Chapter Text
Two-hundred and sixty-six, two-hundred and sixty-seven… there were only another four-hundred and eighty-three steps to go. The rhythmic tapping of her boots against the ancient stone steps would be sure to haunt her for years to come.
Two-hundred and eighty-two.
The warm gust of Coruscanti wind that blew too warm for this time of year waked around her, a gentle caress.
Two-hundred and eighty-seven.
Doubtless, it would have been more fitting if it had been a cold day, where the whisper of ice on the air bit away at her skin. If Ahsoka were one for romantics, it would have been perfect. Ah, but this was reality. And currently, reality was that Ahsoka Tano was descending the steps of the Jedi Temple for the final time.
She was turning her back on all she had. Well, they couldn't expect anything less. The only family she had ever known were willing to abandon her—she was a pawn in the political game the grand Ancient Jedi Order was eager to partake in. Well, not all of them. There were still a few she could consider friends. She knew one was standing below the colossal pillars, wracking the remnants of their training bond in an attempt to elicit any sort of response from her.
The unspoken question came across the bond—Could I have done more?
She hoped he understood that she could never blame him. Not your fault, Mast—Anakin. It's not your fault. This is something I have to do for myself.
—Snips!—
He'd heard.
She knew it wasn't her imagination that her gait had picked up.
No one would be right to blame her. All she had ever known had betrayed her. The ideals and values she pressed to uphold could be so blindly abandoned by the Jedi Order. The innocent became board pieces, moved about and sacrificed in a game, all to benefit the higher-ranking pieces. Well, not this board piece. Never again.
Three hundred and three. It had never occurred to her so much as it did at this moment that there were so many steps up to the Temple. But Ahsoka was determined to count each one and let every step add weight to her shoulders. Each one was a further step away from the Jedi, away from Anakin, away from everything she had ever known. But it would be counterproductive to turn back now; she would betray herself.
She had to keep going.
A part of her looked to the Force now, wanting to find some solace in its presence. So, as she tapped into the ancient presence and found nothing but blank space, she froze.
Keep going, Ahsoka, she told herself.
So, the Force had no comment on her decision. But it wasn't only that… there was no response at all. No whispering wind, no calming presence passing through her mind. There was an emptiness that wanted to see her fall, trip down these buggering steps.
Three-hundred and seventy-five, Forcedammit!
Why was there no response? Why was there no answer?
…
Was she wrong?
For a fleeting moment, she almost turned her head. Would it be so bad to rush up those stairs and embrace Anakin? Wouldn't it be better, safer to allow the Council to welcome her back? She'd miss Rex, Jesse, Fives and the others. Many an evening saw her in the barracks, reliving the heroic and often ridiculous endeavours of the 501st.
She craved one more cup of tea with her grandmaster on his preposterously soft couch. Long missions that dragged her own master away sent her knocking on the next door down. More than once, she'd crawled into a ball on that couch and woke to find a robe tucked around her. It was often the smell of brewed caf or tea that tempted her from sleep when she awoke in Master Obi-Wan's common area. It was a strange thing to recall now, granted... but she found it was a memory she was fond of, nonetheless.
...
I should go back.
—No!—
It rocked through her, an adamant force behind it urging her steps onwards and away. The force behind it was so strong that she nearly slipped down a step. The breeze that enveloped her was more than the unseasonably warm gusts passing by. Relief flowed through her at that familiar presence returning to offer guidance.
She resumed her descent.
Perhaps she could leave. And in doing so, not worry that it would lead to what seemed to be the looming downfall of peace and justice in this Republic—not that she played such an important role. But to wake up one day and find the Sith in power and the Jedi no more, and know in her heart that she could have done something...
Step four-hundred and forty-five.
What to do now? Where do I go? She waited with bated breath for an answer or form of guidance. In fact, she waited another two-hundred and twenty steps, but still nothing.
No, she wouldn't turn back. She would keep going.
Anakin had trained her to be better than this… stronger. If the Force was going to be silent, then let it. She may have left the Order, but she still had its training and deep-set values and ideals. She would be patient; she would wait for the Force to answer in its own mystic time.
Perhaps she should give it a few days, try to acclimatise herself to the beginnings of a new life, and maybe then try to commune with the Force. There was nothing overly pressing that needed addressing right this instant, surely. She was leaving the fate of the Republic—the Light itself—in good hands. Justice and peace would not crumble under Jedi guidance.
You know those are empty words, Ahsoka. Why else would you be stuck counting these steps? They sacrificed you in a political game.
Then she'd find somewhere in this galaxy that needed her. Someplace where she could be of help.
Oh, Anakin.
