Chapter Twenty: The Queen Without a Name
And time stopped.
Jin's breath caught in his throat.Ren's eye twitched behind the scope.Even the air around them felt like it refused to move.
Because the face under that mask…
Wasn't a stranger.
It was her.
Lisa.
The girl they had spent years searching for.
The sister. The victim. The lost memory.
Alive.
But something was wrong.
So wrong.
Because her eyes weren't searching.They weren't warm.
They were sharp.Empty.Unforgiving.
Jin stood up so fast the chair nearly fell behind him.
"Lisa…?" he whispered, barely believing it."Is that… is that really you?"
She looked at him.
And smiled.
But there was no joy in it.
"That name doesn't mean anything to me anymore."
High above, Ren whispered aloud:
"What the hell is this…"
He didn't move.
Couldn't.
Even he—The Black Commandment—was shaken.
Jin stepped forward, voice cracking.
"Why are you doing this?Why are you here, playing games, building… this?"
She stood.
The chair pushed back with eerie calm.
Her voice dropped low—full of iron.
"Because Lisa was weak."
"Lisa begged in alleys.Lisa cried in the dark.Lisa gave up everything to save people who left her behind."
Her gaze cut straight through him.
"Lisa died in that trafficking cell, Jin."
"What stands before you now… is Nyxara."
Jin's hands were shaking.
"You're lying.You don't mean that.I was there.I searched for you.I never stopped."
Her voice snapped back without mercy:
"You searched too late."
"Where were you when they chained me?When they drugged me?When I screamed for someone—anyone—and no one came?"
"You were playing detective.Solving puzzles while I was being broken."
Jin's eyes glistened—but he held his ground.
"You're not her," he whispered.
"You can't be."
"Lisa… Lisa loved.She believed in people."
She stepped closer, now face-to-face.
"Lisa is dead."
"And I don't need your belief."
"I don't need your forgiveness."
"I don't care about you anymore, Jin."
"I don't need a brother—because now…"
She leaned in, whispering cold into his ear:
"I am the one they bow to."
"I am the king they fear in the dark."
"I am the shadow they can't erase."
Jin was frozen.
Torn between heartbreak and horror.
"Why didn't you come back?" he asked, barely a breath.
"When you escaped.When you woke up.When I was at your hospital bed every night hoping you'd live."
She didn't blink.
"Because I did live."
"Just not the way you wanted."
And with that—she turned.
Put her mask back on.