Just a heads-up here, I've made some adjustments to Keito's yokai form. I know I already made major mods to one cannon character, but while I don't recall it ever having any basis in the manga or anime, just about every fandom has her act in a high-ranking office. However, the combat skill she uses isn't great enough to out compete the dozens of ambitus yokai for the job, its good but not lieutenant to Kuyo great.

And honestly her cannon appearance just wasn't menacing enough. I mean, sure it's repulsive, but just isn't threatening enough to be mid boss material.

I hope you all understand and can appreciate my decisions on this matter and respect the research I had to do on to formulate her knew appearance (Seriously, spider anatomy is one of those things you don't realize how little you know about, until you need actual knowledge on the topic). If not, then I understand but I stand by the reasons I have given you for making the changes that I did.

Now let's get this chapter started. I hope you like it.

x-x

I do not own any of the franchises used in this story. The people and events and people in this story are completely fictional.

Spider Webs

Keito couldn't possibly describe how humiliated she felt as glared out over the swap-like lake that evening. Not only had the plan to out compete the upstart's newspaper failed, she had been turned into a spectacle by the two demons who had been stupid enough to leave the prestigious and noble ranks of the Public Safety Commission by calling attention to some insignificant oversights she had made while creating her newspaper. If they had attacked her physically, Kuyo would have grounds to have the upstart brought up on competently charges and have the demon sisters fired at minim, she might even have even gotten a promotion if they had. But now she had stripped her of her rank, forced to listen to hours of her co-works mockery and scorn.

Seizing a baseball sized rock from the ground, Keito threw it as hard as her human form could allow. The loud "Splunk" that was produced as the rock it hit the water did very little alleviate her barely contained fury as she imagined what she would do to that no good Jaden Yuki if she got her hands on him.

'Frist, I'll hang him by his ankles for a couple hours to make sure that all the blood has traveled to his head, then I'll turn him into cute little girl using a meat clever, and then I'll kill him." Keito thought, taking some solace in her murderous fantasies before a voice brought her back to reality, "Nice weather for a walk by the lake, isn't it?"

Turning around, the disgraced member of the P.S.C bit back a growl when saw the upstart himself, Jaden Yuki.

"What do you want?" she snarled as struggled to keep her temper for the moment, remembering that he had stood down Kuyo's aura and that she would only be able to take him out was with element of surprise, "You come here to mock me like everyone else?"

"No… I wanted to make you an offer." Jaden said, kind of shocked since he had been unexpecting such hostility.

"Well can you blame her?" Yubel said, from her unseen perch on top of nearby withered old tree, "From her perspective you're the source of unparalleled humiliation."

"You seriously expect me to join you at Y.I.A like those pride-less Hellion sisters?" The purple-haired girl spat venomously, however Jaden shook his and said, "Actually, I was going to ask if you wanted to join the newspaper club."

"What?" Keito asked, incredulity drowning every letter of the word.

"Yeah, I read the articles that you wrote for your paper and they were good." Jaden explained, complimenting the quality what she had written.

'Yeah, like anyone ever read any part of my paper, much-less the fluff pieces I wrote. People bought my paper because I used titillation to grab their interest.' Keito thought bitterly, she had willingly debased herself for the sake of Kuyo's plan and now she had nothing but shame to show for it, 'This upstart probably just wants to use me as a spy on Kuyo.'

"You wouldn't have to quit the P.S.C." Jaden said, unknowing confirming Keito's suspicions about his motives.

Noticing a change in the girl, Yubel decided to voice her concern, "Jaden, the malevolent aura inside this child has grown. You may want to let her have some space before pushing onward."

Jaden knew that Yubel was right and that trying to push any further would be counterproductive held back a sigh as he turned away from the lake and began to walk away, "Just give it some thought, okay?"

"I'd like to but there's a problem with me doing that." Keito called out after the Umberlist, causing him to pause and ask, "What is that?"

"Jaden move now!" Yubel exclaimed in warning, causing the umberlist dashed to the to the side only to be knocked off balance as a strand of white fibers hit him in the right shoulder adhering to the surface of his jacket.

