Gotham Singularity (19) Code Name
Countless dark spears pierced from the ground, covered by an ominous red aura, resembling a winding sea of bright red flowers from a distance.
Atalanta retreated swiftly, but she couldn't match the speed of the piercing shadows. As far as the eye could see, they claimed all of Atalanta's footholds.
Upstairs, Dick's eyes widened. "Wow!" He stared blankly at the battle outside the window. "So cool... She really doesn't need us to worry about her."
"Is this really not some new Hollywood fantasy movie?" he asked inappropriately. "Tibor, who do you think would win if they fought Superman?"
"If it's about bit effects, they're guaranteed to win."
"...You're right. But what about in terms of strength?"
"Judging from the current battle, Superman has a better chance of winning, but it's possible that they haven't used their trump cards yet and are just testing each other," Tim analyzed logically.
Since Xu Fu confined them to the room, the two tried various methods, but none of them had any effect on the ancient Taoist arts.
After seeing Bruce rescued, they relaxed completely, even eating cookies while watching this rare battle.
What is B thinking by remaining inactive now?
"Let them fight each other to the death and then pick off the rest; at the very least, we can't let them join forces against him."
"If Fujimaru and B start fighting later, will it be of any use if we try to break them upstairs?"
Tim hesitated, looking at Dick as if asking why a perfectly normal person had suddenly become stupid. Given their current immobile state, it was a miracle B hadn't taken them as hostages of Ritsuka.
Dick looked into Tim's eyes and suddenly realized what was happening. He pressed his hand to his forehead and let out a sigh of realization mixed with horror. "Oh no, should I pray that this thing trapping us has an expiration date?"
His voice trailed off, “...At least let us try to break up the fight?”
The relentless shadows of black guns robbed her of her footing, forcing Atalanta to leap. Looking around, she found only the relatively sturdy trees in the garden remained as a foothold.
She leaped up lightly, looking down at the girl whose magic was sparse. This child's magic could actually summon a shadow follower?
Who exactly is she?
The girl calmly looked up at her, and the moment their eyes met, Atalanta looked into her gentle eyes, which didn't seem like she was commanding a battle at all.
"The outcome is decided," she said.
“…What?” Atalanta asked instinctively.
"Of course it's because you've fallen into my magic!!" Xu Fu's voice exploded, "Qimen Dunjia - Stone Soldier Eight Formations!"
From the moment Emiya unleashed his rain of arrows, Fujimaru Ritsuka had only one goal: to lure Atalanta into the trap set by Xu Fu. Therefore, she abandoned the power of magic and instead chose to expand its reach.
The simply modified garden was arranged with blue lights in a regular pattern. Xu Fu jumped down from the tree next to him, revealing a smug smile after his prank had succeeded.
"Hmph, although I'm not as good at turning spells into works of art as Zhuge Liang, well, this is enough for now...isn't it enough?"
Xu Fu's voice grew softer and softer as the same trees reminded her of the tragic experience of her magic spell being burned by Kiyohime in the Royal Realm.
This woman is a berserker too, could she be just as twisted?
“That’s enough.” Fujimaru Ritsuka ruffled Xu Fu’s hair soothingly. “Her magic supply is more unstable than mine, and weaker than the one I met before.”
Or perhaps Atalanta was intentionally conserving her strength, as if she had more important things to do later and couldn't afford to waste too much magic here.
As she pondered, Fujimaru Ritsuka walked toward Atalanta, who had fallen to the ground. She did not approach the spell, but kept a distance of at least three steps.
Atalanta closed her eyes and said first, "Kill me, and I won't tell you where your Master is."
Two beings resembling shadow followers, and one true follower—what exactly has this magician experienced, and how many followers has he been connected with?
She stopped struggling, because she was well aware of the difference in their strength; she had no chance of escaping from the orange-haired girl now.
It's just a pity.
She's going to break her promise to Mary.
Unexpectedly, Fujimaru Ritsuka stood still and did not approach any further, while her servants, standing behind her, showed no intention of silencing her.
“I won’t kill you. Because the moment I saw you, I knew you wouldn’t betray your Master,” Fujimaru Ritsuka said. “So I’m not here to force you to do anything, I just have a question for you.”
This problem had troubled her and Holmes in the past, and it had also caused Jason great distress.
If they wanted to make up for their regrets, why did they kill Bruce Wayne? He shouldn't have had anything to do with the regrets.
She wondered, but didn't hesitate to ask. Even though one of the deceased was right behind her and might reveal something, it was indeed a clue she couldn't afford to miss.
Being recognized, even by an enemy, can improve one's mood. Atalanta didn't want to admit it, but her tone was indeed much gentler than before.
"It seems you have a special source of information." She chuckled. "Indeed, we are trying to make up for the regrets, but how can you be sure he wasn't the one who caused them?"
Fujimaru Ritsuka frowned; she trusted Atalanta wouldn't joke about something like this. So, was Batman really involved in this unfortunate situation?
