More advance chapters on P@treon.com/Saintbarbido.
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Later that night, Damian found himself in the training hall. Usually crowded with Trainees, the chamber was empty after he'd scared everyone away. As the strongest, he could afford the right.
Besides, it gave him a chance to train with the Ashura form away from prying eyes. The goal over the last few weeks was to create special techniques that used his strange power.
Currently, he was warming down after an extensive weight lifting session. His muscles ached from the specialized volcanic rock dumbbells Shiva had procured for him. Obsidian and heavy as a boulder the size of Damian's body, he could only lift the pair while using Ashura.
Even then, he'd torn his biceps a few times but the red vapor seemed to heal his injuries faster now. As for the pain? Pain was welcome. Pain meant growth.
Strands of his white hair clung to his sweaty skin as steam wafted off his tanned, ripped and shirtless form.
He was running through the recovery Kata Shiva had taught to him.
His focused expression was highlighted under the warm glow of the lanterns on the walls of the training hall.
He wasn't completely alone.
Hanzo sat in the corner of the room, cleaning a sharp Katana blade while watching Damian.
"Today was certainly eventful. Boys your age, normally want to kiss the girl they like, not try to fight her to the death." The masked Shadow broke the silence.
"You think I like Cassandra?" Damian scoffed, body twisting like snake with the back of his head touching the soles of his feet.
"The tension between you two speaks. She's exactly your type." Hanzo insisted.
"Please, if she can't paint the walls red with my brain matter, I'm not interested. Cassie is too soft. Her mother on the other hand...now that's a challenge I intend to conquer. On the battlefield and in bed." Damian grunted, voice cracking hoarsely at the end.
"You can't be serious." Hanzo stared at him in disbelief. The gaze he met was not of a 15 year old boy but the beastly yearning of a starved predator.
Hanzo broke off into sudden surprised laughter.
Damian didn't care for the humor. "If you're here laugh, leave or I break your jaw again. If it's to fight, I'll gladly serve you the ass kicking you deserve."
Hanzo snorted, leaning against the wall. "Fight? I'd rather not embarrass you."
Damian smirked from the ground, his legs split in a perfect 180. "Big words for someone who doesn't fight at all."
Hanzo shrugged. "I fight when it matters. These other idiots? They don't matter."
Damian finally stopped, turning to face him. "Then what does?"
Hanzo didn't answer immediately. Instead, he studied Damian, as if trying to decide whether or not to say something.
Then, he exhaled. "Not dying for the wrong people."
Damian narrowed his eyes at the mask. "Is that why you hold back?"
Hanzo's lips twitched from beneath it. "You think I hold back?"
Damian stepped closer. "I know you do."
A tense silence stretched between them.
Then, for the first time, Hanzo smirked.
"You're not as blind as the others," he admitted.
Damian crossed his arms. "No. I'm not."
Hanzo chuckled, shaking his head. "I'll give you some advice, kid."
Damian frowned. "I'm not a kid."
"Sure," Hanzo said, slightly amused. "Listen, one day you're going to realize that all this? The League, the rules, the titles—it's all bullshit. You're the strongest Trainee here. You think that means something?"
Damian's gaze sharpened. "Doesn't it?"
Hanzo held his stare. "No."
Damian scoffed. "Then why are you still here?"
Hanzo's smirk faded. For the first time, there was something raw in his eyes- the only thing the mask didn't cover.
"I won't be for long," Hanzo said.
Damian felt a strange chill. A feeling he didn't like.
Hanzo turned to leave, pausing at the door. "Enjoy being the strongest, Ashura."
Then he was gone.
Damian stood alone in the flickering light, Hanzo's words lingering in his mind.
For the first time in a long time, he felt uneasy.
Because deep down, he knew Hanzo was right.
And that pissed him off.
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The wind howled through the cliffs of Infinity Island, carrying the scent of salt and steel.
The air was sharp with tension, the kind that clung to the skin and settled in the bones like an omen.
A line of Trainees stood in rigid formation outside the Island's temple, eyes locked forward, faces masked in discipline.
"The League demands perfection, obedience and blood. Today, blood will be spilled." Shiva declared while moving up the line, hands held behind her.
The prisoner knelt in the center of the courtyard, wrists bound behind his back, a black blindfold covering his eyes.
He was an older man, perhaps in his late forties, with salt-and-pepper hair and the hardened features of someone who had lived a life of war.
His breathing was slow, measured. He had accepted his fate.
At the front of the gathered Trainees, Hanzo stood with a blade in his hand. His grip was tight, but Damian couldn't help but notice how stiff his stance was.
Damian stood in the middle of the pack, eyes narrowed at Hanzo. He had seen executions before. He hadn't carried them out though, so this was new.
Shiva's voice cut through the noon silence. "Heed this lesson, A traitor to the League is a dead man. This is the law. This is justice."
She turned her gaze to Hanzo, eyes like tempered steel. "Kill him."
Hanzo didn't move.
Seconds passed.
A flicker of hesitation, subtle but undeniable, ran through his shoulders. His fingers tightened around the hilt of his sword, but he did not raise it.
Shiva's expression remained cold. "You have one command."
Hanzo swallowed. "He—" He stopped himself, jaw tightening.
Damian's lip curled slightly. 'Weakness.'
The traitor exhaled slowly, a ghost of a chuckle escaping his lips. "It's all the same, isn't it? You train killers, but some of them just can't—"
His words cut off in a wet choke as Damian moved.
One swift motion. A clean, practiced stroke.
The sound of a blade slicing through flesh.
The man toppled forward, his headless body crumpling lifelessly onto the stone. Blood seeped into the cracks between the tiles, forming dark rivers beneath him.
