More advance chapters on Patreon./Saintbarbido.

  -0-

  The neon glow of Hong Kong cast a hazy refle on the rain-slicked streets as Damian crouched atop a high-rise, his sights oemple below. One of the League of Shadows bases.

  MI6 had sent him to kill Lady Shiva, arguably the most dangerous woman on the p. For anyone else it would be suicide and even Damian thought it was a mistake on MI6's part.

  Six months had passed since Monaco, and the ageno lorusted him. Not after the serum.

  Sure, they still used him, but the missions were either high risk with low rewards or strictly supervised by Barton.

  That said, his current mission was a test in disguise. If he succeeded, they would own him. If he failed, they would erase him.

  It made no difference. Damian had outgrown them. He wasn’t here for MI6. He was here for himself. To test his mettle against the greatest martial artist in the world.

  "Let's not keep her waiting..." Damian said, rising to his full height of 6'2.

  He'd turned 15 a few months ago but would have passed for 18. His body had undergone immense ges. Evidenced by the way his torso stretched out his favorite hoodie, a blue oh stylish demon horns on the hood.

  He took a siep off the ledge, and started falling, wind whipping through his white hair.

  Dozens of meters from ground impact, he gripped onto a rusted pipe along the building and slid down, sparks jumping off his hand.

  At some point, he kicked off the building and vaulted over the Temple's outer wall, nding silently in the courtyard. A ground roll pced him behind some bushes, just as light passed over the courtyard.

  "Not a single mark." Damian remarked at his uninjured palm. Then he surveyed the enviro.

  The st of 'inse and rain-soaked stone' filled the air. Ninja assassins with all manner of bdes patrolled the grounds, moving with coordinated silence.

  "No guns." He observed with disappoi. "There goes the fun."

  With practiced ease, Damian slipped between them unseen, past the uards, past the stone gardens, through an open window and into the dimly lit corridors of the temple.

  He stopped and surprisingly, rose from his crouch behind a flower vase. His instincts were prig, warning him of a threat.

  His senses, like everything else, had sharpened beyond reason in the months sihe serum. And now if he focused, he could feel the shifts in air pressure, the fai whisper of a calm heart steadily pumping a few paces behind him.

  Someone had been waiting for him.

  “You’re bold to e here.” a feminine voice drifted from the shadows.

  Damian turned around slowly, hands in his hoodie's pocket.

  A beautiful asian woman in a red coat and a sword strapped to her hips, stepped into the flickering ntern light, her expression unreadable.

  Lady Shiva. His target.

  Damian openly ogled her, appreciating her lithe form and toned figure. The aura around her was of trolled aggression. Uhe Bck Widow's ing persona, Shiva ut simply a warrior. An Alpha among women. Just his type.

  Likewise, Shiva studied him with an idle amusement, her head tilting ever so slightly.

  “And reckless,” she added, notig his nces.

  Damian smirked. “I’ve been called worse.”

  She circled him with slow, deliberate steps, her hands csped loosely behind her back. “MI6 sent you?”

  Inspite of his surprise, he didn’t ahis wasn't about them.

  Shiva exhaled through her nose, as if he were mildly disappointing. “Too young for them to trust with a task like this. That means they’re either desperate… or you’re dangerous.”

  She stopped just outside his striking range. “Which is it?”

  Damian’s fingers curled around the hilt of his colpsable bde in his pocket. “It won't matter ih.”

  Shiva sighed, gesturing zily toward the ceiling. “Still, I like to know why people e to kill me. It’s professional courtesy.” She regarded him for a beat, then smirked. “And you don’t strike me as the kind to follow orders blindly.”

  Damian remained silent. Then, smoothly, he drew his bde. The time for talk was over. He couldn't hold back his instincts to dominate her any longer.

  That amused her. She shook her head. “No patiehat will get you killed.”

  He lunged with a quick ssh.

  Shiva didn’t move—she simply 'wasn’t there' when the bde fshed. Her ter was a whisper of motion, a flicker of shadow.

  Damian barely deflected the heel kick, his pulse pounding. She was fast. Faster than anyone he’d ever faced.

  But he was fast too.

  He struck again with a fist that was a feint for a spinning kick, and this time, she was forced to block.

  The force of the impact rippled through her arm, and she let out a thoughtful hum whilst jumping back,“You’re strohan you look.”

  She dodged his attack with ease, uhing her katana bde like flowing water to parry his stab.

  “You’re fast, too,” she tinued, almost versationally. “Fast, but undisciplined. You fight like someone who thinks speed alone will keep them alive.”

  Damian gritted his teeth, twirling his bde and g it against hers. “It’s kept me alive so far.”

  “For now.”

  Her footwork shifted, and then she was inside his guard, her palm smming into his chest with devastating forbsp;

  He flew back, crashing into a bronze inse buroppling it over.

  Thick gray smoke billowed into the chamber, mixing with the flickering dlelight, ing the shadows along the walls.

  'She purposefully led me away from the corridor.' Damian realized as he found himself in a spacious room.

  Paihrough his ribs. The damage was already healing but he could have sworn her palm had fshed with a yellow light before she hit him.

