Bhima and Duryodhana - The Final Mace Battle

The lake had hidden him. Water had always been Duryodhana's element—he could stay submerged for hours, a skill that had once amazed and now merely delayed. But the taunts had worked. The insults had pulled him from the depths.

Now he stood on the shore, mace in hand, facing the cousin who had hated him since childhood.

Duryodhana: "Bhimasena. Come to gloat?"

Bhima: "Come to finish."

Duryodhana: "Finish what? The war is won. My brothers are dead. My army is dust. What more do you want?"

Bhima: "Your life. Your thigh. Your screaming acknowledgment that everything you did was wrong."

Duryodhana: "Acknowledgment. You want me to apologize? For the dice game? For Draupadi? For the exile?"

Bhima: "I want you to hurt. Apologizing can come after."

Duryodhana: "Then stop talking and fight."

They circled each other. Both were injured—Bhima from eighteen days of war, Duryodhana from hiding in cold water. But both held their maces with the ease of men who had trained with them since childhood.

Duryodhana: "You know, I always wondered why you hated me so much. We were children when it started. Before the kingdom, before the succession, before any of it mattered. You simply hated me."

Bhima: "You tried to poison me. You tried to drown me."

Duryodhana: "You were stronger than me. You humiliated me in every competition. My hate came from your superiority. But yours—yours was there from the beginning. Why?"

Bhima's mace whistled through the air. Duryodhana blocked.

Bhima: "I saw what you were, Before anyone else. I saw the cruelty you hid. The petty meanness. The joy you took in hurting things smaller than you. I hated you because you were rotten, and everyone pretended you weren't."

Duryodhana: "And you were so righteous? The boy who killed demons before breakfast? The man who slaughtered elephants for sport?"

Bhima: "I killed what needed killing. You hurt what you could hurt. There's a difference."

They traded blows—massive, world-shaking impacts. The earth cratered around them.

Duryodhana: "Even now, you're so certain. So sure you're the hero. Has it never occurred to you that I see things differently? That from my side, you were the monster? Five boys who took everything—the attention, the praise, the love of everyone who should have loved me?"

Bhima: "Poor Duryodhana. Didn't get enough attention. That justifies everything?"

Duryodhana: "It justifies nothing. I'm not looking for justification. I'm looking for acknowledgment that I wasn't insane. That there were reasons. That your side isn't pure and my side isn't pure evil."

Bhima: "Your side stripped my wife naked in court."

The mace blow that followed was the hardest yet. Duryodhana staggered.

Duryodhana: "That was wrong, I knew it was wrong. Even as I did it, I knew. But I was so angry, Bhima. So full of years of rage. I wanted you to feel what I felt. Helpless. Humiliated. Watching your world fall apart."

Bhima: "And now your world has fallen apart. How does it feel?"

Duryodhana: "Like justice. Like karma. Like everything I did coming back to me with interest. But I won't beg. I won't apologize. I lived as a king, and I'll die as one. Whatever you do to me, I'll take it. And I'll watch you from whatever afterlife claims me."

Bhima: "I'm going to break your thigh."

Duryodhana: "I know. It's against the rules. You'll be called a cheater for eternity."

Bhima: "I don't care about eternity. I care about now. About this moment. About keeping a promise I made thirteen years ago."

Duryodhana: "To Draupadi."

Bhima: "To Draupadi."

Duryodhana nodded.

Duryodhana: "Then do it. Let's stop circling and get to the ending. But know this—I go to my death without regret. I lived fully. I loved fully. I hated fully. Most men die with their lives unlived. I die empty, having used everything I had."

Bhima: "Inspiring last words."

Duryodhana: "They're not last words. They're truth. Even you can recognize that."

Bhima's mace came down. Not on the head—on the thigh. The crack echoed across the empty battlefield.

Duryodhana fell, screaming.

Bhima stood over him, watching.

Bhima: "Now, Now the words can be last."