The humidity in xxxxxxxxxxx was a living thing, a thick, damp blanket that made the air feel like it had already been breathed by a thousand people before it reached your lungs. Inside "Ravi & Son," the atmosphere was even stranger.
Harish stood in the middle of Aisle 3, staring blankly at a head of cabbage that had developed a suspicious, grayish fuzz around its base. It looked like it was growing a beard. He felt a bead of sweat trickle down his spine, his cheap cotton staff vest sticking to his shoulder blades in a way that made him want to shed his skin.
"Takeo," Harish said, his voice flat, echoing off the stacks of canned chickpeas. "This cabbage is rotting. We need to cut it out before it infects the rest of the produce. It's a health hazard. Also, it's gross."
Takeo Kusanagi, who was currently balancing on the balls of his feet while holding a mop like a ceremonial spear, snapped his head toward the vegetable. His amber eyes dilated. He dropped into a bow so low his nose nearly grazed the linoleum.
"The Master speaks in the Tongue of the Cleansing Wind!" Takeo shouted, his voice rattling a nearby display of digestive biscuits. "The 'Cabbage'... yes! A metaphor for the corruption that festers at the heart of all systems! To 'cut it out' is to perform a surgical strike against the rot of the world! I shall prepare my spirit for the coming harvest of justice!"
"It's literally just old brassica, Takeo," Harish groaned, rubbing his temples. "There is no justice. There is only compost. Please, just take the bin out."
The peaceful, produce-themed insanity was interrupted by the sound of heavy, rhythmic thudding. It wasn't the sound of a customer. It was the sound of polished leather boots—dozens of them.
General Verma Senior, a man whose chest was so laden with medals he looked like he was wearing a suit of golden scales, stepped through the door. Behind him stood a squad of Alliance soldiers in full tactical gear, their rifles held at low ready. The General didn't walk; he conquered the floor space, his presence smelling of expensive cigars and the cold, sterile air of a command bunker.
He ignored Harish, who was currently trying to look as much like a background extra as possible by intensely studying the nutritional facts on a box of raisins. The General's eyes locked onto Takeo.
"Kusanagi," the General barked, his voice like gravel in a blender. "The Alliance is in an uproar. Our top-ranked Sword Saint is missing from the Hokkaido front, and I find you here? In a... grocery store? Wearing a polyester vest?"
Takeo didn't even look up from his mop. He continued to move the stringy head of the mop in perfect, concentric circles around a small puddle of spilled soda.
"General," Takeo said, his voice a vibrating hum. "You disturb a Sacred Ritual. I am currently aligning the Qi of this floor. The Master has decreed that the path must be clear of all sticky residues."
"What 'Master'?" the General spat, looking at Ravi, who had emerged from the office holding a half-eaten samosa. "This old man? Are you insane, Takeo? The Iron Shackle Guild is demanding your return. The Global Cabinet is paralyzed. We are at war with the Abyssal Rifts, and you are... cleaning floors?"
"War is a distraction," Takeo replied solemnly. "Rotating the dairy is the true battle. Every yogurt has its time, General. Some are meant for greatness; others are meant for the trash bin of history. I have found a higher calling."
The General's face turned a shade of purple that matched a ripe eggplant. He stepped forward, his heavy boot coming down toward the wet patch Takeo was mopping.
"Enough of this madness! Soldiers, detain the Sword Saint. And burn this hovel to the ground. Clearly, the boy and the old man have used some form of mental manipulation on our hero."
Harish, still pretending to be fascinated by raisins, felt a surge of annoyance. Burn the shop? He hadn't finished organizing the snack aisle yet. He looked at the bucket of soapy water next to his feet. It was filled with cheap lemon-scented detergent and gray grime.
With a flick of his heel—a movement so subtle it looked like a clumsy stumble—Harish tipped the bucket.
A single, microscopic droplet of Origin Power fell into the soapy water as it spilled. To the soldiers, it just looked like a clumsy clerk tripping over his own feet.
"Oops," Harish muttered, his voice a masterpiece of faked embarrassment.
The water didn't splash. It flowed. It spread across the floor with an impossible, frictionless grace, turning the linoleum into a surface that defied the laws of physics. The General's lead boot hit the soap.
He didn't just slip. He launched.
General Verma Senior, the most decorated military mind in the region, became a human projectile. He slid past Takeo, his arms windmilling in a frantic, undignified blur. He slid past the tactical squad, who tripped over each other trying to catch him. He slid through the front door, over the sidewalk, and onto the main road.
And he didn't stop.
Because Harish had altered the friction of that specific liquid to zero, the General's momentum was preserved perfectly. He slid through traffic, narrowly missing a rickshaw. He slid past the local temple. He slid past the district police station. He was a screaming, medal-clinking blur heading toward the district border at forty miles per hour.
The soldiers stared in stunned silence.
Takeo fell to his knees, tears streaming down his face as he watched the General vanish into the horizon.
"Master!" Takeo wailed, bowing toward Harish. "The 'Flow of the Endless River'! You have banished the corruption without even drawing a breath! To use the very tools of cleanliness to eject the filth... I am unworthy! I am a speck of dust on your mismatched socks!"
