The silver business card felt heavier than steel.
Rudra stood outside the school gate, fingers curled around the smooth edge of the card, his mind still replaying the name.
Aarohi Desai.
His eldest sister.
In his previous life, that name had only surfaced in classified files and buried family records.
Now she had stood in front of him.
Spoken to him.
Thanked him.
And yet—
She had no idea who he was.
A strange ache settled in his chest.
He slipped the card carefully into the inner pocket of his school bag.
Not now.
He could not rush the reunion.
One wrong move could change too much.
One wrong move could alert the people who had taken him from the Desai family in the first place.
He walked into the school building.
The corridor buzzed with voices.
Children laughing.
Teachers are calling out attendance.
Footsteps echoing off old tiled floors.
For anyone else, it was an ordinary school morning.
For Rudra, it was a battlefield of a different kind.
Because this school held one of the earliest turning points in his first life.
The computer lab.
He slowed as he reached the second floor.
A faded board hung above a half-open door.
COMPUTER ROOM
A ghost of a smile touched his lips.
In his first life, this room had been the birthplace of his rise as a hacker.
A place filled with outdated desktop systems, weak school firewalls, and careless administrators.
A perfect playground.
He pushed the door open.
Inside, rows of old CRT monitors sat on wooden desks.
The room smelled faintly of dust and heated plastic.
At the front stood Mr Verma, the computer teacher.
Middle-aged.
Glasses slipping down his nose.
The same tired expression.
Rudra remembered him well.
Not because he was exceptional.
Because he had once unknowingly given Rudra access to his first network.
Mr Verma looked up.
"Late again?"
Rudra nodded slightly.
"Sorry, sir."
The teacher sighed.
"Sit down."
Rudra moved to the back row.
The oldest system.
The slowest machine.
Perfect.
As the class began, Mr Verma droned on about basic computer operations.
Most students were bored.
Some whispered.
Some played with the keyboard keys.
Rudra's fingers rested lightly on the desk.
His eyes scanned the room.
The network cable layout.
The administrator terminal.
The staff room link.
The school server.
Primitive.
Laughably weak.
His lips curved.
In his first life, it had taken him weeks to understand systems like this.
Now—
with forty years of experience—
It was child's play.
He waited.
Timing mattered.
Ten minutes later, Mr Verma's phone rang.
The teacher frowned and stepped outside to answer it.
The moment the door clicked shut—
Rudra moved.
His fingers flew across the keyboard.
Fast.
Too fast for a ten-year-old.
The black screen blinked.
Command prompt.
He entered a sequence.
Then another.
A password request appeared.
He smiled.
Default administrator credentials.
Still the same.
Access granted.
The school network unfolded before him.
Student records.
Attendance logs.
Faculty data.
Budget documents.
Emails.
He ignored them.
Instead, he went deeper.
The connected district education network.
Then the city infrastructure sub-link.
Old government routers.
Public information nodes.
Primitive firewalls.
It felt almost insulting.
Within seconds, he was inside.
Lines of code streamed down the screen.
His eyes moved calmly.
No hesitation.
No wasted motion.
He stopped at a directory.
DESAI GROUP – CHARITY EDUCATION EVENT ACCESS REQUEST
His gaze sharpened.
Interesting.
The school was linked to the Desai charity event.
So Aarohi's presence today was no coincidence.
She had come for this.
His fingers moved again.
He opened the file.
A list of selected students.
Scholarship candidates.
Background records.
Then—
One highlighted note.
Potential orphan sponsorship program – urgent review
Rudra's breathing slowed.
This.
This was the path.
In his first life, he had missed this opportunity entirely.
This time, fate had handed it to him early.
He copied the event details into a hidden folder.
Then another window popped up.
Unauthorised access warning.
He froze.
A secondary system had detected the intrusion.
Someone else was on the network.
His eyes narrowed.
Another user.
Unknown.
Trying to trace the breach.
At a school level?
Impossible.
Unless—
His fingers flew.
He launched a decoy packet, rerouted the signal through three dummy terminals, and erased the access trail.
A few seconds later—
The warning vanished.
A faint smile touched his lips.
So someone from Desai Group's cybersecurity team had been monitoring the education network.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
That meant the Desai Group already had a strong digital infrastructure.
His kind of world.
His field.
The door suddenly opened.
Mr Verma walked back in.
Rudra instantly minimised everything and switched back to the desktop learning page.
The teacher glanced around.
Satisfied.
"Continue your practical work."
Rudra leaned back in his chair.
Calm.
Inside, his mind was already racing.
He now had:
a direct link to the Desai event
access routes into their network
proof that his family's company had active cyber surveillance
His empire had once started with systems far weaker than this.
This time—
He would rise much faster.
As the class ended, one of the boys in the front row turned around.
Tall for his age.
Sharp smile.
Expensive watch.
Rohan Malhotra.
Rudra's eyes darkened slightly.
In his previous life, Rohan had been his first school rival.
A bully.
A spoilt rich kid.
And one of the first people to publicly humiliate him.
Rohan smirked.
"Why are you staring, street boy?"
Silence.
The room seemed to grow colder.
Rudra slowly stood.
A faint smile appeared on his face.
Not warm.
Not friendly.
Cold.
Calculating.
Because this time—
Things would be different.