The Record of a Fallen Vampire

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

A millennium ago, the vampire queen Adelheid nearly destroyed the world for the love of her king, unleashing the dangerous "moonlight of corrosion" which destroyed everything in its path. In the end, she was sealed by the power of vampire, dhampire, and human alike; but her king, Akabara, searches the world for the seal that will release her from her captivity. Humanity at large has since forgotten the existence of vampires, but the dhampires remember, and they will do whatever it takes to kill Akabara before he rescues his beloved queen.

Against Akabara is Bridget, powerful ruler of the Dhampires and a group of elite warriors including Jin, whose beloved was killed by Akabara. With them is the Black Swan, a parasitic magic that possesses young women for the sole purpose of killing Akabara and Adelheid. The most recent host is strong enough to kill Akabara, but she instead sides with him, to the shock of the dhampires. It seems things are not as simple as they seem and old enemies may have to unite to survive.

The Reveal ensues. Several times. Also Genre Shift and Gambit Pileup.

Tropes used in The Record of a Fallen Vampire include:
  • Action Girl: Bridget, Lety, Yuki, and Kaiyuki
  • Arranged Marriage: Akabara and Adelheid.
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The Big Moura appear as giant pollen/diatom things in the sky.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Strauss and Adelheid are able to destroy the aliens and saved the Earth. But Adelheid sacrifice herself to terraform the moon so the Dhampires can have a home of their own. Strauss and Kayuki finally have their duel where she finally kills him, ending the Curse of the Black Swan that's been slowly killing her and freeing Strauss's wife and daughter souls and freeing Strauss long life torment where he can finally be reunited with his family in the afterlife and leave the world to his friends, allies and adopted daughters.
  • The Chessmaster: Akabara, Bridget, and GM
  • Chekhov's Gun: When they first meet, Akabara tells Letty a story about the origins of vampires. This turns out to be more important than you might expect.
  • Combat Pragmatist: "Infinite Cross" Saberhagen, who was willing to kill her own adopted daughter and grandchild to create the Black Swan curse that could eventually kill Akabara.
    • While he is often Willfully Weak, Akabara, when given the opportunity, does not hesitate to demonstrate why he is the greatest tactician and strategist to ever walk the planet.
  • Cool Mask: GM, or Great Mask, who effectively controls the country and his granddaughter Kaiyuki the 50th Black Swan when she's introduced (she's shy).
  • Costume Porn: in spades
  • Deadly Upgrade: The Black Swan, a powerful spell that can cancel out Akabara's powers will eventually kill the user whether she fights Akabara or not.
  • Despair Event Horizon: What causes Adelheid's freak out in the first place. Also Emily, the second Black Swan upon realization of the nature of the Black Swan curse.
  • Dhampyr: Akabara is hunted by these.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: Akabara is without question the absolute nicest guy in the entire series. But just because he just happens to be the most powerful thing to ever walk the planet, he is ultimately sentenced to being hunted down by the Black Swan, which is a curse created from the souls of his beloved wife, Stella and his unborn daughter, that will reincarnate over and over again until he and Adelheid are dead. Sheesh!
  • Expy: GM is very reminiscent of Kiyotaka from Shirodaira's previous series, Spiral... just replace the mask with a furry costume and add more quirks.
  • Fate Worse Than Death: Jin, whose would-be girlfriend, the 49th Black Swan, has been suffering quite a bit after she is killed by Akabara. Ultimately, he finds out that he has nothing on Akabara himself who has spent the last thousand or so years deliberately acting the part of the villain in order to earn the hatred of both humans and dhampires and unite them against him so that they don't start killing each other. And to make matters even worse, on a regular basis he ends up fighting and killing young women possessed by the souls of his murdered wife and child... over and over again.
  • Four-Star Badass: Strauss and Bridget.
  • Generation Xerox: Many of the previous Black Swans resemble Akabara's wife Stella due to her soul being part of the spell.
    • It was hinted some of the Black Swan hosts might have been how their unborn child would have looked like, which Strauss citing Yuki, the 49th Black Swan, as the best example of what he thought their unborn child would have been like.
