Chapter Text
“Perhaps I was wrong.”
The echo of the mechanical voice ricocheted off the pillars across the floor, ominous in the in the vast, silent hall under the summit of the pyramid.
Not even Grievous’s vocalizator had ever been able to produce such a sickening, inhuman sound. That creature had been a monster, a foul thing, but nothing a trained Jedi couldn’t deal with. Nothing any warrior couldn’t deal with, actually; only his artificially enhanced combat skills had made him a real threat, but in the end even he had succumbed to superior cunning and training.
This monster, though, was another thing entirely.
There he was – he, or it? – towering over the terrified child, his arms raised, ready to deal the fatal blow with his crimson blade, a ghastly vision born from the most horrific nightmare.
As a trained Force Sensitive, Ahsoka Tano could sense the Force swirling frantically around him as he mustered it, possessed by the desire to dominate it and impose his own will over that of the Force itself. Fear, anger, hate oozed from his figure in a miasma of terror. She could taste it, foul in her mouth.
She could see his rage in the Force as red flashes in a black well of agony; at the end of the well, there was noting but void. It was impossible to believe that this thing had once been a man.
What could make anyone sink this deep?
A single question was raging in Ahsoka's mind. Could… could he have sunk this deep, consciously rejecting everything he had ever been, everything he had ever believed in and fought for?
As much as she craved to know the identity of the person behind the mask, Ahsoka knew that the dread that came with the anticipation was too dangerous to be let free to roam. After the vision which had visited her in the now lost temple on Lothal she had not been able to think about anything else but her former Master's fate. Now, faced with the embodiment of her deepest fear, she wanted nothing more than to open herself to the Force and extend her senses along her most cherished bond, the bond that had snapped close long years ago, on that dreadful night when her Master had been lost to her, the night when the overwhelming flood of emotions and boiling love that had been Anakin Skywalker had abruptly disappeared into the void, leaving her alone in a galaxy suddenly turned too dark to bear.
Now Ahsoka feared what she would find at the severed end of that bond: she dreaded to find there, looming in the darkness, the presence she had felt in that TIE Advanced when she and Kanan had stretched their senses to reach to the imperial pilot who was decimating their fleet: the fear, the anger, the hate, a presence they had not felt since the Clone Wars. She wanted to know, she needed to know, but she knew she could not allow herself to pursue her wish, not now, not with so much at stake. The risk of being overwhelmed by her own emotions, by her own fear, anger and hate was just too real and would put in jeopardy not only her own life but also those whose lives depended on her, and she would not let that happened. She was no longer a Jedi, but some things were too deep-rooted to be forgotten.
Letting go of her fear, she exhaled and let her Jedi training flew inside her, the Light enfolding her in its protective shields. She had found her own path, but she had retained what, of her previous life, could help her survive in her lonely fight. Calm and focused, she stepped forward.
The time had come to let him know she was there.
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” she proclaimed, fiery defiance burning in her voice.
Darth Vader froze, his arms still raised for the killing blow.
Slowly, the caped figure turned towards her, the polished surface of the optical lenses in his helmet reflecting the red light of the temple, a mock imitation of crimson Sith eyes. Eyes and lenses met, and Ahsoka felt a surge of black dread taking her breath away, a dark energy like nothing she had ever felt before.
She could still remember the feeling of Dooku’s dark presence on Tatooine, when Anakin had engaged him to give her enough time to bring little Stinky to safety. She remembered how, as the Twilight descended into Tatooine’s atmosphere, the warmth of the Force had suddenly grown cold and how everything had suddenly felt tainted, touched by a malevolent presence of evil.
But not even Dooku’s dark presence had been even remotely close to this.
This was worse than death itself.
Everything around Vader was a perversion of the Force, enacted by a will strengthened by unending despair.
It was unbearable, but she knew she had to face him and, in time, face the truth behind the mask.
Trying to overcome the chill and the darkness, she forced herself once again to remember her training, Anakin’s training.
There is no death, there is the Force.
