Karna's Heir - Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Unbreakable

The alleyway seemed to shrink, the oppressive afternoon heat amplified by the simmering fury and utter bewilderment radiating from Babu, Ravi, and the momentarily winded Shankar. Aryan stood, his own shock battling with a dawning, incredulous sense of… something. It wasn’t triumph, not yet. It was more like the feeling an engineer gets when a wildly experimental prototype, against all odds and expectations, doesn’t immediately explode on the test bench.

“What… what are you?” Babu finally managed, his voice a hoarse whisper. The usual bluster was gone, replaced by a note of something that sounded suspiciously like fear. Shankar was rubbing his bruised knuckles, staring at Aryan as if he’d sprouted a second head that was reciting demonic poetry. Ravi, meanwhile, was still flexing his kicking foot, his face a mask of pained confusion.

“Me?” Aryan said, his mind still trying to process the fact that multiple direct hits from a man built like a brick outhouse had resulted in zero actual damage. “I’m just a guy trying to enjoy his vada pav in peace. You lot are the ones bringing all the unwanted aggression to the party. Honestly, your customer service is appalling.”

Ravi, his temper always his undoing, let out a snarl. “Enough of this madness! He’s playing tricks on us! Some kind of street magician!” He glanced around wildly, then his eyes lit upon a pile of discarded construction debris at the mouth of the alley – remnants of some long-forgotten repair job. He darted towards it and came back brandishing a rusty length of iron rebar, about three feet long, its end jagged and menacing.

“Let’s see your ‘magic’ stop this, you freak!” Ravi yelled, advancing.

“Oh, we’re upgrading from fists to blunt instruments?” Aryan observed, his heart rate kicking up a notch despite his recent painless experience. A length of solid iron was a different proposition from a meaty fist. Or was it? “Someone’s feeling ambitious. Do let me know when we get to the creatively named torture devices; I’ll bring popcorn. Or at least, I would, if I wasn’t fairly certain I’m the main course.”

Ravi swung the iron rod with a grunt, aiming for Aryan’s ribs. Aryan tensed, a part of him still expecting the sickening crunch of bone, the searing agony. The rod connected with a deafening CLANG, the sound echoing jarringly in the narrow alley.

The force of the blow was immense. Aryan was slammed against the brick wall so hard his teeth rattled, and the air was violently expelled from his lungs in a harsh gasp. He felt the brutal impact, the jarring shock that vibrated through his entire skeleton.

But again, miraculously, impossibly, there was no pain. No broken ribs. No internal bleeding. Just the sensation of a colossal, unyielding force hitting an equally unyielding, though invisible, barrier that was somehow… him.

The iron rod, however, had not fared so well. It was visibly bent at the point of impact, a slight curve marring its rusty straightness.

Ravi stared at the bent rod in his hand, then at Aryan, who was pushing himself off the wall, taking deep, ragged breaths.

“What… how…?” Ravi stammered, his eyes wide with disbelief. Shankar and Babu looked equally thunderstruck.

“Impressive swing, Ravi,” Aryan managed, once he got his breath back. “You’ve got a real future in… I don’t know, avant-garde metal sculpture? That rod is definitely more ‘art installation’ than ‘weapon of assault’ now.” He patted his side. “As for me, still ticking. Though my internal organs just got a rather vigorous massage they didn’t ask for.”

Babu, his face pale, his eyes darting, seemed to be searching for a rational explanation in a situation that had clearly abandoned rationality some time ago. “He… he must be wearing something. Under his shirt. Some kind of armor.”

“An excellent theory, Babu,” Aryan said, spreading his arms wide, the cheap, thin fabric of Ajay’s shirt pulling taut against his chest. “By all means, come and check. Though I should warn you, my personal space has recently developed a rather aggressive defense system. And I’m not sure about its policy on frisks.”

Frustration and a creeping dread were now warring on Babu’s face. He clearly didn’t want to get any closer. He barked an order at Shankar. “The taser! Use the taser on him! Let’s see how his ‘armor’ likes a few thousand volts!”

