The debate tournament bracket went up on the notice board at exactly nine in the morning, and Faiz was the first one there.

He had been preparing for weeks. Flash cards in stacks on his desk, arguments outlined in blue ink, counterarguments in red. He could recite statistics about water conservation in his sleep — he had actually done it once, and his younger sister Sana had recorded it and played it back at breakfast, and the whole family had laughed. He was ready. He was more than ready.

But when he read the bracket, he felt something shift inside his chest like a drawer sliding open.

The first team he would face was from Delhi Public School. Fine — he did not know them. The second team was from Kendriya Vidyalaya. Fine. But the third team, if he made it that far, was from his old school in Lucknow. And the two names printed beside it were Samir Khanna and Priya Joshi.

Samir had been his best friend from Class 3 to Class 6. They had built a model volcano together for the science fair — the one that actually erupted with baking soda and vinegar all over the judge's shoes. Priya had been the one who taught him how to debate in the first place. She had stood behind him in their school's tiny library, rapping her knuckles on the table every time his argument went soft. "Evidence!" she would say. "Give me evidence, Faiz, not feelings."

He stared at their names on the bracket, his prepared arguments suddenly feeling strange in his mouth, like food that had gone cold. It was one thing to prepare to defeat "the other team." It was entirely another to prepare to defeat Samir and Priya.

His coach walked up behind him and looked at the bracket. "Problem?"

"No," said Faiz. Then: "Yes. I know them."

His coach nodded slowly. "That's not a problem, Faiz. That's an advantage. When you know who you're facing, you can't pretend they are just opponents. You have to be better — not just louder, not just cleverer. Better."

Arjuna did exactly this. He did not say "show me the enemy." He said "show me the people who want to fight." He wanted to see them as individuals with names and histories and faces he might recognize. He wanted to know exactly what he was up against — not as an abstraction, but as a truth.

Sometimes the bravest thing is not preparing to win. It is choosing to see exactly who you might have to defeat, and sitting with that knowledge before the contest begins.