Jason didn't scream at the kid when he got back to the apartment. Not the same night, and not the day after, or the day after that. Even though Hayate watched him like he expected the fight. There wasn't any point.

Arguing with Hayate was a lot like arguing with a brick wall. Jason could huff and puff all he wanted, but all he'd get back was an echo and maybe a migraine.

The problem was this: Hayate usually just crossed his arms as he listened, occasionally nodding along, and then ducked out of the apartment shortly after Jason turned his back. The kid heard him and clearly decided obedience was for other people. Beating up ninjas, rescuing cats from roofs, or pissing off a gang whenever he got bored were more worthy uses of his time. And of course, he wouldn't tell Jason about even a third of the shit he did. As was becoming increasingly clear every time Jason found Hayate up to something, the kid was adept at lying by omission and entirely shameless when caught.

Two times wasn't a pattern, logically, but the thought that Hayate's mangled body could have turned up any night before this was ruining Jason's sleep. The kid only let Jason see him twice. It was more likely that Hayate was slipping in and out of Jason's domain whenever he felt like it. Jason couldn't trust this kid to obey a simple directive to stay inside.

Several restless nights left him with a thought process that went: Fuck, there really isn't another way.

As that thought struck him, Jason stopped, his hand on his apartment's doorknob and helmet under his arm. "Hey, kid."

No more outsourcing.

Hayate looked up from his spot on the couch, where he was meticulously cleaning his katana. He wasn't even hiding that he was planning on heading out; instead of lounging in front of the TV and practically swimming in some of Jason's spare clothes that he used for pajamas, the kid was kitted out for a night on the town. Every bit of his equipment was all ready to go, except for his boots. Those were by the door and waiting.

All this for probably—essentially—patrolling Jason's territory in all but name.

Now that Jason's motley collective of halfway-tolerable goons knew about the kid's existence, they'd be looking for him around Crime Alley. So would others. And while Jason's minions were cowed, they could only be trusted to know and keep to his rules if they were afraid of him. Anything past that was a gamble at best. Certainly Jason wasn't going to tap any of them for babysitting duty, no matter what they thought of him after Hayate crashed that meeting.

Going by the kid's reported combat record, he'd either defeat or escape any of the Red Hood's men who tried to keep him out of the action, and then probably cause the kind of trouble that would get street-level Gotham gangsters attacked by assassins and ruin Jason's entire plan. So, any attempt to assign him a babysitter was worse than useless. At best, they'd lose track of the kid.

Because Jason had to do everything himself, his plan morphed into some parody of Take The Kid To Work Day forever. At least he'd be able to tell Hayate what to do if they were both in the field at the same time. Knowingly.

God, he hoped so.

"You coming along or what?" He tried to keep his voice gruff and his demeanor closed-off, but—

"Yeah! Just let me get my shoes."

—Jason knew when he'd fucking lost a battle. He just put his helmet on and checked the hermetic seals while he waited.

With any luck at all, he might still win the war.

The rule for Hayate, this time, was, "Stay out of sight."

Hayate saluted because he couldn't smile visibly with his mask—a real one this time, because Jason could at least make sure the kid was protected from gas attacks—and made some gestures with his fingers.

And then he vanished into thin air.

"And suddenly, so much of how you've lived this long makes sense," Jason grumbled under his breath. Then he reached up and tapped the temple of his helmet, twice, to bring up a thermal image instead. Sure enough, the kid was still standing there—albeit throwing double peace signs and glowing in a rainbow. After a few seconds, he said, "I can still see you in thermal mode, but this'll work for now. Again, no jumping into a fight unless I say so, Hayate."

Hayate nodded and blinked back into existence.

"If you lose track of me somehow, we'll meet up at the diner by three," Jason explained. His voice wasn't truly soft once filtered through the helmet, but he tried to almost make it sound like a suggestion. Hayate ignored shouting. "The one with the pancakes you like."

The other two places had bright lights and used too much sugar, so Hayate immediately said, "I understand."

Good. "Then let's go."

Kei didn't remember what day it was when someone—fate, the gods, whatever—cut the brake lines to her Gotham experience. Her sleep schedule was so fucked that it was hard to notice she was rolling downhill until gravity sent the world screaming past.

It started with a phone call.

Bat-hours of the evening found Kei in the bathroom, facing down the mess of hair clippings left in the sink. While kitchen scissors wouldn't do a good job, Kei was perfectly capable of forming sharp enough chakra blades between her fingers and precise enough to get the look she wanted. Mostly that just meant "shorter." She wasn't fussy. And if she wasn't cutting close enough, razors existed. She'd manage.

Peering at her reflection, the effect was…decent.

Sure, the shadows under her eyes were still quite dark, the towel around her shoulders was also littered with black like reverse snow, and Isobu's seal peeked out of the collar of her tank top as a reminder she was still using his chakra, but she'd at least sorted out one mess. Her hair wouldn't get in her eyes for a bit, and she was still recognizable. Good enough.

You look terrible, Isobu told her, with all the subtlety and good manners of a hammer.

Yeah, well… She'd gone without since before her deployment in February. It just hadn't seemed worth the trouble. Fuck it, let's call it self-care.

