God of War - Karmic Cycle [AU]

A/N: Please leave a review. It really helps boost my work.

___

The village was silent, utterly barren. The birds that once sang and filled the air with merriment had vanished, leaving behind an eerie quiet. Dust motes danced in the shafts of pale sunlight that filtered through the barred windows of the temple. Even the wind had grown dreary, barely stirring the sagging leaves of the trees that surrounded and dotted the deserted village streets. The only sound was the occasional creak of the agape wooden doors of the abandoned homes that once housed lively families.

The natural paint peeled from the mud houses like sunburnt skin, revealing the grey, weathered mud bricks beneath. A string of fresh marigold garlands hung limply across the entrance to the temple, but even their once vibrant colours had become bleached by the relentless sun.

A faint hum of words reverberated within the temple, spilling out of its weathered doors and contrasting sharply with the eerie quiet of the abandoned village. Inside, the air was thick with the scent of sandalwood incense and the earthy aroma of dried cow dung. A man sat cross-legged before the idol of Durga, his lips moving in a muted prayer. The goddess, adorned with a garland of fresh marigolds, sat atop a stone pedestal. Her painted, yet lively eyes gazed out at the desolate landscape beyond the temple walls.

This was the only part of the village that still carried life. And the man who remained last while his village had left, was the caretaker of the hallowed building - the priest. His head was clean-shaven except for a medium-length of hair tied into a thin braid. His forehead was plastered with ash with a thin line of crimson cutting through it. His eyes were closed, a spiritual calm washing over him.

But the serenity of the moment was about to be shattered as the hurried sounds of a person approaching could be heard. As it grew closer, the temple floor vibrated faintly. Within seconds, the doors were swung open in earnest and a young man, breathless and dishevelled, stumbled into the temple.

This was a teen, a lot younger than the middle-aged priest, but carried the same thin braided strand, clean-shaven head, and ashen forehead with the crimson bisecting line.

"The King's messengers have spoken, Guruji. We need to evacuate now!" The boy pleaded as he slid into a kneeling position behind his master. His eyes darted between the idol of his Goddess and his master's back until instinct took in and he let out a quick succession of prose in Sanskrit to greet the Goddess.

"This temple has been under the care of my family for generations. I cannot abandon it," the priest responded, interjecting his prayers but without turning to face his disciple. "You should follow the rest of the villagers."

The teen clenched his palms into a tight fist before letting out a quivering breath to calm himself. Then, he responded methodically, "Wherever the Goddess lives the temple will follow. And the Goddess lives where her followers reside."

At that moment, the priest turned to face his disciple and gently patted the boy's shoulder.

"I don't think we have time to debate semantics, my dear disciple," he said with a bitter chuckle. "This temple has stood in this village for centuries before me and was wardened by my ancestors. I will die before abandoning it."

"You should go," he added with a resolute expression. "You aren't beholden to this directive like I am-"

"How can you ask me to abandon you!" The boy bellowed with tears streaking down his face and his eyes burning red with rage and sorrow. "What would they call a disciple who abandons his Guru at their time of need?"

"I cannot ask you to perish with me either. It isn't just!" The priest argued in response.

The boy dried his face with the sleeves of his kurta and said, "We either perish together or not at all! That is final!"

The priest sucked in a sharp breath of air before standing up and reprimanding the boy, "Do not be so stubborn, child! You need to leave now."

He tried to pry the boy from his place but he was stubborn. The kid in turn hugged the priest's leg in a vice grip and refused to let go.

"Oh Goddess protect me, give this child some sense!" The priest expressed exhaustion after failing to extricate his disciple from his legs.

He threw his arms into the air in defeat and declared, "Fine! Have it your way."

Cautiously, the boy let go of his master and slunk back into a meditative state with his legs crossed. The duo descended into a harmonious exhortation towards the Goddess for protection, support and salvation, letting the world blend away.

Belief was what drove mortals forward. The belief was that there was a higher power out there listening to them and willing to assist them when things escaped beyond their control. The priest believed. The boy, though, was still sceptical towards the Goddess' powers. But he believed his master, and that was what kept him from leaving.