Shankar, looking reluctant but more afraid of Babu than of the increasingly inexplicable Aryan, fumbled in his pocket and produced a small, black stun gun. The distinctive, menacing C-R-A-C-K-L-E of electricity arcing between the prongs filled the alley.

Aryan’s stomach did a little flip. Blunt force was one thing. Electricity was another. He had a healthy respect for electricity, the kind that came from seeing careless workers get nasty jolts on construction sites. “Ooh, party tricks!” he said, his voice a little higher than he intended. “Does it make my hair stand on end? Because my current hairstyle could use some electrifying improvement. Or perhaps a controlled demolition.”

Shankar, prodded by Babu’s impatient glare, lunged forward and jabbed the taser against Aryan’s side, right where the iron rod had struck.

Aryan braced himself for the incapacitating jolt, the seizure-inducing agony, the loss of muscle control.

He felt the prongs press hard. He heard the taser discharge with a loud ZZZZZT. And he felt… a tingle. A strong, buzzing, vibrating tingle, like holding onto a faulty appliance, accompanied by an involuntary twitching of the muscles in his side as the electricity tried, and failed, to overwhelm his system. But it wasn’t agony. It wasn’t incapacitating. It was just… intensely, uncomfortably tingly.

After a few seconds, Shankar pulled the taser away, staring at it as if it were faulty.

Aryan was still standing, a bemused expression on his face. He twitched his side.

“Well, that was… invigorating,” Aryan said. “Like a very aggressive, very localized pins-and-needles attack. Defective unit, perhaps? Or maybe I’m just too well-grounded. Spiritually speaking, of course. My actual grounding is probably terrible, given this body’s lifestyle choices.”

The three gangsters were now looking at him with genuine fear. Fists hadn’t worked. An iron rod hadn’t worked. A taser, designed to drop a grown man, had done little more than give him an odd tickle. This wasn’t just abnormal; this was impossible.

Babu’s hand went inside his own stained kurta. When it emerged, it was holding a gun.

A small, snub-nosed revolver, cheap and deadly-looking. The atmosphere in the alley instantly plummeted from dangerous to lethal.

Aryan’s dark humor faltered, a knot of genuine ice forming in his stomach. This was different. A bullet wasn’t a fist, or a rod, or a taser. A bullet was a messenger of swift, irreversible death.

“A gun,” he said, his voice quiet, the sarcasm edged with a raw fear he couldn’t quite hide. “Really, Babu? Isn’t that a bit… déclassé for this kind of back-alley tête-à-tête? I was expecting more monologuing before we got to the grand finale.”

“Shut up, Ajay!” Babu snarled, his hand unsteady, but his eyes filled with a desperate resolve. He was clearly rattled, but also determined to reassert control, to prove that this… this abomination before him could be hurt, could be broken. “You’re not walking away from this. Not after… whatever this is.” He gestured with the gun. “The leg. Ravi, hold him still if he moves.” But Ravi and Shankar looked more inclined to bolt than to get any closer to Aryan.

Babu aimed the revolver at Aryan’s left thigh. Not a kill shot, but a maiming one. A message.

Aryan’s mind screamed. He wanted to run, to plead, to do something. But he was frozen, trapped by the narrow confines of the alley and the unwavering black hole of the gun’s muzzle. He saw Babu’s finger tighten on the trigger. Time seemed to stretch, to slow down, each heartbeat an eternity.

The muzzle flash was a blinding yellow star in the dim alley. The CRACK of the gunshot was deafening, bouncing off the brick walls, momentarily obliterating all other sound.

Aryan saw the bullet leave the barrel, a tiny, dark streak against the grimy backdrop of the alley wall – or at least, his fear-addled brain supplied that impossible image. He braced for the impact, for the tearing agony, the hot gush of blood, the shattering of his femur.

It hit his thigh. He felt it – a sharp, violent impact, like being struck by a meteor. The force buckled his leg, and he cried out, stumbling, nearly falling.

