Integra Hellsing and Alucard (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hellsingsforyou) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
spira_rp2018-07-11 02:03 pm
hellsingsforyou) wrote in spira_rp2018-07-11 02:03 pm
When blossoms fade
Khamja were having a crisis meeting.
They didn't meet often. The disparate interests of a group like Khamja meant that the individual members didn't like being stuck together very much. It led to tension, and tension, in Khamja, led to people mysteriously disappearing. Not everyone knew everyone else in Khamja, and they usually liked to keep it that way, but something like this was unavoidable.
It had also created an opening for Lucis to expand its interests. Integra had no investment in Lucis; her interests lay in Athlum, but Lucis was tentatively an ally of Athlum, and more importantly, an enemy of Niflheim, and Integra was fond of the adage that the enemy of your enemy is your friend. At least for now.
The Lucian member was sending a representative. Integra had agreed to vouch for him because she knew him through other channels. That the young man in question was the nephew of a personal friend of Integra's went a long way towards her agreement. She could confirm his identity, and his origin in the absence of the Lucian member himself.
Underlings were allowed to accompany members on the journey, which was fortunate because Integra wasn't walking into the rat's nest that was a Khamja meeting without Alucard. Nor would the journey through the dry, sandy, and monster infested Zertinan Caverns have been so easy.
Alucard was brutal, but rarely efficient. He enjoyed the work too much to keep things neat. Integra walked, and Alucard cleared the path. It was a long walk, but Integra knew better than to complain because she wasn't foolish enough to show weakness in front of Alucard.
As she made her way past the mangled corpse of an Archeoaevis, its head nearly torn all the way off, she pulled a cigar from her breast pocket and lit it with a match. "Try not to leave a trail," she warned.
The path narrowed considerably in places, and sandfalls disguised other parts of the route, but eventually they came upon a door, barely visible in the rock, and magically bound. Integra pressed a gloved hand to it, and a glyph formed, followed by the sound of rock sliding against stone.
There was another chamber beyond, and multiple routes into it, but Integra ignored those in favour of the next door. The chamber reeked of potent magic, this fell within the sphere of some powerful wards.
The next door also opened at a touch, leading them into a bottleneck. Alucard walked on ahead, like any good guard dog would, and Integra followed as the final door opened to reveal a grand entrance hall.
"Mind your manners," she said, glancing sidelong at Alucard, "and no fighting unless I tell you." Not that Alucard needed the warning; he knew the rules. Integra wasn't concerned about his safety, or her own; she was more concerned with the tedious reparations that would have to be made if Alucard killed someone's prized underling.
"Don't I always?" Alucard asked, with that knowing look and flash of fang that said he knew the answer all too well.
Integra ignored him.
They didn't meet often. The disparate interests of a group like Khamja meant that the individual members didn't like being stuck together very much. It led to tension, and tension, in Khamja, led to people mysteriously disappearing. Not everyone knew everyone else in Khamja, and they usually liked to keep it that way, but something like this was unavoidable.
It had also created an opening for Lucis to expand its interests. Integra had no investment in Lucis; her interests lay in Athlum, but Lucis was tentatively an ally of Athlum, and more importantly, an enemy of Niflheim, and Integra was fond of the adage that the enemy of your enemy is your friend. At least for now.
The Lucian member was sending a representative. Integra had agreed to vouch for him because she knew him through other channels. That the young man in question was the nephew of a personal friend of Integra's went a long way towards her agreement. She could confirm his identity, and his origin in the absence of the Lucian member himself.
Underlings were allowed to accompany members on the journey, which was fortunate because Integra wasn't walking into the rat's nest that was a Khamja meeting without Alucard. Nor would the journey through the dry, sandy, and monster infested Zertinan Caverns have been so easy.
Alucard was brutal, but rarely efficient. He enjoyed the work too much to keep things neat. Integra walked, and Alucard cleared the path. It was a long walk, but Integra knew better than to complain because she wasn't foolish enough to show weakness in front of Alucard.
As she made her way past the mangled corpse of an Archeoaevis, its head nearly torn all the way off, she pulled a cigar from her breast pocket and lit it with a match. "Try not to leave a trail," she warned.
