"I can't decide if I'm grateful for not having to wear someone else's boxers or if I'm going to die of that 'a stranger had to guess my size and got it right' shame," Hayate said from the bathroom. He grimaced even as he rooted through the shopping bag, going by the sound of crinkling plastic. "Actually, you know what? Kill me now."
"No. And I'd say pity the workers, honestly." Kei specifically pitied whoever had to ring out Nightwing during a Wal-Mart graveyard shift. If he was any good at hiding from cameras, no one would ever believe the story of a vigilante turning up at a strip mall to buy a pack of mid-quality boxers. Kei couldn't parse that scenario herself. "It's three in the morning."
"I don't think it's fair to say something like that when we're benefiting from it." And then he shut the door, because he realized that there was still a houseguest to account for and recognized how having audiences while underdressed kind of sucked.
Nightwing, sitting on the couch and turned sideways so they could include him in the conversation, did his best not to laugh at Hayate's predicament. While she had talked to him on the phone in Japanese, for some reason Kei had been expecting a visit from Tall, Dark, and Broody. That "some reason" came down to the fight from maybe an hour ago, in which she'd pancaked two enemy fighters in ten seconds because no one was allowed to threaten Hayate in her line of sight.
I thought it was a decent first impression, Isobu said, as though he hadn't been encouraging violence the whole way. Landing on the first guy had been his idea.
At least, initially. Kei had still gone with it, though.
Still, Nightwing was a little more welcome than Batman might've been. Kei couldn't quite picture herself whipping up fried rice and actually cajoling the Dark Knight into eating with them at a table like a person. Nightwing, though, wasn't one to turn down freebies. Especially as a part of a social ritual, used since ancient times to encourage everyone involved not to vault the table and brawl at the first sign of hostility.
Anyway.
Aloud, Kei said in the face of Hayate's complaints, "Yeah, that's how society works. Everyone's a cog in the machine."
"Oh, like that's new."
"If—" Kei began, gearing up for a debate.
And then Hayate cut off any further responses by turning on a hair dryer. That was one way to get the last word. It seemed like Gotham gave him a few childish bad habits, but Kei couldn't really bring herself to try and curb them. Red Hood had obviously failed already.
Still, Kei was mostly in a good mood. Her brother was back within shouting distance, which was the most important thing. It soothed her soul in a way nothing else did. Sure, there was that looming transmigration conversation she was putting off like a bomb on a long timer. And she didn't actually know how they were going to get home, yet. But those were minor concerns when weighed against the indisputable fact that Hayate was safe. She was so buoyed up by that thought that she sang a little under her breath, like she hadn't done since arriving.
"Is that 'Mr. Brightside?'" Nightwing asked, probably since it seemed like a good icebreaker.
"It's catchy." It was also old enough that Kei didn't have to think very hard to bring up the tune. And when she got tired of it, she hummed something else as she stirred the rice.
A couple of minutes later, Nightwing said, "I'm hearing 'A Thousand Miles.'"
"Yep."
"How's that classic radio station drift treating you?"
Oof. Aside from making her feel fossilized at the ripe old age of sixteen-and-some-weirdness… "Grocery stores don't change their playlists much. I'll live."
And so on. They got through a surprising number of early 2000s songs before the food was done. Stir-fry was usually quick, but Kei found herself reluctantly caught up in the game. It was easier than expected; Kei could at least remember the hooks to most of the songs she chose, and Nightwing was willing to try and quiz her back with his better-practiced voice. Eventually, he got his phone out and started just playing songs off the internet to see if she could guess them.
She did terribly on anything past the early New Tens. It made Nightwing laugh, at least.
There probably wasn't going to be too much of that later on. Kei, against the grain of her training and most of her recent habits, had a plan. Failing that, she had an idea. But she needed Hayate to help her succeed. For a given value of the concept. It was probably going to end explosively even in an ideal world.
It was too late not to inform the Bats about Red Hood's real identity. Hayate had enough data to put the pieces together, even without a name, and Batman already had a DNA sample to test. Kei might've grumbled about Red Hood's theatrics so far, but now the information was bare millimeters under the surface. It was only a matter of time.
Kei wasn't really doing anything worse than giving the Bats a nudge.
I do recall you saying that you had no plans to interfere with the dramatic players of this world.
Yeah, Kei thought. But here we are. It's like if witness protection was completely half-assed and you still got a front-row seat to all the stabbing.
And despite Kei's attempt at scheming, Nightwing was still getting the most honest version of her that didn't cross certain lines. She didn't attempt to hide behind books, or cooking, or masks. She'd actually declined his offer to borrow one when he arrived. There were no civilian comrades to defend through secrecy, here. The Genbu identity was more of a courtesy now than ever. Its true purpose was to help the various masked vigilantes feel a little less like they were being pressured, even unintentionally, by someone from outside of their community.
Which they were. But it didn't need to be obvious.
Still, Kei did have a lingering concern from her end. "Nightwing?"
Nightwing had started flipping through some app on his phone, maybe to stock up for more musical quiz time later. "Yeah?"
There probably wasn't a good way to phrase this, but Kei felt obligated to try. "Don't try to make my brother feel guilty about the dead gangsters."
"Oh?" Nightwing had gone still, and his dimples disappeared as his expression flattened out a little. "I take it he already told you his side of the story."
