Gotham's fog was torn apart by a rare blazing sun.
Scorching sunlight beat straight down on the rubber track, drawing out an acrid, burnt smell.
A twenty-thousand-meter run.
Fifty laps.
Before ten laps were up, the massive crowd had scattered into a thin, straggling line.
"Bleurgh-!"
On his eighth lap, a low-level Red Hood Gang member felt his stomach churn and vomited up sour fluid mixed with last night's roast beef. His legs buckled, and he collapsed onto the scorching track, foaming at the mouth as his eyes rolled back.
A foot in a black tactical boot stopped silently beside his face.
Retsu Unohana crouched down, her long braid draped over her shoulder. Her smile was gentle, like a nurse tending to a patient.
"Oh dear, have you reached your limit already?"
She extended two pale fingers and precisely pinched a vertebra at the back of his neck.
She barely seemed to exert any force.
Click.
"AAAAAAAH!!!"
His piercing scream instantly carried across half the field. As though struck by high-voltage electricity, he sprang forcibly off the ground, tears and snot smearing his face, his features twisted beyond recognition.
"The nerve block is gone now." Retsu Unohana smiled and patted his shoulder. "If you can't run again, next time I'll remove your Patella and put it back facing a different direction. Off you go."
The gang member scrambled back onto the track, running even faster than before.
The same scene played out all over the field.
Gentle laughter, crisp cracks of bone, then agonized screams.
Retsu Unohana had single-handedly turned this fitness test into a large-scale demonstration of taking human bodies apart and putting them back together.
At the front of the runners.
Jason Todd felt as if his lungs were stuffed with broken glass. Every breath tasted of blood.