Tim lowered his gaze to the small box in his hand.
His fingers hesitated for a moment before he slowly lifted the lid.
The moment it opened—
His eyes widened.
Resting inside was a magnificent sapphire necklace.
The deep blue gemstone lay against black velvet, catching the light and scattering brilliant reflections across the room. It was flawless, almost impossibly pure.
Tim recognized it instantly.
The Heart of the Ocean.
He reached inside and lifted the necklace from the box.
It was heavy.
Real.
Its weight settled into his palm.
But his attention never lingered on the legendary sapphire.
His eyes immediately searched the rest of the box.
And there it was.
Tucked quietly into one corner lay something else.
A ring.
It wasn't elaborate.
There were no precious stones.
No intricate engraving.
Compared to the dazzling Heart of the Ocean beside it, it looked almost painfully ordinary.
Tim's breath caught.
Without thinking, his fingers loosened.
The necklace slipped from his hand.
Clink—
The heavy pendant struck the hardwood floor with a sharp metallic sound.
Tim never even looked down.
His trembling hand reached into the box instead, carefully lifting out the ring.
Slowly, he raised it toward the light.
Then turned it over.
Inside the band, a single line of tiny engraved letters caught the light.
Tim Drake × Nora Verrell
Tim stood frozen.
He didn't move.
Not for a very long time.
Then, without warning, his fingers closed tightly around the ring.
He turned and rushed toward the staircase.
Ignoring every protest from his battered body, he took the stairs two at a time, hurried down the hallway, threw open his bedroom door, and went straight for his desk.
He yanked open a drawer with trembling hands.
Inside lay a backup phone.
He grabbed it immediately and pressed the power button.
The few seconds it took for the screen to light up felt like an eternity.
Finally, the operating system finished loading.
He ignored every notification.
Instead, he opened the tracking application first.
The list appeared almost instantly.
His eyes raced down the names.
Then stopped.
Leila — 4 trackers offline.
Nora — 6 trackers offline.
Max — 1 tracker offline.
Tim stared silently at the screen.
The room was so quiet that the only sound left was his own breathing.
Slowly...
he lowered his head.
He opened his hand once more.
The ring rested silently in his palm.
At last—
a single tear slipped free.
It landed softly inside the band,
wetting the tiny engraving that bore both of their names.
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34Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWIM8cGKIzC
Her mind was a blur.
Countless fragments of memory surfaced, only to shatter and drift away again like broken glass suspended in darkness, impossible to piece back together. Bits of information tangled together, refusing to form a coherent picture.
She didn't know how much time had passed before one thought finally emerged.
There had been an explosion.
The instant it happened, she'd reacted on instinct, throwing herself toward Liela.
After that...
nothing.
She only remembered the world suddenly going dark.
Then every sensation had dissolved into emptiness.
Nora tried to organize her thoughts, but every time she felt herself grasping a thread, it slipped away again.
And...
she was so tired.
Her eyelids felt impossibly heavy, as though opening them required more strength than she possessed.
A dream eater shouldn't be this exhausted.
The conclusion came almost immediately.
I must be badly injured.
No.
Don't fall asleep.
She repeated the words to herself.
She forced herself to stay awake.
There were still things she had to do.
Important things.
She couldn't lose consciousness now.
Slowly, Nora opened her eyes.
Above her stretched an ornate, carved ceiling.
She blinked.
Her vision was so sharp that she could make out every vein carved into the wooden leaves, every tiny detail in the craftsmanship.
She slowly lifted a hand into view.
As expected...
it wasn't her own.
It was Major Kusanagi's cybernetic body.
The familiar mechanical arm brought a small wave of relief.
At least...
she could still move.
Turning her head, she realized she was lying on a crimson sofa.
Someone had even placed a soft pillow beneath her head.
She slowly pushed herself upright and looked around.
It was a room.
A remarkably elegant one.
Dark wooden furniture.
Heavy drapes.
Oil paintings hanging on the walls.
Every piece spoke of wealth, history, and old-world refinement.
Nora frowned.
Where... am I?