Part of it. Maybe even a third. Kei knew damn well that Hayate left out a lot of details when it suited him, but more importantly, Nightwing had called before Kei could get the entire account of Hayate's time in Gotham. At least it sounded like Red Hood had given him the best possible experience. Past the initial shock of discovering firearms, it sounded like the worst Hayate experienced was being bored out of his skull. Not, say, murdered by some rando. There were probably people in this city who would've killed for the privilege.
"Yeah, I heard it," Kei said. "But the truth is that Suzaku doesn't care about them." Which sounded terrible. Kei bit the inside of her cheek as she searched for a way to make the explanation work. Nothing sprang to mind, but she kept talking anyway. "We were raised with the expectation that the highest priority was coming home alive. They'd already shot him. He acted according to his training."
"He's a child," Nightwing said, and it was as much a statement of pity as it was a condemnation of the factors that put Hayate in that position in the first place. "We wouldn't hold him responsible for his actions like an adult, Genbu, but you have to admit that this situation is a mess. Between Red Hood and his gang war, and you and the ninja situation, there's good reason to be worried."
Kei agreed, but only up to a point. Swordpoint, usually. "If someone tries to bring him in on murder charges, they probably won't stick."
"Genbu, he's a minor. He'd be placed in…" Nightwing's jaw worked for a second. Kei knew she wouldn't like what he had to say in the slightest. "He'd be in a juvenile detention facility, if things went really badly. More likely a foster family and witness protection."
Kei's hackles went up instantly. Oh, fuck that.
As though we would not raze this place to the ground to retrieve him.
"He's an undocumented minor who reads as a metahuman. Call me a cynic, but that's already starting with a bad hand." The supports for orphans in Konoha were nothing to write home about, even after getting Yakushi Nonō in charge of reorganizing everything Danzō broke, but holy shit did Kei not trust Gotham's version. It took way too much self-control to keep the snarl out of her voice. "No. Not happening."
There was a certain catlike grace to most shinobi, particularly as they got older and traded youthful energy for adult efficiency. Even in moments of total indignity—like cats falling off countertops—it was still there. Their power and skill was a part of them, integrated into every moment of their lives. Extreme athletes to the core, every last one. Even pratfalls were calculated to some degree. Hell, a lot of them used their powers specifically to facilitate goofing off in ways civilians rarely managed. Death-defying rooftop races were the simpler end of the scale.
Nightwing moved similarly, and he was using most of that self-control and body awareness to avoid freaking Kei out. He hadn't uncurled from his casual gymnast pretzel mode on the couch, but he did keep a little bit too still. Shoulders only a little scrunched, head still leaning on his hand, but very able to spring to his feet and start swinging.
Kei maybe hadn't clamped down on her anger fast enough. "Sorry. I shouldn't have snapped."
"It's fine. I guess I touched a sore spot," Nightwing said, and some of the tension left him. "Just to clarify, though… If Suzaku doesn't grasp the rules of engagement around here, do you?"
If she didn't, Kei probably would have left dead assassins from here to Metropolis. But it was probably worth laying out all the knowledge she had, like the pieces were items at a yard sale. Just to be sure everyone knew what they were in for.
"I do. You and the rest of the Bats are masked vigilantes. Heroes." And unlike some of her contemporaries, she didn't spit the word. "You work outside the law, but you're tolerated by the police because you don't kill, and you're a counterbalance to the mass-murdering supervillain population." Though, now that she thought of it, Kei was pretty sure Wonder Woman had just snapped a dude's neck once. And not even in one of those bazillion alternate universes, like the one where Superman's space pod landed in the Soviet Union. "You don't have arrest authority, but it doesn't really matter that much, since the police can arrest whoever gets tied to a flagpole. It's about saving people. How am I doing so far?"
While she talked, Kei moved the fried rice off the stove—probably burned at the bottom by now—before starting to portion it out into bowls. One, two, three. A little rounded on top, because this was supposed to get them through to morning. Actual morning, not this liminal hell.
"Better than most," Nightwing admitted. It sounded like it pained him. "You sure you're from another world? It's a better grasp of the nuances of how some heroes operate than most baby vigilantes start with."
"If I was from here, I wouldn't have a body count. But here I am." At least, Kei wouldn't have been yanked out of college to turn herself into a ninja. There'd be other choices to make, like suffocating under student loan debt rather than the weight of guilt and grief. And being a psychology major was probably safe in cities that weren't anywhere near Gotham. "I'm a little jealous of your world. It's mostly peaceful."
"This says absolutely terrible things about your standards." Well, the guy operated in Gotham and Worse-Gotham. Nightwing could probably call her out on that.
"It does."
There were very few people, she thought, who would genuinely want to live in the "magical child soldiers are not just common, but encouraged" dimension. It had some perks. The perks were thoroughly wrapped up in a depressing, violent reality the second someone stood still and thought about it for too long. There were times Kei had nothing to do but think, and think, and think.
Complete with tapping your own skull.
Winnie the Pooh's got nothing on me.
"If Suzaku ever wants to hang up his sword and become an accountant, I'd—" Probably not celebrate. She couldn't say that honestly. While knowing how to fight and keeping in shape wasn't a guarantee of safety anywhere, Kei wouldn't be able to help but drag him out to train sometimes. "I'd support him, if it made him happy. But that's not today, and trying to talk him out of the family legacy is pointless."
