Batman and Batgirl took the amnesia-induced lack of explanation pretty well.
Gotham, Kei had thought with disgust as the two of them spent a few minutes picking over the crime scene without touching anything. And discussing things. She sat with Robin the whole time, because she had only verbal testimony to offer and not investigative skills, and spoke about what she knew while they worked.
The list that she could and would share under these conditions could have fit into a text message. In this world's very shit cell phones. Harley's Nokia didn't even have a keyboard.
"Parallel universe" was apparently something Batman faced before—but didn't confirm it was the Justice Lords—and there was footage to review. Not security footage, since every Arkham camera was long since repossessed by the state or destroyed and written off for tax purposes. But the big film camera Kei had kicked earlier was still rolling when Batgirl got it upright again, so Batman packed up the entire thing and took it away for analysis.
Presumably when the police finally arrived, he would call it Justice League business because there was clearly metahuman involvement. To be a fly on that wall would be something interesting, and if not for Kei's headache, she might've been able to pull it off literally.
Then Batgirl handed Kei a spare domino mask like she was actually in the same field, and shipped Kei, Robin, and herself to the Watchtower. They got beamed up like in Star Trek.
The Watchtower's teleporter landing pad was bright. Too bright. Big overhead lights reflected off metal everywhere. Kei's headache not only didn't thank her for it, but also put up protests she hadn't even contemplated before. Her potential for migraines was being awakened by a concussion.
And yet, Kei couldn't just close her eyes and curl into a ball. Kei didn't even get to appreciate being in space for the first time ever. She had a job to do, dammit.
"I heard Batman's order to prep the medbay," Batgirl told what was presumably a radio receiver of some kind, two fingers pressed to the side of her cowl. "Where's the stretcher?"
Robin tipped sideways, out of Batgirl's supportive grip. Whether from fatigue or relief, Robin's bones were jelly now. He crumpled on the spot.
"Shit!" Startled, Batgirl lunged after him.
She clearly needed both hands available to do her work. Kei didn't. Kei didn't have both hands available anyway.
"It's okay, I've got him." Though they'd all had to separate to avoid teleportation accidents that would give most people nightmares, Kei angled herself to offer Robin her good arm. He curled under it and against her side, head against her shoulder, heedless of the lingering bloodstains. "Do what you have to."
It took her a couple of seconds to determine if the pinkish strip on his face was blood from her clothes, or raw, burned skin leftover from the Joker's application of electrodes. That very hesitance was horrifying, in a quiet way that slithered through Kei's brain like a parasite and made her want to retch. Maybe she would, later.
While Kei's thoughts hit that error screen, hard, people moved. They felt more like shadows than real humans. Parts of the Watchtower demanded answers she couldn't find, in accents she only partly recognized.
Then there was a lot of shouting. People in purple uniforms—some with medical armbands—swarmed the platform.
"We've got the stretcher here!"
"Don't worry, we've got this."
"Ma'am, please stand back."
That last one was apparently directed at Batgirl, because they didn't even bother asking Kei about her opinion. Unsteady as she was, that might have been for the best. Even if the crowd, altogether, made Kei so unhappy with human proximity that she had to suppress the urge to bite fingers off of anyone who got in her space.
And she still let them pry Robin out of her grasp and onto a backboard with no real resistance. Kei kept quiet as they strapped Robin in, mostly because she knew better than to interrupt medics in motion.
"Take care of him," Batgirl warned in a voice that could bend steel.
"You got it, ma'am," said someone Kei didn't parse with more detail than "American, male," before the brain fuzz hit her like a steamroller.
The support staff in the Watchtower were nice enough, from what she could tell afterward. A lot of maintenance staff needed to be on-site, one way or another, to make sure such a massive and vital operation ran smoothly. Kei supposed nobody was out here expecting Booster Gold to empty the trash cans. Some of them were like bridge officers and helped with coordinating Justice League operations. But there were a lot of costumed heroes running around, so the staff were either trustworthy for what the League needed or not allowed around here.
Kei mostly didn't remember the specifics of this whirlwind introduction tour thing. Instead, Kei came back to herself as Batgirl walked her up to an infirmary suite. She probably squelched the whole way, given the state of her sandals. And everything else.
