Chapter 18 - "Never try to live decently, boy—not unless you're willing to open your life to tragedy and sadness."―Jova Tarkin

Luke leaned heavily against the wall. His breath shook and everything seemed to move around him as he clung to the wall as best he could. He could taste the blood in his mouth every time he breathed.

He could not trust his legs, the moment he stepped away from the cold metal wall behind him he knew he would fall.

The fingers on his left hand was still numbed by the intense cold that had assaulted him mercilessly underneath Cloud city but the numbness was better than the nothing that was screaming back at him from the right hand. He could not bring himself to look at it because he was too terrified of what he would find there.

He knew what he was going to see where his right hand was supposed to be and just the thought of facing that reality made him feel sick.

Desperately, he tried to seek refuge in the force and draw on the calm serenity he always found there, but his reaching senses found nothing but a howling pit.

The force... it was flooded by a great darkness. His senses were muted. Something was blocking his connection to the light side.

Everything felt eerie cold.

The light side was gone he could not find it in the force. He only found an endless darkness staring back at him. It was cold like nothing he had ever felt before but its touch was almost gentle. That moving darkness in the force beaconed sweetly for him.

It was a clear deception.

Hidden just underneath the surface he could sense the truth. The lie was bold and obvious like a hand of stone hidden in a silk glove. The dark side was trying to lure him in. He gasped and recoiled from it before the relief it promised became too much to resist.

'Join me.' A memory whispered mockingly into his ear and suddenly, In front of him was no longer the Millennium Falcon, but at dark room only illuminated by a red glow. An enormous black figure was looming over him. 'No Luke, I am your Father.'

Luke's breath quickened and he could feel his heart hammering in his throat. He tore himself out of the memory with all the power he had left. But the eerie sensation remains thick and angry in the air.

He could not block the reaching darkness out. He could not breathe right. The very air clawed and bit all the way down his throat. The taste of blood was there when he swallowed and his skin felt wrong. It like a thousand bugs was crawling and biting just under his skin. The feeling of it was horrifying in itself but in the force he could actually see something move.

He could not look further down, he didn't want to see it. He could barely stomach the sickening burned smell alone. It was the same gagging stench that had poisoned the air on Tatooine on that day, when he had followed the black smoke all the way home only to see-

'No!' he thought violently. He clenched his fist and looked ahead to the man leaning against the wall on the other side of the corridor.

His eyes burned, he couldn't breathe, and everything hurt. He had never before felt so unhinged. He could not get himself under control.

"How could you just leave them there!" Luke said desperately and fell back against the cold steel wall that separated the inside of the Millennium Falcon from open space. His head shook in twitchy uncontrolled movements seemingly as if out of its own will, and his breath were shallow little gasps.

He didn't feel nothing anymore, suddenly he felt too much and there was no relief in the force or in his own mind.

"You gave them to him!" He wanted to yell but when it came out it was hoarse and barely over a whisper. To his shame, he heard his own voice shake and the wetness in his eyes blurred his vision.

His legs gave, and he hit the floor with his legs bundled awkwardly under him, but he did not move and remained still even as his legs started to numb.

Arms reached out to him hesitantly, but before they got anywhere near him he flung his hand out in a furious punch that missed its target by a pathetic inch.

"Stay away from me! You didn't warn them! They trusted you and you just let Vader-" The words caught in his throat and it felt like he could not breathe.

Lando looked back at him. His posture was hunched in on itself, but his expression was unreadable in the dark.

"I understand you hate me right now." Lando said, and his voice sounded rougher than it should have been. As if he had been yelling, or crying, for hours. "But you need to let me look at that hand. You are going into shock."

"Why do you care?" Luke said vindictively but the sudden hurt look in Lando's eyes was too much for him to look at. He looked away with shame crawling up his spine. Lando had risked himself to save him. Lando had no reason to put his life on the line like that. Luke was a stranger to him. He had only done it because Han was his friend. Han who-

Luke hid his face with his only remaining hand and the reminder that the other hand was gone cut into his soul. Was this really all he was capable of?

All these promises of what he would be able to do as a Jedi. After all those high tales of grandeur and might from both Obi-wan and Yoda, after all his training… he could still only watch as everything he loved was taken away from him.

What useless kind of Jedi was he?

Was he even a jedi at all?

He tried to compose himself and detach himself from the fear that blocked everything else out. It was dragging him into a despair he could not afford. There was still Leia, Chewie and R2… he could still save them if he just found a way.

But as much as he tried to rip himself free of the oppressive feeling, the ice-cold touch did not leave him. It lingered like an old wound and dug its claws into his mind. The image of Han on the floor, of Leia screaming in rage and fear, and that red colour in the hands of greatest enemy… it was too much.

Vader was his father

'He betrayed and murdered your father.' Obi-wan had said.

Liar!

