AN: Long time no see, lol! Has it really been one year since my last update?
Okay so first thing, don't get fooled by the chapter length. This was originally a much longer chapter but I felt that 15k words was way too long so I decided to split them up.
It's almost done so I guarantee that you will see the next chapter within a day or two. I wanted to give a satisfying ending after making you all wait for so long.
As for where have I been? Well, that's another less interesting story but let me just say that I nearly gave up on this story. I was losing interest and would've quit writing all together had my girlfriend not talked me out of it.
I found it quite difficult to keep my attention on one particular project so to maintain my interest, I ended up working on multiple stories at the same time and you will be seeing what I've been working on this whole time in the coming weeks.
That's not to say that you guys have not been encouraging me. I'm still amazed that even now I find new readers following and favoriting my works or when I get PMs asking about when the next chapter is coming out. For that, I humbly thank you all.
One last thing: I just want to warn everyone that the violence in this chapter gets ramped up quite a bit.
CHAPTER 16: No more
The woman stood tall. Golden irises glinted from within her dangerously sharp eyes and her smile, laden with light pink lipstick, did little to hide her cruel disposition. Her hair, colored the same as her lips, was cropped short from her neck yet flowed pointedly to the sides like a mane and was divided at the center by a sharp white streak that rose up from her widow's peak.
Although her frame was lean and toned, her shoulders appeared broad alongside her flat chest. As a matter a fact, her body looked so male that, at a glance, it was easy to mistake her as one.
Like her opponent, she too wore a fantasy-themed gladiatorial costume that exposed her midriff, baring six-pack abs and a notable navel stud. And gripped in both her hands was her summoned Device: a wicked looking whip-like weapon.
"It's not her." Bruce internally sighed, unable to quell the disappointment that surged within him.
He couldn't believe how wrong Komatsu got her description and it was apparent that the only thing her that he got right was the white streak.
Bruce reigned in his frustration, reminding himself that the lead was a long shot anyway and besides, this did not change the current mission.
When he briefly flicked his gaze towards the petite woman next to him, he noticed that her gaze appeared passive and barely interested.
'Apathy' would be the word he'd use to describe her at the moment.
Kashiwagi's voice blared through the speakers.
"Sate Sate, Mina-sama! With our warriors assembled, the time has come! Hajimemashou~!" she declared cutely.
The monitors counted down.
3, 2, 1, FIGHT!
With anxious haste, Sophia suddenly charged at her opponent in hopes of getting the drop on her. Her body surged with adrenaline and Mana, accelerating her at a rate that no mortal could match. The woman known as Venomous didn't change from her posture and only regarded the fast approaching girl with a look that bordered on annoyance and disbelief.
Just as Sophia got close to her target, a sudden surging motion whipped in front of her; causing her to yelp and quickly bring up her shield in time to be struck hard and with enough force to knock her back.
"Oooh! And Sophia makes the first move!" Kashiwagi commentated. "But our Killer Queen is a lot faster! It's a good thing she blocked when she did because if you get stung by Ouroboros, it's gonna HURT!"
The young gladiator was confused at first; she was certain she didn't see her opponent move her arm, not even in the slightest! And yet her weapon lashed at her.
It was only after she steadied herself did she realize that she wasn't mistaken after all. The dangling end of the whip struck at her on its own and not only that but it seemed to have extended in length, rearing itself like a tentacle with its barbed stinger looking as deadly as ever.
With his brow furrowed just over the bridge of his sunglasses, Bruce continued to spectate silently. He could tell that although the girl was pretty skilled, she probably had little experience in combat aside from perhaps training sessions with her fellow prisoners.
On that particular thought, he had previously wondered how did the Ichinose-gumi control their fighters until he noticed the metallic collar around Sophia's neck. It appeared similar, or maybe the same as the electronic binds that were strapped to those Blazer children; the ones he had rescued from six nights ago.
But then again, Venomous didn't have a collar of her own. Was she some kind of exception?
The woman in question finally made advance, her pink lips stretched into a malicious smile as she tightened the grip on Ouroboros's handle before swinging it in a diagonal arc.
KER-CHACK!
