A/N: It's obviously not that Kind of R-18. There is blood and gore. So, if you are easily deterred by things like that, you have been warned. The book's already tagged r-18, but still there were some comments in chap-6, that I should have given a warning. So, here it is. Again, you know how insanely detailed I like to go on these things, so, just brace yourself and Enjoy.
A few hours ago:
Barry had been moving through the city all afternoon, gathering all that information that he could get. With the Regime soldiers gone from here, people spoke more freely.
However, every story circled back to the same bleak tales; families gone, neighbors missing, friends who walked into the night and never came back.
By sunset, something about the northern quarter gnawed at him. The air itself felt very wrong, like a dense energy field pressing on his skin.
A kind of pressure, that didn't come from weather or other physical factor; it was instinct; his guts telling him he was about to have the worst day of his life.
He was mid-conversation with a young woman when a group of old men at a tea stop drew his attention. Their voices were low, worn thin with age and unease.
"I heard they're renovating that place again," one muttered.
"Why not just shut it down? Place is cursed anyways."
"Cursed? Then I think I wasn't the only one who heard screams there. Thank god I'm not crazy."
"Tch. And how many times did the city council complain? Those soldiers never even cared about anything."
"They did raid it once, didn't they. And I thought it was closed down for good."
"Then why is it still standing?"
Barry's focus sharpened. He turned back to the woman and spoke as he lowered his voice. "What place are they talking about?"
Her body stiffened, as though the question itself was dangerous. "Forget it, mister. It's better if you do. They're tearing it down anyway."
"Please," Barry pressed, gentler now. "It's essential that I don't let important evidences get buried."
She hesitated at first, then exhaled through her nose, replying with a sigh, "the old steel factory. Northern edge of the city."
Minutes later, Barry stood before the factory gates. The rust-scarred structure loomed against the orange dusk, hollow windows staring out like empty sockets.
Scarlet lightning crackled across his frame as he blurred and reappeared in his suit then disappeared into the factory.
The interior was as expected; old beams, rusted machines, dust choking the air. Barry scouted every corner in a heartbeat, searching for signs, but found nothing. Just dust and silence.
He was about to leave when a glint snagged his attention. In the ceiling's shadowed corner hung a short length of chain. Odd in itself, but stranger still; rather than anchoring to a beam, it disappeared into a steel pipe.
Barry's lips curled, "now would you look at that."
He raced up the wall, tugged the chain, and sprang back to the floor. Metal groaned and a double hatch in the ground split open, revealing a chamber beneath.
He dropped into the hidden space, landing in front of a massive vault door. It was not a factory equipment; this was fortified, several grades higher than even large bank vaults.
'When has a locked door ever been my problem?' Barry thought and pressed his palm against the cold steel, vibrating molecules until the reinforced bolts rattled free.
The frame sagged, crashing to the floor with a hollow clang. A dark hallway stretched beyond, swallowing the faint light behind him. Barry smirked once, then stepped forward.
At Present; Beneath the Factory:
Satoru and Kara stood before the dismantled steel door, the air seeping from it, was already thick enough to sting the lungs.
They had come here after Flash's call, his voice so uncharacteristically heavy that even Kara felt her stomach knotting.
She tapped her comms, "Flash, you in there?"
"Yeah," came the reply. His voice was hollow. "Just… come in… and try to brace yourselves."
Kara turned toward Satoru, but his face told her everything. The usual arrogance, his cocky ease, it was all gone. He expression was neutral. And that troubled her more than anything.
Satoru knew this feeling all too well. The negative energy here was suffocating, the kind that should have drawn spirits and curses to feed.
But here, in this hollow womb of dread, there was nothing. Even passing spirits and ghosts had kept away. That emptiness was more chilling than their presence ever would be.
He stepped first into the dark corridor. Kara's mind buzzed with questions, but she swallowed them down, following him in silence.
Minutes passed. They descended through narrow halls and creaking elevators that groaned as though reluctant to bear witness to what lay below.