Kei scooped the loose hair bits into her hand and then into the trash bin, using a washcloth to wipe down the sink and the counter. Running her head under the faucet saved her a tiny bit of chakra expenditure she immediately put to use in drying herself off again, and Kei scrubbed at her head between those two points with businesslike briskness. It was certainly one way to make sure she was awake at weird hours to receive messages.

If only human brains did not suffer from fatigue.

Kei sighed. Among other things. I could get so much done otherwise.

Not like there'd been many opportunities knocking, so to speak. Aside from having groceries delivered, Kei refused to reach out to the conveniences of modern life more than necessary, in case walking out into Gotham was the excuse yet more assassins needed to explode out of the woodwork. Speaking to people was daunting enough when they gave a shit about her. Strangers were just casualties waiting to happen.

Kei had just finished cleaning when the wall phone rang.

Bweep-bweep-bweep!

Whoever thought that noise was better suited for a phone than a smoke detector should have been smacked upside the head upon making the suggestion. Still, duty called. Kei dried her hands and headed into the kitchen.

The wall phone was an ancient model that only barely lived past the obligatory-wire era, but Kei picked it up. "Hello—"

Without even waiting for her to finish, Oracle's voice said in a brisk tone, "Genbu, are you field-ready?"

Kei's spine straightened on reflex alone. "Always."

Wait.

No.

What the hell was she doing?

"…Why are you asking?" That sounded less like she'd been indoctrinated into some kind of cult. Bat or Assassin or clown or any other. A little affronted, mostly at herself, Kei said, "I didn't realize I was on call for Gotham's night shift."

There was the sound of rapid typing on the other end of the line. "Ordinarily, I wouldn't ask this at all. But I did think that, within reason, a girl who came looking for help from web searches and urban legends might be willing to lend a hand in turn."

On one hand: Shit, Barbara Gordon had worked it out. Kei had no idea if Nightwing's visit was the catalyst or not.

On the other: There were way too many vigilantes in the average Gotham setting to really require Kei's kind of help.

Probably.

I do not like the uncertainty.

There was definitely a Batman, a Robin, a Nightwing, and an Oracle. That was four. There could easily be a Batgirl, a Batwoman, a Huntress, and who even knew what else. Kei certainly held no place in their information cycle. She couldn't demand information, only offer it. Being shoved back on the priority list made sense. She was contained. Sitting on a shelf until needed.

Kei bit back a sigh. Well, it was a shoebox of an apartment. "I'm in."

"Good. Check your window for your drone-delivered earpiece in three minutes. I'll guide you."

"And is there a plan for if I end up being followed by the usual suspects?" Kei asked as she searched for the pieces of her "vigilante" uniform.

"…That won't be an issue."

Frustration burned like a coal in Kei's chest, hissing. She'd wondered where that went. "Oracle. I'll need a little more to go off than that."

"So you do know that name." Oh, good, another freebie for the vigilante corps. Shit. "What do you want to know first?"

"Are you sending me into a League of Assassins nest?" Kei asked, rather than addressing the slip. Let Oracle think it was deliberate. Even if she probably saw right through Kei's spiny shell to the dork underneath, Kei raised her figurative hackles anyway.

"No. I'm sending you to meet Robin and Spoiler." The keys kept clicking over the line. "Don't abuse the trust I'm placing in you now, Genbu."

Spoiler, Spoiler… Kei rubbed the bridge of her nose, trying to dig into the recesses of her brain with sheer will alone.

Spoiler was… Ah, Stephanie Brown. The third Batgirl and the fourth Robin, but maybe not yet and not in that order. She was the only blonde in the Bats' circle and she liked purple. Nothing else came to mind. And it was, of course, entirely different from whatever Oracle might be willing to tell Kei about her new charges.

For nowhere near the first time in Kei's life, breadth of information was less important than depth. But the latter was lacking.

Hooray. In loco parentis for teenage superheroes. What Kei said instead of all that was a mild, "I understand."

"Tap the comm unit to speak. Release to listen." Oh, good, radio rules. "Tap three times to send an alert."

"Got it." And then she hung up the phone.

It could easily be a milk run. Theoretically. But Kei made sure to pack all of her combat-certified sealing tags, just in case.

As promised, Kei slipped out her window in her night shift outfit—mask definitely included—and found a wireless earpiece sitting in a snap-hinged box on the fire escape. The droning noise of a disappearing quadcopter was the only standout sound, aside from the perpetual wind from a thirteenth-story view. It appeared Oracle was as good as her word.

"Genbu?" Oracle asked, once Kei had the device in her ear.

"Present." Not exactly Kei's first rodeo. Maybe the first with this kind of receiving range. "Where do you need me?"

"At the corner of Ninth and Harrow. Do you need street-by-street directions?"

"No." The last month's worth of futile searching gave Kei a decent idea of how Gotham's grid was put together. She'd stopped using cabs about a week in, and only partly because it was an inefficient use of her money. "ETA twelve minutes."

Kei shut the window behind her and rearmed the apartment's electronic and fūinjutsu defenses. Even standing on the fire escape and clambering to the roof was like taking a dip in swamp water to her chakra sense. Ibuprofen burned out of her too fast to last an entire Bat-shift, so it looked like she'd be relying on Isobu's generous pain-muffling powers.

