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Chapter Text

The battle raged. The sandy plains had become a wetland, muddied by blood. And one of the main players in today’s rampage was Ghatotkach. He and his small battalion tore through the Kaurava army, decimating the cavalry and infantry effortlessly. Despite their hefty build, no one anticipated them, and they mechanically cut through the huge mass of soldiers, their competency appearing casual.

“Do you really not see anything beyond your personal goals?” Duryodhana asked Karna. “Did you join this war for me, or for yourself?” He pushed.

“I don't think that is the question right now. Can you even imagine what would happen if we take out Arjun? He is the strongest player. I’m not being selfish, I’m playing the long game.”

“There won’t be a game left to play if you let this continue. Use it.”

“Dur-”

“You're the king of a small kingdom, Radheya. Which, if you’re forgetting, I gave you. I, however, am the crown prince of Hastinapur. I command you to use it.” Duryodhan growled, shutting off all protests.

“Fine” Karna muttered, and taking out the thunder-tipped spear closed his eyes and began chanting. Duryodhan moved to cover him from attackers that could break his concentration, his chariot coming in from the right to shelter Karna from the front.

“Keshav- Take it to the left. Go left!” Arjun said, positioning himself to shoot Karna.

“Keshav we are really close.”

Arjun’s chariot veered right.

“Keshav, please! I have to do this!” Arjuna pleaded, locking his ankle against the side of the chariot to lean out.

He aimed for Karna’s eye, it would go straight to the brain that way. Through the corner of his eye, Krishna saw Arjun lean out of the chariot.

“Parth, Ghatotkach can handle it. Trust him.”

“He is a child! I am not about to lose another one.”

“Parth, he is doing perfectly fine, you need to worry about Jayadrath!”

“He’s not even on the battlefield!”

“Keshav, you said you wouldn’t pick up a weapon in this war. Please, don’t break your own vows with your reins and your words.. I know Jayadrath is not going to come out anytime soon. You yourself said that death is inevitable. You said we shouldn’t try to avoid it, or distract ourselves. But- but if you see fit to lead me away from Karna, fine-” Arjuna nocked the arrow, fully leaning out now.

“And may this weapon have the power to read my mind and pierce the heart of the person I desire dead. Om Indraya namah.” Karna opened his eyes, rolled his shoulders, and drew his arm back, aiming at the bear claw pendant Ghatotkach wore on his heart. Taking a deep breath, he released it.

“I trust you.” Arjuna let go.

Two projectiles shot through the air. Arjun’s arrow headed with unparalleled force while the Vajrastra sailed smoothly. “He’s- Keshav-” Arjun’s sentence was cut short as the jagged spear hit him in the chest, its electricity coursing through his veins.

Krishna’s head snapped back, and he saw Arjun violently convulsing. The shrapnel of the broken, and now ordinary spear, pierced him in the wrist, and he let go of the reins. The light was too bright.

And suddenly everything went quiet. Ghatotkach fell down, the Vajra grazing him before hitting Arjun. He fell onto a formation of spears, killing the soldiers in it while sustaining infected wounds.

No one noticed.

Arjun collapsed, his body going limp over the side of the chariot. The gandiva was loosely held in his right hand, and his hair stood up from the current that had coursed through his body.

Krishna stared at him, unsure of what to do. He was so used to everything going according to his plan, that he had no idea what to do if it didn’t. Karna frantically pressed down on his neck, trying to stop the bleeding. His exercise proved futile in a matter of minutes as his bloodsoaked hand went limp along with the rest of his body.

Duryodhan whipped his head to the side, jumping down from his chariot and wading through the mud to get to him as fast as possible. He slipped and fell, his clothes getting covered in blood. He got up and stumbled forward, climbing into Radheya’s chariot and cradling Karna’s head in his hands. He wailed.

And after the brief calm, the storm picked up once again. Bheem rode forward swiftly, stopping at Arjun’s chariot. Dismounting, he picked up the body hanging off to the side and laid it in the chariot. He smoothed out the stood-up hair, untangled the bow from Arjuna’s hand, and slipped off his quiver from his back. Without saying a word, he laid them to the side. He didn’t know what prompted him to check, but he looked up to see Ghatotkach on the ground in a similar manner.

