May 16, 4021 08:00 [Matriarch 07- Boy’s Dormitory]

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! The autonomous alarm clock woke Indra from his slumber, blaring in his ears. I hate this sound. Resigning himself to face the day ahead, he slowly dragged himself out of bed, rubbing the sleep from his encrusted eyes. He checked a small tablet on his nightstand, a HoloPad logo engraved on the back. He had received a couple of messages from the previous night, mostly from Akula and the others welcoming him back. However, two messages caught Indra’s eye. One from Dr. Ouma reading: “Thanks for dinner and drinks last night. I had a great time ;). Come see me after lunch, I’ll show you something interesting.” Indra wondered if it had something to do with the presentation that she had been working on.

Looking at the other message that had piqued his interest, his heart sank; this one was from Jìguāng: “Welcome back to the world of the living. If you’re well enough to walk then meet me in my office immediately after breakfast. There are some things we need to discuss regarding recent developments.”

Indra exhaled deeply, almost deflating. Here it comes, he thought. Jìguāng is not going to be happy. Better get it over with. He grabbed his shower kit and a change of clothes and headed to the shower room. As he trudged down the corridors, lost in thought, ruminating over how things would play out with Jìguāng, a tall wispy haired man standing in the hallway called out to him.

“Hey! Indra! You hear me?! Oy! Shit-head! Turn around!”

“Oh, Akula. Sorry, I didn’t see you there,” Indra replied, still half-asleep.

“Damn right, you should be sorry,” grinned Akula. “Look,” he pointed to a crumpled flier he was holding, waving it up and down in excitement.

“I don’t get it. A flier? Don’t they usually just use those to advertise recreational clubs?” Indra asked, confused.

“Read it,” Akula replied, still grinning.

Indra took the crumpled flier from Akula’s outstretched hand before unfurling it and skimming through its contents. His eyes stopped moving, fixated on a single phrase typed in fine print: CITIZENSHIP LICENSURE EXAMS HAVE BEEN APPROVED FOR HOMUNCULUS SOLDIERS OF MATRIARCH 07. AN ANNOUNCEMENT WILL BE MADE RELAYING FURTHER DETAIL IN REGARDS TO EXAM CONTENT, TESTING AREAS, DEADLINES, AND ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS AT 10:00 05/16/21 IN THE AMPHITHEATER.

“Citizenship exams?! I thought plans for our citizenship were on indefinite hiatus. What made them change their minds?” Indra asked, puzzled, yet elated by the news.

“Not sure, but this is one helluva one-eighty, if you ask me.”

“Ouma always talked about Homunculi integration into the general populace. But I never thought that Lunar Gate would consider it a viable option. If we become citizens we can enter cities and civilian settlements within Yuèliàng without the need for special jurisdiction.” Indra, now fully awake, looked at Akula with a gleam in his eyes. “Do you know what this means?”

Akula wracked his brain. “We can live amongst civilians? Maybe even live a quiet life in the city instead of being mercenaries for Lunar Gate?”

Indra nodded. “We can use the money we’ve earned so far to purchase property in the city. We can find jobs and earn a living wage as regular citizens. Think of all the things we never got to do in Matriarch 07; cafes, restaurants, movie theaters, theme parks, public parks, shopping malls, and we’d all be able to live together without worrying about putting our lives in danger,” he said jubilantly.

“It sounds great, but are you sure we’d fit in? I mean we aren’t exactly accustomed to the life of a civilian and things here are state-of-the-art in terms of infrastructure, food, healthcare, and recreation. We also have about ten years at most before we die. Is it really worth uprooting our lives just to live in the city? Nothing’ll get handed to us or be as easily accessible if we quit. I’m with you on getting our citizenship but I don’t think it's necessarily a good idea to leave Lunar Gate, especially for Homunculi,” Akula explained.

“When did you get so wise about the job market? I thought there were plenty of jobs available?” questioned Indra.

Akula clicked his tongue, waggling his finger in disapproval. “Tsk, tsk, tsk, you just don’t understand the current economy. We’re in the middle of an industrial revolution, a majority of the jobs being produced are blue-collar work, paying a paltry sum, demanding excessive amounts of labor, and there's little in the way of worker safety. Infrastructure is at the core of this country's mindset right now. What are few casualties in the face of progress?” Akula stated tritely. “Anyways, why am I the voice of reason? You’re usually so logical about these things. The only time you’re this impetuous about things is when…” Akula trailed off, a devious grin spread across his face.

“Wait, whatever you’re thinking—”

“—BAHAHAHA!” Akula laughed, holding his stomach. “Ouma lives in the city, doesn’t she? So we would all be living close by?” Akula teased. “Nehehehe! Don’t worry about it! My lips are sealed!” he said, making a zipping motion over his mouth while patting Indra on the back as he left.

Indra felt like punching Akula. Beet-red, he made his way to the showers to clear his mind.

Rushing through his shower, he checked his image one more time. A thick dark-red line ran over his ribs on the left side, the stitching had partially dissolved. Donning a monochrome sweatshirt to hide his tattoo and a pair of jeans, he slipped on his trainers and paced quickly to the Great Hall.

Reaching the Great Hall, Indra realized he didn’t have the stomach to guzzle anything down this particular morning. The anticipation of meeting with Jìguāng had his nerves on end, keeping his hunger at bay. Plating toast and a sunny-side egg along with some dark roast coffee, Indra sat by his lonesome in one of the single-seat cubicles of the Great Hall, scarfing down his meager breakfast so he could get over the trepidation of explaining to Jìguāng how he had failed him.

