preventing it from losing control over it and starting awakening (like Clare did). Even in Clare's version it's still not perfect, she can't control minute movements of it and can't adjust strength nor speed of an attack, she can only attack at full power (that's why Clare didn't want to use it against Flora at first). QS can't be fully controlled for a simple reason: inertia.
Also I don't understand why are you stating that Clare lacks control when using it against claymores? We've seen that Clare can not only choose specific targets but also avoid objects that have youki. We don't know to what degree Clare reads youki during this process, maybe it's more like Isley's homing arrows or Nina's shadow hunter (although she can do more than just attacking a target, she can also ignore other targets that have youki hence she could chop the wood and leave Jean unharmed. That's a fact, whether she can also do the same with targets that don't emit youki remains a mystery).
The biggest mistake you did this time was sth entirely else though. You've assumed that Irene had better control over a QS and that's not true. Irene could be considered as a master of this technique not because she could control it but because she had more strength and could use it as many times as she wanted for as long as she wanted (AFAWK) and Clare's version was much weaker (even weaker than Flora's Wind Cutter, WC in short - forgive me for using such ambiguous abbreviation :P) and she could last only a minute (at best). In terms of precision Irene's version didn't come even close to Clare's. We have the proof of that when she encountered Teresa for the first time and destroyed everything within her reach (that's why they paid the innkeeper money, QS was a berserker's technique that made too much destruction). I really doubt that she was doing this to impress Teresa, most probably she started using this technique the moment she went into the room to prevent Teresa from reading her move beforehand, i.e.using PYS. Because she had her arm already in motion it would be impossible for Teresa to read the move before it started, i.e. Teresa could stop Irene's QS at any time she wanted. Also notice that Irene didn't say "don't worry, I have great control over it" but "don't worry, it'll be over before she wakes". But let's get back to the control issue. "Until recently I didn't think of the QS as sth that could be controlled. I just assumed it wasn't nature of this technique", i.e. she knew that Irene couldn't fully control it (and couldn't even control it to the point Clare could).

Second, because the qs can be directed, by default, it can be read. Otherwise, it would always be a truly berserk technique, with both warriors being completely oblivious to the yoki flow/movements. If the qs couldn't be controlled by Ilena, she never would have been placed in a group. The risk of her injuring her allies would be too great to justify such placement. Instead, the manga shows her making precise cuts whenever she uses the technique (i.e. chopping up the tree in fit for battle, not killing Ophelia, and not mistakenly killing Clare during fit for battle). Since Ilena can consciously direct the blade, Teresa can consciously read it through PYS. You seem to be projecting Teresa's inability to properly perceive Priscilla's post 50% release attacks onto Teresa's battle with Ilena. The former involves an entire body releasing so much yoki that the flow can't be read. The latter involved Ilena's yoki being released and then isolated to a single arm. Because that energy was directed into one arm, Teresa, in regards to Ilena, only had to worry about reading said arm.

No. Notice that when Irene fought Teresa Noel and Sophia were out of her reach. So Irene could be placed in the group without worries, it would suffice that when Irene would be fighting other claymore would be in > 2 m radius.
You call that precise cuts? Unless you meant this picture, but when she first cut this tree she didn't use QS (otherwise we wouldn't be seeing her arm). Besides, we've never seen Irene using QS as a horizontal move, the cuts made by it were always vertical. As for not killing Ophelia we don't even know whether she wanted to spare her or not, I doubt it was the former because it was a given that so badly injured Ophelia would become an awakened being. It would mean that Irene was sadistic (she wanted Ophelia to become a monster) and irresponsible because she would make a monster that would be more dangerous than she defeated. To me it looked like Irene couldn't control the movements of her sword (that's why she chopped Ophelia all over her body, why didn't she chop her limbs if she wanted to only injure/immobilize her?). If anything she could only control the distance at which she would be attacking her but that has nothing to do with controlling QS itself. The same goes for not injuring Clare (notice that Irene was standing still, i.e. the range of her sword was constant, Clare was the only one that was moving) and because Irene was being defensive only and deflected/parried Clare's cuts. Irene could only roughly direct the blade at some parts of the body but because of the nature of this technique it wouldn't matter on what part of the body she would centre on, she would still attack many other parts. It would still allow her to concentrate her strength on a leg for example (and this part would be damaged the most) but it wouldn't prevent her from cutting other areas.
But let's assume for the sake of an argument that you're right. You're still jumping to conclusions by saying that since Ilena can consciously direct the blade, Teresa can consciously read it through PYS. One thing is to control the movements and another to read every single move and analyse the attack. For QS you don't have to be super precise, you don't have to direct every single attack. This is not the case for defending though. Make one mistake and you're injured, have one injury and you will end up dead. Somehow Teresa was never injured, could stop Irene's QS at any time and equally exchange every single move.