Minutes flowed like the endless currents of the river until a faint rumble caught their attention.

This was it.

Although they hadn't personally witnessed the so-called "Tidal Wave of Blood" that had annihilated kingdoms and even defeated the armies of heavens twice, leaving none alive, the explicit stories of the slaughter had inevitably made its way into the village. And from what the two had heard, what awaited them wasn't a pleasant end.

The priest was more schooled in his expression, able to suppress the fear that was practically causing his entire body to vibrate. The kid, however, wasn't. His teeth chattered in trepid harmony with the rumbling of the ground. His body became increasingly drenched in sweat.

The rumbling grew louder and closer. The ground vibrated beneath their feet. Louder. Closer. The boy whimpered, his eyes wide with terror.

Then, silence. A heartbeat.

The temple doors burst open. A monstrous shadow engulfed them, contorting and swaying in the flickering light.

"AAAAAAAAAHHHH!" The boy's shriek echoed through the temple. He scrambled backwards, his limbs flailing, until he collided with the wall, curling into a fetal position.

The priest's breath hitched in his throat. He shielded his eyes against the sudden glare from the sunlight, his heart pounding in his chest.

"Eh? Ah! Punditji, you're here! Good!" A booming voice echoed. (Punditji is a respectful way of calling a priest)

"Mohan?" the priest called back, recognizing the familiar individual at the entryway. This was the buffalo-herder of the village, a man whose bulk filled the doorway. Despite his size, Mohan was known for his simple-mindedness and harmlessness, a consequence of being kicked in the head by a buffalo as a child. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you have evacuated with the rest of the villagers?"

"Umm... We did," Mohan bumbled, his voice echoing in the temple. "But we saw something... I think you should come see this." With that, he turned and lumbered away, his footsteps pounding the earth as he hurried back towards the village.

The priest slowly stood up, his joints creaking, and nudged his disciple. "Come, child," he said, his voice firm despite the tremor in his hands. The boy, still pale and trembling, unfolded himself from his fetal position and followed the priest out of the temple.

Outside, the entire village was gathered, their faces etched with fear and uncertainty. The village chief, a wiry man with a weathered face and a long, grey beard, approached the priest and bowed deeply. "Punditji," he said, his voice heavy with worry, "the convoy was just leaving. But the Rakshasa... they reached the farms, blocking our path. We were certain of our demise, but then..." He paused, his eyes darting towards the horizon. "Something caught their attention. They all turned and ran towards the river. Our fastest runners followed, and..."

"What is it?!" the priest urged, unable to bear the suspense. The village chief scratched his head under his turban. "I think you need to see this for yourself, Punditji. I am not sure what to make of it."

The group turned and moved as one towards the farmlands, a sea of anxious faces heading towards the distant plumes of dust rising from the fields. The farmlands were a good half-hour's walk from the village, bordering the wide expanse of the Ganga. As they traversed the parched land, the sounds of battle grew louder and carried on the wind. The maddening screeches of the Rakshasa echoed across the plains, punctuated by the grunts and yells of a lone man fighting for his life.

The priest squinted, trying to make out the figures in the distance. The villagers, a tight knot of fear and anticipation, followed closely behind him. They were still a fair distance away, but the sight that awaited them was already beginning to take shape against the horizon.

Once they approached a distance that was sufficiently close to observe the situation, they were shocked to witness the sight before them. The sea of healthy beige wheat had been decimated and replaced with a morbid swatch of crimson. The river that was alive and blue was now a deathly velvet shade, causing even the healthy peat-brown soil to turn darker.

But what shocked them even more was witnessing a lone warrior, coated in ash and blood, fighting against the horde by his lonesome. The priest was about to ask them what exactly was going on, but it was at that moment that the horde gained the advantage and started to tear into the stumbling man like ravenous beasts. The priest could barely hold back his shock and disgust before in front of his eyes, the man appeared again, whole and unharmed.

"What the-"

The fight reignited. With a familiar dance and exchange before the man was once again caught, disassembled and consumed. Only to revive anew.

"Incredible!" The priest's disciple exclaimed. "Guruji, who is this warrior?"

