When blossoms fade

[hellsingsforyou]

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.

Comments

[thesilentstorm]

Lumi had no great love of meeting new people, so he frowned slightly as he felt a new pair of chakra signatures in the antechamber leading to the palace. They were recent, very much so. If he had entered the cave any earlier he would likely have walked into them. He let himself in silently, knowing that he would raise no alarms, nor be felt. Upon getting into the bottleneck, he found the door at the other end open, a definite sign of new people.

He could tell they had gone straight to the kitchen, for that's where they lingered, along with the Noah pair. There were definitely two, one significantly weaker than the other. The powerful one practically shouted its lethality in the form of its sinister, if safely suppressed reiatsu. The other was largely inoffensive.

He huffed a breath through his nose as he moved towards the same room. He wanted a coffee, something to take the edge off his tiredness as he worked on the ship, and even if it had to be that awful instant muck that he'd been settling for before the arrival of Ignis, and his superior coffee, he'd take it.

It wouldn't take long to make a coffee and leave, after all. It would even be drinkable by the time he got back to the hangar.

He crossed the main hallway on quiet feet and stopped outside the door at the sound of unfamiliar voices from within. So, his suspicions had been correct then. At least one of the latecomers was Jyllandi. He heard the clink of a metal chain, the dull clack of metal on metal and the low voice of one of the strangers. He couldn't tell which it was.

Then the male Noah, Tyki Mikk, spoke. Lumi didn't quite understand what he meant by 'tag', but he committed it to memory all the same. Marluxia would be interested to know what was being said.

[hellsingsforyou]

"Do you have a problem with that, Noah?" Integra replied, looking sidelong at the male and removing her cigar from between her teeth by clasping it between two fingers. Tendrils of smoke wafted from the end.

Alucard was everything to Integra. A loyal underling, a pain in the ass, her ace in the hole. She didn't keep him attached to her hip; he was far too useful for that. He'd also be far too useful to leave behind with Integra heading to Ivalice.

Mutants didn't bear tags on Ivalice. People carried licences instead. Licences were an invasion of privacy that people wouldn't stand for on Jylland, especially not in the Union, but tags, well, they needed to be tracked somehow. Alucard was a mutant, one who also had a recognised Kekkei Genkai, and so he had a tag, too.

[lesstravelled]

Road eyed the ranking on Alucard's tag. Tags were ranked according to their combat power, and could work their way up the ranks by beating down Tags more powerful than them. Alucard was obviously very dangerous, at least if you were a mere Tag.

She rolled her eyes and settled her chin in her hands. "Maybe if he bites he can be put down," she said, turning to look over her shoulder at Tyki, and then pointedly directing her gaze at Integra.

Something like Alucard could be a liability, here. If he could be goaded into hurting someone, Integra could lose an important asset.

[hellsingsforyou]

Alucard tucked his tags back away behind his tie. He didn't need to wear them here, but he did anyway, because they were a boast of how powerful he was.

"You're barely a mouthful, little girl," he told the one that spoke. She seemed more in charge than the man.

[intangibleman]

Tyki shrugged at Integra and took another drag on his cigarette. He aimed the exhaled breath out of the door and looked at Alucard casually threatening Road. He didn't stop him. She could handle him by herself. It didn't take too much to put a rogue dog down.

"I don't care much," Tyki answered. "It isn't like the place isn't already full of them."

Khamja attracted those on the fringes as well as those in power. As such Mistants were higher in number than they probably would be elsewhere. They were certainly seen, occasionally, weird skin colour, odd features... but not as much as in the Palace, or in such volume. He'd seen plenty already. Two with slitted pupils in their eyes, one of abnormal height.

[thesilentstorm]

Lumi listened, head cocked to one side, just slightly.

The conversation made it very, very clear that there was some sort of enmity between these two groups. Whoever had just arrived, while they were as Jyllandi as the Noah, did not get along with them at all. That was likely politics, Lumi thought. It usually was. Sometimes friendships and alliances could bridge the ills of a country, like it did for Nel and the numerous people who came from countries that opposed hers, but at others... things were less certain.

