Non-Canon Omake: The Little Spider, Part 2 (Patreon)

Wilhelm sat on a bench, smiling happily.

The years had by in the blink of an eye. He always used to say that he didn’t know how to be a parent when being a Father to Kunou. He truly felt out of his depth when it came to raising an infant through childhood.

Yasaka would of course tease him good naturedly about it.

Yet, there was not a single day where he even remotely regrets her being ‘born’.

Wilhelm had loved her the moment he laid his eyes on her for the first time.

He felt so old now.

Fourteen years.

To long lived beings, it was merely a blink of an eye. To him, though he understood the long years from memory, it still felt like an eternity.

He was over forty years old now. By human standards, he was middle aged and on his way to his later years.

The anger he felt initially….it dissipated in time. He was still furious as the Goddess for what occurred, even if he wouldn’t change anything if it meant losing his little spider. There had been many times over the years where he nearly hopped back over there to give the Goddess a well deserved piece of his mind.

But maybe it was the maturity he developed over time, or it was simply because of his daughter. But every time he nearly did so, he took a single look at his daughter and pushed all his turbulent feelings aside to focus on her.

And gradually, over time, that desire flew away until it was nearly nonexistent.

Simply, he never once returned there.

He never did get to show his mom his diploma, but he felt that a copy of the first picture he took with his infant daughter was more than enough to make up for it.

 Yes, over these past years, there had been a lot of changes.

Wilhelm reached over and rubbed a very swollen belly.

The owner of which gave him a look and rolled her eyes with a huff.

“Will you ever stop looking so proud of yourself?” Izanami pursed her lips.

The Goddess of Death was pregnant.

It was not intentional on either of their parts, but a happy surprise nonetheless. It had been…..complicated when it first was revealed. Godly politics even after everything that happened…well, Wilhelm had to have some stern words with quite a few Japanese Gods.

Luckily, at this point in time, there were very few beings in this world willingly to get on Wilhelm’s bad side.

The strange thing about her pregnancy, however, was that she had been pregnant for nearly two years at this point.

According to her, and many other people he asked for advice with, it wasn’t uncommon for deities to give birth unconventionally. Simply taking longer was the norm for many of them.

The ringing of steel was heard in the background as Wilhelm silently provoked his Goddess lover.

He didn’t say it, but she was correct.

He was very proud of himself for getting her pregnant.

Unfortunately, none of the others were quite pregnant yet. They had only recently started using extra methods for conception, so he expected it to start picking up soon.

Wilhelm looked up because the clashing of weapons stopped.

There was one more important thing that occurred in the past decade.

“Husband.” Scáthach came over. Very clearly, there was a ring on her finger just as there was with all his lovers.

Scáthach stood there, spear pushed against the ground, giving a faint smile.

Next to her, someone else walked up.

She was younger, fourteen years of age to be exact. She held a similar spear to Scáthach and even wore a similar purple body suit, albeit with a bit more reservation in certain areas and some more protective means such as armor. If anything, she was almost like a mirror of the immortal witch, minus a handful of features.

Most striking is that her hair was a brighter red. Second were her Gray eyes that shined rather oddly in contrast to the normally chromatic color. Lastly, and just barely when the wind blew and her bangs swayed, there were two small nubby horns on her forehead, still not fully grown.

Arachne had certainly taken after her mom.

She glanced at her mom, standing there and corrected her own posture and expression to match her.

Wilhelm just found it utterly adorable.

She was at that age where she picks a ‘image’ so to speak and delves into it. For some, it’s not a conscious thing, as they would just go with the flow of their closest friends. To others, well, there were cliques of goth kids, sports kids, etc.

It was the age where kids started finding themselves.

Arachne just wanted to emulate her mom, which also wasn’t something abnormal for children her age.

Wilhelm held his arms open, looking at Arachne. The young girl looked at him and scowled, just like her mother.

Wilhelm returned a hurt gaze and Arachne immediately folded, throwing herself into his arms. “That’s my little spider.”

“Da, I’m not a child.” Arachne pouted.

“Of course, you’re a big girl now. How old are you? Five, Six? Time sure does fly.”

