La Noche — I--- Batman Caballero De

His name is . Not the fictional Zorro of old California, but his great-great-grandson, who watched his father—a reform-minded alcalde —gunned down in the zócalo by the corrupt Federales of the Junta de los Buitres (The Vulture Council). The last thing Diego saw before the blindfold was the shadow of a mission bat flitting across the moon. He took that shadow as his oath.

"Mercy," Diego repeats, his voice quiet now. "My father asked for mercy. You gave him a bullet."

"Your ancestors," he says, "believed the bat was the Señor de la Noche , the guide of lost souls. You have lost yours." i--- Batman Caballero De La Noche

El Sacerdote laughs, revealing teeth filed into fangs. "You think a disfraz frightens us, murciélago ? This is not your precious Gotham. Here, the night belongs to us."

And high above, the shadow spreads its capa one last time and disappears into the rising sun, not as a bat, but as a knight who has finished his vigil. His name is

He drinks. He doesn’t swallow. He breathes .

I--- Batman looms over him, the zarape dripping with oil and blood. The single bell in the tower above begins to toll midnight, pulled by a ghost (or by the wind). Each clang is a gunshot in the silence. He took that shadow as his oath

He presses it to the back of the priest’s right hand. The flesh hisses.

He doesn’t kill El Sacerdote. That’s not the rule. Instead, he produces a small branding iron, heated by the same flame that separated the luchadors. The emblem: a bat.