The cold storm in Batman's azure eyes had never ceased. After Angela left the Wayne Tower office, Bruce stood alone before the enormous floor-to-ceiling window, gazing down at the entire city in solitude. No matter when, Gotham looked astonishingly prosperous.
This was not a city of crime at all. This was the largest, most prosperous, most captivating city on the American East Coast—a psychedelic metropolis dreamed of by countless people, an indispensable part of human urban civilization.
This was Earth's cancer, humanity's calamity, and Batman's hometown.
As Bruce stood by the window, staring at the city, he heard a faint sound behind him. He turned gently and saw a figure sitting on the sofa against the light. It was another version of himself.
Bruce felt neither surprise nor wariness, as though it were perfectly natural for him to be there.
Or rather, ever since that night in Crime Alley, that figure had followed him like a shadow and never left.
Bruce walked over and sat opposite him. Two identical figures sat before the vast floor-to-ceiling window. The countless lights of the layered skyscrapers cast them as two silhouettes—not alone, yet equally lonely.
"I was not born today." The Bruce on the right raised his head. There were no pupils in his eye sockets, but no whites either. Between his lids flowed a black tide, not frightening, but possessing a strange beauty.
"That policewoman said that as she continued investigating murder cases, she came to understand those criminals and discovered another self. She felt fear and chose to retreat. But you know she had not developed a mental illness or hallucinations. Everything she said was true, and she was not an isolated case."
The Bruce sitting opposite him also had no pupils, only white sclera, paler than any snow Gotham had