On the night of the thirteenth day, Arjun vowed to kill Jayadrath before the next Sunset or to jump into fire himself, upon failing.

In the Kaurava camp, it became the greatest goal of the fourteenth day to protect Jayadrath till Sunset.

Bhanumati couldn't really bring herself to care much. Her son was dead. So many of her nephews were dead. What were they even fighting for anymore if their future was gone?

Her brother remained by her side throughout the night, sharing her grief even as Duryodhan got swept up in the next day's planning.

She sobbed into Bhrata Shrutayudha's arms the way he had sobbed into hers when his son had been killed. They fell asleep like that.

When the sky started turning orange, she did not wish to leave the grounding warmth of her brother's arms.

"I have to go start preparing, my dear." He whispered into her ear as she dozed into his chest.

"Please don't go, Bhrata." She said, her voice shaking, as she blinked the sleep away from the eyes. "I can't lose you too. I can't ask Duryodhan not to go, but you are my brother. I can ask that of you, right?"

Bhrata Shrutayudha looked at her sadly.

"Bhanu--"

"You would never deny your sister, right?" Bhanumati asked, panic once again starting to build in her chest. Duryodhan would be protected by Guru Drona and Bhrata Karna but she could not lose Bhrata Shrutayudha too. She could not.

"Bhanu, you know I must go fight."

"You can just not." She argued. "I'll tell Duryodhan. I'll make him accept it. This is not your fight anyway. You're just supporting us. And your army is going to be fighting anyway."

Her brother frowned. "Bhanu, you honestly cannot just expect me to sit out of the battle like a coward."

She grabbed onto his shoulders. "I've just lost my son, I cannot lose you too!"

Bhrata Shrutayudha gently pulled off her claw-like grip on his shoulders and said, "I have my divine mace gifted to me by my father Varun Dev, Bhanu. As long as the person in front of me is armed, they cannot kill me, and they cannot stop the mace no matter how skilled they are. And given that I do not plan on attacking any unarmed men on the battlefield, I should be fine."

"Bhratashree, Arjun will be like the Destroyer today if his vow is anything to go by. I am not worried about Bhrata Karna and I know that he and Guru Drona will keep Duryodhan alive. But I am worried about you. And given that Vasudeva Krishna and the Gods are doing all sorts of things in Arjun's favour... I do not even trust your divine mace."

She gulped. "After all, Bhrata Karna was supposed to be immortal by his divine Kavach but the Gods took advantage of his generosity to trick him out of it. Pitamaha Bheeshma was supposed to be impossible to kill and they have left him in such a terrible state. Who is to say that Vasudev Krishna will not do something that will make your divine mace fail?"

Her brother sighed.

"There is nothing I can do either way. Whatever is meant to happen will happen. But I cannot simply sit out of the battle! I will not! What will happen if all warriors start sitting out of the battle out of fear for their life?! Talk sense, sister."

"And if you die?!" Bhanumati cried. "Will you leave me as well?"

"Have some faith in your brother, Bhanumati."

"I have lost all faith!" She exclaimed. "Despite all my misgivings, I tried to have faith yesterday that my son will survive. There was a grand plan yesterday. There was a Chakravyuh and Arjun was kept away from the main battlefield. And yet my son died. Today there is no grand plan except to keep Jayadrath alive till Sundown and today Arjun will be in top form and he will be desiring vengeance."

Her voice shook and she felt a tear roll down her cheek.

"How do I still hold on to faith?" she whispered, her voice cracking.

Bhrata Shrutayudha looked at her with a pained look on his face and cupped her face in his hands.

"I understand Bhanu. But I can't stay back and not fight. You know that. That's simply not how Kshatriyas are. Otherwise even Jayadrath could have sat out today's war today to avoid Arjun. But we can't do that. It's against our Kshatriya Dharma. And I'm not worried about what might happen to my Kingdom--I know my Kingdom will be safe in the hands of my younger son once he comes of age." He sighed. "I'm so glad that he's young enough to not have to be a part of this war."