Khamja wasn't a big happy family. It had enemies. These two, in spite of their shared continent, were anything but allies.

[hellsingsforyou]

Integra looked away, and set the kettle to boil. Alucard needed to be careful intimidating Noah. He didn't quite know what he was dealing with, although she didn't doubt he could handle it. Whether he could handle it without causing massive structural damage to their underground dwelling was another matter.

There weren't any tea cups, and there wasn't any loose leaf tea, either. Just a caddy, with bags of tea. Who used tea bags? They contained the dust and floor sweepings, you could barely call it tea.

She pushed the thought aside. If it was as bad as she expected she'd just have to deal with it.

"There are worse things here than Tags," she replied.

[lesstravelled]

Road giggled and grinned at Alucard. Oh, he was scary, and big, and threatening, with his reiatsu carefully suppressed so that you could still tell how big and threatening and scary he was.

He didn't scare her, though. She dealt with much worse every day. She was much worse every day.

She put on her best innocent face and leaned back in her chair, looking as falsely upset as she could, complete with a fake pout. "I think she means us," she said, looking back at Tyki.

[intangibleman]

"Or herself?" Tyki suggested.

Whether a threat or an insult it didn't make much difference. They were both worse than a common Tag, for a multitude of reasons. Especially Road.

She wasn't wrong though, jokes aside. They'd already met a couple of Arrancar -- people with Hollows artificially planted within them, resulting in a genuine dual consciousness. It was different to the Vizards, either those that happened naturally, or by ... experimentation. He didn't doubt that other members held their own secrets.

Kuja's name, for example, carried a certain amount of fear and awe with it, even if they hadn't met him yet. Tyki only knew that he was a Genome, though he admittedly only had a vague idea of what that was.

"Still, if you could resist setting your pet on us for the duration, that would be appreciated."

The 'we'd hate to have to end him' went unspoken, but his grey-lipped grin suggested that it was implied.

[thesilentstorm]

Lumi scowled a little.

They were posturing. That's all it was. Insults slung back and forth to rile the other side. They were feeling each other out, but he expected that would stop shortly. Before too long, even enemies would get down to business about whatever subject hovered between them, unspoken, be it a conflict or a mere dislike.

He expected these people would be careless about it, too. As far as they knew, the only other Jyllandi in the palace was Kreeth, the bird woman, and she didn't count for much.

[hellsingsforyou]

Integra looked at the male Noah out of the corner of her eye. She still wasn't sure which one he was. Accompanying Road Kamelot made it more than possible he was Cyril, who was reputed to have something of a fixation with her. On the other hand, Alucard had been baring his proverbial fangs at her to no response, so he could be Wisely, or Tyki. That was the problem with the Noah; there were just too many of them.

"Keep your pets tethered," she said, "and I'll do the same."

The kettle flicked off, and Integra waited for thr water to come down a little from the fresh boil before she poured the water in.

[lesstravelled]

Road lounged back in her chair, her attention more on Integra than on Alucard now because Alucard was much more boring to get at. Integra held the dog's leash.

"Yours needs a shorter leash," she said, turning back to look Alucard over. "And to learn to pick his fights."

[intangibleman]

Tyki gave a soft laugh.

With all the alarms and the anti-monster and anti-incursion measures the palace had, their pets wouldn't be able to get in. He was half surprised that the Arrancar managed to get past, but there they were. It was either because they had special clearance, or their seal kept them from triggering the alarm.

"Doesn't he just," Tyki said, grinning at Road, and then turning to Integra. "So why do you care what happens to Aizen?"

[thesilentstorm]

Ah, now they were talking business.

Lumi knew Marluxia would be interested in the fact that two Jyllandi parties quite obviously couldn't stand the sight of each other, but without getting to the meat of the subject it wouldn't be worth much, at least not in his professional opinion. Members of Khamja commonly hated other members of Khamja. It was common knowledge.

