A/N:- 

Krishna : *glares angrily at me, arms crossed against his chest and tapping his foot on the ground restlessly* I have been standing here for thirty minutes!

Me: *awkward smiling and rolling out the red carpet* Hehehe sorry..

****

Okay, fair warning, so now that Krishna is making his grand entry, expect him to hijack my story at his will. I have absolutely zero idea what he is going to do to the plot. All my prior ideas might flow out of the window because Kahna didn't like it. Don't come at me if I go off at a tangent waxing lyrical about Krishna and Arjuna (I can't help it, iltsm :D)

___________

"My wives, my kinsmen, my relatives, none amongst these is dearer to me than Arjuna. O Daruka, I shall not be able to cast my eyes, even for a single moment, on the earth bereft of Arjuna"

___________

"Thou art mine and I am thine, while all that is mine is thine also! He that hateth thee hateth me as well, and he that followeth thee followeth me! O Partha, thou art from me and I am from thee!"

___________

I do not regard my sire, my mother, yourselves, my brothers, ay, my very life, so worthy of protection as Vibhatsu in battle. If there be anything more precious than the sovereignty of the three worlds, I do not, O Satwata, desire it without Pritha's son, Dhananjaya.

___________

"I am Arjuna among Pandavas. Pandavanam Dhananjayah"

___________

"Yoham Tamarjunam Viddhi, Yo Arjunah Sohameva cha"

(I am Arjuna and Arjuna is me)

___________

In the hills of Shatasringa, fifty years ago

Arjun looked down at his hands, his brows drawn together calculative, like the five year old was discerning the solution to a great problem. 

He had been playing at the edge of the forest when he had first noticed the berries. His father had brought the same spherical juicy purple delights, some days back, which the brothers had polished off with great relish.

Arjun had plucked as many as his hands had been able to reach out to, from his incredible height of three feet and seven inches and had then wrapped his prize carefully with a piece of cloth torn off from the waistband of his dhoti. 

His father had chuckled and ruffled his already unmanageable curls with his massive hand, before accepting his share. 

His mothers had laughed mellifluous and had absolutely refused to leave him from their graceful cage of arms, despite his valiant struggle before having their share literally stuffed into their mouths in spite of their earnest protests. 

His oldest brother had smiled serenely, patted his head like a mighty important sage and had mercifully accepted his share with less than the usual pleading from his side. 

He had already segregated the lion's share for his garrulous and gastronomically gifted second oldest sibling and Bheem had practically inhaled his portion before smacking a grossly wet and violet kiss on his dusky cheek. 

Then he had found the twins and had almost lost his footing as both the three year olds had jumped over him in their enthusiasm to get to their share. 

Finally, Arjun was left with two berries. 

"Where are you going sweetheart? I'll go get you more if you want", his father said indulgently seeing him turning to walk towards the forest again. 

"I don't want more, baba", he replied sagely. 

"Then, where are you off too?", Pandu asked curiously. 

"To the temple", Arjun responded like it was the most obvious thing in the world while scampering off, almost as if fleeing before his unfairly tall father had a chance to catch him or investigate further. 

"This boy...", Kunti shook her head exasperated while wiping the corner of her juice stained lips with the edge of her saffron saree. Madri giggled and caught Nakul who had been eyeing his younger twin's berries after having polished his own. 

"I don't know what the sages have told him but since that day, when we had attended the ceremonial aarti last month, Phalgun can barely spend a single day without running off to the temple. God knows what he does there for such long periods?", Pandu's youngest wife uttered. 

The temple was a makeshift structure of rocks and a modest thing. It had the stone figurine of the celestial Preserver, one of the Holy Triad - Lord Narayana, installed inside a small podium. The sages of Shatasringa would religiously hold puja ceremonies dedicated to the blue skinned deity every month. 

Pandu and his queens worshipped Lord Shiva, the ishtadevata of the Kurus, though he had great respect and deference for the four armed discus carrier Lord Vishnu but Arjun for some reason, even though religiously participating in the daily puja of the Destroyer, had gotten strangely star struck with the latter. 