The final lift opened into a dim chamber. Flash sat slumped on a metal platform, his entire suit was soaked with blood, as though he'd crawled through a river of blood. His eyes were blank and unfocused.
"Barry?" Kara rushed forward, worry sharpening her voice. "Are you alright? What happened?"
"I… slipped," he murmured in a hollow tone, which froze her tongue.
She was about to press further when she realized Satoru wasn't beside her anymore. He had walked through the far door.
The moment Kara caught up, the lights above began flickering, revealing the room in stuttering snapshots. Her breath hitched, her mind screaming for the dark to stay dark.
The floor was flooded in blood, not the clotted stench of rot, but wet, with that metallic smell and damp, like a slaughterhouse left running forever. And then her gaze rose to the wall.
Bodies, twelve, hung like grotesque effigies. Their ribs had been torn through their backs, bent outward and framed with wood, splayed like wings.
Faces were mangled beyond recognition, organs stripped and pinned in neat in clinical patterns. Empty sockets stared out, gouged eyes nailed in crude crosses across the display.
It looked like someone had tried to make angels out of butchered meat. At the lower center of the wall, in broad strokes of blood that still glistened wet, words screamed back at them:
"MY GREATEST FAILURES"
Kara's stomach lurched violently, bile rising fast, but she clamped her mouth shut, fighting it down. Her fists trembled at her sides.
'I should have used my vision. I should have prepared myself.' The thought was just a hollow comfort. Nothing could have prepared her.
Satoru stood before the display with an expression that was neither disgust nor fear. Just a neutral face that was assessing everything. "This wasn't recent," he said evenly.
Kara swallowed hard, forcing words past the lump in her throat. "How? The blood; it looks fresh…"
"There's something in the air," Satoru muttered, crouching near a vent. A faint chemical seeped through, odorless but effectively gathering, preserving everything in this obscene gallery. "It's keeping everything from rotting. Keeping it… as it was, on display."
He straightened and walked toward another door. More words greeted him, scrawled in the same grotesque handwriting:
"THE OTHER LIVE STOCKS, WHO COULDN'T BE PERFECTED"
Satoru clicked his tongue, shoved the door open, breaking the metallic lock, and an ice-cold draft rushed over them. Inside, frozen bodies hung upside down from hooks, lined like cattle in a slaughterhouse.
Skin stitched in jagged patterns, limbs dissected and sewn back, drained husks frozen in perpetual torment. Their mouths hung slack, some mid-scream, preserved in death like grotesque masks.
Kara's control shattered. She turned, bracing herself against the wall, and vomited until nothing was left in her stomach. The sound echoed against the steel and meat, mingling with the silence of the dead.
Satoru closed the door behind him, the latch echoing like a coffin lid. He stepped back into the corridor, leaning against the opposite wall while Kara gasped for air.
He didn't comfort her, didn't tell her to look away. He just waited in silence, with a steady gaze. Because sometimes silence was the only answer in places like this.
A few moments later, Satoru finally broke the silence, his tone was flat but not dismissive of their mental state, "Get yourselves together."
Barry's jaw clenched, as he spoke in a raw voice. "How can you be-"
But the look Satoru gave him froze the words in his throat. Those eyes weren't mocking them. They were sharp and unflinching. "Do I look like I'm taking this lightly?" He said.
He continued, "We're not dealing with just some lunatic carving up bodies. Whoever did this is still out there, and wasting time is that last thing we should do."
Kara steadied herself against the wall, still pale. She exhaled a shaky breath and said, "…He's right." Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she forced herself to look at them. "What do we do now?"
Satoru replied, "I've already memorized all the patterns; the way these people were killed, cut, displayed. Flash, we'll search his place inside out; we need more info."
"Maybe files, any kinds of records, any scrap that points us to the one behind this. Kara, call Batman. Explain what we've seen." He glanced at Barry again, "you ready?"
Flash didn't speak and only gave a nod, his tired expression dragging that motion.
Together, Satoru and Barry combed the facility, forcing themselves into every corner. The deeper they went, the clearer the truth became.
