Chapter 5: The Eight-Legged Beast
Arc 1: Tokyo's Void Society
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[ NOTE: 2 different people worked on this chapter, the second part of the chapter includes a different style compared to the first 2000 words of the chapter, please don't get too confused.
Story-wise this chapter is the declaration of the first chapter for Arc 1: Tokyo's Void Society. Chapters 1-4 were prologue and also I hate those chapters because they are so poorly written. This chapter is from the archives so don't mind the poor writing, quality chapters after this one. It's good to be back!
Ps: Yeah I wasn't rewriting all of that bro, cry about it!]
[Void Hunter #2: "What the hell?! It's humongous!"]
He wasn't wrong, Arachnophobia was massive. It didn't have skin, it had a cracked exoskeleton that was covered in thick, long hair. Its abdomen was two times bigger than its entire upper figure. Its crooked legs were thin but long, individually roughly one and a half times longer than its entire body width.
As if it had noticed our arrival, it drew a web down from where it rested, slowly lowering itself. While it glided down, I saw its six eyes. Its six deep, crimson eyes.
We see it lower down onto the top of a building, and that's when it opens its mouth, revealing its horrific and jagged fangs. It expels more of the gray fog from its mouth, only this time it was much thicker and slightly deeper in colour.
Not knowing much about the fog, we all collectively came to the assumption it was dangerous. One of the members in our party screamed aloud to stay low.
[Void Hunter #1: "Stay low and duck down on the ground! We don't yet know what danger this fog might have in store for us, so it's best to stay low and play it safe!"]
Just before the fog fully surrounded all around us before I caught one more glimpse of the spider. It finally stopped making the thick fog, it crawled down into the dense fog before I quickly lost sight.
[Shiro: It's here to hunt us.]
As we stay low to the ground and walk along the empty road, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. The street we tread across is quiet with only the sound of the wind to keep us company.
While we're crouching our way through the fog we noticed one of our party members has disappeared, and it seems they disappeared a long while ago. We begin to search for him while still attempting to keep our presence undetected while in the vicinity of this monster.
As Akiko puts her head down she notices a dripping liquid, she quickly bolts her head up to find the party member hanging in a spider sac.
[Akiko: "Ew ew ew! Get it off get it off!!"]
I quickly blocked her mouth in an attempt to stop her screams from giving away our location, but it was already too late.
Everything fell silent, the sound of the wind disappeared and it felt like the world had frozen in time. Then we heard the deep slow purring sound of the spider, its thin structure allowing for almost silence otherwise. We saw its legs before we heard it coming.
The voices in my head begin going rampant, it feels like a ball room is occurring all in my head.
[Shiro: "Don't panic, lets just bide our time and slowly close in-"]
That's when it struck, before any of us could process it was even there it had already killed 2 people. It killed one of the squad members by crushing her and another one by effectively swatting him away, that's when it had set its sights on me.
I reacted by going into the defensive, feeling the pressure of the oncoming attack before it even started. I covered my stomach with my arms and lowered my head taking on a stance similar to an amateur boxer.
It sends a strike at an unfathomable speed. I abandoned my guarded stance and dodge without question, like my body reacted reflexively. The impact the attack had on the ground was tremendous and impossible for the size of its legs, leaving a crater half the size of the one I left in my fight against Judgement.
Seeing the power this thing exerts made my will to fight drop almost instantly, it seems impossible to even comprehend fighting against. If my fight against Judgement was hard, this was going to be a whole lot worse.
Without giving me time to rest it sent a barrage of attacks, giving me no opportunity to counter and make distance.
[Shiro: "Akiko! A little help here would be great!"]
Akiko begins to attack by throwing punches and kicks while lunging at it but realizes it's futile after Arachnophobia pays her no attention, that's when she decided to finally show her ability and Trixie crawled out of her hair and then walked into her chest.
A bright glow began to shine from Akiko before it all got absorbed back in revealing a cat-like form, reminiscent of a catgirl from a manga. She had mever done this before...
Akiko dashes at Arachnophobia throwing it off balance causing it to fall over, slashing straight through one of its legs but it retaliates almost instantly just barely missing her. Akiko goes in for another attack but Arachnophobia quickly reacts and cuts clean through her right forearm.
Using the short time Akiko bought me, I activated my blue flames and got ready for a fight. Arachnophobia bares its fangs and comes at me even faster than before, I grab its left fang and tore it clean off.
It recoiled back and then immediately swatted me away sending me through the second storey of one building and the third of the one behind it, before I could get back up it already crashed through the initial building to get to me.
I stood up and dashed to the left before it came tumbling through the building I was in, but unlike Judgement this one had actually stopped itself before going through a third building and immediately began pursuit. I launch myself out a window onto the street, and get out of the way before it crashes through causing ruble to crush me.
As it hits the ground I run up and land an explosive punch clean in the stomach causing it to roll over before landing on its back, instead of getting back up it seemed to shrivel up.
