There is no fire like passion,

there is no shark like hatred.♫ ♫ ♫

There is no snare like folly,

there is no torrent like greed.♪ ♪ ♪

Aditya had already broken into Hitesh's father's company server with his smartphone and was surprised to find the rot that was built up and hidden under the company's glorious image. Hitesh's father was involved in smuggling 'Dirty diamonds' of Africa which in turn fund rebel (terror) groups and push children into a path of bloody carnage. He also diverted 1100 crore INR (165 million USD) through huge amounts of gold illegally.

In addition to that, their family was involved with money laundering, over-evaluation of assets, unrealistic loan credits and fund diversion. They were able to succeed in doing this using loopholes in the system and with the help of some corrupted government officials as well as greedy bank managers. Aditya was able to access this information with little effort. Aditya grinned to himself as he shared the location of the illegal gold to Thomas and the remaining information to the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence. He could take this as repaying the government for stealing all the smuggled gold in the past few weeks using its intelligence services.

In addition to that, there was a case of suicide of a former female employee due to harassment of Hitesh's father in which he was acquitted due to lack of evidence but Aditya found some CCTV footage and call records which might be enough to reopen the case. He sent this information to whatever agencies of criminal investigations were out there on both state and central level. After seeing all this information, Aditya was reminded by his mother's words when she taught him about Lord Buddha and so he hummed the sayings of Buddha along with a self-made tune.

One should not think that this information was readily available in the server for Aditya to just copy them. These files were already deleted and the hard drives had been defragmented as well as formatted. But one had to know that no file can be permanently deleted from a hard drive and as long as one had the right retrieving tool, it was possible to recover these files. Unfortunately, though Hitesh's father tried to remove this information, as long as the hard drive was connected to a computer, Aditya could retrieve all the relevant information.

The only best way to make sure that your secrets stay hidden is to remove and destroy your hard drive. Any computer personnel would find it very expensive to afford the retrieving tool but Aditya had recently written his own version of retrieving tool for his exclusive use which made his job easy. Aditya did not think that Hitesh's family would make it this easy to vent his feelings by digging their own grave by doing all this illegal stuff. It would have been a lot harder if they were genuine merchants. Even Aditya would have felt bad about himself if he had to make a whole family suffer for the 'future' deeds of their progeny. But again, how could a seedling like Hitesh come from a good family.

Aditya again experienced the surreal feeling as to how easily he was now able to influence a person's life with his abilities. If Aditya did not have these abilities, even if he knew that Anupama was going to face a calamity in future, what could he do except warning her? Would she believe him or just think that he still had residual feelings towards her? If she fell in love with Hitesh again and wanted to marry him only, would he still try to force them apart? So, in a way, these abilities of his made this complicated issue into something that Aditya could accomplish in the time he took to eat some savoury snacks.

"Aditya, what song is it?" Anupama who seemed to have regained her composure asked Aditya who was singing a quote of Lord Buddha in a soft voice with a relaxed expression.

Aditya smiled as he looked at Anupama and shook his head as he ate a few mouthfuls of food. Hitesh was looking gloomily at Aditya as his plans for getting close to Anupama was spoiled by Aditya. He had planned to take a walk with Anupama on the pretext of his car been broken, he also deliberately delayed the repair personnel as well as the substitute car by giving the wrong directions.

He had decided on a long term plan to slowly influence Anupama to make her succumb to him. He was even prepared to spend years to make this girl fall in his grip. It had to be said that the plan was truly vicious and had actually succeeded in the dream world. If not for Aditya's intervention now, it might have succeeded here too. He did not expect that his plan would encounter an obstacle on the very first day.

He could tell at one glance that Anupama had some feelings for Aditya from the way at how she looked at him and Taarini. He was totally ignored since Anupama saw Aditya. Hitesh was making plans to get this Aditya out of the way through force or coercion but did not realize that his future had just become very bleak in the matter of few minutes.

Aditya discussed school matters with Anupama for some time about Bhadra, Kavya and Jatin. Anupama said that the new school was okay but she sorely missed Kapil sir's way of teaching mathematics. She had asked him about coming back to school to which he stayed silent and she did not ask again except disappointment could be clearly seen in her eyes.

Aditya said that as Anupama's home was near Taarini's place, he could drop her at her home while Hitesh could just f**k ...cough… go back to his place. Anupama agreed readily while Hitesh could only agree grudgingly as he looked at Aditya coldly. He needed to find this person's background before deciding on making a move. Aditya saw the look on Hitesh's face but did not say anything. Just as they were going towards the exit, Tya's ecstasy-filled scream was heard which stunned Aditya as he never heard Tya screaming like that.

Aditya wanted to slam his face to the wall when he heard the reason, he looked towards the side where a towering lollipop packed tree was designed. It was game where children could pluck any random lollipop of their choice and if the other end of lollipop had a particular colour, then you get some prize but if you do not get any colour, you only get the lollipop.

