Conri and Micah watched with slightly gaping mouths, exchanging glances with each other and Kazuto.
"For fuck's sake." Jack muttered under his breath, taking a cigarette from his coat and casually walking up behind Nate. "Move, you yeti." He said, shooing Nate and Cherry out of the way. Taking hold of the door's handle, Jack gave it a hard yank and the whole thing crumbled off it's hinges. He could see the cheerful inside of the house; a warm fire, a well-stocked kitchen, and fine tapestries on the walls.
Taking a step forward, the man leaned his head in.
"Excuse-......."
Jack's eyes darted down to the cigarette in his mouth, which was now half missing with shreds of it fluttering to the floor.
The man backed up quickly. Reaching into his chest and pulling out his crossbow, he shot an arrow down the middle of the doorway. There were loud TWANGS and SNAPS as the black arrow was knocked around by an invisible barrier. It landed with a thud in a wall across the way, far from straight.
"What was that?" Samma asked, peering over his shoulder.
"Some sort of trap." Jack murmured, his eyes narrowing. He held the weapon close to his chest as he looked over his shoulder at the others. "Conri, where's the trap."
Hurriedly, the young man stepped up to the doorway. Jack made sure not to let him stick his face too far in the house as he eyed the opening closely.
"Everywhere, sir." Reaching up, Conri took the last of the cigarette out of his boss' mouth and flicked it inside the house. As it tumbled in the air and spilled it's embers, the trap was revealed to an extent.
From floor to ceiling, zigzagging and crossing and twisting were threads upon threads upon threads. Thousands of near invisible strings, likely sharp as scalpels considering the way they shaved off the cig. The threads that caught the ash were the only ones visible.
Cherry gasped, jumping at the strange snapping noise as the arrow flew through the home. She'd crouched down after moving out of the way, staying in sight of whatever caused Jack to move back. Whereas Nate whistled from the side of doorway, genuinely impressed by how well it thwarted his attack. Being as neither were pros at evaluating traps, they left it for Conri's evaluation.
"That's impossible. The man would have had a couple hours at most."
Kazuto spoke up, only just making his way to the front entrance after safely corraling the horses to wait. He squinted, trying to see the trap from behind the small crowd.
"Those are... strings, right? Think one string can cut through another?"
Finding a slight surprise that Jack was interested in her idea, she glanced up to him and back down, calculating the odds as the illuminated embers flickered and waned.
“You know how they say only diamonds can scratch diamonds? What if it’s the same way with the strings? With enough force, we can get through.”
Lifting her dress a bit whilst in her crouched position, she revealed several sharpened daggers attached to a strap on her outer thigh. She plucked one at random, squinted and aimed, then chucked it up through the doorframe, aiming to sever the bond between the ceiling and web. If it didn’t work, they still wouldn’t be exhausted of all ideas.
With a loud snap, one of the cords whipped wildly from the ceiling into the other threads. The razor web vibrated powerfully, making the whole house hum. Without a word, Jack held out his crossbow and shot ten rounds through the doorway in random directions. The sharp gossamer trap rattled and flogged everything in it's vicinity as the taught strings were severed a few at a time. The hardwood flooring was gashed and the tapestries whipped into shreds.
"This could take a while." He muttered, noting how the slicing cord was probably filling every room.
Kazuto suggested as he shuffled a hand through his night coat. One could hear glass clattering together as he checked the contents of what he brought with him by physical touch alone. Each vial contained a different type of chemical, some of poison, some for more medicinal uses. He wasn't accustomed to following the front lines of the gang, but he came prepared when he did.
"You want to set the whole place on fire? We're here for a rescue mission, dumbdumb. If we go any quicker cutting there I'd have to risk losing another finger!"
Cherry teased, rising to her feet as she tapped her chin in thought. Kazuto, however, shook his head and clarified himself.
"No, use fire at the base of the strings. If you burn the adhesive, the strings should fall and we can gather the strands for experiments and weapons later."
Jack eyed Kazuto, "How will you melt it without getting too close?" The boss backed out of the way, in case the boy had an idea, but he was ready to pull Kazuto back if he went too far.
Jack kept his bow close to his chest and watched the inside of the house as the rest of the squad scrambled for something to help Kazuto. He saw down the hall what seemed to be a basement door, and his eyes narrowed. Micah shrugged at Cherry, "No, I stayed put, didn't wanna lose sight of the front. Mostly I was just waiting for you all."
"If there's a back door, I'm sure that one will be rigged too." Samma said, stalking the side of the cottage.
Kazuto nodded before shifting alongside the cottage. Following behind him was Cherry, who scouted out the area in search of more string-like traps. Eventually, they stumbled upon a small shed with a padlock.
"Probably here..."
Kazuto sighed, slipping on his mask to get to work. It slowly morphed to his face, covering his entire right side, nose, and bottom jaw. A singular white horn protruded from his head with a black tip, the color which replaced the blue of his veins. His eye socket began to leak a maroon-colored substance, but he gained inhuman abilities in return.
With a singular flick of the wrist, the padlock snapped and hit the ground with a thud. He opened the wooden door and inspected the items available to him, from looking for a broom to anything else that stood out.
He skimmed over a ladder, shovel, chewed-through rope... other items that looked useless for his attempt. In all, the shovel was closest to what he needed, which he grabbed and made away with. He left the door open for his group to inspect as they'd like-- not that the padlock could actually be used again, in its current state.