It is not as though I have done anything else but talk for the last few days, Isobu said. He'd been remarkably patient about the entire thing. Aside from hooking into Kei's senses and experiencing Western food, he'd mostly been flipping through her memories of stories set in worlds like this and building a stockpile of questions.

Kei didn't know most of the answers, here, and didn't know if she could ask Oracle for them. So, she just said, Yeah, I'm sorry you're bored. Just worked out that way.

As long as there is some excitement soon.

Kei took a running leap off the roof, aiming at the next one.

That is more like it.

A few minutes later, something cold hit Kei on the crown of her head. She paused at the base of a flagpole she was using as a perch, crouching for her next jump. Her hood was down, because she hadn't been especially careful when "suiting up." Logically, weather could still affect her.

Was that—?

A second raindrop immediately hit her hair and trickled down her neck.

Kei's well-reasoned critique of this development was, "Ugh, really?"

Isobu's counterpoint was a note of amusement at her imminent drenching.

By the time Kei arrived at the spot Oracle specified, that rain began to pour down, wind whipping up to form absolute sheets of water that went nearly sideways. She hadn't exactly been reading weekly weather reports before this point, but the weather turning so harshly felt like a taunt. Thunder even rumbled overhead. Storms didn't usually just happen.

Then again, maybe this is punishment for assuming I wouldn't need weatherproof clothes today.

I can help with that.

Kei, who now had water bouncing off her mask and fucking up the view from behind the lenses, agreed to the idea of help immediately.

A delicate dose of Isobu's chakra sent most of the water soaking into Kei's equipment and clothes a few millimeters in a downward trajectory, as though she was suddenly wrapped up in a window pane. And no new water replaced what was rejected, held at bay by Isobu's careful control of their chakra coils. While Kei could essentially smack water out of her clothes and hair the second she got a little breathing room, which was convenient for cleaning up, she usually didn't bother with a jutsu like that as an ongoing defense.

Thanks, Kei told him as she made her way down to the appropriate roof.

It seems the least I can do, given your newfound concern about not killing.

Kei rolled her eyes. There it was.

"Genbu, confirm that you've arrived safely," said Oracle's voice in her ear.

"Confirmed," Kei said once her chilly fingers found the button again. "What do I need to know?"

The word picture painted for Kei was neither daunting nor encouraging. Robin and Spoiler had responded to some kind of bank branch's alarm—the details of which Kei did not care for—before resuming their patrol once GCPD was on sight and carting the culprits away. This patrol route had eventually led them through a defunct industrial park loaded with all sorts of dense, unused material that interfered with electronic communications. The last time the place had been properly supervised and surveyed was two economic crashes ago, so it now served primarily as a cautionary tale about urban development.

Oh, and a gathering point for gang activity, outside of the reach of most CCTV cameras. Someone had to find the massively increased risk of tetanus and lead poisoning compelling. It was still a rotting hulk of a structure, regardless.

And Kei's job was to find them, reestablish contact with Oracle, and maybe take the kids out for Batburgers or something. Apparently, Oracle could piggyback some techie stuff with Kei's tracker signal for a short distance and provide what was essentially radar. Kei neither understood the innovation nor some of the terms used, but Oracle wasn't in a mood to elaborate anyway. All Kei had to do was find the strays and get them back under their supervisors' figurative wings.

Not for the first time, Kei wished Nightwing was doing this job instead of whatever mystery he and Batman were chasing, but to hell with it. She could hop the chain-link fence and its barbed wire topper in her sleep, and Kei hadn't run into a threat she considered serious even once thus far. If there was something dangerous—

Ha.

—there wouldn't be for long.

Gravel crunched under Kei's boots, but it was quieter than the rain. Once she had her bearings, Kei loped silently into the moon-cast shadow of the first outbuilding. Time or general neglect had shattered a couple of windows at ground level, so Kei took a moment to deploy Hidden Mist ninjutsu before leaving a Water Clone to maintain it, then snaked her way inside.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, there was no sign of any capes. The only life present was particularly stubborn crabgrass and forgotten dandelions. If finding the kids was that simple, Kei wouldn't have even been asked to help.

Next.

The building nearby was a little larger, with the corrugated steel siding, concrete, and graffiti that characterized boom-and-bust construction safely away from waterfronts. Half of one wall had rusted out, so Kei went in and did a circuit of the facility with the same quick, practiced search pattern she usually employed in enemy bunkers.

Lead with a weapon or a dummy, clear the path, allow nothing behind you—

Once a shinobi encountered a hellbeast in one of Orochimaru's former labs, preserved by whatever nightmarish processes initially gave it life, forgetting didn't happen. Being stabbed by an enemy combatant was a part of the lifestyle; getting eaten by something with hundreds of teeth and a prehensile tongue that pretended to be a hallway, somewhat less so. Kei's first demolition mission contained one crowning glory of a creature that kept spewing fire until its own skin, fat, and bone ignited. After that, collapsing tunnel systems became standard practice instead of raiding them.

A pity you cannot do so here.

Kei snorted. Sounds like an excellent way to get completely blacklisted.

"Any updates, Genbu?"

Kei put her hand to the comm as she loitered in the shadows. Even with the blanket of mist over the area, Kei didn't trust a single thing in this rusty place. The rain was perfectly capable of hiding the enemy as well as it did Kei, if there was an actual problem to be had. "Nothing yet. Moving to the next zone."

