Location: Kolkata, Inside Sector 9 Shelter RuinsDate: September 21, 2029Time: 4:44 AM
Yash sat beside a broken wall, the child asleep in his lap.
Her name was Khushi.
She hadn't let go of his hand all night.
The city burned quietly around them.Flames reflected in puddles. The wind carried no hope.Only ash.
Yash had stopped trying to understand what he was.All he knew was—when the monsters came, he didn't run.
He moved through them.And when he touched them—they turned to dust.
His back burned again.
The mark.
It wasn't just glowing now.It was spreading — inked along his spine like living flame.
He stood slowly, not to wake her, and pulled off the tattered shirt.
The ash on the ground began to rise… on its own.
The temperature dropped.The light bent.
And from within him, something ancient stirred.
"You are mine,"whispered a voice not made of sound.
A woman's voice. Fierce. Infinite.
"You carry my silence.You carry my rage.You carry my end."
The mark pulsed.
And then—he saw her.
In his mind.
A goddess.
Kali.
But not the one from paintings.This was no idol, no temple deity.She stood naked in darkness, wrapped in galaxies and skulls. Her eyes were voids. Her skin glowed with destruction. She was both beauty and apocalypse.
She didn't speak.She commanded.
And Yash — still just a boy with ash-stained hands — bowed his head in silence.
Suddenly—
The ground split beneath him.Reality trembled.
From the mark on his back, ash poured outward in a storm.A pillar of smoke reached the sky. Buildings cracked.The monsters nearby shrieked — not in hunger, but in fear.
Yash rose through it.
His hair was no longer white — it was glowing silver.His eyes, now pure pale, saw through walls, through fear, through lies.
Ash wrapped his arms like armor. His breath steamed in the cold.
And on his back —the first divine form burned in:
Kālāsparśa — Touch of Time's End
In that moment, he became the Ash-Bearer.
The first Shakti-Vira.
Chosen not because he was strong…but because he had lost everything.
Khushi woke up to see him standing there — not glowing like a hero, but shaking, covered in ash, eyes distant.
She ran to him and hugged his leg.
He didn't speak.
But his hand gently rested on her head.
Far above the world, the gods watched again.
But this time, they bowed.