Karna's Heir - Chapter 9

Chapter 9: The Fugitive’s Respite

The adrenaline that had fueled Aryan’s desperate, bloody escape from Babu and his crew eventually began to ebb, leaving in its wake a bone-deep weariness that wasn’t physical. He’d run for what felt like miles, a frantic, directionless flight through the sprawling, indifferent maze of Mumbai. He’d put significant distance between himself and the alley of carnage, finally collapsing not from exhaustion – a startling realization was beginning to tickle the edge of his awareness regarding that – but from the sheer, overwhelming need to stop, to think, to try and scrub the images of Shankar’s still form and Babu’s shattered arm from his mind’s eye.

He found himself in a part of the city that was a world away from the grime of Dharavi or the desperate squalor of the cheap lodges he’d been frequenting. Here, the buildings were sleeker, the cars more expensive, the people dressed in clothes that cost more than Ajay’s entire lifetime earnings. It was a realm of casual affluence, and it gave Aryan an idea – a reckless, perhaps foolish idea, but an idea nonetheless. Shetty’s men would be scouring the slums, the cheap dives, Ajay’s usual haunts. They wouldn’t expect him here, in a place where Ajay would stick out like a sore thumb, or rather, like a particularly grimy, blood-spattered thumb.

He spotted it across a busy thoroughfare – ‘Nirvana Lounge’. The name itself was a cruel joke given his current circumstances. It was an upscale pub, all dark wood, tinted glass, and the low thrum of sophisticated electronic music leaking out onto the street. It looked like the kind of place where people went to forget their troubles with overpriced cocktails, not the kind of place a man on the run from a homicidal gangster, fresh from a brutal fight, would choose for a hideout. Which was precisely why he chose it.

Getting in was the first hurdle. He was acutely aware of his appearance – Ajay’s cheap, torn shirt (now with an authentic bullet hole), his grimy trousers, his general air of a man who’d recently wrestled a pack of rabid dogs and lost, then wrestled them again and reluctantly won. The bouncer at the door was a mountain in a tight black suit, his expression conveying bored disdain for humanity in general.

“Right,” Aryan muttered to himself, feeling the uncomfortable pressure of the small wooden chest still tucked against his lower back. “Time to channel my inner… I don’t know, ‘surprisingly wealthy eccentric who enjoys dressing like a hobo’? This is going to be a tough sell.”

He approached with a confidence he didn’t feel, a swagger he hoped looked more like ‘idiosyncratic rich guy’ than ‘escaped convict’. The bouncer’s gaze swept over him, lingering on the bullet hole.

Aryan prepared for rejection, for a swift and humiliating ejection.
“Private party tonight, sir,” the bouncer rumbled, his voice like gravel in a cement mixer.

“Ah, yes,” Aryan said, improvising wildly, affecting an air of bored impatience he’d seen some of his wealthier engineering clients use. “Rohan sent me. Rohan Shergill? Told me to just mention his name.” He picked the poshest-sounding name he could conjure on the spot.

The bouncer’s expression didn’t change, but after a moment that stretched Aryan’s nerves to their breaking point, he gave a curt nod and stepped aside.

“Well, I’ll be,” Aryan breathed as he slipped past, a small, incredulous laugh escaping him. “Rohan Shergill, whoever you are, I owe you one. Or perhaps the bouncer just didn’t want to risk offending someone who might actually know a Rohan Shergill. Rich people are weird.”

The interior of Nirvana Lounge was a shock to the system. Dimly lit, with tasteful spotlights illuminating artfully distressed brickwork and plush velvet seating. The air hummed with the low murmur of conversations, punctuated by laughter and the clinking of glasses. The music was a smooth, ambient techno, a world away from the blaring Bollywood hits of the slums. It smelled of expensive perfume, imported tobacco, and something vaguely like sandalwood. It was a different planet.

He found a shadowed booth in a far corner, sinking into the surprisingly comfortable seat. For a few moments, he just sat there, letting the sensory overload wash over him, a bizarre counterpoint to the visceral, bloody memories that were still trying to claw their way to the forefront of his mind.

A waiter in a crisp uniform appeared, looking faintly surprised to see someone like Ajay occupying prime real estate. “What can I get for you, sir?” he asked, his professionalism just barely masking his curiosity.

Aryan scanned the glowing menu tablet on the table, the prices making his eyes water.

Luckily everything was free, because it was a party.

“A Lagavulin, 16 year,” Aryan said, choosing a single malt he’d once enjoyed in his previous life, a lifetime ago. “Neat. And some Non-Veg snacks.”

The waiter raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow but nodded. “Certainly, sir.”

As he waited, Aryan allowed the events of the past hour to replay. Shankar’s slack face as he went down, the sickening crunch when the rebar connected. Babu’s scream, the unnatural angle of his arm. He, Aryan Sharma, an engineer who once debated the ethics of using non-eco-friendly building materials, had just maimed two men and possibly killed a third.

“Well,” he thought, a cold knot forming in his stomach, the dark humor a brittle shield. “I’ve officially graduated from ‘victim of circumstance’ to ‘active participant in extreme violence’. My character development is taking some dark turns. Pretty sure that’s going to void Ajay’s ‘good behavior’ parole, if he ever had one. Note to self: add ‘brutal assault with a deadly weapon’ and ‘possible accidental homicide’ to the list of things I’ve done since waking up in this body. It’s becoming quite the resume.”

The whisky arrived, a generous pour in a heavy crystal tumbler. The amber liquid glowed in the dim light. He lifted the glass, inhaling the peaty, smoky aroma. It was a ghost from his past, a reminder of a life where his biggest stress was a looming project deadline, not a homicidal gangster with a vendetta. Along with some snacks.

