Chapter 40 - Resolution

Kratos' return to Kailasha was without pomp or vigour. Once he exited the portal, which closed behind him, he found himself in front of his accommodations in this realm.

"Well," Brahma said. "That sure was… an adventure."

Kratos grunted in agreement. He put aside the spoils from the spontaneous, senseless side-quest. And right as he was about to sit down on his cot, the Gana that usually attended to him, the abomination that was an amalgamation of numerous eyes, arrived at his door. Since the creature did not have a mouth to express itself, it did so mostly with actions and gestures. After being tended to by the creature, Kratos had grown proficient in reading its behaviour. And based on its wild flailing, Kratos was certain that he was urgently needed somewhere, and the Gana wished for him to follow it.

Letting out a tired sigh, Kratos stood up and motioned for the creature to lead him.

Unsurprisingly, he found himself being led to the only other inhabited destination on Kailasha.

"Hey there!" Ganesh greeted. The boy stood with his arms crossed behind his back by the gate, and… with a smile on his face? Even now, Kratos found it hard to decipher the emotions on an elephantine face. But the energy the boy was radiating generally evoked a sense of elation. Evidently, the boy was excited about something.

Kratos responded with a hum.

"I'll consider it a personal success if I can, one day, get you to indulge in small talk unprompted," Ganesh joked with a shake of his head.

"Keep dreaming, lad," Brahma said. "I practically sleep with the man, and yet I cannot get more than two words of pointless chatter out of him."

"What do you want?" Kratos interjected before the conversation wasted any more of his time.

"I have a surprise for you," Ganesh responded with a fist pump. "Come, come!" He urged as he grabbed Kratos' hand.

The boy dragged Kratos through the living room to the veranda, and once again, Kratos found himself in the same position he was in when he first came to this realm.

The woman sat calmly. With one hand, her finger handled a roll of thread, while the other brought in a bloom of jasmine. The two nimbly danced in a seamless motion and captured the jasmine with a knot. And then the process repeated itself.

A lazy movement caught Kratos' attention from the corner of his vision: it was her cat. The creature lazily groomed itself by the woman's feet without a single care in the world.

The whole ambience should have evoked serenity. Calmness.

Kratos felt none of that. He'd seen what hid beneath the calm surface of the unassuming lake.

There was a monster down there.

Hence, all Kratos felt right now was tension.

Humans, like most creatures with high sentience, have the capacity to separate their thoughts from their actions. A deeper separation between mind and body can be achieved through focused mental cultivation. However, even the most detached individuals cannot fully escape their underlying instincts.

In extreme cases, they can fool the "lizard brain" to overcome the fear of death. Whether through strict ascetic discipline or overwhelming psychological despair, the conscious mind can temporarily suppress the urge to live.

But it is impossible to erase the survival instinct from the core. It is permanently built into the biology of every living creature with an understanding of its own mortality. The mind can build walls to block it out, but the original programming remains fully intact beneath the surface.

Because of this, the fear of imminent demise is always still there.

And just being in the presence of this woman subconsciously triggered this fight-or-flight instinct in Kratos.

The woman looked towards Ganesh and nudged her head.

"Would you be interested in listening to a new tune I have been tinkering with, Lord Brahma?" Ganesh queried as he dislodged the head from Kratos' waist.

"Do I have a choice?" Brahma asked sarcastically.

The boy left with the head and left Kratos alone with the woman.

Kratos waited on tenterhooks as the woman worked through her basket of jasmines. She moved efficiently, but without haste. The process that should have been calming, therapeutic even, was an exercise in suspense for Kratos.

Thankfully, the basket was finite in its capacity. Once the woman tethered the final jasmine into the flower ornament, she wrapped it around her hair bun and pinned it into place.

Finally, she looked directly at Kratos and extended her right hand, gesturing calmly with an action that implied, "Hand it over."

"The axe," she expressed to clarify her point.

Doubt averted Kratos' apprehension and anxiety, but he recalled the weapon nonetheless. He cared little for where it was, since it would swiftly return to him on his beck and call. The wooden handle slapped itself into his open palm with a satisfying thunk. Then, with a light toss, he flipped the axe and held it by its blade end and handed it to the woman.

