Chapter Text
Ash clung to the wind like memory.
Vardos -a remote planet- was choking on its own silence — abandoned Imperial towers piercing the red sky, fractured monuments to a regime that still ruled from the shadows. What wasn't buried in rubble was buried in fear. And somewhere below the dead city, deeper than any sensor sweep could reach, the last fragments of a forgotten war stirred in the dust.
They moved like wraiths now, these scavengers. Not soldiers. Not Jedi.
But something still burned in them.
Hongjoong pressed his gloved hand to the jagged rock wall of a canyon crevice, his eyes narrowed beneath the hood of his worn cloak. He could feel it again — the pulse. Distant, buried. Not a weapon. Not a beacon.
A vault.
He turned to where San was crouched, scanning the exposed strata of ancient duracrete laced with Jedi runes. His fingers traced the symbols like they were music he hadn't heard in years.
"It's real," San murmured. "And it's deep."
Hongjoong nodded. "Let's move quickly. We're not the only ones following this trail."
~
Years Earlier – Aboard the Silver light
Laughter echoed through the ship's mess as Wooyoung flipped a hydrospanner toward Mingi, who yelped and barely caught it.
"Next time," Wooyoung said with a smirk, "try not to fry our primary comms during a stealth op."
"Try not to shout in my ear while I'm rerouting power," Mingi shot back.
S eonghwa chuckled quietly from his seat across the room, datapad in hand, a tray of synthfruit untouched beside him. "The two of you are always loud after a clean mission. You fight more when we don't get shot at."
"Peace makes us soft," Yeosang deadpanned from the corner, eyes not leaving the book in his lap.
Hongjoong sat beside Seonghwa and leaned in slightly. "You really think there's something on Galderaan?"
S eonghwa looked up. "I think the coordinates we pulled from those holocron fragments match Jedi cartography patterns. The vault could be real. And if it is, it'll be one of the last untouched sites."
There was light in his eyes. Quiet certainty. Hope.
That was before the ambush. Before the scream across the Force that had wrenched them all awake.
That was the last time they saw him.
"Stormtroopers at the upper ridge. And..." Yeosang's voice crackled over the comm, low and tight. "An Inquisitor."
A stillness fell over the channel.
San's hand froze on the canyon wall. "Are you sure?"
"I can feel it," Yeosang said. "Sharp. Precise. Someone experienced. He's leading the squad personally."
Hongjoong's jaw tightened. "Then we don't have time."
They'd encountered Inquisitors before — hunters of Force-sensitives, broken tools forged from the ruins of the Jedi Order. Most were brutal. Few were clever. But this one... this one was different.
No one knew his name.
He never removed his helmet. Never spoke more than a few words.
He moved like someone who had once known grace, now honed into something cold and flawless. He had risen through the ranks faster than most. Left destruction in his wake. Files referred to him as the "Black Sentinel."
But the crew never connected it to Seonghwa.
They couldn't. They wouldn't.
Seonghwa had been their heart. Their balance. His presence, his calm, had tethered them when the galaxy collapsed.
And when he vanished... something in them fractured, too.
Hongjoong swallowed the ache rising in his chest. "We keep going. We get to that vault before they do."
Mingi's voice came through. "You think he knows about the vault?"
"I think the Empire does. That's enough." Wooyoung muttered under his breath. "Still think about him sometimes. Seonghwa. Wonder if we missed something. A clue. Anything."
San's voice was soft. "We didn't miss it. We just weren't fast enough."
They descended deeper into the canyon, following San's trail into the rock. Dust choked the air, ancient markings glowing faintly under Yeosang's scans. Something below stirred with every step — as if the vault itself was beginning to wake.
And just behind them, like a shadow pulled taut across the sky, came the sound of an Imperial shuttle screaming through the atmosphere.
~
Seonghwa stood at the boarding ramp, cloak rippling in the breeze. "Solo approach makes sense," he had said. "I can move fast. Quiet."
Hongjoong had tried to argue. "We don't split up anymore. Not now."
"You'll need the others to hold the perimeter. If this is really a Jedi vault, it won't be unguarded."
He smiled faintly — tired, but sincere. "I'll be fine. I always am."
The rock opened like a wound beneath San's hands. Runes pulsed with golden light, and ancient gears shifted for the first time in decades. The entry chamber hissed open.
"It's real," Mingi whispered. "They actually left it intact."
"We go in," Hongjoong ordered, voice steady. "Grab what we can. Data cores, kyber shards, manuals — anything not already destroyed."
