“You said ‘what’s left of the spider clan’,” Kevin said to start conversation. His voice echoed along the walls. “What did you mean by that?”
“I meant exactly what I said,” Cien grunted, his foot slipping before he caught himself. “The spider clan is nearly extinct now. Most of them were hunted down and slain by the Sons and Daughters of Humanity. As I understand it, only a few dozen survived, maybe not even that many.”
“Oh. I see.”
Comments like these made Kevin understand how difficult attaining peace between humans and yōkai would be. Since the beginning of their existence, humans and yōkai had been enemies. When mankind gained the weapons to fight back, yōkai went into hiding, disguising themselves as humans and living amongst humanity. However, nothing could hide forever.
Humans had, at some point, uncovered the existence of yōkai again. Those who realized the potential threat that these supernatural beings represented created an organization, the Sons and Daughters of Humanity, to mercilessly kill yōkai. More than that, these people kidnapped and tortured yōkai, experimenting on them to unlock the secrets of youki, the power that yōkai harnessed. It made Kevin sick.
But he also knew that yōkai weren’t blameless in this either. Just as humans feared yōkai and reacted in response to that fear, yōkai enjoyed toying with humans. Their arrogance, their sense of superiority, the inherent belief that they were better, meant that many yōkai thought very little of humans and treated them like playthings. While these twisted relationships had gone down since humanity’s advancement in technological weaponry, it still happened, as Kevin had learned when he discovered that the Mul Clan, a clan of Ocean Kitsune, were responsible for human trafficking.
How can there ever be peace when so many people on both sides keep harming one another?
So into his own thoughts was he that Kevin missed a step and slipped. He yelped, the sound bouncing across the walls. Closing his eyes, he gritted his teeth and waited for a fall that didn’t come. When he felt something wrap around his body, Kevin opened his eyes. Lilian’s bright red tails were wound tightly around him. He blinked when he was lifted up and placed back on his feet.
“Be more careful, Beloved,” Lilian chided. “You almost cracked your head open. If you had gotten a concussion before we even rescued Heather and Phoebe, well, it wouldn’t be very heroic of you.”
“Ah ha.” Kevin rubbed the back of his head, feeling sheepish. “Sorry about that, Lilian. I got so lost in thought that I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
“Honestly,” Iris rubbed her forehead and sighed. “What kind of main character is so absentminded that he almost slips before we even get to the final boss battle?”
“Oh, lay off!” Kevin snapped. “I was thinking about important issues!”
“Important issues?” Christine tilted her head. “Like what?”
“Just some plot relevant issues is all,” Kevin waved off the question.
“Ufufufu,” Kotohime giggled. “It seems your ability to break the fourth wall grows with each volume, Kevin-sama.”
“Thank you, Kotohime.” Kevin blinked, then frowned. Then he wrinkled his nose in confusion. “Wait. What are we talking about again?”
“Would you all be quiet?” Cien hissed. “Honestly, we’re in the middle of a rescue mission, and you guys are chatting away like we’re on a trip to the mall.”
Iris clicked her tongue. “Well, excuse us for trying to have fun, Mr. Serious Big Shot Mutt. Unlike you, we’re not a bunch of emo jerks who spend most of our time brooding in silence.”
“What was that? Listen here, you! I’m not an emo whatever you call it! I just want you to shut up so we don’t get caught!”
“Ha! If anyone’s going to get us caught, it’s going to be you!”
Kevin, Lilian, and Christine sighed as one as Iris and Cien argued. They’d been doing their best to keep the pair from interacting too much during this time, but with Iris’s desire to confront things she didn’t like and Cien’s opinion toward kitsune, it was like trying to keep a cat and dog from fighting—or a dog and a fox, as the case was here.
“Those two,” Kevin pinched the bridge of his nose—then deadpanned when he saw Lilian pull out a sketchpad. “What are you doing?”
“This will make a great scene for my manga,” Lilian answered, her tails lighting up and hovering over her sketchpad as she began to draw.