Obi-wan had lied to him… from the beginning. Both him and Yoda… they had been training him to commit patricide without him even knowing it. To cover their true intent they had filled his head with dreams. He didn't care how they justified it. There was no justifying this.

He knew he would never be the same after this. He could never go back there and face the jedi. He could never trust either of them again. Not after this. Death, Betrayal, Mutilation… and so much fear was his reward for his faith and his trust.

All the horrors he had just faced was a part of him now. It had only just happened, but Luke already knew that it would always haunt him.

In his head, he would never leave that room.

"…Luke please, I didn't have a choice." Lando said, and there was such a heartbreaking feeling from that sentence in the force that it drowned out even the darkness around them." We could not save them. No one can stand against Vader. He is too powerful for anyone." Lando said and he was clearly trying to act strong but his force-signature feels like an open bleeding wound.

Lando hands opened and closed in front of him like he was only just holding himself back from helping Luke.

Luke swallows dryly, but cannot respond. He feels like he is spinning down into a gaping maw he will never emerge from again. His eyes are glassy and seeing Lando trying to suppress his own sorrow was almost too much.

"We could have done nothing Luke, we would just have-"

"You don't know that! Maybe we could have done something! Maybe we could-" Luke whispered as his eyes burned. He did not want to admit to himself that it was his own voice. It sounded too small, too weak. "How could you?" He said, but his heart wasn't in it, because it wasn't Lando's fault.

This was all Luke's fault

Because he had trusted Yoda.

Luke stiffened and force rushed around him like a shield between himself and the old Jedi master. It was an instinctive move, he had no illusion that the flimsy protection would not make any difference if Yoda attacked. The air felt heavy and tense at the same time, like he was standing in the middle of a thunderstorm. It was like the very force was holding its breath.

Luke could not take his eyes off the Jedi Master. He desperately tried to figure out a scenario where he got out of this, but he could think of nothing. All that he knew about Yoda argued against Luke fighting him in any form. Yoda was the greatest Jedi master in recorded history. Yoda had more than 900 years of training himself and he had trained countless of Jedi. Yoda had even taught Luke.

Almost every skill Luke knew had been taught by Yoda.

And Yoda was now his enemy.

'RUN!' An instinct shouted in his mind. 'WHAT ARE YOU DOING? RUN! That is Jedi master Yoda! there is no way you can win against him! RUN! RUN NOW' He was panicking. He knew he was panicking. But he could not run. Yoda would catch him, trap him and find out the truth that Luke had no choice but to hide.

It was so stupid. He had gone through so much just have it end here like this.

His heart was beating harder and harder as his eyes locked on the deceptively frail Jedi master.

'GET OUT OF HERE!' all his instincts screamed at him. 'RUN YOU FOOL!' Luke breathed out a shaky breath as he closed his hands harder around the lightsabre, but the weapon did not make him feel any safer. He felt cold all over and his heart was beating so loudly that he could feel it in his throat and hear it over his own quick breath.

'RUN!' The instinct insisted even louder.

What could he do? How could he possibly-

Then Fives suddenly spoke.

"Master Yoda, sir, I can explain this-"

"Do we have what we need here Fives?" Luke said to interrupt that conversation before it began. He could not risk that Fives unwillingly gave Yoda any information. Luke stepped in front of Fives very slowly, his whole body was tense like a wire and he watched Yoda's every move.

He almost didn't dare to blink.

Yoda survived the war when everyone else died! He had to be insanely powerful in this time. He was undoubtedly the greatest threat in the galaxy. Luke tried to swallow but failed. He tightened his fingers around the lightsabre till his knuckles became white. Could he defeat Yoda? No, of course not, if even half the stories he had heard were true then he could only lose this fight. But if he didn't find a way to defeat him then everything ended here.

Everything.

"Yes." Fives answered Luke's question and gasped when a loud pained yell sounded somewhere behind Yoda. Then is stopped and the silence it left behind was roaring in Luke's ears.

There was a crunching sound in the force and the man Luke had controlled inside the entrance hall of the library faded to nothing in the force. The damage Luke had just done to that man's mind was inescapable. Memories for the last days even perhaps the last few weeks was lost, destroyed with a sharp surgical move. Luke could not risk that the criminal would tell Yoda why Fives and Luke had come to meet him.

Yoda could not know about the security-passes, that would ruin Luke's last remaining plan to save everything Palpatine destroyed in the future.

Luke's swift action happened so fast that Yoda could not react in time to stop Luke from doing it, but now the pressure of Yoda's force presence was overwhelming.

The Yoda in his own time had been broken by time and grief, but this Yoda was younger and had a strong unyielding force presence. The boy beside the Jedi master said something to him, but Luke could not hear it over the sound of his own heart that beat so hard and fast in his chest that it actually hurt.

"No." Yoda answered the question Luke couldn't hear and he pushed the boy back behind him as he reached out to the crumbled form with the force. and in the force Luke saw something bright and gentle wrap around the unconscious man.