He didn't look back as the wind behind them changed pitch.
As a shuttle landed at the ridge.
As bootsteps began to echo through the canyon.
And standing at the front of the Imperial detachment — cloaked in black and crimson, lightsaber at his belt, a mask covering his face like obsidian armor — was the one they called the Black Sentinel.
The Inquisitor.
He did not speak.
But his presence filled the canyon like a coming storm.
The vault's threshold hissed open, revealing a cold corridor carved into the mountain's heart. Stone met metal — Jedi architecture layered over something older, something natural and humming with latent Force energy. The air was dry, but it crackled with memory.
"Stay close," Hongjoong ordered, voice low.
Their boots echoed softly as they stepped into the darkness, headlamps flickering against murals depicting robed figures in meditation, battle, and ruin. Yeosang lingered near one carving — a Jedi kneeling with arms outstretched, light pouring from their hands.
"It's not just a vault," Yeosang murmured. "It's a convergence site. A nexus."
San nodded. "The Force feels... heavier here. Like it's watching us."
They reached a central chamber. At the center stood a crystalline pedestal, fragments of shattered holocrons orbiting slowly, caught in the field of a still-active containment ring. Beneath it: layers of carved names in Aurebesh — Jedi names, hundreds of them.
Mingi stepped forward. "They were memorializing the dead. Or... preparing for extinction."
Wooyoung knelt beside an inactive console, hands brushing dust from a set of controls. "Power's still flowing in. Could be data locked inside."
Hongjoong turned in a slow circle, taking it all in.
"This is legacy," he whispered. "The kind the Empire's been trying to erase."
He moved to the pedestal, placing a hand gently on the ring of suspended shards. A flash of warmth surged through his palm — light, sudden and alive.
And then—
A crack of static buzzed in every comm.
Yeosang's voice, sharp with alarm. "They're at the canyon entrance. Imperial squad. Twenty troopers, one Purge Trooper—"
A pause. Then, lower: "And him. The Inquisitor."
Outside, black boots hit the canyon floor with mechanical precision. The stormtroopers fanned out under his signal — a single gesture of a gloved hand. The Purge Trooper followed in silence, heavy weapon humming.
The masked Inquisitor stood at the threshold to the canyon's mouth. His head tilted slightly, as if listening.
Then he turned — slowly — toward the cliff face, where faint footprints disappeared into the rock.
He followed.
Not like a hunter.
Like someone returning home.
Inside the vault, Hongjoong's head snapped up.
He felt it. A ripple. A spike. Not of danger — not yet.
Of recognition.
He glanced toward San, who looked suddenly pale.
"Something's wrong," San said quietly. "The Force just shifted. Like..."
He didn't finish.
The air grew colder. Tighter. As if something ancient had inhaled sharply and refused to exhale.
Wooyoung looked toward the entrance. "We're running out of time."
"Grab what you can," Hongjoong ordered. "Yeosang, seal the inner door behind us when we move. Slow them down."
"What about you?" Yeosang asked.
"I'll trigger the vault lock if needed. We can't let this fall into Imperial hands."
There was no argument. Just a beat of understanding — the kind forged from years of survival, of loss, of names carved into the backs of their minds like scars.
Outside, the Inquisitor paused at the vault entrance, his gloved hand brushing over the ancient carvings. He stood motionless for a moment.
Then his head tilted again.
His fingers curled against the stone.
The Force vibrated violently — not like a weapon, but like a memory being pulled out of the air itself.
He touched the seal.
And the door began to open.
Inside, alarms blared softly as ancient locking mechanisms groaned to life.
"They're breaching," Yeosang snapped. "How—how does he know the code—"
"He doesn't," Mingi muttered. "He's using the Force. It's responding to him."
Hongjoong felt his blood run cold.
That kind of connection... That wasn't just any Inquisitor.
But before he could process it, the central console flickered. A hologram sputtered to life — a hooded Jedi, their voice weak, prerecorded.
"If you are seeing this... the Order has fallen. This is our last will. Not a weapon. Not a rebellion. But a warning. There is a fracture in the Force... a
shatterpoint."
The image blinked and died as the outer vault doors gave a shuddering clang .
San turned toward the corridor. "We need to leave."
Wooyoung, already moving: "If he sees us—"
"He won't," Hongjoong said grimly. "We're sealing the tunnel."
He placed his hand on the exit controls and ignited the fallback sequence.
Outside, just before the Inquisitor crossed the threshold, the door slammed shut with a thunderous finality, sealing him out.
