Title: Red
Summary: "Red. It was red, red everywhere." The war had gone on for far too long, and it was up to Sir Integra Hellsing to put an end to the Major's insanity.
Pairings: mild AlucardxIntegra, also can be seen as a purely platonic relationship if you're not a fan of this pairing. SerasxIntegra friendship/comradeship
Warnings: Spoilers abound for the manga up to the end.
Disclaimers: Hellsing is owned Hirano Kouta. If I had his art skills and his license I'd be off making my own Hellsing anime instead of penning down my daydreams in the form of fanfics.
A/N: This is meant to be a prelude to a fic which I have yet to post, though in a way it is also my version of Hellsing's final ending (yes, I've read the end, but I won't spoil it... much). I'm racing against time to get this up before Chapter 95 is translated, though I'm sure that news has started leaking out already. Forgive me for any OOC-ness encountered because this is my first fic in this fandom, and I'm still feeling my way around here. This follows every event in the manga, however things start deviating from mid-Chapter 93, 94-ish, though I've made use of certain aspects from the more recent chapters.
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Key:
"Speech"
"Thought-speech"
Thought
German translations can be found at the bottom of the page.
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Red (Part I of III).
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Red. There was nothing but red; the red of blazing fire, the red of the rising sun, the red of flowing blood.
She blinked away the crimson haze that engulfed her vision and stared into the unholy visage of that goddamned Major, who was grinning smugly behind his barrier of glass.
"That bastard Doc, he made the glass too strong," the man chuckled. "I'm sure even the little vampire mädchen would be hard pressed to break it, don't you agree, Sir Hellsing?"
Integra glared, pausing to swipe of the new trails of blood that flowed from the wound above her eye and threatened to clog her vision again. She looked into his eyes, alight with the excitement that the battlefield brought, and felt that she had never wanted another man's death more than his. Her cerulean eyes were a contrast to his, icy and assessing as they zoomed in upon the cobwebbed pattern at the top of the barrier.
"Fire, Seras!" she ordered and pointed, the gesture as strong and swift as an arrow released from the bow. "Finish him! Search and destroy, Seras Victoria!"
"Yes, Sir!" the young draculina obeyed her commander by extending her shadow arm through the metal floor of the Zeppelin. A split second later, a hole was blasted open as she yanked a massive gun from the depths of the airship. Swinging it up as if it weighed no more than a normal pistol, Seras crouched and fired, and a thunderous boom rang out.
"Acht, acht," the Major laughed softly, delightfully, "88mm! Such an excellent choice! I love it!"
He would have said more, but the shell pierced through the barrier akin to the way a shaft of light pierced through water, hitting him square on his left torso. The thick glass around him shattered into a million pieces, and the downdraught of the bullet coupled with the impact of the hit raised a strong gust of air that scattered the crystalline slivers around the room. Seras leapt in front of Integra and extended her shadows around them both, while the latter merely surveyed the destruction with cool indifference.
"Well, it would look like the old warmonger still has a few tricks up his sleeves," the female knight observed.
The spot within the remains of the barrier was empty, save for a now-destroyed entrance to a passage that no doubt led to elsewhere on the zeppelin.
"What do we do now, Sir?" Seras asked, throwing the spent cannon over her shoulders and into the display monitors behind.
"Weren't you listening?" Integra replied with mild annoyance, though that might have been due to the numerous strands of blond hair that blew into her face. She deftly flicked them over her ear. "I said 'Search and destroy'. The mission has yet to be accomplished."
She turned, coattails flapping, and faced the burning doorway which marked their exit. Her right hand rested lightly on the hilt of her saber and a blackened cigar was clasped between the digits of her left. The cigar fell into the flames and was consumed without a trace.
"Follow me into the fires in of hell, Seras Victoria.
"And please try your best to keep up."
The vampire smiled, though there was a bittersweet twinge in her heart at those words which sounded so familiar and yet so foreign. "Yes, Sir!"
