Smoke rose from the ground as metal boots glinting with cold light stepped into puddles, one step heavy, the next light.
A fine drizzle drifted against the broken brick wall. Scraped fingers pressed into the gaps between the bricks, followed by a strong arm bracing against them. Arkham Knight panted.
He slowly crouched down, withdrawing his hand to clutch his broken right arm. Half his mask and chest armor were gone, leaving only metal edges that had been violently torn apart.
This was the closest he had ever come to death.
Thump, thump, thump.
He heard his own heavy heartbeat. Like every night over the past year, when he counted the bells of Gotham Cathedral and passed out in agony, the two sounds overlapped once more.
He had never seen Batman this angry.
Minutes earlier, Arkham Knight had been knocked to the ground by Batman with almost no ability to fight back. The powerful black figure pinning him down had ripped off his shoulder armor with a single blow and shattered his arm at the same time.
Then came two broken ribs and half his chest armor. Blood surged up from his lungs and caught in his throat, forcing out a frightened whimper.
Batman suddenly stopped. Driven by an overwhelming will to survive, Arkham Knight flipped him over and then leaped from the edge of the rooftop in blind panic, breaking another leg in the fall.
His entire body hurt. It hurt too badly. Arkham Knight kept gasping, but his breathing grew more and more erratic. He had no choice but to sit on the ground and look up at the enormous moon hanging over Gotham.
He kept counting his heartbeats, just as he had done every day over the past year. Though perhaps it had not been a full