“Wait- I am coming back.” he said quietly, as he got back onto his own chariot and rode toward Ghatotkach. Krishna kept staring at the body, his vision growing progressively blurry. What had gone wrong? This wasn’t supposed to happen, Arjun wasn’t supposed to die.

Chapter Text

The glowing Sudarshan Chakra appeared in Krishna’s hand. He swiped at his blurry red eyes with his left arm and jumped down from the chariot. He undid the reins of the horses, and with his whip in one hand and the chakra in the other, he walked forward. 

He was Time. Death. The destroyer. They should stop calling him preserver now, he guessed. 

Time hurt. It took away people, it made them age and wither and change. 

The Sudarshan Chakra was supposed to symbolize the very same thing, and so, it hurt too. The sharp inner edges cut his little finger, bit by bit, but he didn’t care. His mind blurred the lines between the physical pain and the mental anguish he felt. 

The whip was all he had on hand. He had entered the war, naive and hopeful, sure of his schemes and trusting of destiny. 

But now? Fuck his plans, and fuck his vows, and most of all, fuck the wheel of time. 

He was inevitable. The Universe thought it could disobey him. The Universe was going to pay. 

Broken promises littered the battlefield. Of Sons coming home, of lovers reuniting. 

What harm would it do if one more was added to the mix? 

He cracked the whip, dragging it along the ground as he moved forward. 

Drona was the first. A clean slice through his head. Ashwatthama ran forward, trying to save his father. Krishna paid no heed to him. 

The Kaurava brothers tried to hold him back, but with the crack of his whip, he effortlessly pushed them aside. They weren’t important enough to kill right now. Shakuni, however, was. 

“My lord,” he preened, craning his neck and stretching his lips. “Surely you must think of your promises?”

Krishna took a deep breath. The exhale came out shaky. With deft movements and unreadable eyes, Shakuni’s head sliced clean off. 

The next targets weren’t exactly important to the war, per say, but he did have a vendetta against them. Susharman. He had the gall to lead Arjun on a wild goose chase, a plan put in place to stop Arjun from entering the Chakravyuh. He used his whip to tilt Susharma’s chariot, making him fall over and get trampled by his own horses. 

An anguished cry rent the air as Krishna hurled his Sudarshan Chakra yet again, this time aimlessly. Maybe it struck a pole. Maybe it carried over an already existing fire. No one knew how it happened, but the Kaurava camp was ablaze, chaos and panic setting in. 

Dusshasan came out on fire, barely able to take two steps before falling to the ground, a charred and unrecognizable mess of armour and limbs.

The Chakra returned to his finger, spinning constantly until it was covered in his blood. A sad little stub was all that remained of Krishna’s finger. 

Duryodhan felt himself being dragged from behind. He instinctively moved to defend himself, shrug off that arm, but it grew tighter. 

“Listen. Vasudev is on a rampage right now.” Bheem ground out through clenched teeth. 

“And? Why are you telling me what I can already see?” 

“You really are brainless aren’t you?” 

“Look. If you want to save this kingdom, you will listen to me. There won’t be a kingdom left for you to fight for.” 

“He will spare you.” Duryodhan said as nonchalantly as he could. 

“Idiot!” Bheem finally dragged him out of the chariot and into a standing position. “He does not care about taking a side right now. He will destroy everything he comes across. Your entire army is almost gone. All of your brothers are dying or dead. We need to leave before he destroys the world.” 

“And how do you propose we do that, exactly?” Duryodhan asked. Even when soaked in blood and 

“Only one person can stop him now. Fortunately, we know him and he knows us. Unfortunately, he’s on top of a damned mountain, unaware of all of this. Also, the mountain is really far away, and if we need to reach there, we need to leave now, before his gaze turns on us.”

“Why are you doing this? You could get him alone too.”

Bheem sighed. “You were always his favourite. He’ll listen to you.” 

“He didn’t have favourites. That’s why he chose to be neutral, didn’t he?” 

“Start walking. I have a pair of steeds in our stables. We can go far enough with them.” Bheem ordered.

Krishna grew. He grew until the skies looked at him in terror. He grew until the Earth shook with his footsteps. His multiple faces each held the same expression. Heavy eyes, with shaky breaths and mouths twisted into bittersweet smiles. 

His kinder side tried hard to come out. To soothe himself, to let the grief be grief. Their tries, unfortunately, remained just that. Tries. 