Pandu had caught him sitting in front of the crudely shaped idol and staring at it with a scary laser like focus. It was like the child was trying to dissect the statue and inspect its insides through some radiative vision that wasn't visible to the former King of the Kurus. 

Or rather, like he had been transported to some other universe. 

Pandu knew his sons were technically not fully human. They had the essence of the Gods in them. And Arjun's birth had heralded an ear splitting amount of frighteningly burdensome prophecies making the sages surrounding them, turn almost mad with an inexplicable enthused excitement.

There had always been something otherworldly which has separated his third born from the rest of the latter's semi divine siblings. 

Arjun sprinted and skipped over the boulders to cross the gently flowing streams, almost lost his balance and toppled into the crystal clear water, saved himself at the last moment, got momentarily distracted by a horde of butterflies bursting in front of his face and finally reached his destination. 

A bunch of pink lotuses were in full bloom at the muddy banks and he decided to take a tiny detour. He plucked off the long stems from the muck very carefully, looking apologetically at the massive flowers and broke off the ends. 

With the spoils of his new conquest, he toddled utterly focussed towards his goal. 

Lord Vishnu's misshapen smile seemed to beckon him like a siren song. 

The third Pandava had always felt his mind clear off of the usual zillion thoughts which plagued him daylong, whenever he beheld the gentle looking deity's amateurishly carved face. 

He placed the lotuses at the feet of the idol like he had seen the venerable rishis do and then opened the tiny piece of cloth with the berries still ripe and invitingly glinting in the late afternoon sun. 

 "I got you berries", Arjun said cautiously and laid them over the lotuses. 

His brothers would probably laugh hysterically if they ever come to know that he talked to a stone statue but for some reason which remained mystically unexplained, Arjun had never felt particularly stupid for doing so. 

Even though he himself would have found the same thing utterly ridiculous barely a month prior to this day. 

But talking to the figurine, that which probably would never respond back, made him feel an incomprehensible amount of bliss. Like someone had pulled out all blood from his body and stuffed it full of that extremely soft and silky material which he had found buried inside his mother's trunk. 

"I hope you like them..."

The son of Indra whispered wistfully and folded his hands to pay obeisance to Lord Vishnu like he hadn't just been conversing with the latter like they were best of friends. 

A sudden waft of summer breeze tingled Arjun's fluttering curls, like a soft brush of an invisible hand, something similar to what his father and oldest brother or perhaps his mothers did all the time.

He thought he heard a faint and distant pealing of delighted laughter flowing through the silent grove. 

---------------------

Krishna smacked his lilac stained lips with an undignified snap and giggled mirthfully. Balarama looked at him dubiously and then looked around but he didn't find any change in the scenery except their usual bovine companions grazing in the lush meadows of Vrindavan.

"What the hell did you eat? Your mouth is.. purple!", Rohini's son gaped at his dark skinned sibling who jumped up like a hyperactive kid.

Krishna twirled around dramatically, mimicking the gopis who would dance to the wickedly soulful tunes of his flute and clapped his hands. 

"I had the most delicious berries Dau! Oh you got to try some!", he exclaimed. 

"Berries! Where? Give me!", Balarama looked around suspiciously.

"Oh sorry, there were only two and he gave it to me so I ate it all up", Krishna looked apologetic though his older brother was smart enough to see the smugness behind that saccharine smile. 

"Kahna.. who gave you berries and when? You were literally sleeping a moment ago before you jumped up like a madman"

"Hey! I was meditating not sleep--"

"You were snoring."

"I wasn't"

"Yes you were."

"No!"

"Yes!"

"Nooooooo...", Krishna whined and plopped down beside his amused sibling and dropped his curly head on Balarama's muscled shoulder. 

"You must have dreamt it", the older son of Nanda chortled at his beloved brother's overtly pretentious pout. 

"Then how are my lips purple?"