Sophia cried out in fright and held up her shield just in time for the whip's long cord to lash against the metal. However, Venomous didn't stop there; she lashed again and again as she slowly walked forward, the cord of the whip stretching as the tempo of each lash sped up. It was like rapid waves and the length of her attacks encompassed almost half the ring.
Her poor opponent could only retreat backwards as she defended herself but that was probably what the Killer Queen wanted: she wanted to play with her food.
Kashiwagi's enthusiastic voice and the cheers of the crowd was completely drowned out in Bruce's mind and he began to wonder if this was even a blood sport. Seemed to him like they were just sending a lamb to the slaughter.
The girl was finally backed up against the edge of the ring, feeling the electrical hum and heat from the force field behind her. She was forced to crouch while desperately holding her shield up.
"Oh, you're so adorable!" Venomous gave a maniac laugh, her facial expression contorting in glee. "You're like a poor turtle hiding in its shell!"
The woman's lashes became more aggressive and faster. Her arm swung so wildly that it appeared like it was bending along with her whip, like it had become a part of it.
Sophia was scared out of her mind and she could only whimper as tears welled up at the edges of her eyes. She probably would have stayed in her place had the speaker of her earpiece not buzzed with an angry voice.
"What are you doing, you little bitch! Use your powers already!"
She knew she had swallow her fear and comply, knowing full well what would happen if she didn't.
"G-Gemini Strike!" she had at last yelled.
Something suddenly materialized behind the whip wielder in a flash of white light and the crowd roared in excitement as a perfect copy of Sophia charged with it's own sword and shield.
"An unexpected countah-atakku! Sophia has at last activated her Noble Art but Venomous reacts in time!"
It was just as Kashiwagi's commentated; the woman twisted her body halfway back and lashed out Ouroboros behind her. The clone managed to duck under the slashing cord as she closed the distance but she didn't expect Venomous to suddenly pull the handle back as the cord contracted in lenght.
Like a sentient tendril, the cord of Ouroboros wrapped itself around the clone's leg and yanked at it just as she reached her target. She laid helplessly on her back as Venomous lifted her own leg which glowed blue with Mana before violently smashing her foot through the clone's torso.
The construct shattered like porcelain, glowing white cracks quickly spread all over its body until it could no longer hold its form and crumbled into nothingness.
"Kore wa itai!" Kashiwagi exclaimed dramatically into her mic. "Venomous took care of that technique like it was nothing! However, this has bought Sophia some time! Will our underdog use this chance to gain the upper hand!?"
It was indeed during that time when Sophia managed to scurry away from where she was.
But despite having some breathing room, she appeared quite worse for wear: panting with beads of sweat around her forehead. Although it was only her clone that was destroyed, it didn't mean that it didn't effect her in any way.
As a matter a fact, the clone was linked to her own Mana and its destruction made her feel like her own magical defense has just taken a big hit. Her depleting Mana reserves left her struggling against her own weakened state.
Bruce looked on with no change in his expression but his thoughts, however, were laden with a sense of pity.
He felt that had the girl been enrolled in Hagun and given the proper training, she would've been faring much better. But there was no room for that here in the Midnight Hell Festa. Their caregivers needed warriors and fast, to fight for the entertainment of their patrons. It was kill or be killed. It was fate.
And so in desperation, the young Blazer realized that the only option she had left was to go all out. And with what little Mana she had left, she only had one trump card left to play.
"Triad Strike!"
With the activation of her Noble Art, two clones materialized by her sides and then the three of them charged with their speeds enhanced by their remaining Mana. As they blitzed towards their opponent, they quickly criss-crossed and changed their positions in an attempt to confuse her.
Venomous lashed out but the three Sophias were able avoid the long cord this time. They readied their sword to strike at the same spot simultaneously, a move that would surely have enough power to pierce their target, only for them to completely miss!
All three sets of their eyes widened in shock; it didn't even look like the woman moved and yet she dodged them as if she simply slid on the floor. How was this possible!? Was she really that fast?
In a slick fluid motion, Venomous jumped back and spun rapidly like corkscrew before she shot both her arms up as she landed, lashing out TWO long cords at the befuddled trio and forcing them to separate and swerve out of the way.
