CHAPTER IX-Strings, Spiders, Seals, and everything Nice.

Screams. Shrieks. Panic. Damn, what? Are we gonna eat them alive? If they just step on us, crush us slowly, kick us with all their might. Damn. What for were they given those bodies? Stupid humans. As if we're gonna eat them—the other way around. Well, it's not like it's tempting to get our poison flow through their blood. That's when we feel our power.

But anyway, that's just how humans welcome us.

Hell, even giving us that weird nickname.

Eight-legged freaks.

The girl only clenched her teeth, apparently annoyed by the thought.

But we're different. And I'm really proud about it. Just try to irk us, you won't even have the time to shriek and point that scrutinizing finger to us. Yep. We demon spiders are different. If we had our choice, we could have entangled you with pleasure with our webs. Do you know just how satisfying to see their struggles to get free from our beautiful threads?

Entanglement.

This is our osore.

The girl licked her lips, her jet-black eyes never leaving the man he had been tailing for days. It had come as an order from her mistress. For her, nothing could be more of a source of pride than be of service to the Queen of the Hundred Parade of Demons herself, the fourth generation Supreme Commander and Mistress of Pandemonium—Nura Reiya. Back then, she was still a prey-hunting spider demon, a brat who's play upon humans and demons through her webs, luring them with her tricks, until they finally get caught in her threads. Just like her father, Tsuchi Gumo, she was a cunning demon who found danger to be thrilling. Not that she had not been bored with weak humans, but what choice did she have? Only these weak humans, and well, some weak demons provided her entertainment.

And just as when she was on the verge of cursing the repetitive burden that entangled her, the most beautiful demon she had ever seen appeared right before her eyes, smiling like an angel under the graceful and gentle moonlight. Yet the Mistress' eyes would never ever betray the demonic blood which flowed in every vein of hers. She would never ever forget the look in her crimson eyes, the very betrayal to her angelic smile.

For her crimson eyes clearly belong to the eyes of the demon who stood atop the parade of a hundred demons.

There was no other word for it.

Osore.

But the stubborn her did not let her pride go crushed easily that way. The battle commenced, only for her to swear loudly amidst the silent night for a pain she had never felt before. That was when the woman commanded her to put a stop to the killings.

"Just give up.", the woman said casually as she calmly watched the young spider demon struggle to stand.

"Kisama…" The spider demon spit out, blood dripping from her mouth. "You're just another human-loving demon…And I have no plans of yielding to your wants!" The spider demon spread out her hands, threads of web coming right from her fingers. The woman did not even dodge as the webs entangled her body angrily, spinning around her until she looked no less than a chrysalis.

"Yare yare." The woman flashed her smile again, making the spider demon more annoyed.

"I'll wipe away that smile of yours!"

The girl pulled out her webs, tightening them around the woman's body.

"How's that!" The spider demon laughed as she tightened the entanglement, enough to crush the flesh of her prey. "Motto motto!"

The webs had completely covered the woman's body.

The spider demon grinned. Victory was in her hands. She delivered the finishing blow.

Only to watch her web enclose themselves around nothing.

"N-Nani?!" Her eyes widened.

"Itta darou? Just give up.", a cold voice spoke behind her.

The girl shuddered at the memory of the scene that followed. No. It was not that the next thing that followed was her getting beaten and tossed by her would-be Mistress like some rag. The osore that reeked out from her crimson eyes was enough to break her own.

The blue-green man continued rocking his head to the rhythm of the piece he had been listening to. It was then that he moved his eyes to the far corner of the ceiling.

The spider thread glistened.

The man approached the web. With his sword, the silver thread broke, letting go of the wood it had been clinging too.

"Webs are meant to be destroyed. The only attachment that must stay—"

The man turned his head around.

"Are the strings that play the music of my soul's carnage."

The girl smiled.

"Reiya-sama, you're right. Looks like it's no bunch of humans we're up against. Rather…"

The spider demon made her land, facing the blue-green man.

"Demons that disguise themselves in that human flesh."

Miru pulled out the thread of web with her mouth from her fingers.

"Samurai da."

A bird. A dog. And the queen.

The three demons sped past the roofs of the houses, racing the wind.

"Dakara, why don't we just storm that ship with the hundred parade Reiya-sama!", Zen screamed as they took a left detour.

"That Bakufu's tailing us. Do you really want our existence to be revealed that explicitly?", Reiya snapped as she jumped from a three-story house. "You'd drive Chichue mad, Zen."

Zen only cursed under his breath. "These Amantos…I really wanna murder them right now."

"I'm no different. But trust me, they're not worthy of the bloodbath."

"And what about this House of Gumo."

"Bunch of trash. They're not any different."

"And this Takasugi Shinsuke?"

Reiya smiled. "It's him that I want."

Sadaharu barked and stopped.

"Are? What's the matter demon dog?"

The Queen had stopped on her tracks too.

"We just got a welcome party Zen."

"Welcome par—" Zen gasped.

For their, clearly visible from the tall building from which they stood, gleamed a hundred pattern of pentagrams, tons of papers adorning them.

"Zen, wanna have a contest?"

The bird demon grinned. "Looks fun."

So did the queen.

"Let's see who gets the most number of seals brought down!", said Reiya, waving her hand and lifting the seal on Sadaharu. The response that came was not a bark this time.

The white-haired man also grinned. "It will never be fun if you exclude me, Demon Queen."

"Yo."

Bansai did not smile. Instead, he put his sword back to its hilt.

"Zurui na." Miru sighed. "Are samurais this unwelcoming? And to think that our kind has been existing with you eversince Amatarasu."

"How reckless of you."

"Eh?"

Bansai looked around the ship, which had been adorned with hundreds of seals.

"Oh that. Mochiron, shitteru zo. I know that this ship carries seals, and even omnyojis." Miru wove her web so that they formed a pentagram.

"For you to come, does that mean you're that confident in beating us?"

"Hm. Let me think about that, Human." Miru's web had formed a decagram. "It's just that I'm here under my Mistress' orders."

"Ah. The goddess of luck who gave me this wonderful phone." Bansai pointed at his headphones. "Send her my thanks."

"If I send her my thanks that means I was able to escape this seal-filled ship. Oh well, yeah. That will come, and I'll say that it came from the man who recorded that convenience store fight, only to have it spread around the town with the help of these ugly Amantos."

"Oh…", amusement can be traced from Bansai's voice. "So you knew it was me."

"Er…it's just that we're not stupid."

"Join us."

"Eh?"

"We'll help you retrieve those two swords. Only if you join us in destroying and rebuilding this world."

Miru burst out into a laugh. "Are you telling us demons to join you folks in destroying these Amantos?"

"I thought you were not stupid." Bansai had pulled out his sword once again.

The webs sprung from the spider demon's fingers like threads that thirst of strangling for some human flesh, wrapping themselves around the posts that surround the two.

"Human, you're no different from a boy who wants his homework get done by some other guy. The mere fact that you got this far to mess around with our kind is enough to declare yourselves us standing against us."

The webs clung to each other, forming a net. Bansai watched as the two of them got surrounded.

"Negotiating with the omyojis and these lowly Amantos. That is the same as declaring you're here to mess with us."

The daughter of the feared giant Tsuchigumo looked at Bansai with her jet-black eyes, now outlined with a pair of glaring slits, shaped like a web.

Bansai smirked, positioning his sword above the strings of his guitar as if it was a bow.

"Shall I take it as a no?"

"Well what do you think?"

A note resounded as one of the strings snapped.

"Shall I play a requiem for you?"

The spider threads quivered violently.

"Tanomu ze."