What's it like to become a part-vampire?
Thanks for asking. Just turned one here in Japan. It's… an experience. The bed gets surprisingly warm in the morning. It's fine in spring, but come summer, air conditioning will be non-negotiable.
I've heard if you don't clean a room for too long, you grow cats. If a vampire doesn't clean their life for too long, apparently, you grow a golden-haired loli.
Sakurai Saki woke in the early morning light filtering through the blinds to find said loli sleeping peacefully in the crook of his arm. He rubbed his temples.
This feeling of post-facto déjà vu…
Did he do anything untoward last night?
Surely not.
What kind of person would make a move on… this?
Shinobu stirred, rubbed her eyes with tiny fists, her thin white T-shirt—one of his—draping over her like a short dress. "My servant… you wake quite early~" Vampires were nocturnal. For her, this was the middle of the night.
"Did anything… happen between us last night?"
"Everything happened Kaka Your gasps were most delightful~" Her reply was a masterclass in implication.
"That was just you feeding, right?" Sakurai rubbed his neck. The mirror had shown a perfect, vivid bite mark—indistinguishable from a love bite.
"For vampires," Shinobu said, a strange, ancient coquettishness on her childlike face, "the two paramount acts are feeding, and expanding the clan. I have done both with you."
Vampires possessed succubus traits; human concepts of sexual shame were foreign to them. What did carry intimacy and vulnerability was the creation of a familiar—a deliberate act of binding, of making family. Ordinary intercourse with humans was… recreational. So Shinobu's choice yesterday, to turn him as he lay 'dying,' had been a profound commitment, born from a past steeped in similar betrayal.
"What do you want for breakfast?" Sakurai asked, deftly sidestepping the minefield of vampire sexuality. He was ill-equipped for such bluntness.
"Donuts!" came the predictable, eager reply. She didn't need food for sustenance, only for pleasure.
After breakfast, Sakurai prepared to go out. At the genkan, he paused in the strip of shadow cast by the doorframe, gazing out at the bright spring sun.
Vampires feared sunlight. The stories said they turned to ash.
"…" He extended his hand into the light.
The effect was immediate. In the first second, angry red welts rose on his skin. After ten seconds, his fingertips began to blacken, curl, and disintegrate into fine, floating dust.
"…You." Shinobu's small form emerged from his own shadow, her expression etched with genuine concern.
Sakurai's face remained placid. The worst outcome was death. And death would purge the vampire essence; his own anomalous blood would never permanently host another lineage. He withdrew his hand. Within moments, the ash fell away and fresh, new skin sealed over the wound.
The side effects were stronger than anticipated. Inconvenient, but not insurmountable.
"Well," Sakurai said with a wry smile, "daily life just got significantly more complicated." Going outside meant literal dissolution. Vampires were tragically unlucky creatures.
"You… do you wish to become human again?" Shinobu's question was soft, layered with unspoken implications.
"If I become human again, you have to die. Correct?" Sakurai countered.
To reclaim his comfort, he would kill someone? The assistant he'd just gone through hell to save? If she had truly killed Fujiwara Chika, he could have done it without a second thought. But she hadn't. He'd been wrong, and a thread of guilt now bound him to her.
In this context, even if she had slain thousands over her 500 years, it was irrelevant. Sakurai Saki was not a champion of cosmic justice. He was the type to aid his allies, not necessarily the righteous. If a Superpower User had to grovel for normality, then he refused the title altogether.
"Don't you care about being human?" Shinobu pressed.
"I do," Sakurai admitted, taking a sturdy umbrella from the stand. "I've always wanted to be normal."
"You are lying."
"It's not good for children to be so perceptive." He opened the umbrella with a soft whoosh. "Saying I want to be normal, while subconsciously placing myself above others… I am an expert at self-deception." He turned, the umbrella casting a circle of shade around him, and extended his free hand down to her.
Shinobu placed her small hand in his. They walked hand-in-hand, looking for all the world like a protective older brother and his petite sibling.
"I'm roleplaying as a normal person," Sakurai mused aloud as they walked. "Much like how the wealthy sometimes roleplay as humble salarymen, doing pointless work, chasing things that are already within their reach."
They navigated the quiet residential streets. Nearby stood an old private school, and beside it, the nondescript building that housed Oshino Izuko's odd-job store.
Suddenly, a speeding motorcycle roared past.
Shinobu, seemingly lost in thought, took an absent-minded step toward the edge of the umbrella's shadow—directly into a patch of searing sunlight.
In a flash, Sakurai Saki pulled her back, tucking her safely against his side. "…Are you trying to end yourself?" he asked, his voice a mix of irritation and concern as he ruffled her hair.
