Blood Red Moon Part 3: The Castle Villa

 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.  This is
my first crossover, so give me a little slack.
       In the last episode, Tenchi, Ryoko and the others entered Castlevania.
The drawbridge was closed behind them, and they were trapped in the castle
wall.  Reinhart told them that at the top of each tower that they could enter
from there, was a machine that would open one of the inner gates.  Splitting
up, Tenchi and Ryoko went into the Left Tower, while Reinhart and Carrie
entered the Right.  Before going up, Tenchi sent Ryo-Ohki into the castle to
have a look ahead.
       Tenchi and Ryoko climbed their tower, and about half way up, were
attacked by bats.  They tried to fight them off while they ran up the ramp,
but Ryoko, whose powers had been strangely drained, lost her ability to throw
fireballs.  Reaching the top, they leapt over a break in the ramp, and entered
the machine room.  Tenchi threw the switch, but when he turned back to Ryoko,
he found a man with his arm around her neck.  Laughing, he disappeared with
Ryoko.
       Meanwhile, Reinhart and Carrie battled up their tower, and reached the
top of their tower.  In the room, they found a pair of Wryms protecting the
machinery.  After a heated battle, the Wryms were destroyed, and they threw
the switch, raising the second gate.  Making their way back down, they found a
broken Tenchi, who told them the truth about himself and Ryoko.

*****

  Tenchi and the others raced towards the Villa, now in a new race
against time.  Tenchi was sure that Ryoko was still alive.  If anything,
Dracula's words had confirmed that.  Dracula had taken her, but for a purpose.
His words worried him - "I don't know how you control one of Hell's Children,
but I will soon remedy that."
  Reaching the door, Reinhart pushed it open.  With a loud squeal of
long unuse, it swung open.  Reinhart looked around, and then entered.  Carrie
and Tenchi followed, and Ryo-Ohki hopped off his shoulder.  She sniffed
around, and suddenly miyaed loudly.
  They were in a huge room, with a tall staircase, with a red carpet
laid on it.  Golden scroll work chased everywhere, almost to gaudy amounts.
Several tall stands with candles stood on the floor, shedding ample light.
Above them, a chandelier sent sparkles shimmering and dance all over the room.
Reinhart approached the stairway, placed his hand on the banister.
  With a howl, a man leapt over the edge of the balcony.  He touched
the wall, and stuck to it.  Crawling side ways along it for a moment, he
touched off again, twisting with a perverted sense of a gymnast's grace.  It
landed, and Tenchi gasped.  From the neck down, it was human enough.  But its
head sported evil, deep-set eyes, and sticking out from its mouth were a pair
of long, sharp looking fangs.
  "A vampire!" said Reinhart, unfurling his whip and snapping at it.
The evil creature dodged backwards, dancing just out of his range.  Carrie
fired a blast at it, but it leapt backwards, over the stairs, and the magic
sphere exploded harmlessly against the banister.  It turned to Tenchi, an evil
light glowing in its eyes.
  "The master sent me to welcome you," he said.  Tenchi wordlessly drew
his sword, the blade snapping to life.  The vampire rushed at him, raising
hands with nails like claws.  Tenchi ducked under its swing, pivoting to draw
a slash down the vampire's side.  It looked at him, and laughed.
 "You think a mere scratch can hurt me, a vampire?"  Suddenly, his
expression changed, and it screamed in pain, as the scratch began to glow with
a light akin to Tenchi-ken's blade.  Not wasting the chance, Tenchi sliced his
blade across at throat level.  The vampire stopped screaming, and blinked at
Tenchi.  Then, its head fell off its shoulders.  Before it had the chance to
fall to the ground, a blast of red flame came from its skin, and the body was
burned to ash.
 "Impressive.  You were trained by a master, Tenchi," said Reinhart,
coming up behind him.  Tenchi let the blade disappear, and then turned to him.
 "You might say that it runs in the family."