Which was a fancy way of saying she was heading to the next-biggest storage facility. A large building was not statistically more likely to contain trained vigilante teenagers than any random bolthole they could theoretically fit into, but Kei figured at least the number of boltholes was higher if there was a mess.

And then Kei got inside and looked up at the giant quarter leaning up against a half-collapsed wall. Like that was an actual thing people expected in a factory absolutely not set up for statuary.

Okay. So, apparently, people just left supervillain paraphernalia lying around if it was someplace no one cared about. That was absolutely a Two-Face relic. The other side of the coin was probably scarred to hell and back, but…

Ugh, no. No more distractions.

It is not as though the environment has magically recovered from the pollution either.

Whole different issue than giant currency.

I do not believe that.

Well, they could probably agree that the coin was relatively harmless.

Kei went up and down the remaining catwalks and walls like a dog patrolling a yard. She ran down the list of hiding places like a checklist, then rebuilt it with contortionists in mind, and then checked the trailing mist she'd tracked inside.

Nothing here, either.

"Are you sure the last signal came from this address?" Kei asked, her hand up to her ear.

"Yes." That was not the tone of someone who was questioned often. Oracle was one hell of a knowledge broker and hacker. She probably wasn't wrong often.

Well, there were more buildings. Plenty of time and space for Oracle to be right in the end. "Okay. Heading in."

The next one was a bust.

Kei opened her mouth to sigh or complain or something, then paused. While using Isobu's chakra to fend off the rain and a clone to maintain the mist was splitting her attention a little and certainly clamping down on her chakra sense to the point of uselessness, Kei was a professional. She'd been a sensor from the moment she could think in this body. If she couldn't use her natural radar, she could come up with an alternative, and read it, and find the enemy.

Something moved in the mist, and it was too tall to be an animal. So instead, what she said to Oracle while the picture formed in Kei's mind was, "Contact. Give me a moment to confirm IDs."

All right, kids, where the hell are you?

The last building visible through the mist was the largest by far. It was a defunct production plant's main floor, so of course there was still plenty of metal wreckage. Folding chairs, barrels, and so on. Theoretically, it contained plenty of debris for an enterprising combatant. Or enough improvised weapons for any three Jackie Chan movies.

Kei's water balloon of a clone was still maintaining the mist, despite the storm. As a result, she had cover. She could walk right up to the average person in the gray killzone like a PS1 Silent Hill monster and rip their face off.

And…that was three shapes. Stalking through her mist like they knew what it meant, if not what direction to search.

Again.

For fuck's sake.

The McNinjas kept coming in trios and, frankly, Kei wanted to throw her mother's principles out the window hard enough to defenestrate the Bat rules as collateral damage.

Your mother had…rules?

Yep. Kei chose to find the quickest route that put her on an intercept path with the ninjas. Not that she ever explained them explicitly.

What were they? Isobu asked. His mental voice was much more tentative now, with firsthand knowledge of all that pain and loss pushing to the forefront of Kei's mind. The pressure built behind her eyes and held itself there until Isobu's chakra smoothed it out.

Kei tried her best to ignore all of it. Ducking behind defunct structures gave her all the concealment that the mist didn't. While she shot toward her targets, she said, First? In a fight to the death, efficiency is the most important concept. Waste nothing. Not your breath, not your movements, and not your opponents' deaths.

Reasonable enough.

She also thought torture was pointless. Not the same as being morally wrong. If things went that far, she thought it was a better idea just to kill the enemy. Kei rubbed at her neck. Some of this she'd never admitted aloud, even to Hayate. There were some things he didn't need to know about how their mother viewed the world until he was older. Helped that she was basically psychic. She could always tell if someone was lying to her.

I imagine it would. Your brother takes after her.

In that, definitely. Hayate lacked their mother's casual lethality, which she could pull up at a moment's notice. By the end, that killer instinct was practically the strongest weapon she had left. Not that it saved her. One moment's distraction was all it took.

Trying to shake that line of thought, Kei pressed her finger to her ear. "Question."

"Answer," said Oracle. In a slightly more serious tone, she went on, "What is it, Genbu?"

There was no good way to explain Kei's theory. Hooray. "How do Robin and Spoiler rate against the League of Assassins? Have they run into each other before?"

There was a momentary pause. It did not fill Kei with optimism.

"Because I'm pretty sure that's what's happening." Kei dashed through the wreckage of capitalism and the changing tides of the world, zeroing in on her targets.

Okay, left turn here—

Kei crossed gravel, concrete, and broken equipment on silent feet, only so aware of Oracle's clipped tone and tidbits of information. She made listening noises on automatic.

More than anything…

Hm?

In the end, those were about missions and training. Being prepared for this kind of life. Kei coiled herself into a preparatory crouch, counting down the seconds remaining until her suitors appeared at last. The sound of metal scraping was an inevitability better than any burglar alarm.

Then what was truly important?

Really, Mom just wanted us to come home.

Isobu fell silent.

Here we are. Kei slipped inside the building that her mist had thus far failed to penetrate, following her usual stalkers, and then was hit with a wall of noise.

