"वर्णमयं न तद् अमानुषं प्रोच्यते, यत् अद्यापि जीवन्मृत्य्वोः भूमौ तिष्ठति। किन्तु अनुलङ्घ्य-विधानेन, क्षतरोपण-आशिषा च, विलास-मद्यम् अपि धर्मदण्डः भवितुम् अर्हति॥"**
**Chromatic does not denote something which is beyond humanity while still standing on a ground of living death and death. But by the law of the inviolable, and with a blessing to cicatrize, a daiquiri can also be a crozier.**
Aarush held a book as the wind passed him, while his fingertips moved on a pen, holding the plastic tight enough until the skin above the cold plastic grew yellow. Whispering as the ink spread over the thin grain of paper, absorbing and bleeding: "The Negative energy... surge around the chowl... While few winners appeared... Eliminator... 382 Ne/K." While the words stopped, it was like a judgment given by the sun while he stood as a paragon of flowers. His lips whispered as his head leaned over the window, "A failure sent by God to maintain the balance," while the plane hovered around the city of life, holding the two suns in the sky but without a shadow of the failed one.
**"यथा रक्तं क्षरणाय निर्मितं, यथा च मानवात्मा स्वर्गापवर्गयोः वर्णाय प्रवृत्तः, तथापि तयोः पृष्ठतः सर्वदा किञ्चित् रहस्यमयं वर्तते"**
**((While the blood is meant to bleed and the human soul is destined to choose hell or heaven, there is always something going on behind their backs.))**
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### **AT NSEA [National Sinner Elimination Association] Headquarters. 12:38 AM**
Sanvi moved her fingers around the keyboard, typing as multiple tabs were minimized. While the blue rays fell on her spectacles, exposing the green convex lenses—showing the loss of vision to see the far away clearly—does the soul also need a lens to identify the truth in the land of living and death? Then a knock came as her heart skipped a beat; blood stopped with the speed of a brake in the body but still continued to keep the cold body alive.
"Thud — Thud — Thud"
"May I come in?" a soft voice asked, sounding like old whiskey with a pitch so sharp it felt like the tip of an arrow in the throat. Sanvi exhaled, looking at the screen as she moved her finger, closing all tabs. The cursor moved regretlessly until the last tab was closed, exposing a wallpaper holding emotion toward something beyond truth and falsehood—it was her family. Looking at them, Sanvi's heart wanted to cry, but she couldn't shed a tear from her eyes because this world only respects the Joan, not a pretty little girl. As the knock came again without a voice, she closed the laptop and replied, "You may enter."
A voice delightful enough to protect, but powerful enough to destroy or even deep enough to curse the sun, was the only beauty she possessed.
Karma heard the voice from inside as he looked at the CCTV. He moved the cold metal handle while gears shifted within it, entering the room as his presence molded the air around, making it feel denser with the perfume of his own brilliance and the smell of sandalwood. He gave her a smile, but in another instance, it dripped like a mold of wax melting around human flesh. "I want you to read this... keep this within you and me." The last few sentences were like the right wing of a phoenix; as the arrows were in his heart, he was burning without fire in the agony of burning blood that soaked his feathers as it dripped over the ice, absorbing and emitting its color over the cold breath. The red mascara, as it reached the end, turned into a dark liquid frozen in beauty.
Sanvi's eyes widened as she was possessed from her soul, while no Shaman could take her back to the world—but the Shaman who spelled the spell stood before her. Karma looked at her, inhaled deeply, and pushed the door closed, cutting all contact with the world because he wanted to keep a few emotions secret.
'Bang'
Taking a seat near her, he whispered in her mind without choosing words from his throat: "The Karma-Inheritance." As he looked at her widened pupils, he took a file hidden in his suit.
The dust on the old paper cardboard was barely cleared, as fingerprints appeared over it while the paper smelled like horse dung. As Karma handed it to Sanvi, he told her, "I will speak, so don't dare to speak." Sanvi, in this possession, nodded.
