If the order of the world were one of her webs, it would be a large but simple one, with only a few flaws here and there. No spontaneity, no complexity, none of the beautiful chaotic mess that it could be. And, as much as it irked her, the shingami would be right in the center, every thread connected to him, and him connected to every thread.
Arachne hadn't been able to kill Lord Death, of course. But once she'd attained the title of grandwitch she certainly gained enough power to do him enough harm that he wouldn't be able to recover for years, decades if she were lucky. And she had more than enough time to put her plans into motion and watch them flourish before that happened. Over the nearly seven hundred and fifty years of her imprisonment, she had become a master at slow and subtle planning.
Once the center of the web was gone, the rest of it began to fall apart. The threads had lost their connection to each other, and the web sagged in some places, while other areas near the center had been torn away entirely. It was a mess, but it could be rebuilt, and it could be rebuilt better, with it's potential reached.
Likewise, with the order destroyed, chaos started to take hold of the world.
It began with fear.
"An entire academy dedicated to training weapons and meisters?" She whispered, every word layered with concern and coaxing. "And they were left completely unchecked except for the whims of an eccentric reaper? And now, they don't even have that. It just seems… dangerous."
And all the little humans in her web turned and saw weapon and meister pairs fighting kishin eggs and witches in the streets. They saw the destruction it caused to their homes and their cities, and the casualties claimed.
They began to murmur amongst themselves.
A group of rogue weapons robbed a large bank in Madrid, hacking and slicing and pummeling their way through the vaults, and any person who caused trouble for them. It was a massively destructive attack, with a devastating amount of casualties, and it made international news.
A smile graced her lips, and she continued to whisper. "Isn't it terrifying how easy it was for them? How it seemed like nothing could stop them?"
"These aren't humans. They aren't even weapons. They're monsters."
There was an attack in Kyoto. The attacker in this case was a powerful kishin egg that, desperate to gain more souls, attacked a crowded shopping center. The death scythe Azusa was able to contain the threat single handedly when she got there, but not before the damage was done.
"They say they're the only ones who can stop these kishin eggs, but their system clearly doesn't work. Why do you have to depend on their ways just for basic safety?"
A park in Montreal. A weapon and meister pair fought a rogue weapon, but got too carried away in doing so. When their enemy was down, they tortured him. After his soul was swallowed, they challenged the onlookers to fight, caught up in their bloodlust. The once peaceful park was in ruins by the time they finally left.
"And though these weapons seem like us, how do we know they aren't just as bloodthirsty as the beings they fight? The only difference is that when they fight, it's pardoned. But why is their behavior accepted?"
And finally, Death City itself. Two students from the DWMA fought and killed a witch in an attempt to gain their first soul. They had been too overzealous. While they had killed a witch, the girl in question had been eleven years old, and by all accounts, had done nothing to warrant the attack.
It wasn't that Arachne took no pride in her work. Her creation of the first weapons had turned out beautifully, but for her plans to succeed she had to temporarily hinder them.
That was where her younger sister came in. Medusa and Arachne created a fragile and unsteady, but mutually beneficial truce.
Medusa was not interested in obtaining a position of authority, but all too keen to be able to conduct experiments, with no obstructions. Arachne watched the bugs in her web struggled, squabbling over their petty laws about how much freedom meisters and weapons could have, and waited for the right moment to step forward.
Her sister pulled through, throwing a prototype "transformation resistance implant" at her feet, a satisfied smirk on her face.
Arachne revealed herself to the public soon after that, offering the solution to their problems.
The little humans, the flies and roaches and beetles of the world didn't trust her at first, of course. But she started making her points, louder and clearer now.
"Who told you that all witches were evil?" She asked. "Did you think that little girl, who never had a chance to become a teenager was evil? That she deserved to be killed?"
The death scythes and DWMA spoke out against her of course, but they had long since lost the trust of the public.
"They imprisoned me for nearly eight hundred years!" She cried out. "I was trying to help people, and they trapped me and slandered my name!"
And the people grew louder and began to push back. The devices her sister created worked magnificently, and rendered weapons helpless. Meisters fought back when they could, with weapons or not, but she had plans for them too.
It wasn't that she wanted a position of authority or to rule the world, not anything cliché like that.
All she wanted was to replace the center in this web of order. She wanted turn the order to chaos. And perhaps, turn the chaos into madness.
Okay, this was the prologue of what's turning out to be a large story. When writing, at first I just started with chapter one, but then I realized that the world I'm trying to build up here needed more exposition. And here you have a lot of exposition. If there's anything that's unclear or confusing to you guys, please let me know. This is my first time actually publishing a fanfic in 7 years, so I'm a little nervous. I would greatly appreciate feedback.
If anyone was wondering about Shaula, when Arachne and Medusa were meeting up, she had her face and hands pressed against the window. She was crying. It was awkward, so they just didn't mention her.