Greetings and hallucinations! It is I, the writer formerly known as DaveCatt (Dave Menard) I'm back on-line (more-or-less) and happy to be here! I'm set to Vaction mode right now, though, so please reply privately for the time being.
So that this won't be a complete waste of your time, I'm posting a teaser for the latest Akane The Vampire Slayer chapter below. I'm calling it an "OAV", since it's back continuity for my story. Hopefully, the whole shebang should be done shortly, and work proceeds apace on all other projects.
Thanks and so long for now!
Dave Menard
Ryouko74@otakumail.com
***********************
Keeper of Pink's Hammer of Vengeance
Knight of the Combat Fiancees
Member of the Space Pirates Guild
http://www.angelfire.com/anime/spacepiratesguild/
Spa Fon!
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AKANE THE VAMPIRE SLAYER/KYUUKETSUKI SATSUJINHAN'NIN AKANE
OAV SPECIAL #1 "FALL"
A Leaping Gnome Production of a Dave Menard Fanfiction
WARNING: THIS PIECE IS EXTREMELY DARK!! I CANNOT STRESS THIS
ENOUGH! IF YOU THOUGHT THE MAIN STORIES IN THIS SERIES WERE A
BIT ON THE NASTY SIDE, YOU WON'T LIKE THIS. I DON'T LIKE IT,
AND I WROTE IT. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!!!!
Based on characters and situations created by Rumiko Takahashi
and Joss Whedon.
THE EVENTS IN THIS OAV TAKE PLACE BEFORE THE EVENTS RECORDED IN
"AKANE THE VAMPIRE SLAYER PART ONE"
************************
Mousse of the Joketsuzoku carefully finished his
preparations. The circle was painted, he had the ingredients he
needed. All that was left was to cast the spell, seal the pact,
and Shampoo would be his.
He rubbed his arms through the sleeves of his robes,
shivering in the cold mountain air that seeped in through the
cracks and holes in his wooden hut. He'd found the scroll
during his wanderings, almost by happenstance, on the shelves
of a curio shop in Beijing. The scroll was written in an
obscure dialect of Mandarin, with passages in Sezchuan and
Cantonese as well as a smattering of English. Fortunately, he
was quite good with languages, and had been ever since he was a
child. The deciphering of the scroll had taken some time, but
the end result would, he felt, be well worth it.
His reading of the incantation led him to believe that the
spell would summon a minor demon, one that would grant a wish
to whomever performed the necessary rituals and sacrifices. He
planned to wish for skill enough to prove his worth to Shampoo,
to defeat the hated Saotome, to make Shampoo his by the only
terms she would respect, her own. He had no intention of
wishing for her love; That, he wanted to
_earn_. He'd had the
chance to have her by compulsion, and had turned it down. He
wanted her heart, freely given.
In reality, the spell breached a magical seal placed apon
a demonic being, in no way minor, who had been sealed up for
almost a century. Whether the being was under compulsion to
grant a wish was a moot point, really, since Mousse didn't
survive the being's manifestation.
The creature that left the mountain cabin three nights
later wore the shape of Mousse, but was no longer a rather
simple-minded, obsessive soul with a talent for martial arts.
In fact, the being had no soul at all...
Mousse, for as long as he could remember, had loved
Shampoo, with a depth and breadth of passion few would
understand. It mattered little, in the end, if she returned
that feeling. Mousse's love simply
_was_, as constant as the
mountains where he had been born, and as unchanging. Shampoo
was the centre of his existence. For good or for ill, he loved
her.
Soulless creatures, however, know nothing of love. They
know passion, to be sure, and lust, and desire, but not love.
It was, however, enough. Enough to motivate the creature that
had once been Mousse. And so Mu-Tsu the vampire went forth to
seek his bride.
**************************
The sun was setting in Nerima Japan, and the long night
began. Lights were switched on and lanterns lit, as the
residents of the borough settled in to enjoy the lazy June
evening. It was that particularly nice time of year, where the
nip of cool spring nights had been replaced with a comfortable
warmth, and the oppressive heat of Japanese summer had yet to
arrive. The last of the cherry blossoms had fallen weeks ago,
and the hum of cicadas died out with the descent of night.
In the small dormer above the Nekohanten Chinese
Restaurant, Cologne and Shampoo settled in for the evening.