This part of the Jedi Code still rang true, even after all this time.
Anakin’s voice echoed in her mind, a memory from all those years ago, from that horrific mission on Onderon.
Ahsoka, remember what I told you about staying focused. Always put purpose ahead of your feelings.
It was an anchor in a storming sea and she clung to it, fighting to stay afloat over the raging waves of darkness.
Her shields were up again, strong and unyielding, built with the force of her fondest memories. The Force of her fondest memories.
The darkness receded. She was a pillar of light, untouched by the horrors of Malachor.
The pillar of shadows that was Darth Vader was now facing her, the frightened, brave Ezra at last forgotten.
“It was foretold that you would be here. Our long-awaited meeting has come at last.”
Ghastly, the mechanic voice filled the Sith temple, and a part of her, the most stubborn part, searched the sound for a echo of her Master’s voice.
She wanted, needed to know, yet she could not risk losing her strength. She had to get Vader away from the holocron, she needed to buy time for Ezra and Kanan to fetch it and run. If that meant giving up her life, she was more than ready to sacrifice it. Her life in trade for a spark of hope for the galaxy, one couldn’t even call it a sacrifice.
To allow them to escape, that was her priority. Then, she would find a way to know the truth.
Another surge of love blossomed in her heart as a mischievous smile that sparkled in two caring and amused green-blue eyes resurfaced from her memories. Master Kenobi, bickering with the enemy before a fight to postpone the confrontation until reinforcements arrived. Just as she had to do now, taunt the Sith Lord to buy time for her friends.
“I’m glad I gave you something to look forward to.”
She vaguely wondered if Master Kenobi would have been proud of her: her voice had been almost steady, but stained by a bitter edge. Anyway, she didn’t need the impudence of the infamous Negotiator: it was not like she was going to sign a treaty with the Sith anyway. She was just delaying the inevitable.
With a hiss, Vader’s crimson blade disappeared.
It had worked, apparently. After all, she was Kenobi’s grandpadawan.
“We need not be adversaries,” the Sith Lord said, apparently trying – and failing – to look less menacing. “The Emperor will show you mercy if you tell me where the remaining Jedi can be found.”
Anger now surged in her blood. Remaining Jedi? Two Padawans and a child, and they were right in front of him.
“There are no Jedi. You and your Inquisitors have seen to that.”
The contempt in her voice could pierce the air.
But now there was a glimpse of hope. Maybe he really knew about other surviving Jedi. But who?
Master Yoda?
Admittedly, after the vision that had visited her and Ezra on Lothal, she strongly suspected that the old Grandmaster was still alive, waiting for the turn of the tide to come back from whichever mists of the Force were concealing him. With his wisdom, he may have survived Order 66 and have been strong enough to let Sidious unleash his evil on the galaxy, renouncing to rush to the attack and waiting in the shadows until the moment came when true peace and justice could be restored. But she could not afford to think about him, not here in front of Vader.
Master Obi-Wan?
No, that was not possible either. Bail had told her that he had died fighting a Sith Lord on Mustafar after having rerouted the Jedi beacon. Moreover, Obi-Wan Kenobi would have never stood by and let this all happen without a fight, not in this galaxy. He and his ferocious, righteous sense of justice… He could not have lived through this horror, he was not Master Yoda. Kenobi was a man of action, he would have been part of the rebellion. General Kenobi, the Aggressive Negotiator, a flaming blue light bringing hope to the galaxy. Master Obi-Wan was dead, most likely at the hands of Vader himself. How many other Sith Lords could there be, after all?
For less than a second, she dared to hope, truly hope. If he intended to use her as a tool to find another Jedi, maybe it could be…
No. No, Anakin was dead. On that fateful night, across half the galaxy she had felt his feelings: wrath, outraged sense of betrayal and the deepest pain, an explosion of darkness, and then only silence.
Nothing more, ever. Anakin was dead.
And anyway, better dead than – but no, she couldn’t afford following her thoughts to their conclusions.
