A/N: Sorry it took SOOOO long to update. I have no excuse really, just pure laziness. But I did update it and the plot was taken further in this chapter. I think there will only be two or three more chapters before the end. So keep up those reviews people!
I hope you all like this! I worked hard to keep the characters in character. Or at least, I hope they are. Review and say your opinion.
**
Ranma woke to the sounds of someone moving in the room. Acting out of pure instinct, driven by the training he had endured all these years, Ranma kept his eyes closed and focused his senses on the person in the room. The aura was warm, human he noted with a bit of surprise, and it was old. Must be the old woman that took him the village, he mused.
Not wanting to surprise the old woman and give her a heart attack by mistake, he made a big show of waking up by yawning and stretching his arms. He blinked sleepily and looked over to the woman.
“Hello,” he said in his native language. She gave him a smile.
The woman picked up his dirty clothes off the floor and piled them into the laundry basket near the door. “Young sir, you up early, was not expecting this.” She stated not expecting him to give her an explanation. “Take bath, clothes in trunk.”
Ranma rubbed his eyes and nodded. “What time is it?”
“Five.”
His body jerked up and looked back over at the woman. “Five AM?” She made some kind of grunt that the pigtailed boy took as an agreement. Working on auto-pilot, the Japanese boy sprang out of bed and went over to his trunk pulling out a new set of clothes. Unlike yesterday, these Chinese clothes were not as expensive.
The jacket was a sky blue with the silhouette of some kind of cat predator on the back in deep navy blue thread. The buttons on the jacket were ebony, a dark contrast to the bright blue of the shirt. The pants were not black kung-fu pants he had worn since he had discovered Chinese clothes but in fact, baggy training gi pants that tied off at the ankles with a string. It reminded Ranma strongly of the new fashionable pants the teens were wearing outside of school—without the big pockets or reflection strings that hung out of the pockets. He made his way to the bathroom and had a quick shower, deciding not to sit in the bath for now.
He dressed and made his way back into his room. Sitting on his bed were a pair of boots and a black gi belt, the same color as his ebony buttons. The boots reminded him of military boots he had seen in American army camps except the soles of the boots were like construction boots. However the Japanese boy was quick to discover not to press the front of the sole a certain way when he was almost stabbed in the hand with the switch blade hidden in the toe of the shoe. His eyebrows rose in surprise. Weapons in boots sounded like something Mousse would have.
The woman returned to the room and noticed him inspecting the boots with suspicion. “I give boots,” she smiled at him when he looked on at her with shock. “Made when bored, for son I never have. I too old.” She nodded at the boots. “You have.”
“I-I can’t take these,” the martial artist stammered. “I don’t fight with weapons. Anything Goes is primarily a hand-to-hand combat style.”
The woman gazed at him. Giving him the feeling he was being evaluated. “Anything Goes?” She murmured. “Then enemies expect no weapons. Is bad to be predictable, no? Gain advantage over you. Take boots. I notice you fight more with hand, no feet special move. Learn use feet and weapons, then Anything Goes.”
He stared at her for a moment. Unexpectingly, he found himself bowing to her. “Thank you,” he murmured, truly touched. A woman he didn’t even know was giving him a pair of boots that she had made by hand with switch blades included. He found himself liking her, almost as if she was the mother he never really had. When he looked up, she was gone, the laundry basket with her.
Carefully, Ranma put on the boots and buckled the silver buckles. He grabbed the gi belt and tied his pants up tight and let the ends flow around his legs. He jumped and landed softly on one foot, the other leg spinning around like a kick and he flexed his ankle for a strike. The blade popped out of the boot. Standing as still as possible on the one foot, he flexed his foot hanging in the air and the blade slid back in as silently as it had popped out. He lowered the leg to the floor and nodded to himself.

Thinking back on the woman’s words, he agreed with her. His style was restricted and wasn’t truly anything goes. He never used weapons or had any special moves with his feet. By doing that, he was not practicing one of the main rules of his style; flexibility. If he never used weapons, his opponents expected it and adapted. Then he adapted to their style. That wasn’t how it was supposed to go.
Not feeling hungry, Ranma walked out of his room, noticing he was allowed to and that the door was no longer locked during the day. He wandered the castle feeling restless. He wanted to go train but where was a training room? He stopped in front of two big doors. Feeling curious and wondering if the doors lead to a training room, Ranma pushed them open.
He gapped at what the room contained. All around the room were statues of past gods and goddesses of long faded religions and cultures. The floor was covered in all different carpets and tapestries. The walls had paintings of some of the vampires that had visited the night island dressed in clothes from centuries ago. He stopped in front of one that caught his eye.
It was a painting of three people from American seventeen hundreds. Two of the people he recognized, the third he didn’t know. The painting was Louis and Lestat, standing next to each other dressed as those of the times were. Sitting in front of the couple, a young girl sat with a china doll clasped in her arms. She was pretty, he thought with a bit of wonder. Curly dirty blond hair, soft gray eyes and perfect pouting lips, luscious and full. She looked every bit of a young girl, the frilly dress, the laces, even the bonnet hat that covered most of her hair just like her china doll. Her eyes caught Ranma’s attention the most, they spoke of years that a young girl never should have.
A vampire!
Ranma broke from the trance and scrambled away from the painting to the other side of the room. The girl couldn’t have been more then eleven or twelve but she was one of them. She was a vampire! Who would be so cruel as to lock an eternal mind in the body of a young girl?
