The Scale of Divinity

Bruce Wayne's question was like a stone cast into a calm lake, sending invisible ripples through the Daily Planet's small interview room. The light, harmonious atmosphere of a business interview was instantly replaced by a heavy, piercing philosophical debate.

Clark Kent froze.

A flicker of barely perceptible panic passed through the blue eyes behind his black-rimmed glasses. The question had struck precisely at the deepest conflict in his heart—the one he had often questioned himself about in the dead of night during his three months as Superman, yet had never found a perfect answer to.

"Mr. Wayne... your question..." Clark cleared his throat and tried to gather his thoughts. He could feel his heartbeat quicken by a beat—though to ordinary ears, that subtle change was no different from silence.

Bruce's smile remained as charming as ever, but his deep eyes were like two sharp scalpels, coolly dissecting the mortal disguise of the "god" before him.

He's nervous. His heart rate rose from 6.0 beats per minute to 6.2. His pupils contracted slightly. He's thinking about how to give a "standard answer," one fitting Superman's symbol of light. Too naive, Clark.

"I... I think perhaps those two approaches aren't entirely opposed." Clark adjusted his glasses, striving to make his voice sound steadier. "Superman... represents hope. He wants to show people through his actions that we are capable of becoming better, that we don't have to live in fear. His power is meant to protect, not to judge. The right to judge should belong to the laws and order humanity establishes for itself."

He spoke sincerely. Those were his true thoughts, the principles for life taught to him by that kind couple in Kansas.

"Hope?" Bruce gave a soft laugh. He leaned back against the sofa and crossed his legs, assuming an even more relaxed posture, yet his words carried a bone-deep chill. "A fine word, Mr. Kent. But when hope faces the abyss of human nature, it often seems pale and powerless."

He lifted the coffee in front of him and took a light sip, never taking his eyes off Clark's face.

"I come from Gotham. There, there is a kind of evil that cannot be reformed by 'hope.' There are people whose very existence is a mockery of order and goodness. You catch them and send them to prison; they break out, then kill more people just to prove how ridiculous your 'no-kill rule' is. You send them back time and again, and they escape time and again, each escape accompanied by more blood and tragedy. It's like an endless revolving door, and innocent lives are the admission price for this absurd performance."

Bruce's voice was quiet, but every word struck at the heart.

"Tell me, Mr. Kent. When a madman kills dozens of innocent citizens in a single night simply because he finds it amusing, you catch him—but you know he will escape again sooner or later and continue his game of slaughter. At that point, what meaning does your so-called 'hope' have for him, for the victims already dead, or for the future victims he is about to kill?"

Clark fell silent. His lips moved, but no sound came out.

His super-hearing allowed him to hear cries and pleas for help from every corner of the city. He had saved children from fires, stopped bank robberies, and held up falling planes. Most of what he faced had been "disasters" and "ordinary crimes." He had never truly confronted the kind of... pure, irrational evil Bruce described—chaos that took pleasure in causing pain.

Only three months into his career, he still believed human nature was fundamentally good and that everyone had value worth saving.

"I... I believe that even someone like that still..."

"Still deserves to be saved?" Bruce cut him off, an undisguised trace of mockery in his tone. "Then who saves the people they killed? Were their lives not worth saving? For the vague possibility that a criminal might 'turn over a new leaf,' you would gamble countless innocent lives? Mr. Kent, forgive my bluntness, but that isn't mercy. It's arrogance. It's self-satisfaction from the moral high ground, ignoring the real cost."

Every sentence Bruce spoke was like a heavy punch smashing into the worldview Clark had only just begun to build. He felt as if he could barely breathe.

His breathing pattern changed. He's beginning to think more deeply. Good. A Boy Scout who can only fly is useless. I need him to understand that this world is far more complicated and filthy than he imagines.

Bruce decided to push him one step further and place the most central, most fatal question on the table.

He leaned forward slightly, lowered his voice, and spoke at a volume only the two of them could hear. "Let's talk about power itself, Mr. Kent. Superman's power is absolute. He can level mountains; he can turn back time... at least in theory. We have no way of knowing his limits. So who supervises a being with such power, who also stands above every law?"

Clark's pupils suddenly contracted.

"When he says, 'I'm right,' who is qualified to say, 'No'? When he makes a mistake because of grief, rage, or any emotion ordinary people might feel, who bears the consequences? Who stops him?" Bruce stared into Clark's eyes and asked, word by word, "A god—even if he makes the smallest mistake—it could be a catastrophe for us mortals. Who... judges a god?"

Those words were like a bolt of black lightning, cleaving through the fog of Clark Kent's thoughts.

He thought of himself. He thought of the power within him, enough to destroy the world. He had always controlled it with the utmost care, terrified of hurting even a single ordinary person. But he had never considered what would happen if one day he lost control. What if, one day, the people he loved most—his parents in Smallville, for instance—died because of some criminal? Could he guarantee that, in his rage, he would not erase that criminal and everything around him from the face of the Earth?

He could not.

He could not guarantee it one hundred percent.

Seeing the lost expression on Clark's face, Bruce knew he had achieved his purpose.

That's why... that's why every Batman in every parallel world must prepare a "final contingency" for Superman. Bruce's heart was cold and calm.

An uncorrupted Superman is the greatest hero in the world, the guardian of human civilization. But a corrupted Superman... is the end of the world, a walking natural disaster. Even if that possibility is only one percent, I must prepare a one-hundred-percent response. I must find the Sword of Damocles that can hang over his head. For everyone. Not out of distrust, but out of... absolute rationality.

Bruce slowly leaned back against the sofa. The sharpness vanished from his face in an instant, and he became that dazzling billionaire once more.

"Ha, sorry, Mr. Kent. I tend to get overly serious whenever philosophy comes up." He laughed easily. "They were only a few boring hypotheticals. Don't take them to heart. Our interview... should be over now, shouldn't it?"

He broke the suffocating silence and pulled Clark out of that terrifying self-interrogation.

Clark snapped out of it as if waking from a dream. Somewhat awkwardly, he wiped at sweat that did not exist on his forehead and nodded. "Ah... yes, yes, Mr. Wayne. Thank you very much for accepting our interview."

For Clark Kent, this interview had been no less than a mental storm. And Bruce Wayne—the man he had once considered nothing more than a "wealthy philanthropist"—had suddenly become unfathomably deep in his eyes.