"Raising children is painful," Yoshioka Nobu said with a cold sigh, his sharp gaze settling on Stick. "You spend your entire life forging them to be strong and independent… only to find, when they've truly become so, they are no longer under your control."
His attention shifted to Elektra.
"Elektra, you are no longer a child," he said softly. "But every time I look at you… it's as though I've seen you before. Yes… now I'm sure. You are the one we've been searching for all this time."
He bowed deeply before her and then asked, "Do you even know who we are?"
"You call yourselves the Hand," Elektra said with clear disdain. She had always known the Hand's reputation, their blood-soaked methods. Even if she had some strange connection to them, she couldn't summon any affection for an organization so rotten.
Yoshioka Nobu didn't flinch. "Then do you know who we serve?"
"I know. Some garbage deity called the Black Sky from your myths," Elektra sneered. "It's the modern age—you people still worship dead gods?"
At that moment, Daniel, who was watching from the shadows, felt a strange jolt within himself, a faint yet familiar resonance, much like the one he experienced whenever he thought of Odin. It made him watch Elektra more closely.
Stick's face tightened. For the briefest instant, a shadow of despair crossed his features—as though Nobu's words struck a deeper truth than anyone wanted to admit.
"Black Sky is no mere myth," Nobu said, shaking his head. He took a slow, deliberate step toward her. "We've been searching for you since the day you were taken from us. And now… you're home."
A shiver ran through Elektra's body. She wanted to dismiss his words as lies, but deep down, some instinct screamed that he was telling the truth.
"What nonsense are you talking about?!" Elektra snapped, though her voice wavered.
"You are the Black Sky," Nobu said with a chilling smile. "You are our most powerful weapon."
He dropped his twin daggers to the ground. From the trolley carrying the ancient Su Shengding cauldron, he drew a long black blade and held it horizontally before her—an act of complete surrender and reverence.
Elektra froze, her gaze flickering between him and Stick. Memories surfaced like shadows—fragmented, violent flashes of her childhood. Slowly, she turned to Stick. "He says I'm dangerous, that I can't be controlled. You've said the same thing before, haven't you? It all makes sense now, doesn't it?"
Elektra's mind spiraled backward. She had never been welcomed in the Chaste's hidden compound. From the very start, the others viewed her as a threat. They whispered. They feared her.
During training, her peers always attacked her too hard, deliberately trying to break her. One day, in a moment of unrestrained fury, she killed one of them with her bare hands. Stick locked her away in isolation for weeks. But before she could even be released, another trainee confronted her—this time with a knife aimed for her heart. She had killed again, almost instinctively.
From then on, the instructors whispered that she was "unstable," "uncontrollable." They didn't call her by name. They called her "it."
Looking back now… it all made sense.
She trembled, tears brimming in her eyes.
"You… you knew all along, didn't you?" she accused Stick. "You took me away from them—not to save me, but to keep me from falling into their hands."
Stick didn't deny it. He simply stood there, silent, his face like stone.
A harsh, broken laugh escaped Elektra's lips. "Ha… so it's true. Everything they said about me is true."
She turned back to Nobu, her anger boiling over. With a sharp motion, she snatched the long black blade from his hands. Nobu, satisfied, stepped back with a smug expression.
The blade sliced the air with a whistle as Elektra tested its weight. It was sharper than anything she had ever wielded, humming with dark power.
Pointing the tip toward Stick, her voice quivered with both rage and grief: "You knew. You always knew."
Stick let out a slow, heavy sigh. "Yes. I knew."
"And that's why they hated me," she said bitterly. "That's why everyone eventually turned on me. I was never one of them… I was their enemy all along. I was the Black Sky."
Stick remained silent, his staff resting lightly against the floor. For some reason, Daniel, still hidden, noted that Stick didn't call for his help.
"Elektra, you are home now," Nobu said, bowing once again. "With us, you are no longer alone. Live or die—we are yours to command."
Elektra laughed, a wild, unhinged sound. "So all that time I spent training with the Chaste… all the pain, all the fights… it was just to prepare me to fight you? But now… I don't need to fight anything anymore. I am Black Sky."
She raised the blade higher, her grip tightening. For years, she had fought against the violent, destructive voice inside her. Now… perhaps it was time to stop fighting.
Suddenly, a green bolt of thunder shot through the chamber, striking the ancient cauldron. Nobu staggered back in shock as a wave of black energy clashed violently with the lightning, the air screeching with raw power.
From the shadows emerged a tall, regal woman—her European features lined with age, but her presence commanding.
Alexandra.
She was one of the five leaders of the Hand, the most dangerous of them all.
Daniel, wearing his blue-and-white court attire and gold-rimmed mask, stepped forward with Elektra in his grasp, pulling her back toward Stick. He gave Alexandra a courteous bow. "Your Excellency, you may call me the Puppeteer."
Alexandra's eyes narrowed. "That name… I assume you are no friend of ours."
Daniel smirked. "I didn't expect you to show up so quickly, Alexandra. What happened to Madame Gao? Isn't she the one you usually throw at the front lines? Why is she absent tonight?"