Chapter Text
She didn't think they could have kept him out, even if she'd wanted them to, but she lowered her shields as a pleasantry so the future could unfold before her very eyes. The Son's presence was horribly cold and terrifying and alarmingly destructive, and this felt about as safe as letting someone stab her head with an icicle. That was unsettling. It would have been the most unsettling thing she'd ever experienced if it weren’t for the contents of the visions. They were far, far worse.
Anakin’s saber sliced through Mace Windu’s hand, leaving him defenseless against the barrage of lightning that spelled his instant death.
“What have I done?!” her Master implored himself aloud.
“You’re fulfilling your destiny,” replied a rasping voice.
Anakin kneeled before a hooded figure she couldn’t quite make out, to whom the rasping voice belonged. “Henceforth, you shall be known as Darth Vader,” it said…
...That blue saber that had once been seen by her and so many others as a beacon of hope and light now turned on the very Jedi its owner had fought alongside, had fought for. Not even the younglings were spared as every Jedi in the Temple was felled…
...The soldiers Ahsoka had trusted with her life so many times turned against the Jedi just like the blue lightsaber had, killing all who had escaped her fallen Master by virtue of their distance from the Temple…
...Anakin’s eyes gazed upwards, no longer kind and warm, but a cold, cruel yellow...
...Obi-Wan and Anakin dueled furiously across a plane of lava and flames. Their blades moved so quickly, she was often certain one, then the other, would triumph, but both prevailed. Ahsoka didn’t even know who she hoped would be the victor. At last Anakin, in an overconfident leap that allowed her to still think of him as Anakin for one last moment, lost both his legs to Obi-Wan’s saber. For a moment, as one of the last living Jedi left him to die, he was the most pitiable person she’d ever seen. Then before her eyes, he transformed into a figure clad in a gleaming black mask who wielded a saber that was red, just like all of the innocent blood he had spilled, and she knew that this monster...this Darth Vader, had truly killed her Master...
The visions faded, but the pain they caused did not. Her face was wet with tears, but she was beyond the point of feeling them, beyond the point of caring if the Son saw them. How could she have left Anakin to this fate? “I understand wanting to walk away from the Order,” he had told her. She had felt something from him in that moment, and she had truly and completely understood him and his words. And now they had so much more meaning.
“Anakin,” she whispered, wanting to hear his voice, to know again who he was, to make the future she had seen feel further away. She had sensed the proximity of the events, the Force was practically crying to her that there was so little time to change them. Or maybe it wasn’t the Force. Maybe it was Ahsoka herself. Either way, the Clone Wars were nearing their end, and it would be an end to so much more. If only she had seen who the Sith Lord was! She glared at the Son, certain that he knew and had deliberately hidden the knowledge from her.
“Who is the Sith Lord?” she demanded. “Tell me!”
For the first time, she sensed displeasure from him. “It is not my fault you did not see. It would seem that the dark side refuses to show you his identity because you don’t embrace it. In one way or another, you will acquire the knowledge only when you are willing to use the dark side to get it.”
“Never! I’m a-”
“Former Jedi? Don’t you see? That is why the Jedi will fail, that is why their foresight is so limited. They claim to seek balance in the Force, even as they seek to destroy half of its existence! Balance necessitates darkness, and the Force will guide the Chosen One to achieve it!”
“How do I stop him? The Sith?” she implored.
Her question seemed to please him. “There are many ways you could succeed in preventing the Chosen One’s fall. He exists to bring balance to the Force. You will have to make sure he does not have to turn in order to do so.”
Balance? She had been taught as a youngling that balance would constitute the eradication of evil. Now she was confused. If the Son was the dark side, why was he helping her save Anakin? She thought about Mortis. The Father kept the balance between his children, light and dark alternated there in an intricate sort of dance. The life there grew and renewed itself in the daytime, and withered and died as night fell. The galaxy couldn’t exist like that; the idea of so much death and darkness, even if it was replaced by light again, was intolerable to her.
She would discuss the visions with the Council, as she had originally planned. After all, if they knew what was to be, they’d be able to stop it. They’d finally be able to find and defeat the Sith Lord that had evaded them for so long.
“The Jedi seek to eliminate the dark, the Sith seek to destroy the light, but when my father died I realized something,” he said.
“What?”
“They are both...wrong. They both seek the impossible. The darkness cannot be eliminated, the light cannot die. My mission has changed slightly. I want to rule over the light, for if I attempt to destroy it completely, it will be my undoing. The Sith Lord will be my undoing if he succeeds, for his success will only be temporary and then...”
“And then the Jedi win again. So you want my help to stop his failure.”
“You are very perceptive. Will I have it?"
She too wanted to thwart the Sith’s plan, but not the Son’s way, not for his reasons, and certainly not by his means. “No. Though I thank you for yours,” she added begrudgingly.
She felt the beginnings of his fury, but it vanished almost faster than she could perceive it. Instead, she saw him smile slowly. “As you wish. But you forget what you are now,” he said.
“What I am ? I know that better than you do.”
“You and I are linked now. The Jedi won’t trust you.”
“I’ve done nothing to make them distrust me.”
“You left the Order. You can read Sith. Your own memories allow me to cling to existence. They’ll feel it; they will fear our power.”
“ Yours, not ours!”
“Come now, you feel it inside of you too. You can’t keep denying that I have given you power. In time, it will grow. It may even eventually equal my own.”
“I wouldn’t use it.”
“Do you think they’ll believe that? You’ve changed. You're no Jedi, not anymore. The dark side spoke to you, did it not? You could sense its will from the moment you arrived here. The whispers will grow louder, child and quickly now that you have your memories back. Even now, you can feel how much the dark side would like to give you the power to save your Master. To save everyone you love-”
“Stop!” she cried. “I know what you’re trying to do, and it won’t work.”
“You are making a mistake!”
That’s what Anakin said when I left. He was right, the Son is wrong. “I know what my real mistake was, and if I hadn’t made that one, I wouldn’t be here. I’m leaving, whether you like it or not.”
He gave a bored nod. “I intend to keep my word. You can go.”
She hadn’t expected it to be that easy.
The Son watched her kneel beside Ventress, who was blinking, trying to sit up. “Oh, it won’t be easy. I promise.” He laughed at the worry and dismay betrayed in her eyes. She squeezed them shut, so she couldn’t see him smiling at her, and apparently hearing her thoughts as well. When she opened them again, he had vanished.