A/N

I'm sorry I haven't updated in a while! I have a lot of unpublished chapters and school has kept me quite busy. Please review, it means a lot.

Daitan'na: Grit of Gotham

Chapter Ten:

Sold Down The River

"[How, Tomoe?]"

"[Sensei?]"

The world around me is melting into thick black clinging soup. I feel the viscous limbs curling and wrapping around my feet, rooting me to the spot. I'm in the dojo. Sensei Kishimoto is in silhouette but his deep frown glows white.

"[After your treachery, how could you show your face here? Why would you betraaaay—]" He dissolves along with our surroundings.

"[No]!"

"[I thought I told you not to come back.]"

I try to turn but the slime holds me in place. I recognize the voice anyway. It's Hakuryuu.

"[But I'm not—I'm not even here!]"

"[Enough with your futile dishonesty. Returning to Japan after what you've done…you deserve to die by my blade.]"

And he cuts me clean.

"WAKE UP, DAMMIT!"

My eyes snap open. It's completely dark.

"D-Damian? Ow, stop it!"

Damian shines a tiny flashlight in my face then up his so that I see his grimace. He looks like he's telling himself in his head not to slap me.

"I've been yelling at you for the past five minutes. Get up."

"Calm down," I yawn, rubbing my eyes. "God, what time is it?"

"5:00 AM in Japan, 4:00 AM in China. We leave now."

"Oh, come on, Damian, it's so early. And I can't see anything."

"Use the flashlight."

I sit up and grab the flashlight. My whole head still feels fuzzy but I use the device to guide me in the dark. I don't know how Damian does it but I hear him moving things about. I find my jacket somewhere where my feet were and look for food.

"Hey, got anything to eat?"

A packet of dried strawberries hits my face. "Thanks."

"Xinjiang…a region in northwestern China. I've always wanted to see the Taklimakan desert."

"It's just a desert."

"Shut up."

I wear my boots and tidy my hair. I used my bag as a pillow—of course, after taking out my Sai. Once they are back in, I stand up and pull my bag over my shoulder. I shine the flashlight around me, looking for Damian. He seems to have disappeared but when I walk forward, I hear his voice somewhere.

"Yes…we're about to leave the Pacific Ocean. She's awake, we're ready to go…how is Gotham? Of course…I see. Understood, you told me that already…Robin out."

"Everything okay, there?" I ask as Damian walks into the light of the torch.

"They're fine."

"Any leads on the Thaumaturge?"

"Not yet but they're tracking down the people she's worked with when she was still performing."

"Great. Shall we go?"

I summon Moretsuna and Gankona. I tell them to illumine their scales so that we can see. Once we get on them, they dim their glows and we take off for the skies. The wind is sharp and cold on my sleepy face like little daggers so I pull my jacket over my face and put my head down.

Damian may have the strength to wake up this early but my habits aren't changed. I need the energy to face the day. I'll practice some other day…

I think I slept for about an hour until Damian yells my name. I jerk awake and look to my side. "What is it?"

"It's Wei Zhihao…it's 6:00 PM in Gotham now. Strange. She always struck early in the morning or afternoon."

"What did she do?" I ask.

"Batman…he isn't answering me," He growls. "Batman? What happened?"

"Maybe—Maybe he's busy," I say. "Do you want to—?"

"Speed up? Yes. Do it."

"It can either give you vertigo or nausea or both, Damian. You sure?"

"Positive. We have to do this as fast as possible so that we can return to Gotham and help them."

[Moretsuna, Gankona, you heard the little guy. Try to travel as straight as you can please…you remember the last time…]

We glider faster over the vast sea, fast enough to make me feel sick. They tear and dive into clouds. I don't know if they forgot what I said or disregarded it but they're definitely not trying to keep it calm. Gankona's long body rolls like a skipping rope shook at one handle, up and down. I clutch my stomach and try to keep the food from last night in. I look at Damian and he seems absolutely unfazed but he's grabbing tight onto Moretsuna's horns. Since Gankona doesn't have horns, I hug her head and tighten my legs around her in fear of being dropped and not heard over the howl of the gale. I must be used to this but fast tempo is something I can never accustom myself to.

I look down. "We-We're here!"

It has hardly been ten minutes and we're already crossing over the Tarim River and then the range of mountains in Kunlun Shan. We pass over patches of green then peaks of brown through veils of white.

"[Moretsuna, Gankona, slow down!]" I yell, squinting at the summits below. "Damian, look for a little cottage down there!"

But I already see it. Moretsuna and Gankona take us down and I let them go back in the tattoos. Damian follows me closely behind, a small weapon called the batarang in hand. I don't bother telling him it's unnecessary.

The front door is enchanted to only open to our hands. It looks like a battered, wooden door with a bad paint job but it's impenetrable to outsiders. I place the flat of my hand on it then push it open. I look for the lamp as we enter. I burn the kerosene, which is almost gone, but dim light floods the living room. Damian starts to walk around, observing. He stares into the jars and ornaments, squinting at the labels of vials. Then he takes out a handheld device that looks similar to a notepad and writes quickly into it.

