3 As She Sleeps

The two uniformed men guided the grimy but still enchanting young girl as they headed for the local Fukushima police station.

They walked through the quiet night time streets in the sub-urban parts of the city of Osaka. They walked past some of the older double-story houses in the area nearby Tamagawa Community Centre where the policemen had been doing their regular rounds.

Despite it being rather quiet in this area not far from a commercial district of Fukushima Ward, there were still some food peddlers just about to wrap up their business as the late crowd dwindled to a close.

Constable Kirishima, as the senior, decided to bring her back to the station to check if there were any reports of missing foreigners - especially from institutions for the mentally unstable.

"Erm... How should I... Erm, what's your name, little girl...?" constable Ben spoke comfortingly, trying not to scare the teenager any further as they walked at a leisurely pace to accommodate the small sized girl. She also didn't seem to have eaten anything for awhile from how weak she was.

When he saw her earlier looking into the puddle and then screaming, he was worried that she was totally nuts. He decided to treat her carefully just in case she went berserk!

After all, it was impossible to see anything in the puddle of mudd where everything was so blurry, and everyone was so faint in this dark alley.

Demons didn't have such good eyesight at night, after all.

'Little girl...?' Masaru looked down at himself, then back at the compassionate man smiling at him as they walked side by side.

'Oh, I am pretty small and slim... Mmm but I have to admit, it's a nice body...'

'But... What's my name, what's my name... Oh no! Masaru...? No, that's a boy's name... Come on, think, think!'

The pretty but dirty young girl looked dazed as she tried to choose a good name.

'How about Hero King? No, that's too weird!'

Then he sweated a little as he considered what to call himself, but decided to just blurt out the first thing that came to mind.

"M-Masa... Marsha Hideshi Ou!"

The smiling young man paused as he tried to catch what she had just said, frowning slightly. Then he smiled again as it seemed he was not the fastest thinker around.

"That's a... Pretty name! Special, but pretty! Hideshi, huh... Haven't heard that family name before. And the "O" at the back, does it stand for something?"

Masaru - Marsha - shook his head lightly, then explained calmly while actually panicking inside as he said, "Erm... The Ou is... M-my middle name...? From my mother's side of the family..."

He crossed his fingers, hoping that the man who seemed to be a law enforcer would accept his answer.

"Ahh! So that's it! Haha, Marsha Hideshi Ou, Marsha... What a beautiful name! Just like you... Urk, w-what am I saying! S-sorry! That was so rude of me!" He blushed and looked consternated as he waved his hands before him in apology while the older policeman gave him a weird stare.

And Marsha didn't know how to respond. This was the first time he had a man hit on him! So he decided to just smile and laugh it off.

Little did he know that his casual move would be devastatingly powerful. At the sound of his bell-like peals of fairy-like laughter, the policeman turned an incredibly deep red, so red he looked like a tomato-man!

He was so flustered that he didn't even watch where he was going and bumped into a fire hydrant!

...Which just happened to be at the right height to hit him in the groin!

Kirishima and Marsha had to stop for awhile as the embarrassed man clutched his abdomen and rolled around on the floor. They both winced and grimaced as they imagined just how painful it would be - soft flesh smacking against hard metal! Ouch!

Then a crisis struck.

"Look out!"

Constable Kirishima suddenly lunged at Marsha and pushed her out of the way of a speeding car!

Just in time; the older man and the girl rolled and turned over and over in a heap as the European car barely missed them and slammed into a ramen stall, then crashed into the sidewalk!

Thick black smoke began to rise from the cars bonnet as the driver dizzily opened the car door and fell out onto the pavement. He was coughing and had blood on his forehead - it seemed the airbag had failed to activate!

Passersby stopped to help him, quickly taking the driver away from the smoking car in case it caught fire and exploded. At the same time, Kirishima let out a breath of relief and turned to the girl who was covered from the danger under his body.

"Are you alright...?" He asked.

Then he noticed that the cause of the car crash - the innocent girl - was unconscious, fainted.

"Marsha, are you oka--" He blurted out worriedly, then paused midway.

She was snoring soundly, already ignoring everything around her.

"Hah~! Haha...! I was too worried, haha! Maybe the whole day has been too much for the poor girl..." He picked her up gently even as there was chaos in background.

There were sounds of an angry quarrel going on in the background as the driver was scolded by the ramen stall owner.

"Money! I want compensation! Or I'll not let you leave this place! Police! Police, where are the police?"

"S-sorry! I saw a beautiful gaijin girl and g-got distracted...! I, I want to compensate b-but oji-san, I won't even have enough money to repair my car, my insurance isn't enough to--"

"I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR CAR! HOW WILL I MAKE A LIVING WITHOUT MY STALL? AND WHO IS AN OJI-SAN?? I'M ONLY 36 YEARS OLD!"

The spectators sweated as the almost bald, wrinkled man claimed to be a young man. He looked more like a 63 year old...

Kirishima wisely kept quiet, glad that he was a bit further off and no one noticed him or the now-recovering Ben.

They quickly distanced themselves from the accident the girl had caused and resumed their journey back to their home base. After just half a minute though, Ben leaned close and whispered, saying, "Hey Kirishima... She's sleeping right? Doesn't that make her a sleeping beauty...? Why don't we try like, kissing her and see who wakes her up, eh?"

Then the nonsense-spouting boy immediately shut up and kept on walking as the older man stared daggers at him that said, "Go ahead and try and... See if I don't kill you!"

Kirishima sighed... "What a girl-crazy boy..."

And as they quietly continued the return to the police station, even the older married had to admit. The trouble-making, accident causing innocent girl truly was beautiful as she slept.

* * * * *

[Not far away, in a dark sewer]

A hulking, muscled figure with horns was crouching in the cramped sewers.

Around it was a scene of carnage, countless dead bodies all mangled and smashed to a pulp. Some of the bodies were missing heads, while others had no shoulders or legs - all that was left were gigantic teeth marks where the flesh was missing.

The monster's stomach growled, even as dozens of moaning and screaming voices howled out the words, "Hunger...", "More!!!" and "Feed me...!!"

The voices came from the endless human faces all over the abomination's skin, moving, writhing and warped human faces crying out in despair.

It was still hungry.

'More... I need more food...' A maniacal blood lust and appetite drove the monster mad with hunger.

It needed more food to satisfy its unending hunger.

As the 4 metre tall gigantic horned monster began to climb up and out of the sewers, the same scene was happening in hundreds of locations all over the city.

A disastrous massacre was about to break loose and turn Osaka upside down.

The 5th devil outbreak was about to begin, even as the city slept.