The first sip was like fire and velvet, a complex dance of flavors that was utterly wasted on Ajay’s palate but deeply appreciated by Aryan’s. “This single malt probably costs more than Ajay’s entire wardrobe,” he mused, swirling the liquid. “And tastes significantly better. Though, to be fair, so would a glass of filtered sewage compared to that man’s fashion sense.”

He took another, longer sip, letting the warmth spread through him, trying to use it to melt the icy core of shock and horror within. He needed to understand what he had become, what these… gifts… truly meant.

The Kavacha and Kundal. Karna’s divine protection. He was unkillable. He’d proven that. Fists, iron rods, tasers, even bullets – they were all rendered useless against this invisible, intrinsic shield. It was an incredible, unbelievable power.

But the engineer in him immediately sought out the limitations, the design flaws.

He subtly pressed his thumb against the heavy wooden table, trying to indent it. Nothing. He focused his will, trying to lift the edge of the table even a fraction of an inch using only one hand, something that should have been difficult but not impossible for a man of Ajay’s build. It didn’t budge more than it normally would.

“So,” he confirmed to himself, “I can take a punch, a bullet, probably a small meteor strike if it came to it, but I still can’t open a stubborn pickle jar without a struggle. The universe has a strange, and frankly, quite annoying sense of balance.” No super strength. No super speed – he hadn’t outrun Babu’s men through superior velocity, just through desperation and their eventual incapacitation.

“This means,” he concluded, staring into his whisky, “that if they don’t want to kill me, and just want to catch me, they still easily can do it. If enough of them swarm me, pin me down, tie me up… I’m just a very durable, very hard-to-dispose-of package.” He pictured himself trussed up like a chicken, being presented to Shetty. “I’m the world’s most resilient sitting duck. They can’t kill me, but they can definitely net me. And then what? A lifetime as Shetty’s indestructible curiosity? ‘Step right up, folks, see the man who can’t be killed! For a small fee, you can hit him with a hammer!'”

The thought was profoundly disturbing. His invulnerability was a shield, not a sword. And it certainly wasn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Then, another thought struck him, something he hadn’t properly processed in the adrenaline-fueled chaos of his escape. He’d run. He’d run hard, for a long time, dodging through crowds, vaulting small obstacles, a desperate, lung-bursting sprint for survival. He should be exhausted. His muscles should be screaming in protest. Ajay’s body, while wiry, was not conditioned for that kind of prolonged exertion. It was fueled by cheap alcohol and nicotine, not protein shakes and endurance training.

Yet… he wasn’t tired.

Not in the slightest.

His breathing was normal. His heart rate, while elevated from the stress and the recent memories, wasn’t hammering from physical exertion. He subtly flexed his leg muscles under the table. No burn. No ache. No fatigue at all. They felt… fresh. Recovered. As if he’d just woken from a long sleep.

“Wait a minute,” he murmured, his attention sharpening. He cast his mind back. The frantic run from Dharavi after the initial phone calls from Shetty. The days spent scurrying from one cheap lodge to another, always on edge, often walking for miles. And just now, the mad dash after the fight in the alley. He hadn’t felt tired then, either, beyond the mental and emotional strain. He’d attributed it to adrenaline, to the sheer terror of being hunted.

But this was more than adrenaline. Adrenaline eventually faded, leaving behind a crushing exhaustion. This… this was different.

“Was I too high on the ‘oh-god-I’m-going-to-die’ cocktail to notice?” he wondered. “Or did I just run a damn marathon without breaking a sweat or even needing a Gatorade afterwards? Ajay’s physique doesn’t exactly scream ‘ultra-marathoner’. More like ‘early-onset liver failure’.”

He tried a small experiment, tapping his foot rapidly under the table, a quick, steady beat. He kept it up for a minute, then two, then five. It was a minor exertion, but it should have produced some fatigue in his ankle, some strain. Nothing. He could have kept it up all night.

Infinite stamina.

The realization hit him with an almost equal, though less violent, force as the invulnerability. The Kavacha protected him from harm. What if the Kundalas, the golden earrings traditionally associated with Karna’s vitality, his solar heritage, granted him… boundless energy? Tirelessness?

“Invulnerable… tireless…” he whispered into his glass. “But still can’t punch my way out of a paper bag if it’s reinforced. The perks are very, very specific. It’s like the gods who bestowed these gifts had a very particular, slightly passive-aggressive agenda.”

This new attribute, however, was a significant tactical advantage for a fugitive. He could keep moving. He could outlast pursuers on foot, provided he wasn’t cornered. He could travel vast distances without needing to rest. It didn’t make him invincible to capture, but it certainly made him a much harder target to pin down.

He took another sip of the Lagavulin, the smoky peat flavor a counterpoint to the swirling chaos in his mind. He was a paradox: an engineer’s logical mind trapped in a gangster’s body, fused with divine, mythical artefacts that made him both a terrifyingly durable target and an incredibly resilient fugitive. He was haunted by the violence he’d committed, hunted by men who wanted him dead or captured, and burdened with powers he was only just beginning to understand.

“So, to recap,” he thought, finishing his drink, the expensive alcohol doing little to soothe the turmoil but at least providing a momentary, pleasant burn. “Unkillable by conventional means. Check. Super-stamina for all my panicked running needs. Check. Still possesses the charisma of a damp badger and the fighting skills of a concussed accountant. Double check.” He signaled the waiter for another drink, while he tasted the snacks.

The music in Nirvana Lounge pulsed on, a sophisticated, indifferent soundtrack to his increasingly bizarre and perilous life. He was alone, in a crowd of oblivious strangers, nursing a drink and the terrifying, dawning comprehension of his unwanted, unbelievable inheritance.