Abilities Gone?

The moment the words left his mouth, Daredevil sprang from the shadows. The short baton in his hand traced a red arc through the air, aimed straight at the back of Russell's head.

The angle was tricky, the force precise. If it landed, even a superhero like Spider-Man would be dazed for a moment.

He didn't want to kill Russell. He only wanted to stop him.

The baton stopped three centimeters from the back of Russell's head. Nothing had caught it. An invisible force held it in midair, motionless as an insect trapped in amber.

Russell turned to look at the masked man in red. His gaze was calm, as though he were studying an exhibit that didn't particularly interest him.

He had spotted the blind vigilante in the crowd when he entered the casino unseen, but he hadn't paid him any mind. He hadn't expected Daredevil to jump out now and stop him from killing.

Besides Spider-Man, Russell had almost forgotten that Daredevil apparently had a no-killing rule too.

"Daredevil, guardian of Hell's Kitchen. By day, you're a lawyer who takes cases for free. By night, you put on a red suit and fight bad guys. But—"

He paused. "Are you sure you want to fight me?"

Daredevil still held the baton, but it wouldn't budge. Shock gripped him. He couldn't see the man's face, but from his voice, he was certain they had never met.

Yet the man had identified him as a lawyer at once. That meant he knew his real name was Matthew Murdock.

Daredevil let go and stepped back, pushing his stray thoughts aside as he shifted from attack to defense.

"You're strong. Stronger than any superhero I've ever met. I don't want to fight you, but you're slaughtering people. These men can't even resist anymore, and you're still killing them.

"They may be guilty. They may have committed enough evil to deserve Hell. But what you're doing isn't justice. It's an execution without the sanction of the law."

"Justice? Then let me tell you about justice." Russell repeated the word, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly. "How long have you been in Hell's Kitchen?"

"Long enough."

"Then you should know what these people have done." Russell stepped aside, revealing the door that led downstairs.

"On the third, fourth, and fifth floors below us are children. The youngest might be only five, the oldest fourteen. Some have already had their organs removed. Others are waiting for buyers. Plastic tags are tied around their wrists. Numbers, no names.

"Do you know what they're called? 038, 039, 040. Numbered like merchandise, sold like spare parts, and you're talking to me about justice."

Daredevil fell silent for a second. He knew about the children. Following the clues to the Triad Gang was why he had come.

"But that doesn't give you a reason to kill them." His voice dropped, but his conviction held. "They're guilty, and they should stand trial. The law will give them the punishment they deserve."

Russell looked at him as though he were a naive child. "The law? You're a lawyer. You should know better than I do how the law works in this country."

He moved a finger, and a ledger flew over from where it lay on the floor. He flipped to a page and read aloud to Daredevil.

"Chris Fi... Look at these names—politicians, businessmen, public figures. Do you think they'll go to prison? They have money, lawyers, connections.

"Even if they're convicted and sent to prison, it'll just be for show. Afterward, they'll move somewhere else, keep buying organs, and keep living. But those children—the ones whose organs were removed, who died on operating tables—don't even have gravestones."

Daredevil's fingers trembled.

He knew Russell was telling the truth. He had seen too many rich people walk free and too many poor people die in prison.

But he still believed in the law. Without it, what separated the world from a jungle?

"This country's laws aren't perfect," he said, "but they're the best thing we have. They protect a lot of people. Superheroes don't have the authority to enforce the law. We don't have the right to decide who lives and who dies.

"If we start killing people, how are we any different from the criminals?"

"The difference?" Russell tossed the ledger to the floor and dusted off his hands. "They kill innocent people. I kill guilty ones."

"No, that's not right. I do whatever I feel like. Who cares whether they've committed a crime?"

Daredevil had no answer to that. All he could do was return to the law.

"Guilt is for a court to decide."

"A court?" Russell laughed. There was no warmth in it, only the exhaustion of someone who had seen too much. "How many years does a court give an organ trafficker? Five? Ten? And then what?

"He gets out, moves somewhere else, and goes right back to business. But those children—the ones who lost their hearts, kidneys, and livers—can they come back to life?"

Russell kept hammering the same point. He might not have been a match for a professional lawyer when it came to federal law, but he knew how dark society could be.

Daredevil didn't answer. He couldn't. There was no answer to that question.

Just then, a voice came from the stairwell.

"I'm willing to stand trial."

Both men turned. Okamoto Taichi stood there in a kimono stripped from one of his subordinates, his hair disheveled and his face slick with sweat.

His hands shook. His legs shook. His whole body shook—but he was trying to stand straight, trying to look like a man willing to take responsibility.

"I'm willing to stand trial under the law," he repeated, his voice hoarse but clear. "I did wrong. I plead guilty. I'm willing to go to prison and accept my punishment. Please—please don't kill me."

As he spoke, he looked at Daredevil, not Russell. He knew only Daredevil could save him in this room.

The man in the red suit believed in the law, in justice, in giving everyone a chance to change.

Prison was better than death. Besides, if he went to prison, he would still have The Hand behind him.

Russell looked at Okamoto Taichi, then at Daredevil. The scene felt strangely familiar, like a child who had done something wrong hiding behind an adult and begging to be shielded from punishment.

"You heard him." A note of pleading entered Daredevil's voice. "He's willing to stand trial. That's enough. We can't kill him. We have to let the law judge him."

"That's enough?" Russell tilted his head. "You believe him?"

"I believe in the law."

"The law?" Russell took a step toward Okamoto Taichi. Daredevil instinctively moved in front of him.

"No. You can't kill him."

"I said, move."

"Not unless you step over my dead body."

Russell stopped and studied Daredevil with a gaze that sent a chill down his spine.

Then he smiled, with the relief of someone who had finally figured something out.

