A/N: Sorry this took so long to get out and sorry that it was so short – it was supposed to be longer, but things change.

Also, "Can They Handle the Truth" has been delayed indefinitely. It could come out next week or never, I don`t know. I am open to recommendations, endorsements for ideas I have already posted, or proposals for collaboration.

Moving on to other subjects.

Happy Birthday to me! Not only did I turn 21, but this story turned one! And this story has come quite a long way – archived in two communities and garnered 148 reviews, 313 favorites, 360 followers, and more than 30,000 views!

Also, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Let`s just hope that 2017 is less crazy than 2016.

But don`t you people worry, this story is only going to get even crazier!

EDIT: Title of this chapter has been changed from "Rise of the Planet of the Vampires"

Chapter 10: Tokyo, We Have A Problem - Kakuja Crisis Arc: Part 1

Shinohara POV

He could only watch in sorrow as the men from the coroner`s office zipped up the body bag, enclosing the still corpse of a teenaged girl, and carting her away. The girl had died from blood loss after her throat had been torn open from a large bite wound. He had only arrived just in time to see that happen, so he turned to the nearest police investigator.

"What do we know about the victim?" he inquired.

The officer held back up his notepad and read from it. "Chiasa Hara. Age 16. Daughter of Umaeda Hara, a member of the Diet. According to the faculty, not among the very smartest of students, but she was rather popular among the students as well as an avid member of the kendo club and got decent enough grades to get through her classes rather comfortably."

"Time of death?"

"According to the medics, she died literally only one hour ago."

"Do we have video of who did it?" Shinohara noted the cameras placed at the corners of the hallways.

"There is no security footage inside the restroom itself, and we did check the hallway cameras but there is no one who entered the restroom who didn`t later leave it before when the victim herself entered. Basically, we have no idea how the killer got in and out

"Anything that would make her a target for a ghoul attack?"

"One of her friends is Michi Matsuzaka, the daughter of one of your people, and if I remember correctly, now a confirmed associate of the so-called No-Life Queen?"

Of course, Shinohara thought. The No-Life Queen is probably trying to tie up loose ends so as to have as much breathing room as possible for whatever she`s planning. "Did she have any other friends?"

The officer nodded. "Yes. We talked to the students and the faculty, and they have told us that she was a good friend of Michi`s before she was attacked two months ago, and then she broke relations with her for a couple weeks before they were reacquainted. Her other two close friends are Katsuo Ishikawa and Masahiko Himura. The first is, according to gossip anyway, a member of the yakuza and the second is a star athlete in track and archery, as well as her boyfriend, although no one can confirm that."

"Have you talked to them yet?" Shinohara asked.

The man shook his head. "According to students and staff, Katsuo hasn`t been in school for several days now, citing that his grandfather recently passed away, along with a number of family friends. Also, Masahiko hasn`t come to school today, and no one knows why."

Could those two be connected to all this as well?

"Yoo-hoo! Boss-man!"

Shinohara couldn`t help but smile as he turned to his approaching partner, a pale androgynous boy with white hair and red hairpins worn like the Roman numeral XIII, crazed and playful red eyes, and red stitches on his right arm, the front of his neck, on his lip, and under his right eye. Dressed in his usual white button-down shirt with red suspenders and black pants with black shoes, Juuzou Suzuya took another spoonful of ice cream he had been enjoying when Shinohara learned about the ghoul attack at Michi Matsuzaka`s high school.

"Hey, Juuzou. Find anything?"

"Yeah! I found this little girl in a frilly pink poofy princess dress wandering around outside who was looking for a "Ghoul Detective"! She says she works for the Queen!"

Shinohara couldn`t help but slightly raise an eyebrow at that. More about the girl than Juuzou`s claims. "Really? And do you believe her?" Shinohara didn`t doubt his partner, as his abusive upbringing by ghouls had made him into a very brutally honest individual. And-

"Of course! You should always believe someone who has a giant battleax!"

Wait, what?

-One Minute Later-

Shinohara could hardly believe the sight that greeted his eyes.

Standing only a few meters away from him was a tiny little girl, no more than seven or eight years old, with giant blue eyes, ankle-length brown hair, an innocent smile that split her face in half, who was indeed wearing a "frilly, pink, poofy princess dress,"-

And with her was a giant, hot pink battleax with a hilt that was taller than he was and a sickeningly sharp-edged ax head that was bigger than his torso. Which she was casually leaning against her shoulder with only a hand to keep it from falling.

The ax alone confirmed that the girl wasn`t human, but he still had a hard time believing that even a ghoul of that age could casually wield a weapon that big, and if one somehow could, then it would be nothing short of extremely dangerous.

That`s why he still didn`t feel comfortable about his current situation despite all the police pointing their guns at her.

"See boss!" Juuzou cried excitedly. "She`s got the biggest battleax I`ve ever seen! When I get my quinque, I want it to be as big as that!" Then, he ran forward toward the girl.

"W-wait, Juuzou!" Shinohara sputtered, as the other police also called out to Juuzou.

"Kid, get out of the way!"

"Hey, what do you think you`re doing?"

He ignored all of them, of course.

"Hello, Princess!" Juuzou greeted, bowing forward playfully. Then, swooshing his arms about fancily toward Shinohara, he declared, "Presenting my boss and partner, one of the great and mighty men of the CCG, SPECIAL-CLASS INVESTIGATOR YUKINORI SHINOHARA!"

Juuzou`s heraldic proclamation elicited silence from the police, a slight groan from Shinohara, and giggling from the little girl.

Juuzou then walked back to Shinohara`s side, while the man himself pondered briefly how to approach the little girl. Taking a deep breath, he put on his best smile and walked forward.

"Hello. I guess you already know my name. What`s yours?"