Indra went straight to the Officer’s Quarters where Jìguāng awaited him in his office. The door to the office was made of mahogany, a thick layer of lacquer kept the material glossy and an irritating eyesore every time it caught the light, shining blinding beams into Indra’s eyes. He knocked on the door twice, swift raps, and waited with bated breath, swaying back and forth anxiously on the balls of his toes. Heavy-set footsteps could be heard on the other side, clomping like those of a mare. The jostling of a brass lock and the click of an unlocked pad precluded a slow but silent turn of the door.

Standing behind the wooden door was a towering, gruff-looking man in his fifties. The throes of battle had made themselves apparent on his visage, grey hairs peppering his dark beard. His face was worn with age, a peaked cap embossed with a crescent moon rested atop his head. His left arm remained obscured under an emerald cloak that reached his calves, but Indra knew what lay beneath. In the absence of an arm taken by war, there was an expertly crafted prosthetic, so precise in its attachment to nerve endings that the final product resulted in a more responsive limb than any human arm could emulate. The man stared daggers at Indra with his left eye whilst his mechanical eye whizzed and whirred about, zooming in and out, gathering data from its surroundings. His icy cold stare crept deep into Indra’s chest, freezing his lungs, cold sweat accumulating on his brow. The man motioned for him to come inside, shutting the door quietly behind him, clomping heavily back to his desk made from the same wood and lacquer as the door. Both of the man’s legs were missing, replaced with prosthetics similar to his left arm and mechanical eye.

“Speak,” the man said in a gruff voice, now reclined in a leather chair seated behind the desk.

Standing erect, staring straight ahead, Indra began repeating the necessary formalities to address the Colonel.

“Cut the bullshit, Krodha,” Jìguāng grumbled, lighting a cigar he had pulled from a compartment in his desk.

Indra chose his words carefully. “You should have received a report detailing the events leading up to my hospitalization. Dr. Ouma should have forwarded it to you yesterday.”

“I know, I just wanted to hear the story from you,” Jìguāng said.

“My story should be the same as the report.”

“Really? So you saw nothing out of the ordinary?”

Indra pondered for a moment. There was something that was amiss.

“Right before I started running to the archive, Akula looked really ill. There was this thick miasma in the air that only we could sense,” Indra answered.

Jìguāng grunted and nodded gravely. He took a slow puff from the cigar, savoring the flavor of the tobacco. He made an ‘o’ with his lips, creating a perfect smoke ring.

“Vivian’s report says you woke up with a tattoo. Is that true?” Jìguāng asked.

Indra nodded.

“Show me your arm,” the Colonel replied.

Indra obliged, rolling up his sleeve to reveal his tattoo.

Jìguāng’s face contorted as if he had seen something unpleasant. “There’s no doubting my daughter’s intelligence, but she can be quite ignorant sometimes. That—” he pointed to Indra’s tattoo with his free hand. “—Is a contract. That’s no tattoo. That’s not a common seal either. There was a phrase passed down by the survivors of Dvaita’s collapse; your people. They would call that mark ‘The Divine Blessing of the Devas’. It was under Chandra, the Cursed Celestial’s light that the Devas created the seal. Your people also had another name for it; they called it the ‘Final Blessing’ because after the Devas created this seal they disappeared, never to be seen again. In your soul resides unfathomable darkness; that seal keeps it at bay.”

“I don’t understand, where did this seal come from then? Who did I make a contract with?” Indra asked, a sense of uneasiness growing in the pit of his stomach.

Jìguāng took a long drag from his cigar. “The god Mitra oversaw all contracts, including those of the soul; all Spirit category Homunculi make binding contracts with their Familiars using his power. Though the god is long dead, his Shakti remains tethered to this world by contracts. Chandra, being the only remnant of the Devas left, acts as a witness to these contracts. Although how much of his spirit is left in this world, I can’t be certain. Contracts are equivalent; both parties have to offer something that the other party considers equivalent to their contribution. I can only ascertain that you may have wagered some aspect of your soul and mind in this exchange.” Jìguāng took another drag. “The Divine Blessing hasn’t been seen in seven thousand years,” he said, raising a finger. “This seal existed for a single purpose: to lock away a darkness so destructive that the Old Devas imbued the seal with their own souls.”

“What does this mean?” Indra asked, drained of all color in his skin.

“You’ve made a contract with a God Slayer, Indra… A Siren.”

Indra shuddered. “I...thought… the Sirens were all killed by the Devas,” he said weakly.

“Sealed, never killed. The gods couldn’t do anything to stop them,” Jìguāng replied bluntly. “No one can know about this.” He looked at Indra. “If this information gets into the wrong hands there will be severe consequences. Do you understand me?”

Indra nodded. He felt like a stone had been placed in his stomach, weighing him down.

“Good,” said Jìguāng with an air of finality. “For now, lay low until we can figure out how to approach this situation,” he ordered.

“Colonel, how do you know all this?” Indra asked quietly.

Jìguāng looked out of his window with tired eyes. “I discovered how the Devas ended the war in Uturia. The seal that was used to trap the Sirens was created from their souls. It was the only way to defeat them. There are those who would seek to free the God Slayers once more to use their powers and to do so would mean breaking the seal in Uturia. In order to prevent that, I destroyed all my research on the Divine Blessing. No one, not even my daughter, knows about this. For now, we will have to keep quiet about your contract. I’d advise you to refrain from showing your arm to any more people than you already have. Lest you get attention from unwanted eyes. I’m counting on you, Indra.”