It was strange to see something so powerful be so gentle, it seemed unnatural compared to his own future where might was right.

But he would not feel ashamed of what he just did. He gutted the flicker of guilt he still felt when Yoda's eyes looked back on him. He could afford to have his mind in two places when he stood in front of Yoda.

Because he was doing this to save all of them, along with everything else that Palpatine destroyed right in front of the entire Jedi order. How much else had the jedi allowed to happen because of their arrogance and pride?

"Dead he is not." Yoda said to the boy and looked back at Luke with a muted contempt that Luke found that he shared. "A horrible violation, it is."

"He will live." Luke said, after trying to keep his voice even, but the simmering hatred won out. He could not forget what Yoda had done back home in his own time and if the presumably all-knowing Yoda had been a little more perceptive in this timeline, then the republic might not have fallen at all.

…and every horror that had become Luke's reality might have stayed faceless nightmares.

Luke knew he was being unreasonable, but he did not have any more forgiveness in him. He clawed the force to him and strained his connection to the breaking point to catch any move from Yoda before it happened.

"Vader, you are." Yoda said and sends Luke a look that feels like can see anything, but Luke knows it has no power over him here. Yoda has no power over him anymore because Luke no longer believe his lies.

"That is what people call me." He said flippantly and made a show of brushing the robe a little aside with a gesture that revealed that his other hand that was resting heavily on the hilt of the lightsaber he stole from Dooku.

He was stalling, he was not going to be the first to attack and Yoda knew it, because Yoda did not even look at the lightsaber in Luke's hand.

"But you name, is it not?" He presses, and Luke could feel a movement in the force.

If he lied now he was certain that Yoda would know, and that might lead to a lot of other questions that Luke could answer, because if he revealed too much then he would break the bargain and all he had fought for so desperately would be lost, but he cannot fight Yoda either.

He remembers the stories Obi-wan told of Yoda. The Grandmaster of the jedi order is a challenge too far for him. But what else can he do? Yoda is not about to let him go.

"It is good enough for now." He dodged the question poorly, he could see as much in the force. He tried to measure Yoda's true force potential, but it was blinding to look at. 'What do I do?' He thought desperately while scanning the surroundings. 'I can't fight him. I will lose."

But if he stayed Yoda would find out the truth with the force and then the bargain would be broken.

'what do I do!'

"And later?" Yoda asked, and has the gall to look completely relaxed.

Luke did not answer that. There was really no answer. Whatever answer he could form, would only be a lie in the force and then Yoda would call him out on it.

Because he could not tell the truth.

That was part of the bargain.

"The youngling …. Learned much from your little lesson he did." Yoda said after it became evident that Luke would not answer. Yoda indicated Padawan Caleb Dume behind him, a boy that now looks at him in fear. Luke notice that with a painful clench in his chest.

Why did that hurt? He should be tougher than this by now.

"Good teacher you are…." Yoda said and gave Luke a long searching look that made him stiffen unwillingly under the scrutiny." With the light side of the force, familiar you are."

Luke's fingers curled tighter around the lightsaber. There was a sharp sting at the scars crisscrossing his arm. He tried to calm down, but his heart was beating to wildly to stop and his throat feels dry like sand.

Yoda could not find out! That would mean the end of everything he worked so hard for!

"Light or dark. The force is just the force. Turns out the fault was not with the student but the teacher." Luke snapped, trying to look for an angle to rattle the Jedi master. He had to get out of here. Fast.

"Best learned alone, some lessons are." Yoda said like it was the truth, but Luke does not believe it. He knows that it is a lie, but before he can collect himself enough to answer, Yoda spoke again "Know that, if fully trained jedi, you were."

'Fully trained…' Luke thought in horror and it felt like something was slipping through his fingers.

This was going wrong too fast!

"Like you are not teaching him?" Luke almost hiss, when an old anger takes hold of him. Luke could not help his bitterness, and now finally, his anger and fear had a target. Yoda presence was suddenly quiet. It felt like a calm before the storm, and Luke's heart skipped a beat.

"Rejoin the other's, young Caleb." Yoda said.

"He will stay." Luke says with finality. The Padawan would obviously warn the others of his presence. He could not deal with anymore enemies right now. Yoda was more than enough on his own. The boy was afraid, Luke could feel it. He tried to suppress that observation or shove it behind his barriers, but he failed on both attempts.

"Under my protection, he is." Yoda said but sound thoughtful and calm. Too calm. "Trained as a Jedi, you were." Yoda repeats like he knows. He crooks his head slightly, like he is listening to something Luke could not hear. "But not for long." He finishes, now sounding uncertain, like something does not add up.

Again, Luke does not answer, but he increased the connection to the force in a wordless threat. He projected a calm strong front, but his panic was running away with him. How could he possibly beat Yoda? Was that even possible? Even the emperor feared Yoda and that was after the many years of exile that had broken him.