"That is the mystery. You didn't kiss Yashoda maiyya's saree which she had laid out to dye blue, right?"

"NO! You are incorrigible Dau!"

"Says who?"

Krishna smiled but didn't offer any more explanations and his older brother knew it from painful prior experience that the mischievous cowherd would clarify nary a word despite the latter's ardent pleading or even infuriated threats. 

The boys laid back down under the summer rays of the afternoon sun and went back to dozing like before. 

Only Krishna's eyes kept staring at the fluffy clouds above head as he laughed once more, delighted.

'I loved it! We are going to meet soon my friend..'

--------------------

In the battlefield of Kurukshetra, five years ago

It felt like the entire world had been silenced. 

The clamouring noise of the ensuing fighting coming from afar seemed like it had been blocked off from this specific part of the battlefield by some illusionary barrier. 

Krishna had expected some sort of noise but it was only a dreadful quiet which greeted him. He had immediately sensed Jayadratha's head landing on his father's lap and the old man startling up, dropping his son's severed head on the ground, only for his own head to explode into pieces as was destined. 

Such a burning relief had cascaded through his entire being then, that the Lord of the Yadavas had half expected to see himself crashing down from his perch at the charioteer's seat, right onto the blood soaked ground of the Kurukshetra and melt into it. 

Krishna had felt the air rush back into his lungs, inflating them like balloons blown till the point of bursting. His chest which had been constricted throughout the day, since the last night when he had heard those terrible words being uttered, felt like someone had set it on fire. 

He may be the incarnation of the almighty but contrary to popular belief, he could neither, so to speak, see the future or even alter the outcomes. His powers lay in solving the intricacies of a million alternatives that he could judge from a situation which could lay the path towards several different outcomes of the same. 

He was not a clairvoyant nor a seer. 

He was the Lord of the Universe. 

An immortal, omniscient celestial being with powers beyond puny human comprehension, who had tied himself so irrevocably to mortal attachments that those very powers derived from his omnipotent self, has been greatly diminished. 

A price of love he was more than willing to pay. 

But the man he so loved near desperately, had seemingly made it his life's mission to turn all of Hrishikesha's beautiful raven hair white and give him periodic heart attacks with the former's occasional fits of senselessness. 

"I will kill Jayadratha tomorrow before sundown or enter the flames myself!"

Arjun's oath had sent both the Kauravas and the Pandavas into a panicked frenzy. 

Though for diametrically opposite reasons. 

The Kauravas because they had suddenly been given a chance to take out the most powerful warrior on the other side, an almost certain path to victory and the Pandavas because they had an equal chance to lose the singular beacon of light which had held them upright - their very backbone. 

'Only you my friend... only you..', 

Krishna had thought slightly amused even if the accompanying terror had drowned the previous emotion almost virulently. He had paced like a deranged man, nearly tearing off his own hair in worry, calculating a million possibilities of how drastically it could end. 

And most of the alternative scenarios had shown Krishna, an outcome which had almost brought the Lord of the three worlds to his veritable knees.

'I can't lose him I can't lose him I can't lose him. Mahadeva I can't lose him! Goddamnit you idiot! You emotional fool!'

He had barely heard the shocked and petrifying admonishing ringing from all sides at that moment. 

The Pandavas and their wives, surrounding the mutilated corpse of his beloved nephew, their grief and fright amalgamated into a horror struck prayer, an infinite loop, repeating the same things over and over again. 

"No! What did have you done!"

"Take it back you fucking idiot!"

"Take it back brother please!"

"Have you lost your goddamned mind!"

"My God.."

Arjun had been frighteningly quiet, staring at the brightly burning torch, his eyes following the tongs of the inferno almost like a hungering lover, a man who has met his maker. 

The realisation had hit Krishna like a loaded chariot to the gut. 

It was a suicide mission. 

And his best friend was fully aware of the implications. 

