Once the first domino fell, Batman watched the chaotic game of cards and almost immediately saw the Robins' true purpose beneath the tangled surface.
They were forcing Gotham's powerful and influential families to pick up guns again and become Mafia families built on violence as both foundation and method.
In truth, Batman had only lived through the end of a Mafia era. Falcone had already been an old man when he made his debut. The Old Godfather had unified Gotham more than a decade earlier, and after another decade of evolution, the structure of the Mafia families had long since stagnated, with no obvious advantages left to see.
Batman, who had emerged in such an era, truly did not think much of the Mafia structure. It simply was not a system that could last forever, and Batman did not believe the Robins failed to see that.
Yet they had gone to such lengths, forcing Gotham's interest groups step by step into the trap they had laid and constantly steering them down this road. What had given them the confidence to believe so firmly that this was right?
The clue could be found through simple elimination. In the Robins' peaceful day-to-day lives, the only variable had been that trip to another universe.
Batman had considered how Schiller had brought Gotham in his universe back into the light. He also knew that universe's timeline came earlier than his own, since the Bruce Wayne he had met there was younger.
But among all the answers Batman had received, there had been no Mafia system. Because that was not the key at all. If Gotham's problems could be solved so easily, how could Gotham have rotted into its current state?
That was indeed the truth. The Mafia system could not save Gotham; it would