Somehow, she thought Nightwing would understand that argument better than any other. He was, after all, chasing two legacies whenever he put on a mask and flipped off a building. And from the look on his face, maybe he was thinking of it too.
"Anyway, food time."
Before Nightwing could recover or ask her for more details, Suzaku's hair dryer switched off.
"I'm done now." Hayate opened the bathroom door with a muffled grumble as he pulled a T-shirt over his head. Steam billowed out after him before being sucked into the ventilation fan above the stove. His hair was still damp, so maybe the dryer had just been to cut off the conversation. "So we were talking about food—"
"Go eat." Kei handed him one of the bowls of fried rice the second his head popped free of the hole. "I could hear your stomach behind the door."
"I'm a growing boy," Hayate muttered as he went, because he had to say something. What were teenagers without back-sass? "Everyone says so."
Kei pushed him along with one hand. "We'll see."
"You're mean. That was mean and hurtful," Hayate informed her, but he still stole her spot by the window and dug into his rice with a spoon.
If she remembered right, Hayate still had another…twentyish centimeters of height left to go. He'd gotten to the point where it was genuinely annoying him how long his growth spurt was taking, and thus he was genuinely annoying people around him. Kei hadn't gained a millimeter since she was fourteen, so she wasn't sure if she was supposed to commiserate or just make faces at him.
Kei carried her and Nightwing's bowls and distributed them accordingly, flopping onto the couch hard enough to briefly bounce. Nightwing didn't take off his gloves, which were probably basically heatproof anyway, and didn't insult her cooking by overtly testing for poison. Like Kei had any reason to dose him with anything.
Once everyone was eating, Hayate commented, "Nice not to have to cook for once."
"You were cooking, Suzaku-kun?" Nightwing was so careful to phrase his question with the right level of respect. No doubt he was still a little out of practice. The Japanese-speaking population in Gotham wasn't that high compared to other East Coast cities.
"Akaboshi and I traded off," Hayate said, clearly not bothered at all by the thought. Which was kind of funny; unlike Kei, Hayate was the kind of person who cooked almost exclusively based on his favorites. Everyone else could just deal with the consequences of letting him take a turn at the stove. "I was going to wake up whenever he got back from the night job, so I figured I'd do something that meant we could both sleep sooner."
"Red Hood took you straight to his apartment after meeting him?" Nightwing asked, sounding surprised. The thought of Red Hood being all domestic clearly stabbed a knife straight into his mystique. "You must have made a strong first impression."
"Sure, if 'bleeding on everything' counts. I actually lived in one of his safehouses until I could walk again. He came by a lot to check on me. The couch sucked, but it was…okay, overall. " Hayate waved a hand in the air in a "so-so" gesture. Then he added, more cheerfully, "He learned I was better when I broke into his place and moved myself in."
"You what?" Nightwing, at least, sounded appropriately horrified. Or at least impressed by her brother's audacity.
I don't think I can ever actually have students, Kei thought faintly, keeping her shock on the inside for once. She was torn between the urge to throttle her brother or encase him in some kind of safety bubble. It'd be like this, but there'd be three of them.
I am sure you can still experience stress in new and exciting ways.
I'm going to name my first gray hairs after you and after him. If Kei's last lifetime was any indicator, she'd start finding them well before she turned twenty.
Hayate grinned. There was scallion stuck in his teeth, which did exactly nothing to cut down on the smugness. "Hey, he stopped talking down to me after that." He paused, brain catching up to his mouth, and then added, "As much."
Kei put her face in her hands. Took measured breaths. When she looked up again, her eyes itched faintly until she blinked a few times and got hold of herself again. "We'll be talking about this later."
After a quick scoff to acknowledge that remark, Hayate just went back to his food. Entirely unconcerned. Like Kei's threat had the same bite as a fucking Muppet.
"Brat," Kei muttered, defeated.
"We could just do the interview," Nightwing offered, reading the tension in the room. It could serve as a distraction for Hayate from Kei's (apparently) overprotective sisterly wrath. At least for a little while. "Really, Genbu-san, while your cooking is great, we did come over here for a reason."
"Let's finish eating first," was Kei's reply. She didn't really have a better idea for how to respond to that.
A couple of minutes later, everyone redistributed around the room to get ready. Hayate dragged the folding chairs from the real table to use the coffee table as the center of the room, then plunked cushions onto the cold metal in case this was going to take a while. Kei stuck the dishes in the sink and left them to soak before coming back, putting a water bottle in front of Nightwing's left hand in anticipation of a dry throat. Nightwing set up a digital recorder in the middle of them all, accompanied by a compact microphone, and started fiddling with the settings. They soon all sat in a peaceful little triangle—siblings next to each other—prepared for whatever shook out of this conversation.
Nightwing turned the recorder on with a beep noise, then said, "Let's just get started. Mind introducing yourselves?"
Hayate looked to Kei first, like he needed permission, and then turned to the microphone. "Hello, mysterious future people. I'm going by 'Suzaku' because I thought of it on the spot when talking to Robin that first time. You know, two red birds. And Akaboshi being…also red. I thought it was funny."
Nightwing tilted his head to one side. He had leaned forward over his knees, elbows locked, and smiled encouragingly. "Really? No direct theming?"