“Perhaps this child will confess what you will not.”
The mechanical voice brought her back to reality, and to contempt and relief.
Contempt, for the vileness of this monster. Relief, because now she could really hope that her fears had been unfounded.
If she were to find a word to describe Anakin Skywalker, compassion would be the word. The former slave boy would never, never threat to harm a defenseless child.
Not in this word, not in another.
Never.
Vader was not Anakin. Anakin could never have become Vader.
How could she had even remotely thought that he could have?
“I was beginning to believe I knew who you were behind that mask, but it's impossible. My master could never be as vile as you.”
There was righteous purpose in her words, yet it felt to her like her voice was more similar to that of her younger self than it ever had been in the recent years. There was too much sorrow. Too many memories. Too much pain.
But now she was ready to fight and try to destroy this monster once and for all.
Do or do not. There is no try.
Now it was Yoda’s voice, resonating in her memories. He was right. She would put an end to this. And if she failed, she would die knowing that she had done her best, not only tried to.
Oh, what would she give to know that Master Yoda was alive.
“Anakin Skywalker was weak. I destroyed him.”
The utter, definitive sense of loss crashed over her.
She closed her eyes.
Anakin was dead. Gone. Forever.
And then, together with the raising grief, an awful knowledge dawned on her.
She had almost wished that Darth Vader was Anakin. She had loved her Master so much that she’d almost wished it was him. Shame flooded her at the thought, so much she almost thought she did not deserve to have had him as her Master. Anakin would have killed himself before he turned to the Dark Side.
Ahsoka had almost wished it was him because, if it were, she could still have hoped to turn him back and have him again by her side. She couldn’t hope to bring him back from the dead.
Once again, she remembered the rush of unspeakable agony that had been the last glimpse of her Master through their bond.
Now she knew how he had died, slain by this foul cyborg. What could this monster have done to Anakin to cause him such agony?
Anakin must have seen the 501st turning on him, he must have witnessed the slaughter in the Temple.
He must have realized that Palpatine had been the Sith Lord behind everything they had suffered.
He must have been the last one standing among the dead Jedi.
She felt again the deep shame of her desertion. Why, why had she decided to go, leaving him alone against the Sith? They should have died together, Master and Apprentice, side by side, one protecting the other.
She had abandoned him then, and now she had just betrayed his memory once again, being so selfish as to hope it was him.
There was only one thing she could do for him now, for her dear Master, her big brother, her beloved Anakin.
Her eyes snapped open.
“Then I will avenge his death.”
Even as she spoke, she felt the light shining through her, stronger than ever, notwithstanding the venom in her voice. She sought revenge, but without malice. She sought revenge and justice.
She hated Vader because she had loved Anakin.
She was deeply rooted in the Force.
“Revenge is not the Jedi way.”
Oh, how it hurt, the mockery in the monster’s voice. He didn’t know, he couldn’t know that Anakin had once uttered those same words.
But there was no foolish sense of self-imposed guilt to restrain her now.
She gritted her teeth, her battle stance ready, her hilts in her hands in a regular grip, like Anakin had always wanted her to fight. No reverse grip this time, she would avenge him properly, as he had taught her.
This was the fight of her life.
For Obi-Wan. For the 501st, the 212th. For the innumerable lives lost.
For Anakin.
For the Republic.
“I am no Jedi."
Her lightsabers came to life with a familiar hiss. Devoid of all color, pure light.
She could feel her pain, anger and hate threatening to suffocate her. But she didn’t nurture her power on them. She cherished them, accepting them, because those feelings measured the depth of her love, of her betrayal.
And she had no fear.
Only the Force.
While Ahsoka asked the Force to help her reach her goal, Darth Vader mustered the Force to answer his will.
She run, leapt, and the duel begun.
Strike, parry, crawl.
When she Force-pushed him away to avoid his saber, he fell to his knees. He looked up, and she could feel his icy gaze from behind the mask.
Vader had understood that she was an adversary to be reckoned with. She leapt again.