These weren't just some random psychotic murders; it was a deep study. They uncovered stacks of files and notebooks but nothing about the identity, no signature or any prideful remarks.
Just page after page of meticulous records. Clinical notes on organs, nerves, muscles. Calculations of resilience, diagrams of reconstructed tissue. A surgeon's obsession that had mutated into a researcher's archive.
By the time they finished, Barry had moved all the bodies from the grotesque displays. He carried each one into the freezer chamber, and also brought the hooked ones down, laying them under white sheets, giving them the last shred of dignity.
Adults, children, elderly and the "angels" on the wall, his hands shook each time he pulled the cloth over a face, until his eyes dulled into empty glass.
Kara had already sent Batman all the data; pictures, scans, recordings. Back in the base, Bruce stood near the comms feed as he scrolled through the images.
The longer he looked, the darker his expression turned. He looked at the frozen bodies, 'Those pattern of cuts and the stitching… It can't be.' Bruce's mind narrowed in on the detail.
'But he was supposed to be dead. And besides, he was a deranged surgeon, not a researcher with this kind of obsession.' He flipped through the files, looking at the "angelified" bodies.
'More than three years of uninterrupted experimentation. Three years of silence.' His teeth ground together.
"Bruce…" Kara's voice broke through. "What should we do next?"
He pinched the bridge of his nose, then answered, "record everything, every scrap you can find. Then… anonymously inform the local authorities. I hate to dump this on them, when they've just started recovering from Regime suppression, but this is their right to know. Better sooner than-"
"I don't think that's a good idea, Bruce." Barry's voice cut in. He turned toward the comms feed, exhaustion burning faintly through his voice.
"We've talked to these people. For them, the missing are already gone for good. Yes, they want answers, but what happens when they really find out? That their families weren't just lost, weren't just killed, but butchered like animals, right here, under their noses?"
Bruce's reply was as cold as steel, "how is that any different from what they've already been living through?"
Silence was the only response afterwards; neither Kara nor Barry could find words to counter him.
It was Satoru who finally spoke, his voice carrying a strange calm. "While I get where you're coming from, Bruce… Barry has a point. A proper closure is their right, sure… But what good is it if the only thing it gives them is more cruelty? Sometimes truth isn't a gift; it just becomes another wound."
He let that hang for a few seconds, and added, "that's not to say we're sweeping this under the rug. But we're not dumping it on them right away, either."
The two sets of eyes turned to him and Batman asked with a low and guarded voice, "what do you suggest?"
"I'll lock the place down with an anti-sensory barrier. No one will get close until we're ready. Don't worry, the barrier will only make people feel uneasy and confused, then they'll avoid this place altogether. But when we catch the one behind this, we will set the truth out."
Bruce didn't argue. His gravelly voice came blunt, "Do it and get back to Isley. We'll sort this once you return. I'll be there in a few hours."
All of them agreed to it. Satoru raised his hand, cursed energy rippling out in threads of negative pressure. A dark veil spread over the factory covering the whole area and sealing the horror inside.
Once done, he tapped Kara's and Barry's shoulders and a blink later, the three of them reappeared inside Ivy's residence.
Kara's eyes narrowed slightly. "That barrier… what about the construction crews outside? They'll notice, won't they?"
Satoru replied with a faint smirk, "they'll notice, sure. But eventually, they'll hate the idea of stepping near it. Minds tend to turn away from places soaked in bad energy. They won't even know why."
She nodded, a bit unsettled but accepting, nonetheless. Satoru looked at her and she too, just like Barry, was trying her best to not drown in guilt.
"What the hell happened out there?" Harley's voice cracked through the tension. She was standing with Ivy, eyes flicking from Kara to Satoru, then freezing at the sight of Flash.
His suit still drenched in blood. "And why does he look like he took a bath in a slaughterhouse?"
Barry rubbed at his forehead, and spoke with a low voice, "I should clean myself up." He walked away without another word.
Harley half-flinched, half-pouted, but Ivy stayed silent. Both women could feel the vibe of the three who had just returned. No jokes or questions seemed safe.