But the Yoda of this time? Could Luke even do that, with his back against the wall like this?

"But great control, you have." Yoda praised and moved a little to the side to put himself completely between Luke and the Padawan."Rare to find that in someone not jedi, it is."

"Big bad sith" Luke said and pointed to himself in a mock gesture. "Haven't you heard?"

"Listen to rumors, I do not." Yoda stepped closer to Luke and Luke resisted taking a step back and instead pulled the lightsaber out with his finger lying heavy on the activation button. "….Afraid of me, you should not be." Yoda said, and it sounded like he meant it.

It feels like he means it too, in the force, and Luke almost falter in the face of that gentleness. Why does he mean that after all Luke has already done? In that moment, Luke wanted nothing more than to break down and tell Yoda everything. But the memory of Bespin flashes behind his eyes and it chokes the words in his throat. "I am not listening to you anymore." He said and stands tall and defiantly.

"… Listened to me before, you have?"'

Pain flashed through the left arm through the scars. In panicked response, he activates the lightsaber in an act that is more accident than intend. He steps completely in front of Fives. "Watch for an opening." he said in a whisper.

"But can't you-"

"I will not win this. Be ready to run."

The lightsaber hum gently as in mockery of the desperate situation when he moved it into position of his most practiced guard-stance. It is a simple fighting form, but it is the only one that he feels that he has mastered.

'Come what may,' He thought and tried to calm his breathing. He could not risk breaking the bargain by handing Yoda the answer in accident. Yoda was just too smart. 'Maybe I can win…' He thought and pulled the force to him. Luke had never been this strong in the force before. In this time he is powered both by the force and the curse that moves with him and it might give him the edge he needs.

'That sounds like wishful thinking' a stray though disagrees, and it sound like Leia.

"My enemy, you are not." Yoda said but the lightsaber was in his hand. The other hand lifted above his heart "But brought him here with you, I think you did." Then Yoda reaches forward with the force that moves like a tidal wave and a vortex slam around Luke. Yoda's force power is overwhelming and everywhere. The shield he constructed is already cracking under the strain.

Luke draws the darkness to him, he needs the power desperately. His heart is beating wildly in his chest, and in horror he realizes that he will lose. Yoda's power is too strong. The shield is cracking fast. It drains all of Luke's power in an instant, but it is not strong enought to keep Yoda out. It is patheticly weak in comparison to Yoda massive power. It is like putting a paper-wall up to stop a hammer.

He breathes in a terriefied gasp when the shield dies and Yoda's power falls on him.

The world goes dark

Fives disappears, the world disappears and the living hell that is his memory descend upon him.

Somewhere, someone is screaming.

The knuckles on his right hand stung and the left burned like he had shoved into a pile of scorching coals.

'What is?-'. Luke said, but sounded more like a thought and the world moves around him in a blurr.

His breath quickened and he could feel his heart hammering in his throat.

'What is this?'

He could not look down and left, and see the damage he knew was there. He could barely bear the sickening smell alone. It was the same gagging stench that had poisoned the air on Tatooine on that day, when he had followed the black smoke all the way home-

'No!' He thought violently.'Not this!' He clenched his fist try to rip away from this horrible, horrible nightmare. Why was he back here? This was a memory. He was not supposed to be here like this!

There is a body at his feet. He does not look down at it. He knows exactly who it is and it is already too late to change what happened.

Then there was a presence close to him and the roar of memories he would never see again quiet down to a whisper. Somehow that was worse, because now the voices sounds like-.

'What is happening?' He ask desperately and to his surprise there is an answer just beside him.

'Did this to you, who did?" Yoda asked and his voice came from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

Then the scene shifted and Luke's heart clenched in recognition of the sight that greeted him.

And then there is…

Him.

The sith looms over him. To Luke the sith had always looked like a gaping void in the force. Cold and eternal. So much like the void itself that he fears so much.

"What have you done, jedi!" The voice cut like knives and Luke could feel his own force presence give under the immense pressure. "Have you forgotten the consequences?" Suddenly there are fingers around his arm. they are thin to the point where it looks like the dry skin was stretched over bare bone, but the grip was strong and as unyielding as if the hands were made of iron.

Panic, all Luke could feel is panic. His heart thundered so loudly in his ears that it downed out any other sound than his quick heaving breath. He called the light side to him and it eased the pain enough for him to speak.

This close, the rage from the sith is overpowering.

"NO!." To Luke's great shame his voice breaks when ice cold pain rip through the scar under the merciless brutal grip. "I didn't! I-"

"Brought myself here, I did." A familiar voice speaks and then everything freezes.

"… Yoda?" Luke did not mean to speak the jedimaster's name but like it was some sort of spell of protection, because the sith almost ripped his hand away in that same moment. Then Luke follow the sith's startled eyes and sees his old master. Where the sith was a open void, Yoda is a beacon, a supernova. Yoda is suddenly right next to them as if he had been there the entire time.

