Climbing back to my feet, I glared at the red-masked face of my jonin master, Takashi Moro. Pain throbbed through every muscle, but I forced my body into the familiar stance for what felt like the hundredth time.
"Hiya!" I shouted, centering my breath and readying for another beatdown.
My fists shot forward, targeting his ribs and throat. Moro deflected both, quick as ever, then stepped inside and drove a fist deep into my stomach.
I staggered but held my ground, lowering into stance again. I snapped a low kick at his shin, followed by a jab at his jaw. He caught my wrist, twisted hard, and tried to throw me over his shoulder. I rolled with the motion, landing light, and countered with an elbow strike. He blocked with his forearm and fired his knee toward my ribs. I twisted, letting the strike graze, and grabbed for his arm. He tore free and sent a straight punch at my face. I ducked, landed two quick body shots, then whipped a rising kick at his chin.
He caught my leg under his arm and shoved me back. I hit the mat, rolled, and pushed myself up fast. Moro was already advancing.
The fight turned into a blur of motion. Punch, block, counter, kick. My strikes landed against his ribs and shoulder, but his counters slammed into my arms and chest, heavier each time. He ducked under my hook and buried his fist in my side. Pain flared, but I lashed back with a spinning kick that clipped him. He absorbed it and pressed forward, locking my arm, trying to pin me. His grip was iron, but I twisted my whole body, broke free, and shoved off his chest with both feet, landing in a crouch.
My lungs burned, sweat dripped into my eyes, but my stance held. Moro adjusted his mask with a flick of his hand and raised his fists again. The fight wasn't over.
It had been like this for seven years.
Since the night my parents—Thomas and Martha Wayne—died, I'd lived two lives. The child Helena Wayne… and the person who remembered a different world. A world where the Bat existed only in comics. Only now, I was him—and not him. I wasn't Bruce. I wasn't even a man. I was Helena, a Wayne born not in Gotham, but in Hell's Kitchen.
The world I found myself in wasn't fiction. It had Captain America, Stark Industries, even mutants. I didn't know which universe this was. Only that it was real.
As in the comics where the Wayne family was crippled by the Court of Owls, my family was also destroyed. It started with the death of the Waynes' stillborn child in a car accident, then Jarvis Pennyworth—the butler of the family and father of Alfred Pennyworth—followed by the death of Thomas and Martha Wayne themselves.
Being the last of the Waynes, Alfred took his father's place and raised me. To keep me safe and to prepare me for the future, he sent me abroad. I had the same intellect as the Batman I remembered from fiction, so learning came quickly. I trained constantly, mastering fencing in France, burglary in Italy, martial arts and sword fighting in Tibet, even visiting Kamar Taj in Nepal, while also completing formal studies in criminology, psychology, forensics, engineering, physics, chemistry, and biology.
But Japan was where the path changed. Japan was where I met Nobu Yoshioka.
The Hand—demon-worshipping, immortal, ancient—took me in. They didn't just train me to fight. They stripped me down and reforged me into a killer.
And here was the difference between me and the Batman I remembered. He built himself on moral codes. I had none. Under the Hand, I killed because survival demanded it. Out of a hundred who trained with me, fewer than a dozen lived. Most died at my hands.
When I became a chūnin, I carried out their missions. Government officials. Rivals. Anyone the Hand wanted erased. I learned the currency of fear and blood.
And now, standing at the edge of promotion to jōnin, I knew the cost of my survival. To rise, I had to defeat one stronger than me. I chose Takashi Moro the right hand man of Nobu Yoshioka himself.
This time, Moro initiated the attack.
He came forward with a sharp step, his fist snapping out in a straight jab. I blocked with my forearm, but the force pushed me back a step. He followed with a low kick to my thigh. Pain shot up my leg, but I steadied myself and answered with a side kick to his ribs. He caught it with his arm, twisted, and tried to throw me down. I rolled with the momentum, landing on my feet, and fired a quick combination—left hook, right jab, low sweep.
Moro jumped the sweep and hammered his elbow down toward my shoulder. I shifted, taking the blow across my arm instead of the joint. The impact numbed my hand, but I countered immediately with a rising knee into his stomach. The hit landed, but his body hardly moved. He grabbed my leg and shoved me back, forcing me to skid across the mat.