Third, this requirement of equal/greater speed you argue for. While Teresa's speed, while suppressing her yoki, would have to be near Ilena's, the former's speed would not have to be equal to/greater than the latter's (Teresa could certainly dwarf Ilena's speed by releasing, but she's the type to only exert as much effort as a situation calls for. To deflect the qs, she needn't surpass Ilena's speed). If Teresa intended to go on the offensive and kill Ilena, things would be different. However, it requires less effort to deflect than to attack, especially given Teresa's swordplay skills, which implies having an expertly designed defensive stance (in general, the PYS reduces the amount of effort necessary to counter a yoki reliant opponent. Ilena testified to this herself.

That's not true. What Teresa does here isn't deflecting. She's exchanging every single hit. Notice the distance between her and Irene. Deflecting can be easier (isn't necessarily) when you have your sword close to your body, not extended to the point Teresa had. Look at the symmetry of this picture. Additionally, while for deflecting you can be slower than your opponent you can't be slower much. And deflecting really isn't easy. Only in anime and most of the movies fights last for a long time. In real life after few seconds one of the opponents dies or is at least cut which leads to death in few seconds later (with every cut your opponent becomes weaker, i.e. it's easier for you to injure him more). Sure, you can deflect fatal blows but the sword could still cut you in the arm or somewhere else while you do that. The problem I have with what you're saying is that Teresa was NEVER cut by it. What's more, knowing that you'll be slashed 53 times/second in the right arm would give you nothing if you can't tell in what angle you have to hold your sword. Quicksword does a constant youki flow, always at maximum, it's not like Riguard's attack with his claws where there was a huge difference between the attacks. Not attacking and then attacking from a distance opposed to incessant attacks with infinitesimal interval. Super reflexes don't require to analyse every attack to miniscule level, PYS does. The problem stays however, quicksword is the worst possible match-up for preemptive youki sensing. You not only need super reflexes and quick thinking. You have to analyse every single move and what's worse you have thousands of such moves and every is distinctive. You would need to have higher speed of thinking than the move itself but that wouldn't be enough. You would need enough capacity of memory to analyse all motions. And even if you could see the move and know where it would come you would still have to prepare for it. Even if you could deflect one, two or three I can't see how you could avoid all of them. Let's say you're sparring with someone and you know that every second move there would be a left/right hook (and only such hits). If after quite a long time you would decide to change the sequence (from left/right to right/left) there would be high chance that you would be so used to the earlier sequence that the first hit you wouldn't dodge. In Irene vs. Teresa it was much more complex. Basically Teresa had to read EVERY move and that is sth unbelievable. What's more, even if Teresa knew all that she would still have to know where to stand and at what angle hold her sword. Analysing all that is IMO a stretch. And that still is not everything. At this point, if someone could do all that it would allow him only for defence. Somehow Teresa could attack any time she wanted! If she really was using pre-emptive youki sensing and if she really had such high speed of thinking then she's even better then I thought at first (and I've always considered her as a goddess).
Another thing that negates your argument is that Teresa still easily won even when she was fighting four warriors at once. Tell me, how come could she be slower than Irene and not be injured by others?

Before Teresa released, Ilena said that her own technique surpassed the speed of Teresa's sword, just as Noel and Sophia's respective strengths surpassed Teresa's in the respective categories.
For Ilena to make this statement, Teresa would had to have held back every time, including their fight in the hotel room, they faced one another. Even if Teresa could surpass Ilena's speed while deflecting the latter's qs, Teresa would have always kept her speed lower than Ilena's in order to hide her true power). If Ilena tries to exploit Teresa's left side, Teresa need only make a slight movement and make contact with Ilena's blade at the correct spot (when her opponent attacks, Teresa, through her PYS, can exploit any weak point in the delivery. To literally stop the qs, she need only hit it in the right place). After this, Ilena would have to find another point to attack. She would have to wrap the blade around to this new point, while Teresa would have to make another slight movement to compensate. Of course, all of this would occur at lightning fast speed. A normal claymore would have to be able to read the attack and match the qs in speed and power (we saw this with Ophelia, who failed primarily on the first count, as her unique technique would likely be able to keep up with the qs if Ophelia could properly read it). However, we're talking about Teresa's practically peerless technique, not Ophelia's ripple blade or Miria's mirage.

