You may have noticed this already, dear reader, but these days everything is so abbreviated. There seems to be an acronym for every word you could think of. Some may decry recent phenomena such as Twitter and texting as corruption of our fair language, but I call it evolution. Language has changed, is changing and will continue to change. Far be it for us to criticise that which we mere mortals have no influence over! We must rid ourselves of this erroneous perception that words can be "dirty" or "impure", for were not all words born equal? Were they not nursed and cradled from their wombs by our democratic tongues?

And that is why from now on I will refer to the Benevolent One as BO, because it is too much bother to type out his name in full each time.

And that's the moral of the story:

Kuroko and the Vampire of Shinjuku
Chapter six: Finally, some exposition

BO was a national treasure in his own right. He had lived for thousands upon thousands of years. Unlike many of you reading this, he was born during the Bronze Age, when the Pharaoh Khufu erected the Great Pyramid at Giza and when the island of Crete was still inhabited by the Minoans. He led the first movement of vampires during the Dark Ages and, during the period of mass hysteria against vampires in the eighteenth century, he took it upon himself to shelter and to protect his fellow blood-suckers. This was a period in time known in Vampiric history as The Retreat. BO was considered one of the greatest heroes of that era. He had a real name once, though reverently, he came to be referred to solely as BO.

The country he chose to create the Den of Vampires in was Japan, a land that had, up until then, had no connections to vampires whatsoever. For almost a hundred years, vampire lived in relative sanctity, inconspicuously preying on the bodies of dead soldiers in feudal Japan. But time marched on and, in 1868, the year of the Meiji Restoration, BO met his match.

That was the year Kid came to Japan.

They stood in that blood-soaked field in the dead of the night, the sleeves of their kimonos flapping in the wind. Their swords were in hand and for a moment of deathly silence, they could only look at each other, seeing their lust for battle reflected in the eyes of the other. In all the years that had passed before or since, BO never doubted that he would protect all the vampires under his care. Standing still and furrowing his brow in deep contemplation, he eventually came to a decision.

To the shock and awe of those around him, BO sheathed his sword. He came close to the startled Kid and extended his hand for the Slayer to shake.

It was a moment never to be remembered, but never to be forgotten either.


These days, BO enjoys sleeping in his coffin, indulging in pointless sadistic laughter and formulating evil, convoluted plans. His hobbies include watching Asian dramas and reading romantic teen lit about vampires. When Aida came into the Den of Vampires, he stayed in his coffin all the time and only spoke so that he could make belittling comments to her. At various times, Aida attempted to open his coffin and smack him, but the coffin was magically shut and would open for no mortal. BO laughed at her futile efforts, and so did Alfred and one of his friends. The others simply turned over in their coffins and went on snoozing.

"I am getting so sick of you guys," Aida said indignantly.

"I'm afraid you'll have to stay here until Tetsuya Kuroko and Taiga Kagami come to us," BO told her, chuckling sardonically.

"Here's my question," Aida interjected. "Why didn't you just go out and kill them or bite them or whatever you wanted? It was a lot of mucking around kidnapping me and threatening them to come and all that. It's just so impractical; I've been trying to rationalise it in my head and I am not succeeding very well."

"I suppose I do owe you an explanation," BO said, sounding mildly amused.

Aida rolled her eyes. "Finally, some exposition!"

"Listen well, human. It's like this," BO explained in condescending tones. "You are female. That is why we picked you. The other day, we vampires lost a valued comrade. Her name was Katou and she was killed by those two foolish boys you coach. We took you so that we could turn you into a vampire right in front of their eyes. Vampire law dictates that we may only have ten males and ten females in one tribe and so we can only replace Katou with you. That is all."

Aida digested this with a pause. "Vampire law?" she said questioningly. "What's with the arbitrary law?"

"That was decided upon in the first year of the Meiji," BO answered curtly. "We can only feast on human blood upon the night of the new moon and we cannot turn humans into vampires except to replace a vampire that has been lost. That is how we ancient beings have escaped your inattentive notice for all these years."