  He staggered to his feet, wiping blood from his mouth. Shiva was already watg him with that same idle amusement.

  “You’re holding back,” she said.

  “I’m not,” Damian growled. He was. But he'd be damned if he didn't win with his skill and prove to himself that he was the better martial artist.

  Shiva raised an eyebrow. “Then you’re not as good as I thought.”

  The words ignited something inside him and suddenly nothing mattered than showing her she was wrong.

  The hum beh his skin swelled, coiling, waiting. His heart pounded in his ears, but it wasn’t panic—it was focus. Time seemed to slow down.

  He could see everything. The shudder of her breathing. The microshift of her stahe precise moment she inteo move.

  He reacted before she did.

  His bde cut through the air. He was too fast, too sharp—she couldn’t avoid it.

  The tip of his on grazed her arm as he blew past her with a swift gale.

  The nterns flickered violently. The air grew heavy. The st of inse became almost oppressive.

  For the first time, Lady Shiva hesitated.

  It was only for a fra of a sed. A blink. A moment so brief it shouldn’t have mattered. But it did.

  Damia it through the skip of her heartbeat. He turned around to face her but Shiva stepped back, her eyes narrowing slightly.

  “You’re different. A diamond in the rough.” Her tone was no longer amused. It was… ied.

  She sheathed her bde, fusing Damian.

  “Join me and I refine you.” she said simply.

  Damian stared at her outstretched hand. “Fuo.”

  Shiva exhaled through her nose, as if expeg that. “A shame.”

  Then the room darkened.

  Figures moved in the shadows, silent as death. A dozen assassins emerged, bdes drawn.

  Damian shifted his stance, eyes glinting with killing i.

  “Kill him.” Shiva said. The League couldn't afford him to grow any further. She khat iure he'd be unstoppable.

  The Shadows, personally trained by Shiva herself, struck all at onbsp;

  Damian moved before he thought, twisting past a bde aimed for his spine, shoving oacker into another.

  His own knife found a throat, warm blood spilling across his fingers. He wre free, spun, dropped low as a sword sang past his head.

  Too many. Too well trained.

  Damian ducked under a strike, grabbing the attacker’s wrist and snapping it in one fluid motion.

  A sed assassin lunged, but he sidestepped, sending them careening into a pilr. There was no time to breathe. All the while Shiva simply observed.

  The nterns cast monstrous shadows along the crimson walls. The st of blood ihe inse in the air.

  Damian’s heartbeat slowed. The world stretched. He could see their movements before they made them.

  He moved like a ghost.

  But even ghosts get overwhelmed.

  A bde cut into his side, barely missing his ribs. Another caught his shoulder, burning hot.

  'Still too many.' He'd kill several and more would repce the fallen. It was a battle of attrition and he wasn't dumb enough to overestimate his survival rate against dozens of pros.

  Damian shrew a smoke bomb at his feet, and vanished into the darkness.

  He heard Shiva chuckle as he fled.

  “We'll meet again Demon child.” she called into the night.

  Mission failed. Barton would be pissed. Still, he didn’t look babsp;

  -0-

  It took him three days to rea.

  . No stops.

  By the time he arrived, he was bleeding, half-starved, and furious.

  MI6 had burned him. No tact, his travel passes invalidated, safehouses deissioned.

  Slipping into hid old p the Narrows, he patched himself up and ged into fresh clothes. He o know how bad it was.

  He got his answer faster than expected.

  Perched on a rooftop across from the Warehouse he'd lived in for months, Damian listeo the listening bugs he'd installed after Monaco, incase MI6 ever betrayed him.

  Inside, Barton’s voice was sharp, tense.

  “We’re doh him. He's bee a liability. I'd hoped Shiva would deal with him for us but it seems you will have to up your own mess Barton.” said an authorative voice Damian didn’t reize. “You know what to do.”

  Bartoated. Only for a sed.

  Then: “Uood sir. The kid will die.”

  Damian’s lips curled into a smirk.

  They wanted him dead. He only had ohing to say to that.

  "Good luck."

  In fact, he'd make it easier for Barton, you know for old time's sake.

  -0-

  "I want eyes on Wayne Manor and charges set in the kid's apartment in the Narrows. The faster you kill him, the more of you will live to see tomorrow. This kid's the real deal. A maniac savant in all ways of murdering. Tag him as soon as you spot the white hair. Maximum force authorized and expected. Casualties unimportant."

  Ihe warehouse, Barton briefed a full squad of agents outfitted with deadly arsenal while they were suiting up.

  Damian didn’t hide.

  He simply walked in through the entranbsp;

  Boots eg against the crete floor, hands in his pockets, he stopped in the ter of the room.

  The agents turned, ons half-raised.

  “Don’t waste your time looking for me Barty old boy,” Damian said in a fake British at to mock his former boss. “I’m already here.”

  Barton exhaled sharply.

  Damian’s blue eyes gleamed.

  “So,” he tinued. “Are we doing this, or are you just going to stand there and sweat?”

  Silenbsp;

  Then Barton pulled out his gun, a cold look fshing in his eyes. "Sorry kid. Yht this on yourself."

  Damian smiled crag his neck. "So did you.”