The priest had an idea, as his eyes were fixated on the axe the man was wielding. But the man's appearance did not overlap with the person who supposedly owned the weapon. This confounded the priest for a moment. But he quickly collected himself and instructed the villagers, "What are you people waiting for? Leave! The warrior is occupying the Rakshasa and is offering you the opportunity to evacuate safely."

The village chief flinched at the priest's sudden outburst.

"B-But..." he mumbled.

"What are you hesitating about? LEAVE!"

"But Guruji!" The boy cut in. His eyes glimmering with a type of fanaticism the priest had only read about from his great-grandfather's memoirs. This was the same emotion his ancestor evoked in his writing when talking about Durga, their ancestral deity. "It would be unjust to hang the warrior out to dry like this when he is putting his very life on the line for our safety!"

Noticing the villagers nodding their heads subconsciously, the priest furrowed his brows and whacked the boy at the back of his head. Then with a stern whisper, he said, "Do not get lost in your emotions. These people look towards us for guidance. We cannot lead them to their peril while being consumed in our emotions."

Then, he said out loud, "How exactly do you intend to support this brave warrior?"

This question quelled the swelling ambience as the villagers shook away their aberrant thoughts.

But it seemed that his stern warnings hadn't passed over to his disciple, as the boy slapped his fist against his open palm and shouted, "We must observe a Vira Puja for this warrior's victory!"

Having had enough, the priest grabbed the boy's ear and asked, "Do you even know what the purpose of this prayer is?"

"OW! O-Of course, Guruji-"

"Is it the right circumstance for this Puja?"

"W-Well-"

"Do you think prayers as inconsequential gibberish? To be spoken without thought and consequence? Is this how I have taught you, boy?" The priest scolded. But he could see that his words had little effect on the boy's enthusiasm.

He let go of the boy's earlobe and let out a worried sigh. He then turned to the villagers and repeated, "You need to evacuate now. We do not know how long this warrior can hold on for. The best course of action is for us to take advantage of this opportunity and create distance."

"W-Will you be coming with us, Punditji?" The chief asked. To which the man shook his head firmly, "My place is with my Goddess."

As he observed the villagers filing out in a hurry, he turned to his disciple and bit his lips in thought. After some contemplation, he placed a gentle palm on the boy's shoulder and said, "If you wish to do something for the warrior, an Agni Puja will suffice."

"T-Thank you, Guruji-"

"You will lead this prayer," the man declared before moving towards the well nearby and pulling out the loose mud bricks. As he formed the pit for the fire, the boy gulped loudly and said, "B-But Guruji, do you think I am ready?"

"You're as ready as you will ever be," the man responded. This was a big deal because being able to lead a Puja was the rite of passage for the disciple to graduate and become a full-fledged priest. "And truthfully, if this IS the end, I don't want this karmic tether to be retained."

"G-Guruji?" The boy stuttered sorrowfully.

"Don't get me wrong. I don't want to burden you in your next life by becoming my disciple again. Find someone better," he assuaged with a warm smile.

"You are my Guru in this life and in every subsequent life no matter what I am reborn as!" The boy declared resolutely.

"Enough talk, run back to the temple and collect the items needed, I will prepare the pyre in the meantime," the priest instructed.

Once the boy was out of sight, the priest looked back at the war raging before him and hardened his expression.

"Win." He said.

The warrior had to win.

___

Rakhtabhija couldn't process the situation. He was beginning to regret this confrontation with the tenacious human who simply refused to die! The irony wasn't lost on him; his match was someone with a power similar to his own – practical immortality.

The logical course of action was clear: disengage, regroup, and try alternative strategies. But retreat meant defeat, and Rakhtabhija refused to accept another loss. Not again. His pride wouldn't allow it. He would push forward, even if it meant slamming against a brick wall repeatedly.

He didn't understand the principle behind his opponent's immortality, but he assumed it was voluntary. So, he reasoned, all he had to do was outlast the human and tire him out. A classic war of attrition. He was certain it was achievable.

But as the hours bled into days, a gnawing doubt began to worm its way into his mind. The man showed no signs of fatigue. He just kept coming. Following each death, he returned with renewed vigour and the same burning glint in his eyes. Who was this man?

