Nakamura Kenji had been in Gotham City for exactly seventy-two hours, and he had already developed several survival strategies.
Strategy One: Point at things. Pointing was universal. Pointing transcended language barriers. If you pointed at a bottle of water and held out money, people would usually sell you the water, even if they looked at you strangely while doing so.
Strategy Two: Nod. Nodding was also universal. Nodding meant agreement, acknowledgment, understanding. If someone asked you a question you didn't understand, you could nod, and they would usually go away satisfied. Sometimes they seemed confused by what you had agreed to, but that was a problem for later.
Strategy Three: Walk with purpose. If you walked like you knew where you were going, people assumed you knew where you were going. They didn't stop you. They didn't ask questions. They just let you pass, one more anonymous figure in the endless flow of urban humanity.
Strategy Four: Don't make eye contact. Eye contact invited interaction. Interaction required communication. Communication was impossible. Therefore, eye contact was to be avoided at all costs.
Strategy Five: Find quiet places to exist. Parks. Alleys. Abandoned buildings. Anywhere the crowds thinned and the noise faded and Kenji could simply be, without the constant pressure of a world he couldn't understand demanding things from him.
These strategies had kept him alive for three days.
Three days of convenience store rice balls and bottled water. Three days of sleeping on benches and in doorways, waking with stiff muscles and aching joints. Three days of wandering through the Gothic nightmare that was Gotham City, trying to find some way to survive, some path forward, some hope.
He had found none.
But he was still alive.
That was something.
On the morning of the fourth day, Kenji woke on a bench in a small park near the city center. The sun was up, weak and gray as always, filtering through the perpetual cloud cover that seemed to hang over Gotham like a funeral shroud. Pigeons pecked at the ground nearby, unconcerned by his presence. A homeless man on the next bench over was snoring loudly.
Kenji sat up, stretched, and took stock of his situation.
His suit was beyond ruined now. Three days of sleeping rough had added new stains and tears to the original damage, transforming what had once been professional attire into something that wouldn't have looked out of place on a zombie extra. His glasses were still cracked. His hair was a disaster. He smelled, he was fairly certain, terrible.
But he was alive.
He repeated this to himself like a mantra.
Alive was better than dead.
Probably.
His stomach growled, reminding him that alive required maintenance. He needed food. He had a small amount of money left—bills and coins that he had found in his pockets after waking up, American currency that he didn't quite understand but that seemed to work when offered to cashiers. Enough for a few more days of convenience store survival, if he was careful.
He needed to find more permanent solutions eventually.
But eventually was a problem for later.
Today, he just needed to eat.
Kenji rose from the bench, stretched again, and began walking toward the commercial district he had identified on his second day. There was a small grocery store there that had cheap food and a cashier who had stopped looking at him strangely after his third visit.
The walk was about twenty minutes.
Kenji didn't mind walking. Walking was simple. Walking required no communication. Walking was, in its way, peaceful.
He let his mind drift as he moved through the waking city, watching the people around him without really seeing them. Businessmen in suits hurrying to offices. Students with backpacks trudging toward schools. Delivery drivers and shop owners and countless anonymous figures going about their lives.
None of them paid attention to him.
That was good.
Attention was dangerous.
Kenji turned a corner, passed through a small plaza, and was about to enter the street where the grocery store was located when he noticed something strange.
The street was empty.
Not just quiet—empty. The shops had their shutters down. The cars that should have been parked along the curb were gone. The pedestrians who should have been crowding the sidewalk had vanished.
Kenji stopped, frowning.
This was unusual.
This was very unusual.
In Tokyo, empty streets meant something was wrong. A gas leak, maybe. An accident. A crime scene. Normal people didn't abandon streets in the middle of a business day.
Kenji should probably turn around.
Kenji should probably find another route.
But his stomach growled again, insistent, and the grocery store was right there, just at the end of the street. He could see it. The lights were even on, suggesting someone was inside.
Maybe the emptiness was just coincidence.
Maybe there was a street fair somewhere, drawing the crowds away.
Maybe everything was fine.
Kenji started walking down the empty street.
He made it about halfway before he heard the first explosion.
The Gotham First National Bank was having a very bad day.
It had started normally enough. The doors had opened at nine, the tellers had taken their positions, the customers had begun trickling in for their various banking needs. A normal Tuesday morning in a normal Gotham bank.
And then the front wall had exploded.
Not metaphorically. Not dramatically. Literally exploded, bricks and mortar flying inward as something—someone—massive came crashing through like a freight train made of muscle and venom.