Yoda stares at Luke with a strange expression, like he had never seen him befroe this moment. In truth hadn't seen Luke ,not like he did now in this place, where Luke was undisguised by the sith's curse. For the first time in his life Luke sees the ancient Jedi master make a double take.

"Skywalker…?" Yoda moved almost exaggerated slow but his signature in the force impossibly increases. "The taboo."

Yoda knew.

Why was there so much horror in his eyes? Luke was trying to save everyone!

"There was no other way, I am sorry Yoda. I-" Luke said and startled when an arm draped possessively over his shoulder. It lay there cold and heavy like that of a dead man.

"Enough of that." The Sith speak and he was close enough that Luke could hear his heavy breath when he leaned over his shoulder. "It is too late Master Yoda." The sith said and there was a laugh following those words. It was as cruel as the look in his eyes. "He is mine now." Luke felt the fingers dig into his shoulder

"No." Yoda said.

"No?"

"Draw you out like sickness from a wound, I will."Yoda said and the truth of it is a beacon in the overwhelming darkness of this place. "Defeat me you cannot."

There is a moment of wild hope. Even with the sith this close, there was an unwilling desperate hope that somehow this was going to be okay. The sith grinned and Luke could feel it's laughter rumble in its chest. Fear dug its teeth into Luke's soul and all he could think of was that this bargain he made was going very wrong.

"I don't need to." The sith said and Luke's heart sank. Because that was a truth in the force. "You are here now." The sith said and there was a stirring in the force. Something old, ancient, was moving out there in the dark. Something cold. It was like a pair of eyes was watching him. There was something moving out there in the force, Luke could sense it, but it did not feel alive.

The void around them felt like a gaping maw of an unnatural beast ready to swallow him whole. The pressure in the air kept building to the point where it was hard to breathe in the presence of it.

"And now you will never leave." The sith said and smiled like an old friend.

Then the darkness moved in from all sides at once.

"Yoda! watch out-"

The whole world suddenly moved. The darkness at the edge of this place rush closer and the light that is Yoda is consumed. Luke sees his presence light up the dark in a blinding fierce light. A tidal wave of darkness descends upon him, it feels thick in the force and moves like it is sentient. at the same time it felt like an absence of all things, like death itself.

The light from Yoda is blinding in the complete blackness and for a wonderful moment it looks like the darkness is backing away from the Jedi master. The sith standing beside him stiffened and takes a cautions step back, for the first time since Luke met the sith he sees actual fear in his eyes. 'Yoda is winning!' Luke thinks and his heart soars.

But then the light flickers, the dark deepens and then the blackness swallowed the light whole and there was nothing where the light had been before. He turned and threw a look to all corners but there was no sight of the ancient jedi

Yoda was gone

Only darkness stared back at him from the void

"No! that's not-" He said desperately searching the force for some sign of life but where the darkness had moved before there was only a cold damp stillness and the beacon that had been Yoda's presence was snuffed out.

Gone.

Luke knew this emptiness in the force well, he had felt it once before a lifetime ago on Dagobah and Luke can only stare into that darkness in shock.

'No.' He thought as the horror began setting in.

This was not happening.

This was not happening!

"How?" he said in denial."You are not anywhere near strong enough-"

The words dies on his lips when he saw the sith's wide smile.

"Me?" It asked innocently, but the smile showed too many teeth. "I did nothing to your master." The smile widened."but the void is a very unforgiving beast. Have you forgotten how risky I told you this is?" The smile fell a bit, but the eagerness in the sith's eyes only intensified."That same fate waits for the both of us, if we slip for just one moment."

The leaned away again and looked out into the void that had devoured Yoda.

"You lost master Yoda, already before this game has really begun."The sith said suddenly to that void. There was an undercurrent of regret hidden under the demeaning words. "I am sorry I didn't kill you myself."

And those words were more that Luke's flayed control could bear.

"We had a deal!" Luke said. He snapped around and fisted his hands in the sith's dark cloak. "What have you done! We agreed that no one would die!"

The sith quirked a cunning smile. "Did we?" the sith leaned forward looking down intently on Luke as if the sith wanted to savor every detail of Luke's horror. "I said that if you did this right, then no one had to die... and for the record, I didn't do anything. Yoda was a fool to try to stand against the void that devours everything."

Yoda...was. Those to two words echoed louder and louder in his head.

"You didn't do anything? You filthy liar!" Luke yelled and moved forward only to discover that something was holding him against his will. He twisted in the invisible hold, but he could not tear himself free. "This, all off this, is part of your twisted game!"

"Well I must admit that I have no had such fun in years." The sith praised mockingly gentle and The sith narrowed its eyes over the lazy cunning smile "I never dreamed, that you would bring me so much excitement. This bargain of yours has started to become very entertaining."

