CHAPTER 10:
WEBS AND WIZARDS
As Hiiro waddled back to the hideout, a small sack (made of webbing) filled with goodies she had hunted or harvested being dragged behind her, she considered her situation. Having this place as a home base was a good idea, at least for now. As much as she needed experience points to get stronger, she also felt a desire for some peace and quiet. So allying herself with Ariel was probably going to be prudent.
Of course, Harry was going to be a potential problem. Hiiro could understand his recalcitrance. Hell, she shared it. Demon Lords were bad news. But Ariel had proved to be nothing but helpful to them so far, and she had laid her cards out on the table.
However, she couldn't remain here. She needed to level up, become an Arachne, and finally be able to talk a lot better than by Telepathy. Hunting helped, and Harry's Peverell Inheritance Link helped boost the experience points. But she needed something more.
As she approached the mansion, a quartet of inhuman figures lurched out of hiding, brandishing blades. She recoiled at them, but then, she heard Ariel. "Stand down. She's the other newcomer."
Ariel came around the corner, and smiled. "Sorry about that. But with you and Harry being here, as well as that damned Elf possibly getting a message off to Potimas, I thought this place could do with more protection. I've had them around here before. Ever seen a Puppet Taratect before?"
Actually, I have, Hiiro mused. They were amongst the forces Mother sent to attack me. Hiiro now recognised the mannequin-like feminine bodies with six bladed arms. Inside was a small Taratect puppeteering the body, she knew.
"A very different evolution to your own, but they are directly spawned from me, just like the Queen Taratects," Ariel said, clapping her hand on the shoulders of one Puppet Taratect. "I guess they're your aunts. Neat, aren't they? These shells, they're basically hardened spider thread created through Thread Manipulation. They're also smarter than most Taratects, though they are pretty high-level. Anyway, did you enjoy your hunting?"
Insomuch as I could. My Fearbringer title scares a lot of potential prey away. Most of what I got was fruit, really. Not that I'm complaining, mind. Most of the potential food in the Great Elroe Labyrinth makes crap taste desirable by comparison. Oh, but those catfish things, they were utterly delicious!
Ariel chuckled. "Yeah, I've had them too. I guess if you've been living in that place for so long, good food is something to savour, isn't it? Look, I know we got off on the wrong foot, Hiiro. Can you really blame me, though?"
…Not really, but could you blame me for reacting violently to the Queen Taratect trying to take over my mind?
"Not really. I've put her back in her place. Hopefully, she won't act up again, as long as you don't try attacking her. Still, sending your Parallel Minds to attack her was pretty ingenious, as much as I hate what you did to her. Well, what's done is done. What matters is the present."
…That sounds ominous.
"I'm a Demon Lord, what I say tends to be ominous by default. What I'm currently worried about, aside from Potimas' interest in the reincarnations, not to mention D's antics, is the pair of you. Especially Harry. He's made his lack of trust in me clear. Not that I can blame him, and if you two decided to part ways with us, I'd be disappointed. But you two would be an asset to us. Plus, if nothing else…I like seeing Lily and Hermione happy."
…I hope you're not asking me to manipulate him into staying with you, Hiiro said. He told me enough about his life for me to know that's a Bad Idea. He hates people keeping stuff from him.
Ariel shook her head, chuckling. "No, no…I wouldn't ask you to do that for me. I'd try to do it myself. Anyway, such manipulation is not what I'm going for. In Demon society, we respect brute strength and sharp cunning. Of course, strongarming you guys will backfire. So frank honesty and persuasion is my best hope. Honestly, he doesn't trust me, but the feeling is, to a degree, mutual. I heard the tales about him from Hermione, true, but that means sod-all when meeting him in person. After all, he knows my title, Demon Lord, just as I know his as the Boy Who Lived, even if his brother usurped it. We're feeling each other out. But I meant what I said. I intend to save this world, and hope that I can do so with as low a bodycount as I can manage. Anyway, c'mon. We can use some of that stuff for lunch and dinner…"
Harry had been sitting around, trying to figure out what to do next. Though that boiled down to a decision whether to join Ariel in earnest. It was a bit of a tough decision.
On the one hand, Ariel was a Demon Lord, and she had made her hatred of humans clear. After spending so much time opposing Voldemort and the Death Eaters, throwing his lot in with someone who probably had a higher body count than them wasn't appealing at all. And he was still reeling from Dumbledore's betrayal, from James Potter showing his true colours, from learning of the lie of his existence. He didn't need another betrayal in the offing.
On the other, Ariel seemed to be frank and honest with them, and surprisingly reasonable. Hermione trusted her, and while her track record with trusting adult figures was a spotty one (Lockhart and Dumbledore were major cases in point), it was still a mark in Ariel's favour, as he hoped Hermione would learn from her experiences. Ariel seemed willing to go along with plans that didn't cause as many deaths to save the world. They had mutual enemies with D, to say nothing of this Potimas person. And Ariel even gave them the option to decline. He'd trusted Hiiro on shakier evidence, bluntly.
