The Saotome Blade

Disclaimer: They don't belong to me but Blade and Ranma are cool as hell.

* *: Thoughts

[" "]: Chinese Language

<" ">: Ancient Vampire language

Capital letters: Shouting or loud noises

{ }: Author's own thoughts

_ _: Stressed words

Chapter 4

Surprise, Surprise!

Ranma rushed up the stairs leading to the top deck. Donny had just called down to him about the vampire ambush and the pigtailed boy was already injured from his earlier battle with Rico the Vampire giant. Donny was, at the moment, throwing ninja stars in every direction. Ranma leapt out of the door way onto the deck. He did a flip up onto one of the higher points over top of the deck where some vampires were sneaking up behind Donny to get a surprise attack. Ranma kicked one flying over the deck and stabbed a steel spike, that he had pulled from one of the straps on his legs, into another vampire's chest.

Donny had hit the one that Ranma had sent flying with a shurikan and it shrivelled up into a cloud of black ash that scattered over the battle field. Some of the vampires off in the distance pulled out some weapons and started firing at Ranma and Donny. Ranma ran across the top of the boat dodging the bullets, Donny tried to get away but one of the bullets clipped him in the shoulder. As he slowed down another couple of bullets hit him in the leg and in the chest.

"AAAAAGGGGHH!" Donny screamed out as he fell to the ground he was bleeding profusely from his wounds and the blood began to pool around his body. Some vampire ran towards Donny to finish him off by drinking his blood and turning him into one of them.

"DONNY!!" Ranma yelled as he saw his best friend and confidant go down by the barrage of bullets. However the vampire firing squad was no longer aiming at the Saotome Blades fallen comrade. All gunfire was officially aimed at him.

Ranma was pissed his friend was on the ground bleeding and it was all because of the vampires. Every time somebody got close to him, he felt, they were either injured of killed by vampires. Vampires were alive solely to make his life miserable. With this though he began to glow with a bright red aura. Ranma didn't notice but some of the vampires did. The ones that had been heading for Donny for a drink of fresh human blood now averted their undivided attentions towards the pigtailed vampire hunter.

Ranma did the only thing he could think of doing while he was angry. He reached down to his sides and pulled from their holsters two black, custom, semi-automatic hand guns and started shooting down the vampires on the boat one by one with pinpoint precision. The hail of silver tipped bullets rained in the crowd of vampires life deaths touch. Vampires were dropping left and right like flies as they tried to either shoot back or rush him and get close.

Some of the vampires tried to sneak around behind but Ranma was to damn angry and skilled to let them get the drop on him. His gun wielding arms swung around in a blur and came face to face with a large number of vampires. Ranma shot them all down as if they were nothing and they all burnt up into black dust.

Mos of the vampires decided to flee, almost none decided to stay and those that did decide to stay died shortly after the decision by Ranma, who had put his guns away opting to cut them all down using his good old silver laced swords. The sun began to rise in the distance and now there were no vampires on the ship what-so-ever.

The Dhampir smiled having vented all of his frustration on that battle. His smile turned into a frown however when he remembered,

"DONNY!!"

The pigtailed vampire slayer ran to where his friend was laying in a pool of his own blood. And bent down to examine the damage. He was hurt bad. The teens blonde hair was soaked in crimson blood and he had a lot more wounds than Ranma thought. Donny was gasping for breath and he was losing blood fast. Ranma had no idea what to do he had been taught to fight, it was the _only_ thing he really knew how to do!

"Hang in there Donny! I'll patch you up together in no time." Ranma said in a voice that cracked and contradicted what he was saying just in the tone. In truth he hadn't a clue if his smart ass friend would even live.

Donny grabbed Ranma's hand weakly and spoke in a harsh raspy voice that gurgled a bit from the blood that he was constantly spitting out of his mouth. "S'okay Ranma." He said. "Just gotta wrap...(cough)... the wounds up. I...can tell that no...(huugh)... vital organs were... damaged." Ranma nodded.

