Written for Dreadnot in an icon challange meme. Usual disclaimers apply. Mangaverse. Spoilers for volume six.
It repeated through his head. Through both their heads. A morbid, macabre, mantra.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
They stared at each other, across the web of steel, blood sliding down the wires and dripping down to the street. His blood? The Captain's blood? Walter didn't really know.
Overhead, the Major's voice blared over the loudspeaker. He seemed to find this all terribly funny.
Which it probably was, Walter mused. If he were able to view it from a objective viewpoint. However, impending death tends to shut down one's ability to view things objectively.
The more things change
He had been young then. Brash. Arrogant. Same dress sense, if recalled correctly.
Then again, he had always had a strange sense of dress.
Of course, he could afford to be brash then. He was dragging along a coffin of mass destruction with him. And when things got bad, Alucard could just rise and take care of things.
However, he had been young and stupid, and somehow assumed that the solution would always be there.
Now he was old and wiser. And knew there was probably no way out.
He had been at the top of his game then, and he still couldn't beat the giant of a man.
Now he was old an out of practice.
The more they stay the same.
We had all been young and stupid once, Hans mused as he gripped Walter's wires. Even him. It was part of growing up.
Then again, some of us subvert that process.
Though he appeared to be the same man that fought the boy almost fifty-five years ago, nothing could be further from the truth.
The lack of an outside change belied the massive change within.
He had been frightening before. He had taken on vampires on his own. Now he was truly terrifying. He even terrified himself at times. No man should be able to do what he could do. And yet he could.
Whether he still could be considered a man or not, he would leave up to the philosophers. It was hardly his place. His place was to fight.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
A morbid, macabre mantra.
The two soldiers stared down at each other across the wires.
And far above, the fat man in the white suit laughed at the twist, the joy fate had brought him.