karna's struggle: fulfilling the destiny

Why are you doing this, Gurudev?

"Are you questioning me...won't you follow your teacher's order, devavrata?,"asked Parshuram calmly.

No... ofcourse not Gurudev.
....what I meant to say....is that........!!! Bhisma said meekingly .

"Than what do you mean, Bhishma?," Said Parshuramji raising an eyebrow.

"I mean ,I will participate in this duel,as per your order Gurudev, said Bhisma joining his hands infront of his chest and after doing namaskar towards his teacher ,Bhishma left to get ready for duel.

Vidur announced somewhat hesitant that the next competition is going to be between Mahamahim Bhisma and karna. Everyone was shocked, Mahamahim was a conditioned warrior having fought many battles in his life , on the other hand karna was an elementary worrior...how he was supposed to keep up with Mahamahim.
Karna gave his Gurudev a look of disbelief ,which was returned only with a dazzling smile.

He sighed and prepared himself to fight with Mahamahim. He knew his Gurudev was planning something which is going to lend him in trouble,but also help him in future, still he was not enjoying Gurudev's antics.
Seeing his teacher enjoying himself alot ,he also smiled a bit,after all he could do anything for him.
Fight started with both the warrior using simple weapons. Bhishma thought that he does not need to use his divine bow to fight this immature child. He was only fulfilling his teacher's wishes.

Firstly, they started with swords and experimentally jabbed at each other a few times and then the pace picked up a bit.The two men were almost flying across the battle grounds ,the battle continued with incredible finesse ,first Bhishma and than karna gaining advantage,and never loosing it again and it becomes clear that both were swordmasters.

Then,they start mace fighting ,both were equally capable in mace fighting also ,when their mace collided the sound was thunderous and scared many present.it was like watching two well balanced atheletes and esteemed warriors. Karna was better in mace fighting than Duryodhana , only second to Balaram.
Finally , archery competition started between the two,both Demi gods were using simple bows.
"You can start first karna," said Bhishma.
"No ,you are elder to me and it would be disrespectful if I go first ,please do subaharambh mahamahim,"karna said smiling mischeviously.

Bhishma started with arrogance by evoking Varun astra and large volume of torrential rains drenched the grounds.
Karna evoked visoshana astra ,which is used for drying and everything was dry again.

Next nagastra was used by Bhishma which karna countered with garudastra.
Sammohanaastra was next,but before it could take the effect ,karna rendered it useless by using Prajnastra,which restores senses and thoughts of someone.

At this point , Bhishma was starting to get tired and he understood that thinking karna as easy competition was his mistake , he was sure now that karna was more than competent warrior and he was not using all of his energy ,while Bhishma was using every bit of energy he possessed.
May be old age was catching up to him.he thought.

Finally Bhishma decided to use his divine bow and invocated it .Afterall he had to save the dignity of kuruvansh.

On watching this ,karna looked towards his teacher as if asking permission to use his divine bow ,Parshuram nodded in his direction ,Shakti was observing all of this keenly.
Karna invocated Vijaya after this.
Watching a divine bow manifesting in karna hands out of no where , everyone was beyond shocked....they felt that it must be a hallucination.
Bhishma was most surprised, because he could identify the bow as the Vijaya Bow of his teacher,which was named as always victorious,so Gurudev gave this bow to karna ,he must be special,and I am going to loose....thought Bhishma,he was jealous of karna for gaining such favour from their Gurudev.