Subhadip stepped down from the obsidian stage, his black school shoes scuffed from restless days, the soles worn in places from walks taken more in thought than destination. He was only sixteen — an age when most are still chasing the voices of others to find their own. And yet, the silence that greeted his descent was not the silence of confusion or hesitation. It was reverence. It was that pause in the cosmos when something truly alive is born into history — not through age or authority, but through truth.
He had spoken not as a leader molded by politics, but as a child of dust and divinity — a voice as fresh as dew and yet burdened with the memory of a thousand forgotten wars. The weight of his words had not been learned, but lived. He had lived in the minds of the forgotten, in the lungs of the struggling, in the calloused palms of shopkeepers and dreamers alike.
The multiverse had stopped — not to obey, but to understand. And what they saw was not a demigod rising from the altar of ideology, but a boy from Jenney Sarani, whose eyes carried both the ache of Bengal's rain-soaked alleyways and the clarity of stars unpolluted by ambition.
As he descended, he saw her.
Himiko stood waiting — the ever-stoic, ever-watching flame at the center of his wandering galaxy. She handed him his coat — brown corduroy, fraying near the elbows — not as a gesture of protocol, but with the quiet understanding of someone who knew what it meant to feel cold in places heaters couldn't reach.
Yamiya, their daughter — soft as a sigh and sharp as intuition — clutched his left arm. Her fingers, though small, wrapped around him like iron vines. He felt her tremble not with fear, but with the shock of witnessing greatness wear the face of someone she called "father."
A camera drone buzzed softly, hesitant to break the moment, but a reporter, young and brazen, dashed forward.
"Sir! Where are you headed now? The entire multiverse is watching!"
Subhadip paused. He looked not at the reporter, but into the lens, as though staring into the eyes of gods and beggars alike.
"To cook dinner," he said, the corners of his mouth lifting in a half-smile, "I haven't worked at our ramen shop in days. Had to read the Constitution, remember?"
The reporter blinked. "But… couldn't Nlink have done that for you?"
Subhadip looked up at the bleeding dusk of the sky, as if searching it for a better question.
"I believe in the path nature carved for me," he said. "If I follow it, I may arrive somewhere no algorithm can take me."
And with that, he walked on.
---
Later that night, within the soaring spires of the KLA headquarters — built of black-veined marble from the collapsed universe of Lorithal — a private meeting was called in an inner sanctum most never saw. The air there was thin, heavy with the scent of ancient paper and polished steel. It was a place where history wasn't just recorded, but edited.
Only four of the sixty-four Korliop ministers appeared.
At the head of the table sat Aleksandra Scezney, unmoving, her raven hair tucked behind ears that had heard too many betrayals. Her gaze, though still, was not empty. It was calculating — the sort of look one gives when they're not just thinking about history, but rewriting it in real time.
The others:
Kelkovna Hudsburgh, whose jaw was as sharp as the wit she seldom used for kindness. Born of jade wealth and old secrets, her emerald aura pulsed like the heartbeat of an empire long past its glory.
Netalia Lekjosho, wrapped in midnight silks that shimmered like frozen lakes. The first woman in eight generations of warriors, she held her teacup like a dagger. Her smile was absent, her patience thinner than glass.
Adelfe Kritlour, hair unkempt, coat stained with ink and emergency. He was the only one who still wrote by hand. Copper-toned, with the quiet dignity of someone who has seen too much and speaks too little.
And finally, Andrés Cuccittini, the oldest in soul but youngest in spirit. His laugh lines were deeper than most rivers; his aura flickered orange and green — like mangoes in spring and the warmth of a well-tended fire.
Aleksandra spoke, her voice low but final:
"I will not be standing as lead candidate in the upcoming election."
The room split like a tree struck by lightning.
"You're what?" Kelkovna's voice was thunder, layered in disbelief.
Netalia leaned forward, her fingers drumming like war drums. "You can't be serious. And who do you suggest? Him?" She turned to Subhadip, her gaze a blade.
Aleksandra met her eyes with the calm of inevitability. "Yes. Subhadip Seal will lead."
Silence.
Then outrage.
"He's sixteen!" Kelkovna hissed. "He still apologizes before interrupting someone!"
"Exactly," Andrés murmured. "He still believes words mean something."
Netalia stood, arms crossed. "This isn't a classroom election. This is the multiverse."
Cuccittini chuckled, deeply. "And yet the multiverse paused when he spoke. Not for me, not for you, but for him."
Adelfe, still silent, closed his notebook. His eyes — cracked and tired — met Subhadip's. And nodded.
The ministers left, murmuring dissent like a broken spell, their footsteps loud in the silence that remained.
Cuccittini remained. So did Subhadip. And beside him, Himiko and Yamiya.
"You've stirred something, boy," Cuccittini said. "Something old. Something buried. But you're still a child. You'll see what waits in the Korliop — it's not utopia. It's a well-dressed corpse."