He stepped back from her. "And besides," he said, "there is no way I will sit in my tent like a coward when my son and my nephew attained everlasting glory on this sacred field of Syamantapanchaka."

A feeling of foreboding overcame Bhanumati again, but she didn't let it show. After all, there was no point.

"I know." She said, sighing. "I can't actually make you sit out of the battle either, no matter how much I want to. It would go against my Dharma as a Kshatrani as well."

"Once the war starts, only the Supreme Lord can decide who lives till the end, even if the deaths are unfair and wrong." Her brother said.

He pulled her to his chest in a tight embrace.

"Know that even if I fall, be that today or any other day, my spirit shall always be with you, my dear sister."

"Don't say that." Bhanumati murmured and buried her face into the crook of his neck.

As the rays of the next day's Sun shone upon them, she held on to her brother as if she would never let go, for what would be the very last time she would be able to do so.

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The fourteenth day of the War turned out to be the most brutal. The battlefield got so piled up with bodies and they had to be dragged off to the camps mid battle.

Arjun was like a destroyer upon the battlefield, mowing through their army like one does through grass.

Bhanumati could only numb her heart and watch as the bodies of several more of her brothers in law were brought in, courtesy of Bheem. Including the ones who had fallen on the twelfth day, fifty had fallen by now and the Sun was not yet down.

She could not even bear to imagine the state Duryodhan was in right now on the battlefield and the state he would be in that night.

Her heart shuddered as she thought of her own brother. Oh, she didn't know how Duryodhan could even fight after losing fifty.

Right now all she could do was sit down next to the sisters in law in an attempt to provide silent comfort. They were losing their sons and their husbands. Nothing.....nothing seemed comforting enough. And what could be, after all?

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Piles upon piles of bodies kept coming back from the battle field. And among them were the bodies of so many of her nephews as well as the bodies of... of Shatrunjaya, Prasena and Chitrasen, the former killed by Arjun and the latter two by Nakul.

Bhanumati felt vomit bubble at the back of her throat but she took a moment to swallow it back before turning to Vrushali di who sat sobbing over the bodies of her three sons.

She had one son and his loss had almost destroyed her. All her sisters-in-law had one or two sons. She had no idea how she might have dealt with losing four sons.

She was in mourning herself and she didn't know how to comfort anybody else so she simply went and sat next to Vrushali di and placed a hand on her arm and let the older woman to cry on her shoulder.

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When the Sun set, Bhanumati waited with bated breath for her brother to return. His dead body hadn't been amongst the ones already brought in, so she tried to hold on to hope despite the terrible knot in her chest.

Her brother wasn't in any of the stretchers for the dead or injured. Bhanumati relaxed a bit, even though something didn't feel right. It seemed she had been worrying for nothing. After all, her brother had made it through the previous thirteen days perfectly well. She had been worrying too much because ...yesterday..... but Arjun had.... caused so much destruction today.

And then it came, like a terrible dejavu from yesterday.

The generals of the army walked in, Bhrata Karna at the front, looking extremely furious as well as exceedingly crushed as he headed towards where his three sons had been laid out and he was followed by the rest of his sons. He was followed by Duryodhan and this time it was her husband who had his arms full.

With her brother.

No.

Not again. She couldn't have lost her brother as well. Her terrible premonition couldn't have come true again.

Duryodhan lowered her brother down on a gurney and looked at her mournfully before moving away towards the fallen bodies of more than thirty of his own brothers.

Bhanumati rushed to her brother's side and frantically shook him.

"No, you can't be dead! You can't leave me too!" She sobbed. "You had promised me when I was fifteen that you would come to me whenever I called. I'm calling you now!" She shrieked.

There was no response. Bhanumati lowered her head into his stiff shoulder and wrapped an arm around his chest. She could feel that under his armour, his chest had caved in completely.

"You weren't supposed to leave me too." She choked out.

