---
The pyres still burned outside the city walls.
Kamsa's body had been taken not in triumph, but in silence. No hymns were sung. No mourners wept. His end was neither celebrated nor pitied. It was simply accepted—the inevitable collapse of a kingdom built on fear.
By dawn, Krishna stood before the people of Mathura, barefoot, without crown or jewels.
And the city—torn by suspicion and awe—fell quiet.
He raised no sword.
He made no threats.
He simply spoke.
> "I do not come to claim Mathura by blood. I come to remind it of its breath."
"The city was never his. It belonged to its people. To those who carried water before Kamsa drank wine. To those who remembered names he tried to erase."
The silence that followed was not fear.
It was relief.
And when Vasudeva stood beside Krishna, and Devaki emerged from the shadows of her prison, the crowd wept.
But it was when Agasthya stepped forward that the world changed.
He didn't walk like a prince.
He didn't speak.
He just stood beside Krishna, as if he'd always belonged there.
Krishna raised a hand toward him.
> "This," he said, "is my brother. The one no stars marked. The one no scrolls wrote of. The one whose blade struck first—and whose silence has weighed heavier than all our voices."
Whispers rolled through the crowd like thunder in slow motion.
> "Agasthya…"
"He's the one who moved before the gods."
"A child? But his eyes—did you see his eyes?"
The world was listening.
And not just Mathura.
---
In the north, in the halls of Hastinapur, Bhishma heard the report before sunrise.
The messenger knelt with trembling lips. "They say the tyrant is dead."
"And Krishna did it?" Bhishma asked.
The man hesitated. "Yes… but not alone."
Bhishma turned from the window. "Say it."
"They say your shadow… your hidden sword… struck first."
Bhishma's eyes narrowed. "Then the world will stop pretending."
He dismissed the messenger.
But he didn't move for a long time.
---
In Dwaraka, old sages in white robes unrolled dusty scrolls and found no mention of a boy named Agasthya.
"This is not right," one muttered. "We mapped every possibility. Every chakra, every pulse of dharma. Where was he?"
Another whispered, "Hidden. Veiled. Not by karma—but by will."
"Whose?"
A third, older than the others, replied softly:
> "Mahadev's."
---
In Magadha, King Jarasandha crushed a pearl cup in his bare hand.
"They let the cowherds rise," he growled. "And now an unnamed blade dances beside them?"
He rose, his shadow tall enough to swallow the torchlight.
"Then let us meet this ghost. And bury him before his name takes root."
---
In the Devaloka, in golden halls above mortal air, Indra stood in silent thought.
He turned to Narada.
"Do you know who this Agasthya is?"
Narada strummed his veena once—a discordant note.
"I knew every thread in the loom," he said. "But this one? I never saw spun."
Indra frowned.
Then whispered, "Then perhaps he was not spun."
---
But beneath all these kingdoms, in the coiled labyrinths of Patala, a serpent opened its eyes.
Red.
Slitted.
Ancient.
It hissed once—and the stone cracked beneath it.
> "The one who broke the wall has returned."
---
Back in Mathura, Agasthya stood beside Krishna on the palace steps.
He didn't smile.
But he didn't flinch under the eyes of the thousands now watching.
He wasn't thinking of glory.
Or fame.
Or even fear.
He was thinking only of what came next.
Because the system pulsed softly in his mind:
> [NEW STATUS: VISIBLE TO THE WORLD]
[THE GAME BOARD HAS NOTICED THE UNWRITTEN PIECE]
[NEXT MOVE: YOURS]
---