Now the subject of Aizen was being raised. He doubted either had much invested in the continued safety of the man, though it was possible that the new party would take issue with him on account of the nature of his subordinates. Nobody liked Hollows. They were abominations, and he vaguely remembered a news story or two about a sudden upswing in the Hollow numbers in certain parts of Jylland and the fact that they were causing a problem. More correctly, they were attacking people in cities.

The Noah, they wouldn't have a problem with it, might even be the cause of it, but anybody else would take issue.

[hellsingsforyou]

Integra eyed the man from behind her glasses.

What did she care? She didn't. Not about Aizen in particular, anyway, but he was an important figure in Archadian society, and by extension, politics, and the last thing the world needed was another bloody war sucking resources away from where they were needed.

He was also a Gotei Captain, the equivalent of a Black Order General, and his being imprisoned under false pretences suggested he had dangerous enemies, and set even more dangerous precedents. Integra didn't want to give their enemies an in road to suggesting that it was possible for a General, or Captain, to be acting outside of his jurisdiction in the pursuit of Hollows or Akuma.

"I might ask you the same thing," she replied, coldly. "What do you care what happens to an Ivalician?"

[lesstravelled]

Road giggled at Integra's reply. "I bet she fell out with the Order again," she said. "Maybe they're just not good enough at killing Akuma and she's looking for someone better."

It wasn't a particularly out there supposition. Hellsing were fond of interfering, as if destroying Akuma was their job, rather than the job of the real exorcists. It had been that way for generations; they'd worked alongside the Black Order, originally, but they'd grown apart as their priorities shifted. Hellsing wanted to throw everything at the fight, the Black Order were a bit more reserved.

Of course, when your organisation existed to destroy Akuma, it wasn't actually a good long term strategy for employment to be really good at the job. The Black Order needed Akuma around to shore up their funding stream, even if they didn't like to admit it.

Hellsing needed them around too, to maintain their influence, even though Integra would never admit that.

Road found it all hilarious.

[hellsingsforyou]

Alucard shifted, watching his master engage the two Noah with unconcealed distaste. Had they not been here, and now, she would have let him kill them. Instead, he had to mind his manners and keeps his fangs covered.

"You don't need Innocence to kill Akuma," he said, eyeing the little girl again.

[intangibleman]

Tyki laughed again, a low sound full of amusement.

"Obviously," Tyki said, taking the last drag of his cigarette and flicking the nub into the damp grass. He held in the breath for a moment and then blew it out the door. "In these parts they use special swords. They've probably never even heard of Innocence. The Kingsglaive in Lucis do too, or so I hear. Magic works, of course. Holy magic is best, apparently, not that you'd have any hope of using that."

It wasn't an insult, it was just how it seemed. Alucard didn't look like the type of man who could wield Holy magic, not in a million years.

"What do you do, bite them?"

[thesilentstorm]

Lumi found his hand trailing to the pommel of his Zanpakutō. Ordinarily he wouldn't carry it around the palace on a casual basis. It stayed locked in his room, his only possession of any worth, at least to him.

With a variety of visitors arriving, however, Lumi had taken to arming himself. Arming himself more, at any rate. He still carried a gun under his jacket, in a shoulder holster. A revolver, it was just a simple mechanical pistol, Niflheim import, outfitted with a range of bullets, from Hollow Rounds to Shell Crackers, with one chamber empty for safety.

So, they both had reason to have an interest in Aizen, then. Their attendance wasn't simply a courtesy. The woman seemed to have some sort of connection to the Jyllandi anti-Hollow force, although Road suggested that it was an on-again, off-again one, currently in the negative. The Noah had a personal interest in Hollows, and the killers of such.

She had sidestepped Tyki's question, but neither of the Noah had answered hers either, instead choosing to employ mocking levity.

With neither revealing a reason, they either had something to hide, or felt the need to keep the scales of power balanced without giving anything away, even if it was information of no real consequence.

