Hello, guys!
Because of the holiday season, I want to celebrate with you in two ways.
The first is that, starting today, Monday the 22nd until Sunday, January 4th, I will publish daily chapters so you have plenty to read during these holidays.
After that date, I will return to my usual schedule.
The second surprise is that, starting December 24th, I will activate a 50% discount on all tiers of my Patreon.
The promotion will be active for 2 weeks, ending on January 6th.
If you wanted to read the advanced chapters, this is your chance.
Merry Christmas!
Mike.
Patreon / iLikeeMikee
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Chapter 29: Operation Buried Bone
It was late. Night had claimed Kyoto, wrapping the Gion district in a quiet darkness, broken only by the moonlight silvering the wooden rooftops and the whisper of the wind in the willows. The Urahara Candy Shop was closed, the entrance noren taken in, the "Open" sign flipped to show an elegantly calligraphed "Closed." To the world, it was a sleeping business.
But inside, in the vast conceptual space hidden behind the mundane facade, Urahara Kisuke was in his element.
The laboratory was silent, save for the almost inaudible hum of the dimensional stabilizers and the soft click of his fingers on a holographic console. The cavern was plunged in gloom, lit only by the soft glow of a dozen data screens floating around him like scholarly fireflies.
Kara was in Metropolis, probably sleeping, or perhaps dealing with some local disaster. He, at last, was alone with his true work.
He was immersed, in a state of flow that was his purest form of happiness. On the main workbench, he had gathered his leads. On one screen, the Xylonian files, their silent testimony to a civilization "bored" to extinction. On another, the Tengu's report, with its descriptions of a metallic "Heart of Silence," buried beneath a Tibetan monastery.
And beside him, resting on a silk cushion like a crown jewel, was the Dreamstone.
He wasn't trying to use it. The toys of the Endless were too temperamental, too full of drama. No, he was scanning it. He was treating it as a relic, a piece of a larger puzzle. He had felt the connection between Destiny's plague—an imposition of order that erased history—and the Cosmic Silence—an entropy that did the same.
'Are they the same?' he thought, his mind racing with curiosity. 'No. Faust's was... loud. Vengeful. Human. This...' He looked at the Xylonian data. 'This is... silent. Cold. Like the bottom of the ocean. But they are related. Stories that end. Narratives that are erased.'
He was so absorbed in his research, so lost in the joy of conjecture, that a lesser being would never have noticed. The change was infinitesimal. A single fluctuation of energy, as small as the beating of a moth's wings, in the Kyoto shop, far above him.
Kisuke didn't move. He didn't look up. But the rhythm of his fingers on the console paused for a single beat.
Ah. A visitor. And not one who had used the door.
Gotham City. 3:17 A.M.
Rain lashed against the windows of Wayne Manor. Below, in the Batcave, the air was cold and smelled of damp stone and ozone. Bruce Wayne sat in front of the main terminal of the Batcomputer, his face illuminated only by the glow of the monitors.
He was furious.
On the main screen, the black file he had created remained open.
URAHARA, KISUKE. THREAT CLASSIFICATION: CONCEPTUAL EXTINCTION LEVEL EVENT. CONTINGENCY: DO NOT ENGAGE. OBSERVE. LOCATE VULNERABILITIES. POSSIBLE VULNERABILITY / LEVERAGE POINT: SUPERGIRL (KARA ZOR-EL).
It was a file full of conjectures, rumors, and humiliations. And he hated it.
'A ghost,' he thought, his jaw clenched. 'He's been on Earth for weeks, maybe months. And I have nothing. The Kyoto shop is a front. No tax records, no candy shipments, no identity. He is a hole in the world. Kara has access, I know that. But how? A portal? Magic?'
He had sent three standard probes to Kyoto. All had disappeared, probably now in Urahara's collection of "curiosities." Passive observation was over. He was frustrated. And when Batman got frustrated, he got proactive.
He turned to a secondary platform in the cave. On it rested his most recent creation, a billion-dollar project designed specifically for targets that didn't follow the rules of physics.