Christine looked at Kevin. “And that’s your mate.”
“Yeah,” Kevin cast Lilian a glance filled with fondness and amusement. Christine clicked her tongue.
Everyone stopped what they were doing when Kotohime thrust her sword in between Cien and Iris. “I hate to interrupt you all from your activities, but it seems we have company.”
“Company?” Kevin asked, and that’s when he heard it. The clack-clack-clack-clack sound of many somethings skittering across the ground. This noise, sickening and frightful, echoed around them. Kevin spun around, his flashlight searching for the source.
Lilian also helped him. Her tails lit up further, illuminating the area around them. This allowed him to easily see what he could not see before.
His throat fell into the pit of his stomach.
They were surrounded. By spiders. Hundreds of spiders with multi-faceted eyes and ugly arachnid bodies skittered along the walls, ground, and ceiling. They ranged in size, with some only the size of a large rock, while others were up to Kevin’s waist. Dark brown fur covered large abdomens, and eight legs clacked as they raced across the rocky surface.
There were so many of them. Hundreds. Thousands. Kevin couldn’t even see where the horde ended!
Kevin and the others closed ranks, standing back to back. Kotohime drew her katana, Lilian’s tails lit up with golden orbs of light, ice gathered above Christine’s palm, and darkness caused Iris’s nails to lengthen. Cien slid his feet across the ground and adopted a traditional orthodox stance, though it looked awkward with only one arm. Not wanting to be left out, Kevin drew his weapons, twin handguns that appeared as night and day, from his thigh holsters.
He didn’t have arachnophobia, but as he stared at the thousands of giant spiders, which stared back at him with their seven eyes, terror caused a lump to well up in his throat.
“It seems we are surrounded,” Kotohime spoke, her tone seemingly calm.
“This is because you people couldn’t keep your mouths shut,” Cien growled.
“You’re the one who was shouting, Mutt Boy,” Iris fired back. “And you should have told us that these creepy crawlies were living down here beforehand. All this is your fault.”
“Shut up,” Christine snapped. “Your constant arguing is what got us into this, so just be quiet for once!”
“Christine is right,” Lilian said. “We don’t have time to argue anymore.”
“They’re coming!” Kevin shouted.
Indeed, just as Kevin said this, the swarm of spiders seemed to swell like a rising tide set to crush them.
Soon, the sound of battle rang out in the small underground tunnel.
And Kevin’s world became embroiled in pandemonium.
Chapter 10
I Hate Spiders
Thoe was lucky. Had she been just a second late in realizing that the two tsuchigumo were illusions, then she would have also been in the same predicament as her comrades.
From the moment the battle had started, Thoe sensed that something was wrong. She was sure the others felt it, too, but they were more focused on the battle than what they were feeling.
Unlike the other yama uba, Thoe wasn’t really into combat. She preferred tactics to actual fights, and enjoyed outmaneuvering her opponents through cunning rather than skill in close quarters combat.
Her comrades sometimes made fun of her for this, claiming that she was too soft, or that her actions were “unbefitting a warrior,” but she didn’t care. To her, nothing was more important than outwitting an opponent. Defeating one’s enemies with the least amount of m
oves necessary was what brought her joy, not showing off how skillfully she could swing a sword.
While the other yama uba fought up close, she stayed back, and when the ground beneath them collapsed, she was near the edge and therefore close to the wall. She thrust both kunai into the rock wall, yelping when her shoulders were swiftly yanked out of their sockets. She gritted her teeth and tried to ignore the throbbing in her shoulders as she kept a firm grip on her kunai, which slowly came to a stop.
Looking down, Thoe grimaced when she saw her legs dangling beneath a pit of darkness. She could see nothing past her feet. Everything was black, an all-encompassing absence of all color.
Yet even though she could not see what was beneath her, Thoe still heard the sounds coming from below.
And what she heard were screams.
Thoe could not see what was happening down there, but from the screams of her comrades, she could guess.
“W-why can’t I move?”