One day turned into two, and the assault continued relentlessly. Two turned into three. The once fertile farmland was now a churned-up wasteland, painted crimson with blood. The stench of death hung heavy in the air, thick and cloying. Three days bled into four, then into an entire week. But the man...just...kept...coming...back.

Rakhtabhija's mind was aching. There was a drawback to his endless resurrection. Each death assimilated the knowledge and experience gained from that life into his collective psyche. And each and every death that was accrued brought with it the pain of the cause of said death. At this point, he'd even lost count of how many of his forms had been slain. But the growing buzz in his mental space was sufficient to conclude that it was taking a toll on him.

Doubt warred with his pride. Was this truly a battle he could win? Or was his ego blinding him to a grim reality?

___

What was Kratos doing? What was the point in all of this? His body moved with familiarity, dodging, weaving, attacking. It was a dance he'd practised for years, a dance that had become a macabre muscle memory.

What was he gaining from confronting this monster so doggedly? He knew, by now, that there was no way to defeat it without stopping its blood from hitting the ground. He lacked the resources. The correct course of action would be to disengage, regroup, and find another strategy. But Kratos didn't want to. He would take that approach if he wanted to kill the beast. But he didn't care. He didn't care if the monster died. He didn't care if he died.

He was doing what he was born to do. Fight. Kill. Die. Again. And again.

Kratos realized, with a chilling clarity, the strange comfort Sisyphus might have found in his endless struggle. Just one job. A job that was also his punishment. A punishment that required no thought. No need to eat, sleep, or drink. Just keep pushing the boulder up, up, up. This monster was his boulder. He could see the burning ego in its gaze, and he just knew that the creature wouldn't relent.

This was, in effect, an endless fight.

A hell of his own design.

His torture chamber.

His damnation.

His comeuppance.

"Who are you to decide that?"

The voice echoed in his mindscape, pulling him away from the battle. He found himself dissociated from his body, floating in a shallow pool of water.

"How convenient, isn't it, Spartan?"

Kratos looked around, into the consuming shadows. A figure emerged.

"Athena!" he growled, his voice rough with disuse and despair.

"How astute," the Goddess mocked. The smug figure of the Greek Goddess of Knowledge and Warfare stepped out of the shadows, her feet gliding over the water without a ripple. Her presence brought a wave of nausea and self-loathing crashing over him. 

"Do you really think that this is sufficient to atone for the atrocities you've committed?" She challenged.

The water around Kratos started to churn, reflecting his rising anger. "This... this is my punishment," he spat.

Athena laughed with a cold and hollow twang that echoed in the emptiness. "This? This is nothing, Kratos. This is merely a playground for your guilt and a pathetic attempt to atone. Do you call this suffering? You haven't even begun to pay the price for your sins."

Kratos lunged forward, his hands reaching for Athena's throat. With overwhelming rage, he strangled the spectral form of the Goddess, who barely reacted, returning a chilling smile that caused him to flinch.

"You think you know suffering?" he roared, his voice cracking with emotion. "You think you know the depths of my pain?"

"Oh, Kratos," the woman said with mock sympathy. "Where do you think you are?"

The shadows and mist dissipated, the shallow waters evaporating. What remained was a scene Kratos barely remembered. The goddess's form dispersed, replaced by his wife, Calliope. Her eyes bulging red and wide with fear. A faint whisper of his name escaped her lips, followed by her final breath.

Her figure spontaneously incinerated and her ashes seared into his skin, causing an unbearable burning and itching sensation across every inch of his body. Kratos screamed while clawing at his flesh, trying to escape the agonizing pain.

"Now this!" The Goddess's voice boomed with malice. "This is suffering. This is punishment."

Kratos was forced to relive the murder of his wife and daughter, again and again. His body moved involuntarily, yet his consciousness remained agonizingly aware. He witnessed his daughter being impaled by the Blades of Chaos, her tears replaced with crimson streaks of blood as she was incinerated alive from within. He watched helplessly, as his wife slipped away slowly and painfully by his own hands. Each vision was more vivid than the last, the pain more excruciating, the horror more profound.