She grimaced as the weapon fell into her grasp. And somehow, Kratos could also feel that the weapon was not particularly fond of her - at the moment of hand-off, when both individuals had their hands on the weapon, Kratos was certain he felt the axe "shiver".

Parvathy brought the axe's blade up to her face and whispered at it.

For a split-second, there was complete silence. But as the moment passed, Kratos started to hear her whispers echoing all around him. It was hard to decipher, for there were multiple voices speaking over each other. He couldn't focus on one, as another would worm its way in and veer him off course.

To subvert the aural overload, Kratos doubled down on his focus on the axe. But that too was undergoing a sort of augmentation.

Essentially, the weapon and the woman vibrated into a stationary blur. The shape of the weapon started to morph before Kratos' eyes. The handle started to elongate and curve while the blade grew larger and heavier.

The distortion stabilised eventually. What remained of the axe once it all quieted down did not incite any positive emotions out of Kratos. It grew larger - it was now a bit longer than the length of his fully extended arm. It appeared more destructive - the blade had nearly doubled in size. It was more ornate - there were etchings in Sanskrit script snaking around the metal and wood in a haphazard fashion.

But this didn't mean much to Kratos. He didn't need the weapon. He didn't want the weapon.

The woman tossed the weapon back, and it hurtled into his grasp seamlessly. It felt heavier and surprisingly more comfortable to wield.

"What did you do?" He asked.

For the first time since his arrival, Kratos saw the woman smile. It was a faint quirk of her lips, but the tense aura lingering around her dissipated almost immediately.

"Do you believe that people can change?" She asked.

Kratos didn't even need to think before responding with a resounding, "No."

"Yeah," She agreed. "That is my belief as well. Once the clay dries and bakes, it is hard to change its form without inducing cracks. The same principle applies to people."

"But here's the thing," she emphasised. "The moment you lose hope that people can potentially change, that is when you stop caring about people altogether."

"Truth be told, I don't really care about you," she said with a shrug. "But Murugan does. You are his Guru. The relationship you share is ancient in its tradition."

"I care about Murugan. I know he would do anything within his power for your service. So it is through the extension of your relationships that I am offering you the benefit of the doubt," she declared. Then her gaze hardened as she appended, "Even if this is what the universe intends for you. Even if this punishment is fitting for the crimes you've committed in the past."

Suddenly, Kratos felt the tension in the air return. It crescendoed slowly, as the woman's brows furrowed into a frown, "I can read people, Kratos. I've lived long enough to know exactly the kind of person you are and the life you have lived with a single glance. Both you and I know that you are not a good person. And both of us know that whatever nightmare you are living through right now, you are probably deserving of it. However, I would like to think that you can change and repent. And although I cannot negate the curse already imbued into the axe, I can add another condition."

"The axe will leave you the moment you exhibit a real change of character for the better," she declared. "With that, you will be liberated of your curse."

'A real change for the better?' Kratos reiterated in his mind.

"W-What do you mean?" The phrasing was far too generic and open to interpretation.

"Growth. Evolution. Improvement," Parvathy listed. "Becoming a better person. Doing something you would never do in a million years, but for the benefit of another."

She scoffed as she stood up, "The motivation for why someone seeks change and redemption matters. If it is simply to rid yourself of your curse, then it is a false motivation. Once the curse is lifted, there is no guarantee that you will maintain your new trajectory. My suggestion to you is to keep this as an afterthought. If you are fated to redeem yourself, then you WILL redeem yourself as long as you work towards it."

As she walked past Kratos, a gentle breeze brushed past her and carried the jasmine flowers' enticing fragrance with it, and doused Kratos in calmness. He felt a playful tickle flicker past his calves as the cat rubbed itself against him and followed its owner.

Finally, Kratos was alone. As he gazed at the now transformed axe, a hint of hope sparked in his heart.

He wasn't one to believe the words of a god. But he believed Parvathy. Ironically. It was the open apathy and disdain she had for him that assuaged Kratos. It was clear that she didn't care enough about him to lie to or take advantage of him.

"So… how did it go?" Ganesh's voice pulled Kratos out of his contemplation.

Kratos let out a sigh and reached for the head in Ganesh's hands. "It went well," he answered.