Warehouses and factories weren't the worst places to fight in Gotham. Barring the risk of getting killed in the middle of a floor plan that OSHA would call a bad idea and reasonable cities would plaster in lawsuits, at least most of those places didn't randomly explode. The power was out and dead and reduced the chance of stray sparks, most of the lights were shattered, and Kei didn't think there were much in the way of security cameras. It was a decent enough spot to start.

Oh, and the middle of the floor was taken up with a scene straight out of a Bruce Lee movie.

In the red corner: Robin with a bo staff and Spoiler with a baton.

In the blue corner: Twelve other League assassins. The three closest to her were the ones she'd followed in. Two were on the catwalks and had rifles with laser sights, which just went to show that the League of Assassins was less a bunch of Luddites than expected. Exactly as hypocritical as she'd thought, though.

Okay, then. It was a little late to kick in the door like a classic Hollywood badass, but Kei had a backup plan.

Channeling Isobu's chakra into her palm so narrowly and intensely that it almost burned, Kei formed a shuriken of pure coral and flung it hard enough to cut through sheet steel with a horrible screech. Every head in the building turned her way.

"Holy shit—" That, at least, was Spoiler. She was the only teenage girl in the melee.

One of the assassins yelped, "It's the Abomination—"

All that fucking effort to avoid these people, and for what? Kei almost wanted to laugh. Instead, she lifted a hand in sardonic greeting exactly like Kakashi would've done. "Sorry I'm late. I got lost on the road of life."

Spoiler let out a barking laugh, which saved Kei the trouble.

Not one of the ninjas tore their attention from Kei. They knew who the threat was.

There were two red laser dots painted on her chest. Kei's eyes itched as she brought up Isobu's chakra, in line with her partner's ironclad defense-as-the-best-offense philosophy. Dart Guy's bigger brothers and their friends were in for an unpleasant surprise.

"Not even going to try and talk after all this?" It was almost a pity they couldn't see her eyes glow behind the blackout lenses in her mask. It was one of the surest signs of battle-readiness in Kei's playbook, despite not being violent. She raised her arms in invitation. "I'm right here. Or are we playing coy now?"

It was always so much fun to be the center of attention. Arguably, Kei's entire purpose in a standard mission was to play the heavy to a teammate's skirmisher. Sometimes, that just meant drawing enemy fire.

Like now.

Kei made one hand seal before a silenced bullet slammed into her shoulder. Or rather, the thin layer of Isobu's chakra that had originally acted like a rain suit. It plinked harmlessly to the ground in the wake of the echoing shot.

There was a beat of silence.

"You dropped something," Kei said flatly. And killing intent rolled off her in waves to seal the deal.

Robin and Spoiler both threw down smoke bombs at the same time, before Kei's voice was fully out of the air. Her mist was less dense here, only letting her notice their positions fleetingly, but that and the smoke made them invisible.

Good kids.

Glass and rusted metal and the detritus of a neglected building all buckled as Kei sent a Water Dragon Bullet into the knot of ninjas first. She wasn't as careful with its composition as she might've been before a month spent dodging (and occasionally beating) these pests. If someone got slightly more mauled than they were expecting when they fought a jinchūriki, they deserved it. The bulk of the dragon, fueled by the downpour outside and Isobu's strength, could have knocked a train off its tracks.

Oh, and it was noisy as hell. Good luck detecting the Batkids when everything was playing waterfall white noise.

Her dragon targeted the catwalks second, ripping steel screaming from the wall as the supernatural mass swamped all in its grasp. It definitely wasn't a ninjutsu developed for urban combat. But, like all water, the attack could adapt to its new vessel's shape.

Oh well.

One of the snipers managed to dive for safety first, only for an exploding birdarang to catch him on landing. Someone else got smacked with a baton on the other side of the room.

Ah, vigilantes. Serving justice with aplomb and (mostly) blunt force.

A pity the Water Dragon Bullet's swirling path devoured most of Robin and Spoiler's smoke camouflage on the second pass, but one couldn't have everything.

Kei crossed her arms over her chest and handed directing the monster over to Isobu.

Ah, finally.

It took less than a minute to mop up the enemy. Kei barely had to lift an actual finger once the waterspout was present and chasing people around. No weapon in their repertoire was designed to fight a being with neither flesh nor blood. It didn't care about poison. Any knife ripped free of a holster was just shrapnel. Martial arts? Fat chance. And even if the dragon just popped due to lack of interest, any equipment the assassins did have wasn't going to do anything to Kei.

Especially while also being harassed by Batman's sidekicks.

And maybe a sidekick's sidekick? Kei didn't have a full profile in her head for Spoiler.

Once she was sure she'd gotten all the assassins the kids didn't and the spin cycle got boring to maintain, Kei dumped the other ten assassins out of her ninjutsu like clams from a plastic bucket. It took about a minute from capture to release, because while reasonable training taught people plenty of fun skills, heart rates skyrocketed under stress, and oxygen got used up faster that way. There was no real substitute for a deep breath.

Ultimately, drowning was an ugly death. It was a primal fear for a reason. Kei wasn't above taking advantage of that.

And the kids were already zip-tying the assassins they'd subdued. They even made hand gestures Kei vaguely recognized as ASL, while the shitheads weren't exactly in a position to lip off in return. Oxygen deprivation did that.

