12. Empire of the Sun

"Japan! I have never thought it was in Japan!"

Terry put his cup of tea down so hard that it splashed out on his hands and burned them. Bruce stood up and took some ice from the freezer for him.

"That's not important."

"Not important! I going over on the other side of the earth for months, and you say it's not important. What about Batman and …"

A quick glance at Bruce made him stop. The old man's eyes went dark.

"Terry, at the hospital I had some time to think over this and…"

"…And you regret it?"

Terry could feel his heart in his throat. Didn't Bruce want him to be Batman anymore? What should he then do? He knew that he had made some mistakes, but he had never thought it would come to this.

Bruce shook his head.

"No!"

Terry relaxed a little.

"But what…?"

"I have always asked for the best."

"Do you want to replace me?"

Bruce shook his head again and there were an indication of a smile on his lips.

"No, besides I don't think that anybody could replace you."

"I don't understand."

Bruce sat down again.

"Terry, at the hospital I began to think about how I started out as Batman."

"I still don't understand."

"I used several years in training to become Batman."

Bruce could see that Terry still didn't understand him.

"I want you to have the same kind training before it's to late."

"Before it's to late?"

Bruce dropped his head for a moment.

"Before I'm going to die."

"But… You … you have trained me… and Kairi!"

"You have been a good student, but you need to learn more."

"More?"

"Each fighter has their own style – their own pattern. You need to get more experienced, so you can see that."

"But…"

A simple gesture from Bruce stopped Terry.

"You know mine and some of the others', that Batman have fought with. But that's because you have fought with them in so long time, that you learn it from your wounds. You need to learn the signs, but that's only one of the things you need to learn."

"And that I'm going to learn at the school?"

"Anna, the principal, her sister is one of the world's best fighters in karate. She gives lessons at the school in karate and she has agreed to take you on her team."

"I see."

"Besides, the school is one of the best in the world."

The sat for a while in silence, then Terry remembered the case.

"Bruce, what about the case?"

"We have tried all the leads we have, so now we have only chance if they are going to try again. Clark can help when that happen."

The old grandfather clock in the hall began to ring. Terry looked at his wristwatch.

"Shit, it's late. I promised mom to be home now. I will bet on that she is going to call me at any moment."

Quite right in the same moment did his phone ring. It was his mom.

"Yeah, I know what the time is…I was just about to go…okay, bye."

He rang off and looked at Bruce.

"Well… I have to go then. Are you going to come tomorrow?"

"Yes, I need to do some more work on your computer before it is going to work."

The computer! Terry had completely forgot all about it. Bruce wanted to do something with it, so Terry safely could used the Bat-computer on it, so Bruce had asked him to bring it to him.

"Okay, see you tomorrow."

"See you."

Terry patted Ace one more time and went off.

o-

"Excuse me, sir. We are going to land in a couple of minutes, so you have to raise your seat."

Terry did as the stewardess had told him. Shortly after the plane landed and the passengers walked out to the busy airport. Terry just followed the others and with an impressive time did he get his suitcases and got thought the passport control. Out in the arrival hall a woman in a blue dress hold a sign with his name on it. He went over to her.

"Hi, are you Terence McGinnis?"

He nodded.

"Welcome to Japan. My name is Annabel Lee, but you can call me Anna. I'm the principal on Tokushima Boarding School."

They shook hands.

"I have a car waiting for us."

She took one of his suitcases and they began to go out off the arrival hall.

"So, Terence, how is Bruce?"

"Terry!"

She turned around and looked him straight into his eyes.

"I'm normally called Terry. Terence makes me feel so old."

She smiled.

"I know the feeling. Annabel makes me feel like a little girl. That's why all my friends call me Anna. Oh, it's our car over here."

She stowed him and his suitcases into the car and drove off. They had to drive for a couple of hours. Terry felt that it was very easy to talk with Anna. She must have felt the same way, because she told him shortly about her life.

She had been born in Gotham, but she had lost her parents in a young age. Her grandfather had then taken her and her siblings to Japan where he lived. Bruce, who had been her father's friend, had become like a guardian angel for her. He had giving her the opportunity to come back to Gotham and be qualify as a teacher. She had later chosen to move back to Japan, as she said, it was the most beautiful and most ugly country in the same time.

Terry told her also shortly about his life, but when he trailed to skip the darker sides of his past did she ask him out about it.

"You shouldn't try to hide the mistakes in your life. That's what makes you a human. We all make some."

She turned off the highway.

"When I read your file, I thought you would be very different for what you seem like. Parents separated and lost a father like that."

"My file?"

"Yeah, the school don't just take anybody in. We are one of the world's best schools, and it's my job to keep it like that, so I read as much about a new student as I can."

"But I thought you just took me in as a favour to Bruce."

She shook her head.

"No, I know, how the things that life throw at you can hurt. You are doing badly at school right now because you haven't had the time to come over it… but that's was not the entirely right way to say it, don't you agree?"

He slowly nodded.

"You just need some time and a different atmosphere, so you can see the things from a different angle. Right now you want to escape from your past and be one of the others."

He slowly nodded again.

"So, you told me your story, so I could know, that you knew the feeling."

"Exactly, it's important for me that you know, that you always can come to me, if you need to talk, okay?"

"Okay."

She turned into a driveway.

"See the time you have here as time off from all that. Here nobody knows you, so you can start on a fresh."

They turned at a corner and a big mansion revealed itself.

"Welcome to Tokushima Boarding School!"