She braced herself and stood.
Usually, the Major's body responded with flawless precision.
Not now.
Every movement felt sluggish.
The cybernetic body wasn't malfunctioning.
It was her.
Her own reactions had slowed.
Probably because she was mentally exhausted.
And still unbearably sleepy.
Steadying herself, Nora made her way toward the door.
She reached for the handle.
Turned it gently.
The door opened with a soft click.
She steadied herself against the doorframe before resting a hand against the wall, using it for support as she slowly stepped outside.
Beyond the doorway stretched a long, lavish corridor.
Its high ceiling seemed to disappear into the distance.
Wall sconces lined both sides in perfect symmetry.
A deep crimson carpet ran all the way to a vanishing point she couldn't see.
Keeping one hand against the wall, Nora began making her way down the hallway, one slow step at a time.
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Dick was still in the Batcave.
Jason remained locked inside a holding cell.
Tim was nowhere to be found.
The entire cave was wrapped in an oppressive silence, broken only by the low hum of the Batcomputer and the soft clicks of surveillance feeds cycling across the monitors.
Then—
Beep.
A warning tone echoed through the cave.
Dick immediately looked up.
A red alert flashed across the main screen.
Unauthorized individual detected inside Wayne Manor.
His brow furrowed instantly.
Someone had broken into the Manor?
Now?
He quickly switched to the security cameras, enlarging the relevant feed.
There was indeed someone inside.
A young woman was slowly making her way down the second-floor hallway.
But...
After watching for a few seconds, Dick frowned even harder.
She wasn't moving like an intruder.
One hand was braced against the wall, her steps slow and heavy. Every few paces she seemed to lose her balance, as though she might collapse at any moment.
She looked less like someone breaking in...
and more like someone barely able to stay on her feet.
Dick kept his eyes on the screen, searching his memory.
Nothing.
He had never seen her before.
"Who is she?"
he murmured to himself.
More importantly...
How had she gotten inside?
The Batcave hadn't registered a single breach.
The Manor's perimeter defenses had never been triggered.
Just as Dick was trying to decide what to do—
another camera feed caught his attention.
A familiar, much smaller figure stepped into view.
Damian.
The newest member of the Wayne family had turned the corner into the hallway.
He looked up.
His green eyes settled on the woman slowly making her way forward, one hand against the wall.
There wasn't a trace of surprise on his face.
Instead, he said matter-of-factly,
"So... you're wearing clothes this time."
Back in the Batcave,
Dick froze.
"...?"
His head slowly turned toward one monitor.
Then another.
Then back to Damian.
His mind filled with question marks.
Wait...
What does he mean, "this time you're wearing clothes?"
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Dick stood there in silence for a long moment.
His eyes shifted back and forth between the security footage and Damian's bizarre comment.
In the end, he gave up trying to figure it out himself.
There was only one person who might actually know what was going on.
Jason.
Inside the holding cell, Jason was still sitting in the corner, the Bible resting open in his hands.
Dick walked up to the transparent barrier and knocked lightly against the glass.
Only then did Jason slowly lift his eyes from the page.
Dick didn't bother easing into the conversation.
"There's a woman upstairs."
"When Damian saw her, he said..."
He paused.
Even repeating the words sounded ridiculous.
"'So... you're wearing clothes this time.'"
Jason answered without the slightest hesitation.
"The naked woman?"
Dick froze.
"..."
He stood there, speechless.
Suddenly, it felt like he'd missed more than just a few events.
Had...everyone left him out?
How was it that everyone else seemed to know exactly what was happening...
except him?
Seeing the look of complete existential confusion on Dick's face, Jason merely shrugged.
"Someone Tim knows."
He lowered his gaze, casually turned another page of the Bible, and spoke as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world.
"You'd better go find him."
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Tim sat silently at his desk, the ring resting in his hand.
The room was dim, illuminated only by the warm glow of a single desk lamp that stretched his shadow across the floor.
The ring lay quietly in his palm.
We've lost each other.
Tim lowered his head.
That single thought echoed through his mind.
Again.
And again.
