Re: I Become Karna In Mahabharata

Surabhi started dragging her hooves on the ground.

Not in the usual sleepy "I'm bored of walking" way. No, this was different. This was ominous. The kind of hoof-drag that sent a tremor through the air. Birds flew away. Leaves stopped rustling. Even the squirrels on the branch above paused mid-acorn-chomp to reevaluate their life choices.

Radha, adjusting the bundle of travel supplies, blinked. "Did... did our cow just growl?"

Yes. Yes, she did.

I blinked up at her—Surabhi, the divine bovine, my horned guardian angel with mafia boss energy—and I felt the air shimmer. Her eyes weren't just glowing anymore. They were radiating. Golden light bled from her pupils like someone had cranked her divine brightness settings to MAX.

And then it happened.

The sigils.

Ancient ones. Sanskrit, Prakrit, Vedic. Etched not on her body, but around her. Floating in the air like ethereal tattoos made of holy fire. Each one pulsed with a deep sound—not just heard, but felt. The sacred resonance of 'Om' whispered through the forest like an approaching storm.

"Adhiratha!" Radha gasped, pulling me close. "Something is wrong!"

Wrong?

Lady, this is a full-on PowerPoint presentation of celestial flex.

Adhiratha was already on guard, hand hovering near the ceremonial blade tied at his waist, which would have been super helpful if we were fighting, say, a bandit. But this?

This was Surabhi.exe unlocking God Mode.

The air crackled. The trees leaned outward, away from us. The soil beneath Surabhi's hooves cracked like lightning had struck it.

And then—she spoke.

Yes. Spoke.

Not mooed. Not telepathically communicated. Not metaphor'd some divine cryptic nonsense.

She spoke, in a low, thundering feminine voice that seemed to come from the womb of the earth itself.

"He who walks without a shadow shall not pass this threshold."

Oh.

Oh no.

My little five-year-old heart froze.

She was talking about him.

That thing from earlier. The "sage" who had no shadow. Who smelled like wet ash and old prophecies. Who looked at me like a hunter looks at a golden deer.

"He bore the sigil of the Vanquished Star. He who once sat beneath Ravana's throne. A fragment of a curse, walking again."

Okay hold on. Ravana? The demon king? That Ravana?

What kind of New Game+ difficulty was I walking into?

Adhiratha lowered his blade, his expression unreadable. "Surabhi… you are…"

Surabhi turned to him slowly, her golden light dimming just slightly as she said, softer this time, "I am Kamadhenu's fourth-born. I am a protector of Parijat-born souls. And I am his guardian and... his wife to-be~"

Okay—

WAIT WHAT!!!

HOLD ON!

My ears are definitely

not functioning right. Did she just say WIFE?! To ME?!?

I may be five, but what in the holy bovine betrothal clause is happening right now?

Radha screamed. Adhiratha choked. I—well, I might have glitched out so hard my Module System should've soft-rebooted.

"W-WIFE TO-BE?" Radha shrieked, clutching me like I was about to be carried off in a cosmic cow elopement. "HE'S FIVE!"

Surabhi, ever the calm chaos deity in disguise, blinked slowly. "I'm five too."

Radha made a noise that was somewhere between a gasp, a laugh, and a full system shutdown.

"Five what?!" she yelped.

Surabhi tilted her head with unbothered serenity, golden glyphs still lazily orbiting her horns. "Five in divine bovine years. Roughly equivalent to... your age of maturity, give or take a few kalpas."

I was too busy reconsidering my life choices to speak. Just yesterday I was drawing moustaches on Raghav's face using soot. Today, I was apparently betrothed to a holy cow who glows like a mythological screensaver and speaks in cosmic metaphors. What is this plotline?

"Surabhi," Adhiratha said, his voice tight with the kind of emotion that usually precedes aneurysms. "You're joking. Right? Please tell me you're joking."

Surabhi blinked again. "I do not joke, boat-father."

Boat-father?! What is this, a sacred Moomin episode?

She started walking toward me, while simultaneously the golden glow turned blindly as her form started shifting from four-legged to two.

Yup. You read that right.

Two. Human legs.

