"Enough."
Talia's voice cut cleanly through the tension hanging over the courtyard, silencing the growing unrest before it could boil over.
"The Demon's Head..."
The words rippled through the gathered assassins in hushed whispers. For many of them, relief washed over their battered faces at the sight of her arrival. After all, if anyone could deal with the monster standing before them, surely it would be the daughter of Ra's al Ghul herself.
Then again, judging by what they had witnessed so far, there was an equally unsettling possibility that the monster might decide to put an end to their current leader instead.
"Stay back, Lady Talia. He came looking for you."
The warning came from the assassin who had earlier offered Jason herbal tea. The man stepped forward despite the obvious injuries covering his body. His uniform was torn in several places, dried blood stained the fabric, and the way he carried himself suggested he had narrowly escaped a fatal blow during the confrontation.
"And of what good would come of that?" Talia's response was calm and dismissive as she continued forward without hesitation. Her gaze drifted past the wounded assassin and settled squarely on Jason. Flanking her was the envoy that had accompanied her on her recent mission, along with a contingent of elite League soldiers who had fought alongside her in helping one nation gain an advantage in its ongoing war against another.
"Talia, good thing you're finally here," Todd said, sounding almost relieved. "This was starting to become quite a bore."
His eyes swept lazily across the crowd of assassins standing between them before returning to her. The casual attitude only made the surrounding League members more uneasy, as though the devastation he had caused moments earlier was nothing more than a mild inconvenience.
"What business does the infamous Red Hood have with the League of Assassins?" Talia asked as she advanced one measured step at a time. The gathered assassins instinctively moved aside, creating a clear path for her. She eventually came to a stop several paces away from Jason, maintaining a comfortable distance while carefully studying him.
For a brief moment, neither moved.
The courtyard seemed to hold its breath as the two regarded one another, the atmosphere growing heavier under the weight of countless watchful eyes.
"Truthfully, I am not even supposed to be here right now."
"Then why did you come here seeking me, only to slaughter the very men who welcomed you?" Talia asked.
While she spoke, her mind continued to analyze everything she had witnessed since arriving.
His speed. His physical strength. The ease with which he had overwhelmed seasoned League assassins.
It was like watching Deathstroke, except enhanced in nearly every conceivable way and completely unhindered by restraint. Every movement Jason made carried an unsettling level of intent, as though he existed solely to kill. He fought with an insatiable bloodlust, yet there was precision behind the violence. Nothing about his actions had been reckless.
More than that, something about the way he moved felt familiar.
It reminded her of her father.
Not in style or technique, but in the overwhelming lethality he projected. The battle area seemed to bend around his instincts, every action flowing naturally toward the most efficient path to victory. If Ra's al Ghul were still alive, she could easily imagine him considering Jason a worthy candidate for succession.
And then there were his eyes.
That predatory look lurking behind them.
It was the gaze of a hunter studying prey.
Talia's eyes briefly swept across the devastated courtyard before settling on Jason once more. His mouth parted as if he intended to answer her question, but the words never came.
Instead, his expression tightened as a grunt escaped him.
Without warning, one knee slammed into the ground.
The sudden collapse caught everyone off guard.
Jason's body swayed as though his legs had abruptly lost all strength beneath him.
The assassins surrounding the scene exchanged uncertain glances. Nobody moved immediately. After everything they had witnessed, hesitation rooted them in place. It was difficult to believe that the man who had single-handedly carved through dozens of League operatives moments ago was suddenly struggling to remain upright.
"Ta...lia?" Jason's voice came out strained and distant.
His vision blurred.
The world tilted.
Then he collapsed face-first onto the snow covered ground.
The hesitation vanished as within seconds, assassins rushed forward from every direction. Chains rattled, ropes were thrown, and restraints of every kind were brought out as they quickly secured his arms and legs before he could recover.
"Prepare him for questioning," Talia ordered calmly.
As the others moved to carry out her command and begin cleaning up the destruction left in Jason's wake, she turned toward the injured assassin who had first welcomed him into the compound and later sent word to her.
"What exactly happened here?"
The assassin immediately lowered his head in a respectful bow.
"Yes, my Lord." Straightening slightly, he began recounting everything that had transpired from the moment Jason had arrived at the League's gates.
"He urged you to chain him up and specifically warned you not to set him free, even if he woke up and demanded it?" Talia asked, her brows drawing together as confusion crept into her expression.
