गाम्भीर्यं न केवलं समुद्रे तिष्ठति, अपितु जीवनस्य भावनासु एव निवसति। स्वजनान् दूरात् पश्यन् सः रक्तस्य अश्रूणि इव शोकं धारयति। यदा सुवर्णशृङ्खलाः तं प्रतिबध्नन्ति, तस्य एकमात्रं स्वप्नं तादृशं जीवनं वर्तते यत्र सः अन्येषां दयां न इच्छति, अपितु केवलं परमात्मनः समीपे स्थित्वा इमं प्रश्नं प्रष्टुम् इच्छति— 'अहं जाने यत् त्वं मम शब्दान् प्रार्थनां च करुणक्रन्दनम् इव अजानाः, किन्तु त्वं उत्तरं न दत्तवान् यतः अहं योद्धा आसम्, योद्धा च परीक्षणीयः भवति। किन्तु त्वं मां तावत् पर्यन्तं कुतः अत्रोटयः, यत्र त्वम् अपि मां न प्रत्यभिजानासि?' इति, यदा प्रतिरात्रिं कोकिलस्य गानं श्रूयते॥"
Depth never lies solely in the ocean, but in the very emotion of living. He holds his tears like a sorrow of blood from a distance, watching his own people. While manacles of gold restrain him, his only dream is to envision a life where he seeks no pity from others, but desires only to stand near his God to ask one almighty question: "I know You recognized my words and prayers as a cry for mercy, yet You did not answer because I was a warrior, and warriors must be tested. But why did You break me to the point where even You no longer recognize me?" All the while, a nightingale's tune echoes through every night.
Eyes opened fadingly as the vision expanded, swinging wide the doors of divinity and eternity. Rigor mortis claimed its victim to meet the end. Karma sat within the mud as the thunderous steps of a charge roared behind him. He held a bottle of wine, his hand shivering with the fragile beauty of humanity. His heart raced while his eyeballs, soaked in networks of blood, darted around one another.
A rigid right wing turned from the East; those were not mere steps, but the thunder of horse hooves as soldiers charged. They held their flags like dignity, screaming chants as Karma looked around. A sculpture of an elephant stood like the wind with six tusks, while a river flowed before him. As Karma watched, his neck cracked—the sound of dry wood snapping—as veins popped around his spinal column and neck muscles. His bloodshot eyes reflected the glint of charging horses through the heavy scent of wet mud. Then, the world fractured.
The soldiers' arms cracked; the horses' muscles split open. Their veins popped in a frantic, decaying rhythm, turning their bodies into mud. But the mud itself betrayed them—it liquefied into a thick pectin, binding the iron of their armor to a viscous, suffocating tide of blood. Above, the sun lost its hold on the sky; it fell to the earth, evaporating into gore the moment it struck the ground. Every color bled out of existence; every sculpture crumbled into the mire. Karma whispered into the roar of the collapse: "Life is not dissolved, but turned into blood by its own existence."
From the shadows of Karma's back, the hands of the red mascot rose—white, red, and smiling. The muscles on the hands popped open, veins pulsing with the scent of ironized blood and the sharp, weak sting of copper. Steam rose, clinging to his shirt and clogging his throat like a physical hand. Then came the voice of the child. The words felt like spears made of teeth—sharp, biting, and ancient. A jolt of absolute coldness surged through Karma's body. It wasn't the wind; it was the realization that the river of blood was no longer a witness—it was touching him, claiming him.
Karma opened his eyes in the cold air of the AC. He saw himself in the mirror; the Adam's apple on his throat had grown, extended by the tip of an arrow lodged in his mouth. His soul was corrupted by the karma of words to rewrite the Dharma of a lonely soul. He was the South.
"जीवनेन अहं तव समीपं आनीतः, त्वां मम उत्तराधिकारिरूपेण स्वीकरणं न पर्याप्तं भविष्यति, अपितु मम 'कर्मणः' शब्दानामू उत्तराधिकारिरूपेण तव स्वीकारः एव एकमात्रं मार्गः अस्ति... अहम् अवकाशम् अस्मि॥"
Life has brought me to you; taking you as my successor will not be enough. Taking you as the inheritor of my 'Karma-words' is the only way... I am Avkasham.
Inhaling a deep breath, he moved his red-soaked hand across his white shirt with a slurry of deep readiness and the divinity of the inevitable.
Aarush held the ashes of Karma, now turned into his own vulnerability, whispering in a voice less human and more like a hermit in agony: "I can't feel you bury, bastard." It was as if his heart had turned into ripping grapes at the mere thought of self-harm. The ashes were soft enough to float on water, yet bitter enough to dissolve in it. As Aarush rubbed them between his fingertips, a voice rang in his ears like a capillary cannon launched beside him. ZZZZZZ... Veins erupted across his arms, covering his skin in the burning agony of his flames. They grew denser, emitting purple light at the crest, while the red flames below became a potassium chloride vine, holding the soul to burn it close with a note from death. His eyes were hollow as the gold Makar brooch on his shirt changed direction, opening his legs and pulling his jaw toward his heart until his eyes became red and embossed. Aarush collapsed to his knees, holding the crack of the sun.
