The DDS Volume3 　　　　　　　　　　　 Chapter3 No3

It’s 6 p.m. the next day.

Two hours before the curfew, Shibuya Park Avenue was packed with people enjoying the twilight time.

The three were in a white car that was parked in front of the Shibuya Public Hall.

“You should get going or we'll get caught in traffic jam on the way to get away.”

Murai in the driver’s seat said in a shaky voice, looking at the back mirror. He obviously getting nervous.

“Even if we’ll be caught at a checkpoint, our true identity will never be exposed.”

Muromachi laughed mockingly and gave a signal to Kitazono in the seat next with his eyes and put his hand on the door.

Beside the car a young couple in matching black blousons pass by, heading toward Shibuya Station.

The young man was Mitsuo Sekiya. He was a sophomore at a high school in the affected area at the time of the Great Destruction of Set, but was lucky to escape the carnage and was transferred to a private high school in Ochanomizu.

He met Kaoru Kayano at that school and started dating her about two weeks ago.

After their second date in Harajuku, both of them didn’t want to say good bye, they have walked to Shibuya more over 2 kilometers.

"I'm starving!"

Mitsuo found a hamburger shop in the middle of the slope and said comically.

“I don't have much money left," Kaoru said.

"Leave it to me. I got a money making for my part-time job."

“That's not fair, you didn't tell me until now."

She jokingly raised her arm and Mitsuo gently grabbed her hand and linked arms with her.

Then suddenly Kaoru became serious and silent.

“What's wrong with?"

Mitsuo asked as he looked into Kaoru's face.

"It’s the first time I hold hand with a man like this." .

Kaoru said in an embarrassed whisper.

“………”

Mitsuo was grinning from ear to ear, he opened the door to the shop.

When Mitsuo returned to his seat with a tray of cheeseburgers and a Coke, singing the U2 song in poor English, Kaoru was sitting at a table and staring someone on the street. So he thrust his fist in front of her eyes.

“Yikes!”

Kaoru was startled and screamed, so the eyes of the people in the shop momentarily focused on her.

“Cut it out!”

She was sulking and turned away from him.

“Don’t be so mad, it's your fault for looking at other guys.

When Mitsuo expressed his dissatisfaction, Kaoru's mouth turned into a smile, as she might be happy in her heart.

“Mitsuo-kun, don't you think that man is strange?"

Stirring Coke and ice with a straw, Kaoru looked at the man on the street again.

“What?　Oh, the little guy in the leather jacket?"

Mitsuo followed Kaoru's glance as he opened the package of cheeseburger.

“He's standing over there grinning the whole time.”

“There are a lot of strange guys these days…”

Mitsuo couldn't finish his words and dropped his burger.

A streak of blood suddenly appeared between the eyebrows of the man who had been standing there.

A streak of blood runs from the nose to the lips, dividing the face in two, and then down the chin to the throat.

The screams of passersby who noticed the man's creepy changes in his body could be heard inside the store.

Kaoru, frightened and trembling, pressed her body to Mitsuo.

Mitsuo could not take his eyes off the man as he embraced Kaoru close.

The man's skin turned inside out and he bared his flesh as if he were shedding his skin.

It no longer retained its human form. The red, mucous epidermis, reminiscent of an amphibian, glistened.

“It’s like a salamander.”

When Mitsuo groaned, the monster had already opened its huge oral cavity and was attacking the passersby, who were standing there motionless in amazement.

　

Meanwhile, behind them, Muromachi was leaning against the counter, amusedly watching the people who had been got into a panic.

The chuckle that appeared on his face soon turned into a loud laugh.

In the blink of an eye, Muromachi's face was covered with countless black warts.

“Mitsuo-kun!”

“Oh no, let's go upstairs."

When Mitsuo stood up to hold Kaoru in his arms, a lump of something fell beside him, knocking over a paper cup of Coke.

“Aagh!”

Only for a moment, he frozen with terror.

The mass slid across the table and was at Kaoru's throat too fast to see.

When Mitsuo realized that it was a giant spider with glistening lapis lazuli eyes, a fresh blood spurted from Kaoru's throat as she cried out in front of him.

“This bastard!”

As soon as Mitsuo squashed the spider that had been ripped from Kaoru's neck, a new spider crawled up on his back.

As Mitsuo sank down to the floor, holding Kaoru in his arms, who was foaming with blood and suffering, he suddenly heard a clear voice singing.

The voice was far away, but it flowed powerfully into the shop.

With that voice, the swarm of spiders suddenly stopped moving.

Kitazono, who was running down Park Avenue in pursuit of the people who run about trying to escape, felt pain all over his body as if he had been doused with boiling water the moment he heard the singing voice.

“Damn it, it's Siren. We have to pull back once here!”

Larva shouted in the back of his consciousness.

“What?”

Kitazono, who had really enjoyed his own power, was bewildered by the unexpected situation.

“Although we are of the same devil race, her singing voice is a terrible poison for us.”

“Damn it!"

As Kitazono spat out a curse, Siren shot a next arrow of singing voice.

Siren, with over a hundred followers in tow, closed to Kitazono's eyes and nose.

Wincing in pain, Kitazono begins to turn back the slope. At that time he catches sight of Muromachi running away with spiders clinging to his body.

Behind him, the sound of sirens of police cars and ambulances rushing to the scene mingled with the shouts of joy of the young men whose lives had been saved.

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