A lo of the background noise was coughing.

"Holy shit, though." Now that she was within earshot and the dragon was gone, Kei could hear Spoiler shorten her baton with a series of clicks. "Robin, you didn't tell me Genbu was like this!"

"In my defense, I didn't know," Robin said over his shoulder. He angled his mask toward the ranks of groaning men, shaking his head briefly. "'Weather control' is an extremely wide umbrella."

Hah. And Kei wasn't nearly on Nagato's level. He could have hijacked the entire storm over Gotham to maintain surveillance.

"I guess he was right about these things…"

Rather than bothering with checking how many sets of restraints the vigilantes carried, Kei strode up to the liveliest members of the pajama squad and stomped straight down on an arm, a leg, or in the middle of their chests with Isobu's chakra at the ready. When she pulled back from each one, the stunned, sputtering men gained coral cuffs with excess growth that anchored them to the wrecked floor as surely as flies in a glue trap.

If that meant she almost stabbed a few as the coral hardened…well, she didn't. Close only counted with horseshoes and hand grenades. And she was all out of horseshoes.

"So," Spoiler said, suddenly at Kei's shoulder and peering down at the flies they'd caught with vinegar. "I'm the Spoiler. Of crimes. Who're you again?"

"Genbu," Kei replied, pointing at her mask. It was sort of a reflex by now. Noticing it made Kei feel awkward, though, so she waved a hand at the room at large. "You've met my stalkers."

Spoiler's hooded head came up to Kei's chin, which made her a handful of centimeters taller than Robin. She twitched like she wanted to elbow Kei for the sake of argument, then thought better of it. "More than met, I think!"

"Point."

Spoiler huffed, but seemed a little happier for winning the exchange. Even if Kei wasn't a particularly challenging opponent in that arena.

Kei snapped her fingers and excess water exploded off all three of them. Robin and Spoiler jolted at the sensation— oops —but Kei didn't bother to apologize. And she left the assassins damp. They could squelch their way back to Ra's al Ghul in shame.

"That's like ten times more convenient than a towel or a dryer." Spoiler took her cape in her fingers and shook it experimentally, just to be sure. "Cool. So, is that a standard thing for weather-controlling metas?"

Kei shrugged one shoulder. "It is for me. I don't actually like being wet."

"Wow. Talk about irony."

Isobu certainly thought so. Their theoretical beach vacation would definitely be enjoyed unevenly. Par for the course, really. But since Konoha was landlocked and Kei generally held control over her own body, she was the one who needed to make the time for Isobu's happiness.

Robin, for his part, was inspecting their subdued enemies. Somewhat unsurprisingly, the assassins had clammed up since being taken out like chumps. All but two of them were still conscious, inasmuch as that mattered.

Kei cleared her throat. Even if she'd never been trained in interrogation techniques—mostly through avoidance—she was their target. She should get on that. "On a different note, I'd like an explanation for a few things."

One of the assassins tried to spit at her, but mostly got his saliva on his face because he couldn't turn his head.

"Charming," Robin muttered. He did something and his bo staff collapsed back to a six-inch metal rod, which was then tucked back into his utility belt. "Are all of the League ninjas this social?"

"Ew," said Spoiler, probably still looking at the drool.

Kei sighed. Babysitting.

"Do these people even end up in prison? I feel like I should have asked this question earlier."

"They do," said Robin, "but not always." When Kei opened her eyes again to glance at him instead of wallowing in despair, he was checking a holographic screen projected from his gauntlet. Where had that been when he was writing up her profile? "The League of Assassins sometimes kills their own for failing missions."

Right, that had been a thing in…maybe not the comics. Why did that make Kei think of a woman with blue skin, though?

It cannot be so important to distract you now.

Right.

Kei raised a hand to her ear and pressed the button for the comm. "Genbu to"— Wait, shit, did the assassins know about Oracle? —"base. Robin and Spoiler are safe and sound."

"Acknowledged, Genbu," came Oracle's voice in her ear, immediately.

"Oh, whoops," muttered Spoiler. She'd cringed a little upon realizing who Kei was talking to. "My comm fell out. I think it's in my cowl somewhere, but then we were…busy."

Probably because of the ninjas. And the sheer quantity of heavy metals in this ridiculous place. She'd be astonished if some raccoon drinking the water around here didn't come down with lead poisoning.

Both of their gazes drifted to Robin. He held up a hand and said, "The first guy nearly gave me cauliflower ear. It's broken."

Kei repeated this report to Oracle with a little less in the way of excuses. It wasn't her first time on a secured line. After, she said with the button still depressed, "So, I have a question. For all of you."

Robin perked up a little, as did Spoiler next to him when she realized no scolding was forthcoming.

"Go ahead."

"Do you have any idea how many people have died because of me?" The second she said it, Kei winced at the phrasing. Nope, reword that. "I didn't kill anyone that I know of." She angled her mask toward the sullen assassins. "But if these people do execute their own for failing, then I've been leaving a trail of bodies behind me."

Robin was already shaking his head. "You can't blame yourself for failing to predict how they'd react."

Blame myself? Kei scoffed inwardly. I'm going to hunt Ra's al Ghul down like the dog he is.