"I'll go look in our room…" I say and walk through the curtains that hide our beds. I should be feeling hurt, angry, or even tenacious but when I see our bedroom I begin to miss her. I swallow the lump in my throat and approach her closet. We use different ones because she said she had too many things in hers. So I had a small cabinet for my clothes and belongings.

I try to open it but it doesn't budge. I pull the handle again with all my strength. It could be like the front door so I place my palm on the door and wait for it to push open. It doesn't. Of course it doesn't.

"Dammit," I murmur. "Obviously she would have enchanted her closet. She has something she doesn't want me to see in there."

I sit on my bed and ponder. My eyes flick around as I think about how to work it out. She has a number of spells but only a handful for locking and securing. She taught me one, only, about the charm on the door. If it's the same enchantment here, then I'll have to completely destroy the wardrobe and I don't really want to resort to that in case I damage something.

I reach over and pull out a drawer from the nightstand. Inside is an ointment for burns, a small calendar, and my handy pocketknife. I keep the pocketknife and open another drawer. I see the photos we took but I don't take them out. I can't be distracted. I have to figure out the spell on her wardrobe.

"Damian? Come through the curtain!" I call.

"Did you find the notes?" He asks, stepping into the room.

"Well, I think they could be in the wardrobe. She must have cursed it for a reason."

He takes out the torch, gets down on all fours, and shines light under her bed. Then he walks over to my bed and searches under there too. I hope a spider doesn't jump on his face.

"I don't think you have to—"

"Batman told me to investigate so I'm investigating."

Whatever satiates him. I put my head in my hands and think faster. She doesn't utter any sound when she places her spells. Her mind is her magic, she said. So how the hell am I supposed to get it?

"No clue?" Damian sighs, looking into every drawer.

"Yeah, sorry. One thing we can try is that we destroy the wardrobe."

"Then do it."

"I don't want to use a bomb."

"We'll just kick it until it busts open. Are you sure the spell will come off when it's in pieces?"

"Yeah, it has to be in ruins, not just the doors off its hinges. Then the spell cannot recognize what it has to keep locked. Even if we punch one hole in the closet you can't reach in and grab whatever you want because the spell is a barrier that has to be shattered all around."

"Good enough. Ready to punch?"

We give it our all. Our fists slam in, yank out, and repeat. My leg rams into the hinges and the door crashes at our feet. Damian clasps his hands together and brings them down on the residual wood. Then when the structure is completely torn down, we smash the jagged planks and make sure everything lies in fragments.

Damian continues his thorough investigation as I remove her clothing from the box lying beneath. The box isn't locked, thank goodness, but when I lift the lid up, I'm both surprised and disappointed to see just two sheets ripped from a newspaper and stapled together. I beckon Damian and we both read it. Or I read it, because Damian doesn't know Chinese. I think.

The first thing that catches my attention on the first paper is the black and white photo of a woman. I bite the inside of my lip, studying the eyes, the cheeks…the features I notice the most on Wei-san. It's her but it seems like she's ten years younger. Her hair is mostly dark and she's not hunched. I read the headlines. I read it again. It just doesn't seem to register in my head.

["ÈYÙN", CULPABLE WITCH, RESPONSIBLE FOR MAGICAL MAYHEM ACROSS EASTERN CHINA]

My eyes flick up to the date.

February 2nd, 2007

"Oh, god," I whisper. My eyes run down the all the disasters she's caused in Anhui, Jiangsu, Liaoning, Shandong, Hubei, and other provinces in eastern China. From fearsome floods to horrifying hurricanes, these are things I never expected Wei-san to be capable of or… have the heart to do. Thunderstorms, earthquakes, tsunamis, armies of possessed civilians, and poisoned water and medicine…she's done them all.

Her villainous identity is Èyùn so she must have been just another normal Chinese citizen—Wei Zhihao. If she had been making medicine, maybe she was a doctor or pharmacist. What went wrong?

I flip the stapled sheets over and read another headline.

THE END OF "ÈYÙN"? CHINA FINALLY AT PEACE

She disappeared for ten years…laid low, buried in the Kunlun Shan of northwestern China. If these two sheets were stapled together it must mean the other sheet is the manifestation of her "greatest" days and this sheet embodying her greatest failure. Tucked away in her box…in her enchanted closet…but I didn't find what we came for.

I fold the sheets carefully and stow it in my bag, to show the rest when we get back to Gotham. I breathe out, feeling tired inside. I trusted a murderer, a villain. I loved her. God, how could I have been so stupid?

"Namakettei," Damian says. "Come look."