Kara gave Harley a faint nod before explaining what they'd seen. Satoru filled in the sharper details, ending with the fact that Batman would be arriving shortly.
Sometime later, when Bruce finally arrived in her place, the mood turned grave again. Kara sat quietly in the corner with Harley beside her, offering company in her own awkward way.
Satoru stood with Ivy and Batman, reviewing the files, "did you find anything beyond these notes?" Ivy asked in an unusually tight tone.
Satoru slid a bloodstained sheet across the table. "Notes. He calls the wall display 'failures.' Twelve bodies torn into Art. I could sense pure hatred radiating off it. The desperation wasn't just to kill but for perfection."
They all glanced at the words smeared in blood; "My Greatest Failures."
Ivy pointed at a chemical sample, "The compound preserving the bodies; it's floral. Extracted from multiple odorless plants. Whoever it is, he wanted the pieces to last."
Bruce's voice came cold, "And the freezer. Dozens more mutilated and preserved, he wanted the world to find them."
Satoru studied him. "You have a name in your head, don't you?"
Bruce's jaw tightened. "I do but it doesn't match fully. The scale, the methodology; everything feels wrong, except that depravity."
"Even then," Ivy pressed, "it should give us some place to start."
Bruce's gaze flicked to the files one more time. Then he said it. "Professor Pyg."
The name hung in the air like rot. Harley was the first to react, with her sharp voice, "Pyg? You're kidding. That guy was a psycho; and that's me saying it."
"But…" She shook her head and looked at Bruce. "And besides, didn't you kill him?"
Bruce didn't answer at first. The memory of that night came unbidden; the decision he rarely allowed himself to recall.
Out of all the monsters he'd caged, Pyg was one of the few he had judged unfit to exist. Joker's madness felt like a child's tantrum compared to what Pyg was capable of.
Finally, he said, "by every measure, he should be dead. And the Pyg I knew wasn't a researcher. He was a butcher with a saw, not a surgeon with patience."
Harley crossed her arms. "Yeah, exactly. I remember him hacking like a kid playing house with knives. Not this… Whatever this is."
Satoru said nothing, quietly etching that name into his memory.
Bruce folded his hands over the table and spoke, "Satoru; we'll have to search both cities again. I hope I'm wrong, but we need to know if there are more places like that factory."
"No need," Satoru said without missing a beat. "Kara and I scanned both cities top to bottom. That factory is the only one. If there are more sites, they're somewhere else."
"And the commander you knocked out; the one who'd been brainwashed?" Bruce pressed.
"We put him back where I took him from," Satoru replied. "I think we should let him be there, for now. We can watch what he does next. Whoever did this likely brainwashed him to oversee whatever was happening here." He tapped a sheet to underline the point.
Satoru's eyes moved through the room as if cataloguing the next three moves. "Our next step should be to widen the hunt. Countrywide."
"Bruce, this is no longer a two-sided war anymore. Whoever they are; one person, a group, or whatever, they need to be neutralized. Doesn't matter who comes in between."
Batman stayed silent and glanced at Kara. She'd been quiet the whole time. Then toward the guest room where Barry was by himself.
"Give them time to rest," he said. "We will start the joint search tomorrow. Oracle and I will pull whatever extra threads we can tonight."
Satoru asked, "Anything from the Regime side? Any movement… Anything at all?"
Batman shook his head once, and said, "nothing. They're Still silent."
Few minutes later:
Bruce found Barry in the guest room. The speedster sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor like it might swallow him.
He was in casual clothes now, his body not dripping with blood anymore. But he could still see the red, vivid over his crimson suit, visualizing his gloves dripping with blood.
Bruce didn't announce himself and just stepped inside, quietly closing the door.
Barry broke the silence first, with a hollow voice. "I can still see them, Bruce. Every face, every, body, every stitch. They're burned into my head, and I can't… I can't shut it off."
His jaw tightened, trembling against his will, "I keep thinking… if I hadn't wasted years running alongside them, if I hadn't looked away, maybe…" His breath hitched.