His violent forms goaded him on, turning his grief into rage. It wasn’t worth being human if he wasn’t being human with Arjun. And the world without him was a pathetic approximation of all the things he had loved about humanity. A sad excuse for the Earth. It wasn’t worth preserving. 

Even in all of this, though, his hands were gentle. The hands that weren’t carrying weapons lifted Arjuna up carefully.

“I want to see the world with you, Parth. I want to revisit everywhere we had once been, every little stream where we swam. Every clearing we rested in, every little meadow we frolicked in.” His voice was hoarse, but he kept talking, trying to get an answer from someone who would never be able to give him one now. “I wanted to take you to Vrindavan, invite you to dance with me. Maybe, just maybe, we will do that someday.” 

His tears fell on the ground in big splashes, creating lakes as he went. “I wanted to play the flute for you. I know you loved it when the court musicians did, I loved seeing you get so engrossed in the tunes.”

Yudhishthira sat in a secret underground prayer room, his hands joined in prayer in front of Yama’s shrine. He chanted fervently, not daring to break his concentration, not opening his eyes. 

He didn’t want the death of the Universe. That’s what he told himself. Yama would do something, and Krishna would calm down, and the Universe would be saved. He was the king of Indraprastha. He had to take steps to save the world. 

He wanted his little brother. The sharp-witted brother who was quick with words and quicker with arrows. The one who smiled shyly when given gifts. The golden child. Everyone’s favourite. His favourite too. That’s what his real reason was. 

Yama knew. He knew like a father knows what his son is thinking, like a God knows the mind of his devotee, but he didn’t say anything. It was beyond him why humans would not only lie to others about their feelings, but also attempt to lie to themselves. Besides, one couldn’t bring back the dead! That was silly. And against the rules. Maybe, just maybe, though, he could try appealing to someone else. His boss. 

Nakul and Sahdev worked silently, digging out pieces of metal and wood from Ghatotkacha’s back. They worked silently, eye contact the only medium of communication between them. Sahdev picked out the shrapnel, Nakul quickly treated the wound. They laid him on his side, rubbing salve onto the Vajrastra graze. 

“We have to let this work, somehow. Otherwise we’re definitely dead.” 

“We are going to die either way, I think. Do you hear that?” 

“I think that’s Duryodhan. He’s- shouting?” 

“When is he not? And what is he doing here in the first place?” 

“Probably running to save his sorry ass. We should save this one first.” Nakul said darkly. 

“Yes, but-” Sahdev started. 

“What?” 

“Nothing. We need to get back to work.”

“Do you know where he is?” Duryodhan asked Bheem, turning the horse around so he could sit. 

“He didn’t tell me, Unlike someone else, I wasn’t his favourite.” 

 “How many times do I need to tell you that I am not his favourite student?” 

“Lie all you want, that is all you have ever done” Bheem said. 

“Kritavarman-” Duryodhan started, while at the same time, Bheem said, “Satyaki”

“He’s down south, that much I know.” 

“Parth, no matter how many times I lose you, it never stops getting less painful. You were fated to die, though, weren’t you? You destroyed what was left of that monster. I always exploit loopholes, I took away his armour, I left him toothless. I begged the gods to help me, implored them to save my Parth, it didn’t work. How did this go wrong?”

Krishna watched Arjun with a sad smile, because the sight of his favourite human always brought a smile to his face. In all his forms, in all his shades, he always sought out the sight of his human.

“Let me take you where you always wanted to go, Parth. You dreamed of visiting this place, didn’t you? You wanted to visit this place after the war.” 

And they were in a lush meadow, somewhere on the banks of the Yamuna, where vines hung down and trees blossomed with ripe flowers and fruit. The water flowed clear and cheerful, and the grass was the softest one could ever imagine. 

Within minutes, the riverbank caved in. The meadow was flooded in a rush of falling trees and mud getting loose, rocks breaking apart and flowing away like feathers.

He was back in Kurukshetra. Was it real? Or was it a dream? A flashback? 

He had shrouded himself, Krishna thought. Created an image of himself, all wrapped up in that mystery, those politics. Sometimes, with all those masks, he too, forgot that he was a warrior. He was born to fight, honestly, people forgot that he had started slaying demons at the age of two. His favourite person in the whole world, the man his machinations had relied upon was dead.