“Her name was Claudia,” Lestat said from the doorway, staring at the painting with an unreadable expression. “She was our daughter.”
The martial artist stared at him for a moment then gazed back at the painting. “What happened?”
“Louie is the most human of all vampires, he pines for humanity again and in those days, he denied ever being a vampire. He never tasted human blood. He drank only from the rats of the sewers.
“Her mother was dead for days when Louie found her. He was half-starved, crazed from drinking only animal blood. He was only a few years turned. He drank from her, but stopped when he realized he would kill her. Louie isn’t strong, Ranma, you must realize this.”
Something in the vampire’s voice made Ranma look at him. He had no expression, but his eyes told of something dark.
“He wouldn’t be able to handle killing a human girl her age. So I did what I thought would be best, I gave her the dark gift. She loved it—for while. The things she could do and see, the ways she could manipulate her victims to give her anything she wanted. We lived many years together as a covenant, not very usual for vampires for we are loners, but it was happy times.
“She grew angry at me when she found out the truth of what she really was. She hated me for trapping her in a young girl’s body. When a vampire is made that young, they have trouble hunting or doing things a vampire with an adult body could do. She didn’t even have enough blood to turn someone herself.
“One night, she came up with a plan to kill me. She nearly did, the brat,” his lips curved into an almost proud smile. “She slit my throat, making me choke on my blood and stabbed me repeatedly. She then threw gasoline on me and set me a-fire. She managed to get Louie to help her drag me to the swamps and left me there to die. They left together, thinking me dead.
“Armand found me, years later as a scarred and miserable being. Needless to say, I found there was a rule among vampires never to kill your own. She had. So she must pay for it.
“Meanwhile, Claudia begged Louie to turn a woman into her eternal mother because she could tell Louie was having trouble caring for her now. It pained him but he did it, he made his only child.
“They were captured, I won’t go into details, but the covenant of Armand’s killed Claudia and her mother by leaving them in the sun. They turned to ashes. Armand had found Louie trapped in a coffin and managed to free him. He went on a rampage and destroyed the Theatre of the Vampires, where the covenant and Armand lived and entertained, and set it on fire.
“Louie knew it was I who had told Armand about Claudia’s betrayal. He hated me for a while. He still hasn’t forgiven me for it. When he left me, I had this painting done and hid it away in my storage.
“When Armand built the castle of Night Island, I gave him the painting.”
Lestat sipped the red liquid in a wine glass which Ranma knew was filled with blood. He walked over to the martial artist and stood silently behind him. Somehow the pigtailed boy knew Lestat was waiting for his judgment and feeling commended to do so, he gave the best opinion he had.
“Louis was hurt when I first saw him,” he began quietly. “He had a look in his eyes like he had lost the biggest fight in his life, I guess. I don’t know. He looked sad. Anyway, I tried to cheer him up, you know, so I could pay him back for all the clothes and food he gave my pop and I. I asked him why he looked so sad one night, he wouldn’t tell me the whole thing but at least I understand what he said now.
He said, ‘I was hurt by someone very close to me. The person took away my family a long time ago. One day I may forgive him, but the pain is too much as of now.’
I told him that I lost someone too, I lost my mother ‘cause pops wanted me to grow up into a man-among-men and I couldn’t do that with her around so we left her. I told him about my training trip and that I was going to become the best martial artist in the world. But I also told him that maybe this person was sorry and just couldn’t think of what to say to make it all better. I mean, I ain’t that good with words and stuff so maybe the guy that hurt him was like that too.
‘He does say many things he doesn’t mean or does mean but says it wrong. Perhaps you are right, little one.’ That night was the last time I saw him ‘cause pops took me away the next day.” Ranma glanced over at Lestat.
The Brat Prince took another sip from his glass. Ranma decided to change the subject. “So are you ready to fight tonight?” He smirked with a cocky stance.
Lestat gave him a smirk of his own. “But of course, Wild Horse. You will use all those wonderful tricks of yours, won’t you?”
Ranma folded his arms over his chest and held his head high. “No tricks, pure skills. I ain’t gonna pull no stops with you, I’ll fight you with all I got.”
Lestat grinned. “That’s what I was hoping for.” He glanced at the window. “I must go, the morning is coming. See you tonight.”
Ranma nodded and replied, “Night—er, morning!”
The vampire chuckled at the confused response and walked out of the room.
**
Nabiki put down the receiver and stared at the notes she had written. Her contact had told her that she had seen Ranma talking on the bridge where he usually went to go hide himself. He had been sitting on the edge when a young guy with really long brown hair had come up to him.
They had talked for a few minutes, Ranma seemed to be thinking about something the boy said and then he took the boy’s hand. The girl said that as soon as Ranma had grabbed the boy’s hand, the boy knocked him out and seemed to disappear out of thin air.
Now not that Nabiki cared enough about Ranma, just his profit, but having him kidnapped right under her nose makes her mighty suspicious. From the way her contact stated it, the whole interaction between the boy and Ranma was not a kidnapping. It sounded more like Ranma had been given a choice or something, and then he went with the boy. The only question was where the boy and Ranma went.
“Nabiki? Breakfast is ready.” Kasumi’s voice said from downstairs.
Nabiki sighed and hid her notebook. “Okay Kasumi! I’ll be down in a minute.”
**
End of Chapter Eight! Hope you all liked it! Remember to review.
-AlantisB