She hoped with a crushing sincerity that he would carry on without her. The Order may not need her, but it needed him. The galaxy needed Skywalker. He wouldn't have to do it alone. He had Master Obi-Wan to watch out for him and (if Ahsoka's suspicions were correct) Senator Amidala as well. He was in good hands despite his growing distrust of the Jedi and fast-dwindling fuse...
Ahsoka reached step seven-hundred and fifty and slowed. A dreadful cold crept over her. Was it wise to keep pushing Anakin down this path? Did she trust events to play out in their favour? Was the universe ever that kind?
Despite her best efforts, her conviction was waning fast. Here, she should tell herself to take strength—to have faith in the Jedi, to have faith in Anakin, but—
As distracted as she was, she didn't pay much heed to the moment her boots finally passed beyond the boundaries of the Temple… to her detriment: the sudden shove to her back sent her sprawling.
Her skin crawled. A deafening whistle pierced her skull. And nothing, no whistling bomb nor battlefield clatter, could come close to matching this—it screeched, shrill and torturous as it shattered a hole through her. It seemed to writhe beneath her skin, inching its way slowly, deeper and deeper like a hot pike or a piercing lightsaber.
Sith!
Ahsoka Tano was a Jedi padawan trained by war. She had faced down countless armies of battle droids, walked the scarred lands of distant battlefields and spent her years trying to match every step of Anakin Skywalker, the Chosen One. She'd faced the Ones: entities who brandished the Force as if it were a mere plaything. She had been hung over a slaver's city in an animal's cage, no more than a rodent and awaiting Anakin's rescue. She had spent hours in Sith torture chambers, counting the moments to Anakin's inevitable arrival as if it were the only thing keeping her sane.
So, in this exact vein, it could be forgiven that her first thoughts—her first pleas—were for her master. "Anakin!"
—No!—
The response echoed past the pain, splintering along every stretch of her mind. It was not Anakin's voice, nor was it any voice in particular. The contradictory tone, both bellowing and hushed, spoke of only one source: the Force. The Force itself was screaming... screaming at her.
What did I do? What *do* I do? Ahsoka tried pleading with it. She had received visions before, but nothing of this magnitude, nothing to this extent of sensation or immersion.
—The Chosen One— came whispering and roaring around her. Anakin's title echoed endlessly, wailed, whispered and sung. Anakin? Anakin!
—Can't help. Won't help— The Force exploded through her mind. She was faintly aware of her own screaming joining the cacophony in this nowhere-place. He is the Chosen One. He will bring balance, she tried to explain in her panic. But everything came instantaneously, too fast and sudden.
—Balance? Pain!—
Why? Ahsoka choked.
—Show her—
A breath went down her neck, then everywhere. And then she was weightless. The pain stopped.
A burning red burst across her mind's eye. Sith! The smell of burnt durasteel, the settling dust of rubble, and the stench of singed flesh assaulted her. She recoiled. The Chosen One chanted repeatedly around her like a volley of cannon fire.
The red became blue, and this saber blade spun towards her at an impossible speed. Instinctively, she dived away, but it was too late: it cleaved through her shoulder, separating muscle from bone and cauterising flesh. She cried out, but before she could form the breath to do so... she found herself elsewhere, her arm once again reattached and moving. She felt the familiar weight of a lightsaber in her palm and the Force flowing through her body.
Then came the shots.
"Stop him!" someone shouted as Ahsoka found herself somehow soaring over… clones? Details were blurry, but they were most certainly shooting at her. She rebounded off a surface, bringing her saber down through a helmet before pushing away. "Bring down the Jedi!"
What is this?!
Someone bellowed at them to stop.
An urgent bid to "Get to the Senator!" pounded through her mind, the voice young, unknown and terrified.
And then it was no more. A bolt ripped through her thigh, bringing her down. Then, heat ripped through her. The last thing she saw was the Coruscant skyline, the sun slowly disappearing and yielding to the familiar, comforting shadows blanketing the skyscrapers.
She came around in the cockpit of a starfighter, moving at speeds she was unprepared for. Hands gloved in a clone's armour shot out to pull the fighter around. Flanking another fighter soaring through the skies of Cato Neimodia, Ahsoka watched as her hands reached for the weapons control. She homed in on the Republic fighter before her.
Her incredulous mind refused to accept the insignia scrawled across the side of the fighter. She knew the serial number by heart, herself having sometimes waited in hanger bays of cruisers or the Temple hanger itself for that starfighter to appear, with its dark green paint peeling off from battle damage. But, like Anakin, it would always return, and she would find solace in its lone occupant. No. No!
...she fired, the shot perfect as it clipped the starboard engine, sending the fighter into an uncontrollable spin. The burning ship trailed a frantic line of smoke across the sky before it plummeted into the suspended city, now only a ball of fire to rain down upon the planet's surface below. Ahsoka's heart clenched.
...
"Master Skywalker!" A voice, quiet and terrified, gasped the name with desperate relief.