Bane stood in the ruins of the wall, his massive frame blocking the morning light, the tubes feeding Venom into his body pulsing with a sick green glow. He was here for the vault. He was always here for the vault. The vault was how you funded operations, purchased weapons, maintained the infrastructure of terror.
But Bane was not alone today.
To his left stood Two-Face, his coin already dancing across his scarred knuckles, his split visage somehow managing to look impatient and amused simultaneously. Harvey Dent had his own reasons for this particular bank—something about corrupt accounts and hidden ledgers—but he was happy enough to share the take with Bane if it meant getting what he wanted.
And to his right, resplendent in purple and green, his smile a bloody wound across chalk-white skin, stood the Joker.
The Joker was here because chaos was entertaining.
The Joker was always there when chaos was entertaining.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" The Clown Prince of Crime spread his arms wide, addressing the screaming, cowering hostages with the theatrical flair of a Vegas headliner. "Welcome to today's entertainment! Please remain in your seats, keep your hands where we can see them, and try not to die—though that last one is more of a suggestion than a rule!"
Behind him, Harley Quinn giggled.
She was dressed in her classic red and black, baseball bat resting on her shoulder, bubble gum popping between her painted lips. A good day. This was a good day. Mr. J was in a mood, which meant fun and chaos and all the beautiful destruction that made life worth living.
"How long for the vault?" Two-Face growled at Bane.
"Ten minutes," the masked titan rumbled. "Perhaps less, if your men can handle the security protocols."
"My men can handle anything."
"We shall see."
The Joker wasn't paying attention to the logistics. The Joker was never paying attention to the logistics. He was watching the hostages, delighting in their terror, drinking in their fear like fine wine.
"What's the matter?" he asked a particularly terrified woman in a business suit. "Don't you want to laugh? Laughter is the best medicine! Although in my experience, the medicine often causes the dying, rather than preventing it. Funny how that works out!"
He laughed.
No one else did.
That was fine. They would learn to appreciate his humor eventually. They always did. Right before the end.
Everything was proceeding according to plan.
And then the door opened.
Not the exploded front wall. The side door. The employee entrance that the hostages had been herded away from, the one that led to the little side street where the bank's dumpsters lived.
It opened quietly, almost apologetically.
And a man walked in.
Kenji had been looking for a bathroom.
The explosion had startled him, certainly. Loud noises were startling. But he had quickly rationalized it away—construction, maybe, or a car accident, or one of the strange things that seemed to happen regularly in this strange city. Nothing to do with him. Nothing to worry about.
But the explosion had reminded his body that it had needs beyond food. Specifically, his bladder had suddenly decided that it could no longer wait.
The grocery store had been closed when he'd finally reached it, shutters down, no one inside. But the building next to it—some kind of large official-looking place with marble columns—had looked open. There were lights on inside. Surely they would have a bathroom.
Kenji had found a side door, pushed it open, and stepped inside.
He was looking for a bathroom.
He was only looking for a bathroom.
What he found was significantly more complicated.
The interior of the building was large and open, all marble floors and high ceilings and the kind of architecture that suggested money and importance. But something was wrong. Very wrong.
There were people on the floor. Dozens of them, huddled together in groups, their hands on their heads, their faces twisted with fear. Some were crying. Some were praying. All of them were staring at something across the room.
Kenji followed their gaze.
And saw the clowns.
No, that wasn't quite right. Clowns implied something festive, something silly, something you might see at a children's party. These were not those kinds of clowns.
There was a giant man wearing what looked like a wrestling mask, tubes running from the back of his head to some kind of device on his back, muscles bulging with an unnatural size that suggested chemical enhancement or genetic manipulation or something equally impossible.
There was a man in a suit, except half his face was normal and half was... not. Burned, maybe, or scarred, the skin twisted and discolored in a way that made Kenji's stomach turn. He was flipping a coin, over and over, catching it without looking.
There was a woman in red and black with a baseball bat, her face painted in a pattern that matched her outfit, her posture relaxed and casual as if mass hostage situations were just another Tuesday.
And there was a man in purple.
A man with white skin and green hair and a smile that was too wide, too red, too wrong. A man whose very presence seemed to distort the air around him, as if reality itself was trying to pull away from his contamination.
The man in purple was talking. Monologuing, really, in a theatrical voice that echoed through the marble hall. Kenji didn't understand a word of it, but the tone was clear enough.