Cherry rounded Kazuto with some small twigs she'd collected, dropping them onto the blade before igniting them into embers.
"If this gets sliced to bits, then we'll double back for a broom."
Making his way back to the front, Kazuto held onto the shovel by its handle and shaft as he brought it up past his head. Nate took over from there, holding it in place of the emo as he was able to see whether their attempts succeeded or failed.
"Try to keep the flame on the tip of the shovel. That way it's contained but still severs the adhesive."
"Yeah, yeah, I got this."
Nate was quick to reply, not that Cherry nor Kazuto believed him.
The threading clinked and vibrated as the shovel disturbed it's chemistry. After a few seconds, hundreds of them snapped and went flying. The shovel was thrashed, with razor strings scratching the metal deeply and splintering the handle. Jack gave Kazuto a side smile of approval before watching the entrance again. Conri held his ears as the web hummed at an ear-bleeding frequency. "Clear it out, and be careful." Jack said to Nate. "Go get some other tools incase this one doesn't survive the whole house." He added to the others.
The redheaded Oni was ahead of Jack's order, already searching for more capable tools than the one shovel. Ideally, they could all be working to help the giant, given they could find anything more. Although the shed had nothing more to offer them, the village was always an option in reach.
Kazuto, however, lingered a moment, watching Nate move forward with the mission before discussing his concerns.
"Hey,"
Overshadowing his own voice was a growl from the mask, sounding distorted and clogged. The maroon-colored substance had done more than spill out his eye socket, and had even leaked from his jaw, dripping onto the ground every few seconds.
"This looks like the work of someone whose back is against the wall, barricading themselves inside. I doubt this is the worst that sicko intends to do."
Black eyes glanced up to meet the leader's gaze. Rather than concern, he seemed almost curious about the predicament.
"How much more do you think that man can make, and how quickly can he do so?"
The scientist of an Oni didn't expect an answer; worst case, their rescue mission was doomed from the start.
"I'M GETTING THERE! Gonna need another something to use if anyone's got something!"
Jack's hand moved slightly towards Kazuto's face before he pulled it back. It was muscle memory, from years of taking care of the boy, to wipe the secretion from his mouth and eye. "I've been thinking the same." He answered, sighing quietly. "Which is why most of you will not be going inside with me."
"What-?" Conri asked as he overheard, walking up to them. "We're going in too."
"Samma and I are the only ones with armor."
"So the rest of us have to wait outside while you two go in and possibly get yourselves in trouble? We can go get our armor, father."
Jack gave the members around him a slow, reluctant glance before conceding.
"Anyone who wishes to enter the house after we've cleared it, particularly that basement over there (he gave a gesture to the huge wooden door inside the house) which I've got a feeling might have our children inside, had better go home and get their armor on now. You're not going farther than this mudroom without it. We'll wait for you."
Pushing past him, Samma reached her sword to Nate. "This is all I've got, we couldn't find anymore tools... But bossman is saying you need to go get your armor."
Nate groaned, rolling his eyes as more of the threads snapped under pressure. Each string sizzled, writhing down to the floorboards. He'd gotten a bit quicker at moving through the space, though the shovel hardly lasted for just how much the house contained. Throwing down the remains of the wooden tool, he graciously accepted the sword and dipped its tip into the fire. Maintaining its heat, he got back to business, squinting in annoyance at Jack's usual overprotectiveness.
"Armor ain't slowing me down. You guys might be better off, and I'm with him on that, but he can suck it if he thinks I'm putting any of that on."
Meanwhile, Kazuto accepted the terms and conditions, understanding the risk. As Cherry returned from her last look around the side of the house, he shared their predicament, much to her dismay. Still, the two would accept having to track back to pick up the armor, being as it was the only safe way to get through the trap-house. As Cherry was untying the knot on her horse's reins, she spoke up, proposing another idea.
"Do we just want two of us to go grab the armor, then? I'll run in if someone wants to come with me. Conri?"
She half asked, half volunteered. If something happened while they were gone, Conri would be able to track them back to wherever they'd end up. He was the safest option.
Hearing Nate's disobedient reply, Jack's eyebrow twitched with an oncoming fury, and he stormed inside after the behemoth. "𝕳𝖊𝖆𝖗 𝖒𝖊, 𝕹𝖆𝖙𝖊, 𝖞𝖔𝖚'𝖗𝖊 𝖓𝖔𝖙 𝖌𝖔𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖎𝖓𝖘𝖎𝖉𝖊 𝖙𝖍𝖆𝖙 𝖇𝖆𝖘𝖊𝖒𝖊𝖓𝖙 𝖜𝖎𝖙𝖍𝖔𝖚𝖙 𝖇𝖊𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖕𝖗𝖔𝖕𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖞 𝖉𝖗𝖊𝖘𝖘𝖊𝖉! 𝕾𝖎𝖙 𝖞𝖔𝖚𝖗 𝖆𝖘𝖘 𝖔𝖚𝖙𝖘𝖎𝖉𝖊 𝕹𝕺𝖂!" Jack roared at him, smoke billowing out of his mouth. His hellish voice boomed through the building and made the remaining threads tremble.
Samma had ducked her head down and held it in alarm, having only heard the boss shout like that a few times in her life. Micah had grit his teeth and backed away nervously, and Conri had jumped a little on his way over to Cherry. "Yes, I'll come with you-" He muttered quietly, quite pleased to leave before the arguing got any worse.