Arachne huffed, pulling out of his grasp. “Da, I’m gonna call big sis if you keep teasing me.”

“Alright, alright.” Wilhelm held his hands up in surrender. “Please don’t call Kunou to come bully your poor father.”

“Da, I want to go.” Arachne immediately changed the subject.

Wilhelm twitched slightly. “Why do you want to go there?”

“I want to know where I came from.” Arachne said softly. “You said I needed to be stronger when I was eight. I practiced with Aunt Grandma and Grandpa Zekram and I trained my Power of Destruction. I trained with mom and I’m a master with my spear. I trained with Uncle Achilles and Aunt Atalanta, they taught me Pankration and how to hunt. I also went to train with Uncle Odin, Aunt Medea, Aunt Artoria, Aunt Raikou, Aunt Alter, Aunt jinn….” She began to list off. “And you even taught me stuff too, da! I’m strong enough now.”

Wilhelm pursed his lips as she listed all that off, unable to deny her claims there.

Maybe it was just his parental instincts acting up. He wanted to hold Arachne close and never let her go. It was the same with Kunou back in the day when she went to school.

Wilhelm would also admit that she was more talented than him in nearly every aspect. Wilhelm would also fully admit that he cheated a lot on his upwards path to power through various means.

Arachne though, she was a genius. Of course there were some things she didn’t quite excel at, but there were many that she just took to like a fish in water.

Though, one such thing is that she doesn’t have the mentality for practicing the Kaleidoscope.

Practicing the Kaleidoscope wasn’t a means of Magical Talent, that Arachne had in spades. It required very specific things, certain mentality that if you didn’t possess, you simply wouldn’t be able to learn.

Wilhelm let out a long sigh, holding his arms open again and his daughter gave him another hug.

He remembered when she was still an infant and they were trying to discover any anomalies with her.

Half God, Half Devil.

She was the first combination of those two things in history. Even him, as a Half Devil merely possessed Divinity, he was not Half God.

As far as they could tell, the way that Athena ‘creates’ her children, basically it comes down to her replacing half of the child with divine parts. And considering that it was intended for a purely human child, and she most likely didn’t delve deep into the matter at all, she essentially snipped away the half of humanity she would have originally inherited.

It caused quite a stir when it became public knowledge.

Zekram though was absolutely thrilled. There were rumors that he was laughing nonstop for days.

And he doted on her non-stop.

He gave her private lessons on her inherited bloodline – which funnily enough, she had more ‘talent’ in that area than Wilhelm as well. Perhaps a side effect of Wilhelm excavating his bloodline through means of the Hogyoku, she should have originally only gotten a small hint of the bloodline, but instead, she was on par with the likes of Venelana, Rias, and even Milicas and other direct descendants.

Zekram once said that her blood was about the same as first generation children of the original demons as she inherited some of the physical characteristics. That being, her horns were starting to protrude from her forehead.

Yes, Zekram was quite pleased here, saying things like ‘Of course my bloodline can even conquer gods!’.

She was treated as a little princess in Hell even by other faction political factions down there.

The unfortunate thing however was that Arachne didn’t inherit any of his other….bloodlines due to the circumstances of his sealing at the time.

That is to say, she has no Dragon characteristics, no Spiritual Power, no innate Aura like those born on Remnant – even if that could be correct, and all the other things he had sloshing around his abomination-like existence.

Though, from her Devil Side, it wasn’t merely the Power of Destruction and some physical traits she inherited.

She was a rather greedy girl for certain things. And maybe it came from her Divine heritage, or maybe from her Devil side, but she could be rather prideful.

Both of which needed a bit of correcting over the years.

There were some negative aspects that came with her Divine Half. It seemed like she had some innate type of phobia relating to spiders. We carefully removed that considering it wasn’t something cultivated by her own psyche.

It was rather ironic considering her name…

Though, there were certainly upsides to her Divine half.

She had frightening combat perception, almost like a combat clairvoyance. Though, it was mostly the ability to read the flow of a fight and anticipate future actions. This came about due to having the ability to memorize anything she’s seen or heard once before.

It was a cheat ability for someone practicing magic and combat techniques.

Not that it was unbeatable, they had to show her that it could be tricked if discovered she was overly relying on it.