"Yes, my Lord," the assassin replied while remaining on one knee, his head respectfully bowed. "He regained consciousness long enough to realize we were restraining him. The moment he understood what was happening, he flew into a sudden berserk state. We did everything within our power to subdue him, but his display of strength was overwhelming."
The assassin hesitated briefly before lifting his gaze toward her.
"What could he possibly have been doing during those three years he was gone?" he asked with genuine curiosity. "The man who caused this ruckus barely resembles the Jason Todd I once knew."
Talia remained silent for a moment as she considered the question.
"I don't know," she admitted. "But he's far stronger than even Deathstroke ever was. More importantly, something is clearly wrong with him. Not only did he insist on being restrained, but everything that followed completely contradicted his behavior upon arrival. It's as if part of him expected exactly what would happen and was attempting to prevent it."
Her eyes drifted toward the direction Jason had been taken, her thoughts becoming increasingly troubled the more she replayed the encounter in her mind.
"That will be all," she finally said. "Prepare him for questioning. Whatever answers we seek, he should be capable of providing them himself."
The assassin immediately bowed deeper.
"As you command, my Lord."
After dismissing him, Talia remained where she stood, lost in thought.
Damian had told her that Jason had long since surpassed the level he possessed during his time with the League. He had even spoken of Jason giving Batman significant difficulty whenever the two crossed paths.
At the time, she had assumed some degree of exaggeration. Damian admired strength and was prone to speaking highly of capable warriors.
Now she wasn't so certain.
The brief glimpse she had witnessed today was enough to convince her that Jason's abilities had evolved far beyond what the League had taught him. His fighting style remained unorthodox, but it had been refined into one far deadlier. There was no waste in movement as every strike flowed naturally into the next. It wasn't merely skill.
It was experience.
One forged through relentless combat and countless life-or-death encounters.
That realization left her with a far more pressing question.
Where had Jason spent those missing three years?
And more importantly, who had trained him into becoming something capable of overwhelming some of the League's finest assassins with such unsettling ease?
- - -
As consciousness slowly clawed its way back from the depths of unconsciousness, Jason's eyes gradually fluttered open.
The world around him was dim and blurry at first, illuminated only by sparse lighting that cast long shadows across the space. He blinked several times, trying to clear the haze clouding his vision as he instinctively surveyed his surroundings. His thoughts felt sluggish, as though they were struggling to catch up with reality, and he had no immediate recollection of how he had ended up there.
His wandering gaze eventually landed on Talia.
She stood a short distance away, watching him closely. Her posture was composed as always, but there was something unusual in her expression. It was fierce, certainly, yet beneath that lingered something more complicated—confusion, suspicion, and perhaps even concern.
A faint sulfurous odor lingered in the air.
Jason wrinkled his nose slightly as realization dawned on him. The pungent scent was unmistakable. Some kind of awakening powder. Judging by the lingering burn in his throat and nose, Talia had likely used it to drag him back to consciousness by forcing him to inhale the irritating fumes.
Only then did he become aware of the weight pressing against his body.
Looking down, he found thick chains wrapped around his upper torso and arms, binding him tightly against a stone pillar. Additional restraints secured his legs, leaving virtually no room for movement. Everything from his shoulders down had been effectively immobilized.
"Talia?" Jason asked through hazy vision, his voice rough from disuse.
His eyes drifted over the restraints securing him before a look of relief crossed his face.
"Oh, good," he muttered. "They managed to chain me up in time."
Despite his obvious disorientation, the remark immediately caught Talia's attention. It was a strange thing to say, especially considering everything that had occurred.
"What first concerns me," she said evenly, "is why you came here seeking me only to attack my men and slaughter them without provocation."
She deliberately ignored his peculiar statement for the moment, choosing instead to focus on the far more pressing issue.
Jason blinked.
"Attack...?" he repeated slowly.
Then came another pause.
"Kill?" The confusion in his voice sounded genuine.
For several seconds, he simply stared ahead, his expression slowly changing as fragments of understanding seemed to fall into place.
Then his eyes lowered.
"I see..." he said quietly.
A heavy silence followed.
"They weren't able to restrain me in time."
Unlike before, there was no confusion in his voice now. Only disappointment.
The words left him in a low murmur, sounding less like an excuse and more like the reluctant acceptance of a fact he already understood. What stood out most was that he made no attempt to deny her accusation. No defense or justification.
