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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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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He wondered at what Road said, though. Could they destroy one? Innocence was difficult enough to get rid of. Remnants were exceptionally hard to destroy, even for them. Being Dark elemental could help, but it wasn't a certain thing. One of those swords? The Earl would probably know.
"Maybe we should find out with a weaker one," he suggested. "One we know is weak, anyway.
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He leaned on the counter, turning towards the middle of the room and taking away Alucard's position advantage. He folded his arms and looked at Sir Integra once again as he waited for the kettle to boil.
"It is an interesting model to refer to, at least," Lumi said, lifting the tone of his sentence towards the end to make it sound almost like a question.
He doubted the Jyllandis were personally invested in the fate of Aizen, but seeing what could happen when a famous member of a particular country's society got arrested under false or dubious reasoning could provide them with a reference should anything happen closer to home.
"There don't seem to have been any non-residential Ivalicians arrive yet," he said, giving her a little information on the subject. He didn't have any chocobos in that race, so he didn't see why it would be an issue. "They may come at the last minute due to proximity, of course."
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Which explained the presence of the Noah and herself in the same building without someone already being dead. A tentative embargo was put in place to stop members fighting during a meeting, but it as more of a heavy suggestion that bloodshed would be met with disapproval than any real sense of impending consequences.
They were all adults, after all, well, for the most part. If they wanted to play with knives, they knew the consequences.
"This place will feel very crowded when the meeting happens," she said. It already did, to her, sharing air with Noah, of all things.
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Dalmasca was Captain Ichimaru's jurisdiction, and Gin was one of the clan members, she knew that for certain. Maybe he could volunteer someone.
Or maybe they could hunt one down. Ivalice wasn't used to having people like them around that could control an Akuma, or a Hollow. It wouldn't be hard to trick some idiot into walking into a trap of them.
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So they thought they could kill this one, did they? Lumi was, at least in Alucard's view, an Exorcist until proven otherwise. He wasn't intimidated by Alucard, either, which meant he was strong, at least strong enough that he didn't get initimidated.
If he was someone else's bodyguard, maybe he wasn't so dissimilar from Alucard, really. Now wouldn't that be interesting?
He wasn't stupid either. He didn't let Alucard stay lingering behind him, and Alucard moved to stay near Integra, without Lumi being between them.
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He pulled out the metal case from his inside jacket pocket and took another pre-rolled cigarette out of it. He tapped it a couple of times against the case's shell and put one end between his lips.
"Us here, that happening? Might be better to go further afield."
He lit that cigarette with another match and flicked it away, inhaling his first lungful of smoke.
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He glanced at the kettle, listening to it bubble and waiting for the click.
"It already feels rather crowded," he said, lightly.
More than usual, anyway. Well, Kuja and Gin weren't permanent residents, but they came and went often enough that their presences were background noise even when they were there. The strangers made it feel more crowded, though. While the little cadre of Arrancar troublemakers were gone, Kreeth, the Noah, these two and the Lucian emissaries had taken their place.
When that lot came back... crowded wouldn't be the word.
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For the worse would be the Noah. She was wholly confident that Alucard could take one of them down, but two would be more of a challenge, especially when she wasn't sure of the second one's identity yet.
For the better may just prove to be Lumi.
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"Maybe we can leave some goodbye presents," she suggested.
A few dead Gotei members as they left would be a nice goodbye to the Gotei squads.
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He poured it into his mug, the instant granules in the bottom swirling with the water to make an astringent-smelling blackish liquid rise to the brim. He turned away briefly to add sugar to the unpleasant brew and then picked the cup up by the handle.
"I daresay you'll meet my partner at some point over the next few days," he said, inclining his head to her slightly and turning to walk to the door. He didn't resist giving Alucard a lingering, warning look. "I have work to be doing on my ship, so I shall take my leave."
He moved noiselessly through the kitchen and stopped at the door.
"One of the subordinate members of the Clan usually shows visiting members to their rooms," he said, looking very much at Integra and not Alucard. "She will likely be along soon. In the event that she isn't, the rooms upstairs that have their doors open are vacant. We have been instructed to close and lock the doors of the occupied ones to make the distinction clear."