Surabhi's hooves shimmered, lifted from the ground, and shifted. Light poured from her form like someone was power-washing reality itself. Fur gave way to skin. Horns twisted into a towering headpiece of celestial gold. Her tail coiled inward like a divine thread being re-spun. The glyphs didn't disappear—they just migrated to her back, arms, and forehead, arranging themselves like a divine sari made of Sanskrit verses and Vedic code.

The transformation lasted all of four seconds.

When it ended, standing there was not a cow.

But a woman.

No.

A goddess.

She was radiant—tall, with long hair that shimmered like molten moonlight and eyes like twin orbs of cosmic milk and fire. Her presence was less "gentle sacred guardian" now and more "celestial queen who once drop-kicked a rakshasa for breathing wrong."

And still glowing.

Always glowing.

"WHAT." Radha's voice had gone into glass-shatter pitch.

Adhiratha fell on one knee, his head bowed low like his spine had finally remembered just who they'd been travelling with.

I… I just wanted to hide inside a blanket and uninstall this divine DLC.

"Behold," she said, stepping forward, "Surabhi, daughter of Kamadhenu, guardian of the Eternal Fields, protector of the Parijat-Born Soul... and future consort to the golden-born."

"You mean me?" I asked weakly.

She nodded, ever-serene.

I turned to Radha, hoping for help.

Radha had short-circuited again.

Adhiratha looked like he needed a thousand years of therapy.

I looked up at Surabhi—the glowing, divine, sort-of-bovine woman standing there like she belonged on the cover of Divine Brides Monthly—and I did the only thing a five-year-old mentally-20-year-old reincarnated weeb could do in this moment.

"…Can I go back to being hunted by the creepy no-shadow sage? That felt simpler."

Surabhi smiled.

A smile that could calm oceans and murder empires.

"The one without shadow has been warned. He will not return. Not yet. But when he does… I shall be ready. And so will you."

She stepped into my personal space like a divine glitch in the cosmic matrix, and embraced me.

I repeat, for those in the back: A glowing goddess just hugged a five-year-old me and declared divine matrimony like it was Tuesday.

And honestly?

Her embrace was... warm.

Not fiery or overwhelming like her transformation. No celestial chakra overload or spontaneous hair bleaching. Just warm. Like grass at sunrise. Like a festival morning in a village that hasn't yet learned sorrow. Like—

Wait, stop. Focus.

"Uh," I croaked, muffled into her shoulder. "What exactly is happening right now?"

"My beloved, I finally get to return all your hugs~"

WAIT. HOLD ON.

"You r-remembered?"

I asked the most stupid question available, but I have to confirm something.

Surabhi leaned back from the hug just enough to look me in the eye. Her face, somehow still serene and glowing like she was sponsored by the Vedic Pantheon's skincare line, tilted slightly.

"I remember everything, Vijay."

Oh.

Oh no.

Oh yes?

Wait—NO, let's panic first and process later.

Because if she just called me "Vijay"—my name before I was tossed into Mythological Chaos Simulator 3000—then that means...

"You knew?" I whispered.

She nodded.

"From the very beginning?"

Another nod.

"Even when I was two? When I rode you around like a glorified divine scooter and tried to make you eat mango peels?"

"That was adorable," she said, smiling with a warmth that made galaxies somewhere write poetry. "You always liked to feed people. Even in the old world."

I think my soul tried to do a factory reset. Brain: 404. Heart: rebooting. Dignity: forcibly uninstalled.

Let's pause for a second.

I, Karna.

Age: Five.

Previous Occupation: Human (Vijay Singh).

Current Status: Golden Baby with Locked Stats Page.

New Problem: Engaged—yes, engaged—to a glowing divine entity who used to be a cow.

This is not a drill.

This is not a fever dream.

This is not even a side-quest.

This is a main story event, people.

"Surabhi," I croaked, trying to summon my inner calm and failing like a squirrel trying to understand algebra, "you're saying you knew me from... before. Like before-before."

She nodded again, softly brushing a strand of shimmering hair behind her ear like she hadn't just upended my entire cosmological belief system.

"In your last life, you saved me," she said. "You gave up your wish for rebirth to ensure I reached moksha. But I... refused it. Not without you."

Moksha?I blinked, hard.