"Am I no longer needed?" Brahma probed.

"You are," Kratos said. "For now."

"You know, I don't miss my stomach," Brahma expressed with a satisfied sigh. "I can just keep eating without feeling saturated."

"Tell me you haven't tasted food more divine than what you just had!" He challenged. "That woman is an artist!"

"It was all vegetables," Kratos spat in annoyance. The duo left the courtyard dwelling and made their way back to Kratos' accommodation.

As he arrived at the sparse threshold of his accommodations, a shrill shriek of a peacock caught his attention. He looked above and saw Murugan flying in. The lad circled above Kratos before leaping from his mount and landing flamboyantly on the grass a full second before his great peacock touched down softly beside him.

Kratos merely grunted, utterly unimpressed by the theatrical display.

The boy stood up straight. His face flushed from a palpable, nervous excitement. "I told you I would return, Guruji," the young warrior said. "And I promised I would bring a fitting Dakshina."

He reached into his satchel and retrieved a heavy bracer of sorts. Kratos held it and hefted it. Then, without further ceremony, he proceeded to enter his accommodations.

"G-Guruji!" Murugan interrupted in a panic. "Please, put it on."

"I have no use for it now," Kratos expressed.

"That's not the point!" Murugan responded animatedly. "There is something special imbued into it."

Kratos furrowed his brow and tied the bracer around his left forearm. Surprisingly, the accessory fit snugly around his wrist and arm, as though it was measured exactly to his proportions.

At that instant, his instinct burst into action, and his arms raised involuntarily in a guarding posture. Within the same instance, the bracer unfurled into a shield large enough to cover his face and abdomen. A split-second later, Kratos felt a collision against the metal, which transitioned into a vibration that jolted through his bones.

As he exited the defensive stance, Kratos noticed a deflected spear by his feet. Looking up, he was met with Murugan's satisfied smile. The moment his guard lowered, the shield curled back into the bracer.

"Works as expected," the boy stated with a proud nod.

Kratos didn't need an explanation. The demonstration was enough. He raised his forearm and willed the shield to unfurl, which it did. He tested the sturdiness of the structure and let out a satisfied grunt. "It is acceptable."

"Thank you, Guruji. I realised that the best Dakshina would be something that encompasses the crux of your teaching. Which was always about going back to the basics and returning to the very beginning," Murugan explained. "The shield was the first weapon you learned, and the first weapon you taught me."

"It is fitting," Kratos agreed.

"In keeping with the theme, you may not notice this, but the weapon is actually forged from iron obtained from the lands you came from," Murugan added.

Kratos' eyes jolted in shock. He looked at the boy, and a plethora of questions swarmed in his head. Some even made it to the tip of his tongue. But none were voiced out.

"It is a desolate land," Murugan volunteered. "There is death and destruction everywhere. But not all hope is lost. People still inhabit those lands: survivors."

He shrugged and said, "Whether they can thrive and rebuild is still to be determined. But I've realised that humans are very resilient creatures, no matter the realm."

"I brought one more thing," Murugan said. He turned to his large peacock and clicked his tongue. The bird stepped sideways and shifted its massive wings aside.

A white horse colt stood on the grass. Its coat was damp and matted with sea salt. It shifted its hooves and breathed in the thin mountain air.

"I found it just before I left," Murugan stated.

Going back to the moments before Murugan left his Guru's original realm. He was cruising above the vast sea and gaining speed.

The rhythmic rush of the wind offered a brief moment of peace, but then a strange disruption on the water's surface caught his attention. Murugan leaned over his mount's neck and peered down at the ocean.

His eyes widened in surprise.

Miles from any shattered shoreline, a white horse colt was swimming against the unforgiving waters. The young animal stood roughly ten hands high, though it could have been larger had malnutrition not thinned its body. Its wet coat clung to its frame and exposed the sharp outlines of its ribs. Grey ash coated its white hair, and sea salt matted its mane into thick, heavy knots. It snorted seawater from its flared nostrils and its dark eyes rolled back and showed its whites.

Murugan watched the animal. It struggled against the heavy, churning currents, though it did not project fear. That was altogether overshadowed by its defiance. It kicked its spindly legs repeatedly and pushed the water down to keep its head above the waves. And even knowing that there was no land in sight, it didn't seem to give up.

