Jason took a sharp breath and said to Tim, "I suggest you see a psychologist. Really."
Tim shook his head and replied, "Don't worry, I'm fine. I've been like this since childhood. But don't worry, my parents told me to try to fit in."
"But this time, he was the first to attack." Tim gritted his teeth and said, "We should seize the opportunity while he is ill to eliminate him. Let's go now!"
Jason thought about what he had just said, then replied, "If his base is compromised, it means he needs a new one. To make dolls, he needs a lot of material, and he has to be around a lot of people. The security here can't be too tight, and missing people aren't taken seriously... it has to be the East District."
"The buildings in the East District are being gradually renovated, centered around the urban area. The third phase has almost reached the docks, and the rest have been sliced into small segments by Wayne Enterprises' security area, leaving him with limited choices," Tim continued his line of thought.
"There are three likely places, we can check each one. While he's not fully settled yet and his dolls are completely decayed and have no combat power, we can take back everything he's done to Dick and me."
Jason stopped him. Tim thought Jason was going to stop him, but unexpectedly, Jason said, "If we are going to do it, we should do it thoroughly. We don't have to investigate ourselves, the street kids wouldn't let a suspicious person get away. I'll call a few of the children's kings in the East District."
Jason made several calls at the phone booth, and after a short while, they received several important leads which allowed him and Tim to pinpoint the location of this so-called V.
Originally, only the two of them were going, but Dick didn't feel safe about it, he insisted on going too. More importantly, he made Jason and Tim bring Aisha.
Dick, who had spent the most time with Aisha, knew exactly how powerful this girl was. If Aisha came along, they wouldn't even need guns. After finding the killer, they could just lock her in a room with him. Just two minutes, and the world would be quiet.
As Bruce's adopted son, Dick's fingerprints could unlock the Batmobile. The four kids left home in the Batmobile. As soon as they left, Alfred called Batman.
What happened next, there's not much to say. Tim's guess was almost entirely correct. They found traces of V in an old house on the edge of the East District.
The only surprise was, Hush was also there.
At that moment, Hush was lying on the operating table, and it was the mysterious V who was performing the plastic surgery on him.
At that time, the three older children were planning an offensive strategy, but Aisha was not the disoriented creature she once was.
While Aisha's vocabulary still left much to be desired, usually only uttering cries, she had the wisdom of a child her age.
She understood that the person who hurt Dick was in this house. So as soon as the car stopped, Aisha rushed out from Dick's arms, crashed through the window, and landed on the operating table.
Hush was undergoing surgery on his face at the time. Aisha's crash had caused the scalpel to slip, cutting off a chunk of flesh from his chin.
The scalpel slit half of his face from bottom to top, the wound was extremely deep, even reaching his eyeball. Looking ahead, not only would he be unable to have a charming chin, he would have a scar on his face and might even lose sight in one eye.
Hush absolutely could not accept this result. He was jealously furious at Bruce in every respect, including his good looks. Realizing that, he would soon be an ugly monster, Hush exploded on the spot.
He picked up his gun and started shooting wildly in the room, but Aisha was too fast. He didn't hit her, instead shooting V, who was performing the surgery on him.
Realizing the danger, Aisha immediately fled the room and jumped back into the car. Tim, Jason, and Dick hadn't figured out what was going on when the furious Hush started chasing them in his own car. Meanwhile, Batman, who had gotten news of the situation, quickly located them.
And so, a high-speed chase began.
Tim was the only child who knew how to drive, and the route he was most familiar with was Gotham's bustling commercial street. As a rich kid, he often shopped here, so when being chased, he instinctively drove here because he knew the road conditions well.
The result was a collision, resulting in half a block of Harley's street exploding and Shiller's brand new bookstore was reduced to ruins.
When Shiller returned to the center of his bookstore, he sighed lightly. When Batman walked in, he saw Shiller showing a helpless smile.
"...Did you know? This was actually a test." Shiller glanced at Batman and said, "During this upgrade, I gained almost all the emotions of a normal person, joy, sorrow, emotion, but there's one missing emotion—genuine anger."
"You've said it before too, people like us who pretend to be normal always overdo it. We're always gentle, kind, and understanding, but anger is the most important step in transforming our pretense into reality."
"Arrogant said that this emotion can only be learned in Gotham because all sorts of infuriating things happen here every day."
By the time Shiller said this, his smile gradually faded, replaced with a frown. He lowered the corners of his mouth, revealing an angry expression that Batman had never seen on Shiller's face.
But soon, the angry expression faded, and Shiller's expression started to become somewhat blank. Batman suddenly had a bad premonition.
"The test is over, and I need to go back and adjust this new emotion so that it can integrate well into my personality... Alright, Batman, prepare to meet your professor."
Batman slowly widened his eyes. He glanced around and saw the dust on Shiller's coat, the cotton fluff in his hair, the broken books all over the floor, and the yelling outside.
He thought about his behavior of bouncing between the physics and psychology departments, the serial killer who splashed blood on Shiller, the rotten pig ears delivered to Shiller's mailbox, and the case of suspected academic plagiarism.
Outside the bookstore, Clark, who was interrogating an Angel, saw Batman rush out of the bookstore.
On his way, Batman first picked up Aisha and put her on his shoulder, left hand pulling Dick, right hand dragging Tim, shouting for Jason, and with the efficiency of a cannery worker, he shoved all the kids into the Batmobile.
Clark, not knowing why, asked, "What are you going to do? Why the rush?"
A black car left a trail of dust in the sunset of Gotham and vanished. Batman left behind a sincere response:
"...I've got a paper to write!"