"Someone's head is pinned to this tree!" Cassie yelled.
Someone's head?
Takeda really didn't want to get any closer to it. His socks were wet, with blood. He just got attacked by residual souls guarding a probably-centuries old mausoleum. He was not in the mood. But his curiosity and mild horror wouldn't let him look away. Jin, Jacqui, and Cassie all inched closer and closer to it, and Takeda followed, afraid to be anywhere but right with them. They stopped a foot from it, dodging the puddle of blood to crowd on its left side. Upon closer inspection what he thought was a knot in the bark was actually a person's severed head. The glint he saw earlier was the weapon that pinned it to the tree. A blade of some sort. He couldn't see much of the blade since it was imbedded to the hilt in someone's forehead, but the decorative hilt was all he needed to see. He knew what it was, and the chain dangling from the end only made his heart drop into his stomach like a weight.
Master Hasashi's kunai.
"Hey," Jacqui said, patting his arm. "Isn't that Scorpion's?"
Takeda swallowed thickly, trying to quell the rising panic that curled in his stomach like a knot. "Yeah," he muttered. The heat from the blade had melted the tree around the head, dripping down with the blood into the puddle. The head itself looked like it belonged to a Japanese man, with his hair tied back into a small bun atop his head. His eyebrows were furrowed as if in frustration and his eyes were crossed, looking up at the kunai where it split his skull. Probably the last thing he ever saw before he died. The jaw hung open loosely, probably from gravity, but it looked like his mouth was locked open in a silent scream. Blood dripped in little trails from the wound, still dripping off the chin.
"This looks . . . recent," Cassie muttered. "The blood's still fresh. Takeda, is it warm?"
"Ugh!" Jacqui scoffed. "Gross, Cass!"
"What?" she asked, shrugging. "He stepped in it! If it's warm, that means Scorpion's around here!"
"It . . . uh . . . " he began. But every time he tried to start a sentence his eyes locked on the head and he lost his train of thought. Did this man attack Hanzo? How many other humans were still here? Were they all volatile? Did Hanzo get away? Was anyone else attacked, and did they get away with Hanzo? "It was, um . . . " If Hanzo was alive, he was weaponless.
"Hey! Focus," Cassie said, snapping her fingers in front of his eyes. He shook his head to clear it.
"Sorry. We just . . . I have a lot of questions. We have to find Hanzo. If he lost his swords too, he's weaponless, and who knows how many other attackers there could be?"
"Was the blood warm?" Cassie asked again. "He could be around here."
"Um . . . " he thought, trying to remember the sensation while his disgust simultaneously blocked it out. Instead, he picked up his foot and felt it, almost gagging at the though that this man's blood (potentially fresh) blood was now on his hand after seeping between his toes. "No, it's cold."
"Could be the snow, too," Jin said, crossing his arms. "Someone should touch it on his face and see if that's cold."
"No, Jin!" Jacqui yelled.
"Why are you guys so squeamish?" he asked. "Jacqui, I've seen you punch your entire fist through Outworlders' heads. Takeda, you've ripped your whips out of people's throats. What the hell is wrong with you?"
"This is . . . different," Jacqui said. "This guy . . . I don't know. To me there's a difference between killing someone who's trying to kill you and making sure they're dead, and just messing with a body that's already dead."
"Cassie?" Jin asked, turning towards her.
"You want me to touch it?"
"Yeah! Go over there and see if his blood's warm."
Her lips pursed and she frowned, eyes shooting past Jin to look at the face. "Rock, Paper, Scissors?" she asked, holding out her fist.
"Rrgh!" Jin growled, throwing his arms up. "You guys are such pussies." He stomped over to the head, getting as close as he could without stepping in the blood. He leaned over it, bracing his arm against the tree to hold himself upright. Jacqui shot him a glare and called him out.
"Hey! Don't yell at us when you won't even step in it!"
"We already tested that theory! There's no reason for me to get my socks wet with cold blood when it won't discover anything new."
Jacqui rolled her eyes, but didn't say anything. Jin turned his head this way and that, circling around the head like he was closely inspecting some small detail. He stuck his finger out and gently dabbed at one of the blood trails rolling towards his chin. Got a drop on his finger.
"It's lukewarm. Like it's cooling off-"
"That means it's recent!" Takeda said. "That means Master Hasashi's probably around here somewhere!" His excitement and relief soared in his chest, and it felt like a thousand weights were lifted off of his shoulders. "MASTER!" he yelled, as loud as he possibly could. Master Hasashi had to hear him. "MASTER HASASHI!"
"Shhhh!" Cassie hissed, waving her hand wildly. "Shut up! If any enemies are here they'll hear you!"
"But Master Hasashi's here!" he protested. "We have to find him! He'll need his kunai," he said. As sick as the head in the tree had made him before, his thoughts of Hanzo pushed all of it away. He grabbed the handle on the kunai and braced his other arm on the tree, ripping it out of the head with a wet sucking sound. The head tumbled down, hitting his shins before rolling face-down into the blood puddle, and Takeda coiled the chain around his arm. Before anybody could protest (and before he could think about protesting himself) he ran forward into the new section of the graveyard.
"Takeda, you asshole! Get back here!" Cassie said.
