Edited: 2/3/14
Chapter 9: Catching up
She spent the rest of the afternoon putting some finishing touches to the tumbler, with a curious Bruce occasionally lending a hand.
"Ok, it's done!" she said, leaning back triumphantly on the driver's seat.
"Alright, but what did you do?" asked Bruce from the passenger seat.
"I just added a sexy AI voice to the tumbler." she stated, "You're welcome."
Bruce looked a bit puzzled at this, "So we spent three hours just working on this?"
"What do you mean just this? I just gave you a sweet AI!" She exclaimed.
"Well yeah, but you could've maybe added something more useful. Something like a cloaking system." he said defensively.
"I already added that. This was just to kill time while my clones painted the car, I thought it was a cool idea." she grumbled.
"Sorry, sorry!" he tried to appease, "You're right it's very…cool."
"You still don't sound too convinced," she said with narrowed eyes as they got off the vehicle, "but whatever, we should go eat someplace; I heard there's this place a few blocks down that sells really good ramen."
"No ramen for you Isane." intervened Lucius as he approached them, "I got a call from Alfred that you spent the night at your place, so you've definitely had some already."
"Dammit!" shouted Isane.
"What's so wrong with eating ramen?" asked Bruce.
"Nothing, unless it's all you ever eat." responded Lucius, "I must say though, those clones of yours sure did a good paint job on the tumbler."
"Yeah," added Bruce, "It looks pretty sweet."
"Well I did do it myself." The woman said glumly, still not thrilled with the idea of no ramen.
"How about we do go eat in celebration?" Bruce suggested, "You can pick the restaurant, just no ramen."
"Alright then, I know a really good Mexican restaurant that's not too far." conceded the redhead. "Are you up for it Lu?"
"I actually just had my lunch break a few hours ago," said the man, "But you kids have fun."
"Come on," said Bruce, "We can use the Rolls Royce."
"I don't think so," spoke Isane with a glint in her eyes as they made their way inside the elevator, "I'm actually thinking of having a nice lunch, no paparazzi or anything like that. So we'll have to take the train."
"Ok then, I'm up for that." agreed Bruce.
"You'll also have to change; I doubt many people there are going to be wearing suits."
"Really? Isn't that a little much?" asked the man.
"You want to blend in don't you? I don't suppose you have some casual clothing lying around, do you?" she wondered.
"No, but I do have some beaten up clothes on the back of my car." he responded.
She gave him a funny look, "…I'm not even gonna ask."
She waited for him to get dressed in one of the bathrooms and then they made their way to the train station.
"I still remember my first time on that thing; I stayed up there for a while." commented Isane as they waited for the next train to arrive.
"Really? Didn't you say that they had giant animals as summons in your world?" asked Bruce.
"Well yeah, but our technology wasn't up to par. We focused most of our time and resources into ninja training; technology was mostly left to the civilians." she answered.
"You accommodated pretty well though." he pointed out.
"I used clones to do that; even then it still did take me a while." she said.
The train arrived then, and they made their way in. Bruce saw this as an opportunity to learn more about his crime fighting partner though, and decided to keep on prodding, "Was your family composed of ninjas?"
"Clan." corrected the redhead, "And yes, at least my mother's. The Uzumaki clan was known for its' sealing techniques, too bad most of them died during the ninja wars. I don't know if my father had a clan though; he was given the last name Namikaze since he was a war orphan with no known relatives."
"What were they like?" he asked as he took all the information in.
"I wouldn't know, they died shortly after I was born." she said. "I've come to accept it, they died honorably while protecting what they loved."
They shared a moment of silence at that. Realizing that maybe they weren't so different, they had just learned to cope through different ways.
"I did meet them once though," she said wistfully, "I remember punching dad for sealing the Kyuubi in me and hugging him afterwards. Mom was a different case though, we looked a lot alike and she was pretty cool; I decided to keep my hair long for her."
He smiled at that, "Only you would punch your old man during your first meeting."
"Eh, he had it coming. Ku-chan had a laugh at that afterwards." she shrugged as he gave a chuckle at the demon's antics. He had taken the whole tailed beast thing pretty well.
"But enough about me." she said with a pointed look as they made their way out of the train with her leading, "What I wanna know is what you did after the tournament."
"I guess it's only fair." he mused, "Well, I spent some of my time in jail after being caught stealing items from my own company."
She had a laugh at that, "Oh the irony!"
"I'm glad you find my misfortune amusing." he said dryly, "I was in jail beating prisoners after that."
"You didn't get that good at fighting from that though," pointed Isane, "Those sparring lessons are getting more challenging by the day; granted they're just taijutsu."
They paused their conversation as they reached a shabby looking Mexican restaurant at which he gave her a questioning look.
"Don't knock it till you try it." she said in a singsong voice.
They were then seated in a secluded area at their request in order to keep their conversation as private as possible. Not that there were many people in the place anyways.
"Well," he said in a lowered voice as he drew closer to her, "I was approached by an organization called the league of shadows during my stay at prison."
"Whoa!" exclaimed Isane, "I assume you went, no wonder you've gotten so good."
"You bet." he said, "It was a very challenging experience but I learned a lot during my time there."
The waiter arrived at that moment, and left shortly after getting their orders. "Do you still keep in contact with them?"
"No. They actually turned out to be a sort of terrorist organization." he answered, "I ended up burning the place down and saving Ducard, the man who recruited me in the first place."
"Same thing happened to me with the Akatsuki." chuckled Isane, "Except for the part where I actually sought them for training, though I guess they did know that I was a spy…damn Madara. Anyways, I bet you ten bucks that saving that man will come back and bite you in the ass."
"Deal." he agreed.
"It's a problem with the graphite, sir." explained Alfred after smashing a prototype cowl, "The next ten-thousand will be up to specifications."
"At least they gave us a discount" said Bruce.
"Quite. In the, uh, meantime, sir, may I suggest you try to avoid landing on your head?" Alfred recommended.
Suddenly, Isane came in the room and tackled Alfred, lifting the man up and swinging him around in joy.
"…Can't…breathe…" Alfred managed to get out, leading Isane to put him down in the ground and rub her head sheepishly while Bruce tried to hide his smile.
"Sorry Alfred." she said, "I was just so excited! I did it!"
"Did what?" asked Bruce as he worked on his equipment.
"I…recreated Ichiraku Ramen's secret recipe!" she burst out.
"You…are that excited about that?" said Bruce in disbelief.
"Oh no," paled Alfred, "This can't be happening."
"Oh yes!" she contradicted, "It did happen, and there's nothing you or anyone can do to keep me from it!"
"Are you serious?" asked Bruce.
"I would never joke about something as important as this." she stated seriously, "Oh yeah speaking of serious stuff, you guys know Rachel Dawes right?"
"Why? Did something happen?" said Bruce urgently,their earlier goofiness forgotten.
"Uh, well my clones reported that Falcone is planning a hit on her the day after tomorrow with the aid of some cop." she informed them, "And he's also going to be receiving a drug shipment earlier on that night."
"My suit should be ready by then," said Bruce.
"Yes, I believe the cowl shall be ready by that time as well." added Alfred.
"I'm already set and ready to go," confirmed Isane, "I'll keep on working on the Batcave in the meantime."
They all got started on their tasks right away; Falcone wouldn't know what hit him.
A/N: Short chapter, but expect some action on the next one since they will finally start doing stuff. Sheesh, you'd think Batman would've at least made an appearance nine chapters in…By the way, I'm basing Bruce off of the description given in the comics (Blue eyes, Black hair) though I found myself using the image of Roy Mustang from Fullmetal Alchemist, huh...weird.