"You are a monster." Luke said, and the words brought clarity to something he should have considered from the start. All this time he had acted on the assumption that the sith would uphold its end of the bargain, but what guarantee did he really have?

He was bound to this bargain with blood.

The sith was not.

"Flattery will get you nowhere." The sith said and patted his shoulder in mock comfort and Luke felt so sick with that touch that he for a moment thought he was gonna throw up."Thank you for that treat, little Jedi." The sith said and finally let the vindictive smile fall. The sith extended his right hand and locked the fingers around Luke's left arm."Now."

"Let us proceed."

And the darkness closed around Luke and dragged him down

(The Jedi temple, moments earlier)

"This is Qui-Gon's lightsaber." Obi-Wan said with a heavy expression, like he did not really believe the words himself.

"…But you kept that." Anakin said. He remembered very well the time and care Obi-wan had taken in the past to keep the old lightsaber in prime condition. "Did Vader steal it?"

Had Vader been in the Jedi temple without anyone realizing it? and if he had why go through all that trouble to steal a dead jedi's lightsaber? Then in the same moment another memory fell at the forefront of his mind. "But… You never removed it from your rooms."

Obi-wan does not say anything at first, then he sighs with a small nod. "…I thought the same thing." He pulls a hand beneath his robe and drags something out and lay it down beside the lightsaber. It is Qui-Gon's lightsaber.

Another one.

"What?" Mace says and steps past Anakin. "A copy?" Windu ask and leans forward to study the two lightsabers on the table.

"It seems so." Obi-Wan said like it was painful to admit and Anakin thought that it probably was. Obi-Wan's old master had always been a sore subject. "I studied it closely. There are a few changes here and there, but the core design in the exact same as Master Qui-Gon's" Obi-wan said and his tone was mystified.

"Why would Vader make a copy of Qui-Gon´s lightsabre?" Anakin asked and voiced the question they were all thinking. It made little sense that Vader would have made this lightsaber with the purpose of fooling the Jedi, because that meant he would have made the lightsaber with the sole purpose of losing it.

Lightsabers were not cheap to make, especially not to anyone outside the order.

And Kyper Crystals were insanely hard to acquire since the Jedi controlled the only known mine, the Crystal Caves, that was located on the ice planet on IIum mine.

"I can honestly say that I have no idea…"Obi-Wan said. It is the kyper crystal in particular that baffles me. It is a twin of Qui Gon's." Obi-wan said. "It is exactly the same stone as Master Qui Gons'."

"That is not possible Obi-wan." Anakin said and tried to sound diplomatic. "No sith could ever get close to that mine. The Jedi guard it"

"The crystals are exactly the same." Obi-wan insisted and his tone was firm. "All the way down to the smallest scratch it has sustained. The only difference between them is that the lightsaber you took from Vader, is a lot more damaged." Obi-Wan showed no emotion in his voice of his expression when he said this, but there was a spark of hurt in the force. "I took the crystal to Yoda too. He confirms that it is the exact same."

"What is the chances of a twin?" Anakin said and lifted the one that Obi-Wan indicated had belong to the Jedi master Qui-Gon Jinn. The other lightsaber, on closer inspection, looked exactly the same.

But Vader's looked older.

"It is not entirely unheard off… "Windu said and reached out a hand for the lightsabre than Anakin Quickly handed to him. "But it is extremely rare." He pauses. "and the crystals will have to be from the same mine."

Anakin looked from one lightsabre to the other. Then Vader had gone to Ilum somehow, but what was the purpose of this scheme? He felt the beginning of a headache press against his temples. Why go through that trouble? What was the game here? "Can you get anymore from it?" He asked to try and diffuse the rising frustration.

"Vader's lightsaber" Obi-Wan pointed at the one in Windu's hand. "Has sustained a lot of damage. It looks like it has been the centre of an enormous electrical assault at point blank range, almost like-."

"Force lightning?" Anakin guessed.

"It is too soon to say, but by my estimation…" Obi-Wan answered hesitantly but he nodded silently in conformation. "It seems like it." He added. "And as far as I can see, the damage is very recent."

"How recent?"

"Only a few days." Obi-wan said with a knowing look. "Dooku might not have been the only sith on that ship aside from Vader.

"Another sith on the ship?" Anakin repeated, trying and failling not to let the surprise bleed into his voice.. "Then why were they fighting each other?"

"The rule of two, a master and an apprentice." Windu said. "We might be in the middle of a sith power struggle."

Anakin did not want to think too deeply on the implications of that because, despite Vader's great skill, he doubted Vader was the Master and if that was true, then… there was another Sith. Vader's master had to be powerfull to leash an apprentice the Vader's skill and strength.

"I know no one wants to hear this, but there is a very real possibility that we are looking at a new third side in this war. A new enemy." Obi-wan said and the room became deadly silent. Anakin would swear he felt a sudden pressure in the air that was somehow disembodied from the force.

