Blood Red Moon Resurrection Chapter 9:
     Pain of the Heart, Poison of the Soul

     Disclaimers: All characters belong to their various
copyrights, with the exception of Reinhart Masaki and Rosa Masaki.
Those two are mine.  Beyond their usage in this story, I claim no
ownership, no rights of creation, no nothing.  Please don't sue me.
Comments, quips, insults, and death threats will only be accepted
at Platinum_Dragon@usinternet.com
     The Tenchi Muyo Characters in this series are based on the OVA
versions, but don't be surprised if there aren't one or two TV
references.  The characters Carrie Fernandez, Alucard, Death,
Dracula, Maria Renard and Lisa all belong to the Konami Castlevania
series. This cross-over series is placed roughly 17 years in
Tenchi's world, 120 years in Alucard's world after the events in
Blood Red Moon.  Reinhart and Rosa Masaki, the children of Tenchi
and Ryoko, are now young teens.

     "To what profit is it to a man, if he gains the world and
loses his own soul?  Mathew 16:26 I believe." - Dracula, as he dies
at the end of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

*****

     Alucard stared impassively as Reinhart's cry slowly faded
away, the echoes bouncing off the walls. He recognized the spell
that Cain had used; the sphere of destruction was relatively
untaxing to magic reserves, yet absolutely deadly.  The power of
the spell still shimmered in the air.  Cain had taken no chances,
and charged it heavily to make certain that it would get through
any shielding.  That made Alucard wonder if Cain had as much
strength yet as his familiars thought.  Sheann'a slowly floated
back to him, face filled with sorrow.  He looked at her; she shook
her head, and settled onto his shoulder.
     Rosa moved to Reinhart's side, and placed a hand on his
shoulder.  He didn't move, except to brush it away.  She said
something to him quietly, too quietly for him to understand.
If he answered, she didn't make any sign of it.  Alucard looked
at Sheann'a, and spoke quietly.
     "You and Drathar are to take her from this place.  Her body
is not to rest here."  On the point of replying to him, she blinked
in surprise.
     "No, Alucard.  Your familiars will stay with you.  I will see
to it that she does not stay here."  Alucard looked in surprise
as Death appeared before them.  The specter turned to the fallen
form of Carrie, as Reinhart and Rosa looked at them.  Rosa raised
her hands, fireballs ready, but Alucard forestalled her.
     "What do you play at, Death?" he asked.  Death looked at him.
     "If Cain succeeds in destroying the Pendulum, then all is
lost.  You will fair better in your fight with their help than
without.  That, and the fact that I owe her a debt."  Alucard
frowned.
     "I do not believe you."  The specter frowned irritably.
     "Do you think for one moment, that if I did not wish you to
succeed, I would be here to help you now?  Or, for that matter,
that any of the Belmonts to the beginning of time would have ever
made it to Dracula?  I have been as much of a balance as you and
the Belmonts have ever been.  The dead are my realm.  Carrie
Fernandez will not rest here.  I swear this to you."  For a moment,
Alucard stared at him, and then Reinhart spoke softly.
     "You will swear to me that she will not stay here?"  Death
turned to him, and nodded.  Alucard looked at Reinhart, and saw,
in his eyes, the anger, and the loss.  He recognized it all too
well.  It boiled just under the surface, just short of bursting
through.  Rosa was looking at him in surprise, but he ignored
her.
     "Then take her from here.  I don't care if you are the devil
himself, if you have sworn that she won't stay here, I'll trust
you."  He raised his hand, and pointed at Death, his eyes going
hard.  The expression looked so wrong in that face, to Alucard's
eyes, yet after a moment he realized that it was fitting.  "But so
help me, if I find that you have lied, nothing will stop me from
finding you and taking you apart."  Death nodded, slowly, and there
was no doubt in Alucard's mind that Reinhart would fill that
threat.
     Reinhart turned back to Carrie's lifeless form, and gently
smoothed a hand over her hair.  He bent down, and kissed her
carefully on the cheek.  Then, slowly he picked up her staff, and
stood.  For a moment, the carven staff glowed brightly blue, and
then the light disappeared.  Death moved forward.
     "Wait," said Alucard.  "Reinhart... I believe that she said
she had found a spell that may help us.  If I can study it, I may
be able to cast it myself."  He looked at him.
     "What do you need?"
     "Sypha's spellbook."  He nodded, and retrieved it from her
pack.  The book glowed brightly to his eyes; so charged with
magical power that it had achieved a form of sentience.  Then,
Reinhart moved aside, holding onto the staff so tightly that his
knuckles were white.  Death carefully lifted her body.
     "Do not worry.  I will see to it that she goes to where she
belongs."  Reinhart nodded, and made a visible effort to loosen
his grip on the staff.  Alucard caught the ancient specter on the
shoulder before he disappeared.
     "You have never before acted this concerned over a mortal's
life or death."  Death looked at him for a moment.  There was an
almost sorrowful expression there, a sense of great age.
     "Even I can become tired of my existence.  You, of all beings,
should understand that."  The ancient specter shrugged him off, and
disappeared.  Reinhart drew near, that seething rage burning in his
eyes, and handed him the spell book.  Alucard wondered if he would
be able to control that anger when the time came.
     "Reinhart... I-" started Rosa.  He shook his head, looking
at her.
     "Later, Rosa.  After we have finished what we came to do.
Then, when we have time."  She frowned at him sadly, but nodded.
Alucard thought about saying something, but realized that to do so
would likely, only add to the pain.  Instead, he opened the spell
book.  The words swirled about for a moment; magical protection
from unwanted readers.  He frowned, and sensing his mood, the book
stopped trying to hide its secrets, and the spell came forward.
Sheann'a leaned forward.
     "I remember when Sypha penned this book.  She was always so
protective of her more powerful spells," she said, looking over
what had appeared.  "Hmm...  This looks like a summoning spell."
She pointed.  "See, there is the activation dweomer, and the
summoning name...  Oh my god."  Reinhart and Rosa looked at them,
as Alucard slowly closed the book.
     "What is it?" asked Rosa.  He looked at her.
     "A spell which would have summoned one of the most powerful
beings to ever live.  My father, Count Dracula."  Reinhart and Rosa
looked at each other in surprise.
     "Would it have worked?" asked Reinhart slowly.  Alucard
frowned.
     "I do not know.  For sheer power, certainly, but the trade
off would have been Dracula's return to life."
     "The lesser evil.  By a hair," said Drathar quietly.  The
nodded.  Alucard carefully tucked the book away, as Reinhart
looked at him.
     "You know where we need to go from here."  Alucard nodded,
and then led them deeper into the castle.