I walk over to where he is, at the empty space where Wei-san's bed used to be. I didn't even hear him move it. He crouches down and points at the wall, slightly discolored from the grey hue of the stone. It's just a darker blotch and I tell him it's nothing, rapping on it to produce the dull, hard sounds.

"See? Just stone."

"Not very perceptive, are you?" He sighs. "I'm the son of the greatest detective in the world. I know what I'm doing. Knock on the other spots of the wall. It sounds a tad bit different from this darker shade."

I do so and listen intently. He's right. Now the first place I knocked sounds just a little hollow.

He takes out his batarang and carves a square in the wall with the pointy edge. The slab of stone falls into his hands and he puts it aside. We expose a hole but it's dark and empty looking.

"Wei Zhihao obviously used her magic to make the stone look intact and she's clever enough to hide it behind her bed, at the bottom of the wall. But not clever enough to suspect we'd come looking for the notes. It has to be in there. The entire cottage is clean."

Damian reaches in and struggles. "Hmmm, it's deep in there."

He takes out a projectile that looks similar to the grappling gun and calls it the 'batclaw'. He launches the claw into the depths of the hole.

"What if it's bottomless or leading to a bigger hole?"

But I hear the metal scrape against the stone. And there's a rustle of papers.

"You hear that? Just gotta reel it in…I think the claw caught hold." The rope retracts and the claw brings out a sheaf of crumpled papers. I can feel my heart jump back into my throat. This is it. Most of her plans now lay in front of us. Under different dates is her neat Chinese script, each entry a short paragraph. She seems to only write when something comes to her, because the dates are very far apart. They're like markings of her progress.

"Read it aloud," Damian says, stowing away his claw.

"You understand Chinese?"

"I come from a Chinese and Arabic heritage."

"…I see…I thought you were wh—"

"White? Of course you did."

"Well, you are tan—"

"Read."

I breathe out. And I read.

"[The dragon eggs…I can smell their ethereality right off of them. The things I can with such power in my hands when they hatch…but do I really want to walk down this lane again? I'll have to contemplate. I cannot be careless this time.]

"[The girl, Tomoe Namakettei, ordinary but bubbling with gratitude and trust. Young, ignorant, and kind. I can use them all against her. Even after Nature stole back their gifts from me I think I'm ready to rise again. Ten years of quiet shame…although it wasn't a life I minded.]

"[This is will take longer than I expected. The dragons, since born, are devoted to her. I have to earn their trust…care for them. It's all part of the procedure anyway. I can be a patient person when the reward is worthwhile.]"

I don't feel like reading anymore. My throat hurts and twists. It had been from the start. But I'm not even at the worst part yet.

"[The dragons could be dangerous without any control on them. Tomoe is too friendly and gentle to them. If I draw her magic tattoos she will have physical and mental influence over them…for now.]

"[I need to keep an eye on her…maybe I should make her a necklace. She would be more than willing to wear it, as it will seem like a token of love. I have to make sure I know where she is at all times…]"

"[She thinks of me as a mother. It's the third year since she's come along. Perhaps it's time I try it out. The tattoos are laced with poison that instigates paralysis, she can't put up a fight. The way my magic works is irritating, having to make deep, mental connections with those whom I want something from. This body does me no good, I have to start fresh. They trust me so now I can steal Tomoe's body and gain complete control over Moretsuna and Gankona. I can have fun once more.]"

"There it is," Damian says, pointing at the last bit of the note. "She wants to take over your body. Start her reign of terror all over again."

"There's more…" I say sadly and turn the sheet over. Her handwriting is slightly scrawled on the side.

"[It's not working. I've calculated everything but it's not working. She was sleeping, the time she's most vulnerable…why didn't my magic work? It has always worked. All the elements are in place. What am I missing?]

"[Every night is a failure…she sleeps it all way and my patience is wearing very thin. I waited another year, played it sweet and motherly even though I knew she trusted me enough. I cannot do this any longer; my mind is in pain from all the work. I can't risk neurological damage at this point. I'm so darn close. I need answers. Right now.]"

The last bit of writing is even more rushed.

"[It has been five years and now I know what to do. I need to see the Thaumaturge. I hate to admit but that woman is a tad bit more…practiced than I am. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I need to travel in silence and stealth out of China and into America. I believe that's where I last saw her. I don't ask for favors but time is of the essence. Another abortive attempt might just incapacitate my brain. I know Tomoe well enough to know that she'll wait a couple of weeks before looking for me. I'll let her come to me and by then…I'll have all the answers.]"

And that is the last entry. The paper slips between my fingers. Damian stands by me, registering the last words. He stops writing in his electronic notepad and looks at me. I close my eyes and feel heat behind my eyelashes. The heat of tears. Heat of betrayal.

"This must be what I get for being unfaithful to my village, my family. A knife in my back."

"I'll tell you the truth, Namakettei," Damian says. "But it's your own second nature that gets you in trouble. That gets us in trouble."

He's right.

This time, I'll take it to the heart.