Bruce stayed where he was, watching him, until Barry's words ran dry. Then, with the quiet steel only Batman could have, he said, "You're blaming yourself for sins you didn't commit."
Barry's head snapped up, anger and grief colliding in his eyes. "Didn't commit? I stood there, Bruce. I let us twist the world while I kept my mouth shut. Don't tell me I'm not guilty."
Bruce slowly moved closer until he stood beside him. "You were complicit, that's true. We all have blood on our hands in this war. And you don't have to lie to yourself about that. But guilt isn't justice, Barry. It'll only eat you until you can't move."
Barry laughed bitterly. "You sound like you're giving me a lecture on how to live with myself."
Bruce's voice softened, but never lost that blunt edge. "I've lived with ghosts since I was ten years old. I know what it's like to see them every night when you close your eyes."
"I know what it's like to wake up drenched in the same memory. And I know the only way forward is this; you don't erase them. You will have to carry them for the rest of your life. But you can't let them decide who you'll be tomorrow."
Barry blinked, fighting the sting in his eyes. Bruce's words landed harder than anything else could.
"You looked away before. It's fine, own that as you did it. But today you didn't. You didn't look away from the atrocity that you saw today. That's who you are now."
He paused for a bit, and added, "you can never rewrite what's behind us, Barry. But you can damn well decide what comes next."
Barry's lips parted, but nothing came out. He just looked down, fists trembling in his lap, then slowly unclenched them.
The heavy feeling in his chest didn't vanish, but it shifted ever so slightly, from crushing to something that he could hold.
Bruce straightened, heading for the door. "Get some sleep. Tomorrow, we'll keep moving."
Just before he left, he added, almost under his breath, but enough for Barry to hear, "Guilt can break you, Barry. Or it can forge you. Make sure you choose the right one."
The door shut behind him, leaving Barry in silence.
The meeting room was silent after Batman had left. Kara sat hunched forward, eyes fixed on nothing. Her jaw was tight, like she was forcing herself not to crumble.
Satoru leaned lazily against the table, but his gaze hadn't left her once. He knew she was strong and was expecting that she'd pull herself together.
But this deep spiral of guilt that was eating her down, was definitely getting frustrating. More so because he respected strength, and seeing potentially strong people, brooding for so long, was leaving a bad taste in his mouth.
He didn't like the method that he was about to use, but that's what strong people needed sometime. To vent out their frustration, on someone, or something.
Finally, he spoke, not in a playful tone but in a brisque and blunt one, "You're still brooding."
She looked up and said, "excuse me?"
"As I said, you're brooding, like that's going solve anything." His words cut, flat.
Her head snapped toward him, eyes flashing red. "Don't-"
"Don't what? Point out the obvious? You've been dragging that face all along." He straightened, stepping closer. "You wanna know what that looks like? Weakness. Something that we definitely don't need, right now."
Her fists curled against her knees. "You think I don't know that?!" she barked, finally standing. "You think I don't know what I've done? I stood with them for years while we burned the world!"
"I told myself it was right because I was scared to lose the only family I had left! And now-" Her voice cracked, "now I can't even look at those people without feeling like I should be hanging beside them."
Satoru's expression hardened. "So what? You wanna sit here and cry about it while the butcher's still out there carving people up? You think that helps?"
Her chest heaved, eyes stinging. "You don't understand!"
He stepped closer, blue light flickering faintly in his eyes. "Then make me."
She blinked, stunned. "…What?"
"You're pissed at yourself, at me, at the world, Good." He raised his eyebrows, "Put that anger to somewhere useful."
A sharp and provoking grin turned up on his face. "If you've got that much fire, Kara Zor'el, then show me how it burns. Or you could just stop whining."
Her teeth clenched. "You're an arrogant bastard."
"True, but I'm not the one wasting time." He tilted his head, hands in his pockets. "So what's it gonna be, Supergirl? Sit there pouting, or fight me?"