Jaden's eyes widened as he recognized the nearly translucent strands. 'Spider silk?!' he thought in shock as his eyes trailed the strains back to the source and saw the other end being held by Keito, who snarled as she pulled on the white fibers. Sending Jaden up and over her in a crescent arc and slamming him into the ground.

"The problem is that I'm not a cheap turn-coat like the Hellion sisters." She spat furiously, as took off her coat, as she revealed her yokai-self in full glory.

Keito's arms had nearly doubled in length in and were now covered in plates of black exoskeleton armor plates with yellow stripes down the length of her arms until they reached wrists where her human hands and fingers had been replaced by ones with three long claw like digits and thumb covered in the same dark amber as her arms. Her human legs and hips had been replaced by a cluster of eight limbs that matched her arms and supported the unmistakably arachnid abdomen of a golden orb spider where it merged with her rump in more black chitin. A patch of the same dark material covered her lower and mid back as well. It could have been mistaken as a glossy patch skin if it wasn't for the spiked ridge over her spine to protect it from being hurt in a fight that and promised ruin to any form of clothes that she had on at the time, like the purple bra that snapped and left her fair and unblemished stomach and chest bare for Jaden to see when recovered from being slammed to ground earlier.

"I hardly assume my real form." Keito snarled, deciding to screw the element of surprise, "But you're just too big a pain in the ass for me to play nice any longer! Prepare to die at the hands of a jorougumo."

'She doesn't have an ass in that form, but I can see why she wouldn't want people to see her like this.' Jaden thought, before forcing his attention from her body toward the details of her transformed visage.

Jutting down between Keito's lips were two long fangs, which unlike a vampire's that were near the corner of their mouth and were hidden when their mouth was closed, were barely a centimeter apart and reached down to her chin, which was framed by a pair of purple fuzz covered growths on her checks that resembled the jaws of a spider. Her neck was now covered in a thick collar fine purple hair and she now two new smaller pairs of eyes, two on her temples and another two just on either side of her nose, and all six of her eyes were compound like the more common and smaller breeds of spider in the human world.

Focusing on the task of defeating his current adversary, Jaden stood up and noticed that she hadn't moved from where she was standing since she had transformed, the most she was doing was flexing her hands… it kind of reminded him a trick one of neighborhood kids used to do back when he was still considered a cursed child.

Eyes widening in realization, Jaden used his shadow skates to lunch himself up into the air as dozens of unseen threads whipped into action, flashing into view as wrapped around stump of a tree instead of their intended target which the jorougumo ripped from the ground and flung into the lake behind her.

"How clever, how clever." Keito begrudgingly complemented as Jaden landed, "You're the first person to dodge that. How did you see it?"

"I didn't." Jaden admitted as wiped off the strands that were still attached to his shoulder, "I knew a guy that used to do a similar trick and I recognized it while you were preparing it."

"Oh really? Tell me, did he know this one?" she asked, starting to enjoy herself as produced a thread from her spinneret that appeared to be a quarter inch thick and entered a stance that revived Jaden's sleeping memories from his past life as Nurarihyon of a blond yokai, whose head floated above his shoulders resurfaced.

"No, he didn't. Which begs the question…" Jaden said, his eyes narrowing as he called nenekirimaru's sheathed form out of a black cloud of miasma, "Where the hell did you learn Kubinashi's ayatori fighting style?"

"How do you know my uncle?" Keito asked, all six of her eyes widening in shock before narrowing in reflection to Jaden's fighting intent as she change to a more assault oriented fight stance, "On second thought, don't answer. I'll ask him after beating you."

Jaden moved to draw his sword, but Keito spat out a glob white fibers onto the sword, binding the handle in its place against the scabbard. Smirking as the umberlist discovered he couldn't pull the blade free, the jorougumo deftly manipulated the long cord into complex pertains that slammed into her opponent's guard with brutal force.

"Surprised?" She asked tauntingly, "Didn't you know that a jorougumo hides a second spinneret under her tongue?"

"No. But I'll be sure to remember that in the future." Jaden grimaced as he intercepted another brutal blow with the sheathed nenekirimaru, while tried to analyze Keito's attacks for a weakness. 'Even knowing the original stringer, himself from my past life it is next to impossible to get a read on her. She may be using Kubinashi's technique, which was almost imposable to mimic without his free-floating head, but the increased arm length and extra limbs of a jorougumo's have allowed her to adapt it for her our use perfectly.' Jaden thought as he compared the technique from his memory to the one he was facing now.