  • Gentle Giant: One member of the Dhampyr's Akabara killing squad is a giant man in samurai armor who also runs a tiny (but highly-recommended) noodle shop as a hobby.
  • Gotta Catch Them All / What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic: The giant crosses, one of which is said to be marking Queen Adelheid's grave aren't symbolic but are actually a giant array that collectively seal her in.
  • Hellish Pupils: All the vampires and dhampyrs have cat-like slits.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Akabara wants peace so much that he's willing to take on the hate of humans and dhampyrs onto himself and Adelheid wants to make up for not preventing Stella's death, so they're both going to fight the Big Moura.
    • Adelheid sacrifices herself to terraform the moon.
  • Horde of Alien Locusts: The Big Moura. At least they're polite about it.
  • Hot Dad: Akabara, with Lety and Bridget.
  • I Did What I Had to Do: Saberhagen's justification for murdering and then mutilating her daughter Stella and the unborn child within her.
  • The Ingenue: Adelheid, at least up until accidentally destroying her own kingdom, killing thousands when she loses control of her power after seeing her husband about to be executed in front of her. She wises up a lot after being woken up from her thousand year slumber however, helping to fight the Bikkumoura and then later sacrificing her life to build a new homeland on the moon for the dhampires. Played straight with the character of Stella.
  • Genre Shift: From fantasy to Sci-fi with the introduction of the Big Moura.
  • Kick the Dog: Saberhagen killing her daughter Stella
  • The Lab Rats: Nazuna and Li, scientists working on the moon rocket They're a bit miffed when Akabara reveals he never needed a rocket to begin with.
  • Lady of War: Bridget. She was even a general in the Kingdom of Night.
  • Last of His Kind: Akabara and Adelheid are the last pure-blooded vampires.
  • Likes Older Women: Morishima, if his interactions with Bridget are anything to go by.
  • Male Gaze: Many, many unnecessary close-up shots of Bridget's cleavage.
  • Memento MacGuffin: Stella's pendant. Akabara told her it was just a cobblestone (she isn't very ostentatious) but it's actually from the moon.
  • Older Than They Look: Lety
  • Oh Crap: Kaiyuki's reaction to finding out that Akabara can move and fight in the daylight.
  • The Ojou: Kaiyuki, the 50th Black Swan.
  • Our Vampires Are Different: Specifically, they are organisms from space who, during their evolution, took on enough of humans' genetic information to resemble them and reproduce with them but are still a different species. The need for blood was eventually bred out too.
    • Akabara is even different from other vampires: He can move in daylight and fly to the moon. Unexpectedly, Adelheid turns out to be even more powerful than Akabara.
  • Person of Mass Destruction: Adelheid and her power, the Moonlight of Corrosion. Strauss and Black Swan as well.
  • Powered by a Forsaken Child: The Black Swan is powered by the souls of Akabara's wife and their unborn child.
  • Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Much of the cast, but a special shout-out goes to Letty, who grows so slowly that when she's nearing 70 years old, she still looks like a preadolescent.
  • Redemption Equals Death: Akabara and Adelheid.
  • Rule of Cool: Why GM bothers to decorates his mask.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: Queen Adelheid who is revealed to be Sealed Good in a Can.
  • Soul Jar: The Black Swan actually contains the souls of Akabara's wife and their unborn child.
  • Spell My Name with an "S"
  • Super-Powered Evil Side / Unstoppable Rage: Adelheid's "Moonlight Corrosion".
  • Sweet Tooth: Akabara loves cake (and ice cream and Pocky and parfait and...).
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: Yuki and Kaiyuki, the 49th and 50th Black Swans, respectively.
    • Bridget and Adelheid, to some extent.
  • Vampire Monarch: Both a queen (Adelheid) and a king (Akabara).
  • Wham! Line: "Open your eyes, Stella!"
  • Xanatos Roulette / Evil Plan: All the events in the story after the great disaster except maybe the alien invasion could easily have been planned by Strauss.
    • Zero-Approval Gambit: He's actually trying to get both sides to unite in hating him, and if they kill him all the better. He acknowledges that if Stella hadn't died he may have been able to figure out a better plan.
  • You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Strangely enough, the only character with odd haircolors are Strauss (blue) and Stella and two of the Black Swans (pink) and that similarity is not a coincidence.
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