The fact was—Adyanth hadn't meant to knock teeth loose. He just wanted to make a point. Not a dental one.
The punch he threw at Erwan had been firm, yes, but he'd pulled it back. Or at least he'd tried to.
He remembered aiming for the jaw, thinking he'd rattle the guy, maybe make him fall. Then he'd kick him in the groin just for punctuation. Classic formatting.
Instead?
Crack.
Two teeth flew out like punctuation marks that said, "Oops. Full stop."
Man, I'm glad I didn't go full power. If that's what a pull-back does, I don't even want to know what max strength looks like.
He'd had suspicions since the hospital—his body didn't ache anymore, and he felt… not just well, but wired. Smoother. Sharper. Something was definitely off.
Still, impressive dental work aside, the room had gone silent. Frozen.
Until one of Erwan's lackeys—Clown #2, probably—broke the silence.
"What… what are you going to do with us?"
That snapped Adyanth out of his post-knockout daze. His thoughts had been drifting, again. Zoning out was becoming a hobby lately. Not a healthy one.
Focus. These idiots won't manage themselves.
He turned back to the three.
"Like I said," he drawled, "do as you're told and you'll be fine. If not? You die. Simple math."
It was neither a threat nor a boast. More of a service announcement. Exit A leads to survival. Exit B leads to facial reconstruction. Your choice.
Erwan, still reeling but now upright-ish, tried to muster courage.
"You… you can't do this to us. You think the caretakers or the director will let you get away with it if you kill someone?"
He was scared. But pride was fighting for airtime.
Adyanth chuckled.
He didn't feel amused, of course. He hadn't felt any actual humor since the last decent punchline died of neglect. But theatrics mattered now. Everything had to be curated.
So he channeled his inner Yurrel. The tone. The inflection. That awful smirk you wanted to slap off his face and then apologize to your hand for touching.
"Please," he said. "Do you think they care if you live or die? You saw the truck they sent me off in, right? Storage unit on wheels. Not even a stretcher. You think they asked who beat me half to death? You think they punished anyone?"
He stepped closer.
"Did they even ask what happened?"
Erwan flinched. The answer was no, obviously. No one had cared. And that was the point.
"I thought you'd be smarter than this," Adyanth added thoughtfully. "What was your name again? Elephant, or…?"
Erwan tried to speak, but Adyanth rolled right over him.
"Nope. Who cares? Nobody remembers nobodies."
He walked toward Erwan, calm and unhurried.
Erwan's eyes widened. He saw the foot too late.
"Pchkk."
Another crunch. Another two teeth down. That made four.
Before the scream could build, Adyanth planted his boot on Erwan's throat and leaned in.
Not enough to choke. But enough to flatten the sound before it went anywhere.
The others froze, pale as candle wax.
Adyanth looked at them. His eyes weren't angry. They weren't smug. They were just… empty.
Flat.
Like looking into a well that never had water in it to begin with.
He tilted his head, voice casual.
"Let's try a science experiment. I kill him right now, and we all sit back and see exactly how much the caretakers care."
They panicked.
Clown 2 and Clown 3 dropped to their knees beside him, grabbing his ankle like it was a divine pillar.
"Please don't! We're begging you—just let him go!"
The guilt hit then.
Not regret. Not empathy. Just a sharp, bitter reminder.
His parents hadn't raised him for this. They were kind. Genuinely, helplessly good.
Even if he couldn't be kind like them anymore, should he really be cruel? Wasn't neutrality an option?
A thought cut through the fog:
What did kindness get them?
Poverty. Oblivion. No tears shed. No hands offered.
Their lives were footnotes. Their deaths? Debris.
Kindness is what people pretend to admire—until it gets in the way of profit.
He crushed the emotion before it could take root.
He wouldn't let borrowed morality tell him who to be.
He wasn't broken. He was rewriting the rules.
"My life. My call. I'll do anything to win. The rest of you?" "Collateral."
Erwan's hand reached for his foot. A feeble, pathetic grasp.
The pride was gone. The fire too. Only fear remained.
Real, primal fear.
The kind that knows it's only here because someone else allowed it.
Adyanth stared at him for another long second.
Then he stepped back. Calm. Controlled.
Erwan collapsed in a heap, coughing.
Adyanth turned around, retraced his steps like it was nothing, and sat on the bunk like a man finishing paperwork.
"Man, I'm killing it," he muttered to himself.
Pun definitely unintended. Probably.
Didn't make him happy. But points for consistency.
Erwan gagged in the corner.
One of the others—Clown 3, maybe—bolted to grab water from the hallway tap. When he returned, he hesitated. Eyes flicked to Adyanth for permission.
Adyanth nodded slowly. Like a king granting an audience.
The boy exhaled in relief and turned to Erwan, who accepted the water without a word.
They didn't speak. They didn't look at each other.
The chain of command had been restructured.
Time for housekeeping.