Candles were lit, and the Elder's study was bathed in tones of
buttery gold and chocolate brown. The ancient lit a well-tamped
pipe and puffed contendedly. Her Great-Granddaughter curled
contentedly in front of the television, flicking through the
channels until she came across a programme subtitled into
Cantonese. Not her native tongue, but one with which she had
greater facility than with fiendishly-difficult Japanese. With
a contented purr, she snuggled into her cushion and lost
herself to the escapist fantasies, where the girl got the man
she loved, and lived happily ever after.
Since both women were warriors by birth and by nature,
they both heard the key open the back door and familiar
footsteps climbing the stairs. Neither reacted with any alarm,
although the younger of the two rolled her eyes and sighed, She
had hoped he'd finally gotten the message and left for good. No
such luck, it would seem. To be honest, they could have been
forgiven their inattention as they were two of the most
powerful martial artists in the greater Tokyo area, and had
little to fear at all, especially from Mousse.
Shampoo readied herself for the inevitable glomp Mousse
would deliver and her routine replusion of same, but was
surprised when the tall young man merely nodded at her and
proceeded into Cologne's study. She relaxed. Maybe he had
finally wised up after all. He wasn't a BAD person, per se, and
she looked back fondly on their childhood games. But she simply
didn't love him, didn't feel anything towards him but the sort
of reluctant filial affection one feels towards an obnoxious
sibling. She cocked an ear, prepared for the raised voices and
sounds of a wooden staff impacting against an equally wooden
head that always accompanied any conversation between Mousse
and her Great-Grandmother. In good order, she heard the
clublike end of the gnarled staff strike hard flesh, and then,
silence. Hmm. Perhaps Mousse was unconcious again, which meant
that Cologne would require her help in removing the fool from
her private chambers.
Shampoo stood and stretched, working out the kinks she'd
developed from being curled around her cushions. With a rueful
grin, she let herself into Cologne's study.
"Great-Grandmother need Shampoo's help moving stupid..."
Her smile died and faded with her voice as she witnessed
the tableaux of horror in the candlelit room.
***********************
Cologne could have been forgiven for being unmindful of
the danger that presented itself when Mu-Tsu entered her
private chambers. She was, after all, easily his superior in
the ancient art of Amazon Wu-Shu, and he had never presented
her even the slightest problem in the past. She had briefly
acknowledged his entrance with a grunt, and returned to her
reading.
Her danger sense barely managed to warn her in time as she
spun on her stool, coming face to face with the boy she
scornfully dismissed as "Mr. Part-time", both in reference to
his employment schedule and his dedication to Martial Arts. He
was very close, less than half a meter away, and he was...
smirking at her?
She had dealt with the boy's insolence towards his
Matriarch before, so she proceeded to do what came naturally,
and whack him upside the head with her staff. She grinned,
aticipating the satisfiying thunk and groan of pain from the
idiot male.
It never connected.
Mu-Tsu caught the staff in one hand and wrenched,
disarming the old warrior and almost snapping her brittle wrist
at the same time. Alarmed, she reached out with her ki-sense,
to see how this previously-worthless male could suddenly have
developed such amazing skill and strength. She attempted to
read his aura, and found...
Nothing. Nothing but a cold and empty void, blacker and
chiller than the space between stars.
Terrified, despite her awesome skill, she made to withdraw
but was quickly pinned by what she first took to be chains of
steel, Mousse's usual trademark. Instead, she found them to be
ropy tendrils of cold, hard, metamorphic flesh. She opened her
mouth to scream, but found it filled with more of the same vile
substance. Frightened and helpless for the first time in almost
ninety years, she looked into the eyes of the creature that
held her, saw them flare with an evil light. She knew what he
had become, oh Goddess, she knew, and she could do nothing,
cocooned as she was without an ounce of leverage. Her
overconfident dismissal of the boy had been her undoing.
Mu-Tsu smiled, and the smile grew fangs...
*******************
Shampoo screamed at the sight before her. Her Great-
Grandmother hung limp in the arms of her childhood playmate,
mortally wonded or dead, her life's blood smeared across his
face.
Mu-Tsu laughed, low and long. "Am I strong enough now? I
hope so, since even Saotome can't beat-" He shook the tiny,
limp body in his fist. "-this. Come to me, my darling
Shampoo..."
Shampoo's mind was frozen, caught between the twin
imperatives of flight or fight. The thing that once was Mousse
flung aside the drained husk of Cologne's body and stepped
forward, arms outstretched.
Shampoo's resolve broke. She ran. It was, in retropect,
probably the wisest choice she could have made. One thought
screamed like a banshee in her head: Find Ranma. Ranma will
protect me. Ranma can save me. Ranma can
_always_ chase the
monsters away...
