True Hell

"All dressed up, no designer labels needed—cool and composed, that's what really...

Don't move. →"

Lynn kept the unlucky media friend pinned down, singing a song so terrible it was practically criminal.

Only after entering the orphanage did he finally feel that he had punished him enough. He patted the reporter friend on the head, but the guy showed no reaction.

"Don't tell me he fainted... Oh, he didn't.

He was scared stupid."

Lynn had never intended to kill anyone. After all, Gordon had warned him~

He tossed the media friend, whose eyes had gone slightly unfocused, straight out the window. Hearing the frantic footsteps racing away outside, Lynn had not expected the man to endure for this long.

"Not bad. You've got the makings of a ruthless overlord!"

So he ran. It had only been a spur-of-the-moment thing anyway.

Compared to him, the person inside the orphanage deserved more attention. Lynn believed that no matter where in Gotham there was evil worthy of judgment and eradication, it should not be in an orphanage. Even if there was, it was probably the adults.

What crime could a group of children no older than ten possibly have committed to warrant bringing over a truckload of poison gas and killing them all?

"Even I wouldn't do something like that!"

The orphanage lights were off, but that was hardly a difficult problem for Lynn.

Soft branches burst from the ground and quickly hardened. After piercing the surface, they soon smashed through the orphanage's already dilapidated floorboards. They kept growing, branching, then branching again...

Lynn stood still with his eyes closed. A "holographic map" of the orphanage gradually formed in his mind, and he quickly found the person he was looking for.

"They're all together?"

"Gotham is a disgusting city!"

"The Wayne Family is the source of this city's sickness and evil!"

"They're capitalists, bloodsuckers! They should be hanged from streetlights and roasted to death by the sun!"

"And you! You're the tools of their hypocritical posturing. Pah! Disgusting. It makes me sick."

In the orphanage dining area, rows of terrified children sat on low wooden benches, not one of them daring to make a sound.

In the front row, the orphanage staff watched the middle-aged man before them with caution and wariness as he loudly cursed, gestured wildly at the sky, and stamped his feet again and again.

His body was covered in strange electronic devices of unknown purpose, and he held a small remote control in his hand, its green light flashing continuously.

"Gotham has never belonged to us!"

He was still shouting, lecturing, preaching his ideals.

Judging from the expressions on the children's and staff members' faces, though, his words did not seem to possess any magic capable of winning hearts.

People feared him. They did not agree with him.

"We must make Gotham feel pain! We... must make Gotham... feel pain. Do you understand?!"

He grabbed a staff member by the shoulders and shouted in his face, spraying spit everywhere. When he failed to receive the response he wanted, he grabbed the person beside him by the shoulders instead.

"Hasn't this city ever hurt you? We need change! We need a chance for everyone to see it! Do you understand?!"

The response was still a blank, evasive stare.

"Those rich people, officials, those high-powered lawyers... every last one of them is in it together, understand?!"

A shrinking neck. Tense muscles. Clearly, this one did not understand either.

"You..."

Slap!

A hand landed on the back of his hand. At last, he got the response he wanted.

"I understand. Friend, believe me, I understand all too well."

Although showing up in a place like this with his hair parted in a butterfly style seemed somewhat inappropriate, since no one mentioned it, it was not a problem.

"You really understand..."

"I do. I really do. Come, sit down. Let's talk this through slowly.

Friend, you're right. Gotham's biggest cancer is Bruce Wayne of the Wayne Family.

Think about it. The money that playboy spends on wine alone every year would be enough to raise more than a dozen children properly into adulthood.

And that's not even counting soft drinks, bottled water, peanuts, sunflower seeds... How much would all that cost?

What does it mean to be rich and heartless? That's exactly what it means!

He makes more money than he could ever spend, yet no one has seen him make any contribution to Gotham. Honestly, he's worse than that criminal Batman with phlegm stuck in his throat.

By the way, brother, what grievance forced you to do something like this? Why not go after those rich people for revenge? I don't think these children ever did anything to hurt you."

After Lynn's heartfelt little speech, he quickly managed to soothe the mentally unstable man.

Like pouring beans from a jar, the man cried and cursed as he told Lynn everything that had happened to him.

Lynn had originally wanted to give Batman a juicy piece of gossip, but halfway through the man named Andrew's story, he turned off the recorder in his pocket.

"You mean..."

Lynn hesitated slightly. "Just because you weren't satisfied with the price when your factory was acquired by Wayne Enterprises... and then?"

"My eye! And my eye!"

Andrew lifted his eye patch, revealing a dark, empty hole beneath it. Crying, he said, "They clearly could have given me a new eye. They're so rich..."

Slap.

Lynn covered his forehead in pain, the sound crisp and loud.

"...Have you been watching too much Naruto..."

Lynn was rather helpless. He had thought this would be a good opportunity to subtly offer the old bat some advice. The money in Wayne's hands could have been used for far greater things, things more powerful than the Batmobile and space stations.

But...

Lynn had always been called a madman, yet the person before him seemed far more deserving of that title.

You couldn't just open your mouth and make wishes...

"Fine."

Since you felt wronged, then go on feeling wronged for the rest of your life.

While chatting nonsense with this lunatic, Lynn had already used vines to pull all the children outside intact. Gordon should have settled them somewhere by now.

As for the man before him and the truck outside filled with poison gas, Lynn did not know how to deal with them for the moment.

Killing him seemed a little... well. It would be a pretty scummy thing to do.

Letting him go like this, though, would mean he had acted like some big shot while holding dozens of almost-lost lives hostage. He was plainly the same kind of criminal, the sort who deserved to be shot for five minutes.

After thinking it over, Lynn suddenly came up with a good idea.

He would scare him a little. Just a little, lightly, with exactly the right amount.

It would not kill him, but it would make sure he never forgot it for the rest of his life.

The thought that he could pull off something like this energized Lynn again.

"Brother, have you ever seen...

true hell?"

It was a transitional chapter, so it was understandable for it to be a little more normal.

Votes, please!