They didn't speak much on the drive back. Tanishka sat beside Arjun, occasionally glancing at his profile, her expression a complex mix of worry, fear, and a strange, lingering awe. She had seen him bleed, seen him shot, and then seen him rise like an unstoppable force, tearing through trained mercenaries like paper. The man beside her, the kind, patient Arjun who had held her hand through months of recovery, was also something terrifyingly powerful.
Arjun felt her gaze, felt the chasm his secret had opened between them, even now that it was revealed. He wanted to reassure her, to tell her he was still the same man, but the cold, efficient action he had unleashed by the lake, the ease with which he had broken bones and crushed resistance, felt alien even to himself. The Raktabeej blood wasn't just healing him; it was changing him.
They returned to the penthouse. The silence lingered, populated only by the soft hum of the city in the distance. Finally, Tanishka opened her mouth, her voice frail but resolute. I'm not afraid of you, Arjun."
He turned, surprised.
"I'm scared for you," she continued, looking into his eyes. "What I saw back there... the way you moved... the way you didn't seem to feel anything... it wasn't just power. It was rage. Cold rage. It frightens me what this power, what this need for revenge, might turn you into."
Her words hit him harder than any bullet. She saw the darkness growing in him, the very thing he tried to hide.
Before he could respond, his secure phone buzzed. It was Munna. Arjun stepped onto the balcony to take the call.
"Boss," Munna's voice was grim. "The Mahabaleshwar team. We got IDs. Hired guns, top tier. Paid through shell corporations, but the trail leads back to Agrawal Pharma. Your old rival, Sunil Agrawal."
Arjun's eyes narrowed. Sunil Agrawal. A man whose company he had nearly bankrupted in a hostile takeover last year. A man known for his ruthlessness and long memory. "He targeted Tanishka," Arjun stated, his voice dangerously quiet.
"Looks that way, Boss," Munna confirmed. "Tried to hit you where you're weakest."
A cold smile touched Arjun's lips. "He thinks Tanishka is my weakness. He's about to learn she's my strength." He paused, the decision solidifying in his mind. "Where is Agrawal now?"
"Went underground as soon as news of the failed hit broke," Munna said. "But the mercenaries... the ones who survived your... counter-attack... they have a safe house, an old farmhouse outside Lonavala."
"Send me the location," Arjun commanded. "And Munna... ensure absolute radio silence. No communication, no backups. This is off the books. Completely."
"Understood, Boss," Munna replied, recognizing the finality in Arjun's tone.
Arjun ended the call and went straight to his private workshop, a hidden section of the penthouse accessible only by biometric scan. Inside was a small, state-of-the-art fabrication unit. He had designed many things here – advanced medical devices, prototypes for Sanjeevani BioTech. Now, he would design something different.
He needed a disguise, something functional, something that wouldn't hinder his regeneration or his speed. He didn't care about style or symbols. This was about function. Pure, brutal function.
He chose a high-tensile, synthetic polymer weave, designed for maximum flexibility and resistance to tearing – crucial for someone whose body healed faster than fabric could. He programmed the fabricator. The color: a deep, stark plain red, the color of the blood that defined him, the color of the vengeance he craved.
Within an hour, the suit was complete. A simple, featureless, one-piece suit covering him from neck to toe. It had reinforced padding at the joints, but no bulky armor – his body was the armor. The mask was integrated, a smooth red covering for his entire head, with dark, featureless lenses over the eyes. There was no symbol, no name. Just red.
He pulled the plain red suit on. It felt like a second skin. He looked at his reflection in the polished steel wall of the workshop. He saw no trace of Arjun Shetty. Only a faceless instrument of reckoning.
He left the penthouse without a word to Tanishka, slipping out like a phantom. He took one of his fastest, unmarked superbikes from his private garage and sped out of Pune, a red blur disappearing into the night.
He arrived at the coordinates Munna had sent – a secluded farmhouse surrounded by sugarcane fields, miles from the nearest town. Lights burned within. He parked the bike far away and approached on foot, moving with unnatural silence.
His enhanced senses picked up the sounds from inside – rough laughter, clinking bottles, arrogant boasting about the Mahabaleshwar "job" and the bonus they'd get for finishing the target next time. There were four of them inside, the survivors who had escaped his fury at the lake.
He didn't knock.
He moved. Faster than a human eye could track. One moment the front door was closed, the next it exploded inwards off its hinges. The four mercenaries scrambled for their weapons, shock registering on their faces.
But they were too slow.
The arjun was among them, a whirlwind of devastating action. A precise strike shattered the wrist of the man reaching for a pistol. A brutal elbow crushed the ribs of another lunging with a knife. He moved through their attacks, blood spraying as bullets tore through the red suit, the wounds sealing instantly beneath the fabric. Pain was irrelevant.
He grabbed the third man's head and slammed it through a wooden table with contemptuous ease. The fourth, the one who had shot him in the shoulder at the lake, managed to raise his assault rifle.