Ahsoka found herself staring at a youngling far too young to be acquainted with the amount of fear radiating off of him. But his cry— 'Anakin?' she asked into the Force, hoping to feel his comforting presence. Whatever horror she was witnessing—living—his presence alone could soothe her. They could save these younglings. Master Anakin was here. They could get them out of there. He could do that. Always. Easy. Skyguy could save the day.
"There's too many of them! What do we do?"
"Anakin, we can use grappling ropes out that window." Immediately, Ahsoka began inspecting for any exploitable structural weaknesses. Somewhere in her mind, she wondered how long it had been since the Council had the panes replaced: ten, twenty years? There should be a point where the transparisteel was weakest... If not, she'd do the honours herself. Reaching for her belt, Ahsoka barely brushed her hip before a lightsaber igniting had her flinch. Her mind had snapped back to her years of tactical training so readily that she hadn't thought to wonder why Anakin hadn't responded.
The terrified gasps that filled the room sent her heart crashing. His chilling conviction rolled through the Force. No.
No!
She bellowed in defiance, whirled around, and nearly tripped over her own feet in the haste to turn and run at him.
She had no saber.
She was unarmed.
Ahsoka caught sight of Anakin's ghastly visage, finally skidding to a stop before Liam. She tried to summon his training saber, but it was useless. She had no physical presence in this vision.
The blade, angry and fizzing, fell through her. She closed her eyes when she heard the strangled scream behind her and the sickening splutter of burning flesh. What followed was a cacophony of terrified, panic-stricken shrieks into the Force, pleading with anyone for help. Please! Master Yoda! Master Windu!
No!
She purled around, summoned every grasp on the Force she had—and yanked. The robe on that monster jerked towards her, and Anakin's feet were wrenched out from beneath him. His head turned, and she continued pulling him towards her, every ounce of her strength concentrated on holding him down, no matter that this was a vision. She nearly stumbled when she found the yellow of his eyes burning into her.
The younglings, as if suddenly becoming aware of her, gasped. "Behind me!" Ahsoka commanded, calling Anakin's lightsaber to hand. She felt clambering hands at her legs and skirt. Anakin's haunting gaze narrowed, and she felt his rage flare. "Ahsoka." He said her name, but it was not his voice. It just couldn't be Anakin. Please.
—She did it—
The Force was suddenly back, swirling through her mind.
No! Not now! Ahsoka gasped. No!
—But how did she do it?— There was confusion. —She is the one. Take her!—
Ignore it, Tano, ignore it, she told herself, for Anakin was beginning to move on the floor. Tiny fists gripped her tights. Little fingers wove into the diamond-cut patterning there. Faces pressed into her legs, their combined strength throwing her balance. They need me... I can't leave them! With this conviction, she crushed Anakin again to the floor, feeling the vice around her heart tighten as he groaned in pain.
...But then they were gone, the decision made for her. Ahsoka was left blinking in their wake. Who was that? What was that?
—Vader— the Force breathed.
'Vader?' she breathed back.
This time, when she came to, it was not just her own pain she felt. Instead, it was heightened by the presence of another—someone else's thoughts and feelings flowed through her. The heat of a blast furnace burnt her face, blinding and overwhelming. She could not shy away from it.
Up there! came the thought, and instinctually, Ahsoka found herself reaching for her lightsaber. What was this? What was the Force compelling her to live through?
—Towards you. Move. Now!— Ahsoka rolled away at the unspoken command. Two boots crashed into the ground, the place she'd been not two seconds earlier. Once she had regained her footing and balance, the saber in hand ignited into life. She got a good look at her attacker.
—She nearly toppled back to the craggy obsidian below.
Anakin, yellow-eyed and seeping fury into the Force, stood before her, lightsaber blaring. "Anakin!" she screamed at him, but the voice was not her own. She wanted to ask him what was going on, but instead, "Why do this? Anakin, why?"
Master Obi-Wan! The realisation swept across her like a wave, and her arms came up of their own volition to deflect a blow.
She moved fast, faster than she ever had before. Of course, life thus far had forged a soldier with quick hands and a trained eye, so she knew how to handle her own. However, there was a controlled strength flowing through her as she parried and slid against her master's blows, and she understood that this was not solely her own skill at play. There were years of practice and sheer talent being called upon desperately to hold back a foe at equal—possibly even better—footing.
This was Master Kenobi. His every move was now hers.
As they danced up a beam suspended perilously above a flowing river of lava, she doubted that Master Kenobi's thoughts were ever this panicked and pained. Every time she caught a glimpse of Anakin's eyes, she felt not only her own heart stop but Obi-Wan's as well.