The courtyard remained silent.
Damian flicked his wrist, shaking off the excess blood from his knife before tucking it back into his belt.
He turned to Hanzo. "You hesitated."
Hanzo's fingers twitched at his sides. His jaw was clenched so tight Damian could hear the grind of his teeth.
"I had no reason to kill him," Hanzo muttered.
"You had a command."
"I don't follow orders blindly like a puppet!" Hanzo rebuked in a harsh tone.
Since that day, the tension between them had grown and grown and now it seemed ready to explode. The other Trainees were eagerly waiting for the Madman that was Damian to attack one of Shiva's Elite students.
'Fangless cowards.' Damian ignored them and only raised a single brow at Hanzo before scoffing. "Then you don't belong here."
Shiva stepped forward, her gaze passing over Hanzo briefly before settling on Damian. There was approval in her eyes, but no praise.
"Efficiency," she murmured. "A necessary trait."
Then she turned, dismissing the rest of the trainees with a wave of her hand. The gathered assassins melted into the shadows, leaving only Shiva, Damian and Hanzo standing over the corpse.
"I see you have made your choice." Shiva addressed Hanzo who bowed his head in shame. "Forgive me Sifu."
A blank faced Shiva stepped over the corpse and left without a word.
With her absence, the silence felt heavier.
Hanzo exhaled through his nose. "Come with me."
Damian arched an eyebrow. "Why?"
"Because you're going to want to hear this."
They walked through the courtyard and corridors in silence.
Hanzo led him past the dormitories, past the training halls, and deeper into the secluded eastern wing—a place rarely used, where no prying ears could listen.
Finally, he stopped near an open-air chamber. The sunlight's weak rays flickered against the ever present mist, the light illuminating his face as he turned to Damian.
Then, without hesitation, he pulled off his mask.
Damian didn't move.
Didn't blink.
Didn't breathe.
Hanzo's face was older, scarred, hardened—but the moment Damian saw those blue eyes, the moment he saw the familiar smirk hidden beneath the exhaustion, he knew.
And for the first time in a long time, his voice came out not cold, not mocking, but quiet.
"I knew it."
Jason Todd.
The only person he had ever called a friend.
The only person he had ever considered a brother.
And someone he had thought dead.
His fists clenched, and for the first time in years, something inside him wavered.
"You're alive," Damian said, his voice low.
Jason's smirk faded. "Yeah."
A tense silence settled between them.
Damian's hands twitched at his sides, his mind racing.
Memories flashed through his head-the orphanage, the fights Jason would help him in against bullies, the nights they spent watching each other's backs.
He was the one who had taught him how to throw a punch in the first place. How to take a beating and survive. How to cheat and win in a fight.
Jason had been the only one who didn't look at him with fear or disgust because of his white hair. The only one who had treated him like an equal. A friend. A brother.
And then one day, Jason had disappeared.
He had never come back.
"They told me you died," Damian said, his voice steady but laced with something raw.
Jason exhaled through his nose. "I did."
Damian's jaw tightened. "Explain."
Jason hesitated for only a second before speaking.
"I was Robin," he said. "Bruce Wayne- Batman took me in. Trained me." His voice was unreadable. "Then the Joker got to me. Beat me to death with a crowbar and left me to rot in an exploding warehouse."
Damian's breath hitched, barely noticeable. But Jason saw it.
"I woke up in a coffin. Months later. No memory of how." Jason's voice remained level, but there was something dark beneath it. "Turns out, Talia Al Ghul dug up my corpse and tossed me into a Lazarus Pit."
Damian knew about the Pit from the League's extensive library. About what it did to people.
"She brought you back."
Jason nodded. "Yeah. But I wasn't the same." He let out a humorless chuckle. "And neither was Gotham."
The words hit like a hammer.
After Jason's death, Damian had spent years telling himself he was alone. That no one would ever understood him. That he had been abandoned for a reason. That even his adopted father, Bruce had never really wanted him.
And now he knew the truth.
Bruce had had another son besides him and Nightwing. Not just anyone but his dead best friend, Jason.
And he, Batman, let him die.
Damian took a slow breath, steadying the fury that coiled in his chest. His voice was quieter when he spoke. Darker.
"So why are you telling me this?"
Jason met his gaze. "Because I'm leaving."
Damian scoffed. "You can't just leave the League."
"I'm not asking for permission."
A pause.
Then, Damian smirked. "So that's why you hesitated. And why Master looked like she'd bit on something sour."
Jason let out a quiet breath, neither confirming nor denying it.
"I don't get it," Damian said, his voice sharp. "Why would you risk becoming a traitor after you just saw me kill one? Why go back? Why return to Gotham? To the man who let you die?"
Jason looked away for a moment, then finally spoke.
"I can't move on until I deal with my past."
Damian clenched his fists. "You had a father who let you die and did nothing. If I were you, I'd be going back to kill him. That would make sense."
Jason hesitated, struggling to reconcile the Damian he'd known in the past, to the one before him. In the end, he chuckled dryly. "Yeah. Maybe that's why you're still here and I'm not."
Damian didn't respond.
Jason turned toward the exit. "Listen, kid. You were always meant to be something special. One of the baddest fighters I've seen. But you're playing by their rules. Even Shiva is. But one day, you're gonna realize what I did."
Damian frowned. "And what's that?"
Jason didn't look back.
"That this place was never meant to hold you."
With that, he walked into the shadows, leaving Damian standing alone.
The wind howled through the mountains.
Damian clenched his fists.
Something inside him broke.
And for the second time in years, he felt alone.