He found Ariel when he investigated the source of some noise to the kitchen of the mansion. She was finishing cleaning up a deer carcass, having skinned and gutted it. He grimaced, as he was more used to meat from a supermarket, but he couldn't get too squeamish. "Having fun there?" he asked.
"Sort of," Ariel said. "Not really a fan of blood and guts, at least outside of removing them from a foe, but I'm used to catching and killing my own. True, I have the Ruler of Gluttony title, I can eat just about anything and recover health. I could eat soil or faeces, not that I'd particularly want to eat shit literally. But a proper meal is to be savoured, and it's been a little while since I had venison."
"If you say so," Harry said. Had he had venison at Hogwarts? He couldn't remember. Certainly not at the Dursleys: if they'd ever had venison, they wouldn't ever let him have any.
Ariel then put it into what looked like a freezer chest, before removing the guts and the like and placing them elsewhere, and then washing her hands. "If you're looking for Hiiro, she's catching up with Hermione," Ariel said. "Lily's delivering the mirror to Lord Keren. So, I guess we have time to talk."
"But what about?"
"Of shoes, ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings?" Ariel asked.
"…Since when have you read or watched Alice in Wonderland?"
"Lily did. She recited that bit about the Walrus and the Carpenter." She finished washing her hands, shaking them off before towelling them dry, and then replacing her gloves, before grabbing some grapes from a bowl, leading him back to the lounge room. She flopped onto one of the lounges this time, rather than an armchair, lazily biting grapes off the bunch. "So, at the risk of annoying you, you have given more thought to joining me, right?"
"Yeah. But it's not that easy a decision to make. I don't know you well enough, and Hermione, well, she's put her faith in authority figures who didn't deserve it."
"Fair enough. Though to be honest, why she put any trust in someone like Lockhart is beyond me," Ariel said, before popping another grape into her mouth. "I mean, aside from the crush factor. And even then…ugh, what can you do? I've seen plenty of smart people do dumb shit over the millennia. My misanthropy isn't all due to what humans did to this world, to the nearest thing I had for a mother. I see humans being idiots, forgetting history, not looking past the surface to see what lies beneath…and I'm sure that bitch D laps it all up. Not that the Demons are much better. They're either muscle-bound or treacherous morons, well, a lot of them are. Why do you think I pretty much dumped most of my responsibilities on Balto? I mean, aside from trying to deal with Potimas and his latest hobby."
"…So why didn't you do anything before? You said you're millennia old, Ariel, so why hadn't you taken action against Potimas or this Dustin guy before?"
"…Well, Dustin, it's complicated. I think Hermione said we're frenemies or something like that. We're enemies, and I hate how he basically wiped Sariel's name from the history books, but we respect each other to a fairly strong degree. And to be fair to Dustin, if sacrificing himself meant saving the world, he'd do it with only a little hesitation. I respect that. But Potimas is utterly selfish. As for why…well, for a long time, I was a more cautious and paranoid person. I wanted to prepare myself for taking on Potimas. Potimas himself has prepared: he has barriers that can disable most Skills from the System, giving him a huge advantage. Though to be honest, it took me some time to even really do that. I became reclusive for a long time, wallowing in my own hatred and doubt." With that, Ariel finished off the grapes, stems and all.
As she closed her eyes in repose, Harry frowned as he considered her words. "And my father? Güliedistodiez, I mean?"
"He's a good guy and a good friend, but…our relationship is a bit complex. You've certainly got more balls than he does lately. Hell, I'd be helping you out based on you being Gülie's son alone." Ariel got off her couch, before sitting next to Harry. Oddly enough, he didn't cringe away. Maybe it was because he knew that Ariel was trying to be genuinely comforting, even as she put an arm around his shoulder and drew him into a gentle hug.
"Look…I'm crap at comforting people, Harry. When I spent my first years of my life as a test-subject, codenamed 'Taratect', but not given a proper name…I have a lot of issues. But unless you directly oppose me, unless you force me to, I'm not going to harm or kill you, not if I can help it. I mean, depending on how you look at my relationship with your mother, I'm either your aunt or your sister."
Harry actually laughed. "Well, you're a damn sight better as an aunt than my actual aunt. I'm glad I don't have to live in their damned house ever again. You're at least making an effort to be nice."
"…That's sad, but I'm sure that in terms of crappy childhoods, I'd win. Not that I'd want to win. Though I prefer the sisterly role. I like that. Sariel was in many ways a big sister as much as she was a mother to me. Plus, it's pretty fitting, as Gülie had a thing for Sariel. Though really…Lily…Yuri, she gave me my heart back. You should thank her for that."
Harry shrugged. He had to admit, despite his disquiet, he was enjoying her company. And considering she was a self-proclaimed Demon Lord, that was saying something. But there was a genuine warmth there, something that had been lacking with many he knew. Only his closest friends and adult acquaintances like Sirius or Remus or Tonks had that.