'A new enemy!' a voice in Anakin despaired before he managed to shove it away to some dark corner of his mind. 'Would this war ever end?'

"That is a bold statement Obi-Wan." Mace said carefully, but his expression was thoughtful "There is little to support it."

"I have more concrete reason to doubt Vader's allegiance." Obi-wan returned to the console and his fingers danced over the control panel. "Give me a moment." Was his insufficient explanation.

The recording of Vader from the warehouse speed up until it suddenly froze in the very moment when Vader had risen from reading Fives' mind. That night, Vader had had his back to him and Anakin could not see the expression that was so clearly on display in front of him now. The recording of Vader stared down at Fives crumbled form revealed Vader expression and what it was startled Anakin.

'Fear?' Anakin realized when he suddenly recognized the sharp expression that was displayed to openly on his enemy's face. Vader looked like a man who had just seen a living nightmare. 'What did you find in Fives mind that made you look like that?' Anakin thought, because at this time during the ambush Vader must have thought he had won. He didn't know about the other troopers trying to ambush him yet. There was no need to put up an act.

"It is clear to me that he discovered something in Fives memories that he did not expect." Obi-wan said. "He saw something that was shocking enough to provoke that reaction."

Vader had seemed devoted to his evil deed, but Anakin had seen hesitations, and felt flickers of regret from Vader too many times for it to be coincidental. 'But this?' he thought. 'Why would he react that way?' He stepped one step closer to the blue image and searched Vader's expression for some clue. 'What did you see that made you so afraid?'

The memory of that moment was so clear in his mind that he could easily remember the cold expression Vader hard worn when he turned around, but Anakin also remembered the long moment it took for Vader to speak. He had hesitated for so long, that Anakin knew it was a lie Vader would tell him even before the words slid past Vader's teeth.

"It seems like you were right, Chosen one" Vader had said with a wicked smile. "There is no chip." And as he said that there was no trace of the fear that had been there before. The sentence of course was a lie. Anakin had barely bothered to check with the force what he could see with his very eyes was a poor deception.

'Deception...' He thought and that word made him remember that night again more clearer. Especially this part... but, what was it Vader had lied-

Then he remembered. Anakin would not stop the gasp from escaping even if he tried. It felt like cold nail down his back as he stared at Vader's face and the ice-cold realisation sunk in. Why had he not thought of this before? Had he truly been so distracted by Vader's games that he completely had forgotten this part?

Vader had lied.

He had deliberately lied about the chips that Fives swore were real.

"Does that mean that Fives-" He asked. The sentence broke and he locked eyes with the other Jedi one after the other until Obi-wan answered the unspoken question.

"We don't know. It requires further investigation"

Then with a last few clicks from Obi-wan's moving fingers the projection of Vader disappeared from view as the blue light flickered out, but in his inner eye he still saw the sith staring hopelessly out into the dark like an unimaginable horror had appeared before his eyes.

"Through my contacts I have also been able to find this." Obi-Wan said and a new image replaced the old one. "It has been up since an hour after we crashed the battleship in the slums."

"That is just the warrant for Vader's arrest. We had-"

"It is a warrant, Anakin, but not ours." Obi-wan said like he did not believe his own words, like he could not believe it. "This is a bounty for the death of Vader issued by separatist high command."

Anakin leaned forward and now actually read the bold text. It was a warrant, but one from the separatists. He looked up briefly to his old master and then returned his attention to the warrant.

It gave no reason for the bounty not even 'enemy of the cause' as it said on the chancellor's standing bounty. Just the words that specifically demanded that the sith should be killed on sight. Then Anakin's eyes fell on the reward offered. "Three million! That's even higher than their reward for the chancellor's capture!"

"... I don't understand." Windu said, his face was deceptively blank, but his shoulders were beyond tense. "Why would the separatists place a bounty like that on one of their own people?"

Obi-wan did not answer that, he just sat there with a muted look in his eyes. He didn't need to answer the question, they all already knew the answer to Windu's question. The separatist high command would not make a warrant like that on one of their own people.

"Maybe I am a secret agent?" Vader had said with confidence on the other side of the force-field, and he had worn such a condescending smirk that it had made Anakin want to punch Vader in the face.

"Are you?" He had replied to Vader, mostly because he needed to say something to this infuriating sith that made Anakin feel like an inexperienced Padawan again for the first time in years.

"You tell me." Vader had answered

"You tell me" Anakin muttered to himself. 'What does that even mean?' He thought with growing frustration. Vader's emotions had been a muted nothing when he said that, like there was some sort of shield hiding him from Anakin's force powers "He is not on the separatists' side….Then who's side is Vader on?" Anakin asked looking to both Jedi masters for answers.

He hoped against hope that they could see some pattern here.

From Obi-wan there came a heavy sigh. He turned over Qui-Gon's old lightsabre in his hands and his shoulder's sagged a fraction.