I charged again. This time I kept my strikes tighter. A sharp jab to his chin, cross to his jaw, then a quick feint before sending a snap kick into his inner thigh. He grunted, but retaliated with a spinning backfist that clipped the side of my head. My vision blurred, but I steadied myself, wiped the blood from my lip, and forced my stance back into place.
We clashed in a storm of strikes—punches, blocks, knees, counters. Each hit was bone-jarring. My ribs ached, his fists left bruises across my arms, but I kept pressing. When he tried to clinch, I slipped free and hammered blows into his ribs. When he tried to sweep, I leapt over and countered with a stomp toward his knee.
The fight dragged, sweat dripping, breath ragged. I feinted a hook, drew his guard up, then slammed an elbow across his jaw. He staggered for the first time. I didn't hesitate. I drove forward with everything left—straight punches to his chest, a roundhouse kick to his head, then a final spinning back kick into his stomach.
Moro dropped to one knee, breathing heavy. I stepped in, hooked his arm, and twisted into a clean judo throw. His body slammed onto the mat. I dropped on top, locked his arm, and wrenched it into an armbar. He struggled, muscles straining, but I tightened the hold until I felt his resistance weaken.
A moment later, he tapped the mat with his free hand. Submission.I let go and staggered up, chest heaving, face slick with blood matching my hair. Moro stayed down, clutching his arm, glaring.
"Kane-san," Nobu's calm voice cut the silence, "you have earned the Hand's respect. Our great leader has decreed you will receive the Rite of Passage ritual from him personally."
"I would be honored to receive it from the daimyō," I said aloud, bowing slightly.
Inside, I thought otherwise.
The rite was no honor. It was a curse. Death and resurrection through the Beast's power. A leash. Once done, I would not just be their weapon—I would be their slave.
I had taken the name Katherine Kane here—partly because of our identical looks, partly to keep my real identity hidden. After promotion, they granted me luxury quarters. It meant nothing. After hellish training, torture, and blood, comfort meant nothing to me.
The monastery stood on one of countless small islands off Japan's coast. But the ritual would be on the mainland. That meant travel. That meant a ship—the only way off this rock.
The problem: the ship would be crawling with Hand operatives. Soldiers. Chunin. Even jonin. Possibly Nobu himself. But despite the risk, this was my best chance. Once the ritual was performed, I'd lose everything. The Beast would bind me to the Hand's will forever. Escape had to happen before that.
The Hand was structured around the five Fingers, each ruling a continent's underworld from the shadows. Eurasia, Africa, North America, South America… and Japan itself. The daimyo of Japan, one of the Fingers, was Takashi—the shadow ruler of the nation and one of the Hand's most powerful leaders. He would oversee my ritual. I had no intention of meeting him.
So I prepared. One week. My last act.
When the time came, I boarded the cargo freighter. On the surface, ordinary. In truth, crawling with Hand soldiers, assassins, even jōnin.
The second night, alarms ripped through the ship. I ran to the deck and found bodies scattered, throats cut, blood slick on the planks. The Hand had been ambushed. Their attackers wore full shinobi garb—black and gray armor, masks concealing faces.
Steel clashed in the dark. Jōnin of the Hand fought, but they were overwhelmed.
"Kane-san! We're outnumbered! Help us fight them back!" one shouted.
"Of course," I said smoothly. I stepped behind him, drew my chokutō, and with one clean arc, took his head.
The others froze.
"Hello, Stick," I said, turning to the man stepping from the shadows. "Nice of you to finally show up."
"Sorry, kid. Hard to find one red-haired devil in the middle of the sea," Stick smirked. "But you're looking good."
We moved back-to-back, cutting down Hand operatives. By now, most knew of my betrayal. Their rage only sharpened my blade.
This was no accident. This had been prepared for years.
In China, I'd crossed paths with the Chaste, the order sworn to fight the Hand. They'd turned me away—too old to join. So I'd chosen the other path, the darker one. To survive. To learn. To become stronger.
But I never planned to remain theirs. I used what faint ties I had to the Chaste, quietly feeding them enough to arrange this night.
Now, here it was. The culmination of everything.
Tonight was my escape.