"Hey, are you back with us?" Batgirl drew the curtains mostly shut behind them.
Only mostly.
Seeing concern directed at her by someone with pointy cowl ears was still surreal. Batgirl's yellow-gloved hand rested against her uninjured shoulder in a companionable way, which was equally alien. It felt like someone should have told Batgirl that Kei was a murderer—but she already knew that. And she hadn't decided this meant Kei was unworthy of consideration.
Despite those death spiral thoughts, Kei answered, "Yeah. Just tired, I guess."
"We'll try not to keep you awake too much longer." Batgirl turned to a medic dressed in a white labcoat over light purple scrubs, stethoscope around her neck. "I'll leave her in your capable hands. The chart should say 'Genbu,' no name listed. No questions."
"Of course, Batgirl."
What in the world was the certification process for superheroes that made people defer to them like this? Kei would love to know. Being able to just shut down those kinds of questions with "I work for Batman" had to be convenient.
Kei glanced at the wall that separated Robin's care team from hers. There were a lot of feet moving over there. Plenty of distressed, hushed voices arguing between machine beeps and moving plastic sounds. Kei didn't even need to direct chakra toward her ears to be sure of it. All she had to do was sit and be quiet, and information flowed.
"Robin will be fine," said Batgirl, noting Kei's fixation. Then she slipped out from the room with a quick, "Be right back."
The doctor and a nurse got Kei situated on the exam table, wax paper crinkling underneath her. They eased the improvised sling off her shoulder, cutting the fabric free along the way, and then peeled off the blood-encrusted compression sleeve so Batgirl's investigation could have it. Kei shifted her shoulder uncomfortably as the stickiness came back to center stage, flexing her freed hand, and sighed as the medical professionals asked her to move this or poked their way up her left arm. Nothing too invasive, yet.
Batgirl came back with what she called a DNA evidence kit, complete with cotton-tipped swabs and test tubes and stuff.
And with Zatanna.
Kei had never particularly thought about what it would take for someone to both get paid as a stage magician and do real magic. Maybe it made her taxes simpler. Maybe she just liked performing. She certainly saved money and effort on costume design if the day and night shift matched. Black-haired, blue-eyed, and wearing a top hat, she looked like she could have stepped off a Vegas stage ten minutes before.
"The name's Zatanna Zatara." The magician of the night doffed her hat, offering a stage bow. As she straightened her spine, Zatanna added, "Batgirl will be handling the investigative process. I'm here to learn a bit more about what I've been told is a tiny bit of possession. Can I see that arm of yours, Genbu?"
Kei glanced between Batgirl and Zatanna, then moved her right arm onto the rolling armrest thing that the doctors had optimistically placed for a blood draw, now to be put to Batgirl's use. Her left dangled in Zatanna's direction for examination.
Zatanna took one look at Kei, mumbled a bit of backwards gibberish while waving her plastic stage wand—
"What in the world happened to you?"
—and looked like she'd just seen some poor creature flayed open in front of her eyes.
The second-draft seals running from her shoulder to wrist looked even sadder after being exposed to the open flame that was Isobu's chakra, which they had never been designed to handle unassisted. Under stark fluorescent lighting, some of the fine detail seemed obliterated by either acid or fire.
Kei summed it up as, "I fought someone I probably shouldn't have." She couldn't quite meet Zatanna's eyes with the domino mask fixed on her face, but she added in a mumble, "I'd make the choice again, though."
"I was talking about the damage here," Zatanna said, stopping just short of poking Kei's shoulder with her wand. Given that it had been months since the Orochimaru bite healed physically, Kei was a little surprised Zatanna could pinpoint the original injury. The physical scar hadn't lasted a week. "And the broken attempt to fix it."
"These were never gonna fix it," Kei said, while Batgirl cracked open the crime scene analysis stuff and started taking samples from all of the blood still clinging to Kei's skin. "Just get me back up to mostly-functional."
"I suspect now they won't even do that. Those are some intense burns." Zatanna replied. Then: "Laever cigam ot em enola." Or a least something that sounded like it. There was a gleam in Zatanna's eyes, probably because of what she'd just said. The fact that Zatanna's magic was a) voice-based and b) only worked if she talked backwards made for a strange effect in person.