"You know, Matt," Russell said, using his name for the first time, "you really believe in justice. In the law. In the idea that everyone can be redeemed. That's rare among superheroes."

He paused. "But it's also naive. Stupid."

He raised a hand, and Daredevil's body suddenly went rigid.

It wasn't fear. His heightened senses were disappearing.

The abilities he had spent more than a decade mastering—the abilities that let him "see" the world in darkness, that made him Daredevil—were being drawn out of his body.

Like sand slipping between his fingers. Like water draining from a cracked cup. Like life seeping from a wound.

Daredevil dropped to his knees, braced his hands against the floor, and gasped for air.

His world was collapsing. The sounds, smells, and textures—the information that made up his "sight"—were peeling away layer by layer.

He could hear less and less. Smells grew fainter. Even the texture of the floor began to blur. He hadn't lost his senses; his brain was losing the ability to process what they told him.

"What... did you do?" His voice trembled.

"A little genetic experiment." Russell crouched to meet his eyes. "Your heightened senses came from a genetic mutation. I've temporarily shut off the expression of that gene. And that body of yours, pushed to the limits of human ability? That's gone too.

"As for when it'll switch back on, I can't promise anything."

He stood and looked down at the hero who had once walked through darkness. "But it'll be good for you. Now you can experience this world as an ordinary person."

He turned toward Okamoto Taichi. The instant their eyes met, the old man collapsed to the floor. His legs had given out.

Dear God. He moved a finger and stripped a superhero of his powers. What kind of monster have I crossed?

So this is what Mutants are like? Monsters, just as I thought.

"You just said you were willing to stand trial?" Russell walked up to him and looked down at him.

"Then answer me this—did you say the same thing to those children?

"When they woke up on the operating table and found their kidneys gone, their livers gone, their hearts being cut out, did you tell them, 'You'll get a fair trial'?"

Okamoto Taichi opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

"No." Russell answered for him. "So you won't get one either."

He raised a hand, and Okamoto Taichi's body began to swell. He wasn't growing fat. The air inside him was heating up, its molecules moving violently as it expanded.

His skin stretched thin as a balloon. His veins bulged, his eyes protruded, and his tongue lolled out.

"Demon... God, save—"

Bang.

Flesh, bone, and organs sprayed in every direction.

The kimono blew apart and fell to the floor in scraps, like a flower shedding its petals.

Russell had wanted to see whether Okamoto Taichi had another way to survive the same kind of death.

Unfortunately for him, he didn't.

As for that Demon God, Russell didn't know whether it was a Demon God from Hell like Mephisto or the evil god worshipped by The Hand.

[Fear +1]

[Awe +1]

Daredevil knelt on the floor and heard the explosion.

There was little he could still hear, but the blast was so loud that his ears rang.

"You... killed him." His voice shook, not with fear but with anger.

"Mm." Russell's tone was as casual as if he were saying what he had eaten that day. "I did."

"He said he was willing to stand trial—"

"And you believed him just because he said it?" Russell walked over and crouched in front of him. "Matt, in all your years as a lawyer, how many criminals have you seen sob in court and swear they'd change, only to go right back to committing crimes? How many?"

Daredevil didn't answer.

"I have. The people in white coats who strapped me to an operating table always said, 'Don't worry, it won't hurt.' Then they cut open my skin, stripped away my muscles, and extracted my bone marrow.

"None of them were ever punished, because they stood above the line where people got cut down. And those children—the ones whose organs were taken, who died on operating tables—were below it."

With that, Russell turned toward the stairs. After a few steps, he stopped without looking back.

"Matt, enjoy the life ahead of you. I'm sure it won't take long for you to learn what it truly means to suffer as an ordinary blind man."

His footsteps receded down the stairs, growing fainter and fainter until they vanished into the noise of the casino.

Daredevil remained on his knees, his hands pressed to the floor.

His world kept shrinking. Sounds grew distant, smells faded, and even the warmth of the floor slipped away. He felt like a drowning man, desperately reaching for something, but unable to grasp a thing.

He would walk the streets of Hell's Kitchen as an ordinary man, and encounter the things he had once only "seen" in the dark.

Homeless people sleeping on cardboard boxes. Drug dealers making exchanges on street corners. Prostitutes standing beneath streetlights. This time, he would have no radar-like senses and could only imagine the scenes around him.

He would hear the sounds he had once caught with his superhuman hearing—a child crying, a woman screaming, a man cursing.

He would smell the odors whose every component he had once been able to distinguish—blood, rot, despair.

But it would be completely different from before.

Russell entered the casino and dealt with the remaining Triad Gang members. Then a voice suddenly sounded in his mind, old and gentle, with a warmth that instinctively made people lower their guard.

"Child, I'm sorry to bother you again."

Charles Francis Xavier.

The instant Russell heard that name, his nerves snapped taut as though he had been shocked. His gaze swept the area around him.

Not far away, a corpse that had been unmistakably dead slowly sat up. A gentle, almost kindly smile spread across its face—a smile no dead man should have worn.

Professor X had taken over the corpse.

Russell narrowed his eyes.

This wasn't his first glimpse of Professor X's abilities, but controlling a corpse was new.

The heart had stopped, the breathing had ceased, and the blood no longer flowed. Yet the corpse sat there like a living person, smiling and even blinking.

The sight sent a chill down Russell's spine.

"I'm sorry." The corpse's lips moved, and Professor X's voice emerged, filled with genuine regret.

"To speak with you properly, I had to borrow his body for a little while. He no longer needs it, so I don't think he'll mind."

Russell stared into the dead man's eyes. A living spark shone in them. "You can even control corpses."

"As long as the nervous system hasn't completely died," Professor X said lightly, as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world.

"But I don't have long, so we'd best make this quick."