For now.
But he didn't react with rage.
He simply stood there — hand still raised, as if he had expected it.
And then... his fingers curled slowly into a fist.
As though he remembered something.
Or someone .
~
Inside the vault, the crew ran deeper, into the winding tunnels and darkened side halls, the stolen knowledge of a dead Order slung across their backs.
Behind them, sealed in silence, the masked Inquisitor waited.
Watching.
Knowing.
And somewhere beneath the helmet, his breath caught — for the briefest moment — as he stared at the sealed door, fingers grazing the mark one of them had left on the stone.
A small symbol, etched long ago.
A sigil.
Their crew's mark.
And behind the visor, something cracked.
Not enough to break.
But enough to remember.
The ground trembled beneath their feet as the vault doors sealed with a shuddering finality, ancient mechanisms locking into place with a deep, grinding groan. For a moment, there was silence — a fragile kind — before the emergency lighting flickered on, bathing the stone corridor in red and amber pulses.
Hongjoong turned sharply. "Run."
They bolted.
Their footsteps echoed through the tight halls of the vault, uneven and half-collapsed from centuries of disuse. Mingi carried a half-extracted data core slung across his back, its weight slowing him just enough for Wooyoung to grab his arm and haul him forward. Yeosang clutched a shattered holocron, still glowing faintly in his palm.
The air was heavy with dust and old memories. But beneath that... something else stirred.
A pull .
"Left," San called, his senses flaring. "The passage curves around and reconnects to the lift shaft — if it hasn't caved in."
"Everything's caving in," Wooyoung muttered, but followed.
Behind them, through the closed vault entrance, a sound echoed like metal cracking under pressure — thoom—thoom—thoom . Something was striking the door.
With precision .
Not out of desperation, but with method.
Like someone taking their time.
As they turned the next corridor, a narrow stone bridge came into view — spanning a bottomless chasm carved into the bedrock. One side of the bridge had already begun to crumble.
Yeosang skidded to a halt. "I don't like this."
"We don't have a choice," Hongjoong said. "Go. One at a time."
Yeosang leapt first, keeping light on his feet, reaching the far side in three heart-pounding strides. Mingi followed, slipping once but catching himself. Wooyoung tossed his bag across before jumping after it.
San stepped up next, eyes locked on the stonework. "Something's wrong—"
And then the vault groaned again. The pressure from the other side was building.
The Inquisitor was forcing the door with the Force.
"No time," Hongjoong barked. "Go!"
San ran.
Hongjoong moved to follow — and then the door snapped open behind them with a roar of displaced air.
A presence filled the corridor like a flood.
Colder than the air. Quieter than death.
They didn't need to look back to feel it.
Heavy boots stepped across the threshold of the vault — deliberate, calm.
The Inquisitor had entered.
And he was alone.
Hongjoong turned at the edge of the bridge. The others had made it across, eyes wide as they watched him.
The Inquisitor was thirty meters down the corridor. A silhouette of pure control, his saber unlit but ready. His mask caught the vault's dim light, blank and black and featureless — but somehow watching .
"You need to go!" Yeosang shouted from across the gap.
The Inquisitor began to walk — not run, not rush — walk toward Hongjoong.
A confrontation.
No lightsaber drawn.
Hongjoong exhaled once, then turned and sprinted across the crumbling bridge. The stone gave way behind him with each step, collapsing into the abyss.
The last meter cracked just as he jumped. San reached out — caught his wrist — yanked him forward onto solid ground.
The bridge fell away behind them.
Dust filled the air, but the Inquisitor did not pursue.
Not yet.
He stood at the edge of the broken gap, peering down into the black.
Watching.
Waiting.
Yeosang activated the blast door seal between them — heavy durasteel sliding into place with a final, echoing clang.
For now, they were safe.
The group staggered deeper into the lower passage, lit only by San's wrist lamp and the fading glow of the stolen holocron.
Mingi collapsed to a knee. "What was that?"
"A high-ranking Inquisitor," Hongjoong muttered, catching his breath. "He didn't even draw his saber. He just... watched ."
"He was reading us," San said darkly. "I could feel it. Like he was trying to place us. Like..."
He didn't finish.
Yeosang pressed a hand to the wall to steady himself. "He wasn't hunting. Not the way the others do. He moved like... like he's been here before."
Hongjoong froze.
That same chill again.
He turned back toward the sealed tunnel, his voice low. "We need to get off-world. Now."
Far above them, the Inquisitor stood in silence.
No movement. No frustration.