"Right so uhhh," Ranma looked around his immediate surroundings for some thing to wrap up Donny's injuries. He couldn't see anything that could be used. "Where do I find something like that!?" Ranma asked his friend.

Donny pointed to the door that led to the inner workings of the ship. "You might be able to find...(cough)... a first aid kit or some long pieces of cloth...(Cough)... in one of the storage areas or... something" Donny said weakly.

Ranma nodded and immediately went to find something. "Just don't die on me buddy!" Ranma said, "Try to stay awake as long as you can...And stay _away_ from white lights!" Ranma said before running off. Donny laughed a little bit but the effect was cut off by a fit of coughing that brought more blood spewing from his mouth onto the rusty deck of the FRH.

*****************

Passing out always seemed like a good idea to Dowel after a long excruciatingly boring lesson on Japanese and Japanese culture. She had never been good at learning anything other than martial arts. Books, math, Japanese, it was all the most horrible torture that a warrior like her could endear. She had been travelling on that horrible _boat_ for three days! Doing nothing but learning Japanese and throwing up over the ledge.

The green haired girl collapsed on the bed in the hotel that she and her grandmother were staying at. They had finally made it to Japan. Dowel had no idea how her great grandmother even knew that the boy was in Japan. She was glad that she was off the boat she hated sea sickness and was glad to get rid of it. But _now_ she had homesickness. The pain in her gut signified that. Dowel groaned loudly and lay her head back on the pillow hoping a good nights sleep would get rid of it.

"HEY GUYS! WE GOT THREE ROOMS AT MY UNCLES HOTEL FREE FOR THREE NIGHT!! PPPARTTTYYYYYYYYY!!!!" Dowels eyes flew open and she reached for her sword which she kept beside the bed. The sounds from the other rooms beside her were not at all muffled by the pathetically weak walls separating them.

"Why can no leave Dowel _ALONE_!" Dowel moaned in Japanese. Remembering back on one of Cologne's lessons about not harming any Japanese people because their laws were different, she put the sword down and just opted to cover her head with the pillow. It did little to help and the partying hooligans did not shut up even for a second. Dowel's fatigue of the last couple of days overruled the extremely loud music and shouting and she soon fell asleep, snoring loudly as usual.

Dowel awoke the next morning with a headache and a stomach ache. She groaned from the pain that it caused her but grimaced soon after as groaning made it hurt more. She swore to god that those idiots in the other rooms would pay dearly.

***************

The trip back to Japan had been rather uneventful after all of the vampires had been dealt with. Ranma had patched up Donny and the long blonde haired teen was busy resting in one of the cabins. Ranma had been worried there for a while that he wouldn't make it but he was sure now that his friend would pull through. They were really close to Japan now, just about a mile to shore.

Ranma had to operate the boat by himself, it had been a struggle at the beginning but he had finally gotten the hang of it. It was fairly easy, now that he had gotten it down. When the ship arrived they pulled into a beach. Ranma hadn't been to Japan in a long time and he didn't exactly know where to go to find a dock or something. So he just went in the general direction of Japan and hoped that he hadn't veered off course.

Ranma had been going pretty fast and the one thing he hadn't bothered to learn how to do is slow down so the landing was a little rough, namely they slammed into a beach at full speed. Needless to say the FRH (Faithful Rusty Heap) was a little bit broken. In other words, Ranma had totally smashed the boat to pieces.

Ranma and Donny soon left the boat and began to walk towards the docks not to far away. Donny was limping and Ranma was carrying all of the luggage they had. They were rising over the last hill before the dockside and a couple of people came running their way. One was a brown haired male with a blue t-shirt and blue jeans. The other was a petite blonde girl wearing a yellow sun dress. They obviously didn't know they were there at first, they were on some sort of picnic and were currently chasing after each other and laughing. The man stopped and noticed Ranma and Donny. He rushed towards the pair when he realized that Donny was injured.