'While Kubinashi may have used strikes in his method, but they doubled as a faint to bounce the cord off a strike point into position to entrap his foe and then land a decisive blow. Keito however is actually trying to wear me down physically and mentally with lots of powerful and rapid strikes." The umberlist mused before grunting painfully as a vicious blow slip under his guard, pushing him several feet back.

'That wasn't hyoui…' the reincarnation of Nurarihyon realized as he managed recover fast enough to block her next strike, 'When Kubinashi needed to fight against a strong enemy he would channel his youki into his cord to imbue it with "fear" so he could make it longer and increase its strength to match a chain's, but Keito's doesn't have a trace of youki in it. I had heard that spider silk had the tensile straight of a steel cable, and after getting hit by that cord I can attest to that theory."

Jaden's thoughts were cut short as he noticed that he was in the middle of several loosely intertwined loups of the cord.

'Got you. You little…' Keito smirked as pulled back on the cord with limb acting in place of the free-floating head to close her trap only for her foe to drop under it and roll aside, causing the jorougumo to growl in frustration, 'Son of a BITCH!'

Jaden smiled, knowing that closing the cord around empty air would cause it to become entangled in a beautifully chaotic mess of a knot only to be surprised when the scowling spider-girl flicked out a finger and let a looped portion of the thread go slack.

'Okay, setting up a trap like that without using "fear" is tricky, doing the aforementioned task without something to use as a frame to build a solid design on is difficult but do able.' Jaden mused in impressed frustration as he watched Keito whip the two free ends of her cord behind her, completely clear of any form of knots, 'Adding a failsafe to prevent the knot from getting tied into a knot if the trap miss the target is next to impossible. How is she pulling tricks of this level of? Her hand moment is a novice's but she is still doing tricks that Kubinashi had patented.'

"I think those eyes of hers may be allowing her see how she can adjust the strand while it's in flight to use itself as a frame to set up traps and more powerful attacks." Yubel supplied, impressed by the skill that Keito was displaying.

'Really? Her eyes a sharp enough to put her on the same level as the Kubinashi I remember from my time as Nurarihyon? Well I guess this is a good time to test some of the old moves I have been practicing.' Jaden replied mentally as he stood up and his eyes started to glow with a golden light.

"I didn't know had any old moves." Yubel teased before turning her thoughts towards Jaden's eyes while he ignored the good-natured quip as he fixed his eyes on Keito, causing her to shudder as she stared into their baleful light, unsure if it was from fear, a sudden chill, or something else.

Every muscle in the jorougumo tightened up as she started shake like she was in a cold mist, 'W-w-what's happening?! He's just standing there… but's it's like his eyes are causing my blood to blood to boil nerves to be electrified!' Keito's mind began racing, the hair surrounding her neck standing straight out away from her, as Jaden stalked toward her before seeming to vanish into thin air.

"What?!" Keito shouted as she searched the area for him, her long hair whipping about as she searching her "Where did you go?!"

"You don't need to need to crane your neck to the side. I'm right in front of you." Jaden said from where stood a few feet from the jorougumo, causing Keito's eyes shot down toward him as he thrust nenekirimaru's hilt into her humanoid upper-body's solar plexus, the weakest point in a human body.

All the air left Keito's human lungs in a rush as both spider and human halves collapsed to the ground, leaving the jorougumo chest heaved to draw in the lost air as she breathed in long labored breaths.

Jaden rested his sheathed blade against his shoulder and watched as Keito's breathing evened out and turned away. "You've got excellent eyes. However, you've become reliant on them and neglected the other subtleties of fighting with Kuroshio's ayatori style and don't have the skills needed to hunt the unseen. That said, that was some nice rope work." He said as he started to walk away, "My earlier offer still stands."

He hadn't made more than three steps when a make shift garrote looped around his neck and pulled him off his feet up against Keito's chest while he used shadow magic to strengthen his throat muscles as best he could while she hissed into his ear, "Well, look at what I caught."

The jorougumo's eye's flash sinisterly in the light of the setting sun as Jaden clawed at the thread threatening to cut into his skin, as she said with sadistic glee in an almost tone seductive tone, "I've caught you, Jaden Yuki."