The "Ghost Bat" Spectral Drone.
It was the size of a large moth, built with a polymer alloy that absorbed light, making it matte black. But its true genius was its engine. A miniaturized quantum phase engine that kept the drone vibrating at a frequency that was slightly out of phase with physical reality.
It could pass through thin walls. It was invisible to thermal detection, sonar, and even most low-level magical scans. It was his answer to beings like Doctor Destiny, Zatanna... or Urahara.
He put on a VR headset. "Initiating Ghost Protocol," he muttered.
The drone took off from the platform, silently passed through the cave ceiling, crossed the manor's foundations, and exited into the stormy Gotham night, accelerating to hypersonic speeds toward Japan.
Minutes later, Batman was there. Through the drone's eyes, he saw the quiet Kyoto alley.
"Activating spectral sensors," he murmured.
The world through the visor changed. The normal alley exploded into a chaos of energy. The candy shop wasn't a shop. It was a wound in reality, a dimensional anomaly glowing with the power of a contained sun.
'He's there. And he's active.'
The drone searched for an entrance. The front door was conceptually sealed. The windows were traps. But there was a weakness. One that Batman, in his paranoia, couldn't understand. An old 19th-century ventilation duct on the roof, covered by a simple iron grate. Why would a being of that power leave such an obvious physical vulnerability?
'A trap?' he thought. 'Probably. But it's the only way in.'
He activated the quantum phase. The drone passed through the iron grate like smoke.
It was in.
The interior of the shop was dark and silent. The drone flew over the candy jars. Batman guided the drone toward the back, following the energy trail.
It passed a wooden closet. The drone's sensors screamed. WARNING: STABLE GATEWAY SIGNATURE DETECTED.
'A portal? In his closet?' thought Bruce, filing the information away. Kara's connection.
Then, the drone reached the noren (curtain) of the backroom. His sensors went wild. The reading was gibberish. ERROR. CONTAINED SPATIAL SINGULARITY. RISK OF PHYSICAL COLLAPSE.
"Override safety protocols," ordered Batman to his computer.
"Proceeding."
The drone, vibrating, passed through the fabric.
The vast laboratory opened up before him. It was dark, cavernous, a mix of alien technology and ancient architecture. Batman maneuvered the drone silently, finding a perfect perch on a dark metal beam, high above the central work platform. Invisible. Undetectable.
The camera stabilized. He zoomed in.
And Batman saw everything.
He saw the Dreamstone, glowing faintly on the table, the energy source he had sensed. He saw the holographic maps of Tibet. He saw the scrolls covered in writing his computers couldn't translate.
And he saw him.
Urahara Kisuke. His back turned. Clad in his green haori, with his ridiculous hat. He was leaning over a holographic screen, his fingers moving rapidly, completely absorbed in his work.
Batman's heart beat a little faster. Triumph.
'Finally,' he thought. 'Hard data. No games. No songs. Just you. And your work.'
He activated all recording protocols. Every sound, every image, every energy signature. He had him.
In the laboratory, Urahara didn't move.
His fingers continued drumming on the holographic console. But the console was off. The screen in front of him was black as obsidian.
Slowly, very slowly, he picked up the tea cup next to him.
He brought it to his lips, but didn't drink.
In the dark reflection of the off console screen, his gray eyes looked upward, over his shoulder, directly at the exact spot on the dark beam where the drone was hiding.
He had felt the quantum vibration the instant it passed through the ventilation grate. He had felt the disturbance of the phase engine, subtle as a mosquito's wingbeat, when it entered his laboratory.
He held his gaze on the reflection for a second. Two seconds.
A slow, lazy, and absolutely malicious smile began to draw across his lips, a smile the drone's camera couldn't see.
'Oh, Batman-san. What an exquisite piece of technology,' he thought, his inner voice full of bubbling amusement. 'Spectral sensors? A quantum phase engine? And all that effort... just to spy on a humble shopkeeper? Truly impressive. And how rude. Spying in a colleague's laboratory. What a lack of manners.'