…Maybe Kei did need to reflect on the level of superhero obsession that had followed her through reincarnation. There was theoretically supposed to be some kind of…filtering process, right? Not for the first time, she wondered how she'd skipped proper soul-sifting. Or been contaminated with the essence of a woman she'd technically never been.
"Does doctor-patient confidentiality apply here?" Kei asked, while Batgirl dragged a cotton swab across her wrist, which she hadn't remembered to clean earlier.
Zatanna frowned. "It applies to Doctor Khan and the rest of the staff, but I think you can tell that the rest of us aren't particularly bound by HIPAA."
Kei sighed.
"The number of corners being cut here does cause some difficulties," Zatanna offered, which didn't help.
Still, it wasn't like Kei could exactly turn down private treatment by a private magical practitioner in a private space station, funded by one guy and his capacity for embezzling his very own bajillion-dollar company. And given the general confidence of most people around here, that was all a prerequisite to getting back to her homeworld. It could easily be a fair trade as long as she never needed to answer more complicated questions.
"Genbu," Zatanna said, drawing Kei's attention back to her. "You mentioned you were 'a little possessed,' didn't you?"
Kei nodded. A magic expert from another universe might have a fresh new perspective. Medics Kei spent time around at home seemed at their wit's end—but mostly with Kei's affinity for novel injuries. People who blew out part of their chakra systems tended to just die.
"Mm. I can see the problem, but…" Zatanna tapped her wand against her other palm. "Possession cases are one thing. What you have is…" She paused. "You know how oysters form pearls? Something gets in and has to be coated and partitioned off to protect the animal. No one ever sees it until the oyster is cracked open one day. Your situation is not that."
A pity. Isobu liked shellfish more than people.
"In your case, the 'pearl' is permanently fused with your magic. Any attempt to remove him would be like trying to remove your heart. It will kill you." Zatanna's eyes narrowed a little as she thought, looking directly at Kei. "You don't seem surprised."
Or rather, at the seal hidden beneath Kei's tank top. Sitting directly above her sternum, and with the edges peeking above her collar because of Isobu's consistent attention. It probably looked like a weird tattoo to any uneducated human. Kei raised her hand to thump the seal, as though she could reach through it to pat Isobu on the head.
He remained silent.
Aloud, Kei said, "I'm not." She tapped the visible outer edge of the seal, as though Zatanna ever lost track of it. "I've been like this for years."
Kei's amazing new strategy of "radical honesty in targeted bursts" seemed to be going over better than a lead balloon, at least. She was on the Watchtower and not in cuffs, after all.
"Then how do you explain…oh. I see." Zatanna turned to Batgirl, eyes no longer sparkling with whatever her spell was. "As far as I can tell, all signs point to the human half of this relationship being the one mostly in charge. But if Genbu lost control, the results make sense to me."
Probably wasn't that surprising that someone who was friends with Batman wasn't bawling over the Joker's demise. If she did shows in Gotham, he might've even tried to horn in on her act just because there was a stage.
Batgirl frowned, but she didn't dispute the expert's judgment. If Kei had to guess, magic was not a Bat's strong suit. Most of the Justice League's big names—barring Wonder Woman, maybe—were beholden instead to metahuman, alien, or technology-based firepower. In the case of someone like Hawkgirl or Green Lantern, it could even be more than one at a time. The requirements for successful superheroing didn't have to include that stuff, but it helped.
Weird how Zatanna was the only magician, though.
"If it helps, I think a skull fracture was involved," Kei offered, along with a bitter half-smile. A tug at her lip gave away a recently-healed split, which dropped it right off her face.
Batgirl didn't laugh, but her frowny face softened a little. "In a weird way, it almost does."
"Don't get too comfortable." Zatanna dug through her costume's pockets until she came up with something that resembled a paper bracelet usually handed out by hospitals. "I don't know how I'm supposed to responsibly apply this kind of ward."
Kei blinked. "What does it do?"
"Suppresses your magic so you can't get into trouble."
"Can't be trouble if I'm dead." And Kei shrugged into the sudden silence before noticing it. Then she felt her skin prickle uncomfortably. Both Batgirl and Zatanna were giving her looks, as were both of the civilian medical workers. "…It was a joke? A little."