As she—Obi-Wan moved, his conviction to stop Vader overpowered her to the point where she could no longer distinguish where she stopped and Obi-Wan started. The Force didn't need to scream through her head; it didn't need to burn its way through her. No. Not as she stood as Obi-Wan, slipping as he held back the boy he'd raised.
Obi-Wan somersaulted and ended up on a steaming embankment. Ahsoka watched as Anakin stilled before them, the lightsaber hitching, squirming in his hand, as if he were itching to kill Obi-Wan and be done with it—as if it were a lifelong ambition he was about to accomplish.
This was all so wrong—so utterly wrong. Ahsoka wanted to stop, to just watch this horrendous nightmare play out and not be forced to partake like some puppet Obi-Wan wielded. The heat encroached all around, and her and Obi-Wan's breaths were laboured and hard.
Anakin. Why? Obi-Wan repeated the thought again, and she swallowed the heart in her throat.
She had abandoned him. She had abandoned him. She had not been there to help him. Ahsoka had left the Order, and she had not been there to help him. Words, names, and faces all whispered through her mind; she could neither tell if it were Obi-Wan's thoughts or the Force desperate to show her what abomination Anakin had become.
Padmé… visions… death… children?
—He killed them all—
"It's over, Anakin; I have the high ground!" The words left her mouth, hoarse and exhausted.
The Sith's eyes narrowed, its shoulders squaring. "You underestimate my power."
"Don't try it," Obi-Wan breathed. The Force fortified itself around them, clear through her mind. In her hand, the groove of Master Kenobi's lightsaber was both alien and familiar; it was both hers and not. But instinct forced her to try and keep her saber down—never would she ever think to raise her blade against Master Skywalker in spite. Even with his horrific fate paraded about in front of her, she couldn't. She could subdue him, but she couldn't—couldn't—
...But Obi-Wan had more discipline and control than her—there was no hesitation, reluctance, or fumble when Anakin sprung up and somersaulted over them. Her arm went up, Master Kenobi controlling the angle.
She tried closing her eyes when she heard it: the tearing of cloth and the sickening sound of cauterised flesh. Something—multiple somethings—fell before what remained of her master met the burning ground. She was forced to look upon him then, and it was then that her world finally collapsed.
Words were not enough to describe the struggling corpse attempting to pull himself up the embankment. One arm was all that remained of his limbs. His face spoke a thousand words, but she read there a conflicting mix of hatred, and please please please.
Instinct pushed her forward. Normally, her mind would be sent to locate a haven to drag him to, but in this instant, her mind was blank. All there was was a burning need to save him. To save Anakin. To drag him up that embankment to safety. She tried to force the mind she cohabited to move, but Obi-Wan didn't.
And, after a strangled breath, she remembered why. She flinched back at the horror of it all.
"You were the Chosen One." Her throat was on fire. "It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them." Pained flashes of the Temple, where padawans, knights, masters and younglings littered the hallways, came to her. "Bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness!" Anakin fell to his knees before someone (the Force was hazy around whoever it was) upon a shoddy holorecording. Ahsoka gasped as she saw Master Windu fall to his death out a shattered window. The Emperor rose over Anakin, his face a deformed monstrosity. The Force flowed pure black around him. And, it seemed, the Force was equally as obscure around her master.
Sudden movement from Obi-Wan dragged her away from his memories and away from the howling creature that was once Anakin Skywalker. He started up the embankment, then stopped. Her eyes followed his. There on the ground lay her master's lightsaber. Both Ahsoka and Obi-Wan reached for it. One final hesitation saw Master Kenobi turn back to his fallen padawan, and she almost begged him not to turn and look back. That wasn't Anakin. It just couldn't be.
"I hate you!"
Ahsoka tried to throw up. An unwelcome image came to her then: of a small, innocent face (a boy barely ten) enclosed in the arms of a young Jedi Knight. If it were possible, she felt Kenobi's heart shatter just that bit more.
Overwhelmed, Ahsoka blinked in the ash and burning air. The fight was over, the deed done. The ash was beginning to settle, and she stood heaving it in. Master, she tried croaking. She thought Obi-Wan was done, but: "You were my brother, Anakin," my son, came the thought. His tears were hidden by the blistering heat. "I loved you."
And then the inevitable happened. Dangerously close to the lava, what little remained of Anakin's legs caught fire, the flames rapidly licking up his back. No, end this. End it now. Please! His screaming grew tenfold, his pitch excruciating, the pain unescapable.
All he had been… all that kindness, all that bravery, selflessness…
A brother, a son, a friend, a husband… my master. He was the Chosen One.
—Help him—
And then the heat was gone. Mustafar fizzled into nothing. Anakin's screeching was no more, and the foreign presence of Master Obi-Wan's mind fled hers. Finally, Ahsoka was allowed to collapse. She went willingly... but the Force granted no quarter—a sudden flare set everything to burn a blinding white.