Her fist, lashed out before she could stop herself, in a blur of speed and unfiltered anger. It stopped inches from his jaw; he didn't flinch as the Infinity shimmered between them.
"Pathetic," he whispered, "again!"
Something inside her snapped. Her second punch shook the floor. Before the walls would break, his hands settled on her shoulders, and he snapped his fingers, the two of them vanishing from the place.
The desert wind screamed around them. Endless dunes stretched beneath a pale moon; there were no eyes to watch them and no ears to hear them.
Satoru stood with hands loose at his sides, his sunglasses were gone, and his gaze was sharp and expectant. "There're no rules here, Kara. No holding back. Show me what you can do."
Kara didn't hesitate. She flew at him; her fist looked like a comet. Infinity stopped the blow, air detonating around them in a shockwave that split the dunes.
"You think this helps me?!" she shouted, swinging again.
"It helps more than your whining," he snapped, sidestepping and driving a knee into her ribs. She crashed through the dune, sand erupting like water.
She shot back up, clothes already tearing from the force of her own movements. "You don't know what it's like! To hear their voices every day, the screams, the begging and knowing that I stayed silent!" She punched, faster, harder, each strike leaving thunderclaps in the air.
Satoru weaved through her blows, Infinity shimmering, then caught her wrist mid-swing and slammed her into the sand hard enough to glass the ground. "No, I don't know and I don't care. Because your guilt doesn't matter more than the people still alive!"
She roared, breaking free, soaring upward before diving down, both fists slamming like meteors. The desert floor cratered, a ring of fire and plasma erupting from the heat of impact.
"You smug bastard!" she screamed, eyes wet, voice shaking. "All you do is stand there with your smug little smile and tell everyone how wrong they are! You don't know what I lost, what I gave up!"
Satoru blurred, reappearing behind her, his foot connecting with her back. She plummeted again, carving a trench across the sand.
"You think loss is your excuse?!" he questioned aloud. "Everyone here's lost something! You don't get to wallow and call it penance. You either move forward or you drag everyone down."
She lunged again, faster than before, rage giving her speed. Their fists collided midair, the impact blowing dunes into the sky like tidal waves of sand.
Her shirt was torn to rags, skin barely scraped. She didn't stop though. Tears streamed from her eyes as she swung.
"I was supposed to protect them!" she cried, punching again and again. "I let them turn me into their weapon! I let him-"
Her words cut off as Satoru's Blue flared, pulling her forward violently. His fists, met her jaw, then her ribs, then her gut, a precise, merciless combo that slammed her into the ground.
She coughed, gasping, but still pushed herself up, trembling. "Why, why aren't you angry at me? Why don't you hate me?!" She shouted at the end.
Satoru crouched at her eye-level, his tone was quieter but still sharp. "Because you already hate yourself enough. My job's just making sure you don't bury yourself under it."
Her breath hitched. She swung one last time, weak, sloppy, more of a sob than strike. He caught her fist gently, lowering it, then kicked her right at her core, sending her flying away.
Hours passed as they continued to fight. The desert was cratered, dunes flattened, glassy scars reflecting the first hints of dawn.
Kara was collapsed onto her back, her mind had given up before her body, tears spilled freely now. Satoru dropped down beside her, sitting cross-legged, silent for once.
She turned her head toward him, voice ragged. "…You're still an ass."
He smirked faintly, eyes on the bleeding horizon. "Yeah. But you're not a brooding snob now, are you?"
She let out a shaky laugh, half-sob, half-relief, and turned her gaze to the other side. Together, without another word, they watched the sunrise spill across the desert sky.
To be continued!
A/N: I know this is a bit of an emotional drama chapter, along with the gore stuff. But it was quite hard, not gonna lie. I tried so hard not to make these interactions cringy or cliché. Tell me how this went and what I could do to improve such scenes that carry emotional depths. I'm all ears. And thanks for all the support by the way. You guys have been so awesome until now. Do leave some comments and tell me how this chapter was, overall. P/S: Supergirl only lost this fight here, because right now, she's too much of an emotional mess to fight at her full potential.