Arjuna and Ashwatthama - Vengeance for Vengeance

Arjuna found him by the river, covered in blood that wasn't his own. Ashwatthama sat on the bank like a man in meditation, though his eyes were wild.

Ashwatthama: "You came fast,"

Ashwatthama said.

Arjuna: "You killed children."

Ashwatthama: "I killed enemies. That they were young doesn't change what they were."

Arjuna: "They were asleep. They were defenseless. They were—"

Ashwatthama: "They were Pandavas. Don't lecture me on rules of war. Your side killed my father while he meditated. You lied to him about my death to break his heart. You stripped him of the will to live and then cut off his head. That's the war you taught me."

Arjuna: "Drona died in battle. This was murder."

Ashwatthama: "Murder is just battle without witnesses. I watched from the shadows for hours. Listened to them breathe. Counted their exhales. And then I stopped the counting. One by one. Until the tent was silent."

Arjuna: "Why?"

Ashwatthama: "Because I wanted the Pandavas to feel what I felt. To wake up in a world where their children were meat. To understand that grief, that specific grief, of holding what used to be a person and finding only absence."

Arjuna: "And did it help? Killing them—did it bring Drona back?"

Ashwatthama: "No. It didn't bring him back. It didn't fill the hole. It just... made another hole somewhere else. In someone else."

Arjuna: "Then what was the point?"

Ashwatthama: "There is no point! There's no point to any of it! We kill, and they kill back, and we kill again, and it never ends! Dharma, adharma—just words we use to make murder sound meaningful. But it's not meaningful. It's just... continuing. The wheel turns and we're crushed under it, and somehow we think we're steering."

Arjuna raised his bow.

Arjuna: "This ends now."

Ashwatthama: "Does it? I have one arrow left. The Brahmastra. You know what it does."

Arjuna: "I know."

Ashwatthama: "Then you know I can end this entire war right now. Kill everyone. Pandava, Kaurava, everyone. Make the question of who wins irrelevant because there's no one left to claim victory."

Arjuna: "You would destroy the world because you're in pain?"

Ashwatthama: "I would end the world because the world ended me. What difference is one more extinction after the ones I've already caused?"

Arjuna's own Brahmastra materialized. The air crackled with potential destruction.

Arjuna: "We could both fire, Mutual annihilation. Is that what you want?"

Ashwatthama: "I don't know what I want. I haven't known since I found my father's body. Do you know? What do you want, Arjuna? Revenge? Justice? The satisfaction of killing me?"

Arjuna: "I want my nephews back. I want Draupadi to stop screaming in the tent behind me. I want to wake up in a world where this night didn't happen. I can't have any of that. So I'll take what I can get."

Ashwatthama: "Which is?"

Arjuna: "You. Whatever's left of you. The gem, the glory, the reputation. I'll take it all."

Ashwatthama: "You can't take my life. The gem makes me immortal."

Arjuna: "Then I'll take the gem. And I'll leave you with life—endless life without everything that made life worth living. Every morning you'll wake up remembering this night. Every night you'll fall asleep knowing tomorrow is the same. That's not immortality, Ashwatthama. That's hell."

Ashwatthama's arrow lowered. The gem on his forehead pulsed.

Ashwatthama: "You could give me death. It would be mercy."

Arjuna: "You didn't show mercy. Why should I?"

The arrow dropped. Krishna appeared—when had he arrived?—and the gem was removed, leaving a wound that would never heal.

Arjuna: "Go, Wander. Remember. And know that the children you killed are at peace, while you never will be."

Ashwatthama stumbled away, immortal and damned.

Arjuna lowered his bow. The vengeance was complete. It tasted like ashes.

Just like Ashwatthama had warned him it would.