---
"Alright," Adyanth said, brushing imaginary dust off his pants. "From now on, Erwan, you're Clown 1."
He pointed at the other two.
"Clown 2, Clown 3. I don't care which of you is which. Coordinate your number system yourselves."
The two exchanged a quick glance. Silent agreement. Probably a coin flip in their heads.
"I might mix you guys up," Adyanth continued. "If I do, figure it out between yourselves. But the task gets done, or someone bleeds. Cool?"
Clown 2 nodded vigorously. Clown 3 followed.
Erwan… Clown 1… was staring into space.
Fear had moved in. It wasn't paying rent, either.
"Right," Adyanth said. "Status update. What happened while I was on my little medical vacation?"
Erwan opened his mouth but winced. Talking was a luxury his teeth no longer allowed.
Clown 2—Manu, maybe—answered.
"A new truck came three days ago. Twenty more kids. From the southern camps."
Twenty? Adyanth's brow twitched.
The war's not slowing down. More kids. More chaos. More tools.
He made a mental note.
"Anything else?"
"They've stopped sending kids to the fields. They're making everyone clean the orphanage. Windows, walls, everything."
Ah. So the inspection rumors were true.
He raised a finger.
"New orders."
The three tensed like dogs expecting another boot.
Adyanth smiled sweetly. It didn't help.
"I want the cleaning to fail."
Dead silence.
"You're going to start fights. Subtle ones. Push buttons. Create rifts. Especially between the new kids and the older ones."
He leaned forward, voice dropping.
"Position yourselves as the neutral parties. Float between both groups. Earn trust. Then exploit it. Feed both sides just enough to keep tensions alive."
He tilted his head.
"Think of it like gardening. But instead of sunflowers, you're planting hate."
"Wh-why?" Clown 1 asked, before realizing he'd spoken aloud.
He froze.
Adyanth turned slowly. The Yurrel smile returned. Stretchy. Unsettling.
"Why?" he repeated.
He stood, walked to the window, and pulled back the curtain just a sliver.
"You know that group? The inspectors? The ones backed by the opposition?"
Nods all around.
"They're coming. Soon. A few weeks maybe. Month tops."
The boys looked at each other. Shocked.
That hadn't come from the caretakers. No one had mentioned it.
"Which means," Adyanth said, "this place is on cleanup mode. Desperate to look neat. Polished."
He grinned.
"We're gonna make that really hard for them."
---
He spun to face them.
"You enjoy the food here?"
The boys hesitated again, unsure if this was rhetorical or a trap laced with actual poison.
"It's shit," Adyanth said, saving them the trouble. "The porridge is gray. Fruit happens once every apocalypse. Half the time I'm not sure whether we're eating grain or crushed drywall."
Clown 2 raised a tentative hand. "There was an apple last month…"
"That wasn't an apple. That was a warning."
He let the silence sit a moment longer.
Then exhaled.
"Look, here's the point. The caretakers don't care. They don't feed us right. They don't protect us. So we're going to ruin their performance review."
He stood up, rolled his shoulders, and stared down at them with mock inspiration.
"This is our little rebellion. A soft coup. One rumor at a time."
He turned back to them with that same soft, unsettling smirk—the kind that made you want to leave the room and also never stop watching.
"We spread rumours that Harun's been skimming the orphanage budget to pay for his booze habit. Mukir sells medicine on the black market. The inspectors are going to want proof, and we'll give them a mess instead. Fractured groups. Angry kids. Chaos."
Clown 3 looked confused. "But… how do we prove it?"
Adyanth grinned.
"We don't." He gestured lazily. "We imply it. Loudly. Repeatedly. Through twenty different mouths until it becomes fact. That's how truth works now. Heard of politics?"
They didn't laugh.
Because he wasn't joking.
"You don't need to be right. Just believable. The rest will handle itself."
He walked back to his bunk, calm.
"You've seen my strength. I'll be top dog soon enough. I'm offering you power, security, food. You want a piece? Earn it. Be useful."
He climbed up to his bunk in one smooth hop. The frame creaked under his weight, but not a single part of him ached.
'I still have to figure this body out... later'.
Below, the room remained silent.
The three boys—Erwan, still clutching his jaw, and the others now stuck somewhere between allegiance and trauma—shared a glance that confirmed it:
There was no going back.
They wouldn't plot revenge.
Not anymore.
Because Adyanth hadn't beaten them with strength.
He'd rearranged the rules.
One thought lingered in his head as he lay down, arms folded behind it, the bunk creaking with every quiet breath.
Let Erwan hate them. He'll redirect his weakness where it can do damage. And they? They'll cling to me for safety. One poisoned loyalty at a time.
That's how it worked now.
Not with hate. Not with fear.
But with design.
"The seed's sown," he whispered, eyes closing. "Now let's see how many thorns it grows."
And with that, Adyanth slept.
Tomorrow would be long.
He had chaos to orchestrate.