The world couldn't only be full of Super-whatevers and Bat-things. The only comparable concept in Konoha involved ANBU, and the masks were nearly random. The fact that Raidō was Falcon had no bearing on Kakashi's Wolf, or people like Rat or Horse or Ox. While it wasn't uncommon for members of specific clans to have a theme, it had nothing to do with the split between secret identities and civilian lives.
"I said 'Genbu' because I was wearing black," Kei put in with a shrug. "Oh, and because of being possessed by a turtle monster."
I am not simply a turtle.
"Or a crab-turtle-whale…thing. It was a whole inside joke," Kei corrected herself. "Do you need our real names?"
Nightwing appeared thrown by the idea of inside jokes with one's shoulder devil, but let it go. It was extremely generous of him, especially for a man who'd never actually spoken to Isobu. "No, the mask names are enough."
And sticking to mask names kept back the implication that reciprocation would be appreciated. Unmasking was a no-no. Nightwing probably wouldn't like knowing that Kei could already stick a name to his face. There was no way that Nightwing could reciprocate without drawing a world of trouble onto themselves. That seemed like the kind of thing that got "Security Risk" stamped over someone's photo.
"Okay, then. Suzaku-kun, do you mind recounting what happened when you first met Red Hood?"
"Sure," said Hayate, leaning back in his chair and settling in.
Hayate's story was delivered smoothly enough, given his modicum of practice. After a month between then and now, it was clear that any emotional impact of the event was long gone. He wasn't traumatized by the violence the evidence implied and he then confirmed. He didn't need to be asked to explain his reasoning behind trying to escape the place immediately, joked a little about not knowing what a gun was until he was already shot, was perfectly capable of working out where he'd made mistakes or thought he could do better now—
"And after they were both dead, I limped my way out of the building. Akaboshi caught up to me after that, we talked a little, and he offered to look after me while my leg healed."
—and he was entirely nonchalant about killing the two men who'd died of knife wounds.
A model shinobi, for his age. Kei couldn't decide whether she could be proud of him with Nightwing very clearly holding back several things he wanted to say. Well, I hope Nightwing keeps my warning in mind.
Optimist.
Kei did not laugh. She thought about it, though. Even when Hayate wound down and suddenly realized half his audience wasn't happy about what he'd said.
"The way you explained it before, you didn't have that much of a choice," Kei said with careful neutrality, letting her brother clamp onto her wrist and spark hesitation up her arm. "So, I guess this is when we talk about 'rules of engagement' for combat in foreign cities."
"Yes, I think we should." Nightwing tried to plaster a placating smile to his face, but it fell a little flat in the face of Hayate's clear apprehension. "If only to deal with the practical concerns of having the two of you here, now, with two murder investigations open."
Kei wondered if Nightwing had a canned speech for discouraging teenagers who tried to turn their sense of justice into a superhero career. He'd been—probably one of the first kid sidekicks ever, and definitely the first Robin. And his successor had died. How did that shape someone who lived in this city?
And he also lost his family.
Right, but… Wait. His parents had been killed in a mob hit, right? Did that make tiny Dick Grayson this world's Sasuke? Not Kei's Sasuke, obviously, because he still had a whole Uchiha clan to insulate him from vengeance not taken a universe over, but still.
Avoid straining yourself.
I think I'd have to ask to confirm anything, and that kind of question is not allowed. It hewed too close to secret identities and all that.
Meanwhile, Hayate tilted his head to one side, clearly skeptical. He held up his phone for Nightwing and Kei to see, showing off what looked like a web search. It was, unsurprisingly, "definition of murder." There was no way he'd had enough time to read for the nuances specific to New Jersey. "That wasn't murder. I'd already been shot, so I was defending myself."
"I'm afraid the law doesn't see it quite like that," Nightwing explained. He steepled his fingers together, blue stripes on his gloves matching up, and went on, "Self-defense doesn't automatically apply just because you say so. Killing people is still illegal."
Right, because as far as the legal system here was concerned, Hayate didn't count as law enforcement. He was just some random kid.
"I know that," Hayate said, sounding a bit defensive. "But if you stopped a war every time someone died to hold a trial, you'd never get a single operation off the ground. Civilians can do that, but shinobi are soldiers. I saw a threat, I got hurt, I reacted, and I'm only sorry they're dead because they probably could have not been dead if they were somewhere else."
"And here we fucking go," Kei said in English, clapping her free hand to her forehead.
"What?" Yep, Hayate definitely sounded defensive. "Oneesan, you already said—"
"They're not shinobi," Kei told him, perhaps a little sharper than intended. "They're vigilantes."
"…You're putting weird emphasis on that."
Shinobi didn't really have a concept for "vigilante" that didn't also fall into the categories of "bandit," "missing-nin," and "serial killer." Or some combination of the above. If a person wasn't obeying someone's authority while fighting, that probably made them a future target.
"Vigilantes exist because people decide to pursue justice outside the bounds of the law," Kei told him. She was pointedly avoiding looking at Nightwing; whatever his reasons for choosing to put on a mask and spandex, they weren't relevant. "But, in the bluntest way possible, shinobi—and our armies—exist because we need to be able to kill."
She'd had way too long to think about this. Kei hadn't left this tiny-ass apartment in long enough—prior to the last couple of days—to start just debating philosophy with Isobu for her waking hours when she wasn't cooking or trying desperately to get through that goddamn book. And if there was one thing Isobu could be counted on to do, it was viewing human activities with as cynical a lens as possible.