“What is?!”
“Is this… a web?!”
Thoe assumed her comrades were trapped within a spider’s web—or rather, the massive web of a tsuchigumo. And where there was a web, there would be a yōkai.
“Well, well, well. What do we have here? Six delicious flies trapped within my web.”
It was a rumbling voice, a combination of crackling thunder and menacing growl. A shiver ran up Thoe’s spine, and she wasn’t even close to the voice. She could only imagine how her companions were feeling.
“Who are you?! Show yourself!” Polydora shouted. Thoe could almost imagine the expression on the woman’s face, fierce yet frightened.
“I smell something sweet. I wonder, is it blood?”
Thoe knew that she had to do something. She was the only one who hadn’t been trapped. Her comrades were counting on her!
Muscles straining, Thoe swung herself onto her kunai, moving her body in a full arc before landing on the protruding handles. The kunai vibrated underneath her feet. She almost lost her balance but quickly stabilized.
“It’s been so long, too long since I had anything good to eat.”
She strained her ears. Judging from the way the voice echoed, she determined the tsuchigumo to be almost directly underneath her.
“That damn snake only ever feeds me scraps!”
Trying to keep her breathing steady, Thoe slowed her racing heart. She slid the index finger of her two hands into her kunai’s handles and, placing her boots against the wall, prepared to kick off.
“Time to eat.”
On her next exhale, Thoe shoved off the rock wall, prying her kunai from where they were embedded. She fell head first. The air whistled around her. Tears blurred her vision, but she refused to close her eyes. Within the darkness she saw it, the massive outline of a giant spider. The closer she got, the more distinct it became. A silhouette turned into a figure, and a figure gained details. Glowing red eyes. A large, hairy body. It reminded Thoe of those horror movie monsters that Euryale had been getting into.
Thoe flipped around. The tsuchigumo lunged. With her kunai pointed at the monster, she descended onto its back, impaling it through the thorax. Kunai couldn’t normally penetrate such a hard body, so she leapt into the air and landed on the two kunai, shoving them further into the creature’s carapace.
“GRAAA!”
It’s shriek was more like the vicious growling of a beast. It thrashed around and tried to buck her off, but Thoe held fast, shoving two more kunai into its body to create handholds and keeping her feet planted firmly on its back.
The tsuchigumo’s thrashing took it to the wall, where it crashed against the rocky surface. Chunks of the ceiling broke off and descended. Some hit the web and were caught; others were too large and went straight through it.
Thoe gritted her teeth as the yōkai’s movements became more spastic, more jerky. Her eyes widened as her kunai slipped out of its thorax. With nothing left to keep her in place, she was thrown off the massive arachnid’s back and through the air.
Blood and bile flew from her mouth as she crashed back first into the rock wall. Several sharp rocks jutting from the wall pierced her skin. She could feel them scraping against her shoulder blades and spine. Warm fluids dripped down her back, and a deep agony like a dozen hot pokers stabbing into her caused her mind to go black.
Thoe’s limp body fell to the dark depths below.
Polydora didn’t know what had happened. One moment, she was about to be snapped in half by a pair of massive mandibles. The next, the tsuchigumo was screeching in pain and banging its own body against the wall.
Several large rocks struck the web, a number of which were stalactites that pierced through the web with ease, snapping the powerful filaments like they were made of wet toilet paper.
The tsuchigumo crashed into the wall again, and the webs broke apart. Polydora felt a moment of weightlessness as she and her comrades fell. Her stomach surged into her throat. She wanted to throw up.
Moments before that could happen, she hit the floor with a… splash? Polydora’s eyes widened as she realized that she was now surrounded by water. Kicking her feet, Polydora swam up, breaking the surface with a loud gasp. She sucked in as much oxygen as she could, then called out for her companions.
“Is everyone all right?! Euryale! Menippe!”
“U-ugh, we’re fine,” Euryale said, swimming over to her. Menippe was with her, thankfully. “Just a little water logged.”