*****

 They split up, looking around the Villa.  Reinhart explored the
basement, while Tenchi and Carrie checked out the upstairs, Ryo-Ohki jumping
back onto his shoulder.
 "You handle that sword as if it were a part of you," said Carrie,
looking at Tenchi.  He raised the hilt to his face, as if inspecting it.  Her
eyes were drawn to the red gems embedded in the base.  They were small, but
perfectly round, a crimson that matched blood.
 "My grandfather...  gave it to me just a year ago, not long after I
first released Ryoko, and the others came to live with us.  My life has been a
nonstop roller coaster ever since."
 "Roller coaster?" Tenchi grinned, and shook his head.
 "I keep forgetting that I'm not at home anymore," he said.  She nodded.
 "You said you released Ryoko.  Tell me about it."  He looked at her,
surprised.
 "There's not really much to tell.  My grandfather tends an ancient
shrine, the marker of a battle from long ago.  Seven hundred years before,
Ryoko had descended to Earth, and wreaked havoc on the people of the time.
Then, says the legend, a samurai riding a ship like a dragon came down, and
fought her.  He won, and sealed her in a cave beneath the shrine."
 "This... Samurai was your ancestor?"  Tenchi nodded.
 "My grandfather.  His people are very long lived.  Then, last summer,
while I was training with him, I got the keys to the shrine away from him.  I
had always liked the cave...  I felt peaceful there, a presence that I knew I
could trust when I was a child."  Carrie stopped, turning to him.
 "Ryoko."  Tenchi nodded.
 "I didn't know that, of course.  I was, as grandfather had put it, as
curious as a cat.  I entered the shrine, and found this."  He lifted the hilt
again.  "When I pulled it from the ground, it seemed like only a rusty piece
of junk, but it released the seal on Ryoko's cave.  I found the passage, and
fell down to where she was.  She had been down there so long that she had been
mummified, but she was still alive."  Carrie pursed her lips in thought.
 "You said that she wasn't evil, yet you told me that she killed the people
and ravaged your home."  Tenchi reached up and tickled Ryo-Ohki on the chin.
 "And Ryo-Ohki helped her.  But they were under the control of an evil man,
named Kagato.  I guess that you might think of him as Dracula." Carrie nodded
in understanding.  "May I ask you a question, Carrie?"
 "I've certainly asked enough of you to owe you some answers."
 "Why are you here?  I know you said that it was in your blood - believe me, I
understand what you mean by that all too well now - but..." Tenchi trailed
off, sounding uncomfortable.
 "Dracula's servants killed my father and step-mother.  Six years ago.
I came home from playing with some friends to find several werewolves dead
outside the door, but the door smashed and several windows smashed in.  My
father was gone, my mother laying in a pool of her blood, surrounded by dead
werewolves.  She was still alive... when I found her."  Carrie stopped, as the
pain she had thought buried resurfaced for a moment, and turned away from him
as she felt a tear begin to form.
 "I'm sorry," said Tenchi, laying a hand on her shoulder.  She looked at him
through watery eyes.  "I lost my mother when I was very young.  I think...
that was the first time that I really felt Ryoko's presence."  She wiped at
her eyes, and found her resolve again.
 "We won't get any closer to finding Dracula and saving her if we don't
keep moving," she said.  Tenchi grinned, and nodded.  They came to a double
door, and Tenchi nudged it open.
 "Roses!" exclaimed Carrie.  The large room had several beds of soil
which were full to overflowing with bright red roses. It looked like it was
still some time away from sunrise, and yet a strange, slightly unearthly light
filtered in through the large picture windows and glass dome.  She walked down
the short stair case, and bent to sniff at one of the roses, inhaling the soft
scent.  Tenchi followed her down.
 "Doesn't it strike you as a little odd that there is a whole garden of
roses just growing here?" asked Tenchi, looking around a little warily.
Carrie frowned.
 "Yes, it is.  But they don't seem to be dangerous."  They looked around the
room, and found only another door aside from the one that they came from. They
were just about to move on when the great clock in the tower tolled three.
With his hand on the doorknob, and Carrie about to follow him over from where
she was standing by a bed of flowers, they froze as they heard the door latch
on the other door click.
 The door swung open to reveal a pale skinned, blond-haired woman,
wearing a dress of bright red, carrying a watering can.  She looked coolly at
Tenchi and Carrie, and then walked down the steps toward Carrie.
 "I wish to water the roses," she said.  Carrie stepped aside, and the
woman came to stand next to the bed of flowers.
 "Who are you?" asked Carrie.  The woman looked at her.
 "I am Rosa.  I tend these white roses."  Tenchi took his hand off the
door knob.
 "White roses?" he said, walking over to the bed of crimson flowers.
Rosa said nothing, merely lifted her watering can over the roses.  She tipped
it forward, but instead of water, blood poured out of it, wetting down the
flowers.  Carrie and Tenchi both stepped back, surprised.
 "You are a vampire!" exclaimed Carrie.  Rosa looked at her as if she
was surprised that she had thought anything else.
 "Only vampires and demons live in this house of evil.  Someone as young as
yourself should not be here.  If you both leave now, I will forget that I saw
you," she said.  Carrie stepped a little closer to Rosa.
 "I cannot leave until Dracula is dead.  You are somehow different from
the other residents of this place."
 "Such sentimentality will soon cost you your life," answered Rosa.  She
looked at Tenchi.  "And do you too share her feelings?"
 "I will not leave before I find Ryoko."  Rosa looked down, at the
ground for a moment.
 "If you wish to enter deeper into the castle," she said quietly, "you must
first goto the archives."  She looked up as a small amount of pre-dawn light
began to peek into the room.  She stepped back, and then looked at them both.
"The key to the archives... Ah yes, another adventurer took it already.  I can
help you no more.  Try not to get yourself killed too quickly."  With that,
the woman faded out from sight just before the rays of light filtering into
the room touched the floor where she had been standing.
 "That was... odd," said Tenchi.  Carrie looked at where Rosa had stood
moments before.
 "She was a vampire, but I don't think she wanted to be.  Why else would she
try to help us at all?"
 "We had better go get Reinhart."