"Oh." Hayate frowned thoughtfully, peering into Kei's face as though to find some hidden truth there.
Like depression.
"If you're about to say something like 'but it solved my problem,' you're going to be on punishment duty starting the day we get back," Kei told him, refusing to acknowledge that.
Hayate stuck his tongue out at her for a second, but didn't dig himself any deeper.
"A bit of an oversimplification," Nightwing commented, apparently trying to talk past some of the subtext in that exchange. "But basically accurate. To be clear, though, I don't think anyone would actually press charges against an undocumented child. If only because Genbu-san will probably break the first bright bulb in half with her bare hands."
That thought clearly made Nightwing uncomfortable, though Kei appreciated the vote of confidence. If it was that. Probably a condemnation to some degree, too. She just nodded in confirmation when Hayate looked her way.
"I told Akaboshi something like that a while ago. Only…l think I was lying. In hindsight." Hayate looked back and forth between them, scrutinizing. "Oneesan really doesn't want to fight you, Nightwing-san." It sounded like "nai-to-win-gu" in his accent, when he wasn't just directly mimicking Kei. Too much emphasis on the G. "And I don't think she'd actually hurt Akaboshi now, either."
"You sound very sure of that." Nightwing said it lightly, as though Kei hadn't been intermittently hitting anyone near her with killing intent when her self-control flagged.
"I've known her my whole life," Hayate said loyally. And in a slightly different, more dry tone, he added, "Oneesan is very strong. But just because someone is strong doesn't mean they'll just hurt people. Strength without discipline is worthless."
Yep, that was Konoha training talking. The conventional version. And maybe adapted a bit for the sake of someone who lived in a house with three jinchūriki and multiple fūinjutsu masters for almost a year.
Superman being a key example there, not that Hayate knew about him. Granted, Kryptonians were blessed with "fuck you, physics!" levels of power not through training, but through genetic lottery, comic book science, and the light of a yellow sun, but Superman generally took people down with the minimum level of force he could. Batman…had a lot less leeway as an MMA fighter with an awful lot of gadgetry. Hence, the saga of many broken bones.
And on the ninja end of things, well, Konoha had multiple S-class combat shinobi. Hadn't burned to the ground yet. In some cases it wasn't for lack of trying, but still.
"Putting that aside, you're both soldiers?" Nightwing asked, shaking Kei out of her thoughts.
"Sworn shinobi of Konohagakure-no-Sato, yeah." Hayate didn't feel any need to conceal things there. Why would he? Every day, thousands of shinobi in the Land of Fire wore their headbands and flak jackets openly. Kei used her uniform as her everyday outfit, like she lived on a military base—which she did. To some degree. "We have the registration number and bank stubs and everything." Hayate did pause a little here, as though expecting the tension in the room to snap like a rubber band. "Though not actually on us, obviously. I left a lot of my stuff at Akaboshi's place."
Kei felt another ping of annoyance at that reminder, so she changed the subject. "Anyway. Since you're dying to ask, I've been doing this job for seven years. Give or take a couple of months. Suzaku for two."
"Months?" Nightwing asked automatically.
"Two years!" Suzaku corrected.
"I see. How old does that make you now?" The look on his face… Honestly, Kei didn't know how long Nightwing had been in the vigilante business. She hadn't looked up Robin on a vigilante wiki site or done the math regarding debut dates, but she was willing to guess that Nightwing had been kicking crime in the face since he was a preteen. Twelve, tops. In some ways, that was its own damning record.
A society that greased its wheels with the blood of its children probably deserved to die. It was just a pity that the mind behind her world—or the world that mind tapped into, depending on cause and effect—hadn't given a fuck. It was all about the adventure! And magazine sales! Anyone who said they wanted to live in a shōnen manga series needed to reassess their priorities, holy shit. Kei had no idea if they'd gotten less extreme about mortal peril since she'd tripped and fallen into ninja-land.
Hayate made a show of counting off on his fingers. Like he had to work out the timing, for some reason. "I'm fifteen—"
"No, you're not," Kei said.
"It's November—"
"It's still October, and it was May when we left." Though it did mean Kei's age was kind of screwy, that was a preexisting condition. Being sixteen or seventeen didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. It wasn't like that unlocked some sort of societal privilege, "And you don't just get six free months—"
"Then you're still sixteen." Hayate said it like it was a winning stroke in a duel.
"Sure, whatever." The only milestone that really mattered in Konoha at this point in Kei's life was the looming specter being promoted to full jōnin someday. She still planned to refuse if Sensei ever asked. Kei coughed to clear her throat, and her brother nudged a water bottle in her direction. "Anyway, you wanted to know about the crime lord."
Nightwing, thankfully, was willing to go with the flow. It wasn't like they'd actually run out of terrible things to say on any front, at least from the viewpoint of a normalish person. "Sure, might as well focus on the man of the hour."
"I can't really tell you much about the gang. He was trying to keep me out of it, so I only spoke to a couple of them before tonight," Hayate said, looking a little contrite. Only a little, though.
Kei had no doubt whatsoever that Hayate had worked out a lot more than he was willing to say. While his mission record contained exactly no references to interactions with criminal organizations, Konoha wasn't above allying with local yakuza groups if the latter were willing to bow their heads and toe the line. The Land of Fire needed money to flow here and there. There were times—especially during a war—when the country wasn't picky about whose money moved.