"He just... he's just going to have to walk back, Takeo," Harish said, sighing. "It's a long walk. I hope his boots are comfortable."
As the soldiers scrambled out of the shop to chase their sliding commander, Harish and Takeo were left in the damp silence of Aisle 3. Aris (Priya) sat behind the counter, her forehead resting on the cash register. The "Eye" agent hidden in the ceiling vents—a man named Agent 42—clutched his recording device with trembling hands.
"Takeo," Harish said, picking up a rogue potato from the floor. "We need to talk about your 'lessons.' You can't keep crying every time I do something mundane. It's making the customers uncomfortable. Mrs. Gupta didn't even buy her ginger because she thought your sobbing was a funeral rite."
"But Master!" Takeo protested, his notebook already out. "The potato! You picked it up with the Grip of the Celestial Anchor! You rescued it from the abyss of the floor tiles! Is this a sign? Should we begin the Great Reclaiming?"
"It's a potato, Takeo. It costs five rupees. If it stays on the floor, someone will step on it and I'll have to mop again. There is no Great Reclaiming. There is only Aisle 4, which you still haven't swept."
"I see!" Takeo scribbled furiously. "Lesson 10: The Humility of the Root Vegetable. The Master teaches that no soul is too small to be saved from the 'Tread of the Unheeding.' To sweep Aisle 4 is to sweep the galaxy of its sins. I shall begin at once, utilizing the Eight-Directional Dust-Bane Strike!"
"Don't use a strike, Takeo. Use the broom. The one with the blue bristles. And don't make that 'Hah!' sound every time you hit a dust bunny. It's a grocery store, not a dojo."
"Master, your discipline is staggering," Takeo whispered, his eyes wide with fervor. "You demand silence in the face of the ultimate struggle against grime. You are a Zen Master of the Mop."
"I'm just a guy who wants to go home and eat spicy chicken," Harish muttered, walking toward the back. "By the way, did you check the expiration dates on the bread?"
Takeo froze, his face turning pale.
"The Slices of Time? I... I have neglected the chronometers of the wheat! Master, forgive me! I shall audit the yeast immediately! I shall ensure that no 'Stale Destiny' passes through these doors!"
"Just look for the red tags, Takeo. If it's past the 4th, it goes in the bin. It's not a destiny. It's mold."
"Mold!" Takeo gasped. "The Green Death! I shall purge the shelves with the fury of a thousand suns!"
"Don't purge anything with fire! Just use your hands! Normal, human hands!"
High above, in a secret bunker beneath the Swiss Alps, the leadership of The Eye huddled around a loudspeaker. Agent 42's wiretap was playing at full volume.
"Did you hear that?" The Pupil whispered, his face pale in the blue light of the monitors. "The 'Cabbage.' He said it was rotting and they need to 'cut it out.'"
"The Cabbage..." a Senior Analyst muttered, flipping through a coded ledger. "Sir, 'The Cabbage' is the internal code-name for the European Union's Central Leadership. And the 'Red Tags' on the 'Bread'? That must refer to the communist insurgencies in the East!"
"My God," The Pupil breathed. "He's ordering a global purge. He's using the Sword Saint to audit the 'yeast' of the world—the very foundations of our society! And the 'Spicy Chicken'... that's clearly a code for a nuclear strike on the tropical regions!"
"Sir! Reports are coming in! General Verma has been ejected from the sector by a 'Gravitational Soap-Anomaly'! The Demon King has mastered Fluid Dynamics at a Sovereign level!"
"Raise the alert," The Pupil commanded, his voice trembling. "DEFCON 2. Move the Global Cabinet to the moon base. If Harish decides the 'cabbage' is too rotten, none of us are safe."
Back in xxxxxxxxxxx, Harish was blissfully unaware that he had just accidentally triggered a global military mobilization. He was more concerned with the fact that Takeo was currently trying to "interrogate" a carton of eggs to see which ones were "loyal to the Master."
"Takeo, stop shaking the eggs. You'll scramble them inside the shell."
"I am checking their internal resonance, Master! Only the firmest hearts may serve the Ravi lineage!"
Aris looked at Harish. Harish looked at Aris.
"You know," Aris said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Most people just hire a part-timer from the local college. You hired a man who thinks a mop is a holy relic and that the European Union is a vegetable."
"I didn't hire him! He just... he won't leave!" Harish pleaded.
At that moment, Ravi walked out, patting Takeo on the back.
"Good boy, Takeo! You've moved twice as much stock as Harish did all week! And that slide you gave the General? Best entertainment I've had in years. Harish, take notes. This is what a hard worker looks like!"
Harish sank onto a crate of onions, his head in his hands.
"I'm the Sovereign of the Seventh Dimension," he whispered to himself. "I can rewrite reality. I can erase gods. But I can't convince my dad that I'm better than a samurai with a mop."
Takeo stood over him, a golden glow emanating from his very pores.
"Do not despair, Master! Even the sun must occasionally sit on a crate of onions to understand the tears of the world!"
"Takeo," Harish said, looking up with dead eyes. "If you don't stop talking, I'm going to 'FIFO' you right out the front door."
Takeo gasped, his eyes shining with joy.
"The Ultimate Rotation! I am ready, Master! Rotate me into the Void!"