This was a bad situation.
This was a very, very bad situation.
Kenji should leave.
Kenji should turn around, walk back out the side door, and pretend he had never seen any of this.
But the people on the floor had noticed him.
They were looking at him now, those terrified faces turning in his direction, some of them with hope in their eyes, as if his arrival might somehow save them.
And the woman in red and black had followed their gaze.
And the man with the split face had looked up from his coin.
And the giant in the wrestling mask had turned, slowly, like a tank turret acquiring a target.
And the man in purple—the clown, the wrong one, the one who made Kenji's survival instincts scream in a language that transcended culture—had stopped talking mid-sentence.
Everyone was looking at him.
Kenji stood frozen in the doorway, hand still on the door handle, his exhausted brain trying desperately to process the situation.
He had walked into something.
He didn't know what.
But everyone was looking at him.
And he had absolutely no idea what to do.
The Joker stared at the newcomer.
This was unexpected.
The Joker loved unexpected. Unexpected was the spice of chaos, the seasoning that made the meal of mayhem truly delicious. But this particular unexpected was... strange.
The man in the doorway was clearly not a hero. He wore no cape, no mask, no ridiculous costume. He was dressed in what had once been a suit but was now a disaster of stains and tears that suggested prolonged exposure to streets and alleys. His hair was a mess. His glasses were cracked. He looked like a homeless accountant who had wandered in from a particularly bad week.
But his face.
His face was wrong.
Not scarred like Harvey's. Not painted like Harley's. Not hidden behind a mask like Bane's. Just... wrong. Empty. Hollow. The face of someone who had seen too much and felt too little, someone who had been scraped out from the inside and left with nothing but a shell.
The man's eyes were the worst part.
They were dark and flat and utterly, completely devoid of reaction. No fear. No surprise. No confusion. Not even curiosity. They were the eyes of a corpse, still and empty and somehow terrifying in their absolute blankness.
The man looked at the Joker.
And the Joker, for perhaps the first time in his long and bloody career, felt something he didn't quite recognize.
Unease.
"Well, well, well!" The Joker's voice was too loud, too cheerful, overcompensating for the sensation crawling up his spine. "What do we have here? A latecomer to the party? Don't you know it's rude to arrive after the entertainment has started?"
The man didn't respond.
He just looked at the Joker.
Those empty, empty eyes.
"Cat got your tongue?" The Joker's smile was fixed in place, a rictus grin that showed too many teeth. "Or are you just starstruck? I get that a lot. I'm told I'm quite the celebrity!"
Nothing.
The man blinked—once, slowly—and continued staring.
The hostages were watching now, their terror temporarily suspended by confusion. The henchmen had their guns trained on the stranger but seemed unsure whether to fire. Even Bane and Two-Face had paused their vault preparations to observe this bizarre interruption.
"He's not scared," Harley said, and there was something odd in her voice. Something that wasn't quite her usual manic cheer. "Mr. J, he's not scared of you."
"Everyone's scared of me," the Joker said automatically. "I'm the Joker. Fear is my brand."
"Look at his eyes."
The Joker was looking.
That was the problem.
He had looked into the eyes of countless victims over his decades of terror. He had seen fear in all its variations—the sharp panic of sudden danger, the slow dread of inevitable doom, the wild terror of someone watching their world fall apart. He had learned to read those eyes, to savor them, to extract every drop of delicious suffering from their depths.
This man's eyes gave him nothing.
They were empty.
Not the emptiness of shock, which was temporary and would fade. Not the emptiness of despair, which still had emotion buried beneath it. Not even the emptiness of death, which was simply an absence.
This was something else.
This was the emptiness of someone who had gone somewhere in their mind that the Joker had never been. Someone who had seen something that made even the Clown Prince of Crime seem... small.
It was, the Joker realized with growing irritation, profoundly unsettling.
"SAY SOMETHING!" The Joker's voice cracked, rising to a pitch that surprised even him. "This is a robbery! A hostage situation! You're supposed to scream, or beg, or at least have the common courtesy to look AFRAID!"
The man tilted his head slightly.
That was all.
Just a small inclination of the neck, a minor adjustment of angle. But coming from that blank face with those hollow eyes, it was the most unnerving thing the Joker had experienced in years.
It was the head tilt of someone observing an insect.
It was the head tilt of something that was not impressed.
Kenji observed the purple clown.
The purple clown was yelling at him. This seemed to be a pattern in this city—people in costumes descending upon Kenji and yelling things he didn't understand. The moth-man had done it. The child with the sword had done it. Now the purple clown was doing it.