Krishna had remembered to have barely managed to catch Arjun as the latter had collapsed into a dead faint on seeing Abhimanyu the first time. His young body arranged like a broken toy on the ground, his fair complexion almost unrecognizable with the blood and dirt and grime caked on that lax face, his head caved in at the side in a gruesome display of their enemy's barbarity. 

The dusky Yadavasreshtha had wanted to curl into himself and sob with the pain which had exploded inside his chest. It was like the Bhramhasheera itself had speared through him. 

His own teeth chattering pain, his poor sister's unbearable wrenching pain but only an echo of his Partha's pain. 

Like his friend had barricaded his own grief beneath a block of ice like it had been but a default mechanism of his body. 

Regaining his consciousness, Arjun had gone onto verbally slaughter their warriors and his brothers and ended up with reproaching himself in a tidal fury. An unforeseen anger had clouded Savyasachi's his entire body like a vindictive serpent baring venomous fangs. 

Krishna had seen the promise of annihilation crystal clear, in those thunder drenched eyes. Something essential had snapped inside the third Panduputra then. Like an elastic band having been pulled out of its tensile capacity. 

The rebound of that had nearly decimated the battlefield the next day. 

Krishna had wielded the chariot like a demented creature forgoing all thoughts about the poor horses till it had become almost inevitable and they had had to stop. 

And his gentle hearted friend had torn mechanically through the enemy ranks like a tornado of mass destruction, massacring men, horses and elephants with no hint of his usual compassion, such a demonic figure of Death personified that even Yama would have run scared from his relentless and downright vicious attacks. 

It had dried up something inside Krishna to have seen Arjun this way. 

A sacrifice at the altar of righteousness which would always rankle the peacock feather clad Lord for the rest of his days at this mortal realm.

Yet now, the Kauravas stared unmoving and gobsmacked at the headless body of Jayadratha sprawled on the ground, the rest of the Pandava brothers were weak kneed in relief atop their own chariots and Krishna was still struggling to catch his breath.

And there was only silence. 

A deafening quiet of an aftermath which rung everywhere ominously. 

The solar eclipse had ended and the sun had finally descended beneath the horizon. 

Krishna had expected Arjun who had been standing like a lone sentinel on the ground in front of the chariot, to return and climb up again but he remained frozen. 

Duryodhana had leapt down from his mount and had gone beside his dead brother in law, his face an inanimate mask, none of the usual taunts and hypocritical jeers coming out from the crown prince of Hastinapur, for the first time. 

Karna followed behind his friend as usual but from even a considerable distant, Krishna could clearly see the formidable archer's typically rock steady hands shake with the slightest tremor.

Arjun remained standing. 

Unmoving. 

"Parth...", Krishna called out gently and the archer supreme turned back startled, as if having remembered where he was at that very moment. 

His cerulean eyes, that had been icy and a silver opaque throughout the day, shimmered in the darkness.

The mechanical monster had receded, the indomitable warrior crumbled at the wake of the fulfilment of a terrible mission and the withered soul of a father had finally seeped out.

'After all what is anger but grief in disguise.'

Krishna could sense the moment the dam broke.

He found himself up on his feet and down on the ground the next moment, his body moving almost in autopilot. He grabbed the ivory clad warrior, ignored the Gandhiva slamming onto the scarlet dust and allowed himself to be dragged down on his knees alongside Kunti's youngest. 

"Parth..steady..", he whispered in the latter's ears and felt his own bones shake with the violent tremors which wracked the other man's body. 

'After all what is grief but love endured.'

"My baby... Madhav..."

Krishna's eyes stung mercilessly.

"They killed my baby.. my sweet boy....my Abhi.."

Krishna muttered empty consolations in his best friend's hair, missing the strong fragrance of nascent lightening and smoky cedar which had now been replaced by the tangy pungent odour of blood and death. 

"I didn't.. I couldn't... I can't..."

Krishna cursed himself and the cruel games of destiny a million times and hardly sensed the other Pandavas coming up quickly, almost as if to shield them from prying eyes. 