"Or perhaps I should assume that your regrets are not just about those two children who died tragically."
A cold, slightly sarcastic British English voice drifted from afar, leather boots tapped on the garden's pebbly ground, and a black cloak billowed fluttered wildly with the young man's footsteps.
Seeing yet another strange person treating his home as if it were their own private domain, Bruce narrowed his eyes, feeling displeased. But he didn't act rashly; instead, he secretly gathered information from their conversation when no one was paying attention.
“After all,” Holmes said, “your Master’s real child was silenced by Black Mask’s men on October 7th, wasn’t he?”
As Holmes approached, Fujimaru Ritsuka instinctively smiled at him. Holmes's cold expression softened, and he touched Ritsuka's hair as he passed by.
He walked up to Atalanta and, through the barrier, stared intently into her eyes, as if trying to confirm some conjecture.
“No!” Atalanta couldn’t help but retort, “We succeeded! The two children are alive and well.”
Fujimaru Ritsuka recalled the two children's unusually cold hands and the Holy Grail's reaction at the time, and suddenly understood Holmes's meaning.
"If by 'success' you mean two dummies created from the Holy Grail and a mother's memory—then I have nothing to say," Holmes said sarcastically, arms crossed.
Atalanta's pupils contracted slightly, and her hands, hanging at her sides, tightened involuntarily. She wanted to ask how these people knew such things, but she suddenly fell silent.
She saw a young man in a red and black uniform dragging a man whose hands and feet were tied up. He didn't even look at anyone else and walked straight toward her.
"How could you...!"
"It's him." Fujimaru Ritsuka realized as well. "He's the one who provided them with information about Black Mask and Bruce Wayne!"
“You guessed right.” Red Hood confirmed Ritsuka’s suspicions, then looked at Atalanta. “Looks like you do know this guy, the bartender, right?” He clicked his tongue. “That’s a really lame codename.”
Despite being a prisoner, the bartender maintained an elegant and polite smile, seemingly unaware of the stares he was receiving.
"And what's your codename?" Under the blinding sunlight, the slender young man asked with a smile, his eyes reflecting the figure of the red hooded figure. "What do you think of it?"
"The Joker's codename was terrible, of course," Bruce thought. He subtly glanced at the current Red Hood, completely unable to understand why this man had chosen to associate himself with the Joker.
Jason completely ignored the young man's provocation. "He confessed some things, but some he would only tell you if he saw you or your master in person."
“But before that, I have a question.” He stepped contemptuously on the rope binding the bartender. “Why did you go through all this trouble? If you hadn’t killed Batman, you would have succeeded already, wouldn’t you?”
Atalanta raised an eyebrow in surprise. She had just heard the same question. Was it a coincidence, or was it just too obvious?
After all, even she had the same question.
“You should know better than this orange-haired kid next to me that Gotham’s darkness is its original sin,” Atalanta said bluntly. Lowering her eyes, she spoke calmly about her Master’s naive and unrealistic thoughts.
Her Master thought that by killing a Batman who attracted crime, those supervillains would get bored and leave on their own. Then she could give her child, and many more children, a wonderful childhood.
Holmes remained noncommittal, saying, "They'll get bored, but it takes time and lives."
Clearly, the holder of the Holy Grail did not persist in the initial retaliatory killings, but instead chose to rewind time.
“Haha, yes.” Atalanta closed her eyes bitterly, a whisper that sounded almost like a sigh rolling in her throat, “We learned this very lesson last time.”
That night in Gotham was filled with harm and death to children. She saved one, two, three... but many more children died in the shadows.
It was then that she truly realized how many criminals there were in Gotham, like termites that gnaw on rotten wood.
Atalanta suddenly changed the subject, looking up at Jason, "Others may not understand, but Red Hood, you should understand. Putting prisoners in mental hospitals and then letting them escape to continue harming more people is wrong."
Red Hood crossed his arms and exhaled disdainful carbon dioxide from his nostrils. "So what if you are? I'm not going to cooperate with you. To me, you're all a menace to Gotham."
"Then Batman should be too!"
Atalanta suddenly became extremely agitated, like a thunderclap that shouldn't have sounded in a clear sky, "He condoned all of this!"
That child, those children's lives could have been...
"None of this could have been avoided!"
After the thunderclap came a suffocating silence.
Batman never argues; Jason doesn't argue; Ritsuka and her followers, as bystanders, politely refrain from intervening.
After a long silence, it was the white-haired woman who broke it first. She pursed her lips and asked, puzzled:
"Red Hood, or as I should call you, Jason Todd—are you standing there because you still have feelings for them?"
The bartender raised his lowered eyes and looked directly at Bruce Wayne, who had been silent since his narrow escape from death, and slowly curled the corners of his mouth into a smile.
Bruce, who had been watching their conversation, thought: "..."
He froze, the woman before him uttering a name he hadn't heard in a long time. It was his former Robin, a child he had wronged.
But the child was already dead, and he buried him himself.
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