"Unbelievable, Mina-sama! There's now two Ouroboroses!" Kashiwagi cried out.
Now armed with two whips, the Killer Queen undulated and struck out both her cords in fast consecutive sweeps; the sharp tendrils covering a large area of the ring and keeping the three Sophias at bay.
Her pink lips stretched into a twisted smile with her silent decision that she had played around long enough. Smoothly, she swung both whip to her sides before swinging them both overhead. The clones scrambled out of the way of the two cords striking the ground where they stood. But Venomous was counting on that.
"Death Reap."
The cords suddenly became rigid while radiating blue Mana and in a blink of an eye, she swung both of them in a backwards slash; the whips, now acting like long blades, flashed in an arc which itself faded like an after image.
It was lucky that Sophia, the real one, was able to roll out of the way but her two clones were not so fortunate. They were rooted on the spot as glowing white fractures appeared on their abdomens, separating their upper bodies from their lower ones before they collapsed and broke apart in mid-air.
"UUWHOA! What a technique!" voiced out Kashiwagi among the roars of cheers from Venomous's supporters.
Sophia gasped and fell to her knees, the last of her Mana slipping away from her as her weapons too crumbled and dissipated into particles of white light. Almost immediately, the young girl fell forward and prostrated herself in a dogeza manner.
"I SURRENDER! Please have mercy on me!" she beseeched.
The Arena audience howled with boos, particularly those who had actually betted on her and were being outraged by her cowardice. All except Bruce and Nene who continued to watch tensely.
Venomous stood and loomed before the bowing girl, her face scrunched with contempt. That is until her own earpiece suddenly buzzed.
"The match isn't scheduled to be over. Draw it out and end it however you like."
Like slime, her scowl soon morphed into a sick smile.
Mercilessly, the woman surged forward and kicked hard against the bottom of the poor girl's jaw, snapping her head back and her body backwards. In a mere second, Venomous followed it up with a flurry of rapid lashes which surprisingly didn't inflict any damage but it sliced off all the harnesses of Sophia's costume, causing it to fall apart and leaving her in nothing but her bra and panties.
The girl palmed her chin in pain but then quickly realized the vulnerable state she was left in, and the foul creature of a woman that eyed her like a predator. She tried to crawl away in fear but one of the whips cords wrapped around her leg and roughly dragged her back while the other was reared back to strike.
CRACK!
An ear splitting scream tore through the arena.
CRACK!
Followed by another.
CRACK!
And another.
Some of the audience flinched at the sight, the rest cheered loudly. Bruce, on the other hand, felt his body tremble in rage. Both his jaw and his fist clenched dangerously tight that he would've almost bled.
This was not a game, this was a sick perverse side show and the audience here was actually enjoying it!
With his muscles constricting, he was on verge of springing from his seat to do something, anything to stop this abuse but the logical side of him restrained himself.
If he did anything now to blow his cover, then the other trafficked Blazer children would be lost to him! Bringing suspicion on himself would make them restrict his movements and if he decided to engage them here and now, then they would panic and mobilize their men to escape, taking their "properties" with them. He would lose his chance to take them down once and for all and those kids would subjected to more horrors.
There was still the option of him and Saikyou using their Noble Arts. However, as strong as they both were, he assessed that there was a limit to their range. No, the most they could do right now was serve as a distraction which would both be reckless and pointless in the long run.
The long run. That's what he told himself but it still didn't sit well with him. Could he even just let them have their way with an innocent girl to serve a greater good? Did the plights of many outweigh one? Was this the right thing to do?
He again flicked his gaze towards Nene and found that the short-statured woman hadn't changed her expression since he last looked. It was hard to tell if she was having similar thoughts as his or she was just didn't care about the whole thing.
"Stop…please…stop…" Sophia sobbed and whimpered.
She was held down with bleeding gashes over her body as one of the whips was coiled around her arm, that was slowly being yanked up by a grinning Venomous. Her prey cried louder as the appendage was stretched more and more; bones, muscle fiber and skin straining to it breaking point until finally with a forceful violent tug, the arm was torn off.
