The storm broke over the mountains, lashing rain into Aadi's face as he climbed the slope. Every step felt heavier, as though the earth itself resisted him. At the summit stood a lone figure, broad-shouldered, an axe glinting faintly against the lightning-streaked sky.
His presence was like a wound in the world—raw, unhealed, eternal.
"Parashurama…" Aadi whispered, the name tasting like thunder.
The man turned. His eyes were a storm themselves—equal parts fire and sorrow. His beard was streaked with grey, his body marked by scars that no passage of time could erase. The great axe rested casually on his shoulder, yet it radiated menace.
"I know why you've come," Parashurama said, voice heavy with centuries. "You seek strength. You seek weapons. You seek the power to protect what you cannot hold."
Aadi braced himself, feeling both awe and unease. "If you can train me… if you can help me—"
Parashurama's laugh cut him off, bitter as iron. "Help? I was cursed to wander this world, to watch every age fall into ruin, to see kings rise and rot. I trained heroes—warriors, avatars—and all of them brought only more blood. Every weapon I gave became a seed of slaughter."
He stepped forward, his shadow vast under the storm. "Do you still want my gift?"
Aadi's chest tightened. The memory of Arul's broken body, the slaughter of tribes, the visions of Rahu's rise all clawed at him. "If it's the only way to protect—"
"Protect?" Parashurama roared, slamming the axe into the earth. The mountain shook, cracks ripping through stone. "That's what they all said! Rama, Bhishma, Karna, Drona—they all sought to 'protect' something. And in the end, their protection was death delivered with holy steel."
His face twisted with grief and fury. "I am cursed because I believed in weapons. I believed in strength. And the gods used me until my rage consumed everything I loved."
The storm raged harder, and Aadi felt the pull of two possible futures: one where Parashurama trained him to wield divine weapons, another where he rejected that path and became a fire unbound, raging against gods and demons alike.
Parashurama's voice lowered, deep and trembling. "So choose, boy. Learn from me, and take up the curse that never ends. Or turn from me, and walk into the jaws of chaos unarmed."
Aadi met his gaze, heart hammering. He saw not just a warrior but a mirror of what he could become—a man broken by the very strength he sought.
The axe gleamed between them, humming with divine rage, waiting for his answer.