The tree was surrounded by an army of 5 to 9-year-old kids who were screaming, laughing, giggling as they saw each kid come up and try his luck. Aditya was sure that if Tya was given a body, he would be one of these kids jumping and shouting trying to get the lollipops instead of the prize.

Aditya's face became black when he imagined himself waddling into this crowd of little monsters to fight for a lollipop with them. Aditya made all kinds of promises of buying loads and loads of lollipops for Tya after going home but all his requests fell on a deaf ear and Tya was about to uncover his strongest weapon i.e. crying.

Aditya coughed lightly as he asked Anupama and Taarini to wait near the car as he had some work. But to add to his misery, Anupama wanted to wait for him here. Aditya could only grit his teeth as he pushed himself into the crowd filled with kids to get a chance to pull a lollipop. Anupama was shocked when she saw what Aditya was doing while Taarini's icy expression revealed amusement, she did know that Aditya had a thing for lollipops.

"Hey, look at that elder brother who also wants to play this game." a cute snot-faced girl shouted in a high pitch. She was wearing a pink princess dress while she held a lollipop in her mouth.

" it's not an elder brother, I am your elder brother," a boy who looked one or two years elder than the girl corrected her.

"then, what should I call him?" the snot-faced girl asked adorably.

"Uncle is the right word," the boy replied confidently.

Aditya stumbled and almost fell down when he heard this conversation. He turned towards that pair as he said, "Call me elder brother," he was just 16 and he was already called uncle. But unfortunately, Aditya retort triggered a rebellion in this crowd.

"Oye Uncle"

"Big Uncle"

"Thin Uncle"

"Grandpa"

Aditya felt a part of his lifespan vanishing as he heard these words. He quickly paid the fee and plucked a lollipop and was about to escape when the vendor who was in charge of this stall stopped him. Aditya, who wanted to escape quickly, had an urge to smash his fist into the vendor face who increased his suffering. But, the vendor smiled as he pointed at the pink paint at the end of the lollipop, "congratulations sir, you won a prize."

Aditya was shocked as he said, "Did I?"

"Yes, sir," the vendor did something that threw Aditya further into the mire. He took a cute, cuddly white teddy bear with a red bow-tie and stuffed it into Aditya's hands.

"Oh, look uncle won a cute teddy bear. What do you think he will do with it?" the snot-faced girl shouted excitedly.

"Who knows? I heard that uncles nowadays have some weird habits," her brother answered with an experienced tone. Every kid looked at Aditya with fear and curiosity as if he would do something weird but interesting now in front of them.

Aditya wanted nothing but to smack this kid's face when he heard these words. His face became dark as he stared angrily at the vendor and escaped before he had to hear more outrageous things.

"How are their parents able to handle these little devils, Tya is thousand times better then them," Aditya shook his head in a daze as he put the lollipop in his mouth and made his way back to Anupama and Taarini. Aditya pushed that teddy bear into Anupama's hands as he said, "a small gift." This was his way of diverting Anupama before she asked him any embarrassing questions.

The plan worked as Anupama was shocked as she looked at the teddy bear and Aditya before becoming silent. This time Anupama agreed to wait near the car along with Taarini when Aditya said he had another work to finish. Aditya wanted to vent his feelings and he already had an ideal candidate in his mind. Aditya bought a carnival mask in one of the stores. This mask was half white and half yellow with some elegant golden designs painted on it. He also bought a black cloak which covered his clothes.

It was very dark near the corner of the car parking area where Hitesh's car was parked. It was also planned by him as less light was a good excuse for a closer contact with Anupama. But all his plans were smashed with one person's interference. He kicked the tire with frustration as he cursed Aditya in a low voice. He did not notice a cloaked figure coming towards him until he was right behind him.

Hitesh jerked as he moved backwards, "Who are you?"

Aditya did not waste time with words as he caught Hitesh's neck like one would catch a duck's and plunged his fist into his stomach with enough force to dislocate his inner organs from their original positions in the abdominal cavity. Blood spilt from his mouth as his eyes rolled up and fainted directly. Aditya was stunned that his long venting session was cut short as he did not expect that Hitesh was so weak. The truth was that Aditya's body had strengthened a lot and he did not get a chance to compare notes with normal people which caused the slight miscalculation.

Aditya was disappointed as he did not know what else to do when he saw the unconscious figure. He had to be content with removing Hitesh's clothes and burning them so that whoever came to rescue him would see him in his birthday dress. Aditya felt that he was still been lenient when compared to the suffering Anupama had to go through in the dream world. But at least Anupama was safe now so he did not go too far otherwise he did get thoughts of taking a rod and … cough... but he refrained from doing so in the end.

Aditya found the two beautiful women waiting for him, he did not give any explanations and started the car directly. All the three of them were calm as each person was immersed in their own thoughts. Aditya drove Anupama to her place first. Anupama held tightly to the teddy bear he gave her and walked into her home with her head lowered while Aditya and Taarini made their way to the resort. Tonight was going to be a long one. The underworld of Bangalore would have a new Empress when the sun rose the next day.