"Hey is your friend all right?" asked the boy. The girl came up behind him and latched onto his arm, she eyed Ranma carefully, noticing the various weapons strewn all over his body.

Ranma set down a couple of the things and Donny sat down to rest a little. "We're looking for a place to stay for the night. My friend here just needs a few nights rest. Do you know of a decent hotel around?" The boy nodded and pointed behind him.

"Yeah. There's a hotel a little ways that way. It's down by a beach by the dock, next to an old abandoned mill or something. I've been there before, it's not the best, but they have hot water." Ranma nodded and motioned for Donny that it was time to leave. Donny struggled and got up off of the ground, Ranma then picked up the rest of their luggage and began walking in the direction the teen had pointed. The brown haired guy, jogged up after them after a second. "Hey your friend looks pretty badly hurt, shouldn't you get him to a hospital first?, he's bleeding a lot under those bandages."

Ranma looked back at the man with an expressionless face. "His wounds are mostly superficial. Nothing important was hit. Besides," Ranma said with a smile, "I prefer to do things the old fashioned way." Ranma and Donny kept walking and the brown haired man went back to his girlfriend.

*Old _fashioned_ way?* Donny thought with dread.

*************

Ranma threw their stuff down beside one of the two beds in the run down hotel they had decided to use as a base of operations until they could find something a little more permanent and less costly. Donny lay down on one of the beds to get some rest. Ranma pulled up a chair and pulled out one of his knives. "What are you doing?" Asked Donny, dreading what was to come next.

Ranma just looked at the blade set it down and then began to unwrap the bandages that were covering his friend's wounds. "Taking them bullet's outta your hide, that's what." Ranma then picked up the knife and without warning dug it into one of the wounds on his leg. Donny grabbed the edge of the bed and forced himself not to scream as he clenched his teeth. Ranma flicked his wrist and then took the knife out, he then dug his fingers into the wound and pulled out the bullet. Donny let out a deep breath and began to breath deeply.

"W-Warn me next...time, Ranma!" Donny said with a glare. Ranma nodded, picked up the knife and grabbed onto his arm which also had a bullet lodged in it.

"Count to three." Ranma said, emotionlessly.

"Alright just give me a moment to breath a little." Donny said as he took a few breaths. "Okay. One.........." He began.

Ranma dug the knife into the wound and began working on dislodging the bullet in there. "Three." He said. Donny began squirming a little bit and he covered his eyes and looked away as Ranma pulled it out with his fingers again.

"I didn't say two or three." Said Donny between deep raspy breaths. Ranma shrugged threw the bullet on the ground and moved to the one on his side.

"You were stalling." Ranma said. "I'm going in again." Donny clenched his teeth and waited for the pain to subside. When Ranma finished, Donny let out a sigh of relief.

"I don't know what's worse, getting shot or getting healed." Donny said as he lay back breathing heavily.

"I'm not done yet." Said Ranma. "I've still got to sauderize the wounds so you don't bleed to death or get infected." Donny groaned.

Ranma stuck the same knife onto a stove burner and waited a few minutes for the blade to heat up. Donny began breathing and chanting a mantra to himself as he noticed Ranma pick up the knife. "I won't cry, I won't cry, I won't cry." Ranma sat down on the chair beside the bed and paused for a second, he then pressed the flat of the blade onto the wound on his side, Donny wasn't expecting this and was thinking that he would do the leg first again. "Aaaah, this is _not_ f-f-funny, Ranma." Donny said between gasps of pain.

"Who's trying to be funny?" Ranma asked. As he looked his friend in the eye and smiled.

"I hate you." Donny said. Ranma nodded and then without warning moved the red hot blade to the leg wound. When it was all over Donny fell asleep and Ranma began polishing up his weapons which were all mostly covered in vampire blood.