It's true that Irene made such a statement but it's also true that a while later, when she better understood Teresa's power she admitted that she misjudged her AGAIN (so it wasn't the first time). So yes, it can only mean that Teresa was holding back. The first time Irene fought Teresa (that wasn't shown in the manga) Teresa used only enough force to defeat Irene (who was weaker at this point, we know it after Teresa's comment "You've gotten better"). The second time (in the inn) she used only enough force and speed to exchange every move and not injure Irene. She was also adjusting her strength to Priscilla's level and gradually got faster. She became more serious only after Irene, Noel and Sophia joined the fight.
As for the "slight movements" and "she only had to make contact with Irene's sword at the correct point", it's easier said than done. PYS wouldn't help Teresa with that. And I disagree that Ophelia's technique could match Irene's even if she could read Irene's moves. QS was too fast compared to Ophelia's technique and unless Ophelia had equal speed as Irene she wouldn't be able to do that. Additionally Irene had that advantage that she was the one that attacked first, so there was a lag before PYS could be used. Teresa couldn't read a move before the move was made. The problem was that Teresa made a move when QS was already in motion so PYS couldn't give her an advantage.

Inconsistent. The first two examples illustrate that PYS does give one a significant advantage.

The first example shows that male AB wasn't really that strong if he could be defeated by Clare and Miria (mainly by Clare, she was the one that cut his arms off, Miria only helped a bit). All he had to do was to dodge her attack but apparently he was too slow to do that. Well, it's no surprise since she has Teresa inside, but it had nothing to do with PYS which didn't increase Clare's speed because it was a defensive technique. The second example though is perfectly valid. Teresa didn't use PYS against Rosemary, she didn't even try to dodge the attacks. All of her comments was a scene to make Rosemary believe that. Actually it's a great argument that supports my statement that when Teresa said "I may be able to beat her now but next time who knows" she was bullshitting like she did when fighting Rosemary. She allowed to be trashed by Rosemary and she let her believe for a moment that she was weaker. She got serious only after she made a twist *like this*. Show me a claymore that could do sth like this to an awakened #2 without releasing any youki. I'm not even sure Miata could do this (we know that she defeated AB with her bare hands but we don't know whether some of them were single digits at least). Also I have another example to add - awakened Ophelia. How come could MiB evaluate her strength? They could only guess that awakened Ophelia had to be extremely weak so it would be possible for Clare to defeat her and they gave her stats that are stupidly low. It would mean that claymore Ophelia was STRONGER than awakened one because she defeated Hilda that (according to the stats) was stronger than awakened Ophelia!

While the link provided does illustrate one of PYS's weaknesses, it doesn't support your line of thought. Clare was in a unique environment, which was specially designed to limit a claymore's ability to fight. She was surrounded by Duff's rods, which confused her PYS. This is why she was unprepared for Duff's attack. When they later fought in recent chapters, Clare could easily anticipate and deflect Duff's rods. Granted, she had grown more powerful since witch's maw, but the simplified environment of the latest encounter worked greatly to her advantage. It's incredibly unlikely that she'll ever again be placed in an environment similar to Riful's fortress in maw/purgatory. She'll sooner encounter one of the PYS's other weaknesses: overflowing yoki in a single body.

I was hoping you would counter it with this argument . It's true that the rods made it much harder for Clare to use PYS but that doesn't change the fact that PYS wasn't perfect. The main reason why Clare was hit was because she was too slow to react. She didn't have to rely on PYS to know the attack was coming, she saw the rod coming from his mouth, all she had to do was dodge it or parry it or slow it even a bit (by activating a QS for example) but she didn't do a thing. She wasn't too slow though after she released her youki and managed to parry Dauf's attack (because she was faster and stronger). Even better example is this picture. Also notice that somehow she could use improved version of QS (when using PYS) and concentrate on specific targets (Dauf's arms) while ignoring the rest (Jean). If she could do it then that it would mean she was able to discern quite well specific targets, i.e. she should have seen a change in Dauff's youki when he started burping a rod. The opponent before her was using youki to create a rod, she must have known it but wasn't fast enough.
What's maybe even a stronger argument is that Teresa was also at a disadvantage when Priscilla, Noel, Sophia and Irene released their youki. She had four opponents propagating youki in all directions and assuming what you're thinking (i.e. that Teresa used PYS at this point) it should be very hard for Teresa to do it just like was the case when she was fighting almost awakened Priscilla. Despite these disadvantages of PYS Teresa was never wounded. OK, she was wounded once by Priscilla but she was over 50% at this point. Once Teresa released 10% of her youki she was dominating again.

P.S
What proper Fillion looks like?
P.P.S.
Thank you for allowing me that (lol).
P.P.P.S
To be continued...

[rukori]

........

So much text... Sorry but I'm not going to try reading it...

In simple words, I think Teresa knew where every hit of Irene was going to hit and was able to parry it with minimal movements.

There were similar abilities in other shounen mangas so it shouldn't be such a surprise ( Sharingan for example).

