Author's Notes:

[Edited: 31/03/2018]

Ajay lay in a pool of his own blood, the dirt caking his wounds. Bullet wounds to be precise, but who would want to shoot him now that all of his enemies were vanquished by him? Paul? Noore? Yuma?... Pagan? They were all dead! He had killed most of them or left them for dead. The Royal army and Elite guards had routed after the death of their leaders, without so much as a thought for revenge.

So why? Why was he staring down the barrels of rifles pointed at him by none other than the very people he fought alongside, fought for with his every muscle? His mind was preoccupied with the pain from the inch-wide holes in his torso which he held to keep blood from flowing.

The Golden Path guerilla fighters parted to make way for their leader. Ajay stared in shock and disbelief at the one who orchestrated all of this. Sabal stood looming over him with a look of disdain, an expression he had never used on him personally. The one who called him brother at every opportunity, shared laughs and drinks with.

"It has come to this Ajay Ghale. You have helped us liberate Kyrat from the tyrant, freed its people from the influences of foreign dogs, restored out hope…"

After everything he had done for him, supported his decisions during their arguments, protected throughout the campaign, even killed Amita just so he could have full power over the Golden-Path. When he forced Bhadra to take up the role of Tarun Matara, even though he objected he still respected their decision.

"But-... The best heroes truly are the dead ones." Sabal said as he drew his holstered sidearm.

"Goodbye, and thank you for being such a useful pawn. We'll always remember Ajay Ghale for his noble sacrifice! Sent Amita my regards." Sabal told him in a mocking tone to which his companions laughed.

A flash from the gun severed Ajay's life string and he collapsed back in the puddle of his blood, not dead but at death's door. Sabal and the Golden Path soldiers couldn't be bothered to finish him off properly and left him to die a slow and painful death all the while laughing triumphantly as they exited the homestead which Ajay lived in for the last four months.

The cold was taking over his body and numbing the pain from the shots but his strength was completely absent.

"Is this how I…..die?" He had single-handedly beaten Pagan's forces back by himself, liberated fortresses, saved lives. And this is how they repay him?! After all he had done for the Golden Path, only to be betrayed?

Resentment brew in him, not just for these people but for himself as well. He was naive enough to give in to them even as their reliance on him and audacity of what they asked was too great they wouldn't even dirty their own hands.

-…..Damn them all! Damn you Sabal! Damn you Golden Path!...Damn you Kyrat!...-

His vision blurred and the world was getting smaller, he felt so tired he could fall into an eternal sleep.

-So it's time huh? In the end I never achieved anything, back in the States and down here. To just leave like this without feeling any sense of self-satisfaction is just-…..just too cruel!–

Tears of anguish fell from his eyes and trickled down onto the soft ground. His strength was now gone. But if there was one thing he had done it was deliver his mother, Ishwari's ashes to Lakshmana

-Oh well. I hope my next life would be better. –

Ajay's eyes closed fully. The windows to his world closed, the last thing he saw was the strange wheel icon he had picked up from one of the hidden temples that had fallen out of his pocket.

Kalachakra. The wheel of time, the old monk told him.

-Hmph! How ironic… - His last thought dwindled and his consciousness left his body.

Ajay Ghale had died.

…..

…..

Ajay's eyes opened, to find his view obscured by something. There was light passing through it in several places but there was light nonetheless. His consciousness returned to him, it felt like he woke up from a horrible nightmare. Ajay sighed in relief, so it was just a terrible dream he thought.

-What time is it? I'd better get up. Argh! Huh?-

His hands refused to move. Not that they couldn't but something was preventing him from doing so.

-What the hell?!- He wriggled to get a better feel of himself, tied up was his conclusion. He was being tied up? Does that mean he had been taken prisoner? He squinted his eyes to get a better picture of what appeared to be a bag over his head. He was in a seated position.

"You give my congratulations to Ashley on your next visit home."

-Huh? That voice….!-

"Hahhh- I must say Paul, your little corner of Kyrati was rather beautiful! I expected more…. Chains and wailing- but knowing you somewhere around here is a dark place where the secrets flow like the blood…Ahahaha! That wry smile betrays you again, De Pleur." The voice chuckles.

-What the-! Hang on! Where have I heard this before?!- De ja vu?