He began to think back to the girl he had saved from a horde of vampires a few days ago in China. She was very pretty and could fight fairly decently from what he saw at the now torched tavern. He looked over at Donny on the other bed and frowned. His blonde haired friend was holding something back from him and it was really irritating. He wanted Toru dead and the sooner the better.

**************

Later that night, a man entered the hotel, he was tall, about nine feet, and was dressed completely in black, making him almost invisible to the naked eye. He walked through the lobby without a sound and walked up a creaky flight of stairs, though they did not creak once. When he reached the top of the stairs he stopped for a moment and a distortion of sorts appeared around him, he then turned and began walking down the hall towards a certain room.

The man's hand glowed a dark Crimson light for a moment and a small click was heard, indicating that the door had been unlocked somehow. He opened the door silently and walked through the door, his height forcing him to duck down. He walked towards one of the beds in the room and reached a hand out to touch the man occupying it. The man with the tussled black hair and a short ponytail.

All of a sudden the sheets flew off of the figure on the bed and the large man took a step back as a black blur shot over his head he turned around and looked tried to get a good look at the boy. He didn't get a chance to focus his eyes on the boy who attacked suddenly at the tall figure. The tall figure grabbed onto both Ranma's arms, locking them together and disabling the attack. He then swung him hard into one of the walls, _hard_. It cracked and pieces of it fell off from the impact.

Ranma stood up with his sword at a defensive position. Apparently a head on surprise attack wasn't doing him any good, the giant was too fast even though his mass would suggest otherwise. "Who are you? What do want?!" Ranma asked with a glare.

The giant took a single step towards Ranma and took off the large black cloak that was concealing his appearance. "I sense good in you, and a soul. Though you have the blood of the undead. You have much hate for Vampires, yet, you are a part of them yourself."

"SHUT UP!!" Ranma snarled at the overly large vampire in front of him and prepared to attack again. The vampire moved out of the way with blinding speed and Ranma just hit nothing.

The Vampire, who stood about nine feet tall, had long greasy grey hair, flowing black robes with red hems, and a very noticeable vampiric appearance, put out a calming hand. "I am not here to fight you." He said in a calm voice. "My name is Ekimus. I've come to you with an offer."

Ranma sniffed and held his position. "Right! Every time I hear a vampire say they have an offer for me it usually involves DYING!" He said with heavy sarcasm, "You expect me to believe this _crap_!?" Ekimus shook his head.

"You don't need to believe anything. You're already caught up in something over your head. You are one of the chosen and play a big role in the plans of Toru Asahata." Ranma moved forward threateningly.

"What do you know about Toru!?" Ranma asked with menace. Ekimus moved forward as well, but kept his distance from the boy's blade.

"I know that you are a damphir, with the heart of a hero. Toru is looking to resurrect the Blood God and only you can acquire the power to defeat him. I can teach you that power, if you refuse though, then the world will be thrust into darkness and Toru will win."

"If your really on the side of good, why don't you stop him yourself?"

Ekimus shook his ancient head and frowned. "I would, but, both Heaven and Hell have forbid my colleagues and I to interfere directly. For some reason they have led me to you. You alone who must defeat this man on your own. I have been given permission to guide you and teach you the magic that would allow you to overcome all of Toru's obstacles."

Ranma rolled his eyes. "Riiiight! I'm supposed to believe a total stranger, a vampire at that, automatically that I'm supposed to save the world or something, I've got my own reasons for going after Toru and I don't your help to kill a second rate vampire." Ranma then jumps springs off of a nearby wall and attacks Ekimus again. The vampire then turned into a blacking mist and Ranma's blade passed right through him. The mist then began to float out of the door. Ekimus' voice could be heard trailing off as he left.

"Remember my offer boy. It still stands."