Only contrition.
Talia studied him carefully.
"What exactly do you mean by that?" she asked, narrowing her eyes. "And why would you request to be chained up in the first place?"
The questions came one after another, but Jason had yet to properly answer even the first. Instead, he remained silent for several moments, his gaze fixed on the floor as though wrestling with thoughts he wasn't sure he wanted to voice.
"I came here seeking help for a particular problem," Jason said. "I was hoping to find a solution here."
Talia regarded him silently for a moment before folding her arms across her chest.
"And what exactly is this problem?" she asked. "Your inability to control your thirst for blood? Or have you finally been consumed by the darkness left behind by the Lazarus Pit?"
There was no accusation in her voice so much as genuine suspicion. From everything she had witnessed today, either explanation seemed plausible.
To her surprise, Jason simply shrugged against the restraints.
"Turns out dissociative identity is a real thing."
The statement was delivered so casually that it took Talia a moment to process it. He sounded as though he were discussing an inconvenience rather than a condition that had apparently resulted in the deaths of multiple assassins.
"Dissociative identity?" she repeated, her brow furrowing.
"Either that, or possession. Take your pick." Jason leaned his head back against the pillar. "Whatever it is, that's why I came here. I was looking for the League's help. Your help."
For the first time since waking up, a trace of weariness crept into his voice.
"There's something inside me that's trying to take control. Every day it gets stronger, and sooner or later it's going to succeed if I don't find a way to stop it."
Despite the gravity of what he was describing, Jason spoke with an unsettling level of acceptance, as though he had spent so long living with the problem that he'd exhausted all his anger and frustration over it.
Talia studied him carefully.
Nothing about his expression suggested he was lying.
"From the looks of things," Jason continued, "and from what you said earlier, you've already met him."
The room grew quiet as Talia's eyes narrowed slightly.
"And who exactly is this 'him'?" she asked. "Does this other identity have a name, or are you simply making assumptions?"
A humorless smile tugged at the corner of Jason's mouth. "I don't know who—or what—he really is," he admitted. "But he once referred to himself as The Hood."
The answer earned a raised eyebrow from Talia.
Of all the possibilities she had considered, that wasn't one of them.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Jason eventually broke the silence himself.
"At this point, I honestly don't know whether I need a psychiatrist or an exorcism." He glanced down at the chains binding him before releasing a quiet sigh. "Maybe I should've started with a priest."
His attempt at humor was dry, but it wasn't entirely a joke.
That was perhaps the most troubling part.
As Talia fell into thought, replaying everything he had told her alongside everything she had witnessed firsthand, she found herself unable to dismiss either possibility.
After a brief silence settled over the room, Talia shifted her gaze back to the chained figure before her.
"And this other you emerges whenever you lose consciousness or fall asleep?" she asked, her tone measured as she carefully weighed everything he had told her so far.
"Looks that way."
Talia immediately shot him a look.
His answer sounded far too casual for someone discussing an alternate personality capable of massacring trained assassins.
Jason caught the look and gave a slight shrug against the restraints.
"I mean, that's how it's been lately."
A thoughtful hum escaped Talia before she released a quiet sigh.
"And when exactly did all of this begin?"
Jason's expression darkened slightly. "I can't say for certain," he admitted. "But lately he's been getting stronger."
As he spoke, his eyes remained fixed on Talia's. There was no visible hesitation, no obvious signs of deception. Even so, she couldn't help but question whether he was telling the truth or whether he was simply that skilled at lying.
Yet everything she had witnessed pointed toward his story carrying some degree of truth.
The sudden berserk episode.
The request to be restrained.
Even the subtle difference in presence.
The aura surrounding the man before her now was noticeably different from the one she had encountered in the courtyard. Earlier, his mere presence had felt predatory, like standing before a beast barely held on a leash. Now he seemed calmer, more controlled, though no less dangerous.
"He once kidnapped both Nightwing and me," Jason continued. "Held us hostage without me ever knowing it happened. I only found out recently."
The revelation caused Talia's eyes to narrow.
"So the killings attributed to the Red Hood have been his doing all along?" She wanted clarification before drawing any conclusions.
"Not entirely." Jason answered without hesitation.
"I take full responsibility for every criminal I've put in the ground so far."
There was no guilt in his voice.
No remorse.
No attempt to justify himself.