They formed a protective semi circle in front, the greatest warriors of their era, their handsome faces drained off life, immersed in a shared grief.

"Hush now my dear... have heart. He died a hero's death... his sacrifice..", he began. 

"You should have let me die", Arjun whimpered. 

Krishna's heart almost stopped, missed a few beats and something akin to acid poured down his veins. Arjun rambled incoherently along the same lines, repeating the words like a mad man. The son of Devaki tightened his arms into a bruising grip around the quivering mass of his dusky cousin. 

"Never...", the Lord of Dwarka murmured, horror and fear and anger battling each other in equal spades.

"Let us go Phalgun. My child.. they don't deserve to see your grief. Just twenty paces more my dear. Let us go. Krishna if you please.."

Yudhishtir's words registered in Krishna's mind and he nodded imperceptibly. He hauled off Arjun in a smooth move, easily shouldering almost all his weight on himself, his silent gasping sobs tearing bleeding scars across the former's already bleeding body.

A sudden picture flashed in front of Krishna's eyes and he almost dropped his precious charge out of shock. 

An unbearable outcome of the rapidly following events. 

Karna's deadly Vasavi Shakti.

Krishna turned towards Bheem, his stomach turning with the sickening feeling of what he was about to do. 

But that imagery which had beseeched his brain had blown away all thoughts of propriety and dharma completely out of his mind. 

"It is time to call in Ghatotkacha."

'Forgive me Parth, for something that I can't help.'

-----------------------

In the palace of Dwarka, four years ago

"So he agreed to get tutored?"

"Yes but with great reluctance."

"Parth that is fantastic!"

Krishna threw his hands in the air, frightening a couple of pigeons with his overly loud yell and Arjun blushed, pleased with the underlying praise in his best friend's tone but also slightly apprehensive of the same. 

"You are almost friends now!", Govinda continued cheerfully.

"Now, that is going too far. He can barely look at me. And I don't blame him...", Arjun started with his the same sombre, guilt ridden tone which had become his perpetual voice currently, only for Krishna to glare at him piercingly. 

"Arjun.. if you start lamenting about what an evil person you are, who killed his oldest brother, unknowingly mind you, also because that idiot didn't know the difference between right and wrong and despite a hundred chances given couldn't take the right one and who was involved in every depraved plan of Duryodhana's to kill you, your brothers, who insulted your wife in the worst way possible, was equal party to the torturous and barbaric killing of your son, his own nephew, then I am going to smack you so fucking hard---"

"Okay okay.. I get it. But it still doesn't make me feel any better."

"That is because you are a saint. And slightly dense when it comes to certain matters", Krishna uttered nonchalantly. 

"Did you just call me stupid?", Arjun narrowed his eyes. 

"I called you a saint first. And this is what you choose to hear? Woe betide me and my dearest friend who refuses to acknowledge how much I adore him....", sigh, ".... story of my life!"

"Madhav..."

"Parth..."

Krishna threw his arms around Arjun and almost made the latter stagger into an undignified heap over the gigantic brass statue which was kept at the side of pillar of the corridor through which they had been walking. 

"Oh how I'll miss you my ignorant oblivious friend! Dwarka loses its colours without your presence!", Krishna lamented dramatically making Arjun chuckle as he wrapped his own arms around the mischievous king of cowherds. 

"You and your dramatics Madhav! Just say the truth. You'll miss making me the scapegoat of every prank you play on Dau. I wonder how the poor man still has all his hair intact"

"Hah! That too. Also, why are you being so prudish now? Didn't you laugh your guts out when I changed Dau's water with a mild Datura mixture and he spat it out from his nose on the recent delegation which had arrived from the Kekeya?"

Arjun chuckled at that memory and also remembered how Krishna had complained for days after when Balarama had almost torn his ear off, later. 

"Why aren't you coming with me, again?", Arjun asked crossly, clinging onto his friend with all the fervour of a particularly unruly child, loathed to leave his mother. 