He had so many things he wanted to tell her.
Far too many.
He wanted to tell her that Laila was a wonderful person.
He wanted to introduce them to each other.
He wanted to take Nora back to Drake Manor and show her the house where he'd grown up.
He wanted to watch her favorite movies with her.
He wanted to go diving with her.
He wanted to spend countless ordinary days doing nothing more than being by her side.
But...
they had lost each other.
The thought surfaced once more.
It was as if someone sat beside him, whispering those words into his ear over and over.
Without pause.
Without end.
Just then, the phone on the desk vibrated.
Tim glanced at the screen.
Dick.
He didn't answer.
He already knew why Dick was calling.
He wanted him back at the Batcave.
Right now...
he didn't have the strength to go back.
The phone rang for a long time before finally falling silent.
The room slipped back into suffocating stillness.
A few moments later, it lit up again.
Dick.
Tim still didn't reach for it.
The ringtone echoed through the empty manor until it stopped once more.
Silence settled over Drake Manor again, heavy enough to make it difficult to breathe.
After a while, the phone rang a third time.
Tim had every intention of ignoring it.
Then his eyes landed on the caller ID.
Jason.
He was silent for several seconds.
Finally, he reached over and answered.
On the other end of the line, Jason held the phone to his ear while Dick stood beside him, staring in utter disbelief.
Dick had called over and over without getting a response.
Jason called once...and Tim picked up.
Jason didn't waste a second.
"Someone's looking for you."
Tim said nothing.
He simply listened.
"It's Motoko Kusanagi."
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If Nora were given the choice again, she swore she would rather be discovered than strip naked just to stay invisible.
She was exhausted beyond belief, yet she still had to force herself awake while sitting here, waiting for Tim to arrive.
Worse still, she had an entire room full of people staring at her.
Especially the man standing beside the fireplace with his arms folded across his chest, who hadn't spoken a single word since she'd arrived.
Bruce.
Or rather...
Batman.
To be precise, they were currently gathered in one of Wayne Manor's sitting rooms.
The antique wooden furniture, the fireplace with its faint, flickering flames, the heavy curtains, and the unnaturally quiet air all combined to fill the room with an invisible sense of pressure.
Jason had also been released from the holding cell—for the moment.
After all, he had been the one who successfully brought Tim back.
And he was currently the only person who could even begin to explain why a mysterious woman had suddenly appeared inside Wayne Manor.
As the story unfolded, everyone finally realized this wasn't an intrusion at all.
This person...
was a mechanical body Tim had previously asked Conner to retrieve.
That alone was surprising enough.
But then came everything else.
She had once gone skinny-dipping in the middle of the night.
She had apparently tried to drown herself.
And she was, somehow, an anime character.
Within just a few minutes, the amount of information dumped on the room was so overwhelming that even Bruce had fallen silent.
Everyone was thinking the exact same thing.
What the hell did we just hear?
In the end, every pair of eyes turned toward the center of the room.
Toward the real focus of the conversation.
Nora.
Fortunately, she was no longer naked.
She was wearing one of Tim's dress shirts.
The problem was that Tim was considerably taller than this body. The oversized white shirt nearly reached her thighs, while the sleeves hung well past her wrists.
Instead of making the military-grade mechanical body look intimidating, it somehow gave her an unexpectedly delicate appearance.
Nothing about the exhausted young woman sitting before them matched the descriptions they'd been hearing.
She didn't look like someone capable of fighting Damian to a standstill.
If anything...
she looked more like an overworked college student who desperately needed sleep.
Nora sat quietly on the sofa, struggling to keep her eyes open.
Her eyelids drooped.
She forced them open again.
Then they slowly sank shut once more.
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Tim was finally home.
On the ride back, he'd pushed his motorcycle almost to its limit. The engine had roared beneath him as he tore through the night, leaving nothing but a streak of sound in his wake.
But the closer he got to Wayne Manor, the harder he forced himself to stay calm.
He emptied his mind.
Don't think.
Don't analyze.
Don't hope.
Don't imagine.
Maybe...
