Taro walked into the room without any hesitation, with a dreadfully casual flair to his steps, and started looking around.
"You decorated?" He asked, staring specifically at the soft rug that was happily spread over every inch of the room. "You come here often?"
"A few times." She answered easily.
Taro nodded in understanding, pointing at the ground still. "Rug?"
Lady Shiva shrugged. "Not mine. It is..."
"Expensive. Expensive is what it is." Taro interjected, helpfully completing her sentence for her.
He went around the little table in the centre of the room and came to sit on the edge of the bed where Raven's unconscious body lay.
"How is she?" He asked softly.
Lady Shiva just as easily and casually gave him his answer, standing at the head of the bed and leaning against its frame. "She'll be out for the rest of the day if nothing is done."
"Antidote?"
"Second drawer on the left."
Taro sighed as he stood up to finally face his old acquaintance. She was the closest thing to a friend he would have had if the both of them weren't so focused on their craft at the time, instead of engaging in trivialities.
"What do you want, Wu-San?" He asked. She was the most straight forward person he knew, yet she always made dealing with her a difficult and stressful affair.
"What do you think I want, Sakamoto-dono? Are you at least prepared to give something for a bargain?"
See? Unnecessarily difficult.
He scratched his head, wondering if he actually had anything of worth to offer and the answer came up a resounding no. He deflated.
"It seems not, Sakamoto-dono. Then please step aside. You have my word that no harm will come to her, except through Ra's direct order." She offered her word despite knowing that he wouldn't accept it. He was just as stubborn as she was.
"Can't. Came here for her." Taro shook his head sadly, already knowing what was about to come. And he wasn't wrong.
The knife that sailed greedily to his neck hidden under the turd of flesh he called a chin was caught in its voracious attempt by two chopsticks.
Lady Shiva's eyes twitched for a moment, scanning the whole room in tenths of a second, and confirming that yes, her chopsticks had gone missing. Despite it being there by the time he'd crossed over to the bed.
"How aggravating. Your skills have grown dull." She remarked dispassionately.
"You think this comes with discipline?" He sarcastically retorted while silently gesturing to his whole body.
She sounded as calm as ever, not at all like someone who had just tried to kill him, and he sounded too relaxed, not at all like someone who they just tried to kill.
"If it'll assuage your worries, know that Ra's doesn't see you dead." She offered.
"I'm not worried about Ra's." Taro snorted as he threw the knife and watched it pin itself on the centre of the table.
"Of course you wouldn't be worried about him." She agreed easily, almost like it was natural. "But that doesn't stop you from answering his calls. It'll stop me from having to hunt you down at another time."
"I'll think about it on my way out."
The words hardly flew past his lips before Lady Shiva's hands came at him with the speed of a bullet. Her fingers were raised and curled, like the claws of a tiger, and that was exactly the ferocity and danger it carried.
He held the chopsticks together and smacked her hand away with it as it came around with such unrealistic force that it temporarily declawed the tiger in its hunt.
Like flowing water, she didn't even react like it had hurt, and brought the hand back while the other one went forward in reprisal.
He let the hand come close, knowing exactly just how dangerous and daring the decision was, and barely caught it under the wrist while the chopsticks came pointing down as if intent in stabbing her through.
A feint.
Her other hand came forward, aiming to cut the most dangerous thing Taro currently carried – other than his body that is – and succeeded as it cleanly sliced through the chopsticks before they could stab through her pressure points.
The other arm Taro held suddenly changed its form. It had been shot straight and fast as an arrow but now it wriggled and slithered in Taro's grasp and easily slipped out of it as it aimed for his heart. It's intent cold and venomous as a snake's.
The other hand once again exposed its claws as it hunted for Taro's neck with renewed thirst.
Both the average and prodigious martial artists would have been dead, crippled or maimed against Lady Shiva's first two attacks. But Taro was neither average or prodigious, and they both knew this.
His right hand twisted and coiled like a whip and suddenly sprung towards his left where the snake darted centimetres from his heart. The whip wrapped around the snake's neck and with his thumb pressing into the middle of her palm, he defanged the serpent.
In the same motion with which he struck as the serpent hand, he also pulled himself into Lady Shiva's body and hence evaded the tiger's hunt while also body-checking her in the process. Three fluid motions all done with a single action.
He pushed up the half chopsticks that were still held in his palm and stabbed into her eyes as his shoulders shoved her backwards.
His hand were soon held in a clasp as both of her arms wrapped around his wrist, but that didn't stop Taro as he used a single finger to flick back one of the chopsticks towards his mouth, caught it, and instantly spat it out back at her like a bullet.
She tilted her head, no signs of rush or panic in her motions, but she wasn't fast enough as it struck a line of blood across her cheek.
