Blood Red Moon Part 6: Castle Center

     This is a crossover fanfic including the characters from Tenchi Muyo, and
CastleVania, more specifically, the newest version out for the N64.  All
characters belong to their respective copyrights, and I take no credit for
them beyond their usage in this story.  Comments, quips, insults, flames, and
death threats can be sent to Platinum_Dragon@usinternet.com
     This is based on the OVA characters in the Tenchiverse - but don't be
surprised if you hear one or two TV references.  The original concept came
when I noticed that Carrie Fernandez sort of resembles Ryoko in powers and
looks, save that Carrie is only twelve.
     In the last episode, Reinhart and Ryo-Ohki were separated from Tenchi and
Carrie as they slid down a chute under the vampire's coffin.  Reinhart and
Ryo-Ohki broke through into a cavern, filled with the hypnotic spider-women,
while Tenchi and Carrie ended up in the sewer.
     Tenchi and Carrie made their way through the sewers, even though the
water was poisoned to where a single drop would have killed them.  At the end,
they went through a door, and met Actrise, an evil witch, who taunted Tenchi
with an implied promise that if he served Dracula, he would get Ryoko as a
reward.  After she left, Tenchi felt a little ill, but they continued on.
     Meanwhile, Reinhart and Ryo-Ohki evaded the spider-women by getting onto
a tram, and riding it.  While they waited to reach their destination, Reinhart
thought about how he had met Carrie, and gotten the holy whip of the Belmonts.
When he arrived at his destination, he also found a doorway.
     However, when Reinhart went through, he found Rosa, who had disappeared
on the evening he was going to propose to her.  On that same night,
Castlevania rose from the sea.  Rosa tried to kill herself by stepping into
the sunlight coming in through a window, but Reinhart stopped her.  After
sobbing into his shoulder for a time, he swore to her that he would find a way
to reverse the curse on her, and she returned before it was discovered she was
missing.