Seeing this I run back over to Akiko to tend to her injuries, and stop her bleeding and give her a good resting place while I wait for others to arrive.
[Shiro: "Hey Akiko, how are you holding' up? Not good by the looks of it.."]
[Akiko: "Wow you're so smart, I am quite legitimately missing half my forearm! Get out there and be useful for once in your pathetic life!"]
[Shiro: "Whatever you say, brat."]
Akiko looks up at me only to greet me with widened eyes. I quickly turn around only to see a fully revived and substantially bigger Arachnophobia, being about 70% bigger with all legs and no injuries alongside a perfectly good exoskeleton. I look behind it and see the original spider I had just laid out not two minutes ago.
[Akiko: "How the fuck did it regenerate it's leg?!"]
[Shiro: "Juvenile spiders can regenerate lost limbs when they molt."]
[Akiko: "Why do you just know that, you fuckin' weirdo?"]
[Shiro: "I read about it online once…"]
Before I even noticed it had moved I was already on the floor coughing up blood with a huge chunk of skin missing from my arm, but nothing deep to prevent me from fighting. I try to get up but I'm knocked back and sent tumbling before hitting a truck and coming to a stop.
As it's about to do the same attack for a third time I punch it in the face causing one of its corneal lenses to crack and sending it back allowing me to stand back up.
I ran underneath it and jumped up to hit it in the abdomen but it had turned around making me hit a clean uppercut causing it to flip over once again, but this time it got back up in an instant. It shot a thread of silk at the truck I had crashed into and turned around at a high speed utilizing the momentum to launch the truck at me.
I put up my arms and noticed a 'flaming guard' on my arms before getting pummeled by the truck and getting squished between it and the first building we had both torn through. After pushing the truck off of me I put my arms back up to analyze this apparent 'armour' like flame on my arms I smashed it into the extremely thick rebar concrete wall causing it to crash down and quickly realized if not for this I would've died in those moments.
Shit, it burns just like my hands do with the flames…
I attempt to turn it off but I can't so I decide to try and stick out the pain for as long as possible.
Arachnophobia begins to tap its legs on the ground causing the surface below me to violently shake. Wanting it to stop out of irritation more than anything, I picked up a humongous piece of rubble the size of a car I made from the wall and threw it at the spider causing it to stagger back.
Obviously upset, it shot a web at me but it wasn't sticky, rather acidic and began to burn through my skin almost instantly. I recoil in pain and bundle it up into a ball before unsticking it and throwing it back.
I look down at where it landed to see huge and deep marks of where the silk landed on me, being especially bad on areas with exposed skin. It feels like someone is pressing white hot metal against everything it had touched.
Fucking hell that thing is huge…
It's already at me, it stuck one of its fangs straight through my back and penetrated through my stomach. I can feel the red hot liquid pouring out of me.
It threw me up into the sky beyond the fog it created causing me to be caught in its giant web it had made, making me look directly down.
I can't move, the webs are burning me but because of no gravity they're peeling off my skin revealing the nerve endings underneath.
Even what was once the nice cool breeze became my worst enemy, making me thrive in agony.
It jumped up through the fog after me landing on the web, almost causing it to break and make me plummet to my death.
The intense movement caused the air around me to crash into my back putting me in a pain I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemies.
It slowly walked over to me. As if tempting me to try and escape.
I try to scream but it excretes a venom from its fangs into my mouth causing the insides of my throat to dissolve.
I can't make any sounds. My vocal chords are completely destroyed.
I can see the blood pouring from my stomach down into the fog.
I would rather die than continue through this.
I close my eyes and wait for the spider to consume me and take me out of the hell I've endured.
[???: "Shiro!"]
I can feel the wind on my face.
It's getting stronger.
I open my eyes to see I'm falling straight down into the fog.
I flail my arms in panic trying to prevent myself from falling but it's no use.
I hit the ground.
I'm fine..?
I open my eyes to see myself laying on my back but not touching the ground. I'm slightly hovering over the ground. I try to get up but my arms slip on nothing, it's like trying to stand back up on ice.
I finally manage to get myself up and analyze my apparent weightlessness. Trying to move is difficult but I quickly grasped the extreme similarity moving had to that of skating.
I feel a surge of strength and willpower flow through me, and my back no longer feels like it's undergoing eternal burning. I can feel the pain in my throat is getting better but it still feels like there's thousands of needles stabbing me.
I look up and around for Akiko before spotting her wide-eyed and open mouthed.
[Akiko: "How the actual fuck are you alive!?"]
I try to respond, forgetting that my throat was dissolved like salt in water. Lifting my hand I point at my throat and wiggle my finger at Akiko to signal that I can't speak.
A loud crash sounds behind me. I turn around and see Arachnophobia getting up after falling down and colliding with a building completely demolishing it.
Archnophobia slowly climbs up the web and stares at me from across this silky battlefield. My throat still burns, every breath is like needles to the lungs.
But my body feels weightless, buoyant and most of all stronger than ever.
This fight isn't over until I say it is.