He was trapped in a loop of agony with his past sins replaying before his eyes in a hideous spectacle of death and despair.

This was his torture chamber.

His damnation.

His true comeuppance.

___

The man's movements had become mechanical and repetitive. While the man wasn't successful in his attempt to best Rakhtabhija, gone was the spark of innovation and unpredictability in his strategies that kept Rakhtabhija on edge and entertained. Now, it was just a monotonous cycle. The same attacks, executed in the same sequence, over and over again. The man moved with a dullness in his eyes. It was a distant look that implied that while he was here physically, his mental state was dissociated.

Rakhtabhija yearned to disengage. This fight had become a tedious dance and a pointless exercise in futility. But to disengage was to admit defeat, and that was unacceptable.

Again. His pride wouldn't allow it.

He was trapped in a stalemate, his opponent's stubborn persistence forced him to continue this farcical battle.

Rakhtabhija's frustration mounted.

How much longer could this go on? Something had to change, and soon.

___

The master and apprentice began the prayer in earnest. With the village deserted, there was no shortage of offerings to Agni – ghee, fragrant sandalwood, dried herbs, and fruits hastily left behind. The master moved methodically, selecting each item with reverence, while the disciple began to chant the ancient Sanskrit verses, his voice clear and resonant even in the open farm fields that were already filled with the cacophonic sounds of the battle raging ahead.

The fire pit crackled as the flames caught, fueled by the purest ghee. They danced and flickered, casting an ethereal glow with their intensity mirroring the growing fervour of the ritual.

The priest watched his disciple closely. The boy had entered a state of complete absorption. His movements were fluid and precise as he performed the mudras - the ritual gestures - and offered each item to the flames. The Sanskrit words flowed from his lips with precise pronunciation and perfect pacing, punctuated properly.

A wave of pride washed over the priest, followed by a pang of unease. This state of complete concentration, of utter immersion in the divine, was not easily achieved. Learned scholars, renowned ascetics, men who had dedicated their lives to spiritual pursuits – many had strived for this state and failed. Yet, this boy, barely a man, had attained it with such apparent ease.

But the priest knew that this was a false assumption. It was no easy feat to achieve something like that, especially in such a tense environment.

Then, it struck him. Passion. That was the key. The boy possessed a burning passion, an unwavering faith in the power of the unknown warrior he prayed to. It was this passion that fueled his devotion, allowing him to transcend the limitations of his mind and achieve a state of pure communion with the divine.

The priest felt a twinge of regret. He had always been a devout man dedicated to his duties, but had he truly been passionate? Had he approached his worship of his Goddess with the same fervour and the same unwavering belief as the boy? Perhaps if he had, he too would have attained this state of spiritual transcendence.

Meanwhile, the boy remained oblivious to the conflict brewing within his master's mind, as well as the battle raging between the Rakshasa and the warrior. His focus was solely on the internal conflict between the involuntary processes sustaining his body and his conscious mind, which was wholly immersed in the mantras.

What separates animals and mortals from the transcended is a simple equation. Was it the mind or the body that reigned supreme? For animals, the body reigned supreme, as their mind was beholden to the needs and wants of the body.

Eating, sleeping, excreting - these were the mundane tethers that bound mortals to their physical existence and were the involuntary "wants" of the body that acted as distractions, hindering spiritual ascension. While for animals, the body supersedes the mind, most sentient mortals with the capacity for higher thinking face a constant struggle between their body and mind. The requirement for transcendence is realising that it is the mind that is superior to the body, and having complete independence from the concerns of those base necessities.

The boy wasn't necessarily an "animal", but he wasn't transcended either. As the day stretched into the next, the boy's body began to rebel. Hunger gnawed at his belly and his throat grew parched, turning his voice into a raspy whisper. He was tempted to give in, to succumb to the demands of his physical needs.

However, another primal instinct, one that transcended mortality itself, spurred him onward - the fear of death. He knew that if his prayer faltered and the warrior fell, his own demise would be inevitable and brutal. He also knew that by suppressing his physical needs, he increased the warrior's chances of victory. The potential consequence – incapacitation, perhaps even a prolonged illness. That paled in comparison to the certainty of death.

