Taking a deep breath, Juliana closed her eyes in mental preparation. As soon as she opened her mouth again, there might be no going back. But she needed this. She had her goals and Arachne was going to help her accomplish them.
Whether Juliana wanted her to or not.
“I want you to fight me.”
The moment the words left her mouth, Juliana sprung into action. She couldn’t let Arachne have the initiative. There was no Eva around at the moment. No one to chide Arachne if she went too far. No one to watch and ensure that Juliana lived.
Arachne would be free to fight however she wanted. Juliana held no doubts that she would. She had picked today specifically because Eva had an exam as soon as lunch ended while Juliana didn’t.
Juliana lunged forward with an arm. A thin blade sprouted out of her wrist as she moved. It extended a good deal out from her body.
She hadn’t been lying to Eva. Affecting metal away from her body wasn’t possible—at least, it didn’t use to be possible before breaking apart that emblem. It was still much too difficult to use in a combat situation.
Luckily, with how she had been taught ferrokinesis, she didn’t need to do anything to metal outside of her body. The metal that she controlled was almost an extension of her limbs. It was much easier to manipulate metal no more than an inch away from her skin, but she could do simple things like extend spikes from a contiguous bit of metal.
She still built her sword from the tip down, extending it outwards as she poured more metal into the construct.
The demon-harming metal in her collection stayed behind. Juliana only used normal iron and steel in the sword.
The special metal was making up her armor. Especially around her neck and head. Just in case Arachne did decide to go all out.
Maybe she wanted Arachne to go a
She wanted a fight. Not a slaughter.
Arachne didn’t even look surprised at being suddenly attacked with a sword. She stepped to one side, dodging Juliana’s lunge before grabbing the sword with her hands. A leg from her back, which hadn’t been there a second ago, thrust forward, snapping the blade just above Juliana’s outstretched hand.
Juliana dodged backwards, rolling along the ground and manipulating the earth as she went to give her just a little extra distance.
Only… As Juliana got back to an upright fighting position, she realized that Arachne
And even now, the demon was just standing there, staring at her with the bit of broken metal in her claws.
Juliana watched it carefully. In Arachne’s spars with her mother, she had not been shy about catching and returning the rocks and boulders that Genoa had thrown. Usually with as much or more force behind them.
But the spider-demon just dropped the blade, letting it fall straight to the ground without even trying to kick it towards her. She turned and started walking.
Confusion took over Juliana for a few moments.
It quickly dawned on her that Arachne was not trying to lull her into some false sense of security. She was walking away.
“Wait! Where are you going?”
“I have better things to do than play with you.”
“Like what?” Juliana asked as she ran after the spider demon. She did pause just long enough to reach down and reabsorb the bit of blade into her armor as she passed it. “Need to ogle Eva some more?”
It was a dangerous game she was playing. Needling Arachne about Eva was one of those things that might
But the demon just kept walking.
“What’s your problem?” Juliana asked. She threw a little magic towards Arachne’s feet, causing one to sink into the ground a few inches.
That gave the spider-demon about as much pause as a fly brushing past her face.
“I have had a great deal of time to think,” Arachne said, pulling her leg out of the ground and continuing her stride almost unbroken. “Between my self-imposed isolation after the… incident with your mother and my
“By whose standards?”
“Eva’s, of course. A year ago, I would have torn you to shreds. Eva isn’t around. Whatever she thought about it could be dealt with later. Now, I don’t want to fight you.”
“You can’t even spar with me?”
“I’d rather not risk hurting you.”
Juliana froze, looking at Arachne with her mouth agape. Was this even the same demon? What had Hell done to her? Shaking her head, she skipped forwards to catch up with the rapidly retreating demon.
“You sparred with my mother all the time. You never hurt her!”
“Are you forgetting the part where I put her in the state she is currently in? Barely better than an invalid.”