He walked to the glass wall, peering out into the silver dusk. "Isn't that Himiko outside?"
"She's my boss," Subhadip replied, smiling.
Cuccittini laughed. "My former assistant… now your boss? Stars, this is a ridiculous universe. She's sharp, though. A fire hidden in snow."
He turned to Yamiya. "And the child?"
"Our daughter. Adopted."
Cuccittini's smile faded. "Don't let power change you, boy. Even the gentle fall. Even the saints."
Subhadip said nothing.
Then, softly, like one speaking not to a person but to the universe itself:
"And I've found my reason, too."
Aleksandra looked at him, head tilted. "What reason?"
"To walk this path. To rise. To marry you."
Aleksandra didn't blink. The universe did.
Subhadip continued, voice even:
"Because our clans made a pact. 210 billion multiversal years ago. And though I love her — I love you too."
And then came silence.
Not the silence of awkwardness.
But the silence of prophecy fulfilled.
A silence that felt like the universe had inhaled — and hadn't exhaled yet.
The Next Morning
The skies over Kla's central dome had turned violet — not with storm, but with suspicion.
News of Aleksandra's stepping down had broken before the sun had fully risen in all universes. Every corner of the multiverse, from the neon-streaked cities of Erithra Prime to the pastoral dream-fields of Earth-4's Kyoto Plains, had only one headline.
> "THE BOY WHO SPOKE — THE WOMAN WHO SURRENDERED."
Inside the glass chambers of the KLA's lower east wing — far from the public-facing forums — Subhadip sat alone in a small sunken garden, arms wrapped around his knees. A koi drifted through the air, suspended in a gravity pocket. Yamiya was chasing it, giggling.
"I thought you'd be glowing by now," came a voice from behind.
It was Netalia Lekjosho.
She wore no formal robes now. Just boots, a grey vest, and her hair in a braid like a whip ready to crack.
Subhadip stood slowly, brushing earth from his sleeves.
"I thought you left with the others."
"I did," she said, stepping down into the garden. "But I also know ghosts when I see them. You looked like one."
He tilted his head, surprised. "I thought you didn't believe in me."
"I don't," she said. "But I believe in potential. And right now, the council is ready to eat itself. Do you know how rare it is for that kind of chaos to align with the rise of someone unexpected?"
He said nothing.
She crouched, plucking a floating petal from the koi's wake.
"Don't confuse prophecy with preparedness, boy. You may be chosen — but you're not ready. And that's okay. But only if you admit it."
He looked at her then — not as an opponent, but as a mirror of sorts.
"I'm scared," he said. "Of power. Of what it does to people."
She nodded. "Good. Stay scared. That fear might be the only thing that keeps you honest."
Then she stood, brushing her hands. "By the way… Aleksandra didn't tell you everything."
Subhadip blinked. "What do you mean?"
"She didn't just step down for you. She stepped down because of you. Someone found the old pact. The multiversal archives. They're buzzing."
Subhadip's blood ran cold.
"Who?" he asked.
Netalia didn't answer. She was already walking away.
Just before turning the corner, she paused.
"Oh — and marry whoever the hell you want," she said. "But don't forget that the altar you walk to is also a throne. And they both come with blood."
Subhadip watched Netalia vanish down the corridor, her footsteps swallowed by distance and time. Yamiya tugged his hand again, urging him to chase the koi. He smiled, just a little, and let her lead him.
But even as the garden shimmered with peace, his mind was not at ease. Somewhere, deep beneath the surface of titles and treaties, something ancient had shifted. Something buried in blood and bound by fate.
And then — as the koi glided upward into the light — the narrator spoke. Not with words from lips, but with the hush that lingers after storms.
> "Why?"
Because the multiverse does not choose based on merit.
Because Aleksandra didn't surrender — she fulfilled an old promise.
Because Cuccittini saw echoes of himself and hoped this time, the child wouldn't break.
Because Netalia, beneath her armor, still believed in salvation.
Because Himiko, once an assistant, now bore the flame of legacy in her silence.
Because Yamiya needed to see what grace looked like when worn by someone flawed.
And because Subhadip — boy of Jenney Sarani, son of rain and revolt — was not born to rule.
> He was born to remind the multiverse that love, when wielded wisely, is the only rebellion that lasts.
That's why.
And to the reader, wherever you are —
Remember this:
Revolutions are not always loud. Sometimes, they wear corduroy jackets and cook dinner after speeches.
The world will tell you to wait. To grow older. To be chosen. But listen — time does not create leaders.
Choices do.
So speak, even if your voice shakes. Love, even if the world burns. And walk your path with bare feet if you must — because the soil remembers the ones who walked first.
The future does not belong to the powerful.
It belongs to the kind.
And kindness, when armed with truth, can bend even the multiverse.