Familiar footsteps shook Karna out of his stupour. 

"Greetings, brother," said Arjun, flinging himself down under their tree and leaning tiredly against it.

"You are late," said Karna coldly. "What is the reason you came?"

"Reason?" Arjun sounded bewildered.

"It ends today," said Karna, standing up. "It had to end anyway, now that I am part of the battle."

Arjun, who appeared bone-deep tired, looked up at Karna from his position at the foot of the tree, blinking, questions writ large over his face. Karna realized he had begun to label Arjun's mannerisms--he blinked rapidly when he was confused.

"This is not sport, Arjun. I am tired of you acting like a brother in nighttime and like the bitterest enemy in daytime. I cannot do this anymore."

Arjun stood up abruptly, too, eyes sparking fury.

"What exactly is it that you are claiming, big brother? That you have been afflicted by humanity and I am still harbouring vengeful hatred?"

Even spoken in that tone, 'big brother' was like a melody to Karna's ears, which made his confused indignation melt away.

"Is it not enough that I come here every day after sundown?" demanded Arjun. "Does it not tell you that I do not simply act a brother to you? Why would I bother with an act?"

"I did not say--"

"That is exactly what you did say!"

"I'm sorry for saying it like that--"

"But you did mean it. Now that you say it, I am tired," said Arjun fiercely, "of your firm belief that you are the only charitable and righteous person in the universe and you are the only person capable of emotions and the only one who has been cheated out by destiny. We have also been cheated out of a brother, you know!"

Karna snorted. "Cheated out of a brother? You already have four brothers."

"THAT DOESN'T MAKE UP FOR THE FIFTH!"

"All right, calm down--" Karna spoke in a hushed voice in an attempt to bring down Arjun's voice.

It didn't work.

"FAREWELL."

"Arjun--"

"LIKE YOU SAID, IT HAD TO END. SEE YOU IN THE BATTLEFIELD TOMORROW, BIG BROTHER."

It was the first and only time the world saw Arjun losing control completely. He stomped back to his camp, ears blowing steam. 

Karna stared after him, a sigh rising from deep inside. Wistfully, he tried to tell himself he would not mind the loss of these tiny stolen hours, but it was futile. The more he had got to know Arjun, the more he had understood why he was the apple of everyone's eyes.

Arjun had said once before that Yudhishthir would have been Karna's favourite brother, had they got a normal life.

But Karna was quite sure it would have been Arjun. Possibly it already was Arjun.

***************

"You were right as usual, Madhav," said Arjun angrily. "I had almost begun to forget the King of Anga is our enemy. It was kind of him to remind me."

"Indeed?" asked Krishna, bemused.

"Tomorrow first thing you will take our chariot straight to him."

****************

The air crackled with tension when Karna slouched into the Kaurava camp. To his shock, everyone was wide awake despite the late hour.

"Where have you been, my friend?" asked Duryodhan.

"Taking a walk," said Karna, figuring that it was not an untruth, if not the whole truth. He gauged his friend's expression carefully; he appeared to have recovered from the death of his brothers a bit.

"Sit down, sit down, King of Anga," said Shakuni with an oily smile. "We were just laying down an important plan."

"The idea is to break the Pandavas from inside their soul," said Duryodhan.

"Yes, that means we need to kill Arjun," said Karna. "I will kill him by tom--"

"To kill Arjun would be to break their back. We will break their back after we have killed their soul. But to kill their soul--" Duryodhan smiled. "We need to kill his son."

"Abhimanyu?" asked Karna, taken aback. "What is the point of killing a seventeen year old child?"

"We just told you, King of Anga," said Shakuni, also with a twisted smile. "To break them from inside."

Aswatthama was not smiling. "And might we also remind you, Karna, that the seventeen year old child has inflicted more deaths upon our army than most?"

"Do not delude yourself that it will be easy," said their commander Dronacharya. "It would be impossible if Arjun is in the vicinity. It might be possible if we send him off."

Shakuni gave Duryodhan a 'we got that covered'  sort of look.

"King of Trigarta, Susharma," announced Duryodhan. "Are you ready to play your role?"

The King of Trigarta had joined their side with his kingdom's army with the sole purpose of defeating Arjun. He stood up and bowed so low, his nose almost touched the carpet.

"Gurudev, are you ready?"

"I will form the Chakravyuh," said Drona. "But I cannot guarantee the child will enter."

"Do you not know, Commander, that the child is exactly like his father?" asked Shakuni ingratiatingly.

Dronacharya nodded stiffly.

"Then you building the Chakravyuh will suffice," said Duryodhan. "King of Sindhu, Jayadratha, are you ready?"

His brother-in-law nodded with a sneer.

Duryodhan announced the seven maharathis who would be inside the vyuh: himself, Dussashan, Shakuni, Dronacharya, Kripacharya, Aswatthama and Karna.

"Should the maharathis inside not be all archers?" asked Karna.

"For honour's sake, my friend?" asked Duryodhan. "We will forget everything about honour. EVERY SINGLE THING."

He looked at Karna piercingly.

"The war lost its honour the day Arjun shot Pitamah. Pitamah could have killed their whole army in one day if he had exerted himself. He could have killed the five Pandavas within the first hour. But he did not. He spared their life, and HOW DID ARJUN REPAY HIM?" Duryodhan looked deranged. "DO YOU THINK THEY POSSESS HONOUR, KARNA? DO YOU?"

"No, of course they do not," said Karna hastily.