Certain he had seen how this scene played out in an anime he had watched before coming to Yokai Academy, Jaden did the most logical thing to do in that situation, and swung his sheathed sword behind him to hit his capture in the head with it… Hard.

As the stunned Keito let go of the impromptu garrote and tried to clear her head of the comical stars swirling around her, the now free umberlist charged the glove on his empty hand with the power of shadow magic and unleashed a powerful blast of wind at the spider-yokai behind him, which lifted her of the ground and blasted her away from her target.

Jaden coughed and hacked up dry air as his ability to breathe returned and he searched for where Keito had landed, seeing no sign of her until he saw a large object fall into the lake with a loud splash.

"Well, that's not good." Jaden said as he took off his coat and shoes be for diving into the lake after her.

x-x

Keito woke up coughing up water while her lungs felt like they were on fire. After her erratic breathing subsided to a normal level, she noticed Jaden standing above her, and letting out a breath of relief and smiling as he the signs of life from the jorougumo.

"Thank god, you're alright." Jaden said as he checked Keito vital signs before he turned to the cell-phone laying on the ground, "But that was a bit too close for comfort Sam. We actually lost her for a minute."

'Lost me?! Does that mean that I… died?' Keito thought as her mind turned eerily quiet while Sam's voice resounded from cell's speaker-phone, "I know. My medical knowledge concerning mostly humanoid species is second to none, but that doesn't excuse my blatant lack of knowledge on non-humanoid biology."

The chief and only member of the Y.I.A medical department couldn't hold back a sigh of disappointment in herself as she turned a page in a book depicting the anatomy of more exotic species of yokai and medical treatments for them. Stopping herself from letting out a second sigh, Sam apologized over the phone, "If I hadn't found this old journal that depicted how to resuscitate a jorougumo, I would soon have had to file my first conformation of death. And that is something that I hope to avoid during my employment under you."

"I be sure to study such topics in greater depth in the future to prevent such emergencies from becoming so critical in the future." Sam assured her superior officer before asking a question that had been plaguing her since reading the entry on CPR for a jorougumo, "But how did pull off that resuscitation technique? I mean, it requires three people, one for the mouth and each lung slit on the spider body, so how did you pull it off?"

Remembering how Yubel had dragged Kisara into physical existence and insisted that they handled the lung slits because they were too close to something called the epigynum, Jaden decided to hold off on answering, "I'll tell you later. I'm going to bring Keito down to headquarters so you can give her a checkup."

Receiving a quick confirmation from the yakushi, Jaden ended the call and held out his jacket to the still shell shocked Keito, who accepted it without a word and let him lead her still transformed body by her arm.

Keito's mind kept repeating what he and the girl on the phone had said, she felt fear at the meaning of their words but she had to know. Her voice uncertain, she asked the umberlist, "Earlier, when you said you had "lost me", what did you mean?"

Jaden stopped moving and looked deeply into the girl's compound eyes and answered her question as clearly as he could, "I mean that you had drowned and for several seconds you were dead until you we revived." Keito didn't move or say a word after hearing that. She had known that was most likely what they had meant, but to hear him say that in such plain words was rattling. Unable to get a read on her emotions and tell if she was alright Jaden asked her, "Are you okay?"

"I don't know." She confessed, "Everything feels different but nothing has changed… Something extraordinary has happened to me, but it was the kind of thing that could have happened to anyone… Does any of this make sense?"

"Poor thing, so her mind is in chaos." Yubel commented as Jaden smiled understandingly at Keito and told her, "Don't worry, you're just confused right now. Give yourself sometime to be lost and the path will become clear to you."

A soft chuckle escaped Keito's lips witch soon evolved into a hearty laugh.

"HA, HA, HA!" Keito's shoulders rocked as she laughed uncontrollably, "Just had to say something like that! You really are such an upstart Nurarihyon! HA, HA, HA!"

An irritated vain popped-out on Jaden's forehead as he struggled not to lose his temper. "Sure, laugh at the guy trying to help." He grumbled before he raised his voice so Keito would hear him, "When you're done cackling, we'll continue on to Y.I.A so you can have a real medic look over.

Next Time: Oh b- I mean girl.