I'd deduced everything wrong.
Maybe...
it was just another coincidence.
Maybe...
I'd let myself hope for far too much.
And if that hope turned out to be false...
the disappointment would destroy me.
So don't think.
Don't think about anything.
When the motorcycle finally rolled to a stop in front of the manor, Tim removed his helmet.
Only then did he realize his hands were trembling.
He was afraid.
Afraid to open that door.
Afraid the person waiting inside wouldn't be her.
Afraid that everything had been nothing more than wishful thinking.
He stood there for a long moment and took a slow, steady breath.
He didn't run away.
Instead, he strode toward the sitting room, his pace quickening with every step until he was almost running.
The door swung open.
The conversation inside came to an abrupt halt.
Everyone turned toward the sound.
Every pair of eyes landed on Tim.
He didn't look at any of them.
From the moment he stepped into the room, there had only ever been one person he was searching for.
Nora.
She sat quietly on the sofa, those expressionless mechanical eyes lifting to meet his.
They stared at each other across the room.
Tim remained where he was for several long seconds.
Then he asked a single question.
"What's Max's favorite food?"
Nora didn't have to think.
She didn't even hesitate.
She looked up at him and answered calmly.
"Pizza."
Just one word.
It was enough to shatter the last wall he'd been holding together.
The next instant, Tim crossed the room in long strides that became a run.
Before anyone could react, he was already standing before her.
He wrapped both arms around her... and pulled her tightly into his embrace.
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Nora slowly lifted her arms and returned Tim's embrace.
An odd silence settled over the sitting room.
Dick watched the two of them holding each other before finally leaning toward Jason and whispering,
"So... she's Tim's girlfriend?"
After a brief pause, another, even bigger question surfaced.
"And... who's Max?"
Jason folded his arms across his chest, his gaze still fixed on the pair in the middle of the room.
Several seconds passed before he answered evenly.
"They only introduced themselves last month."
"As for Max..."
"I've got no idea."
Dick fell silent.
At this point, he had completely lost track of what was happening.
In the end, he could only console himself in silence.
Well... this is probably a good thing.
Young people are supposed to fall in love.
At least Tim doesn't look like he's going to spend the rest of his life married to his computer.
In the center of the room, the two people who seemed utterly oblivious to the audience surrounding them finally eased out of the embrace.
Nora raised a hand and gently brushed her fingers against the bandage on Tim's cheek.
Her brown eyes lingered on his injuries as she asked softly,
"What happened to you?"
Tim didn't answer.
Instead, he lifted his own hand and gently covered the back of hers where it rested against his face.
Those blue eyes never left hers.
Nora met his gaze.
A small smile slowly curved across her lips.
"How did you figure everything out?"
Still...
Tim said nothing.
With his right hand, he carefully lowered hers from his face.
Then his left hand slipped into the pocket over his chest, searching for something.
A moment later, he withdrew a small object.
He reopened Nora's hand with his right.
Then, with his left...
he gently placed it in her palm.
Standing nearby, Dick narrowed his eyes, trying to see what it was.
When the object finally came into view, he froze.
His eyes slowly widened.
After several long seconds, he turned blankly toward Jason.
"...Didn't you say they only introduced themselves last month?"
Jason was silent.
He was beginning to suspect he'd missed something too.
Across the room, Alfred watched the scene with softened eyes.
If the moment hadn't been so delicate, he might have reached for a handkerchief to dab at the corners of his eyes.
Thank goodness.
Truly, thank goodness.
The boys hadn't inherited everything from their father.
At least they still understood love...
and commitment—
the oldest and most precious of virtues.
Just look at Master Timothy.
He'd gone straight for the ring.
With that thought, Alfred quietly lifted his head and cast Bruce a long, meaningful look.
Bruce: "..."
He said nothing.
He simply accepted the old butler's unmistakably judgmental stare.
As for Damian, the newest member of the Wayne family, he watched everything unfold with calm green eyes.
Silently, he reached a conclusion.
The outside world...was unbelievably complicated.
ns216.73.216.179da2
and then Add to home screen.