He stroke and parried with brutal strength, single powerful slashes meant to cut through her defense and slice her. She put all her agility to use, leaping, dodging, diving, spinning.
There was nothing but their fight, Anakin's apprentice against Anakin's murderer.
But she just couldn’t keep her ground. With his powerful blows Vader was forcing her back, out in the open, towards the end of the platform on which the top level of the Sith temple was built.
In a glimpse of lucidity amidst the frenzy of the duel she wished she’d practiced more Soresu with Master Kenobi. But then, Soresu’s strength was resilience, waiting to tire out the opponent and take advantage of the first error caused by weariness. Hard to put it at use against such war machine: she didn’t think Vader could be tired out, ever.
Now she wasn’t even dodging anymore. All she could do was keep her sabers high and fight for dear life. For Ezra and Kanan’s lives.
Parrying was becoming more and more difficult. She was tired already, Vader’s physical power was too superior to hers, and even her agility and her skills couldn’t outmatch the disrupting vigor with which the cyborg counterbalanced his lack of mobility.
Their blades met. It was up to a duel of strength now.
She called on the Force to intensify her grip, but Vader was too strong for her. He crushed her guard, sending her arms backwards. Yet his blow was too slow, and she was able to recover and parry the slash. The recoil from the parry spun her sabers sideways, and Vader caught the opening, Force-pushing her down the side of the temple.
Ahsoka fell and fell, with only the strength left to cushion herself when she impacted the mid-level floor. And there she was, crushed but alive, surrounded by the mummified remains of Jedi and Sith who had died millennia ago in another instance of the unending struggle of light against dark.
She knew she had given everything she could in the fight, opening herself to the Force, using her skills and her agility to outmatch her foe; but the physical strength of his cybernetic limbs was overwhelming, and his command of the Force, of this raw Force… that was something she had never met, not fighting Grievous or Ventress. She was sure not even Dooku had been so utterly surrounded by the Dark Side, almost to the point of being lost in it.
What kind of evil was this?
But she didn't have the time to ponder the thought, because in that moment the temple started to collapse.
Purpose first.
She rose and leapt, Force-jumping on the stone stairways until she reached once again the summit of the temple.
Vader was there, Force-pulling the holocron from Ezra’s grip towards his own hand, while the boy and Kanan struggled to keep it away from him.
Ahsoka didn’t even need to think: her body did what it had learnt to do years ago, on the day when she'd first held a lightsaber.
Reverse grip in both hands, the comforting hum of her lit blades, she run, giving everything she had – everything she was – into the Force.
Vader sensed her and turned, his saber raised, ready to strike. She screamed for the exertion and leapt, pushing Vader’s saber sideways and striking with all the strength she had gathered in her desperation.
Vader yelled. She had hit.
She crashed onto the floor, rolling away from her enemy.
“Ahsoka… Come on, hurry!”
Ezra’s frantic call reached her through the haze of weariness. Ahsoka didn’t have anything more to give, she was just glad to have bought time for them. She had not failed, and even if she couldn’t reach them in time, she would die content.
But yet she could try to live... she mustered all her will to rise on her feet. Her main saber still clutched in her right hand, sue pulled herself to her knees, breathing heavily. One last effort…
“Ahsoka.”
Her eyes opened wide, and the world stopped.
She didn’t even reach into the Force. It didn’t matter, nothing else mattered anymore.
It was just her and Vader in the galaxy, and everything now revolved around them, the two of them, the center of gravity of the universe.
She turned. She had to see him with her own eyes.
He turned and raised his head.
Her blow had struck him on the left side of his mask, leaving a still smoking hole through which she could see his cheek and his eye.
A yellow eye.
“Ahsoka.”
A Sith eye, a true Sith eye.
Not even Dooku had had true Sith eyes. She had learnt about them only from history holobooks and from Master Kenobi’s accounts of Darth Maul and of Anakin’s and her own forced fall on Mortis.
But she’d never seen it.
A Sith eye.
Anakin Skywalker’s eye.
