"Don't worry about me. Kill him!"
Elektra grabbed Stick and shouted in a low, forceful voice, completely disregarding her own life.
"No. If we waste any more time, you'll die."
Stick refused without hesitation. He immediately pulled her up and retreated as fast as he could.
Kingpin remained kneeling beside Wesley's headless corpse, his entire body trembling uncontrollably from grief and rage.
"AHHH!"
After a long moment, he finally threw his head back and roared at the sky.
Kingpin was a ruthless, cold-blooded man. He wouldn't care even if every last one of his men died.
But Wesley was different.
In Kingpin's heart, Wesley was the only person he could truly call a friend.
And now, his one and only friend had been murdered right in front of him.
"Wesley, no matter who that murderer is, I swear I will take her head and use it to honor your memory!"
Kingpin's voice was low and heavy, like an oath carved in stone.
Elektra had kept her face covered the entire time, which meant identifying her would be difficult. He could only work from the clues she had left behind.
Kingpin's thoughts began racing.
A few moments later, his eyes turned sharp, and killing intent surged within them.
Nobu… was it you?
This suspicion hadn't come from nowhere.
Even though he currently shared Hell's Kitchen with Madame Gao, Nobu, Leland, and the Russian brothers—dividing it five ways—his own power was still the greatest among them.
The police, the courts, politics—Kingpin had infiltrated every system in Hell's Kitchen. Calling him the underground emperor of the place wouldn't have been an exaggeration.
He knew every force operating in the area like the back of his hand.
Masked fighters.
Cold weapons.
That style didn't belong to any force in Hell's Kitchen—
Except Nobu's faction of the Hand.
Only that bastard had a group of ninjas like this under his command.
And beyond that, Kingpin's identity had always been a mystery within Hell's Kitchen. Very few people knew who he really was.
And among those who did know his identity, even fewer would dare make a move against him.
Nobu, however, fit every condition.
If not Nobu, then who?
…
"Hold on, child!"
While Kingpin was spiraling deeper into suspicion, Stick had already dragged Elektra to a temporary hiding place.
After giving her some emergency treatment and wrapping the wound, he moved as quickly as possible and brought her to a safehouse.
Matt Murdock's old apartment.
The lease hadn't expired yet, but Matt was dead, so the place had been left empty.
During his time in Hell's Kitchen, Stick had been staying there.
"Stick!"
One of the Chaste's disciples, who had been alerted in advance, immediately rushed forward.
"Quick. Help me get her inside."
Stick gave the order, and the two of them carried Elektra onto a cleared-off bed.
The disciple had already prepared the necessary tools. He quickly cut open Elektra's clothing and examined the wound.
"It's fine. The bullet's lodged in the flesh. It didn't hit any organs or major blood vessels. As long as we remove it, she'll be alright."
Both of them let out a long breath of relief.
A wound like this wasn't fatal to Elektra at all. It turned out they had overreacted.
But that couldn't really be blamed on them.
After all, Elektra had been shot at close range. Under those circumstances—
Wait.
Why was the bullet stuck in the flesh?
At that distance, it should have had much greater penetrating force.
Had it struck bone?
But judging from the disciple's tone, that didn't seem to be the case. If the bone had shattered, that would have been much more troublesome. Cleaning bone fragments out properly would've required a hospital.
Something about this felt wrong to Stick.
And that so-called new Iron Fist was an even bigger mystery.
Why would the new Iron Fist abandon his mission and run off to Hell's Kitchen to become the head of a criminal empire?
Could it all just be a disguise?
Then again, the Hand had also secretly infiltrated Hell's Kitchen, so maybe that part made sense.
But the way that man fought was clearly different from K'un-Lun's style.
That was the part Stick couldn't figure out.
Still, that was all secondary.
Stick wasn't from K'un-Lun. His understanding of it was limited.
The most important thing was this—
The man's fist could shine.
Since Iron Fist had appeared, Stick would have much more confidence in his war against the Hand.
As for his poor disciple, Matt Murdock...
At most, Stick could only offer him a brief moment of silent mourning.
After all, the one who killed him was Iron Fist.
And between avenging his student and defeating the Hand, Stick would choose the latter without hesitation.
He had already begun rearranging his plans for the future in his mind.
Elektra's condition turned out to be better than expected. The Chaste disciple didn't even need a scalpel. He used tweezers to pull the bullet out of her body, then quickly sterilized and stitched the wound.
Everything went smoothly.
After starting an IV, Elektra slept for over three hours. By the time she woke, her complexion was already much better.
"How do you feel?"
Stick sat on the sofa, slowly wiping down his sword. His movements never stopped as he casually asked the question.
"Not dead."
Elektra got out of bed and sat down across from him, looking exhausted.
The more she thought about what had happened tonight, the more frustrated she became.
They had been so close.
And worst of all, she had actually been caught off guard by someone that weak. It was almost unthinkable.
No.
Something was definitely wrong.
The more carefully Elektra replayed the moment in her mind, the more certain she became of one thing:
Wesley definitely hadn't been holding a gun at the time.
There was no way she could be mistaken about that.
The moment she stabbed him through the heart, his gun had already fallen to the ground.
So where had the bullet that hit her come from?
How had he fired it?
It was as if the bullet had simply shot out from his hand out of nowhere.
The idea was ridiculous.
But just as Elektra was about to dismiss that absurd thought, another image flashed through her mind—
Kingpin's glowing fist.
If one man's fist could turn into a red-hot iron bar, then why couldn't another man fire bullets from his hand?
What kind of insane world was this?
[Author Note]
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