*****

     Tenchi and Carrie entered the castle proper after Actrise disappeared.
Slowly, they explored their new surroundings.  There were no cob-webs here,
the metal was polished and clean.  Heavy metal girders formed the most of the
place, with supports sprinkled around.  The first room that they found was
locked, and marked Torture Chamber.
     "Do you hear that?" asked Carrie suddenly.  Tenchi listened, and heard
the rhythmic clicking of footsteps approaching.  He placed his finger to his
mouth, and she nodded.  Tenchi raised his sword, and brought the blade to
life.  The footsteps drew closer, until suddenly, Tenchi darted around the
corner and sliced down.
     "A little tense, Tenchi?" asked Reinhart lightly.  Lightly considering
that the edge of Tenchi's blade was roughly one millimeter away from slicing
his nose down the middle.  Tenchi laughed, and let the blade disappear.
Carrie hugged him, while Ryo-Ohki jumped up to Tenchi's shoulder.  She sniffed
at Tenchi for a moment, and looked uncertain, but eventually settled down.
     "What happened to your ear?" asked Carrie, noticing that Reinhart's right
ear was one big scab.  Reinhart chuckled, and gave Ryo-Ohki a little pat on
the head.
     "Long story.  Suffice to say that Ryo-Ohki makes a damn fine alarm clock,
even if the method is a little painful."
     "Miya!"  Rejoined, they continued to explore the place.  They came to one
double door, and went through it.  Inside was a huge chamber, what looked like
an arena of some kind.  In the center, a ram seven times the biggest Tenchi
had ever seen lay dead.  Past it, they saw a badly cracked way, but there was
a circle filled with hundreds of symbols.  Carrie walked up a little closer,
and spoke a short chant.  The circle began to glow a deep purple.
     "It's a seal of power that I have never seen before.  There's nothing
that I can do that would even scratch it."
     "I'd bet that a good blast would knock that wall under it down," said
Reinhart.
     "10-1 odds on what that seal is there to protect against," answered
Tenchi.  They turned, and walked back to the door they came through.
Backtracking, they turned down a different corridor, and found another door.
Shrugging, they opened it, and were attacked by three vampires.
     Five minutes and three ash piles later, they went up the stairs across
the room.  This new door opened into a room with a large, heavy duty lift in
the middle, and assorted gears and pulleys around it.  On one side of the
room, there were several huge storage tanks, and on the other, a tall statue
of a beautiful, winged, nude woman.  It was exquisitely crafted, down to the
last detail, a fact which made Reinhart and Tenchi a little uneasy.
     Carrie walked up to it, to take a closer look.  As she approached it,
blood suddenly started to well from her eyes.  Just a few drops at first, but
then a stream which ran down the statue's front.  Carrie backed away as it
poured off the pedestal the statue stood on, and flowed straight for her.
     The pool of blood stretched and grew, taking on a man-like shape.  It
leaned back, and she jumped backward as it spit a gob of blood at her.  It
landed on the floor with a sizzle.  She charged up a magic blast, and fired
it, but the blood man just dropped back into a pool of blood, and the shot
went high.
     "Hey, how about some help here!" she called, as the thing attacked again.
Reinhart came running from the other side of the room, where they had been
inspecting the tanks.  Reinhart tried whipping it, but the whip merely
splashed through the blood.  It spit another blood gob at him, and this time
she noticed that it seemed a little smaller.
     "Let it attack you!" she shouted.  Reinhart looked at her in surprise,
but let it waste a shot, dancing back and fourth into and out of its range.
With each shot, it became a little smaller.  Finally, when it was roughly
three quarters the size it started at, it plopped down into a pool form.
Slowly, the blood drained away.
     "That was... unusual," said Reinhart.  Carrie shrugged.
     "You just can't get good help in Hell these days."  Reinhart stared at
her in surprise.
     "You know, I think that's the first time I've ever heard you make a
joke?"  She shrugged again, and went over to the statue again, inspecting it.
Under the blood, there was a metal plate.  It was badly scratched, but the
beginning of it was readable.
     "Gold is the color of Venus, sec-"  That was all she could read.  She
turned to Reinhart, and was about to say something when they heard Tenchi
shout in pain.  Looking at each other, they ran over to him.  Tenchi was
laying on the floor, curled into a ball, but he was crying aloud, and
convulsions wracked his body.  Reinhart knelt next to him, and touched his
shoulder.  Tenchi screamed as Reinhart came in contact with him.  He jumped
back as if scalded.
     Slowly, the convulsions stopped, and Tenchi unfolded himself, slowly
pushing himself to his feet.  Carrie gasped when Tenchi looked at her.  Very
dimly, his eyes had begun to glow.
     "Oh no," she said softly.

*****

     "It's gone too long," said Reinhart quietly.  "The purifying crystals
won't work."  Tenchi stared at him dully.  "I don't understand how it infected
you so quickly from just a scratch."
     "Fairly simple, I would think.  You live in a world with vampires, which
means that you have a natural resistance to their curse.  I don't, so there
was nothing to slow it down."  Reinhart nodded.  The logic was cold, hard, and
simple.
     It was also all but a death sentence for Tenchi.
     "Well Tenchi, it's up to you.  There's nothing that I can do to slow it
down.  At this rate, you will be a vampire by nightfall."  He looked at
Reinhart and Carrie both.
     "I swore that I wouldn't stop until I saved Ryoko, and damn it I won't."
Tenchi clenched his fist.  Carrie and Reinhart looked at each other.
     "There's another problem, Tenchi.  The further the curse takes you, the
easier it will be for Dracula to take control of you."  Tenchi looked at him.
     "Reinhart, you've just told me we have less than one day until I become a
vampire.  We don't have time to add worries.  We have to get moving."
Grabbing his shirt and coat, he strode toward the ramp that led to the next
level.  They exchanged another uneasy look, and followed him.
     "Two doors," he said when they reached the next floor.  "Let's split up.
I'll go this way, you go through the other door," directed Tenchi.  Neither
Reinhart or Carrie really thought about arguing, and when Tenchi set Ryo-Ohki
on the floor, they understood what he was trying to do.  Separate himself from
them.