A gush of blood splattered the ring followed by a blood curdling howl of pain. Only a few in the engrossed audience flinched and grew visibly sick, Kashiwagi in particular turned away and covered her eyes. It was so sudden that Bruce's face could only turn aghast.
The scream was much shorter than the others before it, the young Blazer's voice faded abruptly even through her eyes and mouth were wide open and frozen. Feeling the body lightly tremble under her, it was obvious to Venomous that her prey was going into shock. She clicked her tongue in disappointment. She hated it when they went into shock, it wasn't fun when they weren't screaming.
Figuring that she has played long enough, Venomous wrapped the cord of her whip around Sophia's neck and with ends crossed, began to choke her.
"Oh! It looks like Venomous is going for the coup de grace!" Kashiwagi recovered and resumed her commentary. "What do you say, Mina-sama? Do we let her end it?"
"YEAH!" one of the audience members stood up with anger.
"That bitch cost me my winnings! At least give me the satisfaction of watching her die!" he yelled.
"Me too!" another one yelled.
"Souyo! Souyo!" more people chanted out.
"KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL!"
"No…" Bruce thought in dread.
And with a ferocious tug and an audible crack, Sophia's body had at last slumped.
"And there you have it! The winner is still our crowned champion, Venomous!"
The roar of the crowd felt far away as Bruce sat in disbelief, feeling angry and disgusted with himself.
"They killed her and I let them. I couldn't…I didn't do a damn thing about it."
How could he even call himself a protector? What was the point of having all this magical power if he did nothing?
He didn't even know the girl's real name or if she had family but he doubted that he's able to forget the fear in her eyes before her last moments. As he sat in silence, Nene finally turned her eyes towards him. Her expression was unreadable, perhaps apathetic, and she seemed to be waiting to see what Bruce would do next.
"Let's go." he finally said as he go up to leave and she followed suit.
"No more…" he decided. There would be no more deaths tonight. He wont let her death be in vain, this whole operation ends tonight.
"Ah, Mister Malone…" Kono greeted them at the area's exit.
"Congratulations on your winnings, although you were quite off on the mark about the match's end time. Thus as per our rule, your profit is only 20%. That's a shame."
Bruce held back the urge to cave the man's face in and stuck to his Matches personal, shrugging with an aloof smile.
"Well, ya can't win 'em all." he said.
"It's not too late to earn big, you know. We have a wide array of matches scheduled next."
"Sounds good. But if it's alright with you, me and Nene-chan are gonna walk around and stretch our legs. That last match kinda got our blood pumping, if ya know what I mean."
Matches lowered his shades slightly and wagged his eyebrows for added effect. Of course, Kono didn't seem to be the least bit amused and forced an amicable smile as he bowed.
"Of course. Please, enjoy yourself. There is still time before the next battle, we hope to see you there by then."
With barely a nod, Bruce walked passed him with Nene trailing behind, leaving an indignant gangster in their wake. As they strode back into the lounge area, Bruce pulled out his phone and opened one of his customized apps.
"So what now? You have one of your hair-brained plans, right?" Nene asked him.
"Quiet."
Being miffed by his curtness, Nene marched faster right up to his side.
"Don't tell me to be quiet, brat!" But when she noticed him looking at some kind of radar on his phone, she grew curious. "What are you doing?"
"I installed a tracker in my briefcase. I need to get it back."
As he said this, Bruce stopped a few feet away from the cashier counter. He watched the queue of players lined up to either collect their winnings or to dump more their money in the misguided hope of recuperating their losses.
It'd be logical to assume that his briefcase was somewhere behind the 'cage', so to speak, but what he needed was a way inside without being seen; it wouldn't be somewhere just nearby, not when you consider the size of their bank, aka the amount of money they wished to horde to themselves.
So he continued on, with Nene clopping after him, until he came across a lone corridor. Standing by the side of the wall was a guard: a tall and muscular man, though not as wide as the Bouncer they had dealt with, sporting styled beard and his hair tied in top knot. A kind of modern samurai look. Behind the guard was a single door decked with nothing more than a no entry symbol and a card reader above the handle.