"Well, go on! Take the bloody bag off his head!" A familiar voice demanded.

The obstruction was lifted off his head exposing him to the harsh sun light. He squeezed his eyes shut to block the light and adjusted by slowly opening them. Someone behind him who had probably been the one to lift the bag off had loosened the ropes around his hands giving back free reign over them.

He could make out a person sitting across him wearing a bright maroon colored leather jacket. As he focused his vision to make out behind the blurriness of his pupils a full definition picture of the person's face appeared before him.

It belonged to the last person that he had expected to see.

It belonged to Pagan!

"Again! Terribly sorry for what happened before!- This is more what I had in mind. So! Fresh start! Introductions.. Ajay Ghale our guest of honor! Paul, out…" Pagan continued with his intro which he had heard before.

-What in the world is happening?! Did I get caught while napping?! And what the hell is with his arrangement?! Is he trying to deny all that happened?!...Hang on!-

Ajay dug into his memory clearly. Pagan was dead! So then who was the person right in front of him?!

"Pagan?"

Ajay had interrupted him just as he was about to introduce himself.

Pagan was genuinely surprised. It was written all over his face. "You-…..You remember me, dear boy?"

"I-…am I dead?"

"Pffffttt!" Pagan burst out laughing at Ajay's straight up comment.

"No-NoNo! Heavens no! You're not going to die! Like I said this afternoon was a terrible misunderstanding. You are not going to die! Totally! It's all the golden paths fault for ruining this afternoon's pickup!" Pagan scorned them under his teeth.

"Uh- right!" Was all Ajay managed to say. His mind was still a mess.

"Where was I…..Ah!-" He took a seat back to his chair and picked up mother's urn. "Now your mother on the other hand she…..(Long Sniff)…. Understood me. She knew me in a way no one ever did….. that takes me back." He said while digging the ashes and eating it like it was KFC.

-Jesus! Why is everything like back then?... Don't tell me- …I…I went back in time?! – Ajay had finally made a relevant conclusion to his current situation.

"…That takes me back…. The last time I saw Ishwara was…woffhh- years ago…. She-."

"Told you see loved you….." Ajay completed his sentence just as he had said it long ago or at least when he first met him.

"Well yes! Isn't this surprising, I didn't think your mother would have told you this especially after what happened then." Pagan was getting all happily excited that Ajay had fragments of memories of him which pleased him greatly, he got up from his chair again and picked up his fork while walking towards Darpan.

Ajay noticed him and that was when the puzzle in his head was complete. He was definitely back four months ago. Darpan was where he was sitting right before he was tortured to death. Pagan was walking towards him to stab him in the back!

"Yes! I couldn't help but blame myself …..But then I realized… It's not meeee- no. It was the fucking Golden Path!" Pagan did as Ajay's had convicted to memory. Slamming him against the table and stabbing his back with the fork.

"Those fucking terrorist ruin everything…..Like dinner! Did anyone ever teach you its rude to text at the table?" Pagan slapped Darpan's hand incessantly to have him release his smartphone to Pagan as the latter proceeded to pick and read the text.

"Ah! I'm with Ajay Ghale….You'll love this part….Help!" He chuckled before dragging Darpan towards the balcony to force him to cry for help. The events were transpiring so quickly he hadn't had the time to react as Darpan was dragged away by the Royal Guards with Paul in tow. Probably to torture him to death. Pagan returned to the table to retrieve his cell before walking step by step backwards.

"Terrorists, right?...Now please ….stay right here- enjoy the Crab Rangoon….Don't move! I will be right back…Yuma we need to talk." He walked off while talking to Yuma.

Ajay was finally alone in the dining area of what was De Pleur's compound. He had all the time to himself to think about what was happening.

"I-…..I died…..no. I definitely died! Darpan is still here, Paul-….Pagan!" He had no way of explaining it but he was back to day one in Kyrat.

Ajay carefully recalled what had happened after the events that occurred after Pagan left. He was only one mind to try and escape back them, he passed an observation room where it overlooked a torture room. In it were Paul and Darpan being electrocuted, then…..Sabal!

He didn't know why but his hand tightened almost naturally just as the thought occurred of Sabal and the Golden path. That's right! After he had removed Pagan and the royal army presence from Kyrat the golden path…the Fucking golden path backstabbed him! And the one who did him in personally was Sabal.