At least this was consistent.
Kenji didn't know what the clown was saying, but the tone was clear enough. Angry. Demanding. Slightly hysterical. The clown wanted something from him—a reaction, probably, like the others had.
But Kenji had no reactions left to give.
He was so tired.
He had been tired for years, really. Tired of waking up at six to catch the train. Tired of overtime that stretched into infinity. Tired of meetings that accomplished nothing and emails that demanded everything and the slow, grinding erasure of his identity beneath the weight of corporate expectations.
He had been tired before he died.
He was tired now that he was alive again.
And watching a purple clown have some kind of theatrical breakdown in front of him was simply not enough to penetrate that exhaustion.
This was probably dangerous.
The rational part of Kenji's brain, the part that still functioned despite everything, recognized that he had walked into something very bad. The people on the floor were clearly hostages. The people with weapons were clearly criminals. The purple clown was clearly the leader, or at least the loudest, and his agitation suggested that Kenji's presence was unwelcome.
He should probably leave.
But he still needed a bathroom.
And he was too tired to be scared.
Kenji sighed.
It was a small sound. A quiet exhalation of breath that, under normal circumstances, would have been meaningless.
But in the silence of that marble hall, with every eye fixed upon him, it echoed like a thunderclap.
And the Joker flinched.
Actually flinched.
"Did he just—" Harley started.
"He sighed," Two-Face said, his voice flat with disbelief. "He looked at the Joker and sighed."
"Like he was disappointed," Bane rumbled, and there was something in the titan's voice that might have been respect. "Like we were beneath his notice."
The Joker's eye was twitching.
This was not how this was supposed to go.
He was the Joker. He was the Clown Prince of Crime, the Ace of Knaves, the most feared villain in Gotham City. He had broken Batmen. He had shattered cities. He had danced on the edge of apocalypse and laughed at the abyss.
And this nobody—this homeless-looking foreigner in a ruined suit—had just looked at him with the expression of someone who had seen better.
"Who ARE you?" The Joker's voice had dropped to something quiet and dangerous. "What ARE you?"
The man didn't answer.
Of course he didn't.
He just stood there in the doorway, one hand still on the door handle, those empty eyes fixed on the Joker with absolute, infuriating stillness.
The Joker drew his gun.
It was an automatic response, the reaction of a man who had spent decades solving problems with violence. The weapon was bright purple, absurdly decorated, but the bullets inside were real enough.
"Let's try this again," the Joker said, pointing the gun at the stranger's chest. "Who. Are. You?"
The man looked at the gun.
Looked back at the Joker.
And his expression—his complete lack of expression—did not change in the slightest.
Kenji observed the gun.
The purple clown was pointing a gun at him.
This should probably be alarming. Guns were dangerous. Guns killed people. Having a gun pointed at you was, objectively, a very bad situation that demanded immediate fear and compliance.
But Kenji had already died once.
What was a gun compared to several tons of speeding truck?
He had felt the impact. He had experienced the moment of absolute destruction that came when a human body met an irresistible force. He knew, intimately and personally, what death felt like.
This clown with his purple gun was not particularly impressive by comparison.
Kenji looked at the weapon. Looked at the clown. Noted, with detached interest, that the clown's hand was shaking slightly.
Was the clown nervous?
That didn't make sense. The clown was the one with the gun. The clown was the one with the hostages and the minions and the theatrical costume. The clown was clearly in charge of this situation.
So why was he nervous?
Kenji didn't understand.
He was too tired to understand.
He just wanted to find a bathroom.
Kenji's gaze drifted past the clown, scanning the marble hall for any sign of a restroom. There had to be one somewhere. Buildings like this always had public facilities.
The Joker watched the stranger's eyes move past him.
Past him.
Like he wasn't even there.
Like the gun pointing at his chest wasn't worth acknowledging.
Like the Joker himself was simply an obstacle between this man and whatever he was looking for.
"HE'S IGNORING ME!" The Joker's voice rose to a shriek. "I HAVE A GUN POINTED AT HIM AND HE'S IGNORING ME!"
"Mr. J, maybe—" Harley started.
"SHUT UP, HARLEY!"
The Joker's composure was cracking. This wasn't supposed to happen. People were supposed to fear him. People were supposed to cower and beg and give him the satisfaction of their terror. That was how this worked. That was the social contract of supervillainy.
This man was violating the social contract.