Madhusudan smiled. He was always smiling, always laughing, teasing! He had nothing to live for now, though. No one to tease, no one to laugh at his jokes. So he would act like that. 

His (multiple) shoulders shook. He didn’t even know if he was laughing or crying, he didn’t want to know. He had another destination in mind.

“How much time do we have? You know, before he destroys the world?” 

“I would say about a few more hours?” The horses had stopped at a lakeside, their respective humans leaning tiredly against a tree.

“You do realise how much we are doomed, right?” 

“A little. Eat this.” Bheem offered some food wrapped haphazardly in leaves. 

“Trust you to think of food even at such a crucial time.” 

“I’m giving you a part of my rations exactly because it is a crucial time! Wouldn’t want you to die before I can crush your skull!”

“I won’t die. You will.” 

Bheem didn’t respond to the jibe. “I think the horses have finished.” 

“We should get going. The flow of the river is increasing.” 

“What-” 

“Get going!” Duryodhan shouted, pulling their horses closer just before the rock they were standing on dislodged. 

The two rode on, gaining speed as they rode south.

“I’ve followed the rules all my life, I thought it would please you. Allow me to break this one rule, and I won’t ask for anything ever again!”

Buildings that were thought to stand the test of time broke down, rivers thought to last long flooded and ended cities. 

“Whatever will I do without you, dear one?”

“My lord, you have to do something!” Yama implored Shiva. “My gates are crowded with the souls from ghost cities, my clerks are working overtime!” 

“Ah, grief for a lover.” Shiva thought. “Hmm, I would be overstepping my bounds if I try to preserve life.”

“The preserver Himself has become the destroyer! We are way way past the point of jurisdictions! But of course, just do what you think is good and best,” Yama backtracked, nervously stroking his Bison’s horn.

“I will see what I can do. But I fear no one can stop him.”

“I think we need to hurry up. You should eat faster.” Duryodhan said. “Before it gets to the point where no one can stop him.” 

“Did you ask Kritavarman?” 

“Did you ask Satyaki?” Duryodhan raised his eyebrow. 

“Why, yes, in fact, I did! We are 3 days away now.” 

“We need to make it in two.” Duryodhan said. “You’ve only seen the side of Him that loves you, right?”

“Well not me, but-” 

“I know how ruthless he is with his enemies. And right now, the whole human race is his target.” 

“I think an intervention might be needed. I was initially in favour of letting him air out his woes, but he’s more like flooding them out at this point.” Shiva shrugged, while Yama facepalmed, sighing hard.

“You need anything, Sir?” Yama asked, putting his mask of politeness back on. 

“I might” Shiva said. “Thank you.” 

Abandoned towns lay scattered on riverbanks, ghats flooded and buildings toppled. 

The rivers ran red, Krishna’s blood flowing down as he ruthlessly struck with the Sudarshan Chakra once more. 

Yushishthir wasn’t even aware that he was drowning. It was quick and slow at the same time, a minute feeling like a million hours as water slowly entered his lungs and took his life. 

Draupadi ran out of the falling building, jumping in headfirst and swimming against the current to get to Krishna. “Madhav- what is this?” 

Krishna ignored her. She saw a leg thrown across Krishna’s arm. 

“Who is that? Govinda please!” She shouted. As she looked up, Krishna was gone. The water was rising. 

Panchali ran.

Vrindavan was one place on the banks of the river that lay magically untouched. Abandoned years ago, the town lay unoccupied. 

“I always wanted to take you here, Parth. Show you what I was like before you knew me. Would you have liked me then?” 

“This needs to stop!” Shiva’s voice boomed through the abandoned building where Krishna was sitting. He was his normal self now, broken and exhausted, wracked with grief. They never wrote about this in their stories. Their humans were emotional, their gods told them to stop being that. 

“I know how it feels, Narayan.” Shiva stepped out from behind a tree. “Allow me to take him away. Let me take care of the body, and you can grieve in peace. He was human, he can only take so much. Are you not going to let him rest? Even in death?” 

“We were on a picnic!” Krishna exclaimed hysterically. “I was showing him all the places we ever wanted to go to!” 

“Can he see them?” Shiva asked gently. “Can he experience those places? His soul- it has departed. Worldly experiences aren’t something for him anymore.” 