As I have been saying—

But not yet. "It's a waste of lives. Fighting these people just kills time for me, and I don't even know how long it takes for the League to train replacements. If they execute someone every time I put one of them in the ICU, I could theoretically keep beating them up and just run them out of manpower sooner or later."

Which, admittedly, would go a little faster if she cut out the middleman. Their nearest base of operations probably would look better in tiny little pieces, raining down on the landscape like grim confetti.

One of the assassins managed a growl. It was the one Spoiler zip-tied to a pipe of some kind, whose mask had come partially undone when she hit him in the head. His face was a little sallow from not seeing the sun for a while, and the broken nose certainly didn't help.

After popping her comm unit out and flinging it to Robin, Kei went over to him, kneeling such that if this guy wanted to spit at her feet, he might actually succeed. "Upset I'm insulting your master? I'm just getting started."

"Nothing you say matters," the man hissed. He tried to wriggle a little farther up the pipe, at least until Kei's hand hovered over his ankle. That kept him quiet for a moment.

"And yet, the more you keep talking, the longer you'll probably last." One of the convenient things about assassin organizations was their retirement policy. Or lack thereof. Kei didn't even have to come up with her own threats.

"Lord Ra's has plans for you and your kin." The man's eyes were a little too wide, either in fear or the burning need to say something to put off a possible amputation. The blood dripping from his nose did not help the overall effect. "You can run to any shelter in the world, but there will be no escape. Not when we have your scent."

Leaning more toward killing you. "Nice to be wanted, I suppose."

Robin's gloved hand landed on her shoulder. He knelt next to her, saying, "Hey, Batman's already on the case. You don't need to worry."

Maybe in any other fiscal quarter. From what Kei could tell, the man was rushing everywhere trying to handle the Red Hood case. All Kei did was turn her mask toward Robin and say, mildly, "So I've been told. But given the number of these chuckleheads who just tried to either capture or kill you and Spoiler, even as collateral, he needs to move it up the priority list."

Preferably sooner rather than later.

Kei stepped away from the ninja to remove the temptation to perform an impromptu tracheotomy. With her bare hands.

"Hey, Genbu…" Spoiler began cautiously. She sounded more like she was just trying to distract Kei than anything, so Kei obligingly turned her way. Once she was sure she had a facsimile of Kei's attention, Spoiler pointed at the trapped ninja with the tip of one boot. "Is this stuff coral?"

"Yeah." Maybe she should explain…something. Throw the kids a bone since they'd probably not asked for someone to steal their fight. "I don't actually control the weather, by the way."

Spoiler paused, confused. She was still standing between Kei and the potential interrogation in a blink. "You don't?"

"Not on any scale that counts." Hidden Mist Jutsu was a cop-out. "My power's mostly just ocean-themed."

Spoiler might have blinked. Her full-face mask gave a little more of her expression away than Kei's, but she was still mostly a shadowed, hooded silhouette. "And you took out all those guys like nothing, huh?"

"Surprise does a lot of the work." Kei shrugged. Well, if she was being kept from the conversation, she could at least make herself useful by gathering all the discarded weapons. She didn't even remember which one of these losers shot at her. Maybe Robin did.

Spoiler followed her. "Okay, so does that mean you can talk to fish?"

"Like Aquaman?" Kei shook her head as she picked up the long rifle. Then she bent the gun's barrel into an irrecoverable J-shape. "I'm not Atlantean."

"You could turn that into a pretzel if you wanted," Spoiler insisted.

"So?"

"So you totally could be."

"Still no."

Across the way, Robin got tired of being stonewalled and sprayed some canister in the talkative assassin's face, which knocked the man out. Hopefully he had enough doses for eleven more adult men. Otherwise, they'd need to break out blunter methods.

"Do you know why these men even came after you? Aside from being…Bats."

Spoiler's shoulders hunched for a split second. "Maybe."

"I'm all ears."

Presumably, Ra's al Ghul still wanted to be Batman's father-in-law. For some reason, this didn't mean much in practical terms. The Demon's Head still took potshots at people in Gotham, Batman still stopped any scheme that threatened the city, and there was murder-themed flirting. Kei had never seen much point in the whole crushing-on-the-enemy thing, particularly when the stabbing rate didn't drop, but it sure sold well. Somewhere.

"Actually, a little bird said these might be a problem." And Spoiler held out one gloved hand, where one of Kei's coral decoys sat pinched between her pointer finger and thumb.

Fuck, she thought instantly. "I'm so sorry. I made those to be distractions from whatever these people were using to find me, but I didn't expect anyone to just pick them up."

"I mean, it's not okay, but we lived. That's more than some people can say." Spoiler's shoulders drooped.

Fuck, Kei thought again, but louder this time.

It is not as though I am blameless.

No, that plan was all me. Fucking shit I didn't mean to do that—

Spoiler waved her free arm illustratively. "I didn't really believe they'd be a jinx like that until… Well. Boom. Up to our asses in ninjas."

Kei hadn't been looking for the decoys. Not while mainlining enough of Isobu's chakra to delay her psychic Gotham allergic reaction. Swallowing to combat the sudden dry mouth and the realization that her collateral body count wasn't all confirmed murderers, Kei dove for the safest part of the conversation. "A little bird?"

It wasn't like Gotham had a shortage of bird- or bat-themed people. Spoiler was actually one of the few exceptions.

