The world faded.
For a heartbeat, there was no war—no Kurukshetra soaked in blood and fury, no cries of soldiers or the clash of steel. There was only silence.
And in that silence stood two warriors, two destinies.
Arjuna, the son of Indra, the bearer of Gandiva.
Karna, the son of the sun, bearer of Vijaya Dhanush.
Both still. Both unblinking.
Both waiting for the other to move.
Then—lightning cracked across the sky.
With a single exhale, Arjuna raised his bow. His fingers glided across the string like a musician summoning the note of destruction. The air trembled as he invoked the Agneyastra, the fire weapon. A sliver of pure flame formed at the tip of the arrow, growing brighter, hungrier—until it looked like a piece of the sun itself had been strung upon the bow.
He released.
The arrow screamed through the battlefield like a comet, igniting the winds around it. Flames curled outward as it flew, scorching the very air, turning dust into glass beneath its path. The sky above it roared in protest, clouds spiraling outward as the heavens recognized the invocation of divine force.
But Karna did not flinch.
His hand moved in practiced rhythm—graceful, patient, deadly. The bow in his grasp thrummed with power as he summoned the Varun Astra, the water weapon. Cool, cerulean energy gathered around his arrowhead, humming with ancient force. As he let it fly, a spiral of water burst forth, not as a stream, but as a coiling serpent of the ocean, surging to meet the firestorm head-on.
The two astras collided midair.
Fire and water clashed—not with the hiss of steam, but with a thunderous explosion that shook the very bones of the earth. Soldiers fell back in awe, shielding their eyes from the blinding burst. Day turned to twilight as the shockwave rippled outward, silencing the war cries of men too small to comprehend the power of gods.
And in the eye of that storm, Karna and Arjuna stared at one another—unchanged, unmoved.
This was not the fight of warriors.
This was the reckoning of legends.
To the ordinary eye, the duel seemed frozen in time—like two statues poised mid-motion.
But in truth, the clash lasted less than a blink.
Arjuna and Karna moved faster than thought, faster than breath. Their astras tore through the air in rapid succession—flames, water, wind, and lightning colliding with such force that the very fabric of the world seemed to stretch and groan. The sky above them warped with divine energy, and the ground beneath their feet cracked and buckled like the bones of an aging god.
Each weapon released was not merely an arrow—it was an intent. A scream of will. A memory of lifetimes condensed into a streak of divine destruction.
Yet they matched each other, blow for blow.
Arjuna's Vayavyastra, the wind weapon, howled like a hurricane, seeking to slice through Karna's defenses. But Karna answered with Parjanyastra, calling clouds from nothingness and shattering the wind with the downpour of summoned rain.
As the battle escalated, the two warriors closed the distance between them.
No more than a few strides apart now, they continued exchanging strikes. Every arrow, every glance, was weighed with history. With blood. With fate.
The very air around them shimmered—no longer just air, but something thinner, more fragile, as if reality itself strained to hold their power. It crackled, vibrated, trembled with such intensity that the battlefield's heart had become a vortex—a place where gods might fear to tread.
And then—it began.
Karna faltered.
A fraction of hesitation. A moment where his fingers twitched instead of released. His next arrow veered a hair's breadth off its perfect line—not enough for most to notice, but enough for Karna to know.
Something was wrong.
A hollowness crept into his mind, not like pain or fear—but like a page torn from a sacred book.
His memory… no, not all of it—just the pieces that mattered now. The patterns of counters. The instinctive parries. The ancient techniques etched into his soul… slipping, like sand through open palms.
His breath caught in his throat.
He knew this feeling.
The curse.
Parashurama's curse.
Fragments of knowledge—knowledge earned through blood and betrayal—were missing.
Across from him, Arjuna noticed nothing. Or perhaps, he did—and chose not to show it. His arrows were fast, precise, unrelenting. But Karna still countered—barely. His instincts, honed beyond human capacity, fought to fill the void left behind. Every move became a calculation. Every defense, a risk.
The battlefield had grown still elsewhere.
The soldiers of both sides—Kaurava and Pandava—had long since fled from the eye of this storm. None dared step into the circle of the two titans. To enter would mean oblivion.
Only dust remained around them now, circling like restless spirits. And in that desolate ring, the fate of empires teetered on a single mind—beginning to unravel.
Karna's body moved like a machine of war—fluid, efficient, lethal.
But inside, his mind was a battlefield of its own.
Panic clawed at the edges of his thoughts, a chaos born not of fear, but of absence. Forms, sequences, sacred mantras—gone. Not erased, but unreachable, like stars hidden behind storm clouds.
Yet on his face, there was nothing.
Not a twitch of the brow, not a flicker in his eyes.
He was as stoic as ever—the eternal warrior, the son of the sun.