“No!” Krishna’s mask began to slip. His laughter had an edge to it, something betraying a deeper sea of emotions.

“You have to. Don’t make me do it by force, it’ll hurt more.”

“Use force, then, why don’t you? I never shied away from doing that last time!” 

Shiva sighed, and looked Krishna in the eyes. They held a deep understanding to them. “Please,” he whispered, and stretched out his arms. 

Krishna hung his head and clenched his eyes shut. Taking a deep breath, he handed the body over. 

Chapter Text

Krishna leaned against the wall tiredly. He was more human than he thought if a few hours of the Vishwaroop drained him this much. This wall was once someone’s home. He threw his hand against the broken down wall. The bloodloss, the crying, carrying Arjun, it all took its toll on him. Unable to hold it in any longer, he closed his eyes and let the darkness take him. 

“Madhav, what happened to you?” Arjun was asking. “What happened to your finger?” 

Krishna was too tired, he tried to open his eyes but they wouldn’t open. He absently raised his neck, hoping his Parth would understand. 

“Show me? I’ll dress the wound.” 

Arjun took his hand, and with a piece of cloth, wiped away all the blood. He kept doing that until the flow slowed down, and began wrapping it up. 

“Govinda-” Someone said.

Govinda? Arjun had never called him Govinda. It was always Keshav, or Madhav. He blinked. Holding his hand up, dressing it with a piece of cloth torn from her own shawl, was Draupadi. “Panchali? You? What are you doing here?” 

“What I heard, what I saw, is- is it true? I saw, but- But I was worried about you.” 

Krishna choked back a sob. 

Panchali’s eyes grew moist. She went back to dressing his finger. “I’m sorry, I didn’t have anything else to dress it with.” 

“That’s fine.” His voice was hoarse and shaky, “Why did you even come?” 

Draupadi wordlessly finished dressing what was left of his finger and set it down on his lap. Crossing the wall, she sat next to him, took his hand in hers, and leaned her head on his shoulder. “Your heart is huge, Govinda. You love so many people. Arjun did that too. You, me, Subhadra- I escaped it when you flooded Hastinapur and Indraprastha. I ran away, trying to get to a height. And when I was sure I had survived, I felt guilty. For leaving you at such an important time. So I tried to retrace your steps and followed you here. And then I found you asleep, you were rambling. Some of it was incoherent, but I could make out the name, ‘parth’.” Draupadi wiped at her eyes. 

“Oh, Panchali.” Krishna sighed, turning to draw her into a hug. “I feel so tired.” He buried his head in her shoulder. 

“I did something, right? What did I do? What did I do, Panchali? Tell me the truth.”

“You flooded every river that I know of. When I went up that hill, All I could see everywhere was water. You were close to destroying the world. But A small path leading up to this place survived. Why? Why did this place survive, despite being on the riverbanks? It’s an abandoned village.”

“It’s my childhood. I wanted to take Parth back here, some day after the war. But- I couldn’t do that. So I came here, alone, a few moments to myself. Now, there’s no point, is there? To anything.” 

Krishna stood up, first leaning on the broken wall for support at first, but then quickly recovered to walk to the river’s edge. “I know what I say, Krishnaa. I know exactly what I preach. But if my plans- If all I do is worthless, why should my words hold weight?"

There were no horses to provide for a convenient route now. Not now that they had begun ascending the mountain. 

“Don’t let your guard down, I will drop you at any moment.” Duryodhan quipped. 

“You skip exercising your legs, I’m not scared of you.” Bheem panted. 

“And why exactly were you two coming here?”

“Well this idiot didn’t under-”

“You told me that I was in danger, how was I not going to try to stay safe?”

“Listen, I never said that! I just said that there’s no sides in this fight now!” 

“And who are you to know?” 

“Parth’s brother.” Bheem said abruptly. 

“Well he’s dead!”

“Arjun- is dead?” Balaram cut in quietly. “And you came all the way to tell me that?” 

“Yes because- I mean Vasudev-” 

“I can see that.” Balaram raised his eyebrows. “Turn around, both of you.” 

When they faced the valley, they saw first hand what Balaram meant. The green fields with the meandering river had turned a murky brown, with a frothy white current coursing across the valley rapidly. 

