Conqueror Reincarnated in Middle Class Family

The air on the rooftop had stilled.

Vijay's gaze swept the shadows, his breathing regular but shallow, his body half-turned to the noise. A tiny scrape once more — intentional. Whoever was coming out wanted to be seen.

Then—

White light.

A blinding snap! illuminated the rooftop like a surgeon's floodlamp — no firework, no drone flare. A flash grenade. Controlled. Tactical.

Vijay covered his eyes just in time, blinking past the afterimage.

A shape stood outlined in the dying echo of the glow, lit against the skeletal lines of the rooftop. Flapping long coat, boots laced high, relaxed posture — but unmistakably disciplined.

"Not bad," the stranger remarked. His voice was smooth, sure, and just lightly amused. "You didn't flinch."

The light faded, but the man continued on — now revealed beneath the patchy starlight that filtered through the broken dome glass overhead.

He was barely older than twenty-three. Dark brown hair, blown back but neatly maintained. Eyes black — not pitch, not lifeless, but so deep they drowned. His face was fine, sharply chiseled, unnaturally symmetrical in the way that made even the night look embarrassed.

Someone built to command respect.

Vijay didn't drop his guard.

"Who in hell are you?" he demanded.

The man smiled. Not smugly — but like someone who had answers he wasn't ready to share.

"Think of me…" he looked up at the sky, then back down, ".an interested observer. Name's Dhruv."

"No last name?"

Dhruv shrugged. "You'll learn it if you earn it."

He walked slowly along the rooftop ledge, not threatening — prowling. Measuring range.

"You're not a civilian," Vijay said. Statement, not question.

"You're not a civilian either," Dhruv told him, hesitating to look at the practice mat, then at Vijay's swollen knuckles. "But while you do this, I at least know what I'm doing with my body."

Vijay's jaw clenched.

Dhruv grinned once more. "Chill out. I'm not here to fight you. If I was, you'd already be on the mat."

He threw something.

A protein capsule — contained in sterile foil — dropped at Vijay's feet.

"Take that as a gift. You've got cracks in your position and two microfractures in your ribs. Your position's off-balance. But you've got instincts buried somewhere in there." He paused. "Deep."

"Why are you here?"

"Because you shouldn't be what you are," Dhruv stated bluntly. "And yet—you killed a Quasi-Faral creature by yourself. No record. No training. No Defender mark. That. raised some eyebrows."

Vijay's gaze hardened.

Dhruv took a step closer, boots crunching softly on dust. Then halted just beyond arm's length.

"We're keeping an eye on you, Vijay," he said softly. "But not because we're scared. Because we're curious."

"And if I'm not curious?"

Dhruv cocked his head, his face nearly pitiful. "Then the world beyond these domes is going to kill you the moment you attempt to matter."

He dug into his jacket and extended a small, hexagonal badge — not official. Not registered. Something older. Rougher.

"Call this a handshake. Or a test."

He palmed it on the mat, then turned.

"Improve, quick. Someone noticed what you did that evening. And not everyone is sending you gifts."

And with that, Dhruv climbed off the edge farthest away — and disappeared into the structure below.

Vijay remained motionless. Listening.

Silence alone replied.

And the badge throbbed once in very weak red.

The next morning, after the rooftop fight, Vijay woke up earlier than normal.

Not shaken, not dazed — awake.

His muscles didn't hurt. In fact, they vibrated with a subtle energy. The bruising hadn't disappeared, but the swollen, tight pain around his ribs had faded, and the purple on his eye was already changing to yellow-green — healing at an unbelievable rate.

He tried stretching.

No flinch.

He gazed at himself in the mirror once more. Same face. Same structure. But the tiredness was… vanished. A sort of low-wattage understanding ran through him — like everything had been honed half a degree.

That pill.

He reached into his hoodie pocket and drew out the wrapper. No label. Only a foil rectangle stamped with a number in microprint: D73-RG-11.

His fingers brushed against the badge Dhruv had left behind. The red light on it had faded, but it still glowed softly when touched — as if it were sleeping, not lifeless. 

