Gotham's night was not a deep black. Black was emptiness; at its extreme, it could make people stop thinking altogether and simply enjoy a moment of peace. Gotham's night was a rich dark blue, the lights spilling from its skyscrapers like flickering distress signals that gave no one a moment's rest.
Batman stood atop a building, his cape bearing the marks of its struggle against the raging wind and rain. The signal lights on distant buildings flashed again and again, rain dripping from his cowl. The city before his eyes was blurred beyond recognition, like the fading shadow of a twenty-year dream. Now, he was no longer swayed by any light or darkness here. He simply understood more deeply than anyone that what was gone would never return.
Suddenly, a blinding beam lit up the city, casting a massive bat symbol across the sky. The Dark Knight leaped down, squeezing through the narrow gaps between countless high-rises as he fled for his life through the jungle of steel. When someone went to an appointment they did not wish to attend, the line between coming and going was no longer so clear.
The figure beneath the Bat-Lamp made him lose focus for a moment. Aside from the Joker, no one had dressed so formally to meet him in a long time. After all, he was no hero—only a monster in a grotesque city.
When the figure turned around, Batman's pupils contracted sharply. But he did not call out his name, because he understood that this was not the Schiller he had met. It absolutely could not be.
The man before him seemed far too dangerous. Rain-soaked hair clung tightly to his cheeks, gray eyes deeply sunken in their sockets, his entire body like a silver blade piercing the rainy night. The