She still didn't flinch at the wound, remaining perpetually calm, and kicked out her leg towards his stomach only for it to be stopped between his thigh and the elbow that dug mercilessly into it and twisted all the muscles in that part of her leg.
He dropped down to avoid the hand that tried grabbing his head, then leaned to the side to avoid the other one that came for his head. He narrowly dodged it but it had ripped off the shoulder section of his shirt.
"I don't have time for this Wu-San." He avoided most of her attacks and redirected the others. "How about we do it some other time? Hmm?"
They both separated from each other, Taro sporting a few tears on his shirt and nothing else while Lady Shiva had an injury on her cheek, twisted muscles on her leg, two broken fingers on her left hand, and a partially paralyzed pinky on her right hand.
"This will get us nowhere." He huffed.
"Be that as it may." She fixed the two broken fingers on her left hand by simply pressing on them with her thumb and then disperse the paralysis in her pinky by flexing it twice.
As for the twisted muscles on her leg, she simply stood and controlled the muscles around the affected area to untangle themselves. All the while never flinching once in their whole exchange.
Why would she flinch in the first place when she could simply turn off all the pain receptors in her brain?
"I see you haven't lost your ruthless edge. That is good to know." She sounded even more lifeless and empty than Raven on her best day, Taro thought.
'Done yet?'
'... Still focusing.. Almost there... Two minutes.'
"Are you buying time for someone?" Taro asked, wanting to do anything else than fight her in this moment.
She gave him no reply but simply centred herself for the next round.
Taro sighed. "Figures."
They were barely an arms length from Raven's face as there was hardly any place for them to move to in this small room. He doubted she'd listen to him if he said they should take it behind the doors so he didn't bother.
Even after all these years she still remained a pain to deal with.
Surprisingly, she spoke for once without being prompted. "Though I'm certain you've grown weaker, I thought that I would have breached a common ground between our skills in the last decade, but now I'm glad that isn't the case. Even weak, you still remain easily stronger than most. You're truly something, Sakamoto-dono."
"Eh...thanks?" Really? Poisoned needles? He rolled his eyes as he flicked all of them out of the way.
His moustache gave an irritated twitch when he saw her move the moment he did. Her innate ability to cold read the human body like a spoken language was quite the annoying skill to work around but he luckily found a way to do just that(and it was one of the hardest things he's ever done), but it looks like it's been so long that a few things were slipping through the cracks.
It looks like he'll have to put a tad more intent in his strikes. And he did just that.
She used the moment he'd flicked the needles away to get behind him with a movement technique she'd copied from him twenty years ago, which was also one of the main reasons he searched for a way to counter her cold reading, and set in motion to drive her elbow straight into his spine.
Not only that, but she also threw two more needles that harmlessly sailed past Taro only for them to ricochet off the other and start flying back towards Taro.
If he turned around to stop her, the needles would pierce him on the back. If he remained facing the needles and tried to stop her with one hand or his legs, she'd be able to run three new different attacks in the moment before the needles got to him.
The time given to analyse, anticipate and react to her attacks were a quarter of a second, and Taro responded in a timely manner.
The last bit of chopsticks in his hand flew into the air he turned towards her, hands set and palms open to catch her elbow, and perfectly set themselves on the path of the needles to effectively block it, despite piercing halfway through.
He caught her elbow, and having already anticipated and predicted her next viable attacks, started his action a fraction before she started hers.
His punch socked her across the face and flipped her over the table with so much force that by the time she regained her bearings and corrected her landing mid-air, she had already landed right in front of the door all the way across the room.
She wiped the smear off her lips with her sleeves, her eyes still on him, which was the reason she brought her hands together after understanding that he had crossed the room and was right in front of her.
Her bones rattled but were otherwise fine as the last second movement of her feet displaced a lot of the force that ran into her body.
She was now outside the room, arms still crossed in her block, realizing quickly that Taro had punched her through the doors.
She could still feel her bones vibrating and that told her with wizened clarity that she had failed to push him anywhere near his limit.
"Stay put for a second." She heard him say as he went over to the girl's side.
Taro reached her bedside and saw that her breath had changed. A bit freer and conscious.
"Are you okay?"
"Y...es." Raven murmured as her eyelids cracked open. "It was a lot harder than I thought."
"I'll help." His fingers blurred as they struck specific pressure points that instantly made her breathing clearer. "Take it easy for now. The bulk of it will fizzle out of your body in an hour or two."
Whatever spell she'd done had drastically decreased the time it would have taken for him to flush it out of her.
"Can you walk?" She took a moment to move her legs a bit and then gave him a nod.
"Let's get out of here."
He turned around and saw that Lady Shiva was already gone, and contrary to what most might think, that was a bad sign.
"Let's hurry." He didn't give Raven a chance to react, object, or agree before he picked her up in his arms and broke off in a sprint towards the exit of wherever here was.