Ranma frowned, closed the door to the hotel room and then throws his blade under the bed that he was sleeping in. He climbs back under the sheets and then tries to go back to sleep. He looks over to the Bed Donny was sleeping in and gets a confused look on his face. Donny was still fast asleep, *that's odd.* Ranma thought to him self. He then shrugged and tried to get back to sleep.

************

Elsewhere,

Three beings sat around a pool of water and stared into it, an image of Ranma sleeping with a frown was floating in the water. One of the beings, a female with long silver hair and her features hidden by shadows, spoke as she gazed at the image. "This could be bad. If La Magra is resurrected then you can kiss Midgard goodBYE!" One of the other girls hidden by shadows staring into the pool spoke,

"I don't think this is a good idea. What was father thinking when he chose a vampire to be a chosen one? Let alone three! I don't see any good in this person. All he does is hunt after some bad guy for revenge."

The third one spoke, this one having long brown hair hanging down past her shoulders in a long ponytail. "Father sees much good in Ranma Saotome. I do to. We shouldn't question fathers motives, everything he does has a purpose. I think we should just pray that La Magra doesn't get released. After all father wouldn't choose this boy if he didn't think he could accomplish such a task."

"Good point." said the silver haired girl, "besides, I think he's cute."

The brown haired one looked to the silver haired girl, "Father said nobody is to interfere with this. It's very important to him. I better not catch you in Midgard until it's all over." the silver one threw her hands up in the air and stood up.

"Fine, fine! I'm outta here." The other two girls stood up from the sides of the pool and followed the silver haired one. The picture in the pool faded away and it gave the appearance of normal water.

***********

The next morning. Donny sat at a small desk in the hotel room that he and Ranma had taken up residence in for the time being. "Must have been some party you had last night Ranma." he said as he typed at a laptop computer he had taken with him.

Ranma was sharpening some of his smaller blades that he had as he sat on a chair with his legs up on the same desk Donny was using. "What is it your doing anyway?" He asked. Donny put his hand over the mouse to the right of the portable computer, moved it to a certain part of the screen and clicked.

"Trying to get us a more permanent and less costly base of operations. I've got a good contact here in Japan who I'm pretty sure can hook us up easily." Ranma put down his sharpening tools and stared at the screen.

"So who's this contact of yours?" Ranma asked.

"Just a girl I know." Donny said as he typed a few more things on his computer then clicked again with the mouse. "A HA! I just got us a place, free of charge for about six or seven months!" Ranma looked at the screen and read over some of the stuff.

"Exchange students?" Ranma asked confusedly. "What the hells that supposed to mean?"

Donny laughed nervously, he had hoped he wouldn't have to explain it to him. He knew he wouldn't like it. "Well, the only way I could get us a place was by setting us up as exchange students. This means we'll get food, shelter, and privacy."

Ranma shrugged. "That's not so bad."

"There's a catch."

"What!?" Ranma said as he glared at Donny.

"We have to go to a nearby school. That's a part of the deal." Ranma grit his teeth and gripped the knife in his hands a little tighter. Donny noticed this and started to sweat. "Uhh, it's just an under cover sort of thing, yeah. I made sure that I got the place in a district that was fairly close to Toru's main base of operations." Ranma's grip loosened a little. "This will give us a little bit of an edge because we'll be living with a nice, well respected family for the duration of our stay and we wont be right next door so we won't be too obvious."

"Too OBVIOUS!?" Ranma yelled. "He knew we were coming before we even left China!" Donny put his hands up to calm his friend down a bit.

"Hold on now. I'm merely doing this to make it easier on ourselves."

"Do you know how much time school is going to take up!?" Ranma yelled. "We should be spending all of our time tracking down Toru and killing him! Not hanging around with a bunch of teenage girls, listening to teachers drone on about number and eating lunch under a tree. We've got more important things to deal with than this crap!"

Donny turned back to his computer and clicked a couple of buttons. "Alright." he said with a defeated sigh. "I'll try to fix us up with something better. Why don't you make yourself useful and get us some breakfast? I'm starving, and this big ass wound on my leg doesn't make walking all that fun!"