The path narrowed considerably in places, and sandfalls disguised other parts of the route, but eventually they came upon a door, barely visible in the rock, and magically bound. Integra pressed a gloved hand to it, and a glyph formed, followed by the sound of rock sliding against stone.
There was another chamber beyond, and multiple routes into it, but Integra ignored those in favour of the next door. The chamber reeked of potent magic, this fell within the sphere of some powerful wards.
The next door also opened at a touch, leading them into a bottleneck. Alucard walked on ahead, like any good guard dog would, and Integra followed as the final door opened to reveal a grand entrance hall.
"Mind your manners," she said, glancing sidelong at Alucard, "and no fighting unless I tell you." Not that Alucard needed the warning; he knew the rules. Integra wasn't concerned about his safety, or her own; she was more concerned with the tedious reparations that would have to be made if Alucard killed someone's prized underling.
"Don't I always?" Alucard asked, with that knowing look and flash of fang that said he knew the answer all too well.
Integra ignored him.
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He looked up at him, it was barely an inch of difference, his pupils narrowed to predatory slits. His reiatsu didn't waver. There wasn't a flare, not even a blip. He kept himself, and his chakra, completely under control, barely narrowing his eyes as he stared down Alucard's challenge.
"Is there a problem?" He asked, his voice still soft, but now edged with something harder.
Lumi's expression shifted slightly. It was almost imperceptible, especially if you didn't happen to know him well, but it was there. His eyebrows drew in slightly and the bridge of his nose crinkled like a lion's with the threat of a growl. He didn't show his teeth, but it was a close run thing.
He, of course, was not a psychopath, but he did have a reputation to uphold.
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Alucard usually listened to her first time, but he liked to test his boundaries, and her patience sometimes. Now was a very bad time for him to do that, so of course, now was when he did it.
Keeping Alucard was like keeping an aggressive dog. Reacting to his challenges by getting angry, raising her voice, showing that it did anything other than weary her with the tediousness, as if it was getting him somewhere, only encouraged him to do it more.
Sometimes he challenged her to challenge him, to find her boundaries, to see what she was willing to sacrifice to succeed, how strong her resolve was. She could shout then, bark orders at him like a sergeant major.
When he was testing her control it was another story.
"Alucard," she repeated, lifting her cup to gaze into its depths as if it offended her more than Alucard's lack of obedience. "What did I say?"
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It was interesting, and a little bit scary. Lumi didn't seem fazed, he didn't seem to care. He acted as if things like Alucard invaded his personal space regularly.
As if he could more than handle them.
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Good.
"Tell me again," Alucard replied, his Uberwaldean accent thickening as he spoke Jyllandi to Integra's Ivalician.
Something pricked at his senses. There was something he didn't like about this man, and it wasn't just that he hadn't met Alucard's challenge by showing his own reiatsu. The absence of reiatsu let something else prick at Alucard's senses.
The prickling was a warning, but Alucard didn't want to look down for the source of it and break eye contact.
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That he hadn't addressed him, but replied to her, annoyed Lumi more than he'd like to admit. Lumi wasn't easy to anger, but him holding that challenging glare and not answering his question got on his nerves.
"Move," he said, drawing back his lips enough to bare his teeth.
Fanged teeth. Perhaps not to the same extent as Alucard's own, but they were sharp, and they were more than able to bite through the hierro of an Arrancar.
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Khamja would only suffer uncontrollable underlings for so long. Individual members would suffer them even less, and Integra would rather not lose a potential ally, and everyone she didn't know was a potential ally until proven otherwise, to Alucard's idiotic grandstanding.
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He waited a beat before he did as he was told, and took a step back, moving out of the stranger's way without a look to Integra.
"My apologies," he said, in insincere but very smooth Ivalician. "Total reiatsu suppression usually means you're about to attack, and you're approaching my master."
He looked down after speaking, taking in the man he'd been so close to. He was armed, which wasn't unusual, but the sword he carried...
Could it be one of the Akuma killing swords the Noah had mentioned?
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He wasn't used to being challenged. Other people in the palace had accepted that he was dangerous just by general exposure and avoided squaring up to him simply because he was an unknown quantity and attacking him was likely to be detrimental to their health. Instead of doing the same, Alucard hard decided to come at him like a dog in defense of its master.
