- Chapter One
The fires of war started to fade in London. The wind carried away the curtain of smoke that covered the sky. She could breathe better now; her lungs cleansed the toxic substances for fresh air. She was able to spot the light blue sky and the sun hidden beneath the grey clouds. The night had been over long ago but she had missed the dawn.
Integral Hellsing stood with a bleeding arm surrounded by the devastated sight of London, the disfigured corpses of the citizens that used to live, and felt, in her heart, that part of her was as dead as them. She sat down, staining her coat with someone's blood and waited, remaining as quiet and still as the dead.
Integral stared at the direction where she had sent Seras, after the Zeppelin finished its damned flight. She had lost Walter to the enemy, a brainwashed puppet that could not recognise her anymore, but she refused to lose another of her men. Alucard must be rescued first then she would look after the shell of Walter. It was her responsibility to put an end to his existence. Not until she buried him would she cry for his fate.
If she were fortunate, Walter would come to her. If she were luckier, she would be a match for him even with her wounded limb.
Foolish git. Foolish, melodramatic git, Integral thought, shifting her thoughts to Alucard. Walter months ago expressed his concern about her vampire's reasons to sire another. She did not believe he was so affected by his undead state. Anyone but Alucard. Why he would want to die and leave them? Leave her? But she knew the answer. Her father had told her the reply long before she met the vampire in the basement. If you die, Alucard, I swear will bring you back to kill you myself.
She closed her eyes, placing a hand her mouth to fight the urge of throwing up. The smell of decay of the bodies was starting to be more prevalent. The knight, however, refused to move. These were the people she was supposed to protect; she needed to feel the failure as horrible as it was. She had to move her hardened heart.
Shuffled noises caught her attention. They were too slow to belong to her enemies, too fast and precise to be made by ghouls. Integral turned around, flinching when her arm twisted with her torso and saw the approaching figures dressed as clergymen. Section XIII survivors. Her eyes narrowed imperceptibly. How did they survive the onslaught of Anderson's demise, she had been watching afar and was knocked unconscious by the strength of the explosion.
Integral saw the short haired woman, Heinkel, Anderson had called her, speeding up her pace when she noticed her sitting around the corpses. The knight smirked slightly and turned around, feigning to ignore them.
"Sir Hellsing," the woman said harshly.
"Are you going to threaten me, Sister?" Integral asked, her tone half taunting, half apathetic. Her throat felt dry as she spoke. She pushed away her thirst for water, meal and sweet rest. "Take me prisoner or kill me? Be quick while my vampires are away." She expected to infuriate her, to quarrel with the Catholic. Any emotion that took her from this death-like state of indifference - any single spark of emotion.
Integral heard Heinkel huffing and her troupe gossiping between them. She distinguished in her shadow that she was searching for something inside her coat. Her gun probably, or a cell phone to communicate her capture. Instead, the priestess pulled out a box of cigarettes and bent over to offer one of them to her.
"With my salary, I cannot afford cigars," she apologized. Integral turned to see her expression, her dark shades were gone and the woman's green eyes were unveiled. She held no malice just a grimace among the bruises on her face. She noticed blood on her chest too; a small shard plunged just over her heart. Heinkel closed her coat to cover it; Integral's inquisitive gaze had lingered far too long there. Don't you want it? Take one."
Integral nodded and accepted one and put it in her mouth. "Thank you," she heard herself grumble in begrudged appreciation. Heinkel lit the cigarette and smoked one herself. The flavour was poor in comparison by her expensive cigarillos, cheap and offensive. But she wanted to smoke, needed to quench her hunger with her vice.
"We aren't enemies any longer," Heinkel informed Integral to the latter disbelief. "You should have that arm looked at by Sister Takagi before it gets infected."
"My wound isn't as serious as yours," Integral replied, releasing a puff of smoke, turning to survey all the Iscariots. Each of them, she realized, had a tiny shard in their hearts. "Or theirs."
"We cannot take them out," Heinkel explained, her voice distant like her eyes. "They are our Father's parting gift to set things straight. Even if these will damn us further."
"Against monsters and heretics?"
"The Vatican cannot judge sinners," corrected Heinkel bitterly. "Until they are judged themselves for their faults. So until then, we aren't your foes."
