Chapter Text
"What do you mean she's never coming back?"
Amita shook her head in disgust. "I will not have some religious icon prancing around for the enemies of the Golden Path to rally behind. It is better she is no longer here."
Ajay had heard enough. "Dammit Amita, where is Bhadra!?"
She didn't respond. She merely turned around, gestured to her soldiers, and left. Ajay was left fuming, hand twitching towards the holster for his pistol. Remembering where he was, he took a few deep breaths of air, trying to calm himself down. After a few moments, his anger had subsided, if only a bit. Okay, where would she have taken Bhadra?
He started to run the possibilities through his head. Amita couldn't have smuggled Bhadra out of Kyrat, he knew that. Amita wouldn't allow a "rogue element" to remain in play. Send her to a sympathetic family? Tricky, and unlikely. Amita sounded very certain that Bhadra would not return, so a normal life seemed unlikely. That didn't leave much else left but...
"Oh no."
Amita intended to kill Bhadra.
-x-X-x-
Ajay had no idea where to start his search. Kyrat may not be gigantic, but the country was sprawling, riddled with caves and secret places. Okay, if I was a despot in training, where would I dispose of potential enemies?
He thought back to his interactions with Amita. She was always pushing for the modern, the new, the next. Hated tradition, because of the pain it had caused her. Thought religions were archaic, and hated the idea of the Tarun Matara because of how it made little girls into things, not people. Knowing this, he wouldn't be surprised if Amita would use a holy site, or temple, to stage her execution. It would be a two for one deal in her eyes; kill her target and desecrate what she hated.
Pulling out his map, he looked through all the potential sites. There were sadly quite a few. More temples than he would like to consider. Maybe if he lowered it to sites particular to the Tarun Matara? Running through the remaining places, he narrowed it down to significantly. One stood out in particular. The "Tarun Matara's Sleep". Ajay truly hoped Amita's evil ran in the comic book variety.
Rushing out of Tirtha, he spotted an ATV. Hopping onto it, he jammed the throttle, going as fast as he possibly could. He may not have been in a buzzer, but those who saw him could swear he flew.
-x-X-x-
It took him almost a half hour to get there, but he had arrived. Not even waiting for the ATV to stop, he made a running dismount, coming to the edge of the cliff leading down to his destination.
What he saw chilled him to the bone. Floating out on the water was a gunboat, manned by three Golden Path soldiers. And in the center was Bhadra bound, gagged, and crying.
Even from a distance, he could hear one of the soldiers shouting at the little girl. "You think being Tarun Matara makes you special!? You're nothing but a bitch! I was supposed to be Tarun Matara! I was supposed to be cherished! Until some Royal Guard soldier had his way with me!" She let out a mad sounding laugh. "But none of that matters now. You are the last Tarun Matara. There will be no more."
Saying that, the soldier hefted Bhadra up, and threw her over the side of the boat. And then threw over a pair of cinder blocks, tied to a rope attached to Bhadra's feet.
She immediately went under.