He pretended not to have seen anything. He set down the tea cup. He stretched theatrically, cracking his neck.
'Now... what kind of show should we give our guest?'
He swiveled in his chair, looking around the laboratory, as if searching for his next task.
'A demonic ritual? A plan for world domination? No, too cliché. Bruce-san is a man of details. He needs something... special. Something... at his level. Something he cannot possibly decipher.'
His gaze landed on the door of the Kryptonian habitat, where Krypto slept peacefully.
'Ah, yes,' he thought, a gloriously absurd idea blooming in his mind. 'The General.'
'That will be perfect.'
In the Batcave, Bruce Wayne leaned forward. Urahara's posture had changed. He had stopped researching. This was different.
'He's moving,' thought Bruce, his eyes fixed on the drone feed. 'End of research. Start of operation.'
He watched as Urahara got up from his chair, stretched with a theatrical laziness, like a cat after a nap, and yawned. A perfectly mundane act that, somehow, seemed like a mockery. The shopkeeper walked to his main console, and for a moment, Bruce thought he was going to turn it off.
Instead, his fingers danced over the panel.
The main lights of the vast cavern, the ones mimicking a nebula sky, dimmed to black. The holographic screens vanished. The laboratory, a moment ago a nexus of information, was plunged into dramatic gloom.
A fraction of a second later, a series of low-level work lights turned on, casting pools of intense light over key points in the room. The main one was a large carved stone table in the center of the room. Suddenly, the laboratory looked less like a research center and more like a stage for an experimental play. Or an operations room.
'Lighting change,' analyzed Batman. 'From a "research" state to an "ops" state. Reduction to work lights. Is he meeting someone? Incoming communication? Sensors detect no other life signatures... except...'
Urahara didn't head to a communications console. He turned and walked calmly toward the door of the Kryptonian habitat, the artificial meadow bathed in yellow sun he had built for Kara and her pets.
He stopped in front of the door and whistled. A sharp, cheerful whistle.
"Krypto-san! Meeting time!"
A white and red blur shot out of the room, barking happily. Krypto, the Superdog, flew in enthusiastic circles around Urahara's head, his little cape fluttering.
'The Kryptonian dog,' thought Bruce, eyes narrowing. Confusion began to cloud his analysis. 'What is this? A guard? A biological weapon? Kara isn't here. Why the dog? Is he... an accomplice?'
"Shhh, shhh, not now," said Urahara, giving the flying dog a reassuring pat. "Quiet. It is time for our weekly meeting. And we have an audience, so it must be formal."
Urahara walked to the illuminated stone table, now a solitary stage in the darkness. Krypto landed beside him, tilting his head.
Kisuke pulled out a large carved stone chair, which scraped against the floor, and sat at the head of the table. Then, he looked at the dog.
"Don't be rude," he told him.
He pulled up a tall metal stool, patting the seat. "Sit, General."
Krypto, with the discipline of a perfectly trained dog who just wanted to please, jumped onto the stool. He sat on his hind legs, pink tongue hanging out in a goofy smile, tail thumping against the metal of the stool. Tap-tap-tap-tap.
'General?' Batman's mind worked at full speed. 'A code name. The dog is an operative. Or... Urahara is completely and utterly insane. Given the circumstances... both are terrifying possibilities.'
Now the real show began.
Urahara, with an expression of absolute seriousness, paused. He looked slowly toward the dark beam where the drone was hiding. Then he looked to the opposite corner. He did a theatrical sweep of the room, like an orator checking his audience, or a safecracker listening to the gears of a lock.
'He's checking for surveillance,' realized Bruce, his heart beating a little faster. 'He knows the room might be compromised. But he doesn't know where. My phase sensors are undetectable.' He remained perfectly still, a phantom observer.
Satisfied with his fake check, Urahara nodded to himself. Then, he crouched under the stone table. When he straightened up, he was holding an object that made Batman zoom in.