But the searing pain he expected, the one that would signify a bullet ripping through flesh and bone, never came.

Instead, there was a strange, high-pitched PING, almost like a ricochet, but somehow… wrong. And then, a tinkling sound, like shattered glass falling to the cobblestones.

Silence descended, thick and absolute, broken only by Aryan’s harsh, ragged breathing and the distant, oblivious clamor of the market.
Slowly, disbelievingly, Aryan looked down at his leg. His cheap trousers were torn where the bullet had struck, a ragged hole marring the fabric. But beneath the tear, his skin – Ajay’s skin – was… untouched. Pristine. Not a scratch. Not a drop of blood.

On the grimy cobblestones around his feet lay tiny, glinting fragments of metal. Not a whole bullet. Not a flattened slug. But shattered, shard-like pieces, as if the lead projectile had disintegrated on impact against something impossibly hard.

Aryan stared. Babu stared, his gun still smoking, his mouth agape. Ravi and Shankar looked like they were about to either faint or flee for their lives.

Aryan reached down and touched his thigh through the torn cloth. Solid. Whole. Unharmed. He was alive. Unshot. Unbroken.

His mind, already reeling from the impossible events of the past few minutes, tried to make sense of this latest, most blatant violation of the laws of physics. Fists, he could almost rationalize – maybe he was just tough, adrenaline numbing the pain. The rod – perhaps it had struck at a lucky angle. The taser – maybe it was faulty.

But a bullet? Shattering on impact? Leaving him completely unharmed?

That wasn’t luck. That wasn’t a fluke. That was… something else entirely.

His gaze drifted to his chest, where, unseen beneath his shirt, the golden patterns of the Kavacha were fused with his skin. He thought of the earrings, the Kundalas, equally integrated. He remembered the searing pain of their merging, the horrifying vision of the ancient, bloodied warrior tearing these very items from his own flesh.

A warrior. Golden armor. Golden earrings. Invulnerability.

A story, learned in childhood, a tale from the grand, sweeping epic of the Mahabharata, flashed into his mind with the force of a thunderbolt.

Karna.

The tragic hero, the son of Surya, the Sun God. Born with a divine Kavacha, a golden armor, and Kundalas, golden earrings, that were part of his very being, rendering him invincible, unkillable by any weapon as long as he wore them.

Aryan’s breath hitched. His eyes widened, a wild, dawning, mind-blowing realization crashing through him.

It couldn’t be.

Could it?

The golden, skin-merged armor and earrings… the almost supernatural protection… the vision…

“Kavach…” he whispered, the word feeling alien yet terrifyingly familiar on Ajay’s tongue. “Kundal…”

Karna’s Kavacha and Kundal.

The legendary, divine artefacts that made their wearer impervious to harm.

He wasn’t just wearing some magical, cursed treasure. He was fused with a power spoken of in myths, a boon from the gods themselves.

He was, for all intents and purposes, unkillable.

A strange, almost manic energy surged through him, a terrifying, exhilarating cocktail of disbelief, awe, and a dawning understanding of the sheer, cosmic absurdity of his situation.

“So that’s what this is,” he breathed, a hysterical laugh bubbling in his chest. He looked at the three gangsters, who were still frozen in a tableau of shock and terror. “Not just cursed bling, but divine-grade, epic-poem-level cursed bling. Explains the dramatic merging process. And the distinct lack of bullet holes in my person.”

He was still Ajay, the low-life gangster. He was still Aryan, the bewildered engineer. But now, he was also something more. Something ancient. Something… unbreakable.

“Unkillable, huh?” he said, a wide, slightly unhinged grin spreading across Ajay’s face. “Shetty’s going to be so annoyed. This really throws a wrench in his ‘feed Ajay to the fishes’ retirement plan for me.”

He took a step towards the terrified gangsters, who instinctively recoiled. The power thrumming within him, the silent, invisible shield that was now part of his flesh and spirit, felt like a living thing.

The game hadn’t just changed. The entire damn board had been flipped, and he was the only piece left standing.