There were other things, things that contributed to her gaining the status of ‘genius’ in the eyes of Wilhelm and the others.

When he asked his Greek friends, they just rolled their eyes and dismissed it as being a child of Athena. Though the thought of a child from the Virgin Goddess was rather foreign to them, they took it in stride.

If anything, they were excited about the whole concept. To them, Wilhelm’s home wasn’t their home, it was like being on the outside looking in. However, by extension of being Wilhelm’s child, they felt more of a kinship with her.

And speaking of Greeks, she was officially adopted by Pandora as her grandchild.

It was…..interesting when the Heretic God Athena stumbled on baby Arachne when he was visiting…..

One would think she would immediately become furious and hostile.

That’s exactly what Wilhelm believed would happen.

No, rather, she demanded he take responsibility, believing that she was formed from the Goddess’s lost Gorgonian.

It was an interesting time.

Arachne looked up at her dad, still in the hug. She pouted much deeper, losing the cool and aloof composure that she liked to copy from her mom. “Dad ye promisit me thon A coud gae whan A turnit fourteen!” She blurted out in a single breath.

Following it, she was bopped on the head by Scáthach. The Immortal witch let out a sigh. “Don’t use that bumpkin dialect, daughter. One summer in the highlands, and you pick up the worse habits. You come from nobility, why must you speak like the uneducated?”

It was rather comical, she inherited the ability to speak any normal language fluidly, yet she sometimes defaults to a northern rural Scottish dialect due to spending a summer exploring the homeland of her mom.

Scáthach corrects her every time. To her, it was inappropriate as she, and by extension her daughter, are nobles of the Isle of Skye, they are held to a higher standard.

“Dad you promised me that I could go when I turned fourteen.” She corrected.

“You did promise, husband.” Scáthach backed up her daughter, earning a bright smile from Arachne.

“Did I? I don’t remember.” Wilhelm turned to Izzy. “Do you remember that, Izzy?”

“Yes you did, husband.” Izzy snorted.

“Ah! Betrayal!” Wilhelm clutched his heart. “You’re supposed to take my side.”

“Da, stop messing around.” Arachne stomped her foot. “You promised.”

“I did promise.” Wilhelm acknowledged. “But are you really sure you want to go there?” He asked again, the previous humor was gone.

“I know it’s dangerous, da. But….I want to know where I came from. Didn’t you do the same thing? Grand Da said you were planning on never coming back here.” She said, gesturing to around them, indicating his birth world.

“She makes a valid point.” Scáthach backed her up again.

“Imagine if you never came back, dear.” Izzy looked at him, rubbing her belly. “Are you going to deny her the opportunity?”

“I’m getting ganged up on all my girls.” Wilhelm sighed.

“And all of us will tell you the same thing, husband.” Scáthach said softly. “None of us wish to see her come to harm, but we cannot shield her forever. She is old enough to make some decisions on her own, such as wanting to know her heritage. It is not the same as experiencing it elsewhere. She has the right to venture to her homeland.”

“I know.” Wilhelm reluctantly acknowledged and agreed in his heart. “I’m just scared for you, my little spider.” He placed a kiss on her forehead.

“You let big sis stay in another world for like 10 years.” Arachne crossed her arms.

“We specifically made sure there was nothing there that could harm her.” Wilhelm pointed out. “But….I’m not going to deny you either. It’s hypocritical for me to reject your request when you’re in a similar spot that I was all those years ago.”

“Then I can go!?”

“Yes –“

“Thank you, da!”

“— but!” Wilhelm cut her off. “There are stipulations. We can talk about those later, but I’m going to make sure you’re safe.”

The truth of the matter was, Arachne wanted to go visit the world she came from. It was undeniably her right to experience her birthplace and despite Wilhelm being stubborn, he had already accepted her request in his heart.

“I want to go right away!”

“Tomorrow.” Wilhelm held up a finger.

“Da!”

Wilhelm’s expression softened. “Give everyone a chance to say their goodbyes.”

Arachne wanted to grumble, but she thought about it and agreed. “Alright, I want to say goodbye to everyone.”