As Karma laughed with a child-like voice, he turned the words of a man and spoke, "I belong to the Shungas." Inhaling a deep breath that smelled like ironized blood and casting his eyes down as Sanvi's pupils moved toward him, he stood still and spoke again: "The Shunga dynasty erupted and was nearly destroyed, but a few ancestors of mine kept it alive, and I am the one who is holding them now." These words never belonged to a single human but were a flow of greed to survive in this flawed world by an old dynasty that conquered the old land. Sanvi looked at him as her possession dripped like wine from a barrel, but it never mattered to Karma; when a man is in a flow of emotion, he forgets he is a man, because the burden must be shared with the beauty of God.
He continued, "I am a lone tiger fallen into the world; my people live normally but are hunted by the Ashokas." He banged his hand on the table while the nerves came over his skin, kissing it as if to tear through, but pain stopped their form. Looking at the window, as his state of mind was below the earth and above the sky, he said, "I guess you're one of us." Then he looked at his Omega watch, seeing the time was 12:54, tapping his boots like the rattle of a snake—without venom to spray in the air, but still holding the fangs that could make another person a venom for his own purpose. "Stay with me like this, Sanvi... because I want Aarush to stay human in this world."
He snapped his fingers, taking broad steps and dragging a handicapped leg, which broke his own soul as he moved out the door, leaving Sanvi in the flow of possession with the file in her cold hand. Sanvi's eyes didn't move as the door banged shut; she whispered, "You're no better than Maya and the others; the Shungas were only brought to light because we Ashokas were brought to dust." Inhaling as the print of a child's hand appeared on her collarbone in red—the tattoo of eternity mixed with karma—she spoke: "I choose to stay different, but I promise to bring the Kshatriya back to the soil. I will bring the sun back."
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**"एकेन हस्तेन मद्यपात्रं, अन्येन च भाग्यं दधानः, अस्थितुल्य-अक्षैः सह—यस्य रक्त-मरकत-द्युतिः तस्य ग्लानिं प्रतिशोधं च दर्शयति। द्यूतकारः मन्यते यत् तस्य कर्मणः फलं तं प्रति आगच्छति, किन्तु ईश्वराग्रतः कस्य सामर्थ्यम्? यदा सः उवाच—'हे देवपुत्र, धनुः गृहाण, अङ्गुलिमध्ये शरं धारय, यतः तव प्रतिष्ठायाः एष एव आधारः। कङ्क-पत्रस्य कोमलतां अनुभवन् तं सूर्य-वंशस्य रक्त-रञ्जित-विरासतेः हृदये विसृज!' पार्थस्य हस्तौ जडीभूतौ, रथचक्रं उद्धर्तुं प्रयतमानं तं तेजस्विनं दृष्ट्वा, सः रक्त-कर्दमे उवाच—'भगवन्! सतु निःशस्त्रः!' तदा कलियुगस्य धर्माधर्म-नियामकं स्मितं कृत्वा भगवान् उवाच—'जीवनं प्रहाराय एकम् एव अवसरं ददाति। तावत् तव धर्मः क्षयं गच्छतु यावत् तव सीमाः केवलं रेखाः न भवन्ति। यतः उत्तरजीविता तु दैवत्वात् अनन्तत्वात् च परे वर्तते।' ततः सूर्यप्रकाशे दीप्तः शरः गाण्डीवात् विमुक्तः॥"**
**Holding a whiskey in one hand and luck in the other, with bone-shaped dice like pointed pashas—the bets of red emeralds symbolized his own agony and revenge toward a dynasty. The Gambler thinks the abattoir emits or depicts his own karma, which returns to him. But Karma, a term that could hit anyone in the universe, could never talk in front of the Almighty when He said: "O son of God, get your bow and hold the arrow in the middle of your fingers, as they are the only ones to support your dignity. Feel the softness of the feather, for you must release it into the chest to strike the bleeding, bold legacy of the sun." As Parth's hands felt numb seeing the Brilliance struggling to lift the wheel of the cart, he replied into the air—turning it with the smell of mud shifted into a marsh of blood—with the words: "Lord, but... but he is disarmed." Breathing heavily, "To strike your enemy at his lowest is a decay of morals, but it is the only chance to win against the 'Sutta Putra'." His Lord replied to his warrior dignity with a smile; His Lord spoke the words that would drive the morals of the Kali Yug: "Life gives you a single chance to strike; take this. Let your Dharma decay until all your boundaries become a mere line to be crossed, because survival is beyond divinity and eternity." The tip of the arrow shone in the sun as it left the Gandiva.**
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### **At NSEA Headquarters**
Aarush sat alone at the café holding a dictionary as the words of Avkashma echoed: "You're beyond my expectation... the first ray of the sun." Aarush didn't want to think about the agony he felt while his own life was struggling to even validate itself, but his soul was wounded by its own boundaries as his finger moved around page 505: "immoral / im-muh-layl / verb..."