His fingers brushed the jagged edge where the bridge had collapsed.
And then — beneath the mask — something changed.
A flicker of recognition. Not conscious. Not full.
Just the ghost of a memory, whispering through the Force.
A half-familiar laugh. A hand on his shoulder. Starlight across a flight deck.
It passed.
He stepped back into the shadows.
But the vault had given him something he hadn't expected.
A feeling .
And for the first time in years, the Black Sentinel did not know what to make of it.
~
Hyperspace painted the cockpit in white-blue streaks, stars stretched thin like veins of light as the ship tore through the galaxy's spine. Outside, the Outer Rim beckoned — lawless, forgotten, and distant from the Empire's core. Inside, silence hung heavy in the stolen transport, the air stale from breath held too long.
They had escaped Vardos. For now.
But none of them could quite breathe.
Hongjoong sat at the helm, eyes fixed on the navicomp as it plotted their descent to a remote planet called Meris IX — uninhabited, once a Jedi agricultural outpost, now scrubbed from most maps. They needed quiet. They needed time. And more than anything, they needed to understand what they'd just found.
In the back of the ship, Yunho was still holding the holocron they'd pulled from the vault.
It was shaped like a tetrahedron — cracked, humming faintly, its glyphs worn but readable.
He hadn't activated it yet.
Couldn't.
~
The jungle moon was supposed to be dead.
That's what Seonghwa had believed when he'd touched down, alone, guided by faint Jedi distress coordinates embedded in the shell of a fallen guardian droid. His boots sank into the wet ground, the sound of insects buzzing like static around him.
The energy here was strange — dim and fractured, like a candle about to go out.
He moved quickly.
Found the remnants of a hidden archive beneath the roots of a collapsed temple tree.
Found the recordings.
Found the names.
But before he could transmit anything back to the others, the shadows had closed in.
Red sabers. Hissing breath.
And a voice behind him: "Alive. Good. Lord Varoan will want this one intact."
~
The mask slid into place with a quiet hiss. Magnetized plates sealed, enclosing the man beneath in silence. The visor came online — red, dim, a digital HUD flaring to life.
The Black Sentinel stood before the projection of a Grand Inquisitor, his figure flickering with static.
"The vault was breached," the Grand Inquisitor growled. "And stolen. Jedi knowledge, possibly relics."
The Black Sentinel said nothing.
"Track them," the Grand Inquisitor continued. "The Force responds to you more strongly than the others. Use that. These... scavenger-Jedi are growing bold. Find them. End them."
The projection vanished.
The Black Sentinel did not move.
He stood in the center of the cold metallic chamber, surrounded by the hum of machines, and yet...
He felt something .
A thread. Not of hate. Not of hunger.
Something softer. Fainter.
Unwelcome.
He turned his head slightly, gaze lifting toward the distant stars visible through the station's viewport.
Then he boarded his ship — The Inferno — and set a course for Meris IX.
~
The holocron warmed in Yunho's hands.
He sat alone in the aft chamber, knees drawn up, the small device pulsing like a heartbeat. The others were in the galley, speaking in low tones. Hongjoong was worried. Everyone was.
Yunho hadn't said much since Vardos. Not since they saw the masked Inquisitor standing across the chasm — still, silent, unshaken. Not since the Force had recoiled in him like it recognized something it didn't want to name.
He thumbed the activation glyph.
The holocron buzzed softly, and then:
"If you're seeing this, I must have failed."
Yunho's breath caught.
"This archive — it's deeper than we thought. It's not just names. It's a prophecy. Fragments of visions the Council never made public. Something called a shatterpoint — a convergence of fate and fracture. "
The image was hazy, but the voice was unmistakable.
Seonghwa.
Alive. Calm. Focused.
"We're not Jedi. Not anymore. But we still carry what they left behind. And if you find this... promise me you'll be careful with what comes next."
The recording ended.
Yunho sat there, eyes damp.
He remembered the way Seonghwa used to hum in the galley when he cooked. The way he never raised his voice even in chaos. The way he'd wrap a hand around Yunho's wrist to steady him when his emotions got too loud through the Force.
He remembered the feeling when he disappeared — like something vital had been ripped from their bond.
And now, to hear him again...
It hurt more than silence ever did.
Meris IX – Orbit
The Black Sentinel arrived before the planet's rotation could hide the landing site in shadow. He stood along at the edge of the Inferno's boarding ramp, cloak trailing in the wind, visor scanning for trace signatures.
The Force tugged at him.
Pulled him south.
Toward something familiar.