Zatanna didn't let her get away with that. She'd poked her stage wand right between Kei's eyes and asked in a completely flat tone, "In what way."
"Um." Well, given the average response to entirely running out of chakra… "Maybe I'd end up in a coma." Kei tapped the seal again. "Because this is magic, too."
The Justice League's only professional magician consultant balked at that, as did the rest of the people in the room. There was, apparently, no plan to make Kei's death either a genuine or faked accident in custody. It'd be a step too far out of line with their ethics, even if Kei wasn't a beneficiary of rather exceptional circumstances.
Instead of tossing Kei to the wolves—so to speak—Batgirl, Zatanna, and the medical staff walked Kei through a much less risky process. Once they confirmed that none of her injuries would last the night, the prescriptions weren't too onerous. Tylenol with water and a packet of saltines would hold her over until nausea stopped tapping her shoulder for attention.
And Kei now had a pending appointment with Doctor Fate whenever his Tower stopped being between realities or whatever, all to make sure she didn't drop dead in the Justice League's care.
She still wore the tracker thingy once Zatanna readjusted the spell. And made it waterproof.
"You okay?" Batgirl asked, somewhere around the end of the whole process.
She'd long since sealed up the CSI toolkit and probably didn't need to talk to Kei for mission-related purposes. Or Robin-related purposes. Even under a truth spell, Kei testified that she had no fucking idea what had led her to confronting the Joker and (apparently) earning her first head injury in months. Someone like Barbara Gordon might get to play with perfect recall, but Kei doubted her landing was a memory that survived long enough to be encoded in the first place.
And now it was just gone. Poof. Never to be seen again. The information no longer existed.
Kei sighed, trying to dismiss that surge of annoyance. "I'm standing. That's enough."
Batgirl didn't look impressed, but that wasn't her job. "Okay. I'll take that. So, how do you feel about getting cleaned up and going to bed?"
"Please."
In return for all this cooperation, the least-onerous task Kei got in return was a shower. Standing on plastic-and-foam sandals to replace hers, which had ground-in shards of glass and blood in the treads, Kei made sure not a single scrap of Joker-residue remained on her body. While she couldn't avoid awareness of Batgirl's presence outside of the empty locker room, getting the blood off was more important. The rest could wait.
And unlike the ice-cold dousing she got from her own powers, the Watchtower came equipped with really good water heaters. Which was a little odd, given the whole "space" thing. Kei lingered there for a while.
At least the towels were gym-quality. A little sad, from getting washed over and over until they went threadbare from fatigue and too-harsh soap. It somehow felt correct even in these strange circumstances.
The second gift (or requirement) was a new set of completely nondescript sweats as loaners. They were even vacuum-sealed and secured with a JL-logo sticker, to prove no one had worn them first.
Kei didn't know why they bothered. They were clearly made in the general mold of one-size-fits-nobody tourist shirts. The pants needed to be rolled up three times to hang at Kei's calves rather than the floor. The collar of the shirt was so wide that she might've been able to slip out of it through the gap with a bit of wiggling. A smaller shinobi might repurpose the shirt as a tent in the field just by ripping out a couple of seams.
Upon noticing all of these details, Kei actually rolled the sleeves down so she could make sweater-paws. Even if it was only one sleeve, thanks to the sling the medics gave her, she deserved this. A tiny indulgence where she could be childish for a bit where no one could see.
It got no response from Isobu, despite the clear hollow in the thought where his grumbling could go.
Batgirl made enough of a judgey face when Kei emerged to make up for it, though.
"Do I look that bad?" Kei asked. She'd even remembered to put the domino mask back in place, so at least no one could make fun of the shadows under her eyes.
"Less like a murder victim," Batgirl responded instantly, then paused as her brain caught up with her mouth.
Kei figured that kind of remark had a sour taste now. "Fair."
Batgirl coughed. "What I meant is that I found you a room. Follow me."
The room Kei was eventually led to was sparse. There was an opaque partition for a toilet in the back corner, along with a sink lined with soaps in sizes mostly seen in roadside motels. The bed was a relatively thin mattress on a bolted-down steel bedframe, and the bedside table had a lap desk leaning on its opposite side as though to provide prisoners with a hint of distraction. Just by including blankets, which were mostly mismatched League-branded fleece, it was already a step up from some of the other cells Kei had ever visited. And there were three whole pillows of higher quality than what was offered on airplanes.