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After rescuing Kritavarma from Arjun's attack, the King of Kalinga had turned to face the third Panduputra in battle.

The battle was fierce but short lived with Arjun gaining the upper hand, cutting through all of Shrutayudha's arrows.

In his rage, Shrutayudha threw his divine mace courtesy of his father Varun Dev, towards Arjun and Krishna.

Krishna smiled, knowing that Varun Dev's gifted mace would always kill its target as long as said target was armed but if it hit an unarmed person, it would turn around and kill the wielder instead.

So he stood up even as Arjun shouted in warning, making himself the clear aim instead of his dear Parth and the mace merely touched his shoulder before rebounding on its owner and instantly killing him.

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They had not succeeded in keeping Jayadrath alive till Sunset. Or rather, the Sun itself had been hidden by Vasudev Shri Krishna to lure Jayadrath out and to cause their army to lower their guard.

Duryodhan raged at Guru Drona in the dying dusk. Told him that he was still showing his support towards the Pandavas in some vague roundabout manner by not leading their army properly and that was the reason they had suffered such heavy losses in the past four days unlike in the first ten days.

Dronacharya was just as enraged. And then, to Bhanumati's horror, it was declared that the battle would continue into the night. And the armies returned to the battlefield and were met with the Pandava force as well.

This was unheard of. Since the time of Bharat himself, wars had always been waged from Sunrise to Sunset. This was something everyone had always accepted, whether they be human or Rakshasas or Celestial beings.

Bhanumati felt like her mind would combust. What was this war doing to everybody?!

Her brother's funeral had not even taken place. Nobody's funeral had taken place. Thousands upon thousands of bodies lay lined up, and a battle still raged. With all the men on the battlefield, no one was left to even conduct the funerals.

(Duryodhan would be the one conducting her brother's last rites as well, along with all of his own brothers', given that he was the closest male relative to him on the battlefield.)

Most of the women were outside their tents, unwilling to leave the bodies of their loved ones out alone.

Bhanumati sat on the rough ground outside her tent, beside her brother's disfigured body. The odour of rotting corpses and human filth had replaced the usual one of burning flesh in the night.

The soldiers on both sides were exhausted from the day's battle and most couldn't fight well in the dark and more and more bodies kept piling up as they were dragged away from the battlefield so that there was room to fight.

And then came the most horrifying news.

In the darkness of the night, the powers of those with Rakshas blood flowing through veins multiplied a hundredfold. Ghatotkatch was now wreaking havoc on their army that had already suffered so much loss at Arjun's hands that morning.

And Ghatotkatch had magic and he created illusions and called upon his army of demons and even though they had Alambhusha on their side, he was only one Rakshas against so many.

News came that except for Bhrata Karna, no human was able to both fight well enough in the darkness and break through all of Ghatotkatch's illusions and magic at the same time to be able to actually attack him.

So it was only Karna and Alambhusha against Ghatotkatch and his whole army of Rakshasas.

Bhanumati didn't want to move from her position, but she covered her brother's face with the sheet covering the rest of him and forced herself up to go look for Vrushali di who would have also undoubtedly received the news by now.

She found the older woman on the ground as well, leaning against her tent pole, with the bodies of her three sons arranged in a neat row a few feet away from her, covered from head to toe in the white sheets.

She had a distant look in her eyes, and Bhanumati had to call her name thrice before she turned to look at her with dull eyes.

She was about to ask if she was alright out of instinct, then realised how stupid that would be. None of them were alright.

"Have you heard what's happening on the battlefield right now?" She asked instead, sitting down beside Vrushali di.

"My husband is fighting practically alone with the King of Rakshasas as well as his entire army at night." She sighed.

"I am certain he will prevail, though." She added and despite her grief, there wasn't there wasn't a hint of doubt in her voice.

"Aren't you afraid for him?"

