Part 2: Reduced to Ashes

He vaguely hears a woman crying helplessly. The sound of her trembling vocal cords is familiar...
The smell of burning wood rushes into his nose, and he hears a crackling sound beside his ears...
Shamane: ...!
Shamane: This again.
He sees flames ablaze, engulfing the house before him, black debris floating before his eyes.
He stands before the dilapidated house, shadows covering his face, a sense of suffocation like the day the fire started.
Shamane: I won't fall for this again. I will stand here and watch you burn to ashes.
Shamane: Ugh...
"What if this is real?" A voice whispers to him.
Shamane: ...
The same voice, to which he once sacrificed his left arm in a state of despair.
Thus Mor Pankh was spared, but the powerful Sharma was no more in this world.
"You can still make a choice..."
The wooden door in the house collapses, sparks splashing on his face, painful, scalding, then doused by tears.
Sweat streams down his dirty face and he clenches his fists.
"This may be the last chance, you know."
"You try to abandon it all. To forget everything and numb yourself with physical pain, but the meaningless questions still swirl endlessly in your head."
"But is it really meaningless?"

He used to look down on the family, disregarding his mission and wasting his outstanding talents.
A veritable Eden, where arcanists and humans could coexist without hierarchy. That should be the shared future worth pursuing.
...He had never wavered in this belief.
Shamane: Father...
The crippled man supports himself on the table, sits on the floor and leans against the wall.
The burning wood crashes down thunderously, shattering the table inches away. But the man is indifferent.
Kullu: Kapil, you d*s! This isn't what we agreed to. Look at this fire, it's reaching our house!
Kapil: I… I've no idea. Weren't we supposed to throw all the bottles out?...
Kullu: Dt, those guys didn't tell us any of this! Forget it, let's run!
They stand in front of the gate, as if watching a circus act gone wrong.
"These are your trusted human friends, good child." His father's voice echoed in his mind.
Shamane: ...
The guilt and grief have subsided over time.
Only the deep-rooted hatred remains.
He goes over and tries to support the old man on the ground, as he had done time and again in his nightmares.
Shamane's Father: We don't need you here.
Rejected once again. His father's dignity and grace didn't fade in his memory, even after his death.
Shamane's Father: You are no longer a Sharma... Take your hands off me.
Shamane: Father...
Shamane's Father: ... Your mother and I, the entire family have invested years in your education ...
Shamane's Father: Yet you have let us down ... You are in no position to make any decision for this family.
Before this, even when he was estranged from the clan, they never doubted him. Rather, they saw him as a wayward child.
Shamane's Father: You think our reluctance to interact with humans is just stubbornness.
Shamane's Father: You think we shut those humans out to cling to our land, intimidated, and afraid of losing this so-called dignity.
Shamane's Father: Pushya, human friendship has blinded you. Yet, we have tolerated your childish ignorance many times.
Shamane's Father: We always hoped you would turn back and understand it is not so simple—that this is not a rift you alone can mend...
He shakes his head, his last bit of strength spent.
His throat chokes up as he tries to utter those undelivered words.
Shamane: I ... I can give everything back to you, as long as everyone gets out of this place ...
"Slap!"
Shamane's Father: Out!
"Hiss."
Without looking up, a broken beam falls across his eyes.
Blood flows on the ground, mirroring the recurring scene from the nightmares that have haunted him since that day.

The hall becomes a sea of flames, and in the crackling and sputtering elegy of the fire, he hears a woman's prayer.
Her voice is terribly familiar, reminding you of the lullabies that accompanied you through every punished night of your childhood.
Kicking open the locked door, he sees the servants lying on the ground.
Shamane: Come, mama. I can carry you out...
Shamane's Mother: "The white elephant will look after your soul, and place you on a bed of warmth, where you shall attain eternal serenity."
She clasps the servant's hand, granting him final peace.
Shamane's Mother: Bhagat finds the arsonists in the backyard and vows to stop them.
Shamane's Mother: But they came prepared —those Molotov cocktails and weapons are not the likes you've seen before. It must be that group's bidding... These are things humans can't normally access.
Shamane: Who are they?! Mother, tell me...
Mother closes her eyes, shaking her head.
Blood keeps gushing from the servant's neck.
Shamane's Mother: ...Bhagat always told me that this is not your fault.
Shamane's Mother: I said I understand. I know that you've always been a good child.
Her frail pale hands are drenched in blood.
Shamane: Sorry, I'm sorry. I... I didn't know they would do this. There wasn't any... They never told me...
But his mother speaks no more. No matter how he tries, her body remains still.
He looks around for ways to extinguish the flames. Turning back, a figure stands in the courtyard.
He strides over in disbelief, stumbling.

The burning sacred fig tree, the collapsing houses... She watches it all with delight, as if enjoying it.
Shamane: Sis... Sister?
Shamane: Why are you here?
Kumar: Oh, now you see me as your sister ... And calling me like you had always known.
Kumar: I remember you were—this tall.
Kumar: She casually gestures around her thigh.
Shamane: ...What?
Kumar: The day the manor gates closed before my eyes.
Kumar: Hmm...was this sacred fig tree so tall before?
Kumar: ...As for why I'm here, you should know best.
Shamane: ...!
Kumar: You know I had nothing to do with this—but you think I'd enjoy it, so you let me into your head to watch...right?
Kumar: Hmm...well done. You do know me after all.
She caresses the charred bark, indifferent to it all.
Shamane: ...
Kumar: Don't look at me like that—they want you to save them. I'm just an insignificant...arcanist wielding shoddy skills.
As the words leave her lips, flames erupt once more, consuming the last pillar of the manor.
Shamane: ...!?

"You've come again."
Nothingness, shrouded in a veil of mist, a pure and unblemished white space.
Shamane: Where am I?
"That's unimportant."
Shamane: You dragged me into a nightmare again?
"Your soul always longs to return."
A white elephant emerges from the mist, standing before him, solemn and dignified.
Shamane: It's you...!!
Shamane: What else will you take besides my arm?
Shamane: Come take it! Besides this body, I have nothing left to give you.
"..."
Its figure slowly fades away.
...
...