War is a life shattering experience, Integral thought, surprised by this change of heart, but understood her reasoning. The inner corruption was first than the external one. However, she did not expect a fanatic to be rational.
Integral rose slowly, grinding her teeth at her throbbing arm. "That one," she said, gesturing Yumie with her head. The nun had a wild head and looked taken from a mental asylum. "Is going to take my pain away? How? Slicing my arm off?"
Heinkel smiled and whistled Yumie to come closer. "Yumiko studied to do nurse work in charity," she explained. Integral remained sceptical and observed both women chatter, feeling an ounce disturbed by Yumie's manic grin at her. She pulled a pair of glasses from her robe and put them over her nose, and then she changed. It was like she was another person.
Sweet looking with big, gentle eyes and a naïve expression. This nun smiled at Integral slightly nervously and asked:
"Please, tuck your sleeve up, I'll bandage your arm."
"Multiple personality disorder?" Integral questioned to Heinkel as she did what Yumiko had requested. "Or demonic possession?"
"Does it matter? She chose to remain like this. I'll bring the first aid kit."
"You have one with you?" Integral asked, wincing while Yumiko daintily brushed her fingers against her marred flesh.
"Of course!" Yumiko said, motioned her far away from the corpses. Integral admitted she had been incredibly obtuse in her melodramatic moment to linger among them and hoped she was lucky enough to not catch any disease for her mistake. "If we go to fight, we will get injured somehow. So we bring it with us always to tend our wounds."
Integral sat where Yumiko indicated and waited for her to start. Walter was the one who took care of such minimal details like first aid kits. She was starting to miss him already. Yumiko focused on her task immediately after Heinkel brought the suitcase, sewing and cleaning her elbow and the crook of her arm then wrapped it in clean bandages.
"The bone is intact," Yumiko assured her, "I think at least. You shouldn't strain it, just in case."
Integral nodded and touched her arm lightly. "Did you kill them before they turned to ghouls?" she asked, meaning the citizens. She had not seen a ghoul rose in her path.
"No," Heinkel interfered, placing a hand over Yumiko's shoulder. The Asian Sister looked down, her eyes glistened with unshed tears. Integral looked at the bright sky, uncomfortable by the display.
"Father Anderson's fire must have purify them all."
The sunlight did it.
However, Integral said nothing to insult Anderson's memory, not out respect for him – while she had considered him a decent man in the beginning of war, becoming a monster was unforgivable- but for them. They considered the Paladin a surrogate father; she had seen their attempts to reach him and failing hours ago. She understood the need to grasp the hope of heroics on the end. The knight had lost Walter and was still upset by it. They shared an unspoken link in silence. Heinkel, much like her, did not express her sorrow but instead conveyed it with cold determination.
The stillness of the decayed landscape with religious warriors enjoying the sunlight on a destroyed city soon was shattered. Yumiko gasped and pointed towards the direction had gone. "The lightening!"
Integral turned her head to see it. She smiled in recognition of the crimson lightening that approached them. Seras was back finally, and, judging by her slower speed, she carried someone. Nervousness grew inside her, each second seemed eternal. Integral took off her gloves and put them in her right pocket, they were slick by her anxious sweating.
Why aren't they here? Why aren't they with me safe and uninjured?
"Sir Hellsing!" Seras shouted as she landed in front of her, her eyes started glowing when noticed the Iscariots that made her company.
"They are…!" Integral started, not knowing what they were exactly anymore. Allies? Friends? None of that fit with their current truce. "They aren't our enemies for now, Seras. Rest assure." There was a groan and a male whisper that captured her attention. The knight immediately saw the bulge Seras was carrying on her back. The black curly hair was stained with blood, his armour was broken. Breathing heavily, her servant glistened feverish.
"Alucard!" Integral exclaimed and aided Seras to lower him down. Her left arm ached by the effort but she ignored it. Spitting the cigarette aside, the knight knelt beside Seras to examine her vampire.
"When I found him," Seras explained, "He was alive. He still lives Sir Integral, do you understand? Master is human." She was still numb with the shock, Integral could tell, and she could not blame her for she was equally as surprised when her words clicked. When she noticed Alucard's laboured breaths and sweating face. Warily, she reached for his neck, feeling his pulse, his heart beating.