Backing down himself in that instant would have shattered the effortlessly cultivated image he'd managed to grow in his time at the palace. Would he still command the same sort of careful deference if he'd been observed doing such? He doubted it.
It was funny, in a way. The generally accepted dynamic of his own relationship with Marluxia was one of master-and-bodyguard. It was incorrect, they both knew it, but the underestimations that assumption caused was useful for them both, so they didn't bother to correct people. It would become obvious one day, but there was no point bursting the bubble before it needed to be.
Alucard and Integra, conversely, openly had that sort of relationship. Broadcasted it. It was effective, quite likely. A reiatsu like Alucard's would be enough to make most people give him a wide berth. Integra's control was in question, though. It had taken more than once to get him to back off, but that could have been for effect. Would he be more immediate in a more serious circumstance?
It was something to go back to Marluxia with, at any rate.
"What I'm approaching," Lumi said, voice level, "is the kettle."
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Alucard probably wasn't used to people stepping up to him directly. Integra's dog had a bit of a reputation back on Jylland, at least in the right circles. Tyki hadn't heard of her, or him, directly, but the Earl had mentioned something before they went out to attend the meeting.
Given what he'd seen of him so far, it must have taken every fibre of his being not to take it to a rather more physical level. People like Alucard were just spoiling for a fight.
Lumi, however hadn't seemed shaken at all. Not even at such close proximity. He wasn't even sweating. Anybody else would be, surely. What made him so damned dangerous that he could be that self-assured..?
Well, his pink-haired friend kept him around for a reason, he supposed. Another reason, anyway. One of them was obvious enough.
"Looks like we don't get front row seats to the dogfight," he lamented, looking across to Road.
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He looked over at Integra, who was eyeing him as if he was going to get a mouthful later, and not the fun sort of mouthful. "His sword kills Akuma," he said. He'd felt it, still could feel it, tickling at the edge of his senses like a splinter trapped in his clothing. It pricked at his skin and made him uncomfortable, but when he tried to hone in on it, it slipped through his fingers.
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The Gotei 13 carried such swords, but she'd be familiar with the name of anyone so powerful in their ranks as to walk around totally suppressed all the time.
"All the more reason for you to keep away," she told him, without a trace of sympathy.
"I apologise for my subordinate's behaviour," she said, looking at Lumi. "I hope he hasn't caused lasting offence."
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It was a shame. It would have saved them a job if someone here had taken Alucard out of the picture for good. It would have blown Athlum wide open for them, too. It would have made the Earl very happy if they'd been able to break that news.
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So, he had a ZanpakutÅ, did he? That was interesting. He'd seen him interact with Nel and they'd been fairly cordial, all things considered. He knew about the Arrancar, and yet he still carried that. Who needed a tag when you had that warning on your hip? It was a threat. A subtle one, sure. But a threat.
He looked over at Road.
"I didn't know he had one of those," he said, keeping his face carefully casual and making sure not to say the untranslatable word out loud, where the Lowerworlder might be able to get an idea of what they were saying. "He's not in the protection squads, is he?"
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Or maybe his reiatsu was just that Dark.
"No," Lumi said, ignoring Alucard's jab and addressing Integra. "My name is Lumi. You are?"
From anybody else the words might have sounded offensively terse, but Lumi's delivery was soft and measured enough that it just seemed efficient. His accent, somewhat strange to Ivalician ears, would go unnoticed by Jyllandi natives, he suspected. They likely lacked the experience to tell the difference. Really, he probably just looked to them like a mildly Mist-affected Selkie.
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There was no way someone as powerful as Lumi was only a third or fourth ranked.
Unless he was much less powerful than he seemed? It didn't seem likely, but it was a possibility she could completely dismiss. Total suppression was hard, doing it all the time was harder, but you had to admit, it would be a good way of hiding the fact that you weren't that scary after all.
"Maybe he's weaker than we thought," she suggested. "It'd be fun to find out."
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Organisation was perhaps the wrong term for it, but most of their employees weren't family. She was, as far as she knew, the last of the family, and would see out the extinction of the line. The organisation was a way to carry on beyond the bounds of blood. Although it mostly consisted of her, Alucard, Walter, and whoever else was employed by them and still alive at the time.
