I saw the first volume of Kill Bill recently…so that speech the one lady made stuck in my head…and I took the scene where Integra meets Alucard (or at least when she first sees him) from the manga instead of the OVA or the TV show. That's why the dialogue is slightly different than normal.
Prompt: Whispers.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
"Arthur's daughter; looks the spitting image of her mother."
Tap.
Tap.
Tap,
"Poor child. Twelve years old and an heiress of a military organization. Of that military organization."
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
"That look in her eyes; it's like she's all ice inside. What happened to her when her uncle died?"
The whispers.
They were everywhere.
Integra kept her back straight and her shoulders set purposefully, ignoring the murmurs and conversations going on around her.
Eyes set dead ahead, towards the eternal goal she was working towards.
She would represent the Hellsing line and its organization to the very best of her twelve-year-old abilities.
She coldly sat down at the table, leaning forward to address the murmuring nobles, none of which had noticed her taking her seat.
"Gentlemen, my name is Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing. I will not tolerate gossip about myself nor my family. If one of you has something they wish to say about either, you will say it to my face. Am I understood?"
All the men around the table turned their heads and stared at her in abject shock.
They had perhaps never in their entire cosseted lives been scolded, never mind commanded.
And certainly never with the chilling confidence that she had done it in.
"Madam! With all due respect, this is a conference of intelligent men and women-"
She tampered down the smirk.
Women being me and who, exactly? I'm the only female here and we all know it.
"-and we mean no ill will towards any one person on this council. Please, try and be a little more diplomatic."
Empty bluster.
Her eyes sharpened behind the lenses of her silver glasses.
"Diplomatic? With all due respect to you, Sir Dickinson, respect means you will refer to me with my given title, Sir Integra. I do not demand any more respect than any of you gentlemen, but I also will not allow any less. You know what Hellsing is and you know what Hellsing does. Our services are to the Queen and the Church exclusively, and I will not have any of you attempt to hold the reins of my organization because of my so-called age impediment. I am just as capable –more capable – than any of you to command my troops. I am also the only one the vampire Alucard has acknowledged as his master."
She could practically feel Walter's amusement at her back as she spoke, and quieted her own, seeing the steadily reddening faces of her colleagues.
"In short gentlemen, Hellsing is my organization and my position, and I will not be coddled nor become a figurehead for anyone or anything. Am I understood?"
She didn't give them a chance to answer.
"Good. By your leave gentlemen, good day."
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
More of the whispers followed her out, but with luck, she had made her point clear.
Prompt: I'm not ready to give up.
Integra scowled in the air vents above her uncle and his men.
You're nothing more than a bloody rotten scumbag, uncle! It hasn't even been a week since Father died!
One looked up, and she quickly ducked away from the grill and continued on her way, shivering at the chilly, dry air in the duct.
I'm scared! What…what if they catch me?!
Her whole body froze up, and it was only with a short gasp that she was able to continue moving, squeezing her eyes shut in fear.
No! Don't think about that! You're going to live! You're going to live!
She craned her neck to look around a corner, then proceeded to the right.
If memory serves, this is the way to the dudgeon entrance. What did Father hide down there that'll help me with this?
Dropping down as silently as she could, she opened the heavy door and dragged it closed, quickly darting down the stone steps.
Lights flickered on automatically as she touched the bottom.
Dark arts laboratory, library, specimen room, torture chamber, dissecting room, and a dungeon. I should be safest in the dungeon; it's the lowest down after all.
She came to the last cell in the deepest part of the dungeon, hauling the door open and edging inside, then closing it with a soft thunk.
Even down here its likely just a matter of time…
She slide down against the wall with a tiny sigh.
Then something to the right caught her vision, and she paled.
"What in blazes?!"
It looked like…a corpse.
A man in some kind of strange straightjacket-uniform was chained to the wall.
A corpse…is he dead?
She scooted closer, and her face crumpled in exasperation, remembering her father's words.
Oh father…a dried up corpse? This is supposed to protect me?
She sighed and leaned closer to the corpse's head politely.
"Right, I've got nowhere else to run. Would you mind if I shared the cell with you, sir?"
Obviously it gave no response as she leaned against the wall beside it.
Fat lot of good being a Hellsing does me now. I'm stuck in the dungeon of my own mansion with my uncle after me and nothing but a corpse for company.
She stifled the tears before they came.
They might hear it. I'm so scared…I thought a knight or something would be down here to protect me from the bad guys.
She curled up, resting her nose against the fabric of her long skirt.
"I don't want to die…I really don't."
Prompt: It's not about fighting.
I didn't cough as the smoke cleared from Seras's gigantic shot from the 88 mm.
Glass fell in shards around me as I started walking forward.
I stopped directly in the middle of the Nazi symbol on the floor
"It's over Major."
"It…appears so. Why…its far from…"
I caught a glimpse of bloodied metal and shining gears.
"That's…that's you, Major?"
Of course. He was a machine this whole time.
"Yes. This is me."
"A machine?!"
Seras was clearly caught off guard.
The Major tsked as I heard the gears clicking and clacking, systems valiantly trying to work when they were shattered beyond all repair.
"You should mind…your manners…little girl. I am a human being."
No. No human would contrive this sort of carnage, this sort of sick and heartless war.
"You monster…you're a monster."
"No. I am human. A human is only human for one reason. His will. Poor Alucard needed blood to maintain his soul and continually consumed others to survive. That is what you call a monster. Do not compare me to something so weak. So long as I have my will, even if I am nothing more than a brain floating in a jar of culture fluid, or nothing more than a giant computer's memory circuit, I am human. A human life is a soul, a heart, a will."
No. Humans were humans because they could forgive, because they had mercy. Monsters had no mercy and monsters did not repent or forgive.
"Even if he smiles in the form of a little girl, or falls on his knees in the form of a veteran warrior, he is a monster. That is why I hated him wholeheartedly. I do not approve of the vampire, Alucard."
He reached up towards his mad world, to whatever insane requiem he saw, his single remaining eye seemingly running me through with his piercing madness.
"He is a human-like monster and I am probably a monster-like human. I am me. This side and that side. You and I are different. Every war in this world amounts to just that. Ever since humans were born of this rock. You, too, think we are different. We declared war on each other long ago. Now, let us wage it!"
There was a moment of silence as his clenched fist relaxed and I yanked my brown overcoat off, answering with the gun strapped to my hip.
He smirked with his bloodied mouth and I began walking forward, drawing my gun with a quick movement.
He reached for his own and drew it as I silently counted my own steps, trying to keep calm.
It isn't about black and white. It isn't about right and wrong. I don't care about whether or not you consider me or yourself a monster. You are a monster. And as the human, I have to destroy you.
Gunshots started scattering around me.
Only humans can find the strength of will and soul to fight a monster to the death. Only a human can bear the weight of sin without succumbing to the power inhumanity can give. Only humans can abandon everything and everyone they care about-
I stopped and we fired at the same time.
-to deliver that final blow.