She made it as far as the vacant lot two blocks from the
Tendo Dojo when he caught up with her. He alit in front of her
with monstrous grace, an fallen angel, beautiful and terrible
in the darkness. "No, Shampoo. You mustn't run to
_him_. You
have me, now. Don't you see? This is all for you! Now I'm
strong! The strongest one there is! Now we can be together,
FOREVER!"
Shampoo, despite what some thought, was not a stupid
woman. Backward, sheltered, perhaps. Ignorant, certainly. But
not stupid. Confonted with an opponent you cannot defeat, there
are twin options: Honorable death in combat, or a strategic
retreat to regain strength and seek out allies. Since she felt
that she had something to live for, she opted for option two.
Like a shot, she took off to the left, towards the fence that
separated the lot from the housing development.
In a dark flash, he was in front of her once more,
blocking her escape. She dodged back the way she came, but he
was behind her already. Frantic now, she swung out with a
scissor-kick at his head, which he flowed around like water. A
machine-gun barrage of punches flailed out and missed their
target. She leapt high and flipped backwards, avoiding the
streams of what might have been chains, but probably weren't,
that shot towards her nimble frame from the sleeves of his
robes.
Inevitably, she began to tire as the combat drew into it's
second hour. To her dismay, she had yet to land a single punch
against the creature that wore Mousse's face, and every avenue
of escape was blocked as soon as she made a dash for freedom.
The neighbors, used to the all-hours combat of the martial
artists in the borough, took little notice of the commotion
except to cover their heads with pillows and hope that the
inevitable final explosion would bypass their house.
As such, no one heard her scream as a spiked tendril
finally struck home, piercing her through her right shoulder
and transfixing her. The vile appendage cut open a major
artery, and blood fountained from the wound. She fell,
clutching her maimed shoulder, her strength completely fled.
The monster stalked foward, withdrawing the viciously barbed
whatever-it-was, pulsing, back into his sleeve.
"Do you see? Now, I'm strong! Now, I'm worthy! You are
MINE now!! Mine, at LAST!!" Triumphantly, he lifted her high by
the front of her shift, bringing them face to face. The
sulphurous orbs of his eyes blazing in mingled triumph and
lust.
Shampoo could only look weakly into those orbs as she felt
her life ebb. He had such beautiful blue eyes once, she thought
madly, as she stared into the twin hellpits. With a shuddering
breath, she gathered what little moisture that remained in her
mouth and spat into the bestial face.
"You may take Shampoo's life..." she ground out savagely
through clenched teeth. "But you NEVER take Shampoo's heart!"
She felt a crushing pain as her chest imploded under a
terrible impact, then a bloody, fist-sized object was held up
to eye level.
"Really?" the demon snarled, and began to feed...
************************
Akane Tendou sat up straight in her bed, a horrible,
knifelike cramping wracking her abdomen. Groaning, she found
her feet and turned on her bedside lamp. Acting on instinct,
she threw her comforter off her bed and examined the sheets. No
blood. Must be PMS, then. Wincing, she made her way downstairs
to the bathroom and got herself some Midol and change her pad.
*************************
It was almost a week before anyone suspected that
something was wrong. With the exception of Ukyou, who was in
Kansai visiting family, all of Ranma's ever-persistant suitors
and suitorettes were not only missing, but unaccounted for. The
Kunos had been absent from school for four days in a row
without a word to anyone, and the Nekohanten bore a neatly-
lettered sign announcing that the establishment was closed for
renovations and the owners were on vacation in China.
So it was a relaxed and tranquil Tendou household that
night. Or at least, things were as tranquil as they ever got.
Akane and Ranma were fighting like cats and dogs, the youngest
Tendou's already short fuse shortened even further by painful
recurring cramps and crass remarks from her iinazuke. Kasumi
had just served dinner, and the family was setting to with
their usual gusto. Insults and imprecations flowed like water
between the unhappy couple, tears and solemn oaths from the
fathers, sarcastic banter from Nabiki, and cheerful
pleasantries from the mistress of the house, Kasumi. Even the
loathesome presence of Happousai was tolerated this night,
since he was installed in front of the television with a bowl
of soba and a two-hour bathing-beauties special to watch.
It was after dinner, while Soun and Genma were enjoying
their after-dinner tobacco fixes over a game of shogi and some
warm sake, that disaster struck.