*****

     Tenchi found himself before Castlevania, finally.  The dark
castle rose up from the ground, an ancient monolith of evil.  The
great drawbridge stood open, leading into a dark nothingness.
Slowly, he went inside.  The darkness was almost palatable,
as he crossed into the villa garden.  He felt eyes on his back,
and gathered the power for a fireball, drawing it from the gems
within his wrists.
     "Well now, isn't this a surprise...  The boy has grown up a
little."  Tenchi turned toward the source of the voice.  At first,
he was little more than a shadowy form, and then the form slowly
began to take a shape.  Tall, wearing an enveloping tunic, and
carefully styled hair.  The man's face was cold, held a calculating
expression.
     Kagato stepped out of the shadows, a mirthless smile on his
face.
     "My, what an interesting situation we have here, no?  I must
say, I was quite surprised to find myself here, in this place,
instead of oblivion."  Tenchi stared at him coldly.
     "Let me pass."  Kagato only smiled a little wider.
     "Very good, still straight to the point, I see."  He looked
around himself a moment.  "Impressive, isn't it?  The form of the
soul, eternally changing, and yet always the same.  Such an
interesting paradox.  Pity that I don't have any of my equipment
here, so that I could study it.  Ah, well."  Tenchi raised his
hand, where a fireball glowed brightly.
     "Let me pass, Kagato.  I don't have any interest in wasting
time with you," said Tenchi.  Kagato smirked.
     "One thing that I have learned about this place is that
thoughts hold much greater power here.  Tell me, boy, were you
planning to tickle me to death?"  Tenchi blinked, and realized
that the fireball he had been holding had become a feather.
Dropping it, he instead summoned his sword, and rushed him.  Kagato
didn't even move as Tenchi leapt up and slashed savagely downward.
The blade slide through him with no trouble.
     Kagato split apart, and both halves grew into an exact copy.
They smiled evilly, and each summoned a green force sword.  Tenchi
stared in shock, while they began to circle around him slowly.
     "An interesting question, isn't it boy?" asked one.
     "Which one is real, which one is fake?" asked the other.
     "Or are we both as real as the other," they both said
together.  Tenchi dove to the ground, as they both swung their
blades at him.  Rolling away, he brought up his sword to defend,
and parried an attack from both.  In a moment of inspiration,
he formed a second blade.  Both Kagatos now watched him with an
identical smirk.
     Charging again, they slashed and sliced at him.  Somehow,
Tenchi was able to keep from being killed outright, but none the
less, he was soon bleeding from a dozen wounds.  A slice over his
eye dripped blood into it, causing a painful stinging, and a thin
slash down his arm burned with pain.  Minor alone, added together
they taxed upon him.  He was being overwhelmed, he knew, and he
could not hold out forever.
     Suddenly, both Kagatos stopped moving, and laughed.  Tenchi
tensed to leap at them, and attack while their defenses were down,
and found that he could no longer move.  He looked down in
surprise, and found that he was stone to the waist, and had begun
to slowly sink into the ground.  Before him, the twins merged into
one form again, and laughed.
     "End game, boy.  It shall be a pleasure to take over your
body, and slowly tear apart the little sanity that Ryoko has built
back up."  He raised his sword to strike, an evil light glowing
in his eyes.  Struggle as he might, Tenchi couldn't move to block
him.  Kagato began to swing the blade down.
     Abruptly, the end of a black sword protruded nearly a foot
from his chest.  Kagato blinked, as his sword disappeared
just short of chopping into Tenchi's neck.  He looked down, at the
blade, in surprise, and coughed, green blood spilling onto his
tunic.  The blade was slowly withdrawn, and Kagato fell to his
knees.  He stretched his hand out toward Tenchi, and then fell on
his face, dead.  Tenchi suddenly found that he could move again,
and automatically dropped into battle ready stance.
     Out of the shadows walked the cold-faced form of Dracula,
holding the bloody black sword.

