"You know, I am just a human." Sir Integra Hellsing threw out flippantly. She stood, her back to her office, looking out the large window, but unable to see anything beyond her reflection.
"Just a stupid, backwards, ignorant, foolish, disgusting human." She expounded, sounding for all the world like nothing was wrong. But there were quite a lot of things wrong. She was looking at one of the sources.
"It shouldn't surprise me as much as it does. I've been one ever since I was born." Smoke rose idly from the cigar lying in the ashtray on her desk. It had been burning for a while. "I've always been one of them. This just brings things into perspective."
It wasn't raining. In fact, it was only slightly overcast. That irritated Integra. It should be raining. When she felt like this, when near all of the men under her command, under her orders, her protection were dead…
"It should be raining." She murmured aloud. "But it isn't." She finally noticed the world outside the window. She'd seen it so many times, after so many years behind this desk, pausing from her work to look out the huge window. She knew every bit of the landscape, every hint of the horizon. And because she knew all of it, she now saw none of it.
"Why isn't it raining?" A trickle of ash fell from the cigar in the ashtray on her desk. The quarter of the cigar remaining teetered first this way, then that, then fell safely into the ashtray.
"Something should cry for them. Something should." She blinked slowly, feeling a raw burning in her throat, the pressure behind her eyes. Something should cry for them, for her, because she couldn't. She just couldn't.
"Leaders don't cry. They're not allowed. I have to be strong. I have to rebuild Hellsing back up around me. I have to be the central support, which means I can't crumble." She just couldn't.
"Are you sure you can do this?" A voice whispered, horrible blank eyes watching her. "Are you sure that the Hellsing Agency won't just end with you? The last of your blood?"
Integra's eyes swam with tears, her reflection blurring. But try as she could, blinking hard and fast, even pinching herself, the tears wouldn't fall. And so, because they did not fall, they were not tears. Just empty regrets. In the end… they were nothing.
Integra cleared her throat to answer. "Hellsing won't end. Not with me. I won't let it." She said, her voice scratchy and hoarse, but her cheeks dry and her eyes proud.
"Alright then." The voice answered, and Integra realized that it was her reflection talking. "Sincerity and determination. Hellsing won't end with you."
The ashes of her cigar sat in the ashtray on her desk, cold and forgotten.