All disclaimers and warnings contained in the first chapter.

A/N: You knew it had to happen.

PRELUDE TO WAR

Part Five - Balance of Power

Kurama woke, very briefly, just as the sun was rising. Hiei was carefully rearranging his mate's limbs in order to leave the bed. Kurama made a soft sound of protest, sticking out his lip slightly. Hiei chuckled and pecked him on the forehead.

"The vampires are bedding down. Go back to sleep, fox. I'll keep watch."

A callused hand brushed through his hair, strands snagging on the roughness of the palm. Kurama didn't mind. He let out a soft, incoherent sound of assent and an only slightly clearer, "bhh c'fhhl" before settling back into sleep. Hiei allowed himself to smile for a moment and watched his mate's lax face - there were marks on it from creases in the pillow.

Shaking his head slightly, Hiei stood and donned his cloak.

Alucard had just settled into his coffin when he felt a tickle of power wash over his senses. He closed his eyes leisurely, intending to reach for the Police Girl and taunt her into improving herself further. As soon as he opened himself to the touch of the power, however, all movement towards the Police Girl ceased.

There was someone on the roof, someone with power so great that were it to flare it would eclipse his own. Alucard stared with his mind into a power that tasted strongly of ice and fire, a power with eyes, and slammed the gates to his mind closed.

There was someone on the roof.

Alucard pushed the heavy lid to his coffin aside as though it was weightless. To him, it was. A snarl decorated his features as he considered his options briefly, liking none of them. As much as he loathed admitting it, he would require reinforcements. He closed his eyes, centred himself, and reached out more tentatively than he had in his life.

There was an answering flicker from the power above and then its eyes-and-ice touch skated over him, dismissing him as nothing. Snarl-lines appeared in the flesh around his mouth and, hating himself, he made himself small.

Integra. My Master!

Nothing.

INTEGRA.

Sleepy but paying attention. …What is it?

Swiftly, he related the situation to her. By the time he was finished, she was scrambling from her bed and dialling for Walter. Alucard himself had moved upward through three basements, not bothering to cloak his ascent. The other would sense his shielding more clearly than his movement. It would be… inconsistent, for a power to blink out suddenly.

Alucard rose, donning his precious sunglasses. His eyes narrowed hatefully as he passed through the roof and settled onto it, pale morning sunlight irritating him with its presence.

A demon sat near the edge of the slate roof of Hellsing Manor, legs crossed Indian-style. He glanced back at Alucard curiously, pale green elfin features bored. A large, glowing third eye was centred on his forehead, emitting a soft violet sheen of power. The two regular eyes on his face narrowed slightly.

"Do you guard well into the day?" Hiei asked, somewhat surprised. "I would have expected you to relax your duties while it's light."

Alucard smirked. "Did you think you could release that much power without attracting our attention?" He settled comfortably into a battle stance, facing the pale fingers of dawn. Hiei's eyes widened and then he smirked in return as Alucard's dark, throaty voice rang out over the slate rooftop. "Releasing control art restriction system to level one."

Kurama's eyes snapped open, entire body set hastily in stone. He stayed that way for the space of a heartbeat. Then green eyes froze and he whisked away from the bed, hair silvering, a tail flickering into existence.

In the twitch of an ear, he was gone.

Alucard's left arm peeled away from his body, scarlet eyes glittering in the lightless crack that appeared. The arm slowly dissolved into the blackness, as though the eyes ate their way down the arm, and the hand shaped itself into the head of a salivating hellhound. Its eyes rolled in ecstasy in anticipation of the battle to come.

Hiei barely had the time to stand as the hellhound launched itself at him - or at least, that's the way it should have happened.

Instead, Hiei rolled to the side, gaining his feet and blurring into motion in the blink of one of Alucard's many, many eyes. The dark streak that was the hellhound curved in midair to go after the new target. Alucard detached his right arm, black, void tentacles snaking after the speedy fire demon.

Hiei made a small sound halfway between a laugh and a snort of contempt. In a swirl of dark cloth - the cloak - he blurred to the side once more. Alucard heard the hollow click of a katana coming free of its sheath and let out a bark of laughter and surprise as searing lines of pain seethed along the shadowy morass of his familiar-extended arms, spatters of his blood decorating the slate and glimmering darkly amidst the dew.

Hiei's eyes were amused as he turned to face the vampire, katana still held before him. He flicked it to rid the steel of the sheen of Alucard's blood, settling into a ready stance with the blade held alongside his face, on level with his normally placed eyes. The third pulsed faintly and a smile widened his pale green lips. "You're undead. I can't touch your mind." Rather than concerned, he seemed pleased by this fact.

Alucard found himself staring at the fire demon's bare arms and torso. Similar to the shadows enshrouding the vampire, eyes were there. But unlike Alucard's, these eyes did not merely lurk in shadows, staring like the eyes of Death and unnerving his opponent. These eyes bulged from sickly green flesh, twitching toward movement, staring directly at the vampire himself, not through him. There were eyes down his forearms, marching in rows along his abdominal muscles and smoothing across his pectoral muscles. Each was large and glistening, as eerie a purple as the third-eye that blazed with power in Hiei's forehead.

Alucard grinned.

Kurama shimmied up a drainpipe and let out a grunt of effort as he pulled himself onto the roof. Golden eyes narrowed as he gained the slate slope and he clawed his way to his feet amidst the soft silver cloud of his hair.