Ranma nodded, picked up his trench-coat and headed out the door.

*************

Heads turn with confusion wonder and sometimes attraction as Ranma walks back towards the Hotel room that he and Donny are staying at. He was currently eating some fries out of one of many bags in his arms. He had gone down to a couple restaurants and fast food places and picked up some breakfast like Donny had said to do. Of course with Donny's luck it'd all be eaten by Ranma by the time he got back to the hotel. Ranma tried to not notice all of the stares he was getting from practically every person he walked by but he really stuck out in a crowd and there weren't that many people out at that moment.

Most people out on the streets of Japan were Elderly people, teenagers with bright coloured t-shirts and young children taking early morning walks with their parents. Ranma had unkept black hair, red eyes, a trench coat and a sword slung over his back. Ranma paused and looked down to see a little girl tugging at his trench-coat.

"What?" Ranma said in confusion.

The girl dug around in a backpack for a moment and then pulled out a piece of paper and a crayon. The little girl then held out the paper and the crayon up towards Ranma and blushed. "C-Can I have your autogwaph?" She asked. Ranma chuckled and then shook his head.

"I'm not an actor." Ranma said. Just then a hand came down and grabbed the girl pulling her away from Ranma. Ranma looked up to see, what he guessed was the girls mother, pulling on the girl's arm and chastising her for bothering Ranma.

"How many times have I told you not to talk to strangers?!"

"But Maaaaa!"

"No buts! I want you to stay away from him!" The stopped complaining and waved to Ranma as her mother dragged her down the street.

"BYE JACKIE CHAN!!" The girl said as she waved to Ranma.

Ranma turned and began walking to the hotel again. *Jackie Chan? Who's that?* Ranma wondered in his head as he continued to walk down the sidewalk. Ranma stopped all of a sudden and looked around. He looked towards an alley on the other side of the road that he had just passed. *I'm being followed.* He stated in his mind. He then began to walk again, he felt a presence move at the same time as him and had no doubt in his mind that the presence had been following him ever since he had left the hotel.

Ranma decided that then was a good time to leave and find a more secure place to stay.

***************

SLAM!

Donny jumped out of his seat as Ranma came rushing through the door with a look of worry on his face. "What's going on?" Donny asked in confusion as Ranma began packing up all of their stuff.

"We've got to go find that place that we're going to be staying at aren't we?" Ranma said. Donny walked up to Ranma and began helping him pack up as the half-vampire Martial artist began looking around the room at the ceilings and the lamps and such.

"What's going on?" Donny asked in a quiet whisper of a voice. Ranma finally stopped looking and focused on the packing. He motioned with his head towards one side of the room with his head while keeping his eyes on what he was doing.

"There's a painting on the wall over there. The eye is a small camera and we've been being monitored the entire time we were here. There's another one in the ashtray on the right wall by the bathroom. Do exactly as I say when I say." Donny nodded and listened as Ranma gave him the basics of what they were going to do and continued packing.

***********

In the next room a lone figure sits on a chair viewing two monitors that show clear pictures of Ranma and Donny packing their things, getting ready to leave. One of the cameras showed Ranma walking towards it with a sword in his hand, Ranma then tripped over something on the floor and fell into the secret hidden camera, the picture tumbled for a bit and then the monitor showed nothing but static.

"Clumsy kids." snorted the man he then saw Donny and Ranma leave the view of the camera, the camera stayed to show just a blank screen for a moment then Ranma came back with his sword and stabbed it straight into the camera.

"OH SHIT!" The person then pressed a button on the console in front of him and screamed into the head piece. "THE DAHMPIR'S FOUND US OUT! SEND THE SHOCK TROOPS IN!!"

************

CRASH!

