Cassie sprawled gratefully into the snow with a loud sigh. She massaged her shoulder, poking and prodding all around the wound. Now that they were in the open air and the light, Takeda could get a proper look at it.
Her black suit was stained dark red in a trail leading from the hole. The bandages Jacqui put on were already saturated, offering little help to actually staunch the bleeding. The hole itself was only about the size of a bottlecap, from the looks of the bandages, but the barb inside was probably doing much more unseen damage. Her face was paler than normal, her eyes looked puffy and tired, and her jaw was clenched, and Takeda could see how exhausted the wound and their lack of rest was making her.
"Guess we should make camp," she grumbled, moving to crawl to her feet, but Jacqui stopped her.
"We'll do it. You just hang out. Jin, gather what you can to get a fire going, and some food started. When you're done, grab a needle from the first aid kit and boil it. Takeda, scout for a watch point and roll out our packs." She leaned over Cassie, helping her remove the outer layers of her suit.
They all looked ragged. Jin had sticky, wet spider webs clinging to every inch of him. Gumming in his sleek hair, hanging like curtains off his shoulders. Dirt, fresh blood, old blood, bits of gore, and cave water had fastened to them while they traveled through the caves. Jacqui's boots were coated in a thick layer of webbing, but her chestplate, arms, and gauntlets were covered in crusted, dried spider blood and dirt. He knew he looked the same, with flecks of spider gore and webbing attached to him as well.
Takeda scouted their little area. It was little more than a garden of sorts, with headstones and vaults taking up most of the space. It had a distinctive 'L' shape, like the other area of the graveyard which closed the area in further. He didn't care how small it was. Anything above ground and in the fresh air was better than the caves. Branches of trees on the outside of the wrought-iron fence spilled over into the garden, so he kept his eyes down, looking to clear them away if any had fallen.
He suddenly became aware of a disquieting sensation. Something lurking, just outside of his mental perception that made him uneasy. He couldn't isolate it, or tell from where or from what it was coming. It was just suddenly there, and now that he was aware he couldn't let it go. He paused, standing stock-still to reduce his own noise.
"What's up, Takeda-?" Jacqui asked.
He threw his hand back, palm out, and she quieted immediately. Jin grabbed up Raiden's staff and gently padded over to Jacqui and Cassie, bracing himself between them while they were defenseless on the ground. Takeda inched closer and closer to the gate that fenced them in to this new area, but resisted the urge to scan for any presences other than theirs. Something in his gut told him that searching randomly was a bad idea, and it did well to keep his power in check. He was steps away from the gate when a break in the trees allowed an unnatural blue light to filter through. He glanced to the right and saw two stained glass windows rising up over the fence, as well as a blue window in the middle with the Mortal Kombat dragon on it.
They were steps away from the mausoleum again.
"It's the mausoleum," he said. "We're in the section that was gated off earlier, remember?"
Now that he said it, Takeda realized that it had been the souls - so faint and continuous that he couldn't isolate them - that were causing his unease. They were still an unmelodic chorus of voices and phrases and sounds and emotions, all sounding at once and creating a cacophony of sounds that rattled his nerves and unsettled his mind. The knowledge brought him comfort that they weren't in danger, but his shoulders refused to relax.
"I'm leaving that gate closed," he said. "Just to keep things out."
"Good idea," Jin called to his back.
When they had camp relatively set up, Takeda and Jin moved closer to Cassie and Jacqui and knelt in the snow next to them. Cassie had her holsters discarded in the snow, and Jacqui had helped her pull her arm out of her suit. She pushed it down to rest around her bust so her whole shoulder was free, and her skin looked especially paled next to the redness of the wound. Her skin was shredded around the hole, and it still trickled blood, forcing it up and out of the hole. Jacqui had all of her tools assembled, and was wiping them with disinfectant. A scalpel, some long tweezers, an entire roll of gauze and bandage patches, and a bottle of rust-colored iodine.
Cassie was eyeing up the tools warrily, her breathing shallow and quick in anticipation.
"Want any pain meds?" Jacqui asked. She reached down Cassie's leg and pulled the knife from the sheath she had strapped to her calf. She walked the short distance to the fire and placed the knife in it, almost cinematically. Cassie swallowed, staring at the knife and knowing what it would be used for, then shook her head.
"I mean . . . yeah, but I don't need them. Save them for in case . . . "
In case someone is injured worse than I am. The sentence wasn't finished but they all heard the end of it well enough. Takeda wasn't sure if she was referring to the team, or to those they could find. Jacqui paused, and Takeda could see it in her eyes that she was deciding whether or not to insist. Finding both sides of the argument. Finally, she shrugged.
"Okay." She pulled a pair of latex gloves from the first aid kit and snapped them on one at a time, wriggling her fingers experimentally. She grabbed the iodine and sloppily slathered a generous amount on the entire area, even a bit on her hands. Then she grabbed the scalpel. "Ready?"
Cassie braced, wriggling her back deeper in the snow, and nodded.