*****

     "How could it have happened, Reinhart?" asked Carrie as they walked
through the passage.  He shrugged, uncomfortable.
     "I don't know Carrie.  It shouldn't have, certainly never gotten as far
as it is without one of us noticing the symptoms in time to purify him."  They
moved slowly through the lit corridors, which were lined with suits of golden
armor, and had red carpeting.
     "Miya?"  Carrie bent to pick up Ryo-Ohki and stroke her fur, guessing
what her question was.
     "I don't know, Ryo-Ohki.  We've never seen the curse spread so fast
before."
     "Miya..."
     "You know, he loves Ryoko," said Reinhart suddenly.  Carrie looked at him
wryly.
     "I'm curious, but have you only just figured that out?  You can see it in
his eyes, hear it in his voice when he talks about her."  Reinhart shrugged.
     "In any event, I think that might be enough to help him hold it off.  The
curse, I mean.  You've seen it, haven't you?  He's so determined to do it...
I don't think that I'd want to be standing in his way," he said, and Carrie
looked at him.
     "I hope he can hold on, Reinhart.  Because if Dracula does get control of
Tenchi, you and I both won't be able to stop him."  Reinhart stopped, and
looked at her, a grim look on his face.  He knew what she meant, if not in the
same way.  Reinhart had seen Tenchi's eyes when Ryoko had first been taken
too.  If that rage could be turned and directed to something else, nothing
would be able to stop Tenchi, let alone Dracula.

*****

    Tenchi moved down the hallway, lost deeply in thought.  In less than eight
hours, he would be a vampire.  Raising his hands and noticing the more and
more pale tones, he realized that he probably already was partly.  The thing
was, he found that he wasn't as worried about that as he should have been.  He
knew that somehow, he'd end up making it through, just like he always did.
     What did worry him was the seething anger he could feel building within
him.  Tenchi was almost never as mad as the rage he could feel rising deep
within.  And the more he thought about Ryoko, about what was happening around
him, the more the fury built.  Tenchi didn't want to know what would happen
when it finally burst through.  And he knew that it would.  No matter what
calming techniques he tried, no matter what exercises he did, it kept rising.
     Tenchi followed along the hallway, ignoring most of the doors that he
saw.  For some reason, he knew where he was going.
     When he opened the door and found two vampires waiting, a little of the
rage seething within him bubbled over.  Drawing Tenchi-ken in a flowing
movement, he proceeded to slice the vampires into little cubes.  Faster than
what should have been possible, Tenchi carved the vampires to pieces.  When he
finally forced himself to stop, all that was left were scattered chunks of all
ready rotting flesh.
     Tenchi didn't realize it, but he had already gained a vampire's speed and
snake-like grace.  Added to his own already incredible speed and precision,
there was very little that would be able to stand in his way.