Ajay continued to silently boil in his inner hatred until he realized his mother's urn was left open. The ash was being blown out by the wind. He quickly closed the lid to prevent anymore of her remains from parting from the urn instead of being with Lakshmana.

Then thoughts returned back to the time he last talked to Pagan in his fortress. His mother, Ishwari was sent by his father, Mohan ghale to spy on Pagan. He was apparently there as well but was too young to remember. He recovered parts of his father's diary to confirm this. Over the course of time his mother spent with Pagan, they fell in love. His mother felt no love in her arranged marriage to his father and so sought out love and affection from Pagan whom she was sent to watch. The result was Lakshmana, his half-sister. But fate had a cruel way of playing with their bond. His father soon learned of her betrayal and in a fit of anger killed Lakshmana who was still a toddler then. His mother killed him in return. With the loss of her daughter, his mother Ishwari could no longer stand the sight of Kyrat and the civil war brewing took him out to the states where they were free from the conflict and so she could be spared the memory of his sister. His father, the founder of the Golden Path.

The golden path again took away family from him, his mother's will to live, his half-sister. The thought only made him angrier. After all they declared about tradition and preservation of culture they would still kill family, Mohan killed Lakshmana, Sabal who called him brother killed him. In the end they were nothing but brutal savages, just like the animals in this god forsaken country! It was just as Pagan had said to him many times, but he would cast it aside as crazed rantings from a psychopath.

Ajay thought back to the time when he fought with Pagan and his army. He never seemed serious about killing him in the first place, always conversing with him cheerfully as Ajay was killing one of his lieutenants. He always thought the man had a few screws loose just like the rest of the vice lords. But if he were crazy why would his mother who was kind and compassionate ever fall in love for such a cruel person.

It might have been that Ajay had gotten the wrong idea about him all this while. Pagan had never intended to hurt him in the first place, and why was that? Because he was his mother's child, he too loved her in kind. Perhaps the grief over the death of his daughter was what had caused him to have sociopathic tendencies.

In another time he might have been a father to him, something Ajay had always yearned for but never had. His mother was his only family in the new world and now she was gone. Now he was here in the domain of his mom's former lover.

Why was he here to begin with? Was it just to deliver his mother's ashes next to Lakshmana? Then he should be done with it and get the fuck out right after.

But then, what would he go back to? In the states he had no one, no girlfriend or even friends now. He was all alone with no one.

"Oh! Fan-Bloody-Tastic! You sir are a gentleman… I sincerely apologise- we saw terrorists in the area and yada-yada! The Crab Rangoon, right? It's- (Tortured screams) -fabulous. Mmm! Well. Come on, let's go!"

Before he realized it he had spent all the time in deep thought that Pagan had finally returned.

"To Lakshmana?"

"Of course, where else!"

Ajay obediently followed Pagan to the parked chopper waiting to bring them to Pagan's fortress were Lakshmana's shrine was erected.

It was a surprise how short a trip one could take in a helicopter, what usually took a day or two due to the mountainous terrain making fast travel difficult. They were flying for barely twenty minutes and they already reached what was the north of Kyrat. If helicopters were more freely available then the people would have much better lives moving around Kyrat.

"Three point-landing!... You know….. a part of me is surprised that your mother asked you to bring her all the way back here." The Royal Guard Pilot stepped out of the cockpit to open the shutter door for them. "Thank you, Kamran!"

Ajay followed closely behind Pagan out of the chopper, of course carrying his mother's ashes.

"Did your mother ever tell you about your father?"

She didn't but he roughly knew what had happened.

"No never." He responded honestly.

"Mohan!... the great protector of the Golden Path. Hmph, he was a cunt! He whored your mother out. Sent her to spy on me. But, we fell in love, had a child and that….. is when Mohan showed his true colours. Hmph! He drove you and your mother away… even killed your sister, Lakshmana." Pagan disclosed the scandal that way their family as they walked up to the shrine of Lakshmana.

"Which brings us here. Lakshmana shouldn't be alone anymore. I'm so glad we're finally back together." Pagan waved him into the shrine, to enter alone. Ajay was about to enter the shrine when his heart was bugging him to say something to Pagan.

"To answered your previous question….."

"Mmm?" Pagan turned his attention to Ajay.

