Warrior Princess; Her Quest to the throne

"Argh… you are so slow. What about Mrignayani?" Saraswati said with a roll of her eyes.     

It was Ramanujam's turn to look at her.     

"Are you feeling alright? Aren't you the one who coordinated the entire process of bringing in the defecting spy from the other country? If Shaurya left mid-way from the fair, there was no task, right. How could she have completed it?" he asked her in exasperation.     

"Uff, I don't want to know about that. I am asking about what happened post that. I know that she went missing for a bit and then Shaurya panicked. I also know that the big boss doesn't know the entire story but you do because Shaurya confided in you…" she said the last bit in a whisper.     

Ramanujam stared at her in shock. How was it that this woman knew everything?     

"Don't look at me as if I am a witch. And stop trying to figure out how I know things. Just tell me what really happened," she smirked and said.     

After Ramanujam narrated the incident to her as told to him by Shaurya, she went into a contemplative mode.     

"Hmm… so that means that no one knows where she was for a period of 3-4 hours. Interesting. I would have loved to see Shaurya's face when he realised that he had lost her," she said with a glee.     

Ramanujam wanted to check her forehead to see if she was running a fever. He thought that she was spouting a truckload of gibberish today.     

"Do you want to hear my observation?" she asked him.     

"Can I choose to say no?" he replied sarcastically.     

Saraswati gave him a stern look to which he responded by replying hastily, "I am joking, of course. I am all ears."     

"Well, I think that our dry, serious, intently focused, Wonder Boy is smitten with the wild fireball," she said with a small smile.     

"Huh? Who are these two? Weren't we discussing about Mrignayani's performance?" he asked, perplexed.     

"Gosh, have you not eaten food today or what? How can you be daft to this level? I am talking about Shaurya and Mriga, obviously," she explained.     

Ramanujam's eyes had utter disbelief in them. He shook his head, as if trying to clear it and then started to laugh.     

"I think that sitting here all by yourself, you have turned into a crazy old bat and started weaving nonsensical fictional plots. Shaurya was responsible for her safety and that's all. Don't over read into the situation and draw erroneous conclusions," his voice held censure.     

But Saraswati wasn't cowed down by his attitude.     

She told him, "Do you know that Shaurya came to me right after the competition was designed by Guruji? He told me that though the allocation of the mentors was my responsibility but he wanted to help me with his input since he knew these apprentices closely. He started off by allocating the boys first and all four of them got assigned to the different zilla chiefs. As a result, he was the only choice left for Mriga. Convenient? Deliberate? What do you think?"     

Ramanujam shrugged his shoulders and replied, "So? What is wrong with that? What he said was the truth. He was simply being proactive."     

She gave him a superior smile and said, "Really? Then why hasn't he shown this proactiveness ever in the case of previous mentees? If you recall, he has hardly visited the Gurukul in the past years since he finished his education. He would always say that it is important for him to stay undetected, even with the disguise on. But haven't you been seeing a lot more of him in the recent days, ever since the trainees came back from doing their apprenticeship under him? And even during that time when they were staying under his guidance, she was the only one whom he chose to take along for missions. I think I have enough molehills with me to make a mountain out of them! Hah!"     

Ramanujam still didn't think that there was much to what she was saying but didn't want to prolong this inane conversation. He nodded his head, as if in agreement and made his escape from there. She was definitely going crazy...     

Two days later     

Chinranjeev and Nirbhay had been summoned to the Admin building alongwith Vandit and Abhirath in the evening. They were handed over their assessments which they needed to submit to their respective class teachers to add to their final scores. For this semester, their internship was over and they had now only the written exams left to prepare for, henceforth.     

Chiranjeev scanned through his report standing there and looked at Ramanujam, "Guruji, this report says nothing remarkable about me. As per this, I am an average student with bare minimum capability to carry out my tasks."     

Ramanujam nodded and replied, "Not just yours, everyone's report reads the same. Don't tell me that you were expecting us to list down traits like – can decipher a coded message in five minutes or can tail a person without getting caught etc. The cover page of a spy is extremely boring and average. If you are looking for recognition, you should go and join the army or the police."     

Nirbhay immediately intervened and said, "No, of course not, Guruji. We are enjoying our current circumstances. There is something extremely exciting about living a dual life."     

The other nodded their heads vigorously in agreement. After being excused, they walked out together.     

"That was close. You don't think twice before opening your mouth, do you? I can't believe that you actually had the nerve of questioning the teacher about the score. This irresponsible behaviour of yours reminds me of someone else!" Abhirath berated Chiranjeev the minute they were out of the earshot of their teachers.     

To which Vandit responded drily, "Doesn't everything remind you of that someone in one way or another these days?"