*****

     "We estimate the armada capability to be down by five percent.
We have lost track of the flagship; it passed out of range not long
after jumping into pseudo-space," said D3.  Tokimi nodded.  It was
as she had expected.
     "Tsunami was better prepared than I had thought.  If not for
the Galaxy Police force, we would have been able to capture the
Empress.  Very well.  Take Jurai as our base of operations
here.  What is D10's status in finding the power source?"
     "D10 has reported that he has located the power source, and is
closing in on it at the moment.  He also said that the avatar's
children appear to be after it as well."  Tokimi nodded again.
     "I am certain that they are only their because of their
father.  Tsunami still not appearing is all the more proof of some
injury to her avatar.  Tell him to complete the retrieval operation
as soon as possible."  D3 nodded, and disappeared.  Tokimi turned
to the technical readouts.  Her ship, the Shiboo, had sustained
some minor damage; the self sealing skin had already repaired
itself.  It had gathered information from the blasts, and the hull
had been reconfigured to be impenetrable to the same attack.
     She had been quite happy when the ship's main weapon had
shattered the Light Hawk Wing.  Even if they could not be
permanently destroyed, perhaps they could be breached long enough
to destroy the ship using regular firepower.  A technical scan
flashed up before her, showing a power readout of Ryou-oh, the
Empress's ship.
     "Hmmm...  Nicely designed, sister...  But I believe that I see
the flaw in your handiwork."  Laughing softly to herself, she began
to program in a firing sequence for the next time they ran into the
Juraian fleet.