"Yeah, he calls himself Suzaku and runs with Red Hood." Spoiler studied her intently. Expectantly.

Kei knew a Suzaku, but the only Nara brave enough to combine a soul patch and a horned hairdo wasn't exactly relevant. And there was the mythological bird, too.

Spoiler stared at her. "I was expecting more of a reaction."

"To…?" Red Hood having a sidekick wasn't unique, was it? Sure, he was a solo act as far as Kei remembered, but maybe crime lords experienced empty nest syndrome and repeated the sins of their fathers like anyone else might.

"I mean, he's your kid brother, right?"

"My—"

No. Wait a fucking second.

Stop.

Reboot.

Run process again.

What did she just say?

Before the static faded from Kei's brain, Isobu was already slamming his chakra down over hers. There was a moment—though she couldn't recall how long—where every muscle was locked in place and all Kei could do was stand there and breathe her way through. It felt like being buried alive. It felt like being tased. Like he'd ripped the rug out from under her and let her smack face-first into the floor.

Surprise-hope-betrayal shook through her skull, through her spine, and down through her fingertips. Rage, banked until now, roared at her ribs like it had been tricked and locked inside.

"Not yet," you said. Isobu's low rumble couldn't drown out the rush of blood in Kei's ears and the way her heart slammed through its beats, but it could fight her for every inch of control. Breathe.

Air shuddered out of Kei's lungs. And back in.

And out.

And in.

Out.

In.

Kei got control back by centimeters, then inches. Her fingertips twitched against her palms. Her toes moved in her boots.

"Uhhh, Robin? What's up with Genbu?"

When had Spoiler backed away? Robin stood in front of her like a shield, face pale and bo staff up in a defensive stance.

Stinging, in her hands. She'd driven her nails through her gloves. Even if Kei was already healing, ow.

Another breath.

Go.

"Okay," was what Kei said out loud. Her voice sounded human, which was a good thing. It meant Isobu wasn't required to fucking strangle her to get her temper back under lock and key. Yanking random wires in her autonomic nervous system wasn't a solution.

Annoyance was safe enough. Rage was absolutely unacceptable.

Rage was probably what Ra's wanted.

"Robin, is everyone unconscious?" Kei asked. Impressively stoic.

"…yes."

"Then you're leaving. Go. Report to Oracle since she was worried." Not as much as Kei was about H—no. Don't think that. She'd shake apart at the seams. "I am going back to base and going to think about things."

Robin opened his mouth.

"Unless you're going to tell me—honestly—that you had no idea where my brother was this whole time," Kei growled, "save it."

Robin shut his mouth.

I am not a monster, Kei thought, backing away from both of them as Robin turned his attention to his comm. But if I have to stay here any longer, you might see one anyway.

Kei walked out of the building and tilted her head up to catch the rain on her mask. It might've worked to cool her off, if she was any less angry. Or if Isobu had unwrapped his chakra from rain-rejection duty. Right now, she couldn't tell if his grip felt more like a hug or a straightjacket.

I am sorry.

So am I.

Kei waited until the kids left the scene—both watching warily as they passed—then popped the Water Clone and followed suit.

She'd pay Red Hood a visit soon enough.

"Ah, shit, we must've just missed her," Jiraiya muttered, peering down at the crystal ball. He rubbed his chin and the white stubble there, frowning. "All I can see is a bunch of goons and half a reef's worth of coral. Couple of those lights headed their way, too. Give me a moment to refocus."

Shimika glanced at him from the middle of the array. Today's session cut into her chakra reserves a little less, so she could gather the breath to speak. "Jiraiya-sama?"

"Hm? What is it?"

"I…think we could remove the pursuit element. Slow them."

"It'd probably burn us out for a bit, but…" Jiraiya glanced at the Hokage for approval. Shimika didn't have to look to know the Hokage's expression was as cold as the chamber's stone walls. "You know what? Sure, Shimika-chan. Let's give our girl a break, shall we?"

"Yes." Shimika smiled under her high collar and directed the butterflies, so starved by their journey, to feast. Finally, some progress.

By the time the flashing lights and blue uniforms arrived, every enemy shinobi lay withered and dead on the floor. Shimika's scatterbrained agents were already fleeing back through the finger-sized hole in the world, leaving nothing behind but the whisper of falling dust and lifeless debris. Even if the trip killed a few from overindulgence, it was a learning experience.

The village's missing children would be home safe soon.

Notes:

1. The last stage is called Acceptance for a reason, Jason. Congrats, you have now unknowingly echoed your dad's arc with your big brother's initial brush with vigilantism.
2. One of the surest signs of Kei's wonky idea of her own age is when she feels the urge to call teenagers—not even a full year younger than her—"kids." There's a part of her that looks at the younger vigilantes and thinks that Steph and Tim should be at home instead of patrolling. This same part of her brain is usually silent in Konoha.
3. It took me until writing this note to remember that Harrow the Ninth is an actual book. Explains why the words go well together in my brain, at least!
4. In Batman Beyond, there's an assassin named Curaré, who is hunted down by her former coworkers for failing to kill a target. She kills or brainwashes all of them in return, which basically wipes out her faction entirely. Also, she's blue.
5. Try and spot the Florence + the Machine lyric reference!