[hellsingsforyou]

Alucard grinned at the man, although it was more like a flash of teeth from a guard dog than a real grin, however much genuine amusement there was behind it.

"Akuma taste like shit," he replied. He didn't add that he had more teeth than bullets; Alucard preferred to shoot his targets, but there were plenty of times when a solid bite had been just the pick up he needed. "I prefer living prey."

[lesstravelled]

Road gave a singing hum and lounged back in her chair, looking like she owned the place. "She might like Aizen," she said, looking at Tyki with a nasty smirk spreading across her face. "They're both hypocrites with monsters in their basements."

Employing monsters to kill monsters. Road doubted Integra knew about the Arrancar, or their nature; that sort of information didn't spread easily. Alucard wasn't exactly a secret, but his true nature was, and yet here they'd been, presuming the Hellsing's prime weapon against Akuma enjoyed destroying Akuma.

And now it turned out he was a killer, no matter what he was killing, or would be, if Integra let him. She definitely had a hold over him. Road wondered what it was, and how easy it would be to break.

[hellsingsforyou]

Integra cast a watchful eye at Alucard, and went about making her cup of tea. It was going to be subpar, but Integra roughed it better than people expected her to, and terrible tea wasn't going to be the worst thing she'd ever drunk.

Alucard was trying to threaten the Noah. It wasn't likely to work, not against someone of Road's class, not with Alucard's full power sealed as it was.

The thought of Road Kamelot facing Alucard's true power was an entertaining one.

[intangibleman]

Tyki brushed some ash off his cuff and grinned at Road, amused. The comparison wasn't inaccurate, really. Integra kept this creature in her thrall somehow, either by way of a bargain or some sort of loyalty on his part, and Aizen had given his minions a power and had their dubious loyalty on account of that, almost like employment.

This guy was a monster and a half. Prey? As if he was a predator? There were rumours that Alucard was of one of a selection of Überwaldean lines, and their famous Kekkei Genkai... could that be true? He'd mentioned biting as a joke, he wasn't entirely sure how true that would be. It seemed as though it was an accurate rumour, and that he wasn't a member of the League of Temperance.

"Maybe it'll be the start of a beautiful alliance," Tyki said, amused sarcasm oozing from every word. "Assuming Aizen ever gets out of prison."

[thesilentstorm]

Lumi blinked.

He knew that 'akuma' was a regional word for Hollow. There were a lot of different terms. Hollow, Fiend, Akuma, Daemon... undoubtedly there would be others. But ... the newcomer sounded like he'd bitten one. Or did so regularly enough to have an opinion on the taste.

More than that, he ... preferred live prey. Was that animals? Or people? Lumi wasn't about to judge either way, he was a contract killer. He killed people for money, what did he care if somebody else killed them for ... what, food? It was strange to hear somebody describe people as 'prey', if that's what he was describing, but it gave an indication of the potential for aggression.

Lumi doubted it was enough to worry about.

In the distance, he felt the reiatsu of somebody moving about. He gave a silent sigh. He wanted to lurk about, taking in information without putting himself in there, but the time had to come to go into the room. He did rather want that coffee as well.

Fortunately, they wouldn't know that he could understand Jyllandi. If they were ignorant enough, and he didn't mind at all if that was the case, they could speak around him. At least then nobody would see him listening at doorways.

He put a hand on the door and pushed it open.

[hellsingsforyou]

Integra tapped the spoon on the edge of her cup. It lacked the satisfying high pitched ting of metal against a china cup, but no matter.

The first indication something was off was the sound of the door opening. Every one of Integra's senses screamed at her that there was no one there. Alucard could keep himself completely hidden, but he only ever used it before he was about to ambush something. He knew better than to use it on her.

It was only Alucard's presence that stopped her dropping her cup and reaching for a gun. Instead she turned her sharp gaze to the door. Alucard was between her and whatever it was, anyway.