New Delhi, Early 1919
With the world's recognition secured, the Union of India surged with new optimism, its cities alive with industry and debate. Yet beneath this outward stability, fresh dangers took shape—engineered in foreign capitals and cast like shadows toward the heart of the republic.In distant London, British dignitaries and intelligence chiefs seethed over India's independence and growing alliances. News of German and American embassies thriving in Delhi further stoked imperial resentment. Britain's wounds ran deep; in hushed council they devised means to reclaim influence, if not outright control. Plots were hatched—to fund separatists, to stir troubles at the borders, to poison trust between the Union's leaders—all under the unassuming signature of fading colonial officers.Arjun Sen sensed the shift. Dispatches intercepted by loyal spies told of foreign gold smuggled to rebel chiefs in the northwest frontier, pamphlets printing rumors of governmental corruption in Bombay and Madras, and whispers in parliament of assassins-for-hire. Each threat was subtle, layered in denial and deniability.Arjun confronted these dangers with the same twin blades that had won India's freedom: deft diplomacy by day, unflinching resolve by night. He opened dialogues with skeptical regional leaders, reassuring them of their voices in the republic. Legislation passed to ensure transparency and local autonomy—a pressure valve for ambitions that might otherwise explode. Internationally, he courted support from newer allies who preferred a stable India to one fractured by British interference.
But when political compromises failed and chaos loomed, Arjun's shinigami eyes watched in the shadows. Names whispered by enemy agents soon appeared in the Death Note, and conspiracies unraveled with chilling swiftness. Ringleaders died of sudden stroke or faded quietly into the night—robbed of their plots before history could record them.Among his inner circle, there was growing awe—and fear. A republic so young and so bold should surely stumble. Yet under Arjun's watch, every crisis seemed to dissolve as quickly as it flared, and Britain's shadow grew thinner with each quiet defeat.Still, Arjun knew that even immortality bore its limits.
Every threat defeated bred another, cleverer adversary; every unity achieved masked the strain on his own soul. Alone in his study late at night, he allowed himself only fleeting rest. The peace he had won was as fragile as it was precious.And as spring dawned over the new republic, Arjun Sen knew his fight—for India, for the future, and against the darkness ever eager to return—was only moving into more complicated chapters.