Jacqui slid the scalpel from the top of the hole through the diameter, opening it up just a tiny bit more so she could reach inside better. Cassie hissed, her teeth sliding over her lip and clamping down. She tossed her head and turned it away. Jacqui put the scalpel aside and grabbed the tweezers next, pinching them shut. She eased them into the hole and braced them open, pushing the sides of the hole open further along the cut she made. Cassie's chest heaved and she instinctually turned her body away, wrenching herself away from Jacqui. Jin grabbed her good shoulder and pushed her down into the snow, holding her still.
Jacqui wiped the blood away with a patch of gauze and went at it again with the forceps, and Takeda heard the metallic snap of the arms as they clamped around something hard.
"Got it!" Jacqui said triumphantly. She pulled it straight out and held it aloft into the air, allowing it to glint in the moonlight. "You doing okay?"
"N-never better!" she growled, eyes closed.
"Look at this." Jacqui held it close to her face, and Cassie peeled her eyes open to look.
"Wow!" she said in mock interest. "Fucking amazing! Get it over with."
"We won't have to cauterize it," Jacqui said. "You're not bleeding badly enough for it. I was just having it ready as a back up in case we hit something major."
"Oh, thank fucking god," she said.
Jacqui wiped at the wound again and grabbed the suture kit. "Needle," she said, holding her hand out behind her. Jin retrieved it, ladeling it out of the bowl he placed over the fire. He brought it over to Jacqui and she instead grabbed a bottle of antiseptic, pouring it over Cassie's shoulders again. She cried out, tears springing to her eyes, and when she blinked hard they poured out of her eyes and down the sides of her face, dripping into the snow.
"Need a break?" Jacqui asked.
"N-no," she sniffed. "Keep going." Her wincing tugged at the stitching on her cheek, and a thin line of blood spilled out between them, leaving a trail down her face.
Jacqui closed the wound, stitch by careful stitch, and when she was done she snipped the string with the scissors she had ready. Cassie's head flopped back into the snow and her whole body relaxed, and Takeda could see her trembling.
"You made it," Jacqui said. "Good job, girlfriend."
"Thanks, Jacqui. Let's never, ever do that again."
"The food's probably ready," Takeda said. "I'll get you some." He went back over to the fire and kicked Cassie's knife away from it, and it sizzled on the snow. He grabbed one of the bowls Jin had set out for them and scooped a generous amount of their canned beef stew in it - probably more than what they should have rationed for her, but Takeda figured she deserved it. He inhaled some of the steam and he realized how hungry he truly was. Despite being normally horrible to try and force down, it actually smelled appetizing. Canned potatoes and mushy, crushed carrots swirled around in the steam, and his stomach grumbled.
"Bon apétit," he said. "Filet spamignon," he joked. Jacqui helped her sit up and allowed her to rest her back against her knee. He handed the food to her and she wolfed it down readily.
"I never thought I'd say this," she said between mouthfuls, "but this is fucking amazing."
"I thought the same thing," he said. "I was standing over it, like, 'Man, this smells good!' I think we've hit a new low as a team."
"No, I think our lowest was when Cassie threw up over the meal Kotal Kahn tried to feed us back before Shinnok's invasion," Jin said, and at Cassie's glare he chuckled to let her know he was only kidding.
"Okay, for the record," she said, "Kotal Kahn said it was meat but I did not, and still to this day do not think that it was! It looks way too much like brains."
"The Shaolin are vegetarians," Jin said. "I was right there with you."
Jacqui chuckled, then tapped Cassie's uninjured shoulder. "Remember when we threw that party at your dad's house?"
"No," she said, shaking her head. "We pre-gamed way too hard and I was already blackout drunk by 11:00 p.m."
"She's freaking out because she lost her phone-"
"Oh, I do remember losing my phone."
"Yeah, but you didn't lose it!" Jacqui laughed. "You baked it in the microwave."
"What?!" Takeda said, and Cassie shrugged her good shoulder.
"Earlier in the night," Jacqui began, "she told me she was hungry and was making Hot Pockets. For some reason she really wanted me to know she was making Hot Pockets. She was like, 'Jacqui, I can't have anything else right now. I only want Hot Pockets. I know we have some in the freezer, and I'm going to go and only make Hot Pockets.' It takes her a really long time but I was like, 'Eh, whatever.' We're both a little tipsy. She probably got lost. All of a sudden I hear her tearing through the house. She's roaming all around, going through every room and asking literally every single person at the party if they've seen her phone. I following her, just to make sure she doesn't hurt herself. She gives up and we keep partying and we both forget about it. When she finally passes out I take her to bed and the next day when I was cleaning up, I find her phone in the microwave, absolutely covered in melted cheese and the insides all blown out."
"I thought it was the Hot Pocket," she said. "I didn't even get to eat anything."
The four of them laughed over the story then lapsed into a comfortable silence as they ate, with Jin picking around the meat in the stew. Takeda noticed, more aware of it now that he was reminded of the Shaolin diet, but he didn't say anything. Jin had to have known he was making something with meat, but he must have done it out of consideration for Cassie. It was a selfless gesture that lightened Takeda's mood. Jin could be thoughtful when he wanted to be, and his bravado and crass attitude was only for self-preservation.