"Not too bad, right? It should only be for a little while." At the door, Batgirl keyed in a code Kei didn't bother to memorize. Chances were it changed every five minutes or did some kind of biometric scan. Anything to satisfy Batman's paranoia.
Comparable to, but better than, prison. Probably closer to a private hospital.
(Except for the fact that the room's door only locked from the outside.)
Kei shrugged, flopping onto the cot. Bed. Camp bed? The mattress felt like foam, so maybe it wasn't army surplus. "It's fine."
Batgirl pointed out the delivery slot in the wall, which was big enough for a take-out box or a lunch tray to fit through. She didn't seem to know what to do with Kei's resignation, other than promise she would get something soon enough. Kei ran out of canned responses after a couple of minutes, just waving goodbye to Batgirl by the end.
Kei chose the Superman-themed blanket from the pile, picking at the stitching to keep her hand occupied. Then she wrapped it around her shoulders and leaned back against the wall, tugging a Wonder Woman blanket across her lap. The colors mostly matched.
It wasn't a nap, and it wasn't meditation, but Kei needed a moment to herself to just think. Preferably with a friend to bounce ideas back and forth, because none of the heroes were really that. She didn't know them. They didn't know her. And she could only trust so far, compliance be damned.
Kei's eyes were Isobu-gold in every reflection she'd seen, and he still wasn't talking to her. She had to take what positive energy she could get. Trying to get Isobu excited about outer space had already failed. He was blocking her more effectively than she ever did him.
Kei picked at a thread on the borrowed sweater and sighed. Come on. You didn't really do anything I wouldn't have.
Nothing.
Dammit.
Kei waited for a comment from Isobu for a few heartbeats longer. Even some admonishment about letting her back face the door, like his shell's defenses weren't strongest there and didn't play with Kei's risk assessment abilities. When no complaint arrived, Kei sighed. He was still turtled away in a corner of their shared brain.
Right when she most needed someone to call her a softhearted worrywart, too.
Kei…dozed, after that.
Meditation had always been a bit of a trap.
Kei woke up later with no solutions accompanying her from dreamland.
While Kei was cooling her heels in not-prison, Robin was in the Watchtower's medbay being looked after by someone called Doctor Mid-Nite. Though he'd hung onto Kei's arm for a while, eventually exhaustion took hold and allowed Batgirl and the good doctor to surreptitiously detach his grip. That moment left Kei feeling like shit even if she hadn't done anything wrong. Robin was too unconscious to really be in much more distress. It wasn't rational.
She just…hated seeing kids in pain.
As for the immediate exile from Gotham for everyone but Batman, Kei assumed it was because explaining the injuries acquired by vigilante with a secret identity to the people in a public hospital was an absolute security nightmare. Like, yes, HIPAA and stuff. But also? Robin was obviously underage, and there were definitely such things as mandated reporters even now. Anyone who cared for him had to either be absolutely trustworthy or in Wayne's pocket, or both.
Kei wasn't honestly sure if Batman had adopted him in this timeline. That would get around some problems, right up until somebody started suspecting child abuse. It all had to be suspicious to people who watched for that kind of thing, didn't it?
But it wasn't the first shady thing these people had done, so at least Kei got to benefit from that ethical flexibility.
The Justice League had a giant laser cannon pointed at the planet sometimes, whether people knew about it or not. It could be used to delete targets as precise as one office building in the middle of a city. One time, Batman had crashed its old incarnation into the planet to destroy a hyperspace bypass relay set up by aliens who'd otherwise planned to make Earth explode. Or implode.
They did stuff off the books that needed doing, primarily because, well, alien invasions. This universe's very own intergalactic god of tyranny. Lex Luthor.
Though maybe the last two were dead. Kei hadn't asked.
It didn't seem like it'd do any good.
Not like I have the best record anyway.
The first person Kei had ever killed on a mission was a boy older than her. Time wore the edges off that memory, leaving a smudge with eyes and a mouth instead of a face, but Kei couldn't assume he'd been older than Robin was now. As a nine-year-old with a sword and terror behind every swing, he'd been the thing standing between Kei and going home to her family. And at the same time, she hadn't been a true child. The moment reduced her to a cornered animal long before Isobu was ever involved in her life.