Faced with the choice between inevitable death and the possibility of survival, albeit through suffering, the answer was clear. He would endure.

Days turned into weeks. But the boy did not halt in his prayers. His voice had more or less disappeared, but his lips moved and the words still left him.

His body grew emaciated, concerning his Master to no end. But both knew that having reached this far into the prayers, there was no point in stopping. And so, as the master swallowed his discomfort while watching his beloved disciple growing wearier by the day. And the disciple bit through the pain as his body screamed in agony.

It was at the end of the second week, that the boy knew he'd reached his limit. His eyes no longer opened. His body had quite literally eaten away all of his muscle and fat. He looked like he'd aged decades within the span of fourteen days.

The priest could take it no more. The war between monster and man looked like it could go on for aeons. This wasn't a fight for mortals to interfere in.

Right as he was about to catch his disciple and drag him to safety, the ground rumbled.

___

Kratos was trapped in a Sisyphean loop, an endless cycle of torment that chipped away at his soul with each repetition. He had lost count of the times he'd murdered his wife and daughter. Each death was a fresh wound on his already scarred psyche. The initial agony had dulled into a numb despair, then a chilling apathy.

Nothing mattered. Not the screams of his wife, not the terror in his daughter's eyes, not even his own existence. He was a puppet, forced to reenact his greatest sins for an unseen audience, his will shackled, his spirit broken.

The visions blurred into a grotesque montage of blood and suffering. Calliope's pleading eyes, Calliope's lifeless body, over and over and over. He was no longer a participant. He was merely an observer, detached and indifferent to the horrors unfolding before him.

What was the point of resistance? What was the point of anything?

Kratos drifted through the endless cycle as his mind grew numb. His emotions faded into a void of nothingness. He was a ghost, haunting the ruins of his own life as a prisoner in his own mind.

... his own mind ...

'I cannot help you if you don't want it,' Kratos remembered.

"I-I do want forgiveness. I want to atone!" he bellowed, the sound of his own voice a jarring intrusion in the silent torment.

He had been going about it all wrong. His whole life, destruction had been his only solution, his default response to every problem. But now, he saw the truth. Destruction wasn't a solution; it was the cause.

Endless, brutal self-punishment wasn't the answer. He was walking down the same path of destruction, merely redirecting it inward.

This was wrong!

"I am not a puppet!" Kratos roared, defiance surging through him. He wrestled against the ingrained patterns of his mind, against the compulsion to repeat the cycle of violence. And with great effort, he forced his hands to release his wife, breaking the chain of torment.

The Blades of Chaos materialized in his hands and its chains seared his flesh like molten fire. But this time, he resisted. With a guttural cry, he forcefully kept his hands from acting against his daughter.

The void that he was in rumbled as his boundless rage and will resonated all over the place. The last thing Kratos saw before he was ejected from this void, was the faint smile of his daughter and wife. But it was also at this point that he lost his consciousness to his rage.

___

The ground shook violently, forcing Rakhtabhija to stumble and interrupt his attack. A wave of crimson energy exploded outwards from the man, and a guttural roar tore from his throat. The very earth seemed to tremble in response, dust and stones swirling around him in a chaotic dance.

The roar subsided, but the tremors intensified as the ground rippled and buckled with increasing ferocity. Rakhtabhija's massive form swayed precariously, and he lost his footing and crashed to the ground. At that moment, a gaping fissure ripped through the earth centred on the man. Molten lava surged from the chasm and painted the battlefield in a fiery glow.

Two chains, glowing with an infernal heat, erupted from the fissure. Their movements were swift and predatory. They lashed out like living things, sinking their fangs into the man's forearms and coiling around his flesh with terrifying speed.

The chains pulsed with molten fury as they pulled more lava from the depths. And as the fiery torrent surged, it revealed the weapons bound to the chains' ends - two wicked blades whose edges gleamed with a malevolent light.

Rakhtabhija's blood ran cold. For the first time since his resurrection, he felt the fear of impending death.

If there was ever a better time to retreat, it would be now.