He fought with what remained—scraps of memory stitched with instinct. Arrows flew from his bow in rapid succession, not with the grace of mastery but the desperation of discipline. He countered, dodged, and deflected with precision—but it was no longer flawless. It was surviving.
Against any other warrior, this might have been enough.
But not against Arjuna.
Arjuna—the unrivaled. Arjuna—the chosen. Arjuna, whose every arrow was guided by divinity and destiny alike.
Every shot he loosed carried not only skill but intent—intent to end. There was no anger, no hatred—only purpose. And in that purpose, Karna found himself being pushed. Bent. Broken.
But he did not fall.
He couldn't.
High above the dust and chaos, the chariot of Arjuna rolled forward—but slowed. Not because of fear. Not because of exhaustion.
Because Krishna had seen.
The one who knew the rhythm of the cosmos—the turning of stars and the secrets behind men's hearts—watched Karna closely. Even as Karna masked the turmoil within, even as his form danced the edge of ruin with defiance, Krishna saw it.
The slip in his stance.
The flicker in his timing.
The curse at work.
But Krishna did not speak of it.
He remained calm, serene—his dark eyes holding galaxies, his smile ever gentle, ever mysterious. Then, without a word, he shifted the reins.
The horses neighed and turned.
In a sudden surge of motion, Krishna turned the chariot—not forward into the duel, but away.
They began to retreat—swiftly—away from the very heart of the battle.
Arjuna's eyes widened.
"What is this?" he cried, barely holding onto Gandiva. "Krishna! Why do we flee? Why do we, who were never meant to turn from battle, now retreat? From him?"
Krishna's expression remained unchanged.
His voice, soft and eternal, broke through the storm.
"My dear friend," he said, a smile curving his lips—divine, disarming, infinite. "What happens… is but the extension of fate. We are merely threads in its weave."
Arjuna's breath caught in his chest.
There was no fear in Krishna's words. No urgency. Only knowing.
Behind them, the ground cracked as one of Karna's arrows, too hastily summoned, burst against the dirt in a flash of raw, untamed power. Even in unraveling, he was still dangerous.
But Krishna had seen deeper.
For all Karna's power, for all his righteousness and struggle—there was something slipping away. A moment approaching. A truth long set into motion. And no man, not even Arjuna, could outrun what was written in the stars.
Arjuna had a storm brewing within him—questions, anger, disbelief. Why were they retreating when victory was within reach? Why was Krishna, the knower of time itself, turning away from the duel of destinies?
But Arjuna said nothing.
His trust in Krishna, his friend, his guide, was deeper than his desire to understand. And so he held his tongue, the grip on his bow tight, eyes sharp and waiting.
Behind them, Karna stood still for a moment, confused by their retreat. Then his voice boomed across the silence like thunder.
"Where are you running, O Arjuna?" he roared. "Have you forgotten the vows we made with our blood? Come and face me, warrior to warrior! Or are you so craven that you'd flee before me like a coward!"
His words struck the air like arrows of their own. Sharp. Wounding. Desperate.
But Krishna did not look back. His hands held steady at the reins.
Karna's own hands, however, trembled—not with fear, but with the need for resolution. He gave a curt command to his charioteer. "Follow them."
Their own chariot followed the retreating Pandava one, thundering through the war-scarred plains until they reached the outer edge of the battlefield.
Here, there were no soldiers.
No trumpets.
No chants of victory or cries of pain.
Only silence—and the soft squelch of wheels pressing into damp earth. The land was barren, but not dry. The ground had been churned by the footsteps of forgotten skirmishes and soaked by rains from unknown gods. The soil was soft, wet—almost unnaturally so.
Karna's chariot wheels groaned as they passed through.
Then, without warning, Krishna pulled the reins and stopped.
He turned slowly—his dark gaze meeting Karna's from across the space. There was no arrogance, no challenge—only silence. The kind that comes before a storm or after the end of the world.
Karna stepped forward, steadying his breath. Though his heart was still in disarray from the battle, and his memories frayed like old cloth, he prepared himself to strike.
Then—
A violent jolt shook him.
The chariot lurched and tilted slightly.
Karna staggered to remain upright. His eyes narrowed, turning toward his charioteer. The man, too, was confused for a moment, then leapt from the front to inspect the wheel.
He glanced up a moment later, eyes grim.
"My lord," he said. "The wheel… it's stuck."
Karna stepped down from the chariot, boots sinking into the wet earth. His eyes followed the wheel into the muddy soil—it had sunk deeper than it should have. As if the very ground had opened its mouth to trap it.
Something was wrong. Not just with the wheel. With everything.
The world, it seemed, had become quiet. Too quiet.
Karna bent down, hands pressing against the mud, trying to free the wheel with force. His golden armor—now dulled with dust and blood—glinted faintly under the pale light. He grunted with effort, pushing, pulling.
Nothing.
He looked back, toward Krishna and Arjuna.
Krishna sat calmly, watching. As if he knew.
As if he had always known.