Maroni's Restaurant - Upper Balcony - 9:23 AM
The restaurant didn't officially open to the public until noon,but when Salvatore Maroni shows up you open regardless.
The upper balcony looked down over the main dining room, all white tablecloths and dark wood everything looking expensive.
Maroni was working through his third lobster which was on the house of course. He was in his early fifties, he was a heavyset man but intimidating, his hair was white, his eyes sharp and he wore no jewelry except a watch that cost more than most Gotham apartments.
Vincent Rossi sat to his right, suited, attentive, carrying the particular posture of a man who'd recently been elevated and was still calibrating what that meant.
Suguro sat across from both of them.
No food in front of him, he hadn't been offered any and hadn't asked.
"You know," Maroni said, breaking open a lobster claw, "I remember when Rossi here brought you to my attention, what were you, fourteen? Fifteen?"
"Fourteen," Suguro said.
"Fourteen years old, living on the street, working your way up already." Maroni gestured
"Thorne changing into a man who fell off a building is something I appreciate, eve if it wasn't your main goal, and I didn't spend a dollar or a man to make it happen." He returned to his lobster. "But anyway, Vincent tells me you want something."
Rossi cleared his throat slightly. "Crane was hoping to use one of the family's planes, for about a week, perhaps slightly longer."
Maroni stopped eating, giving Crane his full attention now it was a rare sight.
"One of my planes?"
"For business," Suguro said. "The specifics aren't relevant to you."
Maroni looked at him for a moment. "You're sitting at my table telling me the specifics of what you want my property for aren't relevant to me."
"Yes."
Silence
Then Maroni smiled, slow and genuine, and went back to his lobster. "You know what I always told Vincent about you? I said that kid has no fear"
Crane wasn't sure how to feel about that now but it was not relevant to the current situation and pushed the thought to the side looking back at Maroni.
He pulled apart a claw with a crack. "Most people who come to this table, even people I've known for years, they're always calculating, how much to show, how much to hide, trying to suck up to get what they want"
"I'm not going to pretend to ask something from you when I'm owed a favor," Suguro said.
Maroni laughed, short and real. "Owed huh"
"Thorne's removal benefits you directly and cost you nothing," Suguro said. "That's worth something and I'm naming what that something is."
Maroni set down his fork and looked at Suguro and the restaurant was quiet around them.
"All right," Maroni said finally. "Here's what I'll do, I'm not lending you a plane."
Suguro waited for him to finish.
"I'm selling you one." Maroni picked his fork back up. "My son's plane, its long range, built for distance, you could take it to Asia or I don't know Australia without stopping if you wanted to. The beautiful aircraft has its own hangar and maintenance crew ill share with you." He paused. "My son doesn't need it anymore."
"What happened to him?" Crane asked, apparently hearing this for the first time.
Maroni's expression shifted into something between contempt and resigned disappointment. "Engaged himself to a woman he met at some party a year or so ago. Very charming and very interested in the family business." He cracked another claw. "Turned out she was GCPD. Undercover for fourteen months, by the time I found out she'd already gathered enough to bury half my operation fortunately she went "missing" and noone can find her"
He said the last sentence with the particular flatness and Crane understood this woman was certainly dead, a smart move on Maroni's part.
"And my son," Maroni continued, "who was supposed to be keeping his mouth shut and staying at home till I told him he was in the clear, got drunk in his misery and snuck out to a nightclub and fired a weapon at a police precinct because someone looked at him wrong, he's lucky the judge works for me and he just is on probation." He shook his head. "Always a disappointment, from the beginning, always a disappointment."
He looked at Suguro across the table with an expression that was difficult to read.
"I wish I'd had a son like you," he said. "Someone who has initiative and understands what it actually takes and doesn't make stupid descions"
Rossi nodded once, confirming something he'd believed for some time.
Suguro said nothing.
Maroni went back to the plane, naming a figure that was approximately fifteen percent of the aircraft's actual value. "Which means it's basically a gift, but we both have dignity to maintain. I keep the official ownership on paper and my people manage the hangar, maintenance, etc so nothing points back to you."
He extended his hand across the table.
"Deal?"
Suguro shook it. "Jaina will deliver payment to Rossi today."
"Good." Maroni returned to his lobster. "Hangar twenty-eight, private terminal. The airport knows not to ask questions about Maroni aircraft. They'll extend the same courtesy to you."
Suguro stood.
Crane's Wings Underground Facility - Main Corridor -
The tracker showed Cameron's Truck approximately fifteen minutes out.
Suguro stood in the main corridor and looked at the tracker for a moment, then made a decision and went to one of his offices.
He took out his phone.
It rang twice.
"Hey,"
U.A. High School - Third Floor Corridor - same time
Nemuri had been walking toward the faculty parking area, bag over one shoulder, when the buzz came from her inner jacket pocket.
She changed direction immediately and found an empty classroom, closed the door behind her, and answered.
"How are you doing?" she asked,
"Good," Suguro said. "Things are actually looking up and I'm finally looking forward to the future"
She didn't know what that meant and how that was actually a very bad thing for the world. "That's good. That's really good."