It took them less than thirty seconds to exit the tunnels and find themselves under a canopy of trees.
He followed the marks of a path that led him through the trees to what was hopefully the end/beginning of this forest.
"There are some people ahead. I think they are fighting." Raven informed him as soon as they broke through the trees into a more open area. Taro thought about it for a moment and headed in the direction she'd indicated.
The moment Taro cleared a particular rock formation, he caught sight of the fight Raven had sensed and instantly recognized every party involved.
Whatever he was thinking fizzled out as he whirled and grabbed something that had been right in Raven's face.
Smoke left his hand as he opened it to reveal a slightly longer caliber of a high-powered sniper rifle.
His eyes immediately locked on a spot not too far from where Batman and Nightwing were engaged in combat against Deathstroke and Talia.
He flipped the bullet in his hand and studied it briefly before looking up back at spot, but slightly more to the right this time.
"Cain."
Raven felt the outer shell of his irritation bubble for a bit when he mentioned that name. As for the fact that she'd almost died, well, she pushed it aside after confirming that she'd survived. She has gotten used to walking off close calls.
She heard him sigh first before gently letting her to the ground.
"What are we going to do?" She asked.
"Well, we've been trying to get to the Justice League and there they are." Taro patted her on the head. "Let's go."
Taro's eyes kept moving along a line in the distance. He was actively tracking David Cain's movement and so far the man had changed positions seventeen times to try and throw him off, but his locations started becoming easier to single out the closer Taro got.
He could have simply gone the other way as soon as he realized who they all were, but he chose not to.
The main/easiest reason was Raven. Running was no longer an option, especially how restless she grew in the past few days.
The other reason was also partly because of the child in his care, but the decision had been spurred on by the people present.
David Cain – one of the world's very best. A master assassin and fighter.
Lady Shiva – one of the world's very best. A master assassin and arguably one of the world's foremost martial arts masters.
Talia al Ghul – heir of the Demon. A terrifying and deadly assassin. One of the world's very best. And also a master assassin and fighter.
Deathstroke – one of the world's very best. The world's greatest mercenary. A deadly assassin and an even deadlier fighter.
These were the people Ra's had sent out to look for him. Even going as far as to temporarily paralyze an entire town just to get to him.
Taro had to give it to the man. He knew how to send a message. And he knew how to make sure it didn't go ignored.
The moment they stepped into visible range, the four fighters took notice and suddenly stopped fighting.
Taro stopped and kept staring ahead of them, much to the confusion of the two heroes, and he kept at it for three minutes where no one spoke, until David Cain stood from where he hid.
Neither he nor Raven missed the masked surprise and increased tension that took over the two heroes.
"David Cain..." Spoke the grim and grave voice of the Batman at the appearance of the older man holding a sniper rifle loosely.
Just then Lady Shiva arrived and the heaviness in the atmosphere was doubled.
"We no longer have any business with you today, Bat. You will do well to leave while you can." Lady Shiva spoke up before promptly turning to the silent pair of Taro and Raven.
"You've made a decision, I take it?"
All eyes drew to Taro. On the veiled heroes' part there was mostly hidden confusion. Taro was a new and unknown element, one whose importance instantly skyrocketed the moment Lady Shiva of all people addressed him.
Everything went quiet, except for the soft whispers of the wind, as they waited for Taro to speak.
He sighed. One filled with great annoyance.
"Raven, go with the heroes." He said to the girl who silently stared up at him like an emotionless mannequin.
"And you?"
He scratched his head before replying. "I'll go with them. For now."
Nothing was said but she just continued staring at him with her usual blankness. She said nothing, only stared at him before turning to look at the heroes with her usual blank gaze.
She didn't react when Taro's hands came upon the hood of her cloak and softly assured her.
"Don't worry, I'll be back soon."
"Mmn." She gave a short hum before walking towards the heroes, ignoring everything else around her, even when David Cain and Lady Shiva took a step forward.
"She comes with us." David Cain's hoarse and emotionless voice cut through the silence as he took a step towards the walking Raven, not at all caring for heroes' presence.
That was until Taro took a single step forward. David Cain stopped his march towards Raven and whirled around to aim his gun at Taro who just stood after that single step and kept staring at him.
The air grew increasingly tense and the heroes quickly put themselves in front of the stranger girl and watched as Lady Shiva, David Cain, Talia and Deathstroke stared hard at the fat white haired man. The two men hovered their hands around their weapons and looked tensed for combat, while the two women just stared impassively at him.
"She'll go with the heroes. And he'll come with us."
At Talia's words, the tension abated and immediately they turned to leave, no longer interested in the presence of the heroes.
Taro looked behind and saw Raven staring at him so he gave her a smile along with his biggest thumbs up. His thoughts flew out unobstructed to her.
'Don't worry, I'll be back before you know it.'
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