Once the Third Shinobi World War ramped up and exposed her to even worse things—far more horrific than a single panicked kill—that incident faded into the background of her life. Military conditioning took over. After prying the fifth body out of a defensive trench and having half the corpse slough off in her hands, perhaps nothing could bother her anymore.
Life kept fucking proving her wrong.
In a dark way, it was sort of funny. Isobu's borrowed strength made her too powerful to be wasted on cloak-and-dagger tactics. She was reserved for powerful opponents and dangerous missions that couldn't be kept to the shadows. There were no children there, besides her. Kei hadn't been asked to be a monster—morally—after Isobu came into the picture.
She was just a literal one. In the eyes of the shinobi world, at least.
And everyone here seemed to think Kei was another sad little victim, albeit one who went off like a landmine under duress. A survival-oriented person needed to keep that impression up to survive their acquaintance, right? There were prisons that could hold even someone like Kei. Or maybe a planet would suffice. They just…wouldn't go to those extremes unless Kei exploded in a direction they didn't like.
Which left her adrift in the meantime, until judgment could be rendered. And free to pursue whatever activities remained available to a person in a space cell.
Mostly, she parked herself on the bed and stared down at the planet. Not through a window—her repurposed holding cell didn't have one, big surprise—but with a little feed in the corner of a borrowed tablet screen. It even came with a stand attachment and a squishy-tipped stylus so Kei could more easily use it with one hand.
The tablet computer wasn't really a fair trade for the whole "indefinite imprisonment" issue, at least in Kei's opinion, but she supposed they could have stuck her with War and Peace. As it was, finding entertainment in the food slot wasn't too bad. The tablet's preloaded options included solitaire and a couple of classic novels and Jimmy Buffett Jr.'s entire discography, encouraging her theory that the person responsible was definitely from an era before the internet.
Any core member of the Justice League and most of the auxiliaries were suspects.
Kei dragged her fingertips across the screen, expanding the space live feed. At least, there was a "live" label at the bottom of the image.
From the moon, maybe Earth would've just been that iconic little blue marble. The Watchtower's orbit was much closer, so she could make the image on her screen big enough to see storm clouds developing in the middle of North America. Maybe there'd be a tornado or ten. Maybe she'd get to see the big Justice League team teleporter in action as they scrambled teams to respond to the disaster, which would admittedly be pretty cool.
Kei's not-cell was tucked away in a corner, though, so she oughtn't get her hopes up. It'd probably be better if she stayed well out of the way of potential problems. Even for something as basic as an autograph. Or getting her own clothes back.
She didn't even know who'd dropped off the tablet.
As a strange bonus, though, she also received a courtesy cold coffee in the food slot while distracted by watching the planet. It was…fine. But honestly, Kei had lost her taste for the stuff over the course of her second life. While her right hand occasionally cupped the paper to leech off the heat, sugar coagulated at the bottom of the cup, undisturbed. She still would've preferred a second water bottle instead.
Via a message sent to the tablet, Zatanna had said there was an iced mocha machine if she was interested. Kei wasn't sure what to do with that information, other than question Batman's budget again, so she respectfully declined.
Speaking of being undisturbed, no one had really stopped by her holding cell/guest room to talk to her. The door wasn't even fully opaque, instead capping out at a sort of smoky quartz color. Maybe they assumed that since she arrived with Batgirl, she was specifically Batgirl's responsibility? It would make some sense.
Or maybe she was in the space drunk tank and no one wanted to tell her.
All the whirling thoughts made her want to hunker down even further into her borrowed clothes, just to hide in a useless cloth shell. She was simultaneously too anxious to want to sleep again and too bored to want to stay awake.
Or maybe somehow steal her jacket back—though if Robin still wanted it, she'd refrain. The kid had been through enough recently that she'd give up a comfort object like that without any regrets.
Time passed.
The longer the wait lasted, the less Kei felt like particularly achey death. Her left arm was still effectively useless, but the leftover concussion symptoms were gone by hour three. It freed up processing power for things like being bored and messing with the tablet until it showed her videos of cute dogs. And a digital copy of Catch-22, because these people were sadists.