"Have you been a member long?" she asked.
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"I can't see it, somehow. Wasn't he the pink-haired guy's bodyguard? He felt strong, there's no way that this one's weaker than him." He smirked. "It's smart though. This is what it's for. He's making us guess at his power level. It's like a blank tag. He could be a D/5, but he could also be an S/0, we have no way to know."
He doubted that he was weak and taking refuge in audacity. You couldn't quite get the full feeling for anyone's reiatsu unless it was unleashed anyway. A suppressed one gave a vague idea, but you never know how much it was suppressed. You could feel the element of it, if you were good enough, but that was about it.
This was a blank slate. Tyki doubted it was to conceal his weakness. No, this was the camouflage of a coeurl's spots or stripes concealing it among the trees.
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She wasn't afraid of him. No, she was confident in the abilities of her guard dog even if he did pull at a leash a little harder than she'd like.
No wonder Alucard had been so spooked by his sudden appearance. He prided himself on his ability to protect this woman, even if he was a contrary animal about it. To have been bested, even at stalking, or however he perceived it, was a slight against him and a risk to his master.
"I don't expect even those such as yourself are graced with updated member dossiers at any point," he said, knowing full well he hadn't been given any information on the members of the Clan, in spite him and Marluxia having been personally invited to join by Kuja. "Shadow or otherwise."
Lumi wasn't a shadow member. He wasn't exactly open about it, nor was Marluxia, but they didn't need to be shadow members specifically, mostly on account of their total lack of public persona to hide their involvement with the Clan from.
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"So how does he have that weapon?" she asked, rhetorically. Zanpakuto were specialist weaponry. She didn't quite understand them beyond the fact that they were bad news, but they were the equivalent of the Innocence the Exorcists used; they weren't easy to get hold of. She wondered how much he could do with it.
It definitely made things interesting. She hadn't been able to sense the sword herself, but she hadn't got as close as Alucard had, either. It was hard to imagine anyone did, except Marluxia anyway.
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Illua was one, without a doubt. Kuja was the second possibility; that Genome had his extremities in a number of pies.
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He kept his ears, however, on the Noah's conversation.
Lumi had a pink-haired friend he played bodyguard to. Integra might like to know that, if she hadn't been listening.
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It wasn't plain, that was for certain. He wasn't sure if they were supposed to be, or whether they were meant to be flashy. This one had a white and blue laquered scabbard and the sword's hilt had blue binding and a pretty ribbon attached to the pommel. It wasn't flashy, as such, but it wasn't your basic black katana, either.
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The other would undoubtedly be Illua. She was known to be the leader of the Clan, but very few had ever seen her. She didn't meddle in the affairs of the clan in general, nor did she attend meetings. Lumi wasn't entirely sure what she did, but she must have benefited in some way to keep running it, whatever that meant.
"It seems that all of the non-resident members of the Clan who have come to attend this meeting are Jyllandi," he observed, filling the kettle from the tap and replacing it on the pad. He flicked it on and got himself a cup from the cupboard.
It was a safe subject. None of the information being released on that topic would be about him, nor would it be about the Arrancar. It wasn't this job to keep them out of a conversation, but it wasn't up to him to give information on them to people like this, either. He liked Nel enough not to do that, not without a price at any rate, and he found himself wondering where she was.
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That was interesting, for someone who bore a weapon designed to destroy Akuma. Potentially useful, too.
"The clan has a larger presence on Jylland than you might expect," she said. The Noah were members, for a start, as were certain high ranking officials in developed cities that couldn't bring themselves to attend. "Ivalician politics don't usually affect Jyllandi ones," she said, and added, "much, but something like this is different."
Aizen had been imprisoned, and under false pretenses. Either the Galbadians sought to trigger a war with Archades, and force Archades into being the aggressor, or Khamja had a snake in the grass. The meeting would give them more information to judge which was most likely, and what they intended to do about it.
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"Not that it'll matter where he got it from if we kill him." She said, quietly, and brought her finger up to her mouth, looking thoughtfully cute, or trying to. "I wonder if we could destroy one of those swords like the Black Order's weapons?" she mused, and then flashed Tyki a brighter smile.
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