"In there." Bruce kept his voice low and subtly gestured.
Nene grinned in a haughty fashion and unfurled her fan.
"Ku ku ku, leave this to me. I'll just use my feminine wiles on him."
And with that, she trotted off before Bruce could stop her and left him to only groan and shake his head in exasperation.
"Well, well. What do we have here?"
The guard looked to his side and found the source of the voice. Nene sauntered up to him, hiding the lower half of her face in a mysterious and sensual way as she spoke in words laced in honey.
"You look like quite a stud. Nice big arms and I dig that beard. Did I mention that I like my men rugged and wild?"
She slowly lowered the fan from her face, making sure her lashes were low and her gaze in a way that could only exemplify the term 'come-hither'.
"What do you say you and I go some place private? Where I can show you the time of your life!"
The proposal was accentuated with a slow drag of her tongue over her lips.
"…"
There was a long and stilted pause before the guard finally spoke up.
"You lost or something, kid? Can't find your mommy and daddy?"
"UWAH!"
A crack of thunder echoed in Nene's mind like she had in indeed been struck by lightning and she felt herself reduced to nothing but a monochrome sketch with her eyes being white dots and vertical lines drooping on the sides of her head.
"Ho-how dare you!" she rounded on him in fit of outrage. "You wouldn't know the meaning of 'sexy' even if it crushed your skull into an unrecognizable mush! Which is exactly what I'm going to do to you, you ignorant gorilla shit!"
Luckily for the guard, he wouldn't get to experience the wrath of the Yaksha Princess. For at that moment, Bruce had knocked him out from behind with a well placed strike at one of his pressure points.
"Hold him up." Bruce told her he held him upright by his armpits.
Nene got the picture and used her gravity powers to force his body upright and freeze him in his place. With the guard immobilized, Bruce searched the man's pockets and fished out an access key-card which he promptly held over the card reader. The door opened with a beep and Bruce and Nene slipped inside with her keeping as long of a hold as she could on the guard.
The inside was network of rooms inside a long hallway. Bruce had figured that doors to the right would lead to the caged counter, which meant that what he was looking for was either in one of the rooms to the left or it was further down the hallway.
Fortunately, it turned out to be the former as indicated by his cobbled-together radar app.
After entering said room, they found rows of shelves arranged almost like an evidence locker where Bruce was drawn towards the very back of the room against the wall. There was probably tons of cash here, literally bags of the stuff. But Bruce pulled and pushed out all the other bags in the corner until he finally found the briefcase he had come with.
"All that trouble just to get your money back? If you were so strapped for cash then you shouldn't be spending it on shady things in the first place." Nene told him.
But much to her surprise, he ended up opening his case and then emptying its contents to the floor. With nothing else inside, Bruce wedged his fingers inside the fabric lining and peeled it away, revealing a secret compartment where the Batsuit was housed within.
"Oh. How sneaky!" the petite woman chirped.
Bruce then began to shed his 'Matches Malone' disguise, throwing off his shades, taking off his jacket and then his shirt.
*Jii~~~…*
It was around when he was about to take off his pants did he pause with the feeling that someone was staring quite intensely at him.
"Do you mind?" he turned his head back with and annoyed scowl.
Nene only shook her head with a wide unapologetic smile.
"No, I don't mind at all."
With an irritated grunt, Bruce decide to just ignore her and resume suiting himself up, much to her delight.
Now geared up, Batman then turns his attention towards a large airvent grating at the corner of the room before yanking it off to expose an opening.
"We're not going in there are we?" Nene asks, making a wry face just as he was about to climb through.
Batman turned a glare towards her.
"There is no 'WE'." he stressed and pointed to her. "YOU are staying here and keeping watch."
Not even giving her the chance to object, he crawls into the shaft.
It was fortunate that the vent seemed sturdy and didn't shake with his movements. However, he still had to take out his pen-torch to light his way. Crouching and moving through the metal confines, Batman noticed the tunnel path gradually declining and gave him the impression that he was going further underground. He wondered how deep this complex even went.