"That is exactly the right question." Obi-wan brushed a hand over his exhausted expression and for a moment covered the lines that were deepening around his eyes.

Suddenly Obi-wan threw himself out of the chair as if it had burned him. His force presence projected shock… and fear?

Then Anakin felt it too.

A strong presence flashed brightly in the force, then it flickered and died.

'Yoda?' He thought and then something snapped in the force. It felt cold and dry, like old bones cracking, and it sent shivers down Anakin's spine. it felt unnatural... and evil.

Around him the Jedi masters stood frozen.

"Master Yoda!" Obi-Wan Kenobi felt the stillness in the force loud as a cannon blast. The entire force moved, diminished, and shattered when the calm center from which the force orbited suddenly shrank… splintered.

First the blinding light of Yoda's presence became a shade.

Then it became nothing.

Every jedi on the planet felt this moment, when the light of the old jedi master Yoda suddenly went out.

When the darkness cleared Luke was back in the entrance hall.

He was shaking uncontrollably and the air was so cold that he could see it as small puffs of white smoke. The floor was cold as well, but not the lingering unnatural cold that had tainted the air. He pushed his hands against the ground to sit up, and he was startled by how much effort that took. It felt like his head was made of lead, and it was almost impossible for him to get into sitting position. His hand should not be shaking so much and it should not hurt so much just to breathe.

It was only when he managed to lift his head that he could see that Fives was yelling at him, but the man's voice sounded so far away. The soldier was kneeling right beside him, but Luke could barely hear him and he could not understand a single word he said.

Luke lifts his hands from the floor to push back at the clonetrooper but then stopped when he saw what was lying still on the floor in front of a him as he looks over Fives' shoulder.

The unmoving body of Jedi master Yoda.

"No…" Luke was already starting to rise, his shaking arms reached out to the limp body on the ground, but he did not make it there before another force ripped him back. The hand fisted in his cloak pulled him violently to his feet and dragged him away from the man Luke had once called master. "...I didn't."

As if he was under water, he heard the muted sounds of the Padawan screaming for help and Fives yelling something at him. He let himself get pulled back roughly, he knew that he should help, but it felt like his body was not his, like he was paralyzed.

His eyes seemed incapable of moving from the Jedi master.

The padawan was pulling at Yoda's limp body and shaking him with desperate tears streaming down his cheeks. Luke stared, looking for even the smallest move, for anything revealing that the Jedi would be all right, but he saw nothing. Luke could not even see Yoda breathe, and the fear he felt intensified when he looked into the force.

Yoda's presence in the force was a gaping void.

"No This is not…" He said in denial and didn't recognize the voice as his own as he was dragged harshly back out of the door and into the streets with the sounds of the screaming Padawan fading into the distance.' This is not happening!' He reached out again for Yoda's presence in the force.

Nothing.

In the force, there was only a howling silence where there once stood a giant. The force had become a shadowed whisper that had curled in on itself as if in silent agony. The force felt diminished, tainted, and a great emptiness closed around the brightest presence in the force.

There was nothing now.

Yoda was…

Yoda was gone

In another place, a man stood overlooking the cityin a lonely room. A twisted smile rose on his lips and exposed the teeth they hid beneath them.

The death in the force was so loud, so loud in fact that it echoed deep in the force. It echoed so deep that it even touched the waters of the dark side where Sidious drew his power. It was like watching the death of a supernova, because all it left was a memory of greatness and a gaping void.

There was a delicious beauty to it. Seeing something strong die and crumble always left a pleasant cold feeling within him as it settled comfortably in his bones. It was no different this time when he now watched Yoda's presence in the force rot away before his eyes.

At the same time he could not quite expel the hollow feeling of disappointment in his gut because all the careful plans he had made through the years now became useless. Jedi Master Yoda was his greatest enemy and for him to be killed by another. It was...

… anti-climactic.

He turned, tipped his glass and looked into the liquid with a thoughtful expression before he looked back over the city with a slight frown carved into the skin between his eyes. It seems there was more to this Vader than just a mere sith apprentice.

If Vader was strong enough to have gotten the upper hand on Yoda then he was more skilled than Sidious had previously thought. It was a strength remarkable enough to make certain… alterations to his plans.

He bit at the thought and like the taste of it as the force presented him with many new possibilities. Sidious had never been a great follower of the rule of two. He saw of course the advantages of that sith tradition, but he was not as fanatic about the rule of two as Plagueis had been.

Vader's master of course had to die. There was only room for one Sith Lord in the galaxy Sidious was envisioning after the takeover that he had worked so tirelessly on for years.

But perhaps he could find another use for Vader

To be continued

Author's note: I am back after a long absence. It has been a long time, I know, but I will do my best to stick with it and finish and update much more regularly than before.

I still have no beta and english is not my first language, so I hope you will forgive the grammatical mistakes that I have not spotted. :)