This man was looking through him like he was made of glass.
"I will KILL you!" The Joker's voice had gone high and strange. "I will shoot you RIGHT NOW! Doesn't that MEAN anything to you?!"
The man's gaze returned to the Joker.
Those empty eyes.
That hollow face.
And slowly, almost imperceptibly, the man shrugged.
Shrugged.
Like the threat of death was merely an inconvenience.
Like living or dying was a matter of complete indifference.
Like nothing the Joker could do would ever, ever matter.
The gun trembled in the Joker's hand.
Across the room, Bane watched the interaction with growing interest.
He had faced many opponents in his life. Heroes and villains, soldiers and mercenaries, everyone from street thugs to the Batman himself. He had learned to read strength in all its forms—physical prowess, mental acuity, sheer force of will.
This man had none of the obvious markers of strength. He was small, unfit, clearly civilian in his physical bearing. His body language suggested exhaustion and confusion rather than combat readiness.
And yet.
The way he stood. The way he looked at the Joker without flinching. The way he treated a gun pointed at his chest with the same disinterest one might show a buzzing fly.
That was not the behavior of a weak man.
That was not the behavior of a civilian.
That was the behavior of someone who had moved beyond fear. Someone who had been broken so completely that the normal rules of human psychology no longer applied.
Bane had seen that behavior before.
In the pit.
In the darkest prison on Earth, where hope went to die and only the truly broken could survive.
He had emerged from that pit stronger than anyone who had come before. He had thought he was unique. He had thought no one else could have survived what he survived.
But this man...
This man had the eyes of someone who had seen the pit.
Who had fallen into it.
Who had never climbed out.
Bane felt something he had not felt in a very long time.
Respect.
And just a touch of fear.
Two-Face was flipping his coin.
He wasn't even aware he was doing it—the motion had become automatic, a nervous tic that emerged whenever reality became too strange to process through normal means.
Flip. Catch. Flip. Catch.
The scarred side of the coin caught the light as he watched the stranger ignore the Joker.
Harvey Dent, the man he had been before the acid, would have found this situation fascinating from a legal perspective. A witness to a crime who showed no fear of the criminals. An unknown variable in an otherwise controlled situation.
But Harvey Dent was gone, replaced by Two-Face, and Two-Face did not deal in legal fascinations. Two-Face dealt in duality. In the binary choices that defined existence. In the simple, brutal clarity of the coin.
Good or evil.
Life or death.
Threat or non-threat.
He looked at the stranger.
The coin flipped.
Caught.
Two-Face looked at the result.
And felt his blood run cold.
The coin had landed on edge.
That wasn't possible. In all the years he had been flipping this coin, in all the thousands of decisions he had left to chance, the coin had never landed on edge. The laws of probability simply didn't allow it.
And yet there it was, balanced perfectly on his scarred palm, neither heads nor tails.
Neither good nor evil.
Neither threat nor non-threat.
Something else entirely.
Two-Face looked up at the stranger.
The stranger was not looking at him. The stranger was still focused on the Joker, those empty eyes fixed on the clown with absolute stillness.
But for just a moment—just a fraction of a second—Two-Face could have sworn the stranger's gaze flickered to the coin.
To the impossible balanced coin.
And the corner of his mouth—the man's mouth, not Two-Face's—might have twitched.
Almost like a smile.
Almost like acknowledgment.
Almost like the stranger knew exactly what had just happened and found it... amusing.
The coin fell.
It landed on the floor, spinning twice before coming to rest on heads.
Good.
Spare him.
Two-Face did not argue with the coin.
Harley Quinn was experiencing something new.
She had been in love before. She had been obsessed before. She had attached herself to powerful, dangerous men with the desperation of someone who didn't know how to exist without an anchor.
But this feeling was different.
She watched the stranger ignore Mr. J—actually ignore him, not pretend-ignore him, not playing-hard-to-get ignore him, but genuine complete dismissal—and felt something shift in her chest.
It wasn't attraction. Not exactly. The man wasn't handsome. He was exhausted and disheveled and clearly had not bathed in days. He looked like someone who had given up on the basic maintenance of human existence.
But there was something in that surrender.
Something beautiful.
She knew about being broken. She knew about having your mind twisted and your heart shattered and your sense of self erased until you didn't know who you were anymore. She had lived that. She was living it still, chasing a clown who didn't love her, pretending the abuse was affection, telling herself that the chaos was romance.
This man had been broken too.
She could see it in his eyes.