"No." The older woman shook her head. "I know that the final fight will come down between him and Arjun and I won't be afraid before that, and then too only because unfair things keep being done to Radheya in this war and because Arjun has got Vasudev's protection."

Vrushali's voice was dry though, with no emotions or intonations in it. It was as if the only way she was keeping herself from breaking down once more was to not let herself feel anything at all-- which Bhanumati definitely understood, even though she wasn't someone who could do it.

It still hadn't completely sunk in for her that her son was dead, that her brother was dead, that she could never spend time with them again. She didn't know what she would do when it did.

"I don't know how many Rakshasas there are, but I know that none of them can kill my Vasusen."

Vrushali di glanced at the bodies of her sons. "I wish I could have said the same for my sons. I had nine sons, Bhanu. I don't know if I will have even one left by the end of this war."

Her voice shook but did not crack. It was a very close thing, though.

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"Save us Angaraj!" was the chant taken up by the Kaurava army as Ghatotkatch continued to destroy them with his magic and illusions. He had killed Alambhusha and Karna was the only one who was standing against him after having killed the entirety of his army.

The battle between Karna and Ghatotkatcha went on and on without any end.

Their army was fatigued and was reaching a point where the soldiers were having a hard time separating friend from foe.

"Use the Shakti Astra!" Duryodhan pleaded to his friend.

" WHAT ?!" Karna exclaimed furiously. "No, that's for Arjun. I can defeat Ghatotkatch without it. But I must keep the Shakti Astra reserved for Arjun."

"I have faith that you will be able to defeat Arjun with the Shakti Astra! But if you do not use it now, then by the time you kill Ghatotkatch, our entire army will be decimated!"

With great reluctance Karna used the Shakti Astra to kill Ghatotkatch.

Even as the Kaurava army rejoiced, Karna felt uneasiness sink in.

The battle was called to an end after that so that the warriors could get at least a few hours of rest before the next sunrise.

Right then his eyes fell across the battlefield towards Arjun and Vasudev. He ordered his charioteer to take them closer.

He saw Vasudev rejoice and Arjun's shock. He saw Arjun learn that Ghatotkatch's death had been planned so that Karna would have to use the Shakti Astra on him and Arjun would be safe.

He heard Vasudev say that the only reason he had not used the Shakti Astra previously was because Vasudev himself had used his powers to manipulate Karna into forgetting that he possessed the Shakti Astra during battle.

In that moment Karna felt the part of him that had already cracked when he had learned the devastating truth about his life, completely shatter into a million pieces.

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Bhrata Karna had defeated Ghatotkatch of course.

All the women stood in wait for the returning men. They had made the preparations for the funerals. The pyres were loaded with the bodies of the men that had already been in the camp and more had been prepared for more men to be laid to rest on.

Bhanumati had no idea how the men would plan for the next day's battle between completing the funerals, washing themselves and catching some sleep.

She supposed it made sense now why all major warriors trained themselves to at least be able to go without a couple of days of sleep.

Bhanumati frowned when Bhrata Karna and Duryodhan came to sight. The older man seemed positively hysterical . That was not a word she had ever associated with Karna. Even as he grieved his sons, his pain, despair and fury, while palpable, was mostly quiet. But now he seemed to be in an almost violent frenzy.

Duryodhan seemed to be trying to console him as he made almost uncontrollably frantic gestures.

She exchanged a glance with Vrushali di, and they rushed towards their husbands.

"You don't understand Duryodhan!" Bhrata Karna roared, shaking his head in distress.

"What happened, Vasu?" Vrushali di asked.

"Don't call me that!" He snapped viciously and Bhanumati gaped in shock as Vrushali di jerked back. Never had she ever seen Bhrata Karna raise his voice at his wife but now he seemed almost mad.

"Please calm down." Duryodhan pleaded, tears falling from his eyes with the grief of losing so many people that day and presumably whatever was going on with Bhrata Karna.

" How can I calm down?! How can I calm down after he got into my head?! " which, what?!

"What happened, Radheya?" Vrushali di asked again.