Well, it wasn’t like she was going to be gone long, nor was she going to be cut off. Truthfully, Wilhelm just needed some time to set up some things.

@***@

“And if anyone is disrespectful, write their names down, I will have words with them.”

“Okay, Aunt Alter.” Arachne agreed.

Artoria Alter nodded, pleased.

Even Alter loved Arachne, truthfully, she was just as accepted as Kunou despite the uniqueness and abruptness of her arrival.

Everyone was saying their goodbyes, atleast the last and most intimate of Arachne’s family. She had gone around to others that were away and made sure to tell them she was about to head off.

Salem stood there, stoically as she looked down at Arachne.

Arachne looked up, an equally cold and distant look on her face.

“You know what you must do.” Salem said simply.

“Stab any bastards through the heart!” Arachne replied.

Salem nodded with a light smile.

Wilhelm had denied them their wishes years ago to visit the world and have words with a certain Goddess over there. As some of the initial anger died down, it wasn’t forgotten.

Salem was one of them that still held hatred in her heart and did not forgive the Goddess one bit.

She was more…..detached than the others, but she as well cared for Arachne in her own way. Years of solitude and the lack of emotional connections didn’t mend over a few decades. Yet, Salem couldn’t help but see her own children from so long again when she looked down at the young red-headed girl.

She was less vocal about it, but she was more than willing to express any dissatisfaction to anyone who thought to harm the child.

It took several hours to get through all the goodbyes.

Last, though perhaps one of Arachne’s most anticipated, came bursting in through the door. “Sorry, I came as soon as I heard!” Kunou heaved a sigh, realizing she wasn’t late.

“Big Sis!” Arachne smiled and nearly jumped on her.

“Daww, come here.” Kunou loved her little sister. She began pulling on the smaller girl’s cheeks. “Why are you always so serious? Your face is going to get stuck like that if you’re always scowling.”

Kunou was already approaching thirty years, while young for a Kitsune and Youkai in general, she was a far cry from her younger self that went off to Hogwarts so long ago.

“Your big sis was almost late because she was preparing a gift for you.” Kunou finally relented to Arachne’s constant struggling in the fox’s grasp.

“Gift?” Arachne perked up.

Greedy.

It could be seen in her eyes, something she inherited from her father.

She was already spoiled rotten. Heck, her birthday was less than a week ago and she had received hundreds of gifts.

“Look at you, are you licking your lips?” Kunou laughed.

“I am not!” Arachne protested with a pout.

Kunou shook her head, hold her hand out and Arachne’s eyes widened in anticipation. “Alright, I know what you want. You care about a gift more than your poor sister.” She wasted no time tossing it to Arachne. “I got someone to turn my Twice Critical into a spear for you. It helped me a lot when I went off to school, I hope it’ll do the same for you.”

“I love it.” Arachne whispered, clutching it tightly. “Thank you, big sis.”

Arachne’s greed came about in a rather familiar way.

And she learned something very specific from her father. As a child of Athena, she had a sort of connection with weapons, able to control them with frightening competency.

Just as Wilhelm had all sorts of Swords, Arachne collected Spears.

She had dozens at this point and continued to collect more.

She learned how to control them freely in the air like her Father.

A Twice Critical Sacred Gear turned into a spear. Arachne gleefully added it to her growing collection that she was very proud of.

Wilhelm walked up and gave Arachne one last hug. “We went over everything you should know. I gave you the house, my bank accounts and everything on the mundane end.”

At the very least, she wouldn’t have any mundane worries.

“I’ll be fine, da!” Arachne said confidently.

“It’s a parent’s job to worry about their child, daughter.” Scáthach joined in on the hug.

“Mom, I’ll be safe, I promise.”

“You are your father’s daughter, that gives me far more worry than you realize.” She said playfully.

“Mom!” Arachne huffed. “Da, tell her she’s wrong.”

“Well…..” Wilhelm thought back to his own life. He coughed awkwardly and waved his hand, creating a portal. “You have your Kaleidophone. You have a protective measures courtesy of several of us. You have a use of my Divine Authority as well that you can use whenever you want. We’re trusting you a lot, little spider.”