"…You're lonely, aren't you?" Harry asked with a sudden epiphany.
"I was lonely, before Yuri came into my life," Ariel admitted readily. "But…it was by choice, because there's few people I can open up to. Even those I have often died, because of war or simple old age. To most lately, I have to play the role of the big bad Demon Lord, because that's what they expect. And there's only so much I can get out of a relationship with my Taratect progeny. The kids, the Puppeteer Taratects, they're probably the ones I'm closest to. Then again, they're not great conversationalists. But for all the fact that you're wary of me, you at least try to judge me by what little merits I do possess. You're giving me a chance, and I hope I won't disappoint you. Because I'll need all the help I can get with Potimas."
"…I'm not exactly strong, Ariel. I may be the son of Güliedistodiez, but I doubt I'm as powerful as you, let alone him."
"Maybe not…but you have the potential. You're not connected to the System, and you're half-Administrator, and part-dragon to boot. You've got a leg-up with your magic too. I reckon you have the potential to be the strongest being on this world. And even if you don't help me directly, if you're able to save Sariel, stop this System nonsense…maybe even punch D in the face, I'll be happy."
Maybe that was it, in the end. Voldemort had once told him, when they met for the first time (outside of when Voldemort tried to kill him while he was still in nappies), that there was no good or evil, just power, and those to weak to seek it. At the time, he dismissed it, but now?
Okay, there was good and evil, even if the lines were far blurry than he cared to admit. But if you wanted to make a difference, you still needed power. Especially if you needed to punch a bored and sadistic death goddess in the face.
Plus, saving an entire world was a laudable goal, right? Even if he didn't stick with Ariel, he had a worthwhile purpose. And hopefully, Ariel would turn out to be as decent as she seemed. For all of her misanthropy, she seemed rather pleasant when she wasn't threatening people.
Still, he wanted to feel things out more. And he didn't want to keep Hiiro out of the loop. Despite having only known her for a few days, he'd grown attached to the former Japanese schoolgirl-turned-spider monster.
And then, there was the fact that Hermione and, it seemed, his mother was here. That was something at least. In a perverse manner, James Potter did him a favour in chucking him through the Veil, even if he didn't intend to. D had to have known, and was doubtlessly enjoying herself.
But he'd do his best to save this world. That was his new reason to live. If nothing else, he could give it a damn good try…
CHAPTER 10 ANNOTATIONS:
So, Ariel's doing some bonding with both Hiiro and Harry, and Harry's finding a better purpose to live than tracking down Güliedistodiez and giving him a piece of his mind.
I also thought I'd introduce the Puppet Taratects sooner, so Hiiro can start giving them a makeover sooner. Plus, the scene with Ariel dressing a deer was slightly inspired by a similar scene in the first season of Game of Thrones, where Tywin Lannister does so while dressing down Jaime.
I wanted to show Ariel's humanity in these scenes, to show that, beneath the Demon Lord, there's a young girl who is still traumatised by the experiments her father put her through, and that she desires a family of her own. One could say that may be why she accepts Kumoko eventually. That's partly, albeit subconsciously, why I wrote Harry and Ariel having their little heart to heart. Given that Ariel grew up as Potimas' guinea pig, and she eventually became Sariel's adopted daughter, well, the parallels with Harry's life are there to a degree, so there is some understanding between them.
Anyway, this will be the last chapter for now. I actually had the next chapter and part of the one after that written, but I realised I wanted to handle the upcoming reunion with Sirius in a different manner, so I've pared that chapter back, and I'm figuring out how to go about it. So the next chapter will be some time. Sorry.
Review-answering time! I've answered part of dragon-cloud16's review in correspondence, specifically about the webnovel being localised as an eBook (Australian iTunes has it, for those interested, so other territories' iTunes may have it). Anyway, characterising D with ennui seems to be a logical step. She's immortal and all-powerful, so playing with mortals' lives is probably to relieve that, much like Ehit from Arifureta, for example, though D, surprisingly, feels more moral or at least is a little better than Ehit in that there are times when she helps people out for seemingly little reason at all, even perpetuating her entertainment. D can be reasoned with in some regards. Ehit, though? From what I gather, Ehit's just a selfish and sadistic egomaniac.
As for when Hiiro regains a human form or her Arachne form…it's actually going to be more adorable and heartwarming than anything else. I've been thinking about how to do that for some time. I had hoped to do a story set during the TWT, as it would allow me to have the big reveal during the Yule Ball, but that didn't pan out…
waytodawn0: Oh, you mean Ignotus? Thank you. I was inspired by my own oneshot in the same crossover, D's Hallows, where Ignotus is portrayed as, far from being a virtuous and humble young man, as a paranoid coward haunted by D. When I wanted to do a longer story, I decided to reuse that, and extrapolate it into a WBWL, James-bashing story, but with a twist. He has parallels not only with Potimas from So I'm a Spider, So What?, but Voldemort, and, as mentioned before, Yoshikage Kira from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable.
No numbered annotations this time.