He stated it as a simple fact.
"But the ones killed over the past few weeks?" His jaw tightened slightly. "That was all him."
Again, there was no regret reflected in his expression. Whatever line separated Jason from this so-called Hood, it clearly wasn't one defined by morality.
"I see." Talia slowly nodded as she absorbed the information.
At long last, she finally had the opportunity to speak with Jason properly since his disappearance three years ago, and she had no intention of wasting it. The mystery surrounding his absence had lingered for some time, and the more she listened, the more convinced she became that whatever he was experiencing now was connected to that missing period of his life.
Perhaps the answers she sought weren't buried in the present at all.
Perhaps they lay in the years he had vanished from everyone's sight.
Her gaze sharpened as she asked, "What happened after Lian Yu?"
The question slit through the room with unmistakable seriousness.
Gone was the curiosity from earlier.
This was the question she truly wanted answered.
"That's something I'd like to know myself."
Talia wasn't particularly surprised by the answer. Damian had relayed that same information to her some time ago, and hearing it directly from Jason only reinforced what she already knew.
Jason shifted slightly against the chains and let out a faint sigh. "This is starting to feel more like an interrogation," he remarked. "But seeing as I came here asking for your help, I might as well answer your questions."
Talia accepted the invitation without hesitation.
"What is the last thing you remember?"
Jason's gaze drifted away momentarily as he searched through fragmented memories.
"Getting shot and falling off the cliff," he replied. "I remember hitting the water, the cold swallowing me whole, and then... darkness. That's all there was after that."
His answer came without uncertainty.
Those memories, at least, seemed firmly rooted in his mind.
"Then how did you end up in Gotham City?"
It was a question that had lingered for years.
Not just for her.
Bruce had undoubtedly spent countless hours searching for that answer as well.
Jason merely shook his head.
"Like I said, I have no idea." A hint of frustration surfaced in his voice. "The next thing I remember is waking up in a hospital with a fuzzy memory and a whole lot of missing pieces."
His eyes returned to hers. "So, can you help me or not?"
Talia remained silent for a few moments as she considered everything she had learned so far.
"I am not sure," she finally admitted. "Your case is... unusual, even by the standards of the League. But I will see what I can do."
Her expression hardened slightly. "Though before I can make any real assessment, I'd need to speak with the other... you."
The words felt awkward leaving her mouth. She wasn't entirely certain how to refer to the violent personality she had encountered earlier.
"I see."
Jason nodded slowly.
"Just be careful not to let me loose."
Despite the warning being delivered calmly, there was a nonambiguous seriousness behind it.
Talia studied him for a moment before shifting to another matter that had been bothering her since arriving at the compound.
"You seem to possess considerably greater strength and physical capabilities than before. Is that a byproduct of your other half?"
The images from earlier remained fresh in her mind.
The speed.
The brutality.
The raw physical dominance he had displayed against trained League assassins.
Even now, it wasn't difficult to reconcile what she had witnessed.
Jason considered the question.
"I honestly don't know if my strength increases when he's in control," he admitted. "But I can say I've experienced a significant boost in that department over the past few months."
His answer only deepened Talia's curiosity.
"And how exactly is that possible?" The question escaped her before she could stop herself.
Jason simply shrugged as much as his restraints allowed. "Probably whatever I was doing during those missing three years."
The response was delivered with an almost unsettling level of calm.
Here sat a man restrained by heavy chains, suffering from fractured memories and what appeared to be a dangerous split in his identity, yet he spoke about it all as though discussing someone else's life.
That calmness, more than anything else, left Talia wondering just what Jason Todd had endured during the years he had vanished from the world.
"You'd have to go to sleep first. I need to speak with whoever—or whatever—is sharing your mind and body with you."
Talia's tone remained calm, but inwardly she was navigating unfamiliar territory.
Jason's condition presented too many possibilities and too few answers. Possession. Psychological fragmentation. The lingering effects of the Lazarus Pit. Even some form of self-induced hypnosis wasn't entirely outside the realm of possibility. Any one of those explanations could account for the drastic shift in personality she had witnessed earlier. Yet none of them adequately explained the increase in his physical abilities, especially when Jason claimed he possessed that same enhanced strength even while fully himself.
"Good luck with that."
Jason's response carried a trace of dry amusement.
Professional help or not, it was still more assistance than he had managed to find on his own so far.