The arjun didn't dodge. He walked straight into the hail of bullets, the impacts barely staggering him. He reached the terrified mercenary, snatched the rifle, and crushed it into scrap metal with one hand. With the other, he delivered a single, final blow.
Silence fell, broken only by the sound of his own steady breathing within the mask. Four mercenaries, broken, lay among the remains of the farmhouse, their blood soaking the floorboards. It was over in less than a minute. Ruthless. Efficient. Final.
He didn't linger. He checked for any identifying marks, anything that could link the attack back to him or Agrawal, finding nothing. He wiped down the few surfaces he might have touched, though leaving fingerprints was hardly a concern anymore.
He slipped back out into the night, leaving the scene exactly as it was. No one would know who had done this. The police would find the bodies eventually, write it off as an internal dispute among criminals, another unsolved act of violence. Sunil Agrawal would hear the news and know his tools had failed, but he would have no proof, no target for his own revenge, only fear of the unknown force that had struck from the shadows.
Arjun rode back to Pune under the pre-dawn sky, the red suit hidden away. He slipped back into the penthouse just as the first light touched the horizon. Tanishka was asleep, her face peaceful. He looked down at his hands, clean and unmarked. The Asur's blood had been appeased, for now. But he knew, as he watched Tanishka sleep, that the path of vengeance was a dark and lonely one, and this red reckoning was only the beginning.
Arjun slipped back into the penthouse just as the first rays of dawn painted the Pune skyline. He walked softly, slipping out of the crude red suit in his workshop, the polyester undamaged, immaculate despite its gruesome history. He sealed it away, a tool waiting for its next use. He showered, washing away the phantom feel of blood and impact, though the coldness lingered deep inside.
He emerged into the main living area just as Tanishka was waking up. She sat up in bed, blinking in the morning light, and gave him a soft, sleepy smile that momentarily pushed back the shadows in his soul.
"You're up early," she murmured, her voice still husky with sleep.
"Couldn't sleep," he replied, forcing a smile back. "Just enjoying the sunrise." He walked over and sat on the edge of her bed, taking her hand. Her touch was warm, real, grounding. "How are you feeling today?"
"Better," she said, squeezing his hand. "Stronger. Maybe today we can try walking down to that little garden cafe?"
"Maybe," he agreed, his heart aching with a mixture of love and guilt. How could he reconcile the tenderness he felt for her with the brutal efficiency he had unleashed just hours before?
The days that followed were a study in compartmentalization. With Tanishka, Arjun was patient, loving, attentive. He helped her with her continued physiotherapy, celebrated her regaining fragments of memory, and planned quiet outings to help her reconnect with the world. She was the silver lining, echoing of the beacon, of the man he'd been, the man he wished to be for her.
But outside of her, the blackness perpetually loomed. At Sanjeevani BioTech, he was frostier, more merciless than ever. He pushed his teams mercilessly, his decisions steely and merciless. Pritam dealt with the aftermath, calming frayed nerves, coping with the gossip about Mr. Shetty's escalating intensity.
Munna reported back discreetly. "Farmhouse is clean, Boss. Police found the bodies. Like you said, they're calling it a gang hit, rivals settling scores. No leads, no witnesses, nothing points anywhere near us. Agrawal is spooked, though. Gone completely off the grid, surrounded himself with heavy security."
"Let him hide," Arjun said, his voice flat. "Fear is its own prison." He felt no satisfaction, only a cold emptiness where the rage had been. The action was over, the revenge taken, but it hadn't healed anything. It had only stained him deeper.
One evening, Tanishka was looking through old photo albums, trying to piece together the lost decade. She came across pictures of Arjun from just after the accident – gaunt, haunted, missing limbs. Then photos from after his "miraculous recovery" – whole again, but with a new hardness in his eyes.
She looked up at him, sitting across the room, reading a business report, his face calm and controlled. But she observed the strain in his shoulders, the manner in which his eyes ceaselessly surveyed his environment, even here, within the sanctuary of their residence.
"Arjun," she said softly. He looked up. "That night... by the lake... you weren't just strong. You were... something else. You healed right in front of me." She paused, searching his face. Now, this power you possess… does it frighten you."
Her question lingered, plain, pointed, slicing through all his evasions.
Arjun gazed into the eyes of the wife he adored, the wife he battled legends and beasts for. He read the affection in her eyes but also the profound, probing concern. He gave his mouth to offer another effortless reassurance, another soothing lie.
But the words wouldn't come. Because the truth was, yes. It terrified him.
The chapter closes with Arjun stumped, the silence between them echoing, Tanishka's query exposing the fracture not only in his life, but in his essence. The scarlet stain was spreading.
[To be continued…]
Support me: vanshbosssrahate@oksbi (UPI ID)
Author: Vansh Rahate
Editor: Vansh Rahate
Story by: Vansh Rahate
Under: Alaukika Studios