"Normal Speech."
'Normal Thought.'
"Demon Speech."
'Demon Thought.'
"Other Speech variants."
Location/Time.
-X- Line Break -X-
Friday 17th, April, 22:30.
New Jersey,
Gotham City,
East End.
It had been easy to find Naruto after she took the advice of Alfred, frustratingly easy in fact. She was not perfect, she knew that. Everyone, no matter how good, were prone to make mistakes and overlook key details. Barbara knew that even Bruce could make these mistakes.
However, she knew that he never did when it counted.
Finding the answer to the quandary of whether Naruto was Black Hood was so obvious that it frustrated her to how blind she had been. A quick tracking of Naruto using the computer in the Batcave had quickly pinpointed his location and from there, it was matter of travelling through Gotham to his location.
Honestly, the fact that she had stressed out over this for so long was annoying when the answer had been so obvious was frustrating.
But then again, perhaps that's why she had overlooked it. So used to searching deeper and desperate for the hidden clues, she never took a step back and looked at the bigger picture. She never lost sight of her end goal, but she never looked at the easier ways of finding the truth simply because they were too obvious. In her line of work, the obvious answer was almost always the wrong one.
And so after little over week, she was presented with the chance to gain some answers.
When tracking his phone, the computer had quickly pinpointed his location to be in the northern sector of the East End, the most rundown and crime ridden part of the East End. Naruto himself rarely ever entered that area and considering his apartment was in the south, closer to Gotham Heights then it beggared the question as to what exactly he was doing there?
From what she knew, Naruto himself had no real reason to go there. But Black Hood, well he has the perfect reason for being there. It was where crime thrived, even under Batmans watchful gaze.
Though why he was here was another question entirely. The police, Batman and herself had already torn apart this area in their search for the caches of a Fearless Toxin. None had been found.
So why was he here?
Looking down at the figure of Black Hood as he peaked down over the side of a building at where she could see a group of thugs working tirelessly to carry some sort of contraband into the relatively nice looking building across the street.
It was not run down like most buildings, so it kind of stood out in this area of town, but even then it was not saying much. It still had a few broken windows and copious amounts of graffiti on the side. Still, it was much better to look at than the rest of the apartments and houses that looked like rundown junkie joints. Which she knew from prior knowledge that they actually were just that, or most of them were anyway.
Some served as conference centres for shady business dealings between criminals, others were storage areas.
Activating her holographic computer connected to her wrist watch, Barbara looked at the beeping blip on the map, a blip that was in the exact same position of Black Hood.
"Damnit Naruto." She cursed quietly, as she looked at Naruto with a sigh. Despite being happy that she finally had an answer to the question that had been on her mind since the incident, it did not bring her any measure of real joy or sense of accomplishment at all. In fact, it made her feel worse.
Unfurling her cape, Barbara jumped off the building using the added surface area provided by her cape to glide down gently and silently onto same rooftop as Naruto and slowly moved up beside him.
He did not make any move as she crouched down, she having made sure to make just enough noise to alert him to her presence. This had caused him to spare a brief glance over his shoulders at her before dismissing her entirely.
"I don't need yours or Batmans help." He replied sharply and Barbara said nothing, her eyes torn between looking at Naruto and what the the thugs were doing. She knew that really all she wanted to do was drag him to his apartment and confront him about being Black Hood, but Barbara knew that the thugs down below took priority for now.
She could prioritise and besides, she knew from personal experience that while raw and untrained, Naruto was more than a match for any thug. With her at his side they would be able to deal with those numbers easily.
So she would wait for now.
"Batman didn't send me." She replied and Naruto spared her a glance before shrugging and looking through a pair of binoculars down at the thugs below.
It was honestly surprising to her how successful he had been so far considering his limited resources. She had built in lenses that could zoom in and out as well as take photographic and video evidence of anything she wanted. A marvellous piece of technology that worked perfectly in providing evidence to lock up some of the more elusive and influential criminals in Gotham.
Still, she could not dwell on that for long and instead addressed her main concern as to him wasting his time and getting in over his head. "You do realise Batman, Robin and myself as well as the police have already searched this area, right?"
Naruto remained silent, but by the way he tensed he was a little irritated at her pointing out that fact. "Yes, I know." He replied shortly and it honestly hurt to be treated so coldly by her childhood friend even if he did not realise that it was her. Barbara knew that Naruto had his misgivings about her alter ego and that she and him, Batgirl and Black Hood hadn't exactly gotten on well the last time they met.
"So why are you here?" She questioned further because from what she was seeing, if Naruto went down there he would not be escaping alive and if he did, he would be severely injured. His fighting skills while good would not help when facing off against the twenty thugs outside, plus the further fifteen inside. Those numbers were too large even for him and even she would have trouble. It was not impossible but she doubted she could deal with them and escape uninjured.
"Because I have a high suspicion that the Fearless Toxin is in one of the hideouts in this area." He replied and Barbara went to repeat her earlier point when Naruto beat her to it. "And yes, I heard you the first time. You and Batman already searched this area and it's exactly for that reason why I think it's here."
"Okay, you've lost me." Despite the mask covering the lower half of his face, she could pick out the movement that indicated he was smiling beneath his mask at her confusion. She did not know how she felt about that, if she did not have her mask on she would respond in kind. Just like Barbara would have responded to Naruto being snarky and teasing, like he was now. But she did not want to give Naruto a reason to suspect her as Batgirl, not just yet until she was ready.
For now, she was content to know that he was Black Hood and she could convince him to stop as just Barbara who happened to figure out who he was. Yea, that sounded like a plan. It allowed her to avoid revealing who she really was and save Naruto's life.
"I have this friend." Naruto spoke, breaking her from her thoughts as she looked up to his eyes. Thanks to the hyper focus lenses she could pick out the warmth in his gaze beneath his hood as he mentioned the word 'friend' and it warmed her heart in turn. "We used to play hide and seek loads when we were young and she always used to win."
He chuckled lowly, thinking back to the memory fondly. She herself remembered those times vividly. Naruto had always being the more athletic and sporty of the two and so whenever it came to games like that he always won. But when it came to hide and seek she would always win, it used to drive him mad.
"Every time we played she'd always move to a place I'd looked before and it would lead me on this wild goose chase for ages." Naruto looked back over the ledge once more and down at the thugs below. "So if my six year old friend could figure out the best way to hide something was in somewhere people had checked already, then I'm pretty sure whoever took the Fearless a Toxin right out from under mine and Batmans noses, could do the same."
Barbara remained silent, stunned into silence at his reasoning because in all honesty, it made a lot of sense. As silly as it was to compare thugs hiding a dangerous toxin to a game of hide and seek between six year olds, his reasoning as to why he thought it was here was frighteningly accurate.
And made perfect sense.
Before she could voice this however, someone else beat her to the punch. "Very good, Black Hood." Slow clapping caused the two to spin around and stare as a figure dressed in a black combat outfit, and a black mask with gold highlights shaped into what appeared to be an owl stepped out from the shadows. "Or should I call you, Naruto Uzumaki?"
Tensing, Naruto spared a glance at Batgirl before locking eyes with the masked figure. "Who the hell are you?" He demanded to know as Batgirl slowly moved away as to position herself to the right of the figure.
"You can call me, Talon."