Chapter 56 – Retreat
"Survival is not victory. It is surrender with teeth."
The gates of Ashtashram fell at dawn.
Not with an explosion.
Not with screams.
But with a single, hollow sound — the sound of doors opening from the inside.
The betrayal had been silent.
The consequences were not.
Rakshasa-Vira poured in, not in waves — but like a thought made flesh.
Twisted figures, some still wearing the faces of lost friends.
Others crawling on the walls.
One with a mouth on its chest, whispering names no one should remember.
Yash didn't speak.
He just moved.
Each blow he dealt distorted the air.
Each step cracked the floor.
But he was slowing down.
The wound from his earlier duel hadn't closed.
His Time form — unstable, wild — flickered around him like shattered glass.
And with every second he used it, something inside him slipped further.
Rishav shielded three children beneath a collapsed archway, his fire weak, trembling.
Mira dragged power cells from the lab, whispering code into a half-broken tablet.
Ankita held the line at the north wall, bleeding from the shoulder, laughing like a soldier who knew the war was lost but didn't care.
"If we die here," she shouted, "we make it cost them more than we ever earned."
Yash saw Khushi in the courtyard — frozen.
A Rakshasa beast stood over her.
But instead of moving, Yash blinked.
And time snapped.
He reappeared beside the beast — not as a blur, but as a wound in the air.
The creature shattered.
But so did something in him.
His knees buckled. He fell to one hand.
Khushi touched his shoulder, whispering:
"We don't need a god.
We need you.
Even broken."
And so the order was given.
"Retreat."
Not shouted. Not begged.
Yash simply said it.
And they listened.
Because sometimes, surrender isn't cowardice.
It's the only path left to fight another day.
Out of 94, only 28 survived.
They escaped through the sewer tunnels beneath Ashtashram, carrying wounded, ashes, weapons, and whispers of what was lost.
Above them, their home burned.
Not by fire — but by time breaking down.
The Rakshasa didn't chase.
They didn't need to.
They had already won the first battle.
But they had not won the war.