"You must be the one to kill him, my friend," said Duryodhan. "Nothing will break that treacherous archer more. Afterwards, when he faces you, he will be thinking of Abhimanyu's death. He would be weakened."

Except Dronacharya, who averted his eyes, everyone sounded their assent and looked at Karna expectantly.

There was nowhere Karna could go. Nowhere he could hide. 

"Certainly," he heard himself say.

It would not his brother he killed tomorrow after all. It would be his brother's son.

DAY 13 OF THE BATTLE OF KURUKSHETRA

The Kaurava army sprang into action at dawn.

King Susharma issued Arjun an open and mocking challenge. Karna caught Arjun and Krishna's eyes turn in his direction. It was clear they had planned on challenging him immediately. Karna's jaw clenched; for a moment, he wished Arjun would decline the King of Trigarta's challenge. That way, Karna could defeat Arjun--

And the child Abhimanyu would not be at fatal risk.

Trigarta's army charged Arjun's chariot. Then there remained no option for the latter but to accept the challenge; in the frenzy of fighting thousands, he would not realize that the army was drawing him further and further away.

****************

Dronacharya had started giving commands since before dawn, and it was not long before at Kurukshetra's heart was a spinning wheel of warriors, spreading out concentrically--lethal and unbreachable.

****************

Cries of triumph raiding the air announced to Karna, who was inside the vyuh, that Abhimanyu had been sent by the Pandava army to breach the Chakravyuh. The fresh cries five minutes later were even more triumphant--Jayadratha must have succeeded in restraining the Pandava army from following.

Then the screaming of the dead and the showers of blood began as Arjun's son and Krishna's nephew announced to his enemy that he might be alone, but he was not inept.

***************

The valour and competence Abhimanyu exhibited on Day 13 of the war was certain to go down forever in the books of history. He killed thousands upon thousands of soldiers, darting in and out, elusive and lethal.

When he had breached three of the layers, a messenger rode over to Karna, who was guarding the last but one layer.

"The Crown Prince says you are to report at the centre."

At the centre, he found all the other six maharathis. From war rules, the Chakravyuh was not supposed to harbour all its maharathis at the centre.

But Duryodhan had promised they would forget every single thing about honour today.

Almost like he had read Karna's discomfiture, Duryodhan smiled at him.

"Let him reach the centre, friend Karna."

*****************

It had seemed a no-brainer that Abhimanyu would greet death the moment he stepped into the central circle of the Chakravyuh. What match would he be against seven of the greatest warriors of the age?

Quite a good match, they soon discovered.

His arrows shot fire and his chariot seemed possessed of divinity; for almost an hour, he was impossible to wound, and held off his seven opponents repeatedly.

The second hour, Aswatthama broke through his armour, for he had been taught to wear the impenetrable armour by his father. The armour was not truly impenetrable, and his father had learned it on Aswatthama's father's knee.

For the next three hours, he kept sustaining more and more wounds; his bow-wielding arm was torn down parallel lines by spears; the left side of his head was spouting blood from a blow of a mace he had taken; both his knees were pierced front to back with arrows.

But he did not give up his bow and arrow. 

"His bow appears to have been blessed. Till he has that," Dussashan hissed to Shakuni and Karna, "we cannot kill him."

"Disarm him, King of Anga!" said Shakuni, sweating profusely; the Chkravyuh had been his idea, and it was not going to plan so far.

"My father has engaged him," panted Aswatthama, appearing amongst them; he had a nasty cut on his shoulder. "Karna, go and disarm him." He propelled Karna along till they spotted Abhimanyu's back fending off Dronacharya's assault. 

"Go," whispered Aswatthama. "Go, it is our only chance!"

"To disarm the child from behind?" Karna asked.

Aswatthama nodded. "Only chance, my friend."

Karna hesitated, his eyes following the trajectory of Abhimanyu's bow.

"Karna!" Duryodhan roared, who was hidden from view by a wave of soldiers. "DO SOMETHING! GURUDEV WILL NOT HURT HIM. YOU ARE--OUR ONLY--MY ONLY--HOPE."

Karna gritted his teeth, screwed his eyes shut and charged towards Abhimanyu.

The child never even realized when his hands were grappling with thin air instead of his bow.

*****************

Abhimanyu whirled around to find Karna flinging his bow away. Aswatthama, Dussashan and Shakuni charged, bow and mace and spear raised.

What have I done? thought Karna, horror and disgust and contempt for himself coursing through him. Awarded a pitiless death to this valiant child by taking away his bow from behind? Taken away my nephew's bow by deception even being an archer myself?

Then Abhimanyu seized a fallen chariot wheel and brandished it, fending off the three maharathis who attacked repeatedly.

****************

Abhimanyu had lost his chariot first, then his armour. Finally, his bow. He might have lost all the blood in his body as well from the way he was soaked in red, from the way he staggered with the chariot wheel, cross-eyed but refusing to collapse.

Shakuni was the first to fall with a tremendous blow on his head by the wheel. Aswatthama was the next.

Dussashan abandoned his mace and dived for Abhimanyu's feet, aiming not to maim but to restrain. He caught Karna's eyes around Abhimanyu's waist. 

Your kill, it said.

Karna heard Duryodhan's voice roaring in his ears. 

"Kill the boy, my friend! Kill the boy!" 

He did not know if it was real or imaginary. But it would have to be enough.

Dussashan had caught Abhimanyu's leg, finally putting an end to his continuous evasion. Karna poised his bow. 

Just as he was about to shoot Abhimanyu straight through the heart, the kid turned.