And then there was the people-watching. She'd actually seen a cowboy rush by earlier.
Ah. Wait. That was literally a guy called Vigilante. Kei had forgotten about him because, well, modern cowboy. Someone watched too many Clint Eastwood movies growing up.
It was that thought—absurd as it was—that Kei carried toward her second impending nap. She even got as far as putting the tablet on the bedside table and turning the screen off. In a way, lying down like this was the equivalent of slamming the "skip" button on life. Could be useful.
Is there also a hero named "Hero?"
It seemed somehow unfair that this was the inanity that prompted Isobu to comment again. Still, Kei seized the opportunity immediately and sacrificed her sleep on its altar. As far as I remember, no. But there are heroes called Fire and Ice. Guess what their powers are.
Isobu sent a faint impression of shaking his head through to Kei's end of the connection. Creativity seems in short supply.
There are literally a hundred-some heroes on the roster. Or will be. And these are just the ones who made it high enough to end up being recruited.
Still strange. Isobu's chakra stirred with a little more interest. It was the difference between a whisper and a mumble, but it was still there. And the hero with the name "Batgirl." She seems older than you.
Yeah, some of them don't change their name after technically growing out of it. Might be a brand recognition thing, or just inertia. Even if "Genbu" was a joke, it was at least ageless. Kei didn't have to report back to a focus group for anything. So, mind if I ask what…happened? It's been a couple of hours.
…I reacted without thinking. Or perhaps before thinking. Isobu curled his forelegs against the front of his shell, tails forming S-shapes as they swayed. It was unworthy of us to behave so recklessly.
Kei could think of at least one person in the world who was still grateful for that lightning-quick judgment call. Instead of mentioning him, she said, I don't remember any of it, Isobu.
Not even the smallest detail?
I get these…flashes? But they're not great for piecing together exactly why what happened…did. Kei sighed, planting one elbow on her knee to cushion her chin as she stared into the tablet's little live feed, toward Earth hundreds of kilometers away. But I can guess.
After a few seconds, Isobu gave her a nod.
I think that, whatever we were up to before, I stumbled unprepared into something we couldn't ignore. And even if we're both…ethically incompatible with how heroes behave here, the Joker and Harley Quinn needed to be stopped, period. I don't have the right to nitpick how it happened after the corpses are already cold. Kei drew a slow breath. But I think I must have tried to jump in on my own.
Making rookie mistakes out of either arrogance or anger. Always a fun thing to have to discuss in the after-action report. Even with Isobu.
And they landed hits that I would've shaken off in better condition, but didn't. And then, pow! Skull fracture. Probably would have killed somebody without you in their corner.
Isobu's blunt fingers curled into armored fists. The mental world's waves churned with his agitation.
I woke up covered in mostly other people's blood, there was a kid who wasn't being tortured anymore, and the next step was to call for help. And then my story ends. What's yours?
Isobu closed his eye.
Isobu?
We have seldom been hurt beyond the point of rational thought. I was not prepared for this instance. Isobu's boyish voice echoed in her head. You and I already agreed that certain humans taint others by association. Madara, the Shimura clansman. Individuals who, if given the choice, drag those around them deeper into darkness unplumbed even by the smallest crustacean on the ocean floor. Some believe they carry the truth with them, guiding their actions. The only light any of them carry is wretched pride.
That sure tracked with "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" types. Kei didn't feel the need to remind Isobu of that. They were endemic to the ninja world.
But so were the true monsters.
And then there are those who believe the only value in the world is what they can wring from it. Selfishness rules the day. I remembered your stories that centered around this world. That moment. But I admit I was not thinking of any human other than you when I took control. Isobu blinked slowly, angling his head back to stare up at the fake sky while Kei's real eyes stared out at the real one, far below. I attacked the one who had hurt you. I killed her pets. I tracked her mate, and killed him faster. And even if we had not both been in pain, I would not change that.
Isobu…
I do not regret what I did. The method being more wrath than judgment is, in itself, a problem. But the outcome is the same. He let out a low growl. No one is allowed to hurt us with impunity. And no one will take you from me besides death itself. We go together, or not at all.
Kei's vision blurred even as she stared at the tablet's blank screen and her own stone-faced reflection.