The girl`s smile got just a little wider. "I`m Haruka Tsukino! But you can call me Haru-chan!"

"You have a pretty name, Haru-chan."

"Thank you Detective-san!"

So far, so good. He bet down to look the girl closer to her eye level. "So, you told my partner Juuzou that you wanted to talk to me. Right?"

"Uh-huh," she nodded.

"You also told him that you work for the Queen? Who is the Queen?" He asked the question with a feeling he already knew the answer.

Haruka laughed, an adorable sound of joyful innocence. "You already know my Obaa-chan! She said so herself!"

"She`s your aunt?" No one in the CCG knew if Seras had any family or not. They had run her face and name through every database they could access, but had found nothing about her in any of them. In fact, there was literally no record of her anywhere they looked, as if she had been a ghost that suddenly came out of hiding.

She laughed again. "No, silly! She may not be my real Obaa-chan, but that doesn`t mean she isn`t!"

This elicited a small chuckle from Shinohara, who was still just a little disturbed at the scene before him. "Okay, okay. Well, you said that you wanted to talk to me. What do you want to talk about?"

There was a sparkle in her eye, as she excitedly asked him, "Do you want to be friends with me?"

Shinohara was immediately confused. "You want to be friends? With me?"

"Yeah! But not just you, because that would be no fun. I want to be friends with you and your friends. All of them!"

Shinohara could feel the sweat bead up on his forehead. What is she trying to do? The No-Life Queen definitely put her up to this. But why? "That sounds like a great idea, Haru-chan. I have a lot of friends, but I don`t know how long it will take for you to become friends with all of them."

The girl just shook her head and continued to impishly grin at him. "Don`t worry, it won`t take too long. That`s why I brought all of my friends."

Shinohara`s smile disappeared as his face paled. At the same time, he belatedly noticed a shadow passing over…

CRASH!

He jerked back as something fell from the sky and landed right behind Haruka, cratering the walkway beneath it. Yells and screaming were sounding all around him as he took a look at what had appeared.

"No…"

First thing he noticed was that it was BIG. It was as big as a small, 4-passenger car and stood head and shoulders above him. The second thing was that it was dark blue with indigo pulses, almost the color of night. Third, it had the look of an anthropomorphic scorpion, complete with a long, flicking tail, claw-like hands and feet, and full-body segmented armor with a full-face mask complete with glowing red slits where the eyes should be. Fourth, it was laughing.

"It`s a… kakuja." Shinohara turned to Juuzou, who was silent as he stared in silence and more than a little shock at the sudden appearance of this monstrosity. He may have remembered to bring his quinque and had it by his side, but without his armor quinque Arata, he knew that he didn`t stand a chance against the kakuja.

"What`s the matter, Investigator-san?" Shinohara`s attention went back to Haruka, who was now holding the battleax to her side, and still smiling as innocently as ever. "He just wants to play. And he`s not the only friend I brought!"

Looking around, Shinohara saw them. The kakujas. They were on the rooftops, leering down at the streets below. They were stepping out of alleys onto the sidewalks and into the streets. One even burst out from a manhole cover, breaking apart pavement in the process. They resembled gigantic, multicolored macabre parodies of birds of prey, arthropods, and every other branch in between.

Their appearance caused people to scream, panic and run away from them in every direction, causing cars to crash and people to get trampled. People also began calling on their phones, and more than one took pictures before going on their way.

Shinohara knew that kakujas were the rarest of the rare among ghouls. Those who had cannibalized their kind to extremes that most of their kind didn`t even dare, as they risked life, limb, and sanity for the sake of achieving greater power. And few of them had the lucky combination of genes that allowed them to develop their kagune into an armored shell that granted them greater strength, speed, and regeneration that was beyond the abilities of the vast majority of the ghoul population. Kakujas were, far and out, the most dangerous kinds of ghouls imaginable.

And Shinohara had lost count of how many of them had just appeared after the second dozen.

"Can`t you see? He really really really REALLY wants to be friends with you. My daddy taught me that friendship is all about sharing, so if you share yourself with somebody else, that makes you best friends forever!"

For the first time in years, Shinohara felt real fear settle into his gut. Not just because of the kakujas everywhere, but the implications their appearance made.

"Obaa-chan told me that I should make friends with ghoul investigators, because you try day and night to make friends with ghouls everywhere but you keep doing it wrong! So, me and my friends are going to go everywhere, looking for all of you, so that we can make friends with as many of you as we can!"

He and many other CCG Investigators had been quick to deride the No-Life Queen as arrogant and pretentious after seeing the video she sent. But looking at the kakujas all around him, at least five of which he could visually estimate to be SSS-rating, he could see why she was that way.

Haruka then pouted. "But we have to go home when nighttime comes, so we can`t play with you all day and we can`t make friends with all of you. We also can`t make friends with anyone who isn`t a ghoul detective, because she wants to do some other things first."

Shinohara realized then and there, that they had severely underestimated Seras Victoria. If she was intelligent and powerful enough to hand control of a veritable army of kakujas to a little girl – an admittedly superhuman one – just what did that say about the size and strength of her organization? What did it say about her?

She smiled again. "But, I don`t mind. I get to have fun, meet new people, see new places, and make new friends!"

Right then, the kakujas then scattered in all directions, including the scorpion-like one who leaped over them onto the outside of the school, which it crawled up of before going over the lip of the roof and out of sight.

Haruka bowed and straightened again. "We all have to go now! I hope I can see you again later! BYE!"

Then she disappeared, kicking up a small dust cloud in her wake.

Shinohara stood there, supremely dumbfounded and literally shaking in his shoes. It took all the strength he had just to calm himself down over the next few moments, before he took out his cell and dialed the main office.

"Marude…"

A/N: Please leave honest reviews.

EDIT: Expect Part 2 to be released within the week!