When they were finished eating, The three of them helped Cassie to her feet, and she dragged herself over to her sleeping bag, hunkering down on top of it. "No offense, but I'm not taking watch." She rolled away from them onto her right side, and over her shoulder threw a thumbs up.
"Alright. I'll take watch this cycle," Takeda said, before anyone else could. "You guys take a break."
"You sure?" Jacqui said. "We're really close to the mausoleum. Can you hear the souls?"
"A bit," he admitted, and they ground against his consciousness. "But they're quiet. Bearable. I got it," he assured her, waving his hand. "Take a break. I got this. I'll check on Cassie every so often, too."
"Okay." He was a little disappointed she didn't insist, but he knew deep down that she needed the rest more than he did. He moved and placed his back against the fence, directly between their camp and the gate. He placed himself so that he could still see the caves and the gate, aware of a threat from either side. Cassie, Jin, and Jacqui all fell asleep relatively quickly, and he was left alone for the watch.
It was a hard three hours. The constant keening of the souls and the hiss of the wind through the trees were a constant backdrop, beating on his subconsciousness. Eventually he started to hear other sounds. The knocking of dry, dead branches. Rustlings of animals, perhaps, and his mind instantly went to the wolves, coming back to finish what they started. Each one he heard would force his heart up into his throat, but he had to remember not to panic in case he startled them into an attack. He never did spot anything, but he felt eyes on him, constantly. He checked on Cassie periodically, ensuring that she was sleeping soundly. By the time the three hours had passed, he felt drained.
Jin's alarm clock blared, and he and Jacqui were up quickly. Cassie took a little more coercion from them, but eventually she was up as well. The deep circles under her eyes looked even deeper and darker, giving her a washed out look. The evidence of the pain she endured.
"How ya feeling?" Takeda asked.
"I'm alright. It really does feel better," she said, cocking her head down towards her arm. "I'm glad it's not bleeding any more." She handed Takeda back his scarf, but he shook his head. "You should keep it. I wouldn't move your arm very much until it heals a bit."
"Right. Good thinking." She picked up her holster for her pistols and slid her injured arm into the hole carefully, then shrugged her other arm through the other side. Jacqui helped her clip it under her bust, and helped her wrap her arm in the sling.
They packed up camp in relative silence, and when they were ready, Jin checked the stopwatch. "The time is thirteen hours, twelve minutes. Anybody object to taking a bit more time for me to make the maps?"
"Not in the slightest," Cassie said, and she leaned against a stone vault. While Jin sat on the ground and drew the Spider Caves on a new piece of map paper, the three of them milled around their little enclosure. After a while, he called them all in.
"Alright," he said. "We entered the caves here." He pointed to the start of his drawing. "It went straight and down, then we made a left. There were those three little recesses, so I drew all three." He pointed to them on the map, counting them off. "One, two, three. After that was the large cavern where we fought the spiders. Takeda and I inspected some of the recesses, but I don't remember how many there were. We found the hanging body in one of them, so I drew that one in, but I don't know how many were set before that one, or how many were set after that one.
"We found Raiden's staff at the middle of the area in the back, and then went down a path that flanked it on the left. We turned two sharp lefts, then a right where Cassie was attacked. That opened up into a large, round area where we found Lao's hat and some eggs. There was that area that was cut off from the rest, so I placed it to the right of this area just because.
"From here, we went straight, and the left path opened up here, to where we are. I wrote, 'To Graveyard'. The straight path took us to the right, up an incline, then to a place I'm calling 'The Overlook.' Does that seem accurate?"
"Looks great, Jin," Takeda said. "But here's my issue: where do we explore from here? Both of these paths are dead ends as far as the caves are concerned. We still don't have Sento so we can't go through the mausoleum, and we still don't have Liu Kang's fire to get past the ice in the White Lotus temple."
"My thought was actually to go back and explore the large cavern again, where we fought the spiders," Jin said. "Go back through the graveyard, and re-enter from the front to get back there. I want to find out how many recesses there are, and my hope is that there's another path there, either in the top right or in one of the recesses that we could have missed. What do you all think?"
"That would be great if the path was open," Cassie said. "But when you used Raiden's staff, it toppled some rocks down and blocked the way in." Takeda noted that there was no malice in her tone at the mention of Jin's actions. It seemed she had gotten over her rage at him.
"We can go back down this way, then," he said, pointing behind them to the cave entrance. "By my estimations, it's the same distance. To be honest, I was only hoping to get back to the other entrance to spend more time up here anyway. But, if this is the way we have to go then we'll go this way."
He packed up all of the map paper and his book, and they eyed up the cave. Cassie sighed dramatically. "Time check."
" . . . Thirteen hours, twenty-four minutes."
Jin pushed his way to the front, holding Raiden's staff like a spear and pointing it into the cave. "Everybody ready?"
Takeda internally mourned the loss of the fresh air. Fresh air, and complete lack of spiders. "I'm ready," he said.
"Ready," Jacqui said, with a confident nod.
"Ready," Cassie said. "Let's arachnophobia this bitch."