But he had been broken in a different way. Not broken into someone else's shape, like she had been. Not broken into servitude or obsession or desperate neediness.
Just... broken.
Shattered into pieces and left to exist as fragments.
And somehow, that shattered existence had become something terrifying.
Something that made the Joker afraid.
Harley had never seen the Joker afraid before.
She watched his hand shake. Watched his smile flicker. Watched the confidence drain out of his posture as the stranger continued to look through him like he wasn't there.
And she felt something she hadn't felt in years.
Hope.
If this man—this broken, empty, hollow man—could make the Joker afraid...
If someone could exist outside the Joker's control...
If there was a way to be broken that didn't mean being owned...
Harley stared at the stranger with new eyes.
And began, without knowing it, to fall.
Kenji had found the bathroom.
It was there, against the far wall, a door with a universal symbol that transcended language. Relief flooded through him—the specific relief of someone whose bladder had been making demands for the past hour.
He needed to get to that bathroom.
But there were obstacles.
The people on the floor were between him and his destination. The criminals with their weapons were watching him. The purple clown was still pointing a gun at him and making high-pitched noises that sounded increasingly unhinged.
Kenji considered his options.
He could turn around and leave. Find another bathroom somewhere else. Avoid this entire confusing situation.
But he really needed to go.
And the bathroom was right there.
Decision made, Kenji started walking.
"HE'S MOVING!"
The Joker's shriek echoed through the marble hall as the stranger stepped away from the doorway and began walking across the floor.
Not running. Not charging. Just... walking. Calm, measured steps that carried him past the cowering hostages without a glance, that brought him closer to the Joker and his gun without any apparent concern.
"STOP! I SAID STOP!"
The stranger didn't stop.
He walked past a henchman who had frozen in confused terror. Past another who had lowered his gun because he genuinely didn't know what to do. Past a woman who was crying on the floor, his shadow falling across her without acknowledgment.
"I WILL SHOOT YOU!"
The stranger kept walking.
Directly toward the Joker.
Directly toward the gun.
The Joker's finger tightened on the trigger. His hand was shaking so badly that he wasn't sure he could even aim properly. His smile had become a grimace, teeth grinding together, every instinct screaming that something was wrong, that this wasn't how it was supposed to go, that—
The stranger walked past him.
Past him.
Without a glance.
Without a word.
Without any acknowledgment whatsoever.
And continued toward the back of the hall.
Where the restrooms were.
The bathroom door closed behind Kenji with a quiet click.
He stood for a moment, letting the silence wash over him. The bathroom was small but clean, institutional in design, with white tiles and fluorescent lights and the faint smell of industrial cleaning products.
It was, Kenji reflected, the nicest place he had been in three days.
He used the facilities. Washed his hands. Looked at himself in the mirror.
The face that stared back was barely recognizable. Hollow cheeks. Dark circles. Dead eyes. He looked like a ghost. He looked like something that had crawled out of a grave and forgotten how to go back.
Is this what I am now? he wondered. Is this what I've become?
He didn't know.
He didn't know anything.
He dried his hands on his ruined pants and walked back out into the marble hall.
The scene had changed while he was gone.
The hostages were still on the floor, but they were looking at him differently now. With awe. With fear. With something that might have been reverence.
The henchmen had backed away, clustering near the walls, their weapons lowered. Some were whispering to each other. One had actually dropped his gun and was staring at Kenji with an expression of pure terror.
The giant in the wrestling mask—Bane—had stopped whatever he was doing and was watching Kenji with intense, focused attention.
The man with the split face—Two-Face—was clutching his coin so tightly that his knuckles had gone white, his normal eye wide with something that looked like existential crisis.
The woman in red and black—Harley—was staring at Kenji with an expression he couldn't read but that made something in his survival instincts twitch uneasily.
And the Joker.
The Joker was standing exactly where Kenji had left him, gun still raised, arm trembling, face frozen in an expression of absolute, complete, incomprehending horror.
He was muttering something.
Kenji couldn't understand the words, but the tone was unmistakable.
The purple clown was afraid.
Kenji didn't understand why.
He had just used the bathroom.
Why was everyone looking at him like he had done something extraordinary?
This city was very strange.
"He walked past me," the Joker was saying. "He walked past me. He walked past me."
"Mr. J—" Harley tried.
"I HAD A GUN. I HAD A GUN POINTED AT HIM. AND HE WALKED PAST ME. TO USE THE BATHROOM. THE BATHROOM."