Then a voice came, calling the Kshatriya: "Aarush." A soft but distinct voice, covered with the flames of a cold hell, accompanied by a smile in a dark jacket and spectacles.
It was Sanvi, the light falling on her like an angel holding his soul together, possessing a real enthusiasm to see the sun—not in its burning state, but in the beauty of flowers—because she knew that sometimes, foolish people light a candle for no reason, only for it to die in the rain. Aarush looked at her and whispered from his own soul, as if a candle were lit to feel warmth, but the only thing missing was to feel his own warmth. Every step she took was divinely cold as ice, better than the heat of a boiled cannon. Sanvi approached him and sat on the chair close enough to feel his warmth, then asked him in a soft voice, "So, how was the trip to Bengal?"
Aarush closed the dictionary, avoiding eye contact. "Yeah, it was great... what about you?" Sanvi looked at him as she felt a jolt of regret in her heart, remembering his words: "What is your suspicion over a fraud like me?" While he was still holding back tears, she maintained her smile, looked at his Makar brooch, and asked, "Did you change your brooch? It looks great." Aarush held his cotton shirt while his fingers were on the cold metal of the war-crying Makar. Aarush whispered a question: "Where is Karma? I want to meet him."
Sanvi's smile faded as she replied, "He is with Maya and Vaidere."
At the end of the corridor, in a closed room with a temperature of 25 degrees to hold the cigar smoke within two fingers, Maya looked at her younger brother with friction, seeing him taking his own blood to shed the blood of his own and others. In front of him sat a cold guy whose eyes glowed golden, but whose throat was tipped with an arrow.
Vaidere looked at Karma, staring death into his eyes as he asked, "Which unit were you with in AATD?" This question was like a stalker horse toward Karma, who held his smile like a barrier. "With the Delta unit." The smell in the room was like Havana; it wasn't the heebie-jeebies, it was the chevalier of Maya. She looked at both of them and stated: "Shut up... Madam Lurance is asking who attacked the other dealers in Japan." The whole room went silent, slicing the air with their mere presence. Then, the mind of Vaidere broke the silence like a dark lightning strike; the katana in his hand had a dark guard, but there was gold in his mind and blood in his veins.
"Aarush must move to another mission... because this will distract from the situation." Inhaling deeply as he grasped the gravity, "A high-profile mission." Karma looked at him, his arrow-tip gaze standing still. "We can... kid!" Maya replied to him with the sting of a scorpion.
As everyone looked at each other's faces, unable to feel the warmth of the sun, the one who stood behind the door made his eyes his ears and his ears his heart, taking his own choice to hold himself as a vessel. Inside his head, his dead slave looked at his master's heart and whispered, "Lord... let me out. I know what to do." Aarush's hand nerves stood still, signaling, while one palm was open and the other was ready to summon the moon out of the sun.
-ARUSH SALUNKE