Patricia's Blood-Stained Past — Explained Clearly
Patricia did not stumble upon Tomora by coincidence.
On the night Tomora's father was running through the forest with his son, the forest was already soaked in blood—blood that Patricia herself had spilled.
At that time, Patricia was an assassin.
She operated alone, silently, moving through the deep forest on contract missions. That specific night, her mission was to eliminate everyone inside a remote cabin hidden deep in the woods. The people inside weren't random victims—they were targets assigned to her. She carried out the job cleanly and efficiently, leaving no survivors. When Tomora's father later stumbled upon that cabin while fleeing, what he saw—the bodies, the silence, the horror—was the aftermath of Patricia's work.
By then, Patricia was already gone, watching from the shadows rather than remaining at the scene.
When Tomora's parents were killed later that same night, Patricia was still nearby. She hadn't left the forest yet. From a distance, unseen and unheard, she witnessed the final moments of Tomora's parents. She did not interfere. Not because she was cruel—but because at that point in her life, she had trained herself not to act on emotion. Observing without attachment was how she survived.
It was during those moments that she learned Tomora's name.
As Tomora's mother lay dying, she spoke his name aloud. Softly. Desperately. Like a prayer. That name carried through the trees—and reached Patricia. It stayed with her. When Patricia later picked Tomora up, she already knew who he was. That is why she never asked his name. She already had it.
The blood on Patricia's hands when she found Tomora was not his parents' blood.
It was the blood from the earlier mission—the people in the cabin.
That detail matters, because it separates guilt from responsibility. Patricia did not kill Tomora's parents. She did not cause their deaths. But she was part of the same night of violence. The forest did not care where one tragedy ended and another began. To Tomora, she appeared as someone who emerged from death itself—hands stained, expression unreadable, standing where no one else survived.
When Patricia chose to take Tomora with her, it was not part of any mission.
It was the first time she acted against the life she had built.
Taking Tomora in marked the end of her career as an assassin. Not gradually. Not eventually. Immediately. She abandoned her contracts, her handlers, and her former identity. The child she carried out of that forest became the line she would never cross again. Tomora was not just someone she saved—he was the reason she stopped being who she was.
And Tomora never knew.
Patricia never told him about the cabin. Never told him about the mission. Never told him that she had once killed for a living. She raised him as a guardian, a protector, a quiet presence—never as a monster, never as a weapon. She believed that if Tomora knew the truth, he would see her the same way the village later saw him: as something dangerous.
So she kept it buried.
The irony is that Patricia understood Tomora better than anyone else ever could. She knew what it meant to be feared. To be powerful. To be defined by violence rather than intention. That is why she never pushed him to use his lightning. Why she feared his power more than she admired it. She had already lived that life—and she refused to let him inherit it.
In the end, Patricia was never "just" a kind woman who found a child in the woods.
She was someone who walked away from blood because of him.
And Tomora—without ever knowing—was the reason a monster chose to become human.