The crater was still warm.
Batman stood silently at the edge, the soles of his boots just outside the scorched concrete. Ash curled upward like the last breath of a dead fire, and the surrounding sewer stone had melted inward, not outward—folded, as if consumed by something from inside.
He crouched, fingertips brushing the cracked surface.
No bomb. No shrapnel. No chemical residue. No fuel lines.
It made no sense.
And that disturbed him more than any explosive ever could.
"Send me the most recent satellite telemetry," he said.
Barbara's voice came through his earpiece, filtered and crisp.
"Already on its way. But fair warning—every sensor in the area cut out for a ten-second window. Right when the event hit."
"EMP?"
"No. No burst pattern. It was… like everything just turned off. Cameras. Mics. Even heat sensors. Then they came back like nothing happened."
Batman didn't reply. He stood and walked slowly around the blast site. All he had were residual readings: elevated radiation without a source, faint electrical interference, and a magnetic signature that didn't match anything in his database.
The only thing consistent?
Absence.
Not silence. Not stealth.
Deliberate removal.
Elsewhere in Gotham, Zatanna lit a black candle in her apartment, seated in a circle of spell paper and chalk.
She whispered a charm under her breath — one meant to "rewind" echoes in magical spaces. If anything had cast a spell or invoked a force at the crater site, the mirror before her should show the echo.
But when the flames reached the final glyph, the mirror cracked again — the fourth time this week.
She sighed and leaned back, brushing glass dust from her lap.
Not a trace.
No sigil. No spell residue. No divine signature.
Nothing magical had happened there.
But something had.
Meanwhile, Constantine sat cross-legged in a circle of protection runes, rolling his eyes as a dozen summoned wisps failed to answer his binding call.
He held a burned paper shard between two fingers — a scrap sent to him by one of his contacts at GCPD.
Not even a flicker of response from the spirit world.
Usually when something this powerful happened, demons showed up first, claiming responsibility whether it was true or not.
But now?
Even hell was quiet.
He flicked his cigarette into the corner and muttered, "You've either got a god on your hands, or something worse. And neither one listens to prayers."
Back at the site, Batman traced the perimeter. His internal HUD tracked movement, temperature, particle scans, residual pressure…
Still nothing.
Not even ozone.
It was the absence that was starting to scream.
He reached the center of the crater and stood completely still.
Then, very slowly, he crouched again.
And placed one gloved hand against the stone.
It was faint. But it was there.
A tremble.
No — a pulse.
Like something had been alive here.
And then it had left.
At the Gotham Children's Home, Kai sat quietly at the breakfast table, blindfold secured tightly over his eyes.
The other children chatted about cartoons and cereal flavors.
He barely listened.
He was focused on the shifting pressure in the air around them.
Ever since the battle underground, the cursed energy in Gotham had gone still — not gone, not dormant, but… cautious. As if the spirits were waiting to see what would happen next.
The nest was destroyed.
And he was the one who destroyed it.
But now?
Now he needed to disappear again.
By mid-afternoon, the news had fully picked up the story.
"Gas main rupture likely cause of Gotham sewer explosion."
"No injuries reported in miracle case of found child."
"Officials blame faulty city maintenance."
No one knew what had really happened.
And that was good.
It meant the Curtain had worked.
But it also meant something else:
He was completely alone.
No sorcerers came looking.
No spirits rallied.
No SHIELD, no League, no mystic order.
Nothing.
This wasn't a shared battlefield.
This was his.
That evening, Batman stood alone in the Batcave, reviewing heat maps, pulse readings, and three frames of blurred satellite footage.
All of it told him the same thing.
Something had happened.
Something fast, isolated, precise… and smart.
Someone had pulled off a full blackout in a major city — one that left no trace, no signal, no motive.
Except the crater.
He paused on a single still frame — the only image recovered between blackouts.
A faint, barely visible ripple of blue.
It wasn't fire.
It wasn't light.
It was… pressure.
He leaned forward slightly.
"Not magic. Not tech."
He tapped his console and pulled up a map of the city.
Then, he marked the location as Unknown Phenomenon 01.
For now.
At night, Kai returned to the rooftop of the orphanage, hoodie pulled tight, blindfold still secure.
He sat on the edge of the old ledge, legs swinging loosely, his senses stretched across the city.
Nothing moved in cursed space tonight.
Not yet.
But he could feel them out there.
Watching.
Wounded.
Waiting.
And so was he.
In a nearby alley, something stirred.
A cursed spirit no larger than a raccoon slithered from a trash heap, sniffing for negative emotion — sorrow, rage, guilt.
It paused.
Froze.
Then whimpered.
And fled.
Not because of what it saw.
But because of what it felt.
Up on the roof, Kai exhaled.
The wind was cold.
But not as cold as it used to be.
He looked toward the skyline — glowing faintly from city lights — and felt the silence there, too.
No one would thank him.
No one would notice.
But still...
He whispered to the wind:
"I'm still here."