AN: Phew... It's been a long time since I've updated any of my stories, but I've been quite busy (and played FFVII a lot -sweatdrop-). Anyways, here's 3 and half pages for you. I was planning to write a bit more, but I couldn't get it the way I wanted, so...
Enjoy! (And thanks for earlier favs, btw.) Flashback is in italics.
Chapter 10
Alucard is standing in front of the window in Integra's office, watching through it as Mittheleana walks slowly across the garden, halting at times to lean towards a flower or a statue. He is musing over what Integra had said earlier about testing his old companion's blood as he hears the floor creaking a little under his new master's weight.
"Alucard, Walter wants to know if you will take care of obtaining a sample of her blood." He turns his head to briefly glance at her.
Then he turns back to the window. "You think she wouldn't give a sample if you asked her?"
Integra lets out a 'hmph'. "I doubt. Well?"
He grins. "You can't take it by force, that's for sure. Very well, I will ask her."
Alucard exits the house to the moonlit garden. His gaze is immediately captured by a faint white glow coming from the direction of the carp pond Integra had had installed here recently.
As he approaches the pond he sees that the one emitting the glow is Mittheleana. Then she turns at him, and the glow disappears.
He walks to her. "What was that glow?"
She remains silent until he stops in front of her. "I... I was just thinking about something."
He grabs her hand and walks her to a bench near the pond. He sits down and pulls her to the bench as well. "How can thinking about something, whatever it may be, cause a glow like that?"
She sighs. "I'm not quite sure, but I noticed the glow right after I began to recall certain things. Certain... events from my past."
He turns fully towards the woman sitting next to him. "Tell me, please."
She nods. "Alright. It happened some time after I had separated from both you and my dragon friend."
As she begins her tale, Alucard notices that the glow returns.
Mittheleana walks through a forest at the base of a small mountain-like area, searching for her heritage. A priest in one of the temples nearby had told her that he had seen a woman in a hooded cape walking towards the direction she was found all those years ago by a certain golden dragon. The priest had said that the woman had come from the direction she's heading at the moment.
He had also seen under her hood, and told her that the woman's eyes were similar to her own.
She had been sure then that it had been her and her mother. Now, if she only could find her.
She reaches the tree line and begins to climb a narrow, winding path that leads uphill. The path leads eventually to an abandoned looking hut. Before she enters it, she takes a look around. The hut is on a small flat area surrounded by cliffs from almost every direction. She can't see any trees, but she can see several pink flowers growing from the narrow cracks on the rocky faces of the cliffs. She can't hear any animal sounds, but she can see some birds flying across the sky.
She finally enters the hut and is surprised how it looks and smells clean, as if whoever lived here just left yesterday.
To her best knowledge, that someone may have not left at all, but might return.
She shakes her head. No, the hut is definitely abandoned, there are no clothes, food or water visible, and the dust on the floor is undisturbed.
Something on the table catches her eye, and as she walks towards it, she gets a sense of familiarity from the object that has been laid on it.
She grabs the object of its long thin chain and lifts it higher for a closer look. It's a small pendant depicting a fairy or butterfly-like creature made from what appeared to be platinum. In the middle of its butterflyish wings are translucent gems that shimmer in all colours of the rainbow.
She puts the necklace around her neck and begins to search for clues of the woman that the priest had seen.
After an hour of searching she finally finds a drawing from under the mattress. The picture is of a beautiful opal-eyed woman with the necklace she had found around her neck and an open small box in her hands.
She looks just like her.
Mittheleana shakes her head. "I think that's enough for now. Rest... won't matter." Her eyes gaze at something far away.
Alucard touches her hand to get her attention. "Where's the necklace you found?"
She smiles faintly. "For a while I had it around my neck with the one you gave me, but they kept tangling up, so I just carried it with me otherwise. At the moment it's at home."
He nods. "And that woman? Was she your mother?"
She shrugs. "I don't know. She looked like me a lot, so I guess that she was."
Alucard then remembers why he came here. "Oh, Integra wants a blood sample from you."
She lets out an amused laughter. "I can guess why. Alright, I can't guarantee she can find anything from it, but..." She shrugs again.
Integra is in her study, reading the report from the lab, concerning the results of Mittheleana's blood test. Her blood seems perfectly human. She puts the report away. What are you, Mittheleana? You appear human, but your immortality and skills are not human.
She shakes her head and looks at Walter who's standing by her desk. "Have you ever heard of someone like her?"
Walter shrugs. "Why you wish to find out so much about her, Sir Hellsing?. She's on our side, is she not? After that, nothing else should matter."
She gives the butler a glare. "I want to know I can trust the people around me. Even she doesn't know what she is. What if she truly is a demon or something, hiding in human's flesh, not even remembering the true nature, and when she finally does, we're in trouble."
He nods. "I see. Well, I do remember hearing stories of number of opal-eyed women. They have all been surrounded by butterflies, have all looked similar, and have had feared nothing. And I heard that one of these women had once kneeled in front of a statue of a benevolent deity, and spoken to it."
She waves her hand to silence him. "Many speak to deity statues."
He grins. "Yes, but she spoke to it using an unknown language. And it apparently replied using the same language and moved its hand to touch her hair."
She felt her eyes widening. She turned to the window. "What do you think of this, Walter?"
His short silence is broken by words said with certainty. "Miss Integra, I know only this; she may not be directly on our side, as in loyal to Hellsing, but she is someone - alongside with Alucard, if not even more – who I would definitely want to be on the same side in battle to defend the England against darkness."
Alucard is standing in Integra's office, watching as the two women, Integra and Mittheleana, are on the opposite sides of her desk. He had told Integra earlier of what Mittheleana had told him, and Integra had just told them both of what Walter had told.
He glances at her old companion. "What do you think of this?"
She closes her eyes, likely trying to remember something. Apparently she succeeds, as he can see her eyes light up as she opens them. "Oh yeah! When I was hunting demons a while ago, one of them pointed at me and managed to get out a surprised 'you!' before my blade banished it from our world. I don't know what it meant, since I've never seen that one before."
Integra lets out a pondering 'hmmm', gaining attention from both others in the room. "We don't know how many of these opal-eyed women have been seen, so that they have made it in those stories Walter told about. It could be just one or many. You could've been reborn always looking the same, or you could have just forgotten many years of your past. And if there are two or more different women, then one could've been your mother and possibly other female relatives, if there have been more."
Mittheleana frowns. "I'm immortal, so rebirth is out of question. Also, I do remember my past from ever since my childhood pretty well, so that option is unlikely."
Alucard clears his throat to gain their attentions. "You were sleeping for a long time. Could you have moved around then and just not remember anything afterwards?"
She shakes her head. "The door had been sealed from the outside. I'm too much flesh and bones to go through anything solid. Besides, even if I could go through doors and walls, that means that something, or someone, had to be controlling me. Which is not a good thing."
Integra is about to say her view of the matter, when someone knocks at her door. "Enter."
The door opens and Walter steps in. "A vampire is attacking one of our men who is checking a clue of a vampire lair not far from here. He has barricaded himself in one of the rooms in an abandoned house near the river Thames. I've got the address right here."
She nods at both Mittheleana and Alucard. "You two, go. And try to get any information of recent increase of attacks from it before you kill it."