"You're already dead, Stick."
Elektra's voice was ice-cold.
Stick froze.
Elektra's hand had clearly been empty. He was certain of that.
Even though he was blind, he could still "see" it perfectly well.
Stick was the same kind of man as Matt Murdock.
In fact, some of his senses were even sharper than Matt's.
When Matt had once rushed in to save Stick and ended up surrounded by an entire squad of Hand ninjas, it was Stick who guided him on the spot—teaching him a more advanced way to "listen" and turning the fight around.
The first time Stick ever came to Matt's apartment, he moved through the place like he owned it, found the fridge with ease, pulled out a beer, and even flicked the bottle cap off the walls in a series of ricochets before it dropped neatly into the trash.
He was blind, yes.
But he was still a man who could see.
"And the weapon in your hand… what exactly is this?"
Stick asked in genuine confusion.
He really couldn't make sense of it.
Then, in the next instant, realization struck him.
"This is the superpower you were talking about? Like a mutant's ability?"
"That's right. I just ate a Devil Fruit, and now I can grow thorn spikes out of my body."
Elektra nodded.
"There's really such a thing?"
Stick sounded deeply impressed.
He reached out, trying to feel the spike in Elektra's hand.
But with a thought from Elektra, the thorn lengthened at once, forcing Stick to step back.
Then Elektra kicked him square in the chest and sent him sprawling to the floor.
"Do you believe me now?"
She let out a cold snort.
"Devil Fruit… incredible. I never imagined something this absurdly miraculous could exist in the world."
Stick couldn't hide the astonishment in his voice.
If that was true, then every single inconsistency surrounding this so-called new Iron Fist finally made sense.
He'd gotten it wrong.
The whole thing had been a misunderstanding from the start.
"So, Elektra… this is what you've been up to lately?"
Stick looked at her, then gave a rare nod of approval.
"Not bad."
Stick was notoriously harsh, especially with his own people.
For him to praise her like that was practically a miracle in itself.
"Then you have no reason left to stop me from killing Fisk."
Elektra ignored the compliment entirely and went straight to the point.
"No. That changes nothing. We still can't kill Fisk."
Stick's answer was as cold and absolute as ever.
Elektra's voice instantly rose.
"Why not? He's obviously not the Iron Fist!"
"But the Hand doesn't know that."
Stick's expression didn't change.
"In their eyes, he is the Iron Fist."
That was the key.
Even if Fisk wasn't truly the Iron Fist, he could still be mistaken for him by the Hand.
And if Stick pushed matters from the shadows, deliberately worsening the tension between Fisk and the Hand, then the two sides would tear into each other like rabid dogs.
And Stick would be the one left standing at the end.
"Stick, you're always like this. In your eyes, what are we supposed to be? Does Matt's death mean nothing to you?"
Elektra was furious now.
"Useless emotion only becomes weakness."
Stick's tone remained as merciless as ever.
"That's exactly how Matt died."
"You should learn from it."
"I taught you better than this."
Elektra's face twisted with rage.
"To hell with what you taught me!"
"Elektra, you're not thinking clearly right now."
Stick looked at her without a shred of warmth.
"Your head is clouded."
"Until that changes, stay out of our affairs."
At first, Elektra only felt angrier.
But when she heard that sentence, something else stirred in her mind.
Stick hadn't been idle lately.
Ever since he wrongly concluded that Fisk was the new Iron Fist, he had already begun investigating, laying groundwork, and quietly making plans around that assumption.
Under Stick's guidance, Fisk had already "confirmed" Elektra and Stick's identities.
In Fisk's eyes, the two of them were now both members of the Hand.
Fisk had appeared quiet lately, but Stick knew better.
Fisk wasn't doing nothing.
He was biding his time and preparing something big.
The collision between Fisk and the Hand—carefully engineered by Stick from the shadows—was about to erupt.
And at a moment this critical, Stick would never allow anyone to ruin his design.
Not even his own disciple.
…
That night.
The docks.
"Vladimir, what the hell are you playing at?"
Among rows of stacked shipping containers, Nobu stood there, fury pouring off him as he confronted the massive man in front of him.
That man was none other than Vladimir, the older of the two Russian brothers who currently held one of the five shares of Hell's Kitchen.
"You think what you did was subtle? You think I wouldn't find out?"
Nobu's voice was cold and sharp.
"You even dared touch my shipment."
"Do you have any idea what kind of power you've provoked?"
As he spoke, Nobu strode toward Vladimir, every step brimming with hostility.
But then his voice stopped abruptly.
Something was wrong.
Reaching out, he lightly touched Vladimir's body—half-hidden in the dark.
The huge man swayed once.
Then crashed to the ground.
Only then did Nobu see it clearly.
Vladimir's throat had already been slit open.
He was long dead.
"Damn it."
"It's a trap."
Nobu's whole body tensed in an instant.
He immediately entered a state of full alert, his eyes sweeping across the surrounding darkness.
There was no way he couldn't understand it now.
This entire thing had been a setup.
Someone had built this trap specifically for him.
"Who's there?!"
Suddenly, Nobu caught a figure standing atop a stack of shipping containers in the distance.
Because of the poor lighting, he couldn't make out the man's features.
But his instincts screamed that this person was dangerous.
The moment Nobu barked that question, shadows behind him began to stir.
One after another, black-clad ninjas stepped forward from the darkness.
Steel hissed through the night as blades were drawn, cold flashes of silver lighting the gloom.
Every one of them had a weapon in hand.
"Kill them."
A faint voice drifted down from the figure on top of the containers.
Then the man began moving both hands in rapid succession, flinging something toward Nobu and his men again and again.
Sharp, shrill sounds split the night.
Something tore through the air at terrifying speed.
For a brief instant, all Nobu and his men saw was a blur.
Then a storm of projectiles came raining down on them like a deadly shower of arrows.