Shinobu was silent for a long moment. "…I want you to become human again," she whispered.
"And have me carry the weight of your death? Be haunted by guilt for the rest of my life? That's an easy out for you, but what about me?" Sakurai's reply was sharp, frayed at the edges. "Don't do anything so stupid."
"You are the stupid one!!"
She glared up at him, her golden eyes flashing, then huffed and dissolved into his shadow, a sulking silhouette at his feet.
After a few more turns, he found it: a worn, two-story building with a simple sign that read 'Odd-Job Store.' It looked unassuming, almost deliberately forgettable.
He pushed the door open.
Oshino Izuko sat behind the front desk, a baseball cap askew, dressed in loose layers with the outlines of multiple phones bulging in her pockets.
"Oh my~ Welcome." Her eyes, sharp and knowing, swept over him. "To think you actually became one of them…"
Her foresight had its limits. The probability of Sakurai Saki accepting vampirism had been infinitesimal—he guarded his humanity too fiercely. This outcome was an unforeseen variable. Her original design was simpler: to nudge him toward subduing Kissshot, earning his favor in the process.
"What's this, Sakurai-kun? Giving up on being human?" she teased.
Sakurai closed his umbrella. "For now, I still intend to be one." He was no Dio, ready to abandon his humanity on a whim. "Do you know how to reverse it?"
"Of course."
Senior Woyuan leaned forward, a knowing glint in her eye. "Here looking for something?"
"Yes."
Before he could elaborate, she cut in. "You've come to ask about the location of Kissshot's heart."
"…How did you know?"
She adopted a profoundly mysterious air. "I know everything~" Then, seeing his unimpressed expression, she sighed and dropped the act. "Alright, alright. No more games."
This one responded to bluntness, not theatrics. Riddles were wasted on him.
"Her heart is in my possession. Securing it was… an undertaking." She paused, watching his reaction. "In exchange, you must agree to one condition. A request passed on by 'The Specialist'…"
"Which is?"
"Bind Kissshot to your side. She is too dangerous." Left unchecked, she could unravel the world in days. But the greater reason was more personal: a bound Kissshot would be easier for Sakurai to manage.
"I'll keep her close," Sakurai stated.
"No, young man, you misunderstand. You can't." Oshino Izuko's tone was grave. "You are her familiar. She holds a natural dominion over you."
As if on cue, Shinobu silently materialized from the shadow, a tacit confirmation.
Even with only 1% vampire essence, the hierarchy held. She could compel him.
"Since you refuse to kill her, Sakurai-kun, we are left with a compromise." Senior Woyuan's gaze shifted to Shinobu. "But this method will tether you inextricably. She will be sealed within your shadow, sustained by your blood."
From a legendary aberration to a bound shadow, a pet-like existence. Shinobu didn't protest. She merely gave a silent, resigned nod.
She had come to Tokyo seeking death. Yet, at the final precipice, fear had gripped her. Now, saved by Sakurai Saki, she existed in a limbo—afraid to die, but with no purpose to live. She was a relic, a walking ghost.
Her sole tether to this era was this familiar, this "Sakurai Saki."
He was nothing like her first. He didn't curse her for the transformation, didn't seek a dramatic, spiteful suicide in the sun before her eyes. To Shinobu, who bore the deep scars of that first betrayal, Sakurai's willingness to offer his life for hers—even amid their bloody misunderstanding—carried a weight she couldn't ignore.
'Since you do not wish for my death… then I shall live.'
If Sakurai Saki willed her to live, she would live. It was a command from her only remaining 'family.' But if the day ever came that he wished to be fully human again, Kissshot would not cling. She would go to her end willingly. That was her twisted, profound love for her familiar.
"To live and die as one… sounds rather romantic," Sakurai murmured, looking down at Shinobu. "As long as I draw breath, you will not die."
He met her gaze, his own resolve hardening. "And as long as you live, I will never let you leave. Your life is mine now—I saved it."
"Greedy creature," Shinobu said, her face an impassive mask. "What do you take me for?"
"A pet?" Sakurai ventured, a faint smile touching his lips.
The golden-haired vampire loli rolled her eyes, a flicker of something like life returning to her ancient gaze.
"You truly are a most annoying man!"
…And so, the vampire incident reached its conclusion.
Sakurai Saki could, at last, return to his daily life. What a joyous occasion.
Watching his retreating figure, umbrella held aloft, a small shadow clinging to his heels, Oshino Izuko leaned back in her chair and began to applaud softly, the sound echoing in the empty, sun-dusted shop.
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