*****

     Reinhart slowly followed as Alucard led the way through the
ancient castle.  His mind was reeling.  Barely twenty four hours
before, he had experienced the greatest feeling of love and life
there could be, had shared it with one that he already knew he
loved with all of his heart.  Though they had only been together
for a short time, he was certain that he couldn't love another
as completely as her.  Standing out most in his mind had been the
almost child-like need she had had to be held tightly, all through
the night.
     All of it, ripped away in the space of moments.  Ripped away
by a man that thought of her death as 'just business.'  Ripped
away for nothing more than the reason that in that man's mind, she
had filled her purpose.  Not a thought of her death more than that.
Reinhart felt his grip tightening on her staff, and forced himself
to ease up.
     She had had her reason for stopping him.  It all seemed
perfectly logical, from one point of view.  Down the path where
he hadn't been, they had all faded away.  It all made perfect
sense.  It was so damn perfectly sensible that he didn't know
whether to laugh or to cry.  Over and over in his mind, that short
moment had replayed itself.  Wasn't there a way he could have
gotten around the shield?  Wasn't there a way he could have stopped
the sphere before it touched her?  The question spun round and
round in his mind, and he couldn't find another answer, no matter
how hard he tried.
     Alucard raised a hand, and brought them to a stop.  They stood
before a huge, arched double door.  On each one, a tall cross stood
in stark relief on the door.  He turned to them.
     "This is the Royal Chapel.  This is the quickest way to the
clock tower; but there is a long climb, and afterwards many very
powerful, very deadly enemies.  We must be careful."  They nodded,
and he swung the doors open.  Before them, a tall, wide staircase
waited, leading upwards.  They slowly began to climb.
     "How is it that there is a chapel in Dracula's home?" asked
Rosa.  Alucard glanced at them.
     "Castlevania was not always as you see it now.  Long, long
ago, it was the seat of power for miles around, and Vlad Tepes was
a very respected man, holy and devout to an extreme."  He gestured.
"Priests from miles around would come here to abstain from their
guilt and sins."  They continued to climb.  On the walls, tall
mosaics depicted English knights carrying injured peasants,
or holding up crosses.  Above them, huge stained glass windows
showed images of the crusades for the holy cup, of the Virgin Mary,
and more.
     "What happened to turn him into Dracula?"  Alucard sighed.
     "It was found that he had one simple, but unforgivable
flaw.  He enjoyed the taste of blood.  It didn't matter what kind;
human, or animal, he thirsted for it equally.  A great curse was
cast upon him.  It changed him into the first vampire.  But,
instead of running to hide from what he had become, he instead
wished vengeance against those who had cast the curse upon him.
One by one, he hunted them down, and killed them.
     "But when it was over, he found that he could not stop.
Slowly, bit by bit, he became more and more evil, until finally
he decided to embrace what he had become.  Slowly, Castlevania
became charged with the dark energy that he had begun to radiate.
He started using black magic, and the castle absorbed that still
more.  It began to change.  Soon, between one visit and the next,
the castle itself would be different.  The villa would led directly
here, to the church, instead of, say, to the garden.
     "This ancient church changed as well, absorbing the dark power
as readily as the rest of the castle.  But here, instead of making
it change its form, it made it so that it could be inhabited
by both holy and evil creatures, a sort of breeding ground.  In no
other place in the castle can you find demons working along side
of angels."  As he finished, they reached the top of the stairway,
and he swung open the huge doors that they found there.
     Slowly, they stepped inside the huge chapel.  Long rows of
pews stood there, empty for centuries, under the view of a huge
crucifix.  A wide altar stood beneath the crucifix, and before
it, knelt a man.  From that distance, Reinhart could see that it
was not Cain, yet he noticed that Alucard tensed, his hand dropping
to his sword.  Sheann'a, who had been sitting on his shoulder,
had flown up, a look of pure shock on her face.  The man, who
appeared to be praying, finished, and slowly stood.  He turned.
     He had a fairly handsome face, marred by two crescent shaped
scars, one on either cheek.  His eyes were intense, and his hair
raven black.  He appeared young at first glance; upon looking
again, Reinhart realized that he couldn't affix a real age to him.
He wore clothing that looked to be of soft velvet and silk, a black
coat, white shirt, and black pants.  The man smiled slightly
as he saw them.  Slowly, he waved his hand across the expanse
of the chapel.
     "Well, my young friends.  I would welcome you more in style,
but I'm afraid that my abilities just are not what they used to
be," he said.  His voice, a strong tenor, reverberated through
the steepled chapel.  "Forgive me for not introducing myself.
It has been awhile since I had to entertain guests to this cursed
place.  I am Count Vlad Tepes, and this is my prison."  Reinhart
looked at Alucard in surprise; the dhampeal was staring in shock.
After a moment, though, he shook it off.
     "How is it you are here, Father, when I have been told you
were destroyed a more than a century ago, freed by Tenchi?"  The
man barked a hoarse laugh.
     "Freed.  Only from the curse, Adrian.  Only from the curse.
This is my penance.  To walk the dead halls of a dead castle for
the rest of my eternal afterlife.  You don't look pleased, my son.
Is this not what you always wanted for me?"  Alucard looked away,
and Dracula laughed again.  "Well, time enough to speak of that
later.  For the time being, feel free to rest here.  Nothing will
attack you.  The demons and angels that have come to serve your son
still fear me."  Reinhart frowned, and spoke.
     "Why offer us help?"  Dracula laughed.
     "You resemble him, amazingly well.  For a moment when I first
saw you, I thought that you were Tenchi.  His son, I take it, or
perhaps his grandson?"  Reinhart nodded.  "In a way, I owe your
father a debt.  He released me to my own private hell."  He once
again gestured at the chapel.  "A fitting end, after my life, or
rather, unlife.  But he did free me from the curse.  Perhaps I
shall never leave these walls, but no longer shall I have to answer
to that painful song again.  For that, I will do as I can to help."
Alucard looked at them, and, frowning, looked at his father.
     "I would speak to you alone, if I may."  It was hard to say
who was more surprised, Alucard's familiars, or Dracula himself.
But slowly, the Count nodded.  He looked at Reinhart and Rosa.
     "As I said, you are safe enough here.  Safe to rest.  The
other creatures that Cain has gathered will not come here, nor, I
think, will Cain."  Alucard looked at Sheann'a and Drathar; they
nodded, and Sheann'a flew off his shoulder.  Then, slowly, Alucard
walked toward the other man, and they disappeared into an adjoining
room.  Rosa looked at him, and then sat down on one of the pews.
Sighing, she stretched out, and closed her eyes.
     Reinhart walked over to another, and sat down with his pain,
to try and sort through it.
---
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