Saksham left the house in a hurry so that he can meet Anitha on the way. And as if the gods heard his prayer, he turned around a corner and he saw Anitha walking not far ahead. He hurriedly walked to catch up to her. Just when he was about to call her name, Saksham stopped and thought about scaring her. So, he sneakily came behind her and suddenly shouted, "BOO!"
Anitha turned around calmly and looked at Saksham with a puzzled gaze. There was no shred of surprise of shock in her eyes. Looking at the depressed figure of Saksham, Anitha smiled and said, "Morning, Saksham! And there is a spider on your shoulder."
As soon as Saksham heard there was a Spider on his shoulder in fright, he jumped and immediately patted his shoulder 4 times before he heard Anitha giggling like a little girl. He looked at Anitha and fell into a trance. He saw Anitha's eyes turned crescent as a moon, and her two lovely dimples on her cheeks were mesmerizing. Her laugh was like ringing of chimes, soothing and breathtaking. Hearing the mischievous giggling, Saksham came out of his trance and understood that he was fooled. Only Anitha knew that he was scared of spiders and she took advantage of that and was successful in scaring him.
This made Saksham even more depressed. He didn't even get to scare her, but in turn, Anitha scared him. The more he thought about it, the more depressed he got. Anitha gave Saksham an amused look and asked, "Are you just going to stand here today or coming to school?"
Saksham replied without much care, "Yeah, yeah. Coming to school."
Then both started walking towards the school slowly. As they both were walking side by side, the back of their hands was brushing past each other occasionally. But each time their hands touched, the more itchy Saksham felt. After yesterday's episode, Saksham knew that Anitha also felt the same way as him. But they still stayed quiet and didn't talk about that. They both knew that it was not the right time yet.
So, Saksham just held himself back from holding Anitha's hand and kept on walking with a straight face. He suddenly said, "Anitha, can you give me your notes of Physics chapter 13?"
"Yeah, I can. Actually I had just finished making notes of that chapter yesterday. So, give me 1-2 days and I will write that down in another note-book and give you." Anitha said.
"No, don't. You don't actually have to do so much work. You should just give me the notebook and I will copy down the notes in a separate notebook myself in a few hours and return the notes on the same day. That way, it will be more time-saving."
"Alright. Tomorrow I will bring the notes and give them to you. And don't you dare draw anything crazy like last time on my notebook again. I got into a lot of trouble last time." Anitha warned.
Saksham suddenly coughed and pretended as if he didn't hear that. Once, he had asked Anitha for notes. Anitha also gave him the notes as she knew that Saksham had difficulty in that chapter. But when Saksham was reading those notes, he got bored halfway through. So, he started drawing on the last page of the notebook. He had forgotten that that was Anitha's notebook. He drew a woman with 3 hairs growing from her ears and a big mole on her right cheek. Then he drew 2 horns on the head and 2 fangs at the corner of her mouth. After drawing the whole portrait of his Chemistry teacher, Saksham was very satisfied. And then he started reading the notes again with a refreshed mind.
But after he returned the notebook back to Anitha, he forgot to mention about the drawing. During Chemistry class, the teacher asked for Anitha's notebook and accidentally saw the drawing at the last page. Looking at the ugly drawing of herself, the teacher wanted to stand up and scold the person who drew it. But when she looked that it was Anitha's notebook, she sat down again and said, "You have to work on your drawing Anitha. A normal human doesn't have a horn and fangs. Keep that in mind and draw a better portrait in the future."
And Anitha just looked at the teacher with a puzzled look. She had absolutely no clue why the teacher would say that. But she still said, "Understood, teacher."
________
Present
Saksham and Anitha reached school soon and made their way to their class. After sitting on his seat, Saksham realized that Ayush was absent today. But he didn't pay attention to it and started thinking about things about yesterday's fight. Last night, he once again saw that "to check the unusual activity and disturbance" in the description of Adhiraj. He was sent to check about that too. And including the people inside the weird van yesterday, Saksham realized that maybe the problem is bigger than expected.
"Why are there so many people sent to investigate that? Is it really that dangerous? And all those people were not far away from my home. So, if that is really dangerous that I have to destroy it before it can threaten my family." Saksham thought.
Saksham thought for a long time before he quietly whispered, "Who is the cause of this disturbance?"
A window popped up and said, "Are you sure you want to use 1 EP?"
Saksham pressed [Yes] and saw that another window popped up with only 1 word in it. And as he saw that word, Saksham suddenly stood up and almost shouted. The word on that window was "You". That means, that he was the main culprit everyone is trying to find? That [Soul Master] Adhiraj was also looking for him? But why? What did he do?
Saksham calmed himself down and sat down again on his seat. His expression was grave now. For some reason, so many people were looking for him. And that is not a good thing at all. He once again opened his mouth and said, "Why are so many people looking for me? And yeah, keep it short."
"Are you sure you want to use 1 EP?"
Saksham didn't hesitate to press [Yes]. He saw another window open up with the information he needed, "As the power you possess does not belong to any existing power systems, many countries and factions want to get their hands on you for research. If they can produce more people with the unknown Power system, they will be even more powerful."
Saksham saw this and realized that indeed, his powers were completely different from what the 3 power systems he knew. But now the question arises that how come these people knew of his powers? He whispered, "How did people become aware of my powers?"
"The way Exousia works is that when you want to do something, you consume EP and then within your domain, it changes some laws and does the thing you wanted to be done. Basically, you break the laws of this world to make your own and do the things you want. Like creating something out of nothing, gaining something you didn't have, and using the powers of nature, etc. All this is something no man should be able to do, but your power breaks the laws of the world and does all that. But in doing so, some energy dissipates into the air. Although it is very, very faint disturbance of energy, but with some coincidences, it was found by IOEA. And after repeatedly using your powers, they were able to lock onto the Indirapuram as the place where these energy signals were coming from. This news leaked, and now many countries have their eyes on India. Some also have their men dispatched to India too."
Reading all this, Saksham felt as if a bucket of ice water was poured on his head. His hands started sweating and he legs started to shake unconsciously.
"S-So, basically…all the time I have been using my ability, I have just been giving my position away to so many people?" Saksham asked.
"No. After the formation of this system, it ensures that there is no such "leakage' of energy to the surrounding air. You still break the laws of the world in your domain and do what you want but none of it will found by anyone."
As Saksham read this, he immediately felt relieved. So, those people only know that he is in Indirapuram but don't know the exact place. Indirapuram is quite big so unless he once again 'leaks' his address intentionally, no one should be able to find him.