It was a scroll. An ancient, enormous scroll, yellowed with time, with frayed edges and sealed with a leather tie. With a dramatic gesture, he threw it onto the table, where it unrolled with a crinkling sound that echoed in the silent laboratory.
The scroll was covered in what appeared to be arcane runes, complex diagrams, and ley lines.
'Image enhancement,' thought Batman. The computer in the Batcave worked, filtering the image, translating. 'The runes... aren't magical. Not Kryptonian. Wait.' His pattern recognition database found a match. 'They are... they are the blueprints for Metropolis Centennial Park. The landscape design. Why? A target? A meeting point? And these 'runes'...' The computer translated them. 'They are... routes. Dog walking patterns.'
The absurdity of the situation was so deep that, for a moment, Bruce felt a flash of pure rage. 'A game? Is he mocking me?'
But Urahara leaned over the table, his face now the image of a conspiratorial genius. His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, just loud enough for the drone's hypersensitive microphone to pick up.
"The plan is proceeding perfectly, Krypto-san."
Krypto, who had been sniffing the scroll, looked up and tilted his head, letting out an interrogative: "Woof?"
Urahara nodded solemnly, his face deadly serious, as if the dog had just made a brilliant tactical point. "Exactly. My analysis matches yours. We are ready to proceed."
He leaned in further, his voice dropping another level. "The bat suspects nothing."
In the Batcave, Bruce Wayne froze.
His hands clenched into fists.
'Bat?' His mind raced, discarding the obvious because it was impossible. 'Does he mean me? How... how could he know? Impossible. My systems are perfect. It's a code name. It has to be. Man-Bat? The Bat-Man, Kirk Langstrom? An enemy operative using that name? Yes. That's it. Logical.' He clung to the only explanation his mind could accept.
"He is completely blind to our true operation," continued Urahara. "Our infiltration of Centennial Park is complete. Phase One, 'Operation Buried Bone', was a resounding success."
'Operation Buried Bone,' repeated Batman in his mind. 'A biological weapon? An explosive? A buried artifact the dog can detect underground? Did the Dreamstone have a partner?'
"The squirrel henchmen reported nothing," whispered Urahara, his gaze scanning the map. "The asset is secured."
'Squirrel henchmen?'
Batman frowned so deeply it hurt. 'What the hell is that? A code name? An agile recon team? The Titans? Doom Patrol? No... it makes no sense. It's absurd. Unless... it's a code. A book cipher of nonsense. So random it's unbreakable. Brilliant. And demented.'
Urahara pointed to a spot on the park map with a finger. "Now, we move to Phase Two. The acquisition of high-value targets. As discussed."
He pointed to three more spots. "Here... here... and here. The hot dog truck on 52nd Street. 'The Golden Bone' pet shop. And... the jackpot."
'Civilian targets,' analyzed Batman. 'Shops. Fronts. Meeting points for operatives. 'The Golden Bone'... could be a front for Intergang. Selling hardware... 'bones' as in weapons? The hot dog truck? A mobile drop point.' His paranoid mind was connecting dots that didn't exist, building a conspiracy castle in the air, and Urahara was handing him the bricks one by one.
Urahara paused dramatically. The tension was palpable. Krypto, sensing his master's seriousness, sat still, ears perked up.
"Soon, my friend..." whispered Kisuke, his voice barely a thread of sound. "...soon..."
He leaned toward the dog's ear.
"All the sticks in the park... will be ours!"
It was the trigger phrase.
Krypto, who had been maintaining his "General" facade with admirable discipline, heard the magic words. "Park." And "Sticks."
Discipline shattered.
His tail erupted into a white and red blur of motion, hitting the metal stool with a THWACK-THWACK-THWACK-THWACK! that resonated in the laboratory. He stood up on the stool, pink tongue lolling out, and let out a series of sharp, joyful barks.
ARF! ARF! STICKS! PARK! NOW! LET'S GO!