Here's something I found ( familiar right!?):

[Goral]

@rukori
This is what happens when people take Naruto as source of their knowledge and try to apply that knowledge to Claymore world. Sharingan is one of the most illogical things there are in Naruto. Of course it's only a manga and no one requires from Kishimoto to make it realistic but the difference with Claymore is that Yagi at least tries to apply some laws of physics (we have already seen inertia, dynamic friction, gravity, restoring force, etc.) to his world and tries to reasonably explain techniques of his characters and not use the argument "it's like that because I say so". He created a world were certain rules apply to all characters and he sticks with it. That's one of the reasons I like Claymore, because the world is quite coherent. So referring to Naruto while talking about Claymore is pointless because these mangas are entirely different.
Why do I think that PYS wasn't the technique that helped Teresa to win against the QS? Because I could score a goal from 2 meters even if I told goalkeeper where I would shoot, 10 times out of 10. Imagine there would be second player that would shoot second later at the other side of the goal-post, mission impossible (this analogy best applies to this image but I will write about it at a later time).
Youki sensing is an advantage when you fight slower opponent with sneaky attacks or to prevent being attacked by surprise. As we've seen in Slasher's arc it was quite effective with many spread or ranged attacks. The difference with Irene and Teresa is that quicksword isn't a spread attack, at point blank range there are quite precise slashes executed with super speed. Once arm is awakened the flow of youki is constant and at full power, there are no "lags" between one attack and another which would be caused by slower or non simultaneous youki flow and attack. If Teresa's youki sensing would be faster than Irene's youki flow it would still give her nothing because she wouldn't be able to react before next attack was coming. She had to have at least Irene's speed to back it up (and that would only allow her to defend, to attack and NEVER BE INJURED she would have to be faster).

Teresa would still have to be at least as fast as Irene because Irene would always have the advantage that she would send the signal to move earlier than Teresa could use PYS. Pre-emptive youki sensing (PYS in short) couldn't have been much faster than Irene's flow of youki, otherwise she wouldn't know where exactly Irene would strike because Irene had all of her youki stored only in her arm and had it released always at maximum. Discerning an attack of this sort would be extremely difficult. (All she would know would be that youki flows in the specific part of a hand but she wouldn't know which part EXACTLY. Because only arm was used, only the arm would move but how could she discern attack if she knew it too early? She could only approximate where it could go but not know that 100 times of 100. Even if she knew to which part it would go she would have to know where the attack would land and I don't see how she could do that with a quicksword. The motions were complicated because Irene swung her sword in all directions). And if she knew it the moment it reached specific part she would still have to be AS FAST AS IRENE. If Irene's attacks where periodic and Teresa had it all figured out (which would be impossible if she didn't have super-computer in her head) she would still not know when to parry and how to parry.
What's more, when Irene faced Teresa she was ALREADY using quicksword (we can see her chopping a table or sth - picture 1) but still Teresa could stop it when she wanted. Teresa didn't have enough time to read the move that already was in motion. She had to be faster! She also could exchange every hit (pic 2 - these are not minimal movements contrary to what you're saying):

1) 2)

And there is one thing you (and others of similar opinion to yours) ignore. You're assuming that Teresa can adjust her position and use only minimal movements to dodge/parry but so can Irene. If you assume that dodging parrying is easier and that Irene was faster then explain to me how come Teresa managed to injure Irene in a split of a second while at the same time escaping from Priscilla's and Irene's swings? How come Irene didn't parry/dodge her attack if she was faster and what's more if parrying the attack required only minimal movements, huh?


In fact Irene could use PYS to her advantage. Since she would know that Teresa would know where she would strike all she had to do was to add some randomness to her attacks. Without using youki she could suddenly crouch, lean back or even change the angle of attack by bouncing it off a wall. Heck, she could even spit at Teresa and blind her/distract her for a second. Irene knew it wouldn't help because Teresa wasn't using PYS when fighting her.
Teresa wouldn't be able to PYS Irene's leg's movements or movement of another hand or when the attack would be random because youki wouldn't be needed for that! There would be no change of youki flow because she wouldn't need youki to move her leg. In QS all youki is concentrated in an arm, i.e. not only reading of moves (that use always maximum amount of it and youki as always in the same place) of that arm is impossible, it also means that you can't read when this someone is using other parts of his body !!!
Last but not least, the easiest way to defeat Teresa was for Irene to occupy her with incessant barrage of attacks and other Claymore could stab her in the back. Wait... They tried it not only with one warrior but 4 and it FAILED! No matter how I look at it, Irene was slower than Teresa.

P.S.
I've added thumbnails and bolded/underlined more important arguments in my response so that users that can't read too fast would know what I meant.

P.P.S.
To be continued...

[rukori]

Another wall of text? You really like to ramble...

I think you are just being stubborn and refuse to open your eyes. Teresa broke through the Flash-sword using her Youki reading abilities.

