The Nursefathers of the House of Spiders.
It is true that they had been made to step back from the front lines of their respective Finger's businesses—that they no longer played a vital part in the day-to-day conflicts of the Backstreets.
Yet from any practical point of view, letting them idle away their time would have been an outright waste for the Fingers. Just because they were now regarded as "has-beens" does not suddenly invalidate the battle-proven competence that naturally came with years of experience.
Which is why, although the Nursefathers were not freed from this proverbial "hell," the Fingers still continued to assign them various tasks that lay beyond the scope of their duties in the House of Spiders.
The missions, also known as "homeworks," "assignments," or "Labors," as called by the inhabitants of the House of Spiders, have been a constant since the emergence of the organization.
Of course, the workload of said homework varies by Finger.
One of them, under the command of the Capo dei Capi, had been sent to fight in the front lines of war, while another was always absent due to the Prescripts…
Other Nursefathers would write replies to messages requesting their input on research and gallery management, while some simply did not receive any homework for relatively long stretches of time.
Silence descends upon the great empty House as soon as Ishmael's mother leaves, her absence leaving a substantial void behind.
Ishmael, who could not for her life grow accustomed to the quiet, turned on the TV, played her favorite video games, and flipped through the pages of her treasured comic books.
Perhaps it was because she had already gone through them all, or perhaps she had simply grown tired of them, but… all the games, comic books, and the Fixer videos that would normally have captured the child's attention… failed to give her even the slightest bit of enjoyment today.
Ishmael turned the TV off with a dissatisfied pout before raking her eyes through the pages of her Book. Her hands searched for her weapon, and once her grip found the blade, she smoothly jumped to her feet.
She then rushed out of her room as though the sheer size of it had become an oppressive weight she could no longer bear alone.
Now, she sits on top of several corpses. Both her blades stabbed into the ground next to her, her clothes stained with blood as she clutches a paper in hand, staring down at it. Before her attention is directed towards the person whose presence she felt lingering nearby for a while now. A slight frown crossing her features, clearly she’s wary. “Who’s there? You’ve been following me for a while now ever since i left my house.”