“Stay on high ground. There is a hut there if you go straight. Take shelter.”

Krishna drew back from the hug, swiping at his eyes. “Those days were so good, I was so carefree.” he whispered. “And people might call me out for not having a sense of duty, for making a big deal out of my grief, but leaving this place was the hardest thing I ever did, and I did it because of a sense of duty.” 

He got up, walked up to the river, and looked up at the sky. Even in his grief, his pain, he smiled. Were the bent and pained parts of him trying to comfort himself? Or had he smiled so much that he was incapable of taking the smile off? Taking the mask off? 

“No point to anything now, is there? I tried doing my duty, but ended up with a trail of broken promises. Tried protecting my love, but I failed. Tried to correct my mistakes, but only made more. Forgive me, Panchali.” he breathed. And then Krishna jumped into the water, becoming as fluid as it. 

He was drowning. Some part of him experienced deja vu. This had happened before. Krishna tried to stop holding his breath. Tipping his head back, he closed his eyes. But as he sank slowly, someone took his arm, pulling him along with them. 

Balaram pulled him against the current, going upwards toward where the Yamuna met the Ganga. He knew they’d have to resurface, but he was getting his brother away from the volatile flooding. No matter how old he was, or even the very fact that he caused the flooding, he needed to get him out. 

They resurfaced, floating for a while. “I’m here now.” 

Krishna whispered brokenly, “Why did you even leave?” 

“You and I both know what happens if I stick around for the big one. I’m with you, but I wasn’t staying around for the big one. I did that last time, and you know what happened. What about me? I need to take care of myself if I’m going to look after things in Vaikuntha.” 

Krishna leaned his forehead against Balaram’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Dau.” he wept. 

“I know. And the people who you actually need to apologise to are dead. But I’ll suffice, I think. Because- because I understand.” 

Finally, they stepped out onto dry land. And Narayan was faced with the onslaught of memories. Their hut, their berry grove- it had been turned into a temple, and there was, of course, a town surrounding it, with a raging river and bustling activity. If he was younger, he would have loved this town. Lively, with a bouncing river and a teeming temple community. Maybe his head would’ve ached from the memories, but he would have still loved it. Right now, however, there was no love. Only grief accompanied the oncoming headache. 

“This was it, wasn’t it. I begged the gods themselves to save him, but-”

“It was fated to happen.” 

“I am time, I am the universe!” Krishna tried to protest. 

“I do not say this to bring you comfort. I do not say this to tell you not to grieve, and I do not say this as an empty platitude. Sometimes, facing rationality and logic can make you face emotions as well.” 

Somewhere in the distance, the bell of a cow started ringing. Some hunter from the village let out an arrow, the twang of the bowstring echoing in the mountains. Madhav looked down sheepishly. Every word his brother spoke rang nothing but true, yet he couldn’t bring himself to let them sink in. 

“Haven’t I cried enough? Haven’t I rent the earth and heaven with my cries, shaking the earth in my pain? Haven’t I already expressed how much I want to fulfil our unkept promises, our desires and passions?” He finally spoke up. “And if, according to you, I haven’t processed my emotions or something, why do I feel so tired? My grief has been a raw, gaping wound right from the moment when Parth was struck with a weapon of his father’s own. Have I not made it clear enough?” 

“Not in front of someone who truly knew you.” 

Krishna sat down on a rock, wrapping his arms around himself. He was shaking. Maybe from the cold, maybe from the blinding headache, maybe from the onslaught of emotions. But he was definitely holding something in. 

“Kanha, why do you hide from yourself?” Dau gently touched his shoulder, and Kanha all but leaned into it.

Lakshmi’s eyes watered as she saw Narayan huddled into Sesha, sobbing into his shoulder about the loss of a lover. She had held him in a much similar way a few aeons ago, when the world was simpler. How she wished to take away his pain, to return Nara to him. But she couldn’t. Maybe he was still being processed in Yamlok, maybe he hadn’t yet made his way to Vaikuntha. Maybe he too was wandering on Earth like a lost soul, unsure of where to go. 

Indra mourned the loss of his son. 

Surya mourned the loss of his. 

And so did Vayu, Yama, and the Ashiwini Kumaras. 

But Krishna’s grief was so great that he destroyed the world to make sure there would be no mourners going through the same pain as him.