There's nothing illogical about it. Unlike a wide goal, Teresa only had to cover for her own body, and with small movements she was able to block in time Irene's. If you insist on arguing about such obvious things, then this is getting nowhere.

And last: There is nothing logical about Claymore. All this talk everyone here and at animesuki are always having is getting them nowhere because the physical rules don't apply and the talks are baseless.

[Unholy]

Cant believe there is this much discussion over something so minor.Im gonna be honest i havent read all this posts nor do i intent to do it.However im gonna give my opnion, first of all there is usually 2 kinds of mangas when it comes down to fights, one that dosent really care about explaining how stuff works or even make it believable, examples would be naruto or dbz they just come up with a very simple explanation something along the lines "there is a thing called ki (dbz) or chacra (naruto) and u can do amazing super human things with it", and there is the other kind of manga that tries to explain every trick or skill in details in a believable way using physical laws or whatever other means claymore is this kind of manga.

In a sense claymore and all the other mangas are like a hollywood movie while everything they show u make sense on a first look and seem quite possible in reality they are not.A good example is a hollywood hero jumping from a 20 floor building into a poll and surviving it looks possible for most people but if u try it on real like u would die since hiting the water from such height would be the same as hitting concrete.I think this is what rukori was trieng to say in his last post, it might make sense and look real but mangas dont have to be perfect copies of reality the author has freedom to make whatever he wants as long it looks believable and as for such using physics to explain everything that happens is a waste since the mangaka is not forced to follow reality.

For example the fight between Irene and Theresa i agree that in the real world Theresa could never win unless she was faster since besides knowing where the attack is comming she would need time to react to it and mover her body and even them it would prolly be impossible to block a huge number of blows at a high speed even if u knew where they were all comming however this is not reality the mangaka has the freedom as i wrote previously to do whatever he wants as long as it dosent look far too out of reality like he could make as if the ability to predict where the blow is comming a far better advantage than to be faster and in this scenario a slower Theresa could win against a faster Irene with her ability to predict, it would be belivable for most readers as long as the difference in speed was not too big.Btw im not gonna say this is what happened but im just trieng to show u the mangaka has the freedom to play any situation the way he likes it and overanalysing it wont get u anywhere.

[Goral]

You speek as if it was a single move. Where did you get this from? It's many small moves that Teresa can read according to the Youki bursts before actual hits.(There was an explanation about it somewhere, look for yourself)

Huh? How can you say that? I've emphasized in almost every post in this thread that Irene was throwing at Teresa incessant number of attacks, barrage of attacks. In fact, in the fragment you quoted there, you have it in black and white "barrage of her attacks". See Unholy's post, maybe you will understand his explanation.

Some laws apply, where it is convinient for the author, and some are ignored for the same reason. example: When Jean usees her spinning move, if it was in reality it should have created a really small hole, but why did it create a hole bigger than her body? So it would look more impressive!
Stop playing a scientist, it only makes you seem more lame...

I'm not playing scientist, how did you expect me to counter your argument "in claymore physics don't apply" other then writing factual examples, huh? Did you want me to say: "Yes they apply. The end."? If people could understand what I have in mind after reading only one sentence I would do that. Unfortunately to prove I'm right I have to write these walls of text with tons of arguments.
But back to the heart of the matter, Jean's example isn't a good one. In fact I'm impressed that Yagi was that thorough. Have you ever drilled? The drilled hole is always bigger than the drill bit and that's mainly because you can't prevent it from swaying (mainly because you can't hold the drill properly or/and because the drill isn't sharp enough but there are also other factors. You can see it especially well in a spade drill which resembles claymore the most). The most important thing in this situation is sth entirely different though and that is material that you drill in. Take your thumb and stick it to an extended plastic foil and rotate it. I guarantee you that the hole you will make will be much bigger than your thumbs perimeter. If you tried to to do the same (with larger force of course) to your skin it wouldn't look to good. So all depends on what Dauf's armor was made of.

Why? you are making up things again. Did anyone say it's true? Your logic is weird and full of flaws...
She finds out about the second move before it comes, and reacts accordingly. I'm not saying that she can do it if she is very slow, but she doesn't have to be faster than Irene.