Finally he came upon light spilling upwards through a grille fixed at the floor of the shaft. He slowed down, carefully inched and peered through the metal slats at a corridor below. Two Yakuzas passed by, escorting a young blonde boy bound by his neck and arms that same contraptions he had seen before. Another young Blazer captive by the looks of it and 'escorting' was too nice a word, more like they were herding him.
With the lines of light cast over his face, the Dark Knight tapered his eyes in thought. He figured that he must be close to wherever they were keeping the rest of them. At the same time, he also realized that they must be taking that boy to prep him for a match. He needed to hurry.
But just as he was about to advance, he was alerted to sounds of metallic shuffling coming from just behind him. Realization hit him and his eyes widened in disbelief as he looked back to find that Nene had crawled in after him.
Being someone with a much smaller frame, she had no problems moving around in the shaft although she couldn't say that she was the least bit comfortable.
"You REALLY need to learn how to show a girl a better time than this, Bat-kun!" she grunted in disgust as she crawled towards him.
"What the hell are you doing in here!" Batman hissed at her angrily.
The Yaksha Princess didn't bother answering him and was instead continuing to act repulsed by her surroundings.
"Guh! This place is cramped, dusty and it's ruining my dress!" she complained.
"Keep your voice down!"
Luckily, there was nobody present at the corridor to hear them. Much to Batman's aggravation, he decided to resign himself to press on and let the woman follow him since wasn't much point sending her back; knowing her, she'd probably attract more attention that way.
After a short while of navigating through the vent, Batman came across another grille fixed at the bottom. This time when he peered through, he found himself looking at a large dark room with several dirty bed-rolls arranged along the wall.
There they were, restrained like the boy he had seen earlier. Most were occupying the beds, either curled up like a cocoon or just sitting upon the spread despondently, some of them even crying. No doubt about it, this was where they were being held. With that confirmed, Batman then stomped his foot down on the grille a few times, warping the metal before it broke away and fell to the middle of the room with a loud clanging.
This definitely grabbed the children's attention and they recoiled in fear when they saw the Batman's silhouette land in front on them with his sweeping cape.
"Don't be afraid." the vigilante told them assuringly. "I'm here to help."
One of the kids slowly relaxed his posture and looked at him warily.
"Yo-you're not with them?"
Just as the question was asked, Nene floated down from the vent using her gravity abilities.
"Does he look like he's with them!?" she scoffed as she dusted her dress with agitation.
The children gazed at the adults like a deer would in headlights and began to slowly approach them cautiously. As they did, Batman took stock of them; counting their numbers to about thirty.
"There's way too many of these little brats around here, how are we supposed to get them out?" Nene asked.
That was indeed a problem. Obviously taking them through the same way they got in wasn't going to work, not without causing a huge skirmish first. On one hand, both he and Nene were pretty powerful in their own regard and should be able to take them all. But on the other, there could be casualties. It was an incredible risk. Could they really force their way out without losing lives in the process?
Alternatively, they could go for a smarter approach. If he was them, regarding trafficked Blazers as a valued commodity, he wouldn't bring them in through the front door. He'd have them delivered through a different entrance, a 'service entrance' as one might say.
And just as the thought entered his mind, he noticed it. It was hard to make out with all the darkness and clutter but at the far end of the room, where the wall was, was the unmistakable outline of a pair of elevator doors.
He silently approached it while summoning Branwen to his hand and then wedged the blade into the crack of the door. Being a magical construct, the blade could never bend and he took advantage of that by using it to pry the door slightly open. A small gap was all he needed to slip his fingers in and use his own strength to push the doors wide open.
The elevator itself was quite spacious as he expected. It wouldn't take all of them but a few trips would be enough to bring them all top-side. Batman dismissed his Device and then leveled his forearm to his face for a holographic map to display his location. According to it, they were directly under an alley in western Ikebukuro.
While he continued to fiddle with the holographic interface, Nene scowled with crossed arms as she tapped her foot with impatience.
Finally, he moved to into the elevator itself and found a card sensor like the one he had used earlier. Unfortunately when he held up the guard's key-card to the reader, nothing happened.
"Well that was a waste of time." Nene commented.
"Not necessarily."
Batman then looked her.
"Your gravity magic. You can use it to move the elevator without powering it up."