Several more of their companions emerged from the darkness: Ioxeia, Oïstrophe, Androdaïxa, Aspidocharme, Cnemis, Thorece… but they appeared to be missing someone.
“Thoe,” Polydora said. “Where is Thoe?”
Euryale and Menippe looked at each other, as if to ask the other where their friend was.
“Thoe!” Polydora shouted. “Thoe, where are you?! Answer me!”
“You don’t think she’s…?” Ioxeia trailed off.
“Do not be foolish, girl,” Aspidocharme said. “Thoe might not be as hardy as the rest of us, but she is still a yama uba. A little fall like that won’t be enough to kill her.”
“Maybe she was swept up by a tide or something,” Cnemis suggested.
“I don’t think underground lakes like this have a tide,” Androdaïxa said.
“We should search for her,” Euryale said. Polydora agreed with her idea. While they did have a job to do, and she wanted to rescue Lady Phoebe more than anything, they could not in good conscious leave while the fate of their companion remained uncertain.
“I-is it just me, or does it seem like there’s something in the water with us?” Menippe asked, and Polydora thought she detected a hint of fear in the woman’s voice.
“It’s probably just you,” Euryale said.
“Come,” Polydora started, “we cannot afford to waste any more time here. Let us search for Thoe.”
As one, they swam off in search of their comrade. Polydora made sure they did not stray too far from each other, as it would be pointless to find one of their members while losing another. It was arduous. With no light to guide them, they relied on their sense of spatial awareness to tell where everyone’s position was in relation to their own. Polydora turned her head to see if she could somehow make sense of their surroundings, but all she saw was an inky blackness that expanded forever.
“Would you stop touching my leg, Menippe?” Euryale complained.
“I’m not touching your leg.”
“Ioxeia?”
“Tis not I.”
“Um, Oïstrophe?”
“I am touching nothing.”
“Why don’t I like that answer?”
“I-I’m telling you all, I think there’s something in the water,” Menippe insisted.
“Yeah…” A hint of fear entered Euryale’s voice. “Yeah, I think you might be right.”
Polydora didn’t want to admit it, but anxiety swelled within her bosom. Perhaps it was the lack of light, or perhaps it was because she was wet and cold, but all she could think abo
ut now was how she didn’t want to be there. She shoved those feelings to the side as best she could, but the more she tried to ignore them, the more afraid she became.
“Kya!”
A shriek echoed to her left. That was Menippe! There was a splash. Water sprayed in her face, and she closed her eyes to keep the worst of it from obscuring her vision. Another shriek to her right echoed out, followed by another loud splash. That had been Oïstrophe! Before she could call out, something wrapped around her leg—no! Multiple somethings! They grabbed her, latching onto her in their vice grip.
Polydora struggled to stay afloat. She fought with everything she had, but all too quickly, the thing pulled her under. Still, she fought. She kicked and thrashed and did everything in her power to swim up to the surface. The more she tried, the more she seemed to sink. It pulled her further and further down.
Spots appeared in her vision. She hadn’t been able to take in much oxygen. The world was blurring. Her lungs burned, deprived of that most valuable air. She needed to do something! Her people, her friends were… they were… w-what were they again? She couldn’t… she needed…
Darkness engulfed her.
“Ikken Hissatsu. Bunkatsu.”
Right hand resting on the hilt of her katana, left hand on the sheath, Kotohime slid sword from sheath quicker than Kevin’s eyes could follow. Her attack, a vertical slash that appeared as nothing more than a silver crescent, caused everything in front of her to split apart. The multitude of spiders within her line fell into halves, their bodies separating into two bloody chunks.
“I suggest we run,” Kotohime announced.
No one needed another prompt.
Guns in hand, Kevin fired off multiple projectiles. He’d loaded them with ice-based bullets courtesy of Christine. With each pull of the trigger, multiple shards shaped like spikes shot out of the barrels and impaled a spider—not like it was hard. They were surrounded by spiders so none of his shots missed a target.
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