The two are interrupted by the Oracle who buzzes in to notify Nightwing that while Lane has been adjusting to his new Suit of Sorrows, someone else has found Lane's old Third Batman costume and has been spotted parading around Gotham City! Lane immediately wants to go and hunt down the thief but Nightwing triggers one of the Bat-cave's built in defense mechanisms and knocks Michael unconscious. Now that he knows what Lane knows he decides it's time to attend to what Lane no longer needs to know - namely the location of the Batcave and many of Batman's secrets. After all the information Dr. Hurt may have disseminated they can't risk any more surprise visits like the one tonight. So he prepares a cocktail of D-Galactose (the same formula he had used on Silken Spider and the others during Ra's al Ghul's Resurrection).

Dick decides to let Lane keep the suit and allows the man a chance at a new beginning. He tracks down Talia al Ghul and orders he to stand down and allow Michael Lane access to the suit or else. Finally Lane wakes up in his apartment a little while later. His suit is pinned to the wall along with the two swords and a note, "This was a gift from her father to my father. Now I give it to you. Screw up and I'll take it back." But it seems as though his apartment that he woke up in may not be his much longer. Demented super-villain lackey apparently does not do much to supplement a meager police pension and an eviction notice is pinned to the other side of his front door.

Also waiting for him on the other side of that door is Jenny, his dead brother's wife. For the first time in a long time, Michael Lane finally decides to open the door and let someone in. There, in Michael Lane's barren apartment Lane makes love to Jenny.

Across town the remaining members of the Order are perfecting their alibi in order to throw the police off their trail and get them out of their hair. But the problem still remains - what do they do with their new Azrael? As if summoned, Lane comes out of nowhere and demands to know why he shouldn't just execute each of them right where they stand. In attempt to bribe his loyalty, the Order takes Michael to the late Leland McCauley's mansion which he had willed to the Order. If Lane accepts the position as Azrael he is welcome to use the mansion as his base. Once again morality meets necessity for Michael Lane and the decision is made.

While he's packing, his old friend Farelli stops by. Farelli wants Lane to know that the police (namely Harvey Bullock) are still looking at Azrael in connection with the homicides committed under Arlington's brief stint in the armor. Farelli says that he'll do all he can to throw the cops off his tail but there's only so much he can do for his former colleague. And so with that Michael Lane begins his life as Azrael, Death's Dark Knight. That evening he comes across a man by the name of Darius Robinson who was arrested for stomping an old man to death during the riots. But this Azrael does not dole out capital punishment like his predecessors had. No, instead Michael Lane uses his swords to chop off Robinson's legs delivering God's righteous judgment to the sinful citizen.

All the while, Ra's al Ghul is also monitoring events. He decides not to intervene at this junction but rather watch and manipulate from afar. He plans on allowing for the possibility that this new Azrael will become everything he has the potential of being - an unstoppable killing machine. By that point the Order of Purity will have not even the slightest inclination that their warrior does not serve in the name of God but rather for the Demon's Head himself!