If I sparred with someone not much slower than me and told him exactly were I would hit in the next 10 blows he would still be hit, because even though he could evade the first blow with my every next move he would have less time to react because of the gap in our speed. (It's like with a rabbit and a turtle. No matter how much of a distance advantage the turtle would have after enough time he would be outrun by a rabbit.) If he attacked me because I would be faster I could dodge and hit him at the same time! So if I could hit at the avg. speed of 20m/s and my opponent could react at the speed of 15 m/s and the distance between me and him would be one meter (1m) I would hit him in about 1/20 of a second so he would have to dodge/block it before I started the move. He can't dodge/block it at the speed I can. Additionally to dodge he would have to be able to make a move large enough to evade being even grazed, as for blocking he would have to know at what angle exactly to hold a sword, at what distance to be, exactly when to react (which would be the hardest part, PYS doesn't tell you that, you react ASAP) etc. So parrying would have to be that much faster than attacking and it would only allow him to defend. He would not be able to make a single attack because if he did attack, then to go back to the position that allowed him to make a small movement and use the advantage of parrying he would have to move his hand back (and he could do it at maximum at 15 m/s speed, what about the time required to parry the attack?)!!! And what about the second blow? Sure, he could at the same time try to attack me but it would end at best with a double hit (and Teresa was never hit once she released youki, overall she was hit once). If I was indeed faster I could dodge it and at the same time launch another attack at the speed of 20 m/s and he wouldn't have bonus time then. Even though he would know where I would hit and even WHEN (I would hit him if he reacted too soon because I could make a slight change in my move), my speed advantage would allow me to adjust my move a bit and the timing would be different and although you would receive this information you wouldn't be fast enough to change your move because of our speed difference. Also, it's one thing to dodge+parry hits and just parry hits. Especially in sword fighting !!! Parrying without dodging and exchanging every single move would be impossible if you weren't faster.
That's a general rule (it applies for example to Priscilla). Now let's take into account that Irene couldn't control her arm. It wouldn't matter because the berserk arm would make these adjustments for her (unless QS is something periodical, still Teresa would have to have super-computer in her head to see a pattern of such moves). Sure, Teresa could parry some of the attacks but at some point berserk arm would make a move that would for example shake Irene's wrist and whole Teresa's reading would become useless. In fact berserk arm makes QS a random attack!!!

Irene can't make adjustments! She was never able to control it like Clare can! She always treated that technique as something incontrollable. a sort of a "berserk" mode
That "adding randomnesss" talk is just as bad.. You completely made that up! why don't you try to stick with the storyline a little instead of trying to decide how Irene should fight?

In case you didn't notice I was talking in general, to Priscilla this argument fits perfectly (and according to Irene she was leagues above her, probably faster since only when she fought Teresa the sound was unbearable and "could shatter glass"). Also, as I stated above because Irene's hand was berserk the attacks were random (Irene had to try to restrain her arm as well as she could but there were bound to be some "hiccups" during this process). And Irene could still move her body, her other hand or legs to make sudden sidestep and that would be undetectable to Teresa (we know she could use it and move because when we've seen her for the first time Irene was walking and cutting youma) and that way change the movements of her attacks.

As for the randomness, actually I didn't make it up (see below), and even if there would be no such example in Claymore, it would still support my argument not yours. The fact is that Irene never tried to take advantage of Teresa's PYS and if Teresa was really using it during the fight with her then she would be more stupid than Priscilla who tried to take advantage of that (Irene thought that Teresa knew the move she was making before she even made it, why not make things complicated to Teresa?).
Teresa WAS injured by such unpredictable attack (see images 2 and 3), i.e. she couldn't predict it even though she was master of PYS (I think we can both agree that she was much more skilled than Clare in that). Exclamation marks suggest (image 1) that she wasn't expecting such attack would come (and the fact she was injured suggest that too of course). Nonetheless, once she released her youki she could do it (image 4).

---->1) 2)----> 3)----> 4)---->

And you're still evading answering how come she could fight 4 warriors at once, defeat all of them and never be injured.

[vintagemistakes]

Lets play nice people.

If you want to counter someones argument than thats fine, but lets not resort to name calling or calling someones argument rubbish or retarded. Its completely unproductive and takes away from whatever point you were trying to make.

Thanks

[makaveli80]

yeah seriously. people are making long epic posts, like essays, and that's very cool. I'm always eager to learn what other people are thinking about my fav character in all of existance, still...some arguments give me pause to think, but others are not provable so it's all a matter of opinion.

Personally, I chalk it up to the fact that we simply have not seen the true power that Teresa contained with herself. My belief is that base Teresa was in fact, much faster than Irene even with her QS. The physics of it, the logic behind it, and all that good stuff is irrelevant to me in this case, because my dear Teresa of the faint simile will be eternally the strongest creature to ever walk those lands ( perhaps with the exception of Clare who also contains Teresa within her)

Still, I doubt that even Clare, in her base form, will ever come close to what Teresa was. Perhaps in her awakened, and semi awakened forms she could challenge base Teresa, which is in itself a huge compliment considering that a fully awakened Rosemary, former number 1 was taken out so easily by Teresa who used 10% Yoki release for laughs.

[HegemonKhan]

There's not much left to address as Goral did (like usual) stellar professional top-notch work and research (which, also means lots of content/explanation/evidence, aka a long long read).

i'll only say this piece of my own (hopefully ~excluding what goral has already addressed) ...