"Oh God," Integral muttered, unable to give credit to her senses. Alive. Alucard was alive. He was breathing and wounded and she did not know what to do to ease his pain. The world stopped making sense. Walter a vampire, Alucard a human being. She bottled up those confusing feelings and tried to think. "The armour! We must take off the armour, Seras!"
"Wait," Heinkel's calmer, analytical voice interrupted, bringing Yumiko forward.
"We'll help you. He won't survive to be taken to a hospital in that state."
"Why do you care for Master!" Seras hissed, still untrustworthy. Integral was grateful the priestess did not seem to care.
"The Lord has forgiven him," Yumiko replied in a quiet voice, "So we must do His will and help him as much we can."
Integral assented and grasped one of Alucard's hands while Seras took the other in order to soothe him as Yumiko nursed his wounds.
Don't give up, Alucard. We need you with us.
She noticed then why the Iscariot women were quick to jump into miraculous conclusions. When she took his hand to squeeze it, she discovered a golden cross clutched tightly between his fingers. She placed her hand over it and entwined their digits together to pray for his life.
-------
They used to have Masters, they remembered them clearly. Their memories triggered slowly and overflowed their minds just a couple of minutes ago. A short, weighted monster with silvery hair and a tall, lanky vampire with black strands. They used to serve both of them for reasons unknown because they were enemies. But their leaders were now gone, neither could feel the other, and, with them, their loyalty link faded.
The pale skinned woman and the dark skinned man who wore contrasting suits - such a Yin and Yang combination- stared at each other in blank silence. No one dared to say a word because they knew they had the same questions. And neither could answer them.
What would happen now?
Where we should go without a leader?
Soon, he joined them in their refuge away from the sunlight, between the ruins of a museum. Tall, pale, handsome and wearing a dark outfit with a monocle. He had the answers in his eyes but he could not utter them aloud. He waited for them to stand and join him to linger until the night.
The man gave the woman a card from the collection, the Joker. She grinned, sharklike whilst she recalled the lyrics of an opera of a misfortunate hunter who lost his soul to the Devil. She crushed the card and stood.
"We will survive, no matter what," said Rip van Winkle resolute as Alahambra rose to join her and Butler in their little quest.
----
A madman promised a war of such scale the world had not seen yet. Its reach targeted everything, some hitting stronger than others. Fortune played a strange turn of fates that it needed another madman to detain his plans in the Eastern part of the world. Or the ghost of one.
The room was dark only illuminated by the faint light of the screen that communicated with the living quarters of the Si-Fan. The yellow and crimson dragon status were lost to mortal eyes, as well as the roaming deadly spiders on them.
"They had been crushed as flies, as you predicted, honourable Doctor. Beijing had been saved from the invaders!"
He materialized in the Yang world, looking as if he were still alive. Tall, lean, feline and high shouldered, richly clothed in yellow silk. He smiled, frightening his soldier with his magnetic green eyes, and moved forward, saying:
"They were using our people."
He hated that and did not conceal the anger on his voice.
"They were traitors."
"They were our race!" he exclaimed angrily. "The westerners are wrong to think we'll tolerate those tricks. We'll strike them with the same, dishonourable, iron fist. They wouldn't declare war to our nation like this. Now they are weak, it's our chance."
"We need to bring your plan to the Commission board, Doctor," the man protested, but was silenced with his leader's glare. "We should research this. If we are mistaken…"
"The signal came from London," the ghost pointed out, picking up the spiders with his long fingers. He had trained them to accept his cold touch. "We can hire mercenaries to report to me the whereabouts, personally." He made a pause. "Western mercenaries." He waved his hand dismissingly and the minion bowed, his image faded along with the light.
"The disgusting westerners need to learn that they aren't the entire world involved in a war," he mused in the placid darkness, putting the spiders down as he phased back to the Yin world. He would return soon, strengthen himself to appear fully among his peers. Fu Manchu had, after all, unfinished business with the living.
Edited by Ryuuzaki Megami. I am taking in consideration up last chapter (Heart of Dreams, # 72). But Iscariots having pieces of Elena'sNail bit is purely my invention (a subplot necessary I wrote previous having the said instalment. There will be spoilers about it (Alucard's own opinion about monsters and his existence). Thank you for the feedback thus far.