And if someone got unhelpfully bright ideas, ANBU existed at the Hokage's beck and call. Competition wasn't tolerated.
Honestly, that mindset explained why Shimika's bugs kept blithely killing assassins. There was definitely a no-poaching policy.
"Really? He never asked you to run drugs for him? You probably would have been the fastest one there." Nightwing wasn't wrong, exactly. Red Hood came across as a maverick willing to get his hands dirty to get things done. That said…
Hayate scoffed outright. "Uh, no? If he had his way, everybody dragging kids into that stuff would be dragged out in the street and executed."
Something in that statement clearly didn't gel with the story of Red Hood in Nightwing's head. Kei imagined it was Hayate's presence, what with using one of Red Hood's spare masks and everything.
"The only reason I was out tonight was because I proved there was nowhere he could stash me that I couldn't get out of, and I'd keep following him around anyway."
I need a child leash for him.
As does his teacher.
"Akaboshi will probably burn his safehouses, too, so I can't give you directions either." Hayate continued, like Kei didn't desperately need to share this heart attack with Inoichi and maybe shake them both by the collar for risk-assessment training deficits. "Not sure I would if I could."
"There it is." Kei sighed. Making a point to turn her head away from her brother and theatrically shield her mouth from his view, "And even if I don't like it, I owe Red Hood a lot for taking care of him better than I could've."
"I'm sure you could have managed," Nightwing offered.
Kei wasn't sure where he'd gotten his idea of her competence at navigating the intricacies of Gotham life, because she didn't think there was a single iota of "good impression" in any of their early meetings. The only way she could have made that first one worse was by tripping her Water Clone off the roof.
"Once you asked for help, at any rate."
There it was. "And I'm equally sure I couldn't. I was screwing up when it was just me." Kei lowered her hand and reached over to ruffle her brother's hair. While he batted at her hand, she went on, "Don't expect either of us to fight him on your behalf."
That earned a sideways little smile. Yeah, the Bats didn't outsource much. "I wasn't going to ask."
"Thanks."
Nightwing's refusal was probably because finding a compromise between two disparate operating procedures took time. It gummed up the gears. And even if Kei got Hayate to agree to stick to nonlethal combat—which was mandatory—she was pretty sure he'd let Red Hood dip out of any encounter he'd otherwise lose. Kei would allow it, too. Anything to pay down the principal of their debt without violence.
Oh, and the whole "no child soldiers" thing. Hayate, at least, couldn't be mistaken for an adult.
Hayate squirmed in his seat, probably because of the brief gap in the conversation. It felt like a song missing a beat. "Oneesan, am I supposed to give him Akaboshi's real name?"
Kei eyed him. While it would be useful for the Plan (which wasn't really worth the capital letter), she just said, "It didn't sound like you knew it."
"It would be helpful if you could, Suzaku-kun," Nightwing said in a patient tone. He had changed his body language somewhat to imply openness and honesty, hands relaxed in front of him. Nowhere near his weapons. "We're actually pretty good detectives, you know."
Yeah, because Batman didn't only pick up the nickname "The World's Greatest Detective" because comic book writers had problems with hyperbole. If his apprentices didn't pick up the skills, then Kei would wonder how they survived, especially if they operated in a whole 'nother hellhole city, like Nightwing did.
"He never told me to call him anything but 'Akaboshi,' so I didn't." Hayate's pout was either a product of defensiveness or frustration. "I can't really tell you his plans, either. He never discussed that stuff where I listen in."
"Anything could help, Suzaku-kun," Nightwing said encouragingly.
Hayate averted his gaze for a second.
Kei, however, had way less patience and worked her way through that knot like a knife. "Then tell him what you told me earlier, about watching the fight."
"Oh. I thought they said they were detectives?" Kei elbowed Hayate again, so he corrected himself with, "Nightwing-san."
"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?" This time, Nightwing leaned forward and looked almost hurt. Almost. Kei could spot a performance when she saw one, and Hayate couldn't be fooled at all.
Hayate, who was almost certainly channeling every bratty impulse in the world, said, "That Akaboshi's one of you, duh."
Nightwing went stone-still for a split second. It was kind of eerie, especially from someone who'd barely stopped fidgeting while eating. Or turning himself into a human pretzel while waiting for the food, come to think of it.
"Hey, are you all right?" Hayate shifted from scornful to concerned in an instant, clearly spooked by what he could read off Nightwing's body language. His chakra actually spiked up into mirrored, staticky panic that traveled up through Kei's brain, too. "Nightwing-san? I didn't mean it as an insult. He's just tsundere." Which was a remark that made Kei question the value of the internet as a concept, because what . "I mean, not exactly an insult. Did you kick him out for being too violent?"
"Excuse me?" was what came out of Nightwing's mouth. It sounded more like a reflex than anything. His throat worked as he yanked control back, pulling confusion away and shoving it into a well to be found never. At the same time, they'd struck a nerve with a hammer. "That's impossible. None of the people we've trained would have the time or inclination to turn themselves into the Red Hood. Or the build. Are you sure that's what you saw, Suzaku-kun?"
Denial was fun. Nightwing needed another push, though.
"I'm not wrong," Hayate said, leaning forward and staring directly into Nightwing's white domino lenses. Like he could project honesty like heat vision. "I'm telling the truth. When Akaboshi and K—and Batman-san fought those weird people, it was obvious they'd done it before. People who don't practice together get in each other's way all the time." He yanked on Kei's arm. "Come on, you agreed with me, Oneesan. Back me up here."