At that moment, the water beneath the animal darkened. On cue, the dark sea blossomed into a field of endless reptilian eyes. Murugan immediately spread his arms, and an endless cloud of golden spears spawned all around him. He let the spears drop into the endless darkness towards the sea of eyes, and dove in alongside his spears.

The spears and Murugan plunged in, and for a moment, there was a calmness except for the struggling of the colt.

But then, a figure darted out of the surface of the ocean right below the colt and held it tight. The creature thrashed, but Murugan placed a palm over its eyes and whispered into its ears, and it went limp. At the same time, the sea erupted in a chorus of deep explosions, and Murugan used the massive upward force to hurtle back toward his peacock.

Looking down, the ocean turned black with the creature's blood and reverted to its original chaotic state.

"It refused to drown," Murugan said, and pulled Kratos back to the present. He patted the colt's neck. "I know that foisting a living creature is less of a Dakshina and more of an added responsibility. But I don't know why he reminded me of you."

Kratos stared at the white horse. He walked forward and stopped in front of the animal. He raised his hand and placed his palm flat against the colt's snout. The horse huffed, exhaling warm air over Kratos' fingers, and stood its ground.

He looked into its eyes. And in it, he saw his own reflection - his physical reflection. But beyond that, Kratos could also see himself - at least a fragment of his past self.

Struggling. Fighting. Going against fate. All those unpleasant memories started to slowly resurface in his thoughts.

A wry smile crept up Kratos' cheeks before being doused with a bitter sigh.

Murugan returned to his mount and retrieved a saddle. But as he brought it close to the colt, Kratos raised his arm and blocked him.

"He needs to be trained to get used to it," Murugan explained.

"No," Kratos responded with a decisive shake of his head.

He slowly brought his forehead against the colt's. It resisted at first, but it acquiesced. Their heads touched, and at that moment, their breaths synchronised.

"Lefteris," Kratos declared slowly.

"That's an interesting name," Murugan hummed. "Is it in your native tongue? What does it mean?"

It meant something Kratos sorely wished to be. It was something that was ever-fleeting and out of his reach. But maybe, he could let this creature experience it in his stead.

"To be liberated," Kratos answered.

"I could very easily take you back home, Guruji," Murugan expressed with a distressed frown. As agreed, following the exchange of the Guru Dakshina, Kratos and Murugan's journey had reached its culmination.

"It doesn't end here, you know," Murugan said with a snort. "No matter where you hide, Guruji, I will find you."

"I do not doubt that," Kratos responded. "But I will not welcome you into my home."

"That's harsh," Murugan responds with feigned offence.

Kratos paused. His face scrunched in, like that of someone forced to swallow a whole lemon. "I… enjoyed my time here," he said finally with great difficulty.

"My goodness!" Brahma exclaimed from Kratos' hip. "Boy, you've finally managed to make this impassive block of ice melt!"

"True, that is an achievement far more rewarding than anything I have done in my entire life," Murugan agreed amidst laughter.

Kratos growled half-heartedly and turned to leave, and Lefteris followed him with an equally half-hearted clip-clopping trot.

With Kailasha shrinking behind him, Kratos walked with a steady, rhythmic pace, while keeping the flowing waters of the Ganga to his right as a familiar guide. The white colt trotted obediently alongside him.

With each passing day, its formerly malnourished frame slowly started to build up strength. For feed, Kratos let the colt find sustenance on its own. He did not wish for it to grow domesticated.

A horse by nature is not a wild animal. Its purpose is defined by its subservience to its human owners. It is a beast of burden - a creature bred purely for its utility. But this was not the future Kratos wished for Lefteris.

Kratos knew the feeling of being stripped of agency. While he was human, he had the consciousness to realise when he was losing autonomy. For a horse, the loss of agency could inevitably define their entire reality.

Kratos remembered a fable he'd heard once when he was still a lowly grunt in the Spartan army.

A traveller stopped to camp for the night but realised he did not have enough rope to secure his entire herd of horses. A passing elder advised him to physically tether the ones he could and simply mime the action of tying the rest. The traveller followed the advice. He walked up to the remaining horses, mimicked throwing a rope around their necks, and pretended to pull a knot tight against a wooden post. The untethered animals accepted the familiar routine and stood peacefully in place all night.