The Joker's voice had gone strange—high and wavering, with none of his usual theatrical control. He was staring at the stranger, who had emerged from the restroom and was now simply standing there, looking around as if mildly confused by the attention.
"WHO DOES THAT?! WHO WALKS PAST THE JOKER—THE JOKER—TO USE THE BATHROOM?! IN THE MIDDLE OF A HOSTAGE SITUATION?!"
The stranger blinked.
Slowly.
With complete disinterest.
And the Joker felt something crack inside him.
He had spent his entire career being the craziest person in any room. The most unpredictable. The most terrifying. He had built his identity on the certainty that he could unnerve anyone, that his madness was a weapon that no one could match.
But this man.
This empty, hollow, broken man who had walked through his hostage situation like it was a minor inconvenience.
This man was crazier than him.
Not theatrical crazy. Not performative crazy. Not the kind of crazy that had a method and a message.
Just... crazy.
Broken in some fundamental way that the Joker couldn't understand or match.
And that was terrifying.
"I'm leaving," the Joker announced, his voice cracking. "This heist is OVER. Everyone OUT."
"But Mr. J, the vault—" a henchman started.
"I SAID OUT!"
Bane watched the Joker flee.
He had never seen the clown retreat before. Not from Batman. Not from anyone. The Joker's madness was usually unshakeable, his confidence in his own chaos absolute.
But the stranger had shaken him.
Without a word. Without a threat. Without any action at all beyond walking to the bathroom and back.
Bane looked at the stranger with new appreciation.
"You," he said, his deep voice rumbling across the hall. "What is your name?"
The stranger looked at him.
Those empty eyes.
That hollow face.
No response.
No acknowledgment.
Just observation, calm and steady and completely unafraid.
Bane felt the strange sensation again—the recognition of a kindred spirit, someone who had seen the darkness and been transformed by it.
"When you are ready to talk," Bane said, "find me. I think we have much to discuss."
He turned and walked out through the hole his entrance had made, leaving the bank behind.
He would remember this day.
He would remember those eyes.
Two-Face was the next to leave.
He didn't say anything to the stranger. He couldn't. His coin was still warm in his palm, still impossible, still balanced on an edge that shouldn't exist.
He had flipped it three more times since the stranger emerged from the bathroom.
It had landed on edge every time.
Every. Single. Time.
That wasn't probability. That wasn't chance. That was something else. Something that made the fundamental framework of Two-Face's existence—the binary certainty of the coin—suddenly feel very fragile.
He left through the front entrance, his men following, none of them speaking.
They would talk about this later.
They would never agree on what they had seen.
Harley was the last villain remaining.
The hostages were starting to stir, their terror fading as they realized the criminals were leaving. Somewhere in the distance, sirens were beginning to wail. The police would be here soon. The heroes would be here soon. The situation was resolving itself.
But Harley didn't care about any of that.
She was looking at the stranger.
He had turned toward the side door, apparently planning to leave the same way he had entered. His shoulders were slumped. His posture was exhausted. He looked like someone who had simply run out of energy for the day.
He looked lonely.
He looked broken.
He looked like someone who needed help.
Something in Harley's chest twisted.
"Hey!" she called out, jogging toward him. "Hey, wait!"
The stranger stopped.
Turned.
Looked at her with those empty, hollow eyes.
Up close, he was even more exhausted than she had realized. The dark circles under his eyes were like bruises. His skin was pale and unhealthy. He looked like he hadn't slept properly in weeks. Months. Maybe ever.
"What's your name?" Harley asked. "Where are you from? Are you okay? You don't look okay. When's the last time you ate? You need to eat. Come on, I'll take you somewhere. Get you some food. Clean clothes. Whatever you need."
The stranger stared at her.
He didn't understand a word she was saying.
But her tone was different from the others. Not threatening. Not demanding. Almost... kind?
She was smiling at him.
Not the way the purple clown smiled, all teeth and malice. A real smile. A concerned smile. The smile of someone who wanted to help.
Kenji didn't know what to do with that.
No one in this city had smiled at him before.
No one had looked at him with anything but confusion or fear.
This woman was looking at him with something else entirely.
Something warm.
Something interested.
Something that made him deeply uncomfortable for reasons he couldn't articulate.
"I'm Harley," the woman said, tapping her chest. "Harley. That's my name. What's yours?"
She was pointing at herself, then at him.
Asking for his name.
That much was universal.
Kenji hesitated.
