Yudhishthira Confronts Shakuni

The battlefield had briefly separated them from the chaos. Yudhishthira, unhorsed, faced Shakuni, whose chariot had lost a wheel. Two strategists without their armies.

Shakuni: "Dharmaraja. We meet without boards or dice."

Yudhishthira: "We meet with swords. The game you were less confident about."

Shakuni: "Oh, I'm confident enough. Do you know, I've waited for this moment? The chance to see your face up close, to see what my work created."

Yudhishthira: "Your work killed millions."

Shakuni: "Your family killed my family. Did you think there would be no answer?"

Yudhishthira paused.

Yudhishthira: "What?"

Shakuni: "You don't know? Your ancestor Bhishma. He abducted my sister for your father. Forcibly. And when we came to rescue her, your family killed nearly all of Gandhara's warriors. My brothers. My cousins. Everyone."

Yudhishthira: "That was before—"

Shakuni: "Before doesn't matter. Karma doesn't care about before. My sister was brought to marry a blind man she'd never met. My family was butchered for trying to protect her. I swore that day that I would destroy the Kuru line. Every game, every manipulation, every dice throw—all for that oath."

Yudhishthira: "And you succeeded. You destroyed the Kauravas too. Your own nephews."

Shakuni: "Acceptable losses. They were Kurus. Not Gandharans. They inherited their father's blood, not their mother's."

Yudhishthira: "That's monstrous."

Shakuni: "That's war. The war you started by existing. The war your family started by taking what wasn't theirs. I don't expect you to understand. You've never lost everything. You've never had nothing left but revenge."

Yudhishthira: "I've lost my son. I've lost my nephews. I've lost thirteen years of my life and the peace of my conscience. Don't tell me I don't understand loss."

Shakuni: "But you still have hope. That's the difference. You believe in rebuilding, in tomorrow, in dharma. I stopped believing when they burned my brothers' bodies. All I had left was the game. Making the Kurus play against themselves until they destroyed each other."

Yudhishthira: "And now? The game is almost over. What happens when revenge is complete?"

Shakuni's smile faltered.

Shakuni: "I don't know. I never planned for after. Revenge was supposed to be the end."

Yudhishthira: "That's the tragedy of your life. You built everything around destruction. When the destroying is done, nothing remains."

Shakuni: "Nothing needed to remain. I needed the Kurus ended. That's ending."

Yudhishthira: "Including you. You're a Kuru now, by association. Duryodhana's uncle. Complicit in everything."

Shakuni: "I know what I am. I don't need you to name it."

They raised their swords. The battle noise grew closer.

Yudhishthira: "One thing, Did you ever feel it? During the dice game? Guilt? Hesitation?"

Shakuni: "Once. When Draupadi was dragged in. For a moment, I saw my sister's face—her humiliation when she was brought to Hastinapura. And I thought: this is what we've become. This is what they made us."

Yudhishthira: "And you kept going."

Shakuni: "I kept going. Because stopping wouldn't unburn my brothers. Wouldn't unpay the debt. Once you start certain games, Yudhishthira, you play until they're finished. You should know. You couldn't stop either."

Yudhishthira: "No. I couldn't."

Shakuni: "Then we're the same. Just playing different sides."

Yudhishthira: "We're not the same. I hate what I've become. You celebrate it."

Shakuni shrugged.

Shakuni: "Celebration, hate—both require caring. I stopped caring long ago. The game just needed finishing."

The clash came. It was brief—Yudhishthira was never the warrior Shakuni was. But Sahadeva arrived before the killing blow, and Shakuni fell to a different sword.

Yudhishthira watched the life leave those calculating eyes. And wondered, briefly, if somewhere in that broken man, there had been someone worth saving.

If there was, no one had tried to save him. And so the games had played out, and millions had paid the price.