"Once he lost the guns, I thought Red Hood fought like a Bat," Kei said, while picking at her brother's grip with her nails. He refused to budge. "To recap: he's from Gotham, almost definitely hates the Joker, took up the Red Hood idea, and seems to know way too much about how you work." Red Hood had pointed her squarely at Batman, for all that hadn't done anything substantial. It was a car alarm blaring. "Look, something is weird."
"Suzaku-kun, I can't just take your word for it. You know that." Nightwing had withdrawn a little, and the shock was fully shoved under the rug. He crossed his arms and said, "I'm a decent sketch artist, and I know better ones, so maybe we could narrow the pool of suspects down to something reasonable."
Hayate hesitated again. Definitely that lingering loyalty and fellow-feeling toward Red Hood getting in the way this time. "I don't have a picture. Akaboshi said not to take any of his face. And I'm not great at…descriptions."
Nightwing drooped just slightly. Yeah, that would've been the easiest option.
For a normal person.
"Hang on." Kei maneuvered her arm so that her brother was firmly in his seat once again, held hostage by his own grip on her. "Suzaku, did you ever pick up all those weapons like I asked you to? The ones the bad guys were using earlier."
"…Um, no," was his response.
"You wanted me to heal him. So, assuming the injuries came from any of those weapons, then Batman already has a blood sample to test," Kei continued, prying her arm loose at last. "He's probably running it through everything he can think of. Akaboshi's identity is already compromised."
"Oh," Hayate said again. His shoulders dropped a little in disappointment.
Kei didn't know how to tell him that Red Hood had probably dropped that whopper of a hint on purpose. He'd been the one with the bleeding arm. There was no way he didn't know Batman's response to getting a DNA sample wouldn't be shoving it straight into the Batcomputer. "So, show us what he looks like without the mask. We'll probably know in a few hours anyway."
Hayate flipped out of his chair in a move like an acrobat, briefly balancing on the back before righting himself. He folded the chair up and scooted it against the wall, gaze flickering briefly to Nightwing and then Kei for confirmation once he'd cleared the floor.
At her responding nod, Hayate folded his hands together to make three hand seals. Dog, Boar, and Ram.
Poof! White smoke, everywhere.
"This is normal," Kei said, though Nightwing had still gotten off the couch in reflexive alarm. She'd also stood, hand on one hip, and waited for the result. "Give him a second."
And a very different person stood there, stance and hand orientation unchanged from Hayate's.
There were a couple of ways to fuck up Transformation Jutsu, based on any of three failures. The first was a shortcoming when it came to not having a clear enough picture in one's head of the target form. Usually, that turned the final result into a caricature. The next failure was in molding chakra, which could mean that the form slipped right out of the user's fingers at the first distraction. The final failure was in details; for example, forgetting that the target was left-handed as someone who automatically kept their kunai holster on the other leg. They were all things trained out of students before they graduated. When there was no other option, there was always the Academy Three.
As far as Kei could tell, Hayate's impression was perfect. After a month to observe his roommate, Hayate's old Academy teachers would have screamed in despair if he got anything wrong.
Hayate dropped his hands from the last seal, and shifted his body language entirely to match his copied face. In a voice lower than his own, with no hint of the usual teenage squeak, Hayate said, "Well, I think this'll work."
"Sounds like," Kei commented. That wasn't Hayate's Konoha accent, either. No, that sounded like something an American could use. Kei peered at him with a critical eye.
While it wasn't the shoulders-back swagger Kei had seen from Hood on her two encounters with him, he was…sort of like that. There was a hint of hesitancy there, as though Hayate wasn't entirely sure how long his limbs were while under Transformation. Maybe that was genuine to Red Hood's actual movements. No way to know without a direct comparison.
Then there was the physical profile.
Dressed in what appeared to be pajamas—dark gray sweatpants and a white tank top—Hayate's take on "Akaboshi" was probably a deliberate softening of his image. There just wasn't any getting around this new form's sheer bulk; he had a few inches and something like fifty pounds on Nightwing, never mind Kei or Hayate. Even with the sharply slanted brows and proud nose and the scar running from just under his eye down to his jaw, there was a slight boyishness clinging to his face. Either he fought stubble off with both hands or just couldn't grow a beard. His hair had a distinct white streak on black curls, around a center part made uneven by bedhead. There were thin scars curving over his arms, concentrating around his hands and forearms like someone hadn't been careful during blade training. And for some reason, she'd been assuming the first three Robins all had blue eyes. Above the same caliber of deep shadows Kei and Hayate bore, it was pretty clear that Hood's were more blue-green. This was the overgrown brat tearing up Crime Alley, in his off hours.
This was Jason Todd.
Nightwing hadn't said anything while Kei compiled Hayate's grade against her internal rubric. Instead, he walked around Hayate's transformed state in a slow circle, hands empty of his escrima, and never stopped staring. As though if he breathed too hard, the illusion would break.
At least, Kei assumed so. The mask made it hard to tell.
Nightwing finally circled back to his starting point, his face strangely blank for someone who was probably built for smiling. "Suzaku-kun, I assume that this is still you?"
"Yeah." Hayate's shoulders were too damn big like this. Sure, he'd drop the Transformation if Kei tickled him or made a sufficiently annoying sound, but it still annoyed her on a hindbrain level that she couldn't pat the top of his head without having to work for it.