*****

     Reinhart and Carrie returned to the room with the blood statue with a
very precious cargo.  A small bottle of Magical Nitro, deadly unstable.  They
slowly carried it into the arena room, and set it before the wall.  With it
safely out of their hands, they backed up.
     "If what that poor soul told us was true, than when this explodes, it
will knock down the wall.  But we need to disable the seal," said Reinhart.
     In the chambers above, they had found what they at first thought was one
of the evil denizens of the castle.  A creature that was a lizard with the
size and the shape of a man.  It came as a great surprise when he had begged
them not to kill him, as he was a human, that had been changed into that
terrible form.
     He had told them on a strange product that could only be made in the
castle, called Magical Nitro.  When hit by a blast of power, it set off a huge
explosion, powerful enough to knock most anything down.  Telling them where to
find the Nitro, he had wished them luck.
     When they found the Magical Nitro, they had also found Malus.  The Nitro
was stored in a room with two entry ways and a shelf that ran the length of
the room.  They were on one side, and Malus was on the other.
     "Malus!  What are you doing here?  I thought you had escaped this place!"
Malus looked at her, surprised.
 "Escape?  This place??  Why?"  The boy had shaken his head then, and asked
them if they had come to kill Dracula, avenge his friends and parents.  When
they had sworn to do so, his demeanor had changed suddenly.  He had told them
that it was not possible, and that all had to bow down before the dark lord.
That the entire world would be taken to a place where the accursed light would
never again shed its painful embrace upon them.  After that, he had run away,
leaving them to wonder after him, and what he had been saying.
     Carefully, Carrie had carried the highly unstable Nitro, while Reinhart
fended off the attackers that seemed to pop out of the wood work.  Once, she
almost tripped, but at the last second caught herself.  If she had of, the
mixture would have exploded, destroying most of the room, not to mention them.
     While they were still trying to decide what to do about the seal, an orb
of light floated by them, and into the center of the seal.  A disk of light
began to blaze forth, as the disk expanded to cover the whole seal.  When it
died off, the seal was gone.  They looked at each other, and laughed.
     "Tenchi!" they both said at the same time.  Ryo-Ohki hopped down from
Carries shoulder.  She lined up with the bottle, and fired a beam of red light
at it.  The Nitro exploded, the concussion blast throwing them all backwards,
nearly to the dead ram.  When the dust settled, there was a great hole where
the wall had been, behind which a gigantic crystal floated, and around it,
hordes of treasure.
     Looking at each other and grinning, they jogged over towards it.  Only
mildly surprised were they when Tenchi suddenly raced into the room.  He
covered the distance between the door and them in almost no time at all.
Reinhart recognized that Tenchi had already gained the vampire's speed, which
meant that the curse was spreading still faster than he had thought.
     "Nice of you to join us, Tenchi."  He smiled grimly, and Reinhart
swallowed slightly when he saw the very tips of two fangs poking out from
Tenchi's mouth.  The curse was spreading very, very much faster than he had
thought, and he wondered if the rage had yet begun building in him.
     The vampire's rage was the second to last step in becoming a vampire.  As
the peak of the curse approached, a burning, insatiable rage began to build.
When the curse finally took true hold of the victim, the rage that had been
building exploded, and the new vampire went into a crazed bloodlust.  Anything
near it almost inevitably died.  He signaled Carrie over, and quietly told
her.  She nodded, and looked at Tenchi with pity, but told him she would watch
for signs of it.
     They moved toward the crystal.  Carrie studied it for a moment, and then
dug through the gold and jewels, until she revealed a smaller version of the
huge crystal.
     "The magic of the crystal there is blocked by the one here," she said.
"I'm going to release it, so be ready for anything."  She touched her hands to
the crystal, and muttered a short incantation.  It glowed brightly for a
moment, and then the huge one began to brighten and darken in a slow, steady
tempo.  Before they left the little enclosure, they looked through the rest of
the gold and jewels.  Carrie found one of Renon's contracts.
     "I wonder if he would know of a way to cure Tenchi?" asked Reinhart
suddenly.  They looked at the contract.   "Only one way to find out, I guess."
Reinhart leaned down, and touched the contract.