She would have recognized Anakin Skywalker’s eyes until her last breath, and even after, no matter their color.
Anakin. Anakin.
She had always known, known ever since that day on the Ghost, even if she had tried to lie to herself all along.
His body, his stance, even his voice. All deformed, mechanized distortions of that perfect achievement of nature that had been Anakin Skywalker. She had pretend not to recognize them, she had hidden the truth from herself, using the cybernetics as a pathetic excuse. She had hoped, when he had taunted Ezra.
But she could not deny his eyes, the eyes of the person she had loved most and who had loved her most.
Her master, brother, friend, comrade.
“Anakin.”
Her call was almost a plea.
Why had it happened? How? It was all her fault, just as he had told her in the temple on Lothal. She had abandoned him, failed him. She had left him alone to face his demons. It was all her fault.
But it didn’t matter now, nothing else mattered.
Something in her snapped open, and through their old bond she was flooded by an ocean of shrieking agony, coming from the black figure struggling to pull himself on his feet.
“I won’t leave you!”, she yelled, pouring all her will and her love in her voice and into the Force towards him.
“Not this time.”
Nevermore. They were together, as they were always meant to be.
She locked her eyes into his, counting the passing moments with his heavy breaths, waiting for his eye to turn once again bright blue, as Anakin’s eyes had been when they had first met, all those years ago on Christophsis, a powerful Jedi and a cheeky child.
It didn’t turn blue.
The yellow flame burned, more vicious then ever.
She was suddenly afraid, but not for herself. Never again she would care for herself more than she cared for him.
Anakin grimaced.
“Then you will die.”
A crimson blade sparked to life, staining his yellow eye in red.
Ahsoka shrank, only slightly, and blinked. She didn’t falter.
Come what may, she would not leave him.
Vader advanced, merciless.
“Ahsoka!”
Ezra’s voiced pierced the silence, afraid and imploring, but it didn’t matter.
Nothing else mattered. This was her world, from that moment on, forever.
She Force-pushed Ezra away, and as the collapsing temple shut him out, she lit her lightsabers to ward off Anakin’s blow.
They fought, dancing among the falling debris, as they had done so many times in the training dojo, in the training grounds, on the Dauntless bridge to the crew’s amusement, in their camps.
Ahsoka gave herself up to the Force for the fight, never planning on winning, only on staying alive enough to bring him back.
“I won’t leave you, Anakin! Never again!”
The Force made her duck and thrust her shoto sideways, to intercept a downward blow.
“I will stay with you until I have you back.”
He Force-pushed her away, turning off his saber with an hiss.
“There is not turning back. Your old Master is no more.”
“I don’t believe you!”, she yelled. “You know who you are, who you can be. Come with me, Anakin. Come to me.”
“You are a fool, apprentice.”
She leapt backwards, away from his reach, and deactivated her sabers with a hiss, throwing them on the ground.
Darth Vader halted, but didn’t lower his guard.
“You should never let your guard down.”
She laughed, a shaken, mirthless sound.
“It doesn’t matter, Anakin. Not anymore. I won’t go away, I won’t leave you to face this darkness alone. I should never have. I will die by your side, and if that means I will die by your hand, so be it.”
A tear was running down her cheek, but she didn’t care. She could feel the temple collapsing all around her. If she couldn’t turn him back, she hoped at least to be able to keep him inside the temple long enough to trap him in its fall.
“You know nothing of me. There is nothing back.”
She already knew that, but it still hurt terribly to hear the words.
Another hiss, and the crimson blade was once again swinging towards her.
Ahsoka fell on the floor, ready for the execution.
I said I will die trying.
As she waited for the killing blow, she opened herself for the last time to the Force, letting go of everything, of herself, her life, her soul. She let go of everything, but not of him. She could never let go of Anakin.
Then she yelled into the Force and thrust her blades into the floor. They would die side by side, as they should have when the Jedi Order had fallen.
Vader's killing blow never came.
The Sith Temple collapsed and the world imploded.