"How's Japan?"
Nemuri leaned against the empty teacher's desk, looking at the rows of unoccupied student chairs. "Uncertain. Everyone's adjusting to the idea of a world without All Might as the Symbol of Peace"
"A society built around one person was always fragile," Suguro said "I have a question, the yakuza. What do you know about them?"
Nemuri blinked, confused at the fast change in topic. "The yakuza?"
"Japanese organized crime, what's their current status?"
She thought for a moment, "they were significant once, before All Might's era, they had real power." She paused. "When All Might became the Symbol of Peace, they collapsed. The ones who weren't arrested went underground or dissolved into irrelevance, I've only fought against some and most of them have been operating at the margins for decades, basically hired muscle nowadays."
"But with All Might gone now," Suguro said.
"They'd have more room," Nemuri admitted. "Without All Might, groups that have been waiting for an opening might start testing what's possible." She frowned slightly. "Why are you asking? "
"The mafia has always been central to Gotham's history since even Batman was never powerful enough to dismantle the system. It made me think about how Japan might become like Gotham"
"Have you been to Osaka?" Suguro asked.
The shift caught her slightly off guard. "Yes. A few times, it's a good city, people are nice, good food." She paused, uncertain where this was going. "Oh, some of my students are doing work study internships there too."
"Interesting."
"Why do you ask about Osaka specifically?"
"I've been thinking about traveling someday," Suguro said. "I've spent my entire life in Gotham after meeting you I'm curious about other places."
Something warm moved through Nemuri's chest. "Osaka would be a good choice. I could tell you what's worth seeing." A pause, and then because she couldn't not ask: "Is there any chance the timing might be... soon? When you say things might slow down?"
"Hard to say," Suguro said.
"It might be closer than you'd think."
From somewhere in the background of his call she heard a door open, and a group of voices.
"I have to go," he said.
"Okay." She kept her voice even. "Stay safe."
"Goodbye and thanks"
The call ended.
Crane's Wings Underground Facility - Main Meeting Room -
Everyone was now present.
"Two-Face will now commit to when I decide the time has come," Suguro said, having covered the Thorne operation first, the LexCorp results second.
He pulled up the map on the main screen, the route from Gotham to Osaka marked clearly.
"The Shie Hassaikai has technology I have put acquiring at the top of our priorities."
He looked around the table. "Who's coming?"
Ivy's vine was already extended across the table before he finished the sentence. "Obviously I am."
"I'm coming," William said. "I need to see this"
"Japan," Waylon said, and then stopped.
Suguro looked at him. "You and Grundy are staying nothing personal but you would draw too much attention and wouldn't fit in the plane."
Waylon accepted this with a slight nod. Grundy looked briefly confused, then found something interesting to examine on the ceiling.
"I'll come," Roman said. "Ill also bring Twenty-five of my best men. We can't go without force if this goes sideways."
"Agreed, Cameron?"
"I'm in," Cameron said immediately.
"I'll come," Silver said.
Several heads turned toward her.
"I learned Japanese."
The silence that followed had a specific quality.
"When?" Langstrom asked.
"Before I joined you" She looked at the expressions around the table. "It's not as if everyone announces everything about themselves."
Basil spoke up "I can pilot my old studio had me learn how to for one of my old movies"
Crane nodded then looked at Langstrom
"Langstrom, I need you here in Gotham."
"I know," Langstrom said, without apparent resentment. "I'll maintain oversight here with Jaina."
"Jaina is in command until I return," Suguro said. He looked at her directly. "Everything in Gotham goes through you. William's team, Black Mask's remaining men, the drones all of it but I would like you to keep things quiet until we return"
"Understood."
The convoy formed up in the underground vehicle bay two hours later, three armored trucks plus the large primary transport carrying the equipment they were bringing, weapons, armor, fear toxin, and money.
The private terminal's access gate was staffed by a guard who'd been told by someone who paid the airport staff 3 times more than the government that Hangar Twenty-Eight was getting a departure tonight and to process them through no questions asked. He saw the lead truck and opened the gate.
Basil stood beside the aircraft once they arrived at the hangar.
"You actually know how to fly this," Roman said
"I had to spend a year so the studio was satisfied we will be good and before you ask I did get licensed"
Roman's men moving the crates of supplies fast and Silver took the co-pilot seat next to Basil once the cabin was organized, a decision based purely on that she could speak the destination's native language after the long flight.
Basil ran through the pre-flight with careful attention then communicated with the Maroni-controlled tower.
The tower operator saw the hangar designation, and seeing it was officially a Maroni aircraft, gave them first priority.
The runway lights came on.
Basil drove out, the plane moving toward the main runway, Gotham's early morning skyline early visible through the cockpit windows, orange sky and grey smog.
"Ready?" Silver asked, looking at the instruments.
"Ready," Basil said.
He pushed the throttle forward and the plane accelerated, Gotham falling away beneath them, the city shrinking into its characteristic pattern of light and shadow as they climbed, until it was just another collection of lights below, indistinguishable from any other city at this distance.
Then they were above the clouds, and there was nothing beneath them but dark ocean and the 14 hour flight east.