Isobu's eyes, staring back in real life and in her head.
You already know I will accept no new jinchūriki after you, Isobu said, his mental voice dropping to a whisper. This is merely an extension of that certainty.
Well, we can certainly say we'll never have to face the music alone. Kei wiped at her eyes with one of the overlong sleeves. Futilely, thanks to the lenses of the domino mask and the earlier application of spirit gum. But it let her summon enough control to blink back the pooling tears before they could make wearing a mask even more inconvenient.
No, never alone.
Ugh, maybe Kei should have eaten something like Batgirl suggested earlier. Kept her blood sugar balanced. But, really, as long as Isobu was talking to her again, it wasn't a bad way to spend her theoretically forced vacation time. It was really such a bad time to get emotional and sappy.
You do not need the memory. I will carry it.
That embarrassing, huh? I can take it.
Isobu leveled an exasperated glare her way. If Kei hadn't been so familiar with the way his mood almost never showed on his immobile face, the only interpretation would've been a death threat. But she was, so that wasn't Kei's read.
Here came the pivot. She braced herself for it, scowling preemptively to match him.
What followed wasn't pain, exactly. The memory of sensory input was almost always a shallow imitation of its source. Like spray wafting upward from the pool at the bottom of a waterfall, much of the force was gone. And even if it was, Isobu didn't have the inclination to play back Mangekyō Sharingan trauma until someone's mind collapsed under the constant stress.
Indistinct voices. Thin as a bubble, barely preserved by Isobu's inattention and slowly surfacing dread that felt like her own, reflected back.
An electric hum. Metal contacting metal.
And then just screaming. It was almost something animalistic—ruined beyond language. The only reprieve was when the victim ran out of breath.
Blinding flashes of light and deep shadow, burning right through her eyelids.
Dying sobs. "N-no, no, not again—stop, I can't—please—"
Kei couldn't help covering her ears, for all that it did exactly nothing. Not after Sorayama. She didn't want that memory any more than she wanted bamboo splinters shoved under her nails. Still, despite her gritted teeth, she said, Robin has to remember it.
That child is not mine,Isobu told her, as immovable as his own shell. I can swallow fragments of your pain because we are bound together. Let me spare you this.
Isobu, I still have to explain—
Then let them come to me. Said like that, it was absolutely a threat.
The revulsion Kei experienced from that thought was about half as strong as the memory sample. The difference was that Isobu held the memory out of her reach like a jar on the top shelf kept away from a child. This new feeling was solely hers, here and now.
Absolutely the fuck not.
Isobu paused, surprised at her vehemence. I want to help. If they turn on us—
Just—let me try first. The League seemed to buy the "pathetic lost puppy" vibe Kei was weirdly proficient in, even if it was at best an exaggeration. She'd killed a man with her brain practically mashed potatoes in her head. She just needed a little more pity to scoot by without a full-on interrogation.
"Hey, is this a bad time?"
So, of course, Kei's contemplation wasn't over by the time a superhero showed up behind her. Kei noted the shadow across the floor and whirled, fighting down burning mortification with both hands. And the absurd urge to throw herself out a window into the void.
All-black suit with a sky-blue bird emblem across the chest, boots and gloves presumed present. Black hair and a sharper-than-Robin's domino mask, and… That was sure a mullet. It was long enough for the man to tie it back, only giving his movements away a little. And unless she missed her mark, this guy's primary armament was a pair of electrified batons that Kei would rather not be thwacked with.
Yeah, Kei could work out that math pretty fast. "Good…morning? I think. Hi, Nightwing."
The Founding Seven have merchandise by now. Everyone except Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl are veteran heroes (or space cops) by the time the show even starts. (That said, Hawkgirl, what with the betrayal of Earth during the Thanagarian invasion only to betray them right back when she realized her military was planning to turn Earth inside-out, doesn't really have merch.) In-continuity, the Flash even has a museum dedicated to how cool and effective he is in his hometown.
I love the Justice League staffers who run around in the background of Unlimited. It was like the writers suddenly remembered that a world-saving operation requires more than seven people and their space clubhouse, and then the Justice League proceeded to hire the kind of people who would throw themselves barehanded at a murderous dinosaur shapeshifter and win.