The screech of the Ephemeral—a call from the bridge of the living and the dead to hold a soul leaning toward the Abyssal while remaining solipsistic. Boots ran over dead leaves toward the sun, holding the sun in calmness, as the katana at his waist giggled against dark armor. Hugun looked at the fallen Aarush and screamed, "Where is that bastard? I will turn him into pieces!" The screech was heard only by Aarush; he turned his neck toward Hugun before falling to the ground. The Nakshatras were set in the darkened sky, holding the lonely soul and a source beneath them that could not be conquered, only brought to heal the earth.
Aarush lay in the shallow water of the abyss. His eyes opened fadedly as he whispered: "Not here again... damn me." He reached his hands toward the sky, seeing a crimson star through his own crimson eyes, closing his fists as rays fell over his face. He rose to his feet like a Harbinger with a vestige of his own. Before him stood a sword of light that had fallen from above, splitting the earth with beauty and surrounded by red roses. A chill ran through his spine as the puddle of water was disturbed by the clashing of dark and red flames.
Kurozaru stood beside him. This time he did not smile or laugh, but spoke words of eternity and divinity. Aarush did not move his fists, even as his hand decayed into splinters in the abyss of that wet, shallow world. His muscles relaxed. Every tenderness was eased, as if knitted into his own bone.
"What if you brought a sword to the normal eyes of a person?" Kurozaru's voice whispered in the abyss like grinding stones striking one another, echoing to the end of the world, colliding like lines that never meet until they leave the human realm. Aarush was about to reply when sharp blades of words struck him—a speech dipped into a slurry of ginger that must not be healed.
"What if I turn you, and this sword, into the crack?" Aarush inhaled and delivered the almighty speech: "As the heart pumps blood through my veins and muscles, and as light reflects the beauty of the sun, I see a soul—an almighty source of energy—in the burning agony of its own pain, never losing its ashes. I see the cracked sun, while the soul in the roses seeks warmth in the depth of that crack, holding thorns on their stems, moving with the wind of our flames... but I see a soul blazing in its own agony, never questioning the blade that stands silent. Its beauty is a sharpness never validated, for it was meant to protect, not to be loved." He exhaled, his lungs relaxing. "It burns for the mercy of being killed, of being broken, because the agony rose to a point where he could kiss her lips like a bitter vine." Kurozaru looked at Aarush, holding a mask over the flames until a wide smile erupted. He whispered, "You will stand your ground."
He was the North.
A hawk watched the men standing in the garden while purple flames circled the kingdom. The walls stood like blades, holding Warli paintings of ancient beings as sculptures turned to dust. Before them stood a figure in darkened armor, eyes flaming with purple light. The hawk whispered, gripping the old wood as the world dripped toward a heaven disguised as hell. The King stood firm in his vision to lead his people to a realm underground, for words were not enough to denote Indrasur.
"मानवातीतविश्वेऽस्मिन् युद्धज्वाला समुत्थिता।
न भूमिः केवलं तत्र, भस्मपूर्णं हि मण्डलम्॥
सूर्यपुत्रोऽसुरच्छद्म देवपुत्रश्च संमुखे।
न्यायार्थं कुरुते युद्धं पूर्वस्यां दिशि संस्थितः॥
शराग्नयः प्रवेक्ष्यन्ति साक्षात् मार्तण्डमण्डलं।
क्रोधेन संवृतं विश्वं संहारं संभविष्यति॥
माता तयोस्तथा तत्र करुणं क्रन्दति क्षतौ।
तयोः रक्तं तु सा धत्ते स्वशरीरे निरन्तरम्॥
अहं शरशयने सुप्तः अदृश्यः चक्षुषां पुरः।
साक्षी केवलं दुःखस्य तिष्ठामि स्थिरमानसः॥"
In a world beyond the reach of humanity, a battle rises from the deep. The plain beneath them is no longer soil, but the suffocating ashes of what once was. There, the Son of the Sun and the Son of God—disguised in the shadow of an Asur—shall collide. Standing his ground in the East, for the sake of a justice yet granted, his flames and arrows shall pierce the very heart of the Sun. The world shall blur, dissolving into a vision of carnage and the absolute rage of the void. While their Mother cries in the agony of the breaking world, they bleed into her alone, their life-tide returning to its source. And I shall stand my ground—laying upon a bed of arrows, invisible to the "Reality" of men, seen only by the one who knows the crushing agony of being the final witness.
He was Indrasur in the East.
Aarush opened his eyes to see Hugun standing over him. Red leather ropes and black, burned metal bound him, but Aarush did not look at them; he looked straight into the eyes of the death-slave. The agony would be turned into a blade rising from the North, holding the evolved Makar.
Meanwhile, Karma looked at himself in the mirror, tying his golden tie, his fingers moving over dry nylon. The golden spine would rise from the South. The hawk looked upon the fallen, forgotten kingdom while the King stood silent, watching the flag. Indrasur would rise from the East, and the flag held a silver lion.
From the abyss, a voice echoed, setting the board to play against itself over the divine:
"सर्वे ध्वजाः समुत्थिताः, किन्तु मम कृते साम्राज्ञ्येव मुख्या।
रेवोकर-नामको मम हस्तकः, यस्य प्रतिस्थापनं न संभवति॥"
Every flag has risen, a forest of cloth signaling the end. But for me, only the Queen holds the gravity of the world. The Revokar is my pawn—a jagged edge in the game that can never be replaced, never cast aside, and never forgotten.
This was the voice of the unbounded deity, Kurozaru—the master beyond truth and falsehood, where dialectics are ineffective, or perhaps, simply dead.
-ARUSH SALUNKE