Ajay suddenly was overcome with feelings, and the desire to say something to Pagan with meaning. He breathed in to pace himself before speaking in a calm tone. "My mom may have left Kyrat to escape the grief of losing my sister. But…. There wasn't a day that went by in the states that she did not think about Lakshmana…. Or you." His words came from his heart, he wasn't sure why he said what he said, perhaps it was his sympathy for Pagan, maybe it was the ghost of his mother trying to give Pagan some peace of mind.

Pagan widened his eyes for a while without moving from where he was, he then lifted his head to keep what appeared to be tears back in his eyes, but his expression failed to keep back the pain as his mouth wobbled. He took a short time to overcome his emotions then turned back to Ajay and patted him on the shoulders. "Thank you, Ajay!" He said with a meaningful smile.

"Go on! After you!" Pagan motions him inside.

Ajay no longer wasted time and entered the shrine. Hanging in the centre of the interior was a portrait of his half-sister, Lakshmana. She was a beautiful child, would have grown up to become a gorgeous woman who'd make the crowd go wild. But her innocent life was cut short by an angry and betrayed Mohan.

Even so, she was just a baby. Why did she have to suffer for his mother's infidelity of their marriage?

"Aha...hahaha...AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA!" His brooding face could not hold back the torrent that was his maddening laughter. -So that was it!- His crazed laughter vibrated off the walls of the shrine that only he heard.

If Mohan Ghale, the founding father and leader of the Golden Path movement was already this fucked up, it was no surprise that Golden Path were already rotten to the core. This irony was right in front of him, and yet he could not see it- no!...

He ignored it.

In the end, it led to thoughts about his father and the Golden Path. Bhadra suffered a similar fate of being forced into the appointment of Tarun Matara, the spiritual leader of Kyrat. Bhadra was not the only one, there were countless others which Ajay recalled being executed or tortured by Golden Path. Their only crime was being forced by the other side, Royal Army to comply. But Sabal, and his extended will over the Golden Path branded them as traitors and called for their swift end.

And where was the son of Mohan in all of this? The only one in Kyrat who had almost as much say as the founder of Golden Path himself? Who was responsible for elevating that double-crossing deceiver into the new leader of Golden Path and then Kyrat? He watched them die or turned his back.

Ajay finally stopped laughing in self-pity.

(Crash) His fist struck a mirror that hung on the wall, as if to let the visitors see themselves.

"That's not funny."

He said to his reflection, but even still, there was a small almost unnoticable smirk at the end on his mouth. It wouldn't come off as it became as natural as can be, an expression that would continue to mock his own existence no matter if he had a second chance. He let those things happen, he lived through those things. And now he was made to relive it.

NO!

His eyes burned with reluctance. This was a chance to make a few changes to the world that could have been. He now had the opportunity to do so... and the will.

As he silently swore to himself he had nearly forgotten his original task given to him here. He carefully placed his mother, Ishwari's ashes beside the urn belonging to Lakshmana.

-I love you and will always be with you.-

Those were the words that passed through him the last time he placed the ashes to rest but this time he could have sworn those words were as if speaking to him from an ethereal presence.

"Thank you for all you've done for me, mom. Be happy with your daughter, be happy with Lakshmana. Maybe one day, I'll join you here." Ajay murmured quietly for only himself to hear. Ajay said a silent hail mary for his mother and sister before leaving.

As he was reaching the door to the exit, he reminisced the time he had last come to the shrine after confronting Pagan, the last thing he said about coming out of the shrine.

...

"…..You know, the one and only time I walked in to this place. I came in a sane man and came out….. like this. But you, you will come out a king….."

...

Ajay's hand held the doorknob firmly without conviction as he recalled the words Pagan Min had used when they arrived at the shrine in the last life. Now, in a twist of irony. Perhaps the same had happened to Ajay. The ignorant man who let waves influence him and justify himself, full of innocence, stock full of naivety and a danger to himself and others.

And look what happened to that sucker? He gave Golden Path Kyrat and they gave him a bullet in return. That Ajay was long dead, in that world and in this one too. This time, he would return them the favour, free of charge. The moment he walked out he was reborn, the new Ajay.

He gripped the doorknob with newfound determination and turned it to open the door.

-Wait right there, Golden Path-... Sabal. I'll be coming for you soon.-