They sprinted through the flaming doorway and pass rooms that were collapsed or on the verge of being reduced to smoking cinders. Perhaps they would have shed some light on the enigma that was Millennium, but the pair had no eyes but for the way laid out before them and no time for frivolities such as the studying of the enemy's psyche. That could wait till after the battle, if there was anything left to study.
Only once did Integra pause. The knight stopped abruptly in the middle of the hallway, in front of a broken-down door that opened to reveal a small room. Sheets of papers covered the floor, over which lay many overturned cabinets and tables, mostly streaked with blood both old and new. The room was already in flames, and the smoke was getting too thick for either woman to see beyond the first few feet past the door. Still, perhaps through some form of sixth sense, they both knew what had transpired within.
"Walter…" a whispered name escaped from Integra's lips.
Seras turned anxious red eyes to her commander. "Sir Integra, did Mr. Walter… did he…?"
"Walter has passed on," Integra replied, staring steadfastly into the burning room despite the billowing smoke that poured from it. Her head wound was bleeding again, but she did not seem to notice.
Seras allowed her lower lip to tremble before she quashed the torrent of feelings that threatened to escape her.
"Yes, he did," she answered quietly, ignoring the red streaks than ran down the drawn face of her superior; ignoring the fact that the flowing blood was mixed with something else that traced shinning paths from that pair of pale blue eyes. "We should go."
"Wait."
That uncharacteristic hesitation brought Seras to a startled halt. But the unformed question in her mind was answered when she saw Integra dash into the room and reemerge staggering slightly while clutching a black case. The older woman's nimble fingers danced over the number-lock, scrolling through the combinations with a practiced a fluid motion, and soon Seras' sharp ears picked up a 'click'.
"This…!" Her words were interrupted by a gasp, and Integra seemed to be similarly surprised, though she also donned a satisfied expression as if she had predicted the contents of the case.
Lying on a cushioned surface in the box was a magnificent gun, black as the night and gleaming like the rays of the moon. It was long, around thirty-nine centimeters, and Seras did not need another look to also know that it would weigh sixteen kilograms, with a 13mm caliber and that it was capable of loading six rounds within its chambers. After all, it was the exact gun that she had grown accustomed to seeing, wielded by her Master. She was sure that Integra was aware of the gun's identity.
The only thing in stark contrast with the gun that she knew was that this one was as dark as obsidian and equally unmarred. There was nothing of the words "Jesus Christ is in Heaven now" that should have been engraved on its side.
"How?" she wondered aloud. "I thought it had been destroyed when Master fought Mr. Walter…?"
"Precisely," Integra answered simply. She raised a gloved hand. In it was a cracked device that resembled a remote control. Her thumb underlined a single button with the word "JACAL" printed beside it. "It makes me wonder how long has Walter been in cahoots with Millennium.
"The gun that your Master had was custom-made by Walter, and I never thought to question whether he might have snuck in another self-destructing chip into it. Of course, I never stopped to wonder then if my faithful butler was collaborating with the enemy on the sly. It cost Alucard his favourite weapon, and his quick victory in their fight."
Seras chose to ignore the fact that Integra had not mentioned that it also cost her Master his life. But then she didn't want to admit it either.
"Millennium made Master's gun," she realised. "And if that gun was destroyed by them…"
"Yes," Integra replied grimly. "This is the real Jackal. What they gave Alucard was a mere imitation, as it is with everything they have created."
The platinum-blond-haired woman bent down and lifted the gun with some difficulty. She slid an accompanying magazine into it and strapped it to her side holster. Seras stepped forward tentatively but fell back again when Integra glanced at her and shook her head.
"Let's go, we've wasted enough time as it is."
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End Part I.
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Translation:
mädchen - girl
acht - eight
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A/N: Hope that didn't turn out too badly. This started off as a one-shot, but I decided to split it into 3 parts for easier reading. The Major has no accent because I can't write them without making them sound too cheesy, not to mention unintelligible. And the reappearance of the Jackal is important, because it plays a key role in this ficverse of mine (yes, I know that I am bad, taking advantage of Hirano-sensei's romanji translation like that).
Tell me what you think, bitte recht?
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-Resident Quetzal