At the same time though, unaware of Ciel's safety above himself, a restless Oz was indeed desperate in finding his contractor within the dark dungeons. So far, he hadn't had any luck and was almost to the point of hysteria.
"Ciel! Ciel! Ciel where are you?!" cried the sweaty blond already agitated through the silent dungeon hallways, only lighted by the warm torches hanging on the rocky walls. Unbeknownst to Oz however, his screams didn't go unheard.
The Rainsworth manor seemed a very lovable place from the outside and on its main floors. But deep down below, its intricate number of corridors and cells, gave the essence of walking through an endless labyrinth of silent catacombs that led to nowhere and nothing.
"Hm? You heard that?" asked a young man of messy dark maroon hair and blue eyes while looking at an empty hallway to his right. The spotless black uniform and clean white silk gloves he was carrying just proved his alliance to the people that snatched Ciel from Oz.
"What are you talking about, Joseph?" reprimanded him his superior, Roman. An overweighed middle-aged man of dark brown mustache and well-combed hair combined with two stern honey colored eyes.
"Instead of daydreaming, pay attention to the hand in game" he insisted. But of course, for the free-spirited young man, finding out about that mysterious noise seemed much more interesting than playing cards.
"I'll go and check, sir. Be right back!" replied Joseph, both concerned and absentmindedly.
"Let him be, sir Roman" commented calmly a big chinned handsome man of long straight blond hair and light blue eyes.
"Little Joseph won't be satisfied unless he sees it with his own eyes" he added before playing a card on the ones that were already on the table.
Seemingly cursed by his bad luck, the blond ended up running into Joseph-thinking that it was Ciel who was coming his way-.
"Oughf!" yelped Oz the moment he crashed with the tall young man.
"Hey, what are...?"
But before Joseph could get an answer from the young teen, he immediately ran away from the black uniformed man, fearing he was going to put him back in that dirty jail.
"H-hey! Stop right there!" he cried, but couldn't prevent Oz from getting away from him.
Realizing quickly that the teen was trying to escape, Joseph did not waste any time in resorting to the aid of his loyal supernatural companion by his side with just a flick of his right arm.
"Where are they keeping you, Ciel?" wondered the distressed blond, when he suddenly came to a stop and side-stepped to the left, avoiding the arrows that were rapidly fired at him.
"What?!" spat Oz shocked the moment he turned around with a worried look. There, at the end of the hallway, stood Joseph with a big ugly ragdoll dressed with green clothes and a hat, brown gloves, and one black safety eye. In his hands, the large puppet carried a wooden bowgun, which the blond assumed was its weapon of choice.
"This guy is a chain contractor" thought Oz displeased since he knew Joseph wasn't going to let him go away that easily without a fight.
"Nice moves, kid" expressed Joseph genuinely impressed, complimenting Oz's on point reflexes.
"I hadn't met anyone able to dodge Robin Hood's arrows that easy" he continued expressing his admiration for the blond despite his sudden reaction to summon his large red scythe.
"Please, I don't want to fight you" pledged Oz with a begging look in his worried emerald eyes.
"Sorry, kid. But I'm under orders to follow. If you're down here, you're ought to wait patiently until you're allowed to go upstairs" claimed Joseph seriously before making Robin Hood reload his weapon again.
Immediately afterwards, the battle resumed with Robin Hood firing his bowgun at Oz, who, again, evaded the arrow with ease. Though, unexpectedly, some of those arrows managed to scratch different parts of his body.
"Urgh! H-how did he?! I thought he just shot the arrow from its bowgun!" stated Oz, astonished, in his mind. However, in a close retrospective of the situation, he noticed some small archer ragdolls floating next to Robin Hood.
"I see...If the large one fails; the smaller ones can get the upper hand on me" the teen chain thought warily while tightening his grip on his weapon. Then suddenly, another quick side-stepped to the right just in the nick of time.
Without forewarning, a shining knight in white armor, riding an armored steed of long yellow mane, tried to stomp him fiercely. The odds were starting to pin against Oz's favor.
"Claudio! Sir Roman!" said Joseph, surprised to see his two friends by his side.
"You were taking so long, and the ruckus didn't ease our worries" replied the big chinned man with an elegant way of speaking.
"Joseph, be careful of that boy! If he is who I think he is, then we must absolutely not let him get out!" ordered Roman severely to his fellow subordinates. A clear warning for Oz to get away from them as far as he could, before they could trap him.
"Oh no, you're not getting away like that" said Roman while extending his hand towards the escaping teen. At that moment, from the sleeve of his black jacket, he let out a strange green smog that quickly blocked Oz's escaping route.
"What?!" he cried with distress when the smog took the form of a hideous anthropomorphic pig wearing a tattered loincloth with two brick shoulder pads and an old straw hat.
"Pigsley, you know what to do" said Roman, instructing his chain partner to breathe the same fetid smog all over Oz, clouding the whole area around him.
"Cough! Cough! I need to get out of this fog before-!"
Now it wasn't just the threat of dodging arrows and holding against incoming sword attacks, but doing altogether with most of your senses being distorted due to the devious stench closing him in.
It didn't take too long before Oz was overwhelmed by the three chain contractors and easily subdued by Claudio's white knight.
"Guargh!" babbled the blond when the knight chocked him against the wall.
"With this, you'll be a good boy and behave properly" mentioned Claudio, scolding Oz in a calm manner.
As he did so, he failed to notice that the teen's consciousness was beginning to falter because of that hard hit on the back of his head, which seemed to have trigger some hidden memories deep within his mind, and in said images, a certain black haired girl was waiting.
"N... no... please...come back...come back to me A..." That sight was enough for Oz to snap like that time in the hospital. Using his free right hand, he grabbed the knight's wrist holding onto his neck and began to twist it backwards in order to be able to move more freely.
"No way! How strong is that kid?!" asked Joseph, baffled, while seeing the teen bending the chain knight to his will.
"Claudio, fall back now! This is kid is going to stri-!" cried Roman with widened eyes after suddenly realizing what was about to befall on his fellow subordinate. Nevertheless, it was already too late to stop the hands of an already moving clock.
Despite the uncomfortability of being held against the wall, Oz somehow managed to use his left hand to slash violently the knight's upper body with a diagonal swing of his scythe, forcing the chain to disappear, and leaving Claudio unconscious for the time being.
"Claudio! No!" said Joseph worried while kneeling next to his inert friend. At this point, Roman feared that they weren't going to be able to put a stop to the rabid teen of dark red eyes and twisted smile.
"I have no choice..." he muttered thoughtful as Oz viciously lunged towards them.
"I must blow him up or he'll kill us all! Pigsley!" he exclaimed, calling his chain pig once more.
Following its master's call, the monster re-materialized from the smog and breathe a condensed low-pressure wind over Oz, which blew him upwards towards the ceiling with great force.
Well, whaddaya know? I can pull off long chapters once in a while :)