*****

 "What did this woman look like?" asked Reinhart as they led him back to the
rose garden.  Tenchi described her, and Reinhart seemed to become troubled.
They went the rest of the way through the garden, and entered the manor house
proper.  Up the stairs they went, to the hall.  Tenchi looked around the
corner.  Stained glass lined the corridor on one side, several doors the
other.  He walked down a little ways, and tried the first door.  It was marked
Storage, but the door was shut tight.
 At the tinkle behind him, Tenchi spun.  At first, he blinked.  He could have
sworn that the stained glass behind him had moved.  He started to turn back,
and then saw a glimmer of light out of the corner of his eye.  He turned back,
and had time to gasp and duck as a man made of stained glass swung his sword
at Tenchi's head.  It drew back to strike down, and Tenchi knew he'd never get
away.  Just before it attacked, Reinhart's whip snapped out, shattering the
glass man.
 "You have to remember Tenchi, Castlevania itself is out to kill us," said
Reinhart, offering him a hand up.
 "I hope that I didn't just use the last of my luck."
 "Hey, come over here.  There's an open door," called Carrie, and Ryo-Ohki
miyaed from her shoulder.  They jogged over to her, and she pushed the door
open slowly.  She looked in, and, finding nobody, entered, Reinhart and Tenchi
following her.  They were in a ornately decorated bedroom, and something
jumped out at Tenchi - There were several large crosses placed at points where
nothing could get through without passing near at least one of them.
 They spread out through the room.  A large bed, neatly made, filled most of
one corner.  A couple chairs, and a desk with a number of papers on it were
the only other furnishings.  The only other thing of note in the room was
another door.  Ryo-Ohki jumped down to the ground, and began sniffing around
on the floor.
 Tenchi looked at the papers on the desk, while Reinhart looked at the bed.
Neither noticed as Carrie walked over to the other door, and laid her hand on
it.  Tenchi looked up, just as she swung it open.  He sprang out to stop her,
but it was to late.
 Carrie gasped, and backed up quickly.  Through the door marched an older man,
a giant white cross strapped to his back, another smaller one hanging on a
chain around his neck, and a third, golden one in his hand.  Tenchi drew his
blade, and Reinhart readied his whip.
 "Stay where you are!  Don't move a finger!" commanded the man.  Crystal chip
blue eyes gazed out at them, cold and merciless.  He sported a bushy mustache,
and he wore a brown over coat with heavy thread of gold embroidery.  He
marched forward, and circled slightly around Carrie, thrusting the cross in
her face.  She recoiled back automatically, and he moved on, repeating the
process with Reinhart, who also flinched back a bit.  When he reached Tenchi,
a third time he pushed the cross towards Tenchi's face.  Reacting
automatically, Tenchi grabbed his wrist, and snatched the cross out of the
man's hand.  The man stared at him in amazement.
 "It's extremely rude to shove something into another's face," said Tenchi
coldly.  The man reminded him of Clown, a huge kid with a clownish face at his
school.  He was all right, but at times dumb as an ox, and twice as jerkish.
The man took a step back.
 "I apologize, I had to make sure that you were genuine humans.  Do you
children not know where you are?" he asked.  Reinhart and Carrie looked at
each other.
 "The last time that I checked, we were in Castlevania.  What about you,
Tenchi?"  Tenchi nodded.
 "Who exactly are you, and why are you here?" he asked the man.  He drew
himself up, and put his chin up.
 "I am Charlie Vincent, greatest of the vampire hunters.  I am here to kill
Dracula."  Reinhart and Carrie stared at him, dumbfounded.  Carrie recovered
first.
 "Don't be a fool.  Dracula is a matter which does not concern you.  Leave
while you still have the chance, Master Vincent."  Charlie laughed aloud.
 "What know you, a girl of no more than ten?  Do you think that you have a
chance to defeat the Lord of Evil, you or any of your ragtag little group?
Return to the village before you accidentally stab yourself with that little
knife the boy carries."  Reinhart's eyes hardened.
 "Fool!  Don't you know that only one of the Belmont line can even hope to
face Dracula?"  Vincent laughed again.
 "I pity you, for you are obviously quite mad.  I saw the whip, and wondered
if you fancied yourself another Trevor or Simon.  Now I am sure.  I warn you
one last time, leave now, else be it on your head what happens to you."
Carrie looked like she was about to say something more, but Tenchi shook his
head.
 "Don't bother, Carrie.  Fools listen only to themselves," he said.  Turning
to Vincent, he handed him back his cross.  "We will not turn back.  I ask you
a question.  Did you find a key in the rose garden?"  Vincent frowned, and dug
in his pockets.
 "Yes, I did.  My intuition tells me that it is useless.  If you wish to have
it, take it, but do not come crying to me when you find your nightmares
walking in this place."  He then turned away from Tenchi, and, with a snort,
walked back into the room, muttering about fool children.  Tenchi looked at
the others, and they left the room, Ryo-Ohki scampering out just before they
closed it.