"Wait—wait. Are you saying I pulled a full-blown karmic reversal for a cow in my last life?"

"You didn't just 'pull' anything," she replied, smiling like a thousand temple bells just rang in unison. "You chose it. When the gates of liberation opened, you looked back at me—small, suffering, stuck in the cycle—and said: 'Not without her.'"

I opened my mouth.

Closed it.

Opened it again.

"WHY WOULD I DO THAT?!"

Surabhi chuckled. The kind of serene, chime-like laugh that made flower petals shiver.

"You said something about cows being sacred and friendship being eternal, and how you were tired of choosing freedom when others still suffered. You made a scene, honestly. It was very touching. Even Yama got teary-eyed."

Yama.

Teary-eyed.

At me.

I'm going to need a moment.

"You remembered all this, but you never told me?" I asked.

She tilted her head. "I was waiting. Waiting for your soul to catch up. For you to remember—not with your mind, but with your actions. And you did. You always do."

Somewhere in the background, Radha had officially transitioned from short-circuit to sleep-mode. She was now sitting on a rock, staring into the distance, muttering, "My son is marrying a divine cow. My son is marrying a divine cow. My son is—"

Adhiratha was still kneeling, though now he looked like he wanted to argue with reality and couldn't find the manual.

I?

I was getting hugged by a literal goddess while my brain tried to reboot with dial-up speed.

"Okay, okay," I said, pushing back gently from her warmth, "I need answers. Like, FAQ section level answers."

She nodded.

"Question one: are we actually, literally, seriously engaged?"

"Yes."

"Like... in a divine-contract-signed-by-fate sort of way?"

She made a Vedic mudra with her fingers. "It is already written."

"Question two: does this mean I'm... a cow husband?"

Surabhi raised an eyebrow. "Only if I'm a boy-child wife."

"Okay, okay, fair point, moving on—question three: what does this mean for me? Am I some reincarnated ascetic-hero with a thing for cows? Am I secretly a deity? Am I—"

"You are you," she said, gently placing a hand over my heart. "The soul that fed me mango peels even when you had none for yourself. That's all that ever mattered."

I had no idea how to process that, so my internal response was basically:

[ERROR: Existential Processing Failed. Rebooting in 3…2…1…]

Radha suddenly snapped back to life with a shriek. "BUT HE'S STILL FIVE! AND YOU'RE GLOWING LIKE AN IMMORTAL BRIDE! THIS IS—IS THIS EVEN LEGAL?!"

Surabhi turned to her with a patient smile. "It's not a wedding, Radha-Mother. It's a promise. One I made long ago. And one I've waited lifetimes to keep."

Radha promptly fainted into Adhiratha's arms.

"Okay," I whispered to myself, dragging my tiny palm down my face, "from today onward, we're adding 'possible divine engagement' to my ongoing list of Plot Complications."

Current Running List:

• Reincarnated as Karna

• No refund policy on reincarnation

• Module System is still locked

• Accidental Crayon Mafia warlord

• Nearly soul-napped by shadowless cryptid sage 

• Fiancé'd to celestial bovine goddess

• Too emotionally constipated to deal with any of this

Surabhi leaned down and pressed her lips—soft petal like lips—against my forehead in a benediction that felt like a balm and a charge all at once.

"Rest now, golden one. Your journey is just beginning."

As her divine glow softened, her form shifted back — hooves replacing feet, horns re-emerging, the celestial sari of glyphs fading into a faint shimmer. She lowered herself to all fours, nuzzled me gently, and gave a contented moo that seemed to say, I've got you.

Radha, still recovering, blinked up at us. "So… uh… does this mean you're, like, officially family now?"

Adhiratha, finally finding his voice, grunted, "Family or not, we better keep that shadowless creep out of our lives. Or else."

I gave a weak nod. "Yeah. Because between surprise fiancés and shadowless villains, I was just starting to hope for a normal five-year-old life."

Surabhi's eyes twinkled. "Normal is overrated."

And just like that, the forest air began to stir again—the birds resumed their chirps, the squirrels dropped their acorns, and the shadows lengthened as if nothing had happened.

Except we all knew better.

Because whatever games fate had in store, this glowing guardian, my divine betrothed, was here.