Five human figures burst through the door to the hotel Room Donny and Ranma were staying at. The figures were clad in shiny black suits and had bit's of technology protruding from their faces and arms, as well as large generators on their backs. The suits covered every single part of their anatomy, no epidermis was showing anywhere. Each person had a high tech handgun one them and they were looking around the room frantically trying to find their targets.

"Where are they?" one of them asked.

"I don't know." Responded another.

"Spread out, we don't get paid until we've captured him." Said the one at the head of the group. He was obviously the leader.

The black clad shock troopers nodded and began searching the area. One of them kicked down the door to the bathroom and looked around inside. "No one in here!" He called out to the rest of the group. Just then the window smashed in from the outside and Ranma came to a stop on the floor in a martial arts stance with his sword held over his head.

"Uh oh." Ranma said as his smirk faltered. He jumped out of the way just as five electromagnetic pulse lasers shot towards him. He got out of the way in time but the wall behind him did not fare as well. An explosion rocked the entire foundation and Ranma fell on his face as a cloud of dust covered his and the black figures vision. Ranma got another surprise then when the guns began firing repeatedly at him. He barely managed to get out of the way but the explosions that were caused afterwards threw him off balance. "I have GOT to get me one of those!" Ranma said as he tried to blind side one of them through the dust.

It didn't work and another hail of pulse fire threw him off balance. *SHIT! They must have some sort of heat vision.* Ranma thought as he tried to get a better look of his opponents. Suddenly they stopped firing altogether. *Nows my chance!* Ranma thought as he suddenly rushed towards the black clad group.

************

The man in the next room looked through the monitors in front of him with wide eyes. They were showing the black clad figures firing at The Saotome Blade. He was looking through a camera that was attached to one of the shock troops head pieces.

"STOP FIRING! STOP FIRING!" He yelled into his own head piece. "TORU WANT'S HIM ALIVE! USE NON-LETHAL TERMS!"

*************

As soon as the Shock troops stopped firing their weapons at Ranma he rushed towards them with a smirk on his face. he picked up his sword off of the ground on his mad dash since it had been knocked out of his hands during the explosion.

Normally any and all vampire would flee at the sight of the infamous Saotome Blade attacking them, but Ranma was surprised for the umpteenth time that day when each of the shock troopers pulled out bladed weapons of their own and rushed to meet the Teenage dhampir's attack. Ranma couldn't recognize the type of weapons they were using as he dodged and weaved through their defenses. Ranma's blade clashed with one of the vampire shock trooper's blades and then some sort of blue glow ignited on the oddly shaped blade's edge and it began to cut through Ranma's sword.

"WHAT THE HELL!?" Ranma yelled as he jumped back and away from the blade. Half of Ranma's blade fell off and he was left with a hilt and a much shorter blade. Ranma's eyebrows furrowed and he frowned, "Now I'm pissed." He pointed to his now broken sword and looked around at the shock troops who were surrounding him and waiting for him to make the next move. "THIS was my FAVORITE SWORD!" He yelled.

Ranma leapt towards the leader and swung his blade at his head. It conected right at the base of his neck but nothing happened, or rather something did but not what Ranma had intended. Instead of the blade cutting through the vampires neck and decapitating him, it stopped about four inches from contact by some sort of blue force field that flashed when it hit. "...the Fuck?!" Ranma said.

He was then caught off guard as a fist impacted with his skull and sent him to the other side of the room. Ranma nearly fell out of the gap in the wall to the ground below but he righted himself just in time to see all five shock troops headed towards him with weapons bared, except one that had, what Ranma thought, was a device for detaining a person. Ranma jumped towards that person and began hitting him as fast as he could in as many different places hoping to find a weak spot. Ranma then noticed a back pack of some sort on one black clad troops backs.

The pack had some sort of metallic container that was carrying some kind of glowing fluid. *Bingo!* Ranma thought as he got his trademark smirk across his face. Ranma rushed towards the man and feinted attacking from the front. The shock troop was obviously getting cocky and laughed expecting the sword to be deflected by the force field that surrounded him. Ranma then jumped over the vampire and spun around stabbing the container holding fluid. His blade continued through and impaled the vamp through the heart. It then disintegrated, leaving only a pile of dust and technology.

