Agasthya's dreams did not play like stories.
They came as fragments.
A hand pressed against a glass window. Sirens. Steel. Rain on a highway. A woman screaming for someone not to go. The warmth of street food wrapped in old newspaper. A child's voice calling his name—a name he no longer remembered.
And sometimes…
A temple, swallowed in black mist. Two voices arguing in the dark. Both of them calling him "my son."
He always woke before they finished.
---
At two years old, Agasthya did not speak often. But his silence was not from confusion. It was from the weight of knowing.
The memory shard he'd unlocked—the moment Karna saved him from the serpent—had changed something. He saw things differently now.
He watched the way the leaves moved and knew which branch would fall next.
He heard the splash of fish and could guess their size by sound.
He understood fear without being told what it was.
---
One afternoon, he stood barefoot on the riverbank, watching the sky turn gold.
Ganga approached slowly, her sari trailing behind her like light drawn over still water.
"You have changed," she said.
Agasthya didn't look at her. "You told me their names."
She nodded.
"Devaki. Vasudeva."
"Yes."
"I remember her eyes."
Ganga raised an eyebrow.
Agasthya's small voice barely trembled. "She held me once. And kissed my forehead. But not twice. Just once."
Ganga's breath caught.
"She was afraid," Agasthya whispered. "Afraid to love me."
Ganga knelt beside him.
"She wasn't afraid of you," she said gently. "She was afraid of what the world would do to you. She had already lost too much."
He looked up.
"I remember a cold floor. Chains on her ankles. She didn't scream."
Ganga's eyes shimmered.
"I wasn't her first," he said. "I was her last."
"And yet," Ganga said softly, "you lived."
Agasthya closed his eyes. He saw her again—not just Devaki, but Radha, his mother in another life. She wasn't there in body, but her laugh echoed faintly in his chest. The smell of turmeric and soap. A thali set out on the floor. A boy's name on her lips—his name, in that other life, the one he'd lost.
"I think I had another mother," he murmured. "Before."
Ganga didn't answer.
"I don't remember her face," he said. "But I remember the sound of her footsteps when she was angry."
She smiled faintly. "That is love too."
He nodded.
Then: "Will I ever remember everything?"
Ganga's face darkened—not with sadness, but gravity.
"If you do… you may not remain a child."
Agasthya didn't speak.
After a long pause, he asked, "Did she love me?"
Ganga tilted her head. "Devaki?"
He nodded.
"Yes. And she feared she would break in front of you. So she didn't name you. She loved you like a wound she couldn't clean."
Agasthya looked toward the horizon. Somewhere far beyond, past the plains and hills, behind castle walls and swords and shadows—Kamsa still lived.
The one who had taken her sons.
The one who had made her fear her own arms.
"I'll kill him," Agasthya whispered.
Ganga didn't move.
"I don't care what Krishna does. I'll kill him myself."
Ganga watched him for a long time.
And she did not stop him.
---
Later that day, Agasthya found Karna under the banyan tree again, this time carving thin strips of bark into arrow shapes with a shard of stone.
He was quiet.
Agasthya sat beside him.
"You won't find what you need here," he said.
Karna glanced over. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You keep trying to be something this world won't let you become."
"And you think you know what I need?"
"I know who does."
Karna didn't speak.
"You should go," Agasthya said. "To Vrindavan."
Karna snorted. "You said that before."
"This time I mean it."
Karna threw down the bark. "And what about you? You get to stay with the goddess while I go play with cows?"
Agasthya touched his shoulder.
Karna's muscles tensed—but didn't pull away.
"I'll come back," Agasthya said. "And when I do, we won't be alone anymore."
Karna didn't answer.
But in his heart, something opened.
A door.
A window.
He wasn't sure which.
---
That night, while the moon bathed the river in silver, Ganga carried Agasthya in her arms through the shallows.
He pressed his cheek to her collarbone.
And the Versewalker System whispered:
> [FATE DEVIATION — KARNA SENT TOWARD LIGHT BEFORE SHADOW COULD CLAIM HIM]
[SYSTEM ANALYSIS: MAJOR THREAD BROKEN]
[REWARD GRANTED]
> [TALENT ABSORPTION CORE — UNSEALED: LEVEL 1]
→ You may learn and wield any combat skill observed.
→ Passive Reflex Sync Enabled.
Agasthya's heart pulsed once—deep, slow, powerful.
The river rippled.
He felt something shift in his bones. The way a falling leaf knows wind before it touches.
Ganga smiled.
"You've begun."
Agasthya stared at his hands again.
And this time, he did not wonder if they were big enough.
He wondered what they would carry.