He shouldn't engage. Engagement led to communication. Communication led to the revelation that he didn't speak the language. Revelation led to embarrassment.
But she had asked.
And she seemed nice.
And he was so, so tired of being alone.
"Kenji," he said, his voice rusty from disuse. "Nakamura Kenji."
It was the first word he had spoken since arriving in this city.
Harley's face lit up like the sun.
"Kenji!" she repeated, delighted. "That's a beautiful name! Is that Japanese? Are you Japanese? Oh my God, you must be so confused! Don't worry, I'll take care of you! Harley's gonna make sure you're okay!"
She grabbed his hand.
Kenji flinched at the contact but didn't pull away.
He was too tired to pull away.
And her hand was warm.
"Come on!" Harley was already dragging him toward the exit. "We gotta get out of here before the cops show up. I know a great place for breakfast. You like pancakes? Everyone likes pancakes. And then we'll get you some new clothes, and a bath, and—"
She kept talking.
Kenji didn't understand any of it.
But he let himself be pulled along.
Because someone was being kind to him.
Because someone had seen him—really seen him, empty eyes and hollow face and all—and hadn't run away screaming.
Because for the first time since waking up in that dumpster, he didn't feel completely alone.
And in the depths of Harley Quinn's broken, chaotic, desperately lonely heart, something took root.
Something obsessive.
Something possessive.
Something that would grow and flourish and become the most powerful fixation she had ever experienced.
She had found him.
Her person.
Her project.
Her Kenji.
And she was never, ever, ever going to let him go.
The Gotham City Police Department arrived at the bank fifteen minutes later.
They found a scene of chaos—terrified hostages, abandoned weapons, a hole in the wall where Bane had entered. But no criminals. No stolen money. No casualties.
Commissioner Gordon surveyed the scene with growing confusion.
"What happened here?"
The hostages all started talking at once.
About a man. A stranger. A ghost in a ruined suit with empty eyes.
A man who had walked into a hostage situation, ignored the Joker, used the bathroom, and walked out again.
A man who had made the Clown Prince of Crime run away in terror.
A man who had left with Harley Quinn, who had looked at him like he was the most fascinating thing she had ever seen.
Gordon listened to the accounts.
Read the statements.
Watched the security footage that showed a disheveled Japanese man walking through a room full of armed criminals like they weren't even there.
And felt a headache building behind his eyes.
"Another one," he muttered. "Great. Just what this city needs. Another mystery."
He filed the report under "Unknown Individuals of Interest" and sent a copy to Batman.
By the next morning, the underworld would be buzzing with stories of the Silent One.
The man who made the Joker afraid.
The man who had broken Bane's respect.
The man who had made Two-Face's coin do the impossible.
The man who Harley Quinn had claimed.
And Kenji himself, stuffed full of pancakes and wearing clothes that Harley had "acquired" from somewhere, sleeping on a surprisingly comfortable couch in a hideout filled with dangerous weapons and creepy clown memorabilia, had no idea any of this was happening.
He was just tired.
So very, very tired.
But for the first time since arriving in Gotham, he had a roof over his head and food in his stomach.
And a woman with a baseball bat watching him sleep with an expression of absolute, unwavering, slightly terrifying devotion.
Life was strange.
But maybe, just maybe, it was starting to get better.
KENJI'S STATUS (END OF CHAPTER 2):
Words spoken: 2 ("Nakamura Kenji")English learned: 0Times kidnapped: 0 (technically, he went willingly with Harley)Villains terrified: 4 (Joker, Bane, Two-Face, plus Killer Moth from Chapter 1)Heroes unsettled: 1 (Robin)Yanderes acquired: 1 (Harley Quinn)Criminal reputation: "The Silent One" (growing)Current location: Harley's hideoutUnderstanding of situation: 0%
KENJI'S CURRENT THOUGHT: "The nice clown lady gave me pancakes. This is the best thing that has happened since I got here. Maybe this city isn't so bad after all."
HARLEY'S CURRENT THOUGHT: "He's perfect. He's absolutely perfect. He doesn't judge me. He doesn't yell at me. He doesn't even look at me like I'm crazy. He just exists, so beautifully broken, so wonderfully empty, so completely MINE. I'm gonna protect him forever. No one's gonna hurt my Kenji. No one's gonna take him away. We're gonna be so happy together. Just me and him. Forever. And ever. And ever. And if anyone tries to get between us, I'll kill them. Slowly. With my bat. While smiling. Because that's what love is. Right? RIGHT?"