"And this is…a magical ability. To copy anyone you've seen." At Hayate and Kei's nods, Nightwing stood back and said quietly, "Could you copy this pose for me?"
As soon as he finished the sentence, Nightwing shifted his weight into something heavier than usual, tilting his head so that he could scowl at someone out of the corner of his eye if he so chose. He crossed his arms, too, in a way that pushed his biceps out and up to make himself look a little bigger. It was all constrained violence, but defensive. Like he expected to take a lot of pain, but planned to go down swinging.
Hayate mimicked him with the same precision as an Uchiha. The movement sat so well on Hood's features—down to the death glare—that Kei figured Hayate had seen this temperamental countenance in person all too many times.
"Fuck." After that one burst of English, Nightwing put his face in his hands. He was swearing softly under his breath the whole time.
Hayate let the Transformation dissipate into smoke and noise immediately. He could feel shock and grief and hope from someone like Nightwing better than Kei ever could; she was only guessing. "Nightwing-san?" he asked in his own voice again.
"You know who Hood is," Kei said, with two forms of certainty behind her now.
She'd already known what was waiting on the other end of the equation. She just made these two do the math. She should leave it.
But there was the urge to chase truth, deadened after perusing reams of ROOT files and somehow risen again.
One would think a few terrible revelations would be enough.
Kei opened her mouth and began, "Who—"
"That's not a question I can answer for you," was Nightwing's reply, harsher than his response to the assassins. His expression, or what was visible once he lifted his head, was ice-cold. When he noticed Hayate pull back at the outburst, Nightwing schooled his features into something a little closer to calm, even managing a smile after a moment's thought. "Sorry, it's a security thing! But you've been very helpful in our investigation of the Red Hood case. Between the audio recording and what my camera's good for, I think we can end this discussion here."
Being able to snap back to normalcy that abruptly was kind of freaky. Or it would have been if Kei was a little less prone to it herself. She rested her hand on Hayate's proper-height shoulder and said, "So, you're leaving?"
"I still have a patrol route to complete, so I'll need to catch up with my schedule. You know how it is." Which was a yes, but—
Hayate scooped up the water bottle on the table and pushed it into Nightwing's hands. "Drink this. And wash your face. Don't leave until then."
"Suzaku-kun—"
"You're not in a good headspace," Hayate said firmly, his fingertips barely touching the tip of Nightwing's glove. "Oneesan would tell you to take a minute if she wasn't being all suspicious. Or five." He huffed. "Hell, Akaboshi would tell me off if I acted like this."
Nightwing, who'd been fighting street thugs for longer than Kei and Hayate's combined career lengths (and maybe longer than Hayate had been alive), actually listened. A little. He didn't stay for longer than those five suggested minutes, but he drained the water bottle and dunked his head under the sink before toweling off. It wasn't like additional water would make that much difference on a night like this.
Hayate handed him the hair dryer, which he laughingly pushed away. There was something kind of terrible about Nightwing's demeanor after the interview and he didn't shake it by the time he left. The window didn't slam, but it felt like it should've.
You'd think after having experience with Obito's situation, we'd be better at this.
How exactly does one practice telling another that their loved one is alive and evil?
"Oneesan?" Hayate leaned his weight into Kei's side, his chakra apprehensive at best. "I think we really hurt him."
"I think so, too." Kei didn't really know if what they'd done here was going to make any positive difference, short- or long-term. Nightwing would've found out about his brother being Red Hood eventually, and that was its own time bomb. "I don't know if that could've been handled better. Once you figured out the connection, we had to say something."
"I guess. I just hope Akaboshi's doing better than that." From the tone of his voice, it was a faint hope at best.
A couple of nights later, the news feed on Hayate's phone claimed that someone had blown up an office in the Diamond District using a rocket launcher. Kei didn't even have to look up at her brother's worried frown to know who was most likely behind it.
But she did say, "I guess his arm feels better."
"We're gonna go see him," Hayate said, and Kei didn't argue.
Notes:
1. Per one version of his origin story, the CPS of Gotham ran out of space in the foster care/orphanage system they already had, and the social worker's solution was to dump Dick Grayson in a juvenile detention facility. As a tiny Rom kid who'd just lost his parents in a double homicide. Needless to say, it did not go well.
2. In real life, New Jersey abolished the death penalty in 1965.
3. Wonder Woman is the only member of the DC Trinity (which is her, Superman, and Batman) without a thou-shalt-not-kill policy. When you get down to it, while she prefers peace and diplomacy, she was a warrior first. The incident Kei was thinking of was when Wonder Woman killed Maxwell Lord during the Infinite Crisis crossover event, though Kei has no idea of the context. It hasn't happened in this timeline.
4. The "Superman raised in the USSR" thing is a reference to Superman: Red Son. It got an animated movie adaptation in 2020.
5. In the Under the Hood arc of the comics, I'm pretty sure Nightwing was canonically busy with several different things going horribly wrong in Blüdhaven and was not remotely available for a Batfamily showdown. And in the film, he never(?) found out who Red Hood was after getting injured about halfway through and sent home. So, we're trying something different here.
6. The main reason Cassandra Cain isn't Batgirl in this story is because she'd hand Jason his ass in three seconds. Four, tops. And he'd deserve it.