     "Good afternoon."  They all jumped in surprise as Renon spoke.  Turning,
they saw the demon standing just behind them, briefcase in hand.  "May I help
you?"  Tenchi stepped forward, and Renon shook his head.
     "My my, and so young too.  The transformation is nearly complete, ah,
Tenchi, if I have my Japanese right.  Ah, well, I'm afraid that this place
does have a tendency to do that to a person."  Reinhart cleared his throat.
     "We want to know if there is anything that you know of that could help
him, or even a fully transformed vampire," he said.  Renon looked at him
slyly, and Reinhart understood that the demon salesman knew.
     "Well, as I said, I deal in useful things, and sometimes more.  I suppose
that I could sell information.  But it would be costly."  Reinhart swept his
hand across the treasure they stood on.  Renon frowned, and looked at them.
     "Are you sure that you wish to pay for my services using this?"  They all
nodded, and so Renon sighed, and snapped his fingers.  Several chairs
appeared, and he motioned them to sit.
     "It is said that, though light kills vampires, that a pure light, one
that does not come from the sun, nor from any other normal light source, can
push out the curse, even if it has fully taken over a body.
     "Now, it isn't too clear as to just how this light is produced.  Some
demons say that it can't be made, others whisper of a time just before Chaos
when it existed.  One thing is certain, though.  Though this light may cure a
relatively new vampire, I'd say no more than a month old, an extremely old
one, such as Dracula, it might, and I say might, might permanently erase."
     The three of them looked at each other.  The task seemed impossible, and
once again Tenchi found himself resigned to his fate, and that the rage
continued to build. Renon stood, and looked at his watch.
     "If there is nothing else that you will be needing me for?"  He backed
away a little, and paused.  "One more piece of advice for you.  Remember well
that nothing here is as it seems."
     "What's the price for that?" asked Carrie.  Renon smiled.
     "On the house, my dear." With that, he disappeared.  They looked at each
other uneasily, and then moved toward the exit.  Ryo-Ohki looked at Tenchi for
a moment, and then leapt up onto Carrie's shoulder.  Tenchi glanced at the
cabbit, ruefully.
     "I don't blame you, Ryo-Ohki.  I wouldn't want to ride on a vampire's
shoulder either."  Exiting the room, they backtracked, and went into the room
where the three vampires had met them.
     "Rosa!" exclaimed Carrie and Reinhart at the same time.  The young woman
stood in the middle of the room, holding a long sword, looking at the ground.
     "I see that you didn't take my advice, Master Tenchi, and were infected.
I hope that you can accept life as a vampire," she said.  Tenchi looked away,
his hand curled into a fist.  "Do you still intend to go to fight Dracula?"
All three answered yes at the same time.   Rosa looked up at them, then,
sadly.
     "I had hoped you would have changed your mind by now, would have come to
your senses and gone back to enjoy what was left of your lives.  But Dracula
is my master, and he gives me no choice."  She raised the sword.  Carrie and
Tenchi both understood, and sadly raised their weapons.
     "No!" shouted Reinhart.  He stepped forward, putting his hand out.  "Do
not fight her."
     "Reinhart?" asked Carrie.  He looked at her for a moment, and finally she
nodded, stepping back.  Tenchi fell into a crouch, with his head between his
knees.  She put a hand on his shoulder, and he gripped it with his own.  She
knew that he was fighting his own battle.   Reinhart stepped forward, and
unfurled his whip.
     "Please Rosa, don't make me fight you.  I swore to you that I'd find a
way."  She looked at him, with tears in her eyes.
     "I have no choice, Reinhart," she said softly, raising the sword.
Reinhart took his stance for battle, and they faced off.  Rosa was the first
to strike.  She thrust forward with the blade, and he dodged to the side,
snapping the whip as he did.  The lash took her on the shoulder, and he winced
as he heard her cry out.  Back and forth they battled, Reinhart feeling every
blow that he landed on her form two fold.
     Finally, Rosa fell to her knees, and dropped the sword.  Looking up at
him with tears shimmering unshed in her eyes, she begged him without words to
finish her.  Slowly, Reinhart's hand came up, but before he struck, he dropped
the whip from his hand.
     "No.  I cannot.  God help me, but I can not strike her down, though it is
by my blood that I must."  Suddenly, the air behind her darkened, and became a
tall figure.  It wore a long black robe, and a pair of black wings extended
from his back.  His face was a skull.  In his hands, a long, curved sickle.
     "Death."  The specter laughed, and floated a little closer, his dread