"MASTER HASASHI! Master Hasashi, are you there? Answer me!" The rocks and mountains that had enclosed them in all the previous sections finally reached their end, and for the first time, Takeda could see the sky and the moonlight. The white moonlight reflected off the snow and illuminated the entire area with a natural, high-visibility glow that comforted him in the wake of the yellow torchlight - that tended to only light a small area before leaving them to the mercy of whatever lay beyond the glare. He felt more free, he felt like he could breathe, and the trees surrounding the new section seemed to appreciate the lack of rocks as well. Takeda kept running - the tombs lined the perimeter of the rectangle, forming a wide walkway between them. Takeda ran to the end of it, pausing as the paths split in two different directions: straight ahead of him, and twisting hard to the left. "Crap," he muttered. "Hanzo!"
"Master Hasashi!" Jacqui yelled behind him. "Hello? Anybody?"
"Which way?" he asked. "Staight? To the left?"
"What if we split up?" Jacqui asked. "Jin and Cass go to the left, and we go straight?"
" . . . I don't want us to split up," Cassie said, finally coming up behind them in the snow. "Call me crazy, but this place is really starting to creep me out. I feel safer with all four of you."
"Come on, come on!" Takeda urged them. They had to find Hanzo, as quickly as possible. Clearly he was around here, but what if he was wounded? What if he couldn't answer and was bleeding out or something? "Which way?"
"Uuuuuh . . . " Cassie started, looking back and forth between the two paths. Suddenly, she perked up. "Wait. Look! I can see some red lights above the walls over there!" The others all followed her pointing finger.
"Where? I don't see them," Jin said, standing on his tiptoes. He craned his neck this way and that, trying to peer over the wall.
"It's, like, through the trees. Waaay over there."
It took Takeda a moment too, but sure enough he could see red reflections through the gnarly tree branches. They were blurry, like he couldn't look directly at them, but he didn't question it. He couldn't bother to. They needed to find Hanzo.
"Maybe he burned some other stuff. Let's go!" Takeda said. He didn't wait for them again. He took off on the straight path, jumping over fallen bricks and overgrown thorn bushes. The snow and wind whipped around him and burned uncomfortably in his eyes and they watered, blurring the path in front of him. He pushed on. He had to find Hanzo - it was a matter of life and death-
He almost stumbled and reconsidered at the thought of it: death. What if Master Hasashi was dead? What if Takeda was about to find him dead? A disturbing mental image of Master Hasashi, face down in the snow, popped into his head without warning. Takeda flipping him over, his face covered with dirt and maggots and-
No! No, he's not dead, Takeda yelled at himself. Don't think like that!
The path only curved once, then immediately curved back in the same direction as before. And when it opened up into a tiny courtyard, Takeda saw the source of the lights. Red, glowing runes etched in black stone. An inner stone ring circled around like a doorway, but the only thing on the other side was snow and the low wall closing him in. Nothing. Just an empty archway.
And no Hanzo.
Good, or bad? Alive somewhere else, or dead somewhere else?
"Hanzo!" Takeda yelled. "Master Hasashi, where are you?"
On the ground in front of the archway sat a stone slab with the orange Mortal Kombat dragon etched in to it. Takeda gave in to his impulse to step on it, hoping it would activate whatever this was in front of him. A portal, maybe? The dragon slab didn't depress or move or respond in any way, and the archway remained dead before him. His heart sank into his stomach, and he turned back around, expecting the others to be right there.
They weren't there, either.
Brief, blind panic tightened in his chest. Where are they? "Guys?!"
"Over here, Takeda," Jacqui answered. She was close. God, that was a relief. He followed the path back out. Jin, Cass, and Jacqui were crowded around a recession in the stone. It was like . . . a pocket of cold. Disconnected from the rest of the world. Layer after layer after layer of thick, solid ice completely covered the ground, rising up several inches, even. The plants were completely dead and half blown-back, also frozen where they were in ice. Cold steam puffed out and wafted gently into the air, and the ice in the center rose into four dangerous looking spikes. Like pillars, holding up the source in the middle. The cold was biting and immediate, and Takeda found himself shivering before he could even register what he was looking at.
A ball of ice. Sheer, glowing blue ice.
"Aaaaaand that's Sub-Zero's," Cassie said. "What the hell?"
"What even . . . is this?" Jacqui asked. "Does Sub-Zero's ice usually do that? Just ball up like this and sit here?"
"Nnnnno," Cassie said. "I don't remember that happening when we fought him. What the hell is going on?"
"Hanzo's weapon. Sub-Zero's 'weapon'," Jin said. "I'm thinking they were attacked. And I'm thinking it was by humans if we look at the head back there. Hanzo and Sub-Zero probably held off an attack here. They were probably out-numbered, and weaponless. So they bolted."
"You think?" Takeda asked. "You think they bolted?" Meaning you don't think they're dead? he asked Jin silently.
Jin shook his head. "I . . . don't think they're dead. If this was their final stand, where are the bodies? Their bodies, or the bodies of anybody they killed? I betcha they ran. They're probably safe somewhere . . . " Jin's tone was weak. It sounded like he didn't even believe himself. He grabbed the excess fabric from his sash and rolled it around his hand so he could reach out and snatch Sub-Zero's ice ball. He tucked it into a pouch on his belt.
"Can we please keep looking?" Takeda asked. "We have to find-"
"SHH!" Cassie hissed. "Shh, shh!" She held her hand out, palm down, as if to calm them down further. The four of them froze. "Hear that?" she whispered.
Softly at first. A gentle pat-PAT! pat-PAT! pat-PAT! pat-PATpat-PATpat-PATPAT-PATPAT-PATPAT-PAT-