"How could Teresa stop the Flash Sword?" -topic

1. Teresa's natural abilty
OR
2. Teresa's "Faint Smile" ability

(it could also be a combination of both, but that isn't useful/relevant here. it doesn't answer anything)

so.... which is it?

(see below for my thinking... of what little Goral left me with, lol)

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Irene's Quick Sword:

Noel, Sophia, and Ophelia could NOT even see it. Ophelia shows us how completely helpless she was, standing there confused as her body was sliced up.


Yet, then we have Teresa...

I don't know if we can tell for sure if Teresa used her "Faint Smile" ability to follow Irene's Quick Sword or if Teresa was simply that incredible with her own body, swordsmanship, and "human" abilities.


now we have Priscilla....

we don't know if Claymore Priscilla or AO Priscilla could do as fast or faster sword strikes then Irene's Quick Sword.

But, what we do know is that Claymore Priscilla wasn't using (originally, at first) any yoki, which means Teresa couldn't be using her "Faint Smile" ability, yet Teresa matched/bested Claymore Priscilla with total ease. this suggests that Teresa does NOT need her "Faint Smile" ability.


~70-79% yoki using/releasing Priscilla....

we DO know that Teresa was (trying to) use her "Faint Smile" ability, as she commented that, "She-Priscilla is releasing so much yoki, even I can't read it". This clearly suggests that Teresa wanted and was trying to use her "Faint Smile" ability to read Priscilla's attacks.

this in **NO** way means/connects to/with Teresa needing or not needing her "Faint Smile" ability against Irene's Quick Sword. But, I have little else to go on, so I am going to pretend this is suggestive... This suggests that Teresa DOES use her "Faint Smile", instead of just her natural ability.

Teresa then gets cut across her forehead. As she couldn't/wasn't/didn't able to predict or react fast enough to Priscilla using her yoma arm extension ability to wrap her recoiling sword arm around her head into another sword attack.

Teresa now "gets serious", releasing 10% yoki. Teresa is now either able to naturally match Priscilla or is now able to read priscilla's yoki with her "Faint Smile" ability once again. Teresa easily matches and bests priscills yet again.


80-100% yoki using/releasing priscilla ...

after getting knocked on her bottom, priscilla releases more yoki, passing her limit. she jumps up and comes down with her sword. with her extra power, Teresa is barely able to parry her sword, grimacing with effort. then, the awakening takes over priscilla, bulking up her muscles ripping her clothes and she drops her sword.

at this moment, 10% yoki teresa is too weak/inferior to 80-100% yoki and Awakening priscilla. however, teresa fatally doesn't raise her own yoki more, and ends up getting decapitated.


Clare training with Irene:

*while we don't know for sure, it is really highly unlikely that irene wouldn't be using her own quick sword to train clare in doing the quick sword.

yet while training clare is able to "see" irene's quick sword* and keep up with it somewhat. (of course, irene is taking it easy, she's training clare, not trying to kill her)

while clare was using her left NON-dominant arm, she was ~1/5 in power and speed of irene's right DOMINANT arm. (quite unfair!)

i can't remember at this moment if Clare improved her left NON-dominant arm up to ~1/2 in power and speed of irene's right dominant arm, or if this 1/2 was AFTER clare got irene's right arm. but i know the manga stated clare's quick sword use reached ~1/2 in power and speed to irene's quick sword use.

i'm sure since then, clare's quick sword has improved, probably surpassing irene's in power and speed by now in chapter 99. (it would really have been helpful to see irene against dauf or rigardo, lol, to finally know just how powerful or unpowerful irene truly was)


Rafaela:

Rafaela had to be able to kill Irene with ease, even if Irene had both her arms still. she was assigned to assassinate/execute irene after all. she then was assigned to assassinate/execute AO Luciela. Rubel himself states that Rafaela has at least equal power to Luciela. Rubel also states to Clare and Jean, that this "rank 5" Rafaela, whom just tracked them down, is "special", aka she's really a rank 1. Irene while powerful, is not of rank 1 material. Luciela is a rank 1. So, everything suggests that Rafaela against Irene would be simple for Rafaela. Sadly, we never get to see if this is indeed true, as when Rafaela got to Irene, she had already given away her remaining arm to Clare, and was now armless.


Clare's Quick Sword:

she is too weak to be able to cut dauf with it in the witches maw chapters.

Flora's windcutter was able to ~match Clare's quick sword during their spar.

Clare's NON-yoki using windcutter (NOT quick sword) was also unable cut dauf.

Clare uses/releases her yoki (which Helen notices and possibly Priscilla...) and slices/defeats/kills the weird rafaela/destroyer image up in the weird mind-dream or illusionary world battle.