black cloak only a little above the ground.  Reinhart shivered as Death
stretched his hand slowly forward, but resolved to stand his ground.  A bare
inch from his face, Death stopped, and laughed again, the sound of dry bones
snapping, of ancient gods weeping.
     "My old friend commanded me to not destroy you yet.  A sign of respect to
his ancient foes, the Belmonts."  With that, Old Grim floated back, and laid
his hand on Rosa's shoulder.
     "He is not yet done with this one, so I can not let you have her.  We
shall meet again, son of the Belmonts."  Laughing again, he disappeared,
taking Rosa with him, her eyes still full of tears, still pleading, and now
accusing.  As her form faded completely, Reinhart fell to one knee, his fist
pressed into the ground.  Carrie patted Tenchi's back, and then pulled her
other hand from his grip, and walked out to where Reinhart knelt.
     "You could have no more killed her than I could have killed my mother, or
Tenchi kill Ryoko.  You'll get your chance to save her," she said.  He looked
at her.
     "She should never have been here in the first place.  This is twice I've
failed her," he said, but he retrieved his whip, and stood.  Tenchi joined
them, and Ryo-Ohki followed at their heels as they walked up the steps to the
room with the stone goddess in it.
     "Actrise!" shouted Carrie.  The witch stood in the center of the room,
dressed in the same gray as before.
     "Have you thought over you choice?  Although I see the young man has made
up his mind, hasn't he?"  Carrie touched Tenchi's shoulder, and he nodded.
She stepped forward.
     "Never.  Never will I submit to Dracula, not today nor a thousand years
from now, just as no Fernandez ever has, just as Tenchi has not.  You know
nothing witch."  Actrise laughed.
     "Such rudeness in a young girl is unbecoming, but I am not your enemy
today."  She turned toward a dark corner.  "It seems that you know less than
you think."  Carrie looked into the corner, and suddenly felt it.  A power
that matched her own in every sense of the word.
     "She was a Fernandez too, a warrior who came long before you to fight
Dracula."  Actrise turned her gaze back to Carrie, and smiled darkly.  "We
took her alive, and turned her into a vampire.  Ah, she struggled deliciously
so at first, but now she is like all others, hungry only for the sweet taste
of the blood."  Actrise disappeared, and the Fernandez vampire came forward.
     Carrie grimly raised her hand, as did the vampire.  Then, the magic
battle began.  They fired blasts back and forth at each other, some of which
exploded against shields, some of which exploded against another blast.  Magic
spells flew faster than the eye could follow, and the whole room began to
tingle with the power.
     After throwing everything in her knowledge, and even inventing a few
attacks as the battle progressed, Carrie could feel her stores of magic
beginning to fail.  With her last ounces of strength, she created one huge
blast, pouring everything she had into it, even letting her shield die off.
The magic sphere was nearly as big as her, and she felt like she was about to
burst at the seams with the immense power she held.
     With one last heave of energy, she fired the ball forward.  The vampire
turned her attention to stopping it, but Carrie already knew it was to late.
The energy blast smashed through the vampire's shield, and threw the woman
across the room.  Slowly, she got to her feet, and took a step forward.
Carrie stared in amazement as she walked forward, and to Carrie.  She could do
nothing.  The last blast had totally drained her.
     The vampire leaned down, and whispered softly, "Thank you, sister."
Then, she slowly dissolved away into some kind of glittering dust which blew
away, even though there was no wind in the room.
     Carrie collapsed from sheer exhaustion.

*****

     Here is a preview of the next chapter.
     "Fight it Tenchi!  We're almost there!" shouted Reinhart, as he and
Carrie ran down the corridor.  Tenchi ran behind them, his eyes blazing red in
the dim light of the corridor.  Tenchi's fangs stood out from his mouth, and
sweat was pouring down his face.
     Reinhart knew that even Tenchi's will power could not hold him back much
longer.  If they didn't find a room that had some werewolves in it, Tenchi
would rip him, Carrie, and Ryo-Ohki apart in the bloodlust that marked his
final transformation into a vampire.
----------------------------------

Love that C&C folks.  Be brutal.

---
The Platinum Dragon
"The rising sun will eventually set,
  a newborn's life will fade.
  From sun to moon, moon to sun,
  Give peaceful rest to the living dead." - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of
Time
http://dragonsanime.dreamhost.com - Dragon's Masaki Shrine of Tenchi Muyo
Proud Member of the Ryoko Forever Fan Club