Bharat Karna turned to look at Bhanumati.

"You asked me how I could possibly be forgetting to use the Shakti on Arjun since I got onto the battlefield. And I was starting to wonder if I was suffering from some sort of strange memory loss." He scoffed. "A memory loss that makes me selectively forget my greatest assets in the war? Please! I found out that--that–" Karna choked on his voice, unable to even finish his sentence.

"He found out that Vasu dev Krishna was using his supernatural powers to manipulate his mind and make him forget about using the Shakti Astra on Arjun." Duryodhan spat.

Bhanumati gasped and Vrushali di turned pale. She went to pull her husband into an embrace, uncaring of their audience.

"How am I meant to trust my own mind now?" Bhrata Karna said brokenly. "How will I be certain that any strategy that I come up with, is my own and not something that has been planted in my head to keep Arjun safe?"

And it wasn't fair , Bhanumati thought. Why was the Universe so unfair to Bhrata Karna time and again before the war? And wasn't the other side supposedly fighting for Dharma? Where was their dharma now?

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What's left to say?
These prayers ain't working anymore
Ever y word shot down in flames
What's left to do with these broken pieces on the floor?
I'm losing my voice calling on you

Can you use these tears to put out the fires in my soul?
'Cause I need you here, whoa

Cause I've been shaking
I've been bending backwards 'til I'm broke
Watching all these dreams go up in smoke

Can beauty come out of ashes?

--Ashes(Celine Dion)

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Author's notes: Ok I keep saying two more chapters every time before the end and I'm gonna say that this time also, but going by my track record it might become 3 as well(I HOPE NOT).

I have no idea how I managed to write over 3000 words for literally just one day of the war, but oh well.

Also, I AM NOT MAKING UP THE PART ABOUT KRISHNA MAKING KARNA FORGET THAT STUFF. HERE IS THE PROOF:

|| "Satyaki of prowess incapable of being baffled, asked the mighty-armed Krishna about the great car-warrior, Karna, saying, 'O Janardana, even this had been Karna's firm resolution, viz., that he would hurl that dart of immeasurable energy at Phalguna. Why, however, did not the Suta's son actually hurl it then at him?'

Vasudeva said, 'Duhsasana and Karna and Sakuni and the ruler of the Sindhus, with Duryodhana at their head, had frequently debated on this subject. Addressing Karna, they used to say, 'O Karna. O great bowman, O thou of immeasurable prowess in battle, O foremost of all victors, this dart should not be hurled at any one else than that great car-warrior, viz., Kunti's son, Partha or Dhananjaya. He is the most celebrated amongst them, like Vasava amongst the gods. He being slain, all the other Pandavas with the Srinjayas will be heartless like fireless celestials!' Karna having assented to this, said 'So be it' , the desire of slaughtering the wielder of Gandiva, O bull amongst the Sinis, ever present in Karna's heart.

I, however, O foremost of warriors, always used to stupefy the son of Radha. It was for this that he did not hurl the dart at Pandu's son, owning white steeds. As long as I could not baffle that means of Phalguna's death, I had neither sleep, nor joy in my heart, O foremost of warriors! Beholding that dart, therefore, rendered futile through Ghatotkacha, O bull amongst the Sinis, I regarded Dhananjaya today to have been rescued from within the jaws of Death." ||

Do not come accuse me of slandering Krishna. I am only writing what is canon. Shrutayudha's death and the way he died is also canon and we all know that Madhav would do absolutely anything and everything for saving his Parth.

I just feel like this is REALLY glossed over that Krishna straight up manipulated Karna's mind with his godly powers and MADE HIM FORGET ABOUT HIS WEAPONS DURING THE GREATEST WAR, like bruh.

(PS: Krishna is still amongst my top 10 fav Mahabharat characters lol, just well, everyone has done wack things and during the war, Krishna is amongst the foremost of them.)

Anyway, don't forget to leave votes and comments if you liked it!