Across the manor's considerable roof-scape, he saw Hiei and Alucard - or at least, what he assumed was Hiei and Alucard. Part of one of the figures was wearing a red coat, at least, and there was a green-and-black figure moving at speeds that nearly escaped even Youko Kurama's eyesight.

But not quite.

Over to the left, he saw Integra, Walter and Seras explode out of a stairwell armed with enough small explosives to take on half the population of Makai. Seras was holding a small cannon - a deceptive description, since its barrel was longer than she was tall. With a snarl of frustration, Kurama dashed across the roof to join them.

Seras saw him coming, of course, and let out a cry of anger and fear, raising an arm in warning.

But not to him, of course.

Kurama had a sudden sinking feeling.

Walter raised his hands, and tiny glimmering threads snapped through the air towards Kurama, whose eyes widened considerably. Though the old human whipped his hands and fingers back and forth like a puppet master, there was reiki in the movement of the tiny steel wires that extended from between the fingers of his gloves.

Fortunately for Kurama, the glow alerted him to the presence of the tiny razor wires - otherwise, he might have been sliced to ribbons. Instead, he threw himself to the side and raised a hand to his hair, automatically sending his youki into the seed he withdrew. "ROUZU UIPPU!"

He got as far as snapping the weapon into a ready stance between both of his pale, long-fingered hands before he thought, This is stupid.

He let go of the silver-haired form, flowing effortlessly back into the form of Shuichi Minamino - who was not wearing a shirt - and looking concerned.

Walter, Integra and Seras hesitated as he held up his hands and retracted the Rose Whip. "Yamete!" Kurama said, and blinked. My earring. His fists clenched as his mind frantically sought the words he needed. "Wait." He paused a moment longer. "I will stop Hiei."

This done, he reverted to Japanese, cupping his hands to his face and yelling across the rooftop. "Oi! Hiei!" The battle barely paused. Kurama scowled. "Hiei! Yamero! OI!"

The blur that was Hiei flickered briefly to a halt, and locked eyes with the redhead, who beckoned frantically. Hiei's eyes narrowed slightly.

In a flash of motion too fast for most to follow, he darted the length of the manor to his mate's side and stood with his katana at the ready, glaring at the impudent humans (and vampires) who dared to get his fox out of bed this early in the morning. He certainly was not expecting to receive a sharp cuff to the back of his head.

"Ow!"

Seras and Walter exchanged glances as Kurama ranted at the stunned Hiei in long, complex phrases of Japanese. Despite the language difficulty, they were both fairly sure they understood the gist of what Kurama was saying. Hiei did not look happy, clenching his fists and arguing back in equally furious Japanese.

Integra, who had been just about ready to retire for the day and as such was dressed in a nightdress and dressing gown, stared at the two demons for a moment and then said, slowly and clearly, "What the bloody hell is going on here?"

Both demons paused and glared at her. (This would have fazed any normal human, but Integra's glare was legendary and she was not about to take any second-rate death glares from demons.) So she glared back.

Kurama punched Hiei in the shoulder (causing the eye there to squeeze shut in pain) and crossed his arms, then - to their complete surprise - stuck out his hip and glared off sullenly into the distance. Hiei started to speak with a hint of gritted teeth in his tone.

"Kurama says that this was a mistake." He ground out. "I was taking watch when your idiotic vampire came out of the roof and challenged me, despite our alliance, with no warning or indication that this was merely a training session. So, I retaliated."

Alucard seemed to have a different story. "I was just getting comfortable when I sensed the rise in your power. I assumed you were challenging us."

Hiei's hands clenched on the hilt of his katana and he turned to Kurama and yanked on his hair viciously to get his attention. As he spoke bitterly in Japanese to the redhead, Walter leaned over to Seras. "They certainly don't act like centuries old demons, do they?"

Seras shot him a dirty look. "What is that supposed to mean?" She retorted, somewhat sensitive about the fact that people tended to regard her as childish.

Kurama replied to the shorter and currently greener demon rather curtly, then turned on his heel and marched over to the drainpipe he'd climbed to get to the roof. He grabbed it one-handed and swung himself over the edge. Seras watched, wide-eyed, until Hiei said grumpily, "He's going back to bed and he says I should apologise."

A pause.

"He also says that if we ever wake him up this early again over such a stupid mistake, he will take us and hang us from the cliffs of Gandara - which, for your information, is a region of Makai." He added shortly.

"I didn't think you spoke in long, complex sentences," Integra said blandly. Hiei glared at her, which unnerved her slightly - now the eyes all over his upper body were glaring, too.

"I'm translating," he said snappishly. "And now, I am resuming watch. Go back to your stupid human activities."

And so saying, he blurred back across the roof to his previous perch and sat down cross-legged on the slate. As the assembled humans and ex-humans watched, he swept the dark cloak back around his shoulders and closed the normal eyes.

Integra sighed slightly and hefted a large rifle back onto her shoulder, storming back into the stairwell without a word. Seras' sigh was a little heavier.

"I'm with Kurama on this one, Master." She said reproachfully. "I was just getting comfortable."

Alucard snorted and melted through the roof.

A/N: I know, I know, it was lame. The showdown between the eyes, however, was inevitable.

Oh, and in case you're wondering why Hiei's Jagan and various amplification eyes didn't cause both Walter and Integra to lose their marbles - well, he's much better at controlling the Jagan, now. This is set post mastering-the-Kokuryuuha, so he can do it. Nyaa. :feels oddly like Hirano-sensei maintaining that Anderson is fourth-dimensional:

Please review. :)