They had taken quite a few measures to ensure her safety without trampling on her ‘independence’. Most of which, she had no control over, however Wilhelm specifically gave her a means to use his Authority offensively one time.

She was obviously only 14, but she was much more intelligent than a normal girl her age. Not to mention, she was far from even a normal human on the supernatural side.

They have trusted her to wander around the world for a couple years now.

Wilhelm could recall when she went over to Asgard. He got a call from Odin some days later saying that Kronos brought a pouting Arachne back after she challenged him to a fight in an attempt to win his scythe.

Despite her having a bit of a mischievous streak, she was rather mature and competent.

And it was important for her. Children sometimes go through a phase where they want to know their heritage. For humans, that normally involves them asking their parents about their ancestors, where they came from and such. For Arachne, she wanted to atleast visit her birth world once.

Oh, Arachne held no love for her mother. But it wasn’t about the Goddess of Wisdom as Arachne had always only considered Scáthach as her mom.

“You’re to check in once every other day.” Wilhelm said sternly. “If I don’t receive a call or message from you for more than 5 days, I’m coming.”

“Fine.” Arachne grumbled, but accepted. “I’m just going to check out that dumb camp of theirs, da.”

Wilhelm, once more with reluctance, let his daughter venture forth into the unknown.

The Portal closed behind her and after a moment, he looked over to Kunou.

“Did you manage to do the thing in time?” He asked.

“Yeah, I got Uncle Ddraig to hide inside the Twice Critical, she’s gong to be fine.” Kunou smiled.

“That’s my little fox.”

“Dad.” Kunou rolled her eyes. “How old am I going to have to be before you stop calling me that?”

“I’ll consider it after a thousand years.” He kissed his other daughter on the forehead.

@***@

Arachne barely stepped out onto the tiled flooring of an unfamiliar house before she broke out in a small wiggle of happiness.

She made sure to keep herself cool and composed like her mom when people were looking, but when she was alone, she could be a little bit of a dork.

She was free!

She absolutely loved her freedom, the thought of going wherever she wanted whenever she wanted! That was her main goal in life for now, and to get strong enough that no one could bar her way.

There we so many choices now. Of course, she wanted to go to that supposed ‘camp’ she heard about with various demi-gods.

She hadn’t had a good fight with someone her age in forever. Most people her age couldn’t keep up and it was annoying.

IF they’re demi-gods, they should be halfway competent, right?

Her Da also said that monsters hunt demi-god children here! That would make things more exciting if they tried to attack her.

She would need to get a few gifts to bring back for her aunties and uncles as well.

Just as she was considering what she should do, she immediately summoned her Demonic Spear – the Replica of Gae Bolg that her mom created for her because there was someone else in the house.

Her father said that the house had been purchased and remained his despite not stepping there himself since he left.

There shouldn’t be anyone there!

She also noticed something strange, the magic of the area was trying to affect her, a misty haze attempting to cloud her mind.

She was also warned about the ‘mist’ that encompassed everything supernatural here.

Barely even touching it, she felt like she could influence it rather easily with her years of Magical Training from some of the most proficient magic users the world had ever seen.

She slammed her spear against the ground and dispersed it, noticing a figure hiding, she lashed out and kicked the person through the window.

With a cold harumph, she casually stepped over the broken threshold and past the broken glass to see the clouded figure become visible.

Once revealed, she realized what it was. With the torso of a man and the legs of a goat, it was a Satyr.

Why was a Satyr in her house?

The Satyr groaned, pushing itself up.

Arachne decided it didn’t matter, and she slammed the butt of her spear against its head, making it go limp and unconscious.

Were Satyr’s considered monsters?

She actually didn’t know the answer to that question. And despite gaining a bit of bloodlust from her mom over the years, she wasn’t an indiscriminate killer.

Maybe the Satyr was just taking refuge in her presumedly abandoned home?

Well, it didn’t actually try to harm her and she delivered punishment, so she considered the matter settled. She didn’t really care much for the house, it was just a temporary means, and perhaps even less than that.

Now, it was time to find that camp she heard about!

@***@

A/N

Here’s the Patreon Omake chapter ahead of the normal people.

It was always intended to be focused around Arachne, not Wilhelm and the others.