So the legend of the Vampire of Shinjuku was true, Aida thought. Once every month, a poor, hapless boy with little physical presence was taken into the Den of Vampires and sucked of his blood. According to the legend, these boys who were bitten never died. They all survived. But they lost all motivation and energy and they hid themselves away in the darkness of their own homes, some of them never even coming out of their rooms. These sufferers of acute social withdrawal became what the Japanese call 'hikikomori'. And because they had never had much physical presence in the first place, nobody ever really realised that they went missing at all, let alone that there was a pattern…

Aida had always thought that the Vampire of Shinjuku story was just something high schoolers came up with to explain why hikikomori existed, but now, having seen the vampires herself, she was not sure. She had a niggling feeling that she was forgetting something important, but she had no idea what it was.

She was still deep in thought when Alfred sat up straight and let out an excited yelp. It was his job not only to watch over Aida but to keep an eye on the footage from the hidden security cameras stationed around the Den of Vampires.

"They're here, o BO!" he cried. "I can see 'em!"

Aida strained her neck to see. She could see Kagami straight away, holding a giant sword that would put Cloud Strife to shame. Kuroko was much harder to catch a glimpse of, but she managed to identify him after a moment. He was standing back to back with Kagami, preparing to bust in through the doorway. Part of Aida felt anxious about BO's dastardly plan, but another part of her could not help but feel eager. In her opinion, whenever these two boys put their mind to something, they were an unstoppable force.

"You can't defeat Seirin!" she declared with a haughty cackle. "Bwa ha! Bwa ha ha ha ha ha!"

"You're doing it wrong," said BO irately. "It's like this: MWA HA! MWA HA HA HA-!"

The door crashed open.

"We're here to spank some pale white ass!" Kagami announced.

"-HA HA HA HA HA!" BO finished with a wheeze.

"This guy pisses me off," said Kagami.

"Be careful, you two!" Aida called out to them. "These guys are tough!"

That was about all the warning she could give to them. Two vampires, one of them Alfred, sprang to their feet and glared at Kagami and Kuroko menacingly. The other vampires turned over in their sleep.

The vampire who was not Alfred was a blond pretty boy who, had he not suffered from an acute aversion to light, could have become a model rivalling Kise. He had clear blue eyes, a voice that many women would describe as an orgasm to the ears and nostril hair that was simply divine. He stood before Kagami and Kuroko with his fangs clearly visible and he said:

"Fear me! My name is Fabio! You heinous villains have intruded upon our idyllic Den and caused a strife that is simply reprehensive, and for that you can never be vindicated, in this life or the next! Alfred and I shall lacerate your skin! We shall become heroes of justice and love! We shall-"

Kuroko shot him dead.

"That's racist!" said Alfred indignantly.

Then Kagami cut off his head.

"Well, that was kind of anticlimactic," said Aida dryly.

"The Preview lied!" Kagami fumed.

"Are you okay?" Kuroko asked Aida, extending a hand for her. She took it and stood up, brushing the dust off her skirt.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she told him briskly. "Listen, you guys. Those two vampires weren't it. There's more-"

She was interrupted by the creaking sound of coffins opening. Gulping, she turned around to see the sight of sixteen vampires with a terrible case of bed hair staring down at her with bloodshot eyes.

"Up and at 'em, boys!" Aida said, laughing nervously.

When no affirmative response came from Kagami, Aida started to feel herself get mad. "Come on already!" she groaned and turned to glare at the two boys.

They were lying on the floor, out stone cold. A twelve-year-old boy wearing an old-fashioned suit stood over their unconscious bodies, grasping a crowbar tightly in his hands. Kid straightened himself up neatly, fixed his bowtie and then bowed politely at Aida.

"I apologise for the inconvenience," he said smoothly.

And, taking a step towards Aida, he raised his crowbar once more.


When Aida woke up, her head was throbbing as if she were suffering from hangover. Her night vision goggles were gone and so she could not see even a metre in front of her in the darkness. But she could feel Kagami's warm body next to her because they were tied together with rope. Aida could not fall her arms at all. The ropes were cutting into her skin.

"This sucks," she said aloud, to no one in particular.

"Yeah," Kagami agreed with her. "It does."

"At least you're alive," Aida remarked wryly.

"Not for very long," Kagami told her.