"We talked about this Parth. Dwarka needs me right now. I have.."

"I know..", Arjun left his embrace then, face falling slightly as he moved away a little. 

"We have already taken too much of your time with the war and the aftermath and.."

"Hey... none of that now", Krishna muttered and linked their arms together.

"I love spending time with you all and you know it."

Arjun smiled at him.

"And if it were up to me, no one would be able to make me part from you. Not for anything. Not for even a second."

Arjun beamed at him then. 

"Spare us bhratashree and have mercy on me and Jiji. You are the biggest thorn in both of our love life. Arya very conveniently forgets his poor wives, when you are around."

Subhadra chuckled from where she was standing near the chariot, ready to return to Hastinapur after their sojourn in Dwarka. 

"Aey Bhadrae, don't forget, Parth was mine first", Krishna sniffed indignantly. 

"And always will be brother", Subhadra whispered teasing yet gentle. 

"What ever will I do with all these beautiful people fighting over me."

Arjun drawled ostentatiously and then drew both the chortling brother and sister close to, wrapping himself up in a three way hug contently, not at all bothered about the stray eyes of the soldiers and the attendants, watching the unusual sight, curiously. 

The ever present agony in his body seemed to ebb away in Krishna's arms as usual. 

'Always will be Parth..'

Krishna promised to himself. 

----------------

In the battlefield of Manipur, at present time

Uloopi saw the bright light before anyone else could. 

Her hypersensitive sixth sense had picked up the disturbance in the air instantly. 

The gigantic structure of the miraculous flying machine of Kubera, Raavan's infamous Pushpak vimana materialized a few meters away, still floating in the air and then proceeded to descend on the ground, uncaring of the soldiers scrambling away from its path, frantically. 

"What the---"

Vrishketu murmured, eyes wide in shock and awe as the earth rumbled beneath them all at the almost hasty landing. 

"Is that...?"

Bheema started as the lithesome dark skinned man who had exited the vimana looked around for a second, spotted them and then began walking towards them with long purposeful strides. 

"Who is he...?"

Chitrangada rasped, her continuous sobs having finally evaporated with the exhaustion perhaps and the queen regent squinted into the distance trying to figure out the identity of the new presence.

The change in the air had been instantaneous. 

The deadened silence of the battlefield had suddenly been taken over by a distant thrumming of pure power. It vibrated and pulsated in the atmosphere, cutting cross the heavy smog of their grief like a hot knife through butter.

"He is here"

Uloopi whispered faintly, disbelief and hope mixed in her scraped raw voice. 

"Who?"

Babruvahan asked numbly, barely aware of his surroundings. The shock of the Snake queen and his own mother's words hadn't even sunken in fully when he had seen the strange device appearing out of thin air as it seemed, high up in the sky. 

"The Dark Lord", Uloopi whispered slightly awestruck. 

The queen of the serpents saw Krishna's beautiful form get closer and closer, advancing like the mirage of an oasis which she had most probably hallucinated in her fevered delirium. 

Only when he was close enough, did she realise, that the crackling static which had overtaken the previous numbing silence was a sizzling wrath. 

Vasudeva Krishna was almost illuminated with it; the sheer strength of his cosmic presence threatening to rip through the fabric of their reality itself. His multihued eyes, typically a warm jade with hints of hazel, a gentle blue and earthen mud was swirling a viscous copper red in a savage fury. 

Then he was upon them. 

His eyes bored into Uloopi's and the latter felt the shrivelled up remains of her heart almost beat out of her chest, both in terror and breathless anticipation. 

"I will give you one minute to explain Nagarani. Use it wisely", Krishna whispered. 

To be continued. 

A/N:- 

*drumrolls for our favourite makhan chor*

Me: Govinda alaa re.. alaa---

Krishna: I will incinerate you.

Me: TvT 

Hehe, yeah I used your line Ruh, don't kill me please. I loved it too much. And yeah, too many flashbacks ik, but its Krishnarjun content so deal with it, idc lol xD