The next morning, the traveller untied the real ropes and urged his herd to move forward. The horses that were actually tethered stepped onto the trail, but the ones bound by the imaginary ropes refused to budge. The man pushed and pulled, but the animals stood completely frozen. The elder from the day before passed at that moment. He watched the struggle and reminded the traveller that the ropes were still very real in the horses' minds.

To get his herd moving, the traveller had to walk over to each stationary horse and deliberately pantomime the act of untying the invisible knots. Once he released them from their perceived constraints, the animals easily moved forward.

Kratos did not want Lefteris to be bound by anything, not in reality nor in its mentality. So he allowed the creature to assimilate into its feral and wild nature.

Days bled into weeks as they followed the river's winding path downstream, until the dense forestry gave way to a vast expanse of cultivated lands. Kratos halted. The landscape before him triggered a memory. This was the place where he had fought the seemingly endless tide of the Rakshasa's blood clones.

But the barren, churned-up wasteland was completely gone. While he was leaving, he knew that the villagers had restarted their attempt to cultivate the land. But the sight before him upended his expectations. The place had grown into a sprawling, bustling township. The ash and igneous rock from his destructive battle had enriched the earth beyond measure and transformed it into a fertile haven that promised bounteous harvests.

"What a beautiful town," Brahma commented from Kratos' hip, and took in the sight. "The air's carrying a very faint stench of volcanic ash. It seems there was some sort of eruption here. It must be why the soil here smells so enriched with minerals."

Kratos recollected the news he heard from the villagers the time he aided Murugan. There was some talk of a town being named after him and his likeness. While maintaining a safe distance, Kratos caught the chatter being exchanged between a few travellers.

"Bhasmodbhavapur," that was its name: the city born of ash.

He let out a loud groan as he caught a peculiar dance taking place by the city's outskirts. A man coated completely in ash with a scarlet mark painted across his face and body was dancing along to loud gongs and drums while waving two large blades in his hands as he led a parade around the farmlands surrounding the city. The crowd around him shouted loudly in praise, with the woman ululating in reverence.

"Looks like you're pretty famous here," Brahma commented while stifling a chuckle.

A low growl rumbled in Kratos' chest. He could already anticipate what he would be forced to live through were he to show his face amidst these fanatic believers. Thus, he decided firmly against entering the town's borders and opted instead to skirt around its far periphery. However, as he surveyed the sprawling outskirts and the network of newly trodden roads, he realised that navigating around such a massive settlement without crossing paths with a lone farmer, merchant, or wandering devotee would be an exceedingly difficult task.

Before committing to his wide detour, Kratos altered his course toward a very specific set of coordinates etched into his memory. He navigated toward the exact spot where, in a fit of inner turmoil, he had desperately dug an eight-meter-deep pit to bury the cursed Blades of Chaos. He had stacked massive boulders atop the makeshift grave to create a monolithic marker, and hoped to leave the fiery chains of his past behind forever.

When he arrived at the location, he found that the town's rapid expansion had also swallowed the area. The boulders had either been moved or integrated into a foundation, and an offshoot of the town had formed as a small village around the burial site. Kratos stared at the dwellings for a long moment. He felt a strange mix of resignation and relief. Better that there was no mark of its existence. Maybe in time, he would forget they were here altogether. Deciding that it was best left undisturbed, he walked away.

Kratos managed to navigate the outskirts of the township just as the sun dipped below the horizon, casting a dim, purple twilight over the plains. He made camp a safe distance away from the town's outer limits. Lefteris settled into the soft grass to rest. It snorted softly in the cool night air. Kratos sat by a small, crackling fire and enjoyed the silence, as even Brahma had seemingly drifted off in thought.

But the peaceful silence was abruptly shattered.

At Kratos' waist, the inert head of Ravana began to twitch. The grey, petrified flesh shimmered unnaturally in the firelight. A sudden, ragged gasp tore through the night air as the stone softened and rapidly shifted back into living, breathing tissue. The severed face blinked its eyes open and came to life in the flickering shadows.