Vijay secreted both items into a locked pocket within his school bag.

At recess, rather than going to the canteen, Vijay cut through to the upper-level library — the little-used one at the back of the chemistry block, where the public archive terminals still enjoyed unfiltered legacy web access for "research."

He ensured the side row was clear before easing into the terminal booth. The overhead light flickered once before stabilizing.

He booted up the archive browser and entered:

D73-RG-11 compound + immunity

Nothing.

He tweaked the query:

Defender supplement unregulated prototype

Nothing official yet. But in the dark recess of a message board for scrapped Defender biotech tests, a derailed thread emerged:

"Project D73-RG — rejected open field testing. Too unstable. Stored with Tier-Z genetics research prior to Vault 9 absorption."

Vault 9?

He tracked the link trail — but ran into a firewall. Archive access denied.

He sat back, furrowing his brow.

Then entered a second query:

Hex-badge shape + Defender override + hidden registry

A few hits here — but hidden under piles of digital grit.

One hit was notable. One decrypted scan from an aged disciplinary tribunal record:

".operatives with unauthorized hex-sigils presumed to be fragments of renegade training groups that broke off from the Tier-1 Cadres after Catastroph."

"Code-named 'Shadows of Forge.' Operatives thought to use field tests to self-select candidates. Criteria unknown."

"High success rates. No accountability. Prohibited throughout all active sectors by Defender Authority in 2191."

Prohibited. Disappeared. Forgotten.

Until today.

Vijay gazed at the screen for a full minute, then silently closed it down.

The room seemed chillier.

Behind him, a student entered. He braced — but it was no one he knew.

Still, something settled inside his skin.

He was into something now.

Something deeper than schoolyard brawls and rooftop self-training.

And somebody had decided to look for him.

Location: A glass-walled, discreet room in the Administrative Block, Govardhan Dome.

Three men face a digital projection. On it, suspended mid-frame: Vijay sidestepping the quasi-faral, mop handle in his hand. Blood smudged on his cheek. Intense. Alive.

One man is older — graying at the temples, wearing a dome-official's slate-gray tunic. His fingers steeple under his chin. The others are aides, hard-eyed and silent.

Official:

"Krishnavant thinks they can keep this buried. Like every other anomaly before it."

Aide 1:

"We still don't have confirmation. Could be luck. Or hallucination under Faral strain."

Official: (smiling faintly)

"We've all seen the footage. That wasn't luck. That was instinct. Tactics. Recovery under pressure. Untrained."

He steps closer to the screen, points at Vijay's frozen face.

Official:

"This boy is no Defender. Not yet. But he could be more. Or worse."

He presses a button. The screen folds into darkness.

Official: (quietly)

"Find out where he trains. Who he's near. And whether he can be turned."

A long pause.

Official:

"Or whether we'll need to erase the problem before Krishnavant stakes a claim."

The door hissed shut behind the aides as the official remained alone, back turned to the darkened screen. Outside the glass, the city pulsed—quiet, orderly, unaware.

He leaned into a drawer under the table and pulled out a thin file. No digital signature. No biometric trail.

Inside: grubby prints of Vijay's school documents. Medical scans after the incident. A partial genetic compatibility report, censored at source level.

He tapped the page with a finger.

"Unmapped neurological imprint," he said quietly. "Cognitive latency anomaly. And that reaction time.

The door swung open again, unannounced. A woman stepped inside—older, elegant, voice smooth as velvet wrapped around steel.

Aide 1:

"You're playing with fire, Mahesh. You recall what happened the last time we chased 'potential anomalies.'"

Mahesh (Official):

"This one's different."

Aide 1:

"They always are. Until the dome shatters and we're scraping blood off the shields."

Mahesh did not respond at once. He turned, locked gazes with her.

Mahesh:

"This one doesn't merely survive. He accommodates. If we don't step in first, Krishnavant will. Or worse. the old spectres." 

She looked at him for a very long time. Then nodded faintly, unwillingly.

Aide 1:

"Then we observe. Quietly. And if he falters. we step in."