~
"I think he was trying to warn us," Yunho said as he rejoined the group, the holocron now dimmed in his hand.
Hongjoong looked up. "Seonghwa?"
Yunho nodded. "Before he vanished, he found something. Shatterpoint. It's mentioned in Jedi prophecy logs — a moment of rupture where destiny itself can be altered. It's rare. Dangerous. It was hidden for a reason."
Yeosang frowned. "And the Inquisitors are looking for it now?"
"No," Yunho said quietly. "They're looking for us. Because we have the map."
Mingi cursed under his breath. "Great. That's just great."
San spoke softly. "Then we can't run forever. We find the next vault. We follow Seonghwa's trail. Whatever he saw... whatever made him go dark..."
"He didn't go dark," Yunho said suddenly, voice sharp. "He was taken."
No one argued.
Because deep down, they all believed it too.
They had to.
Outside, a storm began to rise over Meris IX's horizon.
And far across the treeline, a figure in black armor stood at the edge of the jungle — still, sensing, silent.
The Black Sentinel had found the first trace of them.
And something in his chest — buried, locked away — began to shift.
~
The rain fell like ash — soft, steady, soaking into the overgrown stone.
They had barely finished setting up the scanner when Yunho's head snapped up.
"Did you feel that?" he said.
San looked up from the relic case. "Like a tremor?"
"No. Like a..." Yunho's voice caught. "A thread."
The others felt it a second later.
Yeosang stepped toward the tree line. "We're not alone."
Before Hongjoong could respond, the jungle split with a scream of sound — the hiss of a red blade igniting in the dark. It spun forward like a viper, and only San's instincts flung him sideways in time.
A flash of black armor moved between the trees — cloaked, inhuman, fast.
"Scatter!" Hongjoong yelled, igniting his own saber — violet and flickering.
The fight had begun.
The Black Sentinel moved like a shadow.
They had grown stronger — the group of scavenger-Jedi. He hadn't expected the precision, the way they moved like they were one mind. It almost felt like...
No. Not possible.
He drove Yeosang back with a flurry of strikes, sidestepped San's charge, and caught Yunho's blade with a sharp snap-hiss of his crossguard. The sabers sparked.
"Who are you?!" Yunho demanded, voice trembling with fury.
The Black Sentinel said nothing.
He shoved Yunho backward with a blast of Force energy.
Mingi and Wooyoung leapt in from above, sabers cutting wide arcs. The Black Sentinel met them both, spinning with brutal grace. It wasn't just strength — it was calculated , almost like he knew their rhythm before they did.
Hongjoong watched from behind the cover of a toppled column.
His chest felt hollow.
This wasn't just a random Inquisitor.
This was personal.
And somehow... familiar.
~
Laughter.
Sweat-soaked training sessions.
Hongjoong's voice calling across a canyon.
"We've got your back, Hwa — always."
The memory snapped like a wire in his mind.
~
Yunho surged forward again, rage clouding his stance. "You—!" His saber clashed with The Black Sentinels.
The masked figure caught his arm — and paused.
Not in hesitation.
In recognition.
The connection through the Force seared .
Yunho's eyes widened. "...Seonghwa?"
That name.
That name detonated something in The Black Sentinels' mind.
He staggered slightly.
San yelled, lunging toward him. The masked figure turned on instinct, spinning to deflect. Their blades collided — and San's strike slid upward, slicing into the side of the helmet.
It cracked.
Fell.
Hit the stone with a clang.
And then...
Silence.
The man underneath was not a stranger.
He was gaunt. Pale. A thin scar marked his jaw. But his eyes — though darker now, rimmed in red-gold Sith corruption — were unmistakably Seonghwa.
The team froze.
No one moved.
Yunho's saber dimmed as he stared in disbelief. "No... No, this isn't—"
Hongjoong stepped forward slowly, voice barely a whisper. "Seonghwa...?"
The man in black stared back at them.
Expression unreadable.
Eyes narrowed.
"...That name means nothing to me," he said coldly.
Thunder cracked overhead.
The rain poured harder now, streaking through the vines and soaking their stunned faces.
The Black Sentinel — Seonghwa — raised his saber once more, but didn't attack.
He looked at Hongjoong like someone seeing the ghost of a dream.
Then, without a word, he activated a locator beacon and vanished into the trees with a Force-leap — gone before any of them could move.
Yunho sank to his knees.
No one spoke.
The storm howled above them like the galaxy itself had broken open.
And in the distance, an Imperial signal began to pulse.