Clare's "Faint Smile" ability:

we first and only directly see it in use against the male AB in the slashers chapters. however, clare is still extremely "immature" with using her "Faint Smile" ability still.

FINALLY FINALLY we get see direct use of her "Faint Smile" ability, at long last! Clare is able to read every single one of the huge projectiles' flight paths, admidst all the yokis all around her, and tell-position Helen and Deneve where to "stand" to be completely safe, and at the same time, is able to sense Priscilla's yoki and her approach!

WOW! Clare sure has improved!

(Now if only we could see DIRECTLY what Teresa could do with her "Faint Smile" ability, instead of left wondering whether its Teresa's godly natural ability or if Teresa is merely using her "Faint Smile" ability and isn't "that" godly, lol)
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my conclusion:

Maybe Teresa could very well have the "natural" ability to match/best Irene's Quick Sword, however I feel it is likely that Teresa did indeed at least also used her "Faint Smile" ability as well to match/best Irene's Quick Sword.

I'm basing this off of:

1. Teresa was using her "Faint Smile" ability against 70-79% yoki Priscilla. (which makes perfect sense, as Priscilla is using yoki now, a lot of yoki. I mean the "Faint Smile" ability IS the ultimate "weapon" against opponents whom use yoki, that's what it is for). however, it is suggestive that Teresa might have indeed been using it against irene's quick sword as well.

2. The Quick Sword is a "Berserker" attack, because it utilizes a fully 100% yoki-awakened arm, while the being desperately tries to control/keep the arm from awakening the rest of their body and brain/mind. This means it is highly difficult to actually control/direct the quick sword itself, even if the being can use it.

BUT, this makes it wonderfully easy to read, using the "Faint Smile" ability as 100% yoki is used/focused into the arm to use it. (and YES, it could be too berserk-random to read by the "Faint Smile" ability as well)

Irene's "focus, concentration, mental strength, calmness, coolness" was unmatched. This is how she could not only use the Quick Sword, but also control/direct it, with no strain/effort at all.

Clare, on the other hand, had to use her yoki to control/direct the quick sword, which she realized could be done after seeing galatea and jean use their yoki and mental strength to control the awakening process.

No one is able to see or stop the quick sword (like Dauf, Ophelia, and Rafaela/Destroyer image thing), except Teresa (against irene), Clare (in her quick sword training with irene), and Rigardo (against clare).

excluding rigardo, the "Faint Smile" ability is what Teresa and Clare share, and they are the only two able to see and match the quick sword.

so this too suggests that Teresa used her "Faint Smile" ability against Irene's quick sword.

---

hopefully another post (making it a double post) is alright, as much time has passed. also, this is a separate thought/content then my last post.


in watching the anime (i know the anime doesn't count, so take this with a "grain of salt") again, and going by also what Irene (i know she's not the most correct source but in this case, i think she is correct) said, i've noticed something interesting:


Teresa's progression of "upping" her fighting:

1. she just uses her Faint Smile ability (due to it being quite enough, as few opponents are powerful enough to fight with no yoki like her. Priscilla was the one known exception).

2. when Teresa actually did fight an opponent whom didn't use yoki (thus making Teresa unable to rely solely on her Faint Smile ability, AT ZERO YOKI USE OF HER OWN), like Priscilla, Teresa then finally used her supreme raw ("human"/Claymore) rank 1 combat skills, experience, and ability. Priscilla was no match for Teresa and it showed, with Irene having to step in to prevent Teresa from possibly beheading Priscilla. Irene then decides that the 4 of them would take on Teresa, much to Priscilla's irritation. the 4 of them, including priscilla, now DO use their yoki. Teresa can go back to using solely her Faint Smile ability. Teresa pwns all 4 of them at once, without any damage.

3. next, Teresa is unable to use her Faint Smile ability again, when Priscilla uses 70-79% yoki. Priscilla's power is so great/immense that Teresa is unable to use her Faint Smile ability, and it shows with Teresa finally finally getting damaged, a cut across her forehead.

4. unable to match 70-79% priscilla, teresa finally releases 10% yoki of her own. now she is able to use her Faint Smile ability again, and has the power/ability to fight superior to priscilla again. teresa knocks priscilla on her bottom.

5. priscilla hits 80% yoki or over. yada yada yada. teresa gets killed.

6. if teresa wasn't killed, she'd simply release more yoki, as she got 90% yoki left "untapped" including her awakening, whereas priscilla has (before she killed teresa) 21-30% yoki left "untapped" including her Awakening which was about to begin..

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while this doesn't answer/address whether teresa can match irene's quick sword with her supreme raw ("human"/Claymore) combat skills, experience, and abilities, or if teresa needed to use her Faint Smile ability, i still thought that this was quite interesting and it is content related to adressing the topic question as it is content to consider as we try to determine the topic question.