Urahara had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from bursting into laughter. The sound of the dog barking, mixed with the assumptions undoubtedly exploding in Batman's head right now, was the purest comedy he had experienced in this century.
He raised a finger to his lips, feigning panic, his shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter.
"Shhh!" he hissed, trying to look serious. "Quiet, General! Be professional! The walls have ears!"
He paused and looked directly at the beam where the drone was hiding.
"...Or, in this case, wings."
The "meeting" was over.
The echo of Krypto's bark faded in the corridor leading to the Kryptonian habitat. Urahara Kisuke was left alone in the center of his laboratory, now dimly lit. The large stone table was empty, save for the park map scroll, which he began to roll up slowly, an expression of deep satisfaction on his face.
He laughed. A genuine, silent laugh that shook his shoulders. A laugh of pure, unadulterated delight.
'Ah, what a performance!' he thought, tying the scroll with its leather cord. 'A masterpiece of theater of the absurd. 'Squirrel henchmen'. I should write that down. I almost broke when Krypto-san forgot his role. What a good boy.'
He rolled up the scroll and put it back under the table. Then, with the calm of a man who has finished his workday, he stretched, yawned, and prepared to turn off the work lights.
He walked through the laboratory, passing right under the metal beam where Bruce Wayne's billion-dollar technological marvel was hiding.
He stopped.
He tilted his head, as if listening to a distant sound.
And then, very slowly, he turned. He tilted his head back. And looked directly up at the dark beam. His gray eyes, even in the gloom, seemed to find the ghost drone's lens, twenty meters away.
And waved.
A small, cheerful, friendly wave.
Batcave. 3:20 A.M.
Bruce Wayne froze.
His blood ran cold. The image on his main screen was undeniable. The man in the hat, twenty meters below his undetectable drone, was looking at him. And he was waving.
"...The walls have ears!... (Or, in this case, wings.)"
"The bat suspects nothing."
It wasn't a code. It was a mockery.
Everything. Every word. Every move with the dog. The park map. "Operation Buried Bone." It wasn't a secret plan Bruce had discovered. It was a show. A private play, staged by one man, for an audience of one.
And he, the world's greatest detective, had been the fool sitting in the front row, taking furious notes, trying to find deep meaning in an absurdist comedy.
"Damn it!" he roared, his voice echoing in the cave. He slammed his fist on the console. "Compromised! Retreat!"
His fingers flew over the keyboard, activating the drone's emergency escape protocol.
Urahara's Laboratory.
The drone on the beam received the command. Its quantum phase engine emitted a sub-sonic hum, ready to vibrate through the stone and escape. The small light on its lens blinked.
"Ah, ah, ah!" said Urahara aloud to the tiny speck on the ceiling, his voice full of playful reproach. "So rude. Leaving so soon? And without saying goodbye? After such a wonderful show? What a lack of manners, Batman-san!"
The drone launched from the beam, a blur of darkness moving at incredible speed toward the ventilation duct it had entered through.
VZZZT!
Batcave: The screen went black.
Static. A single message blinked in red letters: CONNECTION LOST.
Bruce slammed the console again, this time hard enough to crack the metal. He had lost the asset. A billion dollars, gone. And, worse, the man in the hat had it. A piece of his best technology.
Urahara's Laboratory.
Urahara hadn't moved from his spot. He was still standing in the center of the room.
He raised his hand.
In the palm of his hand, the Ghost Bat, the marvel of stealth technology, buzzed furiously, like a moth trapped in a jar. Its quantum phase engines spun at full power, trying to vibrate through Urahara's skin, but they couldn't. Kisuke's spiritual pressure, his reiatsu, anchored it firmly to reality, negating its primary function.
He had caught it. He had plucked it from the air as if it were a simple fly.
"Shhh, shhh, little one," he whispered to the drone, his face filled with genuine admiration as he brought it closer to his eyes. "What an exquisite piece of technology, Batman-san. Seriously. Spectral sensors? A quantum phase engine in something this size? It is a work of art! And how rude of you not to say hello."