"Oh," said Aida.

That was the part where she noticed that she and Kagami were trussed up upside down over a body of water and that there were flesh-eating piranhas swimming about in the water.

"Wait, how'd that get here?" she wondered aloud. She was pretty sure if there had been a pool of piranhas inside the Den of Vampires, she would have noticed it earlier. There was the possibility that the vampires had magicked it into existence (it was something they were perfectly capable of) but it was still a little random nonetheless.

"I don't know but… WE GOTTA GET OUTTA HERE!" Kagami roared, pushing against the rope vainly. The two of them swayed about in the air, their heads perilously close to the surface of the water. A piranha snapped at them, missing Kagami's nose by a hair.

"Way to think ahead, dumbass," said Aida.

"I don't see you doing anything," Kagami grumbled.

They hung there awkwardly for a moment, contemplating their dire situation.

"Hey, where's Kuroko?" Aida asked randomly.

Before Kagami could reply, Kid's voice responded to them. Aida could not see where he was, but he was standing somewhere to her right, beyond the pool of piranhas.

"Tetsuya Kuroko is with BO," said Kid.

"That stinks!" Aida scowled.

"You're a dirty traitor!" Kagami said furiously. "I never liked you, you know that!"

"I'm sorry," said Kid, "but it is my sacred duty as a Slayer."

He explained that over time, as his desire to slay vampires had faded, his role as a Slayer shifted to policing the remaining vampires in order to ensure that they did not cause undue fatalities. He contrived to keep their existence a secret and even to supply them with blood.

"As someone who was bitten by a vampire and underwent a partial transformation, my vampire powers only come out on the night of the new moon," he explained. "I am the Vampire of Shinjuku. I take young boys out of their natural habitat and I give them to the vampires to feast on."

Aida and Kagami gazed at Kid with mild fear. While pop culture had diminished their fear of vampires to a state of nonexistence, they both had to admit that the idea that hapless boys were being kidnapped, thrown into a den of twenty bloodsucking monsters who took it in turns to violate their bodies and then being doomed from their scarred experience to live a life of acute social withdrawal was honestly rather horrifying.

"And you strung us along…" Kagami growled.

"I had to," Kid told him simply. "You killed a vampire. They need to reproduce and they asked me to assist. I will ensure that you will not die though. I will erase your memories after this."

At this point, Aida had to wonder why she and Kagami were trussed upside down like chickens if they were not meant to be fed alive to the piranhas.

"That's so you don't try to escape," Kid explained reasonably.

You might imagine that Aida was really quite infuriated with this arrangement and that she did not think very highly of Kid, the traitorous Vampire Slayer. She found herself seething in a slew of hate and rage. She hated Kid. She wanted to express this emotion with the most vicious insult she could imagine.

"You are a poohead," she said.

"Argh! What's gonna happen to Kuroko?" Kagami asked worriedly. "You bastard! Let us see him!"

"Patience, my child, I have already spoken of this to you," Kid said sternly. "BO will not take long."

It is now pointless for me to continue writing out this scene. Kagami just went back and forth retreading the same insults and reproaches, expressing the same sentiments over and over again of wanting to shove a stick up Kid's posterior, of wanting to make sure Kuroko was safe, of wanting to escape. Let us now turn the scene to Kuroko and find out how his encounter with BO turned out.


Kuroko woke up next to BO's coffin and sat up, frowning, trying to regain his wits about him. His gun, Kiku-ichimonji, was gone.

BO's cackles filled the room.

"It is time for me to show my face to you, Tetsuya Kuroko."

So Kuroko sat down cross-legged next to the coffin and waited patiently.

Slowly, agonisingly slowly, the coffin began to open. A fine layer of dust filled the room. It was evident that the vampire did not come out of his coffin very often. Coughing and wheezing, he rose from the depths of his coffin. Kuroko blinked when he saw him because he recognised him. He recognised him all too well.


Next chapter: Who is BO? How does Kuroko know him? What really happened that time he was walking through Shinjuku when he was young? If you have no idea what I am talking about, reread the first chapter while you wait for chapter seven to come out.

(Hint: BO is a canon character, kind of.)