*****

 She opened her eyes slowly, as it was painful to do so.  Once fully open, she
looked around.  She was in a vat of some sort of fluid, greenish tinted.
Trying to move, she found that she couldn't, not even her head beyond her
eyes.  A slow, creeping terror began to seep into her heart, as she remembered
another time when she could not move.  Slowly, the terror filled her heart,
and began to pulse along her veins as she dwelt more and more on it.
 She would have screamed, but she couldn't open her mouth.
 Before the vat, a tall man appeared, his skin tinged green from the fluid she
was in.  He looked through the glass, and she made out a beard and mustache, a
long scar down his cheek, and, a pair of fangs that stood slightly out of his
mouth.  Stepping away, the man picked up a circlet, made of something that was
a black as dark as her cave had been.
 "Soon, will my master truly awaken, and I shall be there with a gift to him."
He returned to the glass, still holding the circlet.  Floating up, he reached
over the top of the container, and settled the circlet on her head.  Pain
rifled through her body, and if not for whatever it was that was holding her
in place, she would have been doubled over, screaming until her throat was
raw.  The terror in her heart doubled, as understanding of what was happening
came.  The man stepped back, and began a chant.
 "Dracunis otove feanis.  Dracunis otove feanis."  He continued to repeat it,
and, slowly, she felt herself being detached from her body.  She could still
see, could still hear, and could still feel, but she felt as if she lost
control.  She could feel, but not act.
 She felt the terror push to its limit, and then it burst through the dam.
 If she had still had control of her body, she would have been immobilized
with terror, sobbing uncontrollably.
 One thought ran through her in her new quasi-state, as that which was truly
her began to do what her body could not, would not.
 "Please don't control me again. Please..."

*****

 Here is a preview for the next chapter:

 Carrie looked, as a young child stepped out from behind the bushes.  He wore
a long, purple coat and matching pants, with a white shirt below, and he
looked terrified.  Looking at Reinhart and Tenchi, she approached him slowly,
and squatted down before him.
 "What's your name, honey?"  The boy looked at her with wide eyes.
 "M... Malus..."

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Feel free to C&C this, I had wanted C&C on the first two but didn't realize
that I had to ask for 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