With the drone buzzing helplessly in his hand, he walked to his personal workbench. Not the one with the cosmic scrolls, but the one covered in scrap, precision tools, and... a crafts kit.
"But it lacks... style," he murmured.
He set the drone on the table. The little device tried to fly, but the conceptual weight of Urahara's spiritual pressure kept it glued to the wood.
'Now,' thought Kisuke, his smile turning mischievous. 'A parting gift. A souvenir of the evening. It needs a bit more... personal flair.'
With the precision of a surgeon and a smile of pure mischief, he pulled a small piece of bright pink tissue paper from a drawer. He took out scissors. He took out a tube of glue.
In less than a minute of delicate work, with the tip of his tongue sticking out of the corner of his lips, he constructed a tiny, perfect, and absolutely ridiculous conical party hat.
With a pair of tweezers, he applied an infinitesimal drop of glue to the top of the micro-bat's armored chassis. And then, with surgical delicacy, he placed the pink party hat on it.
He leaned back to admire his handiwork. The planet's most advanced stealth drone, a billion-dollar spy weapon, now looked like a very angry, tiny birthday guest.
"Ah, yes," he nodded, satisfied. "Perfection."
He searched his shelves and found one of his shop's gift boxes, a bright pink one with an elegant white satin ribbon. He carefully placed a bit of tissue paper at the bottom. Then, with the tweezers, he lifted the "decorated" drone and gently deposited it inside.
As a final touch, he took a handful of his konpeitō star candies, the ones that glowed with their own light, and sprinkled them around the drone, as if they were confetti.
"And now..." he said, "the finishing touch."
He took out a small folded card and his calligraphy pen. With elegant, fluid strokes, he wrote a note.
Batcave. One hour later.
Bruce Wayne was furious. He was analyzing the last thirty seconds of corrupt audio data before the cut.
'Operation Buried Bone. The bat suspects nothing. Sticks. Dogs. Squirrels.'
His paranoid mind was working in overdrive, trying to decipher the code. Was "Buried Bone" a code name for an attack on Blüdhaven (Nightwing's home)? Were "Sticks" a euphemism for nuclear weapons? Was the "dog" Kal-El? He couldn't find a pattern. It was absurd. And that made it terrifying. It was a code designed specifically to mock his own logic.
"Sir."
Alfred Pennyworth's calm, perfectly British voice cut through his concentration. Bruce turned, his expression a snarl.
Alfred stood at the entrance to the cave, holding an immaculate silver tray. His eyebrow was raised so high it almost disappeared into his hairline.
On the tray, defying all logic and the manor's decor, was a cheerful bright pink gift box, tied with a flawless satin ribbon.
"A package has arrived... Master Bruce," said Alfred, his voice a masterpiece of forced neutrality. "It was at the front gate. There was no delivery man."
Bruce stood up. He approached the tray. His eyes scanned the box. No explosives. No toxins. No energy signatures.
With a sharp, furious movement, he ripped off the lid.
He froze.
He saw the bed of tissue paper. He saw the star candies glowing softly.
And in the center, he saw his billion-dollar ghost drone. His stealth technology marvel. His secret weapon.
Wearing a ridiculous conical pink tissue paper party hat.
Beside it, rested a small folded card. With hands trembling with pure rage, he picked it up. The calligraphy was elegant, perfect, and absolutely mocking.
"Thank you for the visit, Batman-san."
"Such a quiet guest. Next time, please use the front door; the ventilation duct is terribly dirty and I don't want Krypto-san getting sick from the dust."
"Enclosed is a sample of our most popular products. They are quite delicious."
"P.S.: Krypto-san actually prefers beef flavor to chicken. I'll have to adjust the 'Operation' plans for next week."
Bruce's face is shown. It was pale. His lips formed a thin white line. The note, in his gloved fist, began to crumple and turn to dust.
The cold war hadn't just escalated. He had just received his first and deepest humiliation.
The game was on.