The other vamp's force fields glowed blue around them like auras and the they were gone. They looked at Ranma in shock as he smiled darkly at his opponents. "Now it's my turn to have fun." With that Ranma picked up the gun that the shock trooper he killed had dropped and began firing it at the other troopers. Electromagnetic pulse fire erupted from the weapon and hit each target dead on before they even knew what was happening. They're bodies exploded in a blueish green and orange fireball. "HA HAA! I LOVE THIS THING!" Ranma said as he kissed the weapon on the side before gathering up the leftovers of the first shock troops weaponry and armor.

Ranma walked over to the hole in the wall where one there had been a window. He looked back at the destroyed room for a moment and whistled. "Room service is going to have a hell of a time with this." Ranma then jumped out of the room and into the alley below.

*************

Donny sat whistling at a bus stop with one leg crossed over the other. He was currently writing something on his laptop while waiting for Ranma to finish up at the Hotel. He looked at his watch for a moment and frowned. *Jeeze! What the hell is taking him so long?*

"OH MY GOD THAT MAN'S GOT A GUN!"

Donny smiled as the obese Japanese woman pointed And yelled that out. "That would be Ranma." He noted to himself. The woman's statement sent the people in the area in a frenzy and they all began running around in different directions trying to get away from the area. Ranma appeared a moment later in Donny's line of vision. The pigtailed Dhampir walked towards Donny with the electromagnetic weapon in one hand and a leather suit with bits of technology attached to it draped in the other. "Took you long enough." stated Donny.

"I needed to let some steam off. Past few day've been a little hectic." Replied the Black clad vampire hunter as he took a seat right next to Donny at the bus stop. "When's the bus come?" He asked.

Donny looked at his watch again. "It should be here in another couple minutes. It heads straight to Nerima, that's where the family we're gonna be staying with is living." Donny noticed the gun in Ranma's hand and the other stuff. "Say, what is all of that stuff anyway?"

Ranma held up the gun for Donny to see. "This, is the kind of stuff they were using on me. This gun has some sort of explosive, electromagnetic pulse beam, and the suits have some sort of generator that gives them a force field of sorts."

"Fascinating!" Donny exclaimed as he examined the weapon. "This is far more advanced than anything I've ever seen in our modern technology. This is light years away from what we should be able to develop."

"So your suggesting...what?" Ranma asked. Donny shrugged his shoulders, and grabbed the force suit that Ranma was carrying with him.

"I don't know. But what I do know is that if I could pick this apart than I could probably duplicate it and maybe even improve on it. This appears to be a prototype of some sort. I can't wait to find out what this thing's made of."

Ranma nodded and looked over his shoulder to see a bus pulling up to the stop. "Here's our ride." Ranma said. Donny looked back and sure enough, there was a bus there {duh}

*************

Authors notes:{Well that's it. I've finally gotten back to writing Saotome Blade. It's been a while, but I've got lots of great new ideas for this story and I want to get through the first plot line and GET the STORY TOLD! I procrastinate way too much when it comes to writing. Between Martial Arts, Drum lessons, Weight lifting, band practice, school, and Improv team, I've hardly got any time to write. I will try to update fairly often but I can't guarantee any weekly updates. I'll be working on this story, Adamantium Rage, and Ranma's Hell Forge for quite a while. I want to get caught up to Astral Minds and maybe even surpass it in number of chapters. Astral Minds is an Epic and probably won't end for a long LONG time, Saotome Blade, Adamantium Rage and Hell Forge have endings, so I'm gonna get there. I haven't forgotten about the others, I'm just putting them on hold. Thanks for waiting, Morden Night: anime_morden@crystal-tokyo.com

http://josh_vh.tripod.com