Like him, Nene inspected the large metal cabin.
"That I can but there's not enough room for all of us."
The vigilante turned away from the elevator slowly walked back to the middle of the room. The children who had gathered around the two strangers parted way for him, continuously gazing at him in awe as he spoke. They couldn't tell if his white eyes were looking at them or not.
"Then divide them in large groups and take them up one by one. I already sent an anonymous message to the TMPD reporting a 'Batman sighting' in the area. Figured that would get them here soon enough."
"And what are you gonna do?" Nene asked with a raised brow.
He stopped just under the open vent shaft, still speaking without looking back towards her.
"I'm going to find Kono and shut this operation down once and for all."
"Not without me you're not!"
But he wasn't going to have any of it this time and finally turned his head back while fixing a feirce glare at her.
"Rather than waste time arguing, you can get these kids out of here. And that is as far as our cooperation goes! End of discussion."
And with that, he fired at grappling line at the shaft and reeled himself up without giving her a chance for a rebuttal.
Batman was certain that by the time Nene had transported all of them to safety, he would've covered enough distance through the maze-like vents that would've make it difficult to her to follow him. Besides, for all her eccentricities, she probably wasn't going to abandon those children.
She was an LMN affiliate, Kurono's friend and he was sure that she had something of a conscience.
After navigating through the labyrinthine tunnels back to the main level, he could hear the faint muffled sounds of Kashiwagi's commentary and the roars of the crowd. It would seem that the games had resumed and that meant he didn't have long until before they checked on their remaining 'fighters'. He really needed to hurry.
With information he gleamed from eavesdropping on a pair of nearby guards, he continued to traverse through the ducts that inclined until he could finally see an office area beneath the grille he came upon.
He had heard from the guards that Kono would be in his office but there didn't seem to be any sign of him.
Nonetheless, he kicked the grille open and landed into the plush-looking environment. An executive wooden desk and a leather high back swivel chair was proudly featured before him but nobody occupying it. In fact, there didn't seem to be anyone in the room.
Or so he thought.
"Finally! Y'know, you'd get here a lot faster if you weren't crawling around in such a cramped space."
Yet again, Batman found himself turning around to see Nene, this time standing by the doorway.
"What are you doing here!? Where are the children!?"
"Would you relax!? I got the little brats out of there already."
The petite woman huffed before her expression turned haughty.
"Figured you'd make your way over here so I took the 'direct route'. Those muscle-head guards didn't even stand a chance!"
Much to his aggravation, she was pretty much indicating that she had already caused a commotion and attacked several Yakuza as she got here. Needless to say, he wasn't the least bit pleased about the situation and marched up to with his teeth grit.
"I've had just about up to here with you, Saikyou! I told you not to interfere in my business and you have jeopardized this…"
Batman trailed off when his hearing picked up a low droning hum; it was faint at first but steadily grew with a rising vibration that the two Blazers began to feel in the air.
"Do you hear that?" he asked.
Even Nene seemed to have dropped her unabashed smugness and looked around curiously.
"That buzzing? Yeah, what is that?"
"I don't know. It sounds like it's coming from…"
The vigilante tilted his head up to the corner of the ceiling where a medium-sized box shaped apparatus was fixed. It was metallic, about 20 inches in length with a smooth convex surface that was divided by a glowing blue light, pulsing along with the rising hum until it suddenly flashed red.
In a mere blink, a glowing blue field burst out in a wave and engulfed the whole room, causing both Blazers to fall to the floor both either could react.
Batman didn't know to make of it but he felt like he was hit by a truck, or like a pane of glass inside him had shattered, or maybe both. As he tried forcing his body to move, he felt a tingling sensation no different from the aftermath of those painful attacks he had before.
On a hunch, he tried to summon Branwen and as he thought, it wouldn't appear. However, he could feel his Mana steadily pulsing through him again but by then, it was too late.
Across the bottom of the room's walls were lines of small circular slots that opened and gushed gas into the room. Neither Batman nor Nene could stop themselves from inhaling the dense vapor and shortly after that, Batman found his vision waver, blur and then finally fade to black.
TBC