There was a period, a very short period in Obito's ridiculous life, when Kakashi tried to be his wingman and Obito had taken all his advice at face value. It was a very regrettable, very terrible, time period that Obito looked back on with mortification.

But then, Obito had no shortage of stupidity before the Kannabi Bridge.

He was ten, newly minted genin and academy graduate, feeling both full of himself and a little baleful that he had not failed Namikaze Minato's genin test but hadn't passed it either. He was a little more miffed that life as a shinobi seemed to consist of babysitting kids, catching missing cats, and weeding training grounds.

He also was a little miffed that Nohara Rin, the love of his life, even after having by the grace of all the gods in heaven been placed on his genin team still looked at him, at best, with that fond sisterly smile.

Which, of course, was how Hatake Kakashi found his opening into Obito's life and the then vacant position of best friend forever.

Obito, covered in grime and sweat, lifting his goggles from his eyes with a sigh, glared at the cheerily whistling Hatake Kakashi next to him, "Where do you think you're going?"

They'd just finished some training session, those early days when the chunin exams weren't even on the horizon yet. With the sun now setting and the day over Obito wasn't in any kind of mood to deal with the weirdest person he knew.

Kakashi just grinned like the idiot he pretended to be, "What do you mean?"

"I'm not an idiot," Obito spat back, "The Hatake compound's on the other side of the village."

Unsurprising, really, since the Uchiha compound took up practically a quarter of the village and sometimes felt like a city within a city. Obito and his grandmother, being branch members of the clan, lived within the compound but at its very edge in a small but comfortable home. Hatake, on the other hand, was a much smaller compound that probably felt like a ghost town with only two or three people living in it at a time.

Kakashi's eyebrow raised, "Yes, it is on the other side of the village."

Obito just waited for him to put two and two together. Then kept waiting. Finally, because Obito had no patience, he broke, "You know you're walking in the wrong direction, right?"

"Oh," Kakashi said, as if he only just then realized what Obito was getting at, "But I'm not going to the Hatake compound."

He didn't elaborate on that, just kept strollin merrily along, offering a cheerful way to those passing by. Obito couldn't help but glower as people tittered at him, noting how cute the Hatake boy was, so talented and polite, and how he'd probably grow up to be a real looker like his father.

Obito, generally, was known as that oddly loud useless Uchiha brat who knocked everything over, accidentally lit everything on fire, and kept shouting about being hokage all the damn time.

Obito, with a sigh, took the bait, "Then where the hell are you going?"

"To your house of course," Kakashi said as if this was the most obvious answer in the world.

"To my house?!" Obito splurted.

At this point, Obito hadn't had much interaction with the mysterious Hatake Kakashi. Once, years ago, Kakashi had spent a few days in his and Rin's class in the academy. However, the instructors had quickly tested him out of the introductory courses and straight in with the graduating class. Within only a year, he had graduated and been placed on a genin team, six months after that he'd passed his chunin exams and been passed around like a sack of potatoes until he eventually landed with the young jonin Namikaze Minato.

Obito didn't remember much of him from those early days. If he tried to wrack his memory then he remembered a much quieter, stoic, figure who had approached life with a seriousness that bordered on apathy. He'd made an impression, Obito hadn't liked him, but that also could have been because everyone had talked about how cool it was that he tested out so fast.

When you were trying to prove you could be the next hokage it wasn't good that some kid upstaged you without even trying.

Since then he'd mostly known of Hatake Kakashi and nothing he'd heard had endeared him to the boy. Hatake Kakashi was the best of their generation, inheriting all the abilities of his father and then some, and only needed to be shown a technique once to learn it if that. Uchiha Obito was the disgrace of the Uchiha clan, doomed to pitiful failure, who would be lucky if he could get the sharingan to activate.

He'd built up this idea of Hatake Kakashi in his head, someone just as brooding as some of his cousins or the Hyuuga clan, and just as eerily talented as the best of them. Then, of course, their genin test had happened and Kakashi had gone and blown that idea straight out of the water.

Obito knew Kakashi couldn't actually be as stupid as he seemed but in those early days it was very hard to tell.

"Why are you coming to my house?" Obito asked.

Kakashi sighed, put an arm over Obito's shoulders, and said, "I'm afraid I couldn't help but notice that you're having girl problems."

Obito shrugged Kakashi's arm off, "Don't touch me."

Then, recalling what Kakashi had just said, he spat, "And I'm not having girl problems!"

"Oh?" Kakashi asked, "Then when is the date for your and Nohara Rin's wedding?"

"Who asked you, dumbass?!" Obito spat back.

"God," Kakashi said, with an air of unquestionable wisdom as if he really was a prophet, "When I realized that I would be watching you try and fail to get the girl for the rest of our time together."

Obito flushed dramatically, stared ahead and began to walk faster, but it was no good as Kakashi was taller and easily kept pace with him.

Eyeing Kakashi, smiling cheerfully again like he hadn't said anything in the first place, Obito bit out, "I don't need your help."

"Oh, yes, you do," Kakashi said, "You really really do."

"No, I—"

"How long have you known Rin now?"

Obito's flush became hotter and brighter and started to spread to his neck, "That's not the point!"

"Ah, I see," Kakashi said, slowly nodding, "You're taking it slow then."

They both knew that very much wasn't the case. Obito had made his intentions very clear to Rin. She just… well, he supposed there were better ways to go about catching a girl's attention than shouting it from the roof top but at least Rin knew he liked her.

"I'm not taking it slow!" Obito said, then forced himself to breathe, "Just go home, Bakashi, I don't want to talk to you."

"Too bad," Kakashi said, "Because this is damn painful to watch."

He gave Obito a knowing look, "And believe me, I've seen some painful things in my life. I was there for both Minato-sensei's attempts to woo Eru Lee and his rebound onto Uzumaki Kushina. I never thought anyone would ever top that."

He then smiled brightly, "Which is, of course, why I can also offer you some advice."

"What advice could you possibly have?" Obito asked with a snort. As far as he was aware, Hatake while he had plenty of admirers had never had an actual girlfriend. It was only later that Obito learned this was by choice.

"Smile less," Kakashi said and then after a pause, "And brood more. Girls our age love brooding."

Obito laughed, well, that one was probably right but he just didn't have that in him, "Right, and is that how Minato-sensei won his girlfriends?"

"No," Kakashi said without blinking, "He won them by being absurdly pretty and noble."

"And I can't do that?" Obito asked.

"Well," Kakashi said, drawing out the word while he thought, "Minato and Lee were always, even I knew that they had wasn't exactly normal. Everyone thought they'd be the ones to get married someday. I was resigned to having him for an unofficial brother in law."

"And?" Obito asked, not sure what this had to do with his own question.

"And then they didn't," Kakashi said with a shrug, "A few years back, after Minato and Lee moved out again, Minato started dating Uzumaki Kushina, who had always secretly liked him, and the rest is history."

As they reached the compound Obito kept mulling that over, he felt like Kakashi was trying to tell him something, or that perhaps this was important, but for the life of him he couldn't figure out why.

Eru Lee was still a distant figure, someone he'd passed by on a street once who had declined an invitation for lunch with Namikaze Minato's students. Someone who had offered Minato-sensei a sad but knowing smile as she walked away.

Maybe even then, though, Obito began to saw the seeds of himself in her.

But he was too young to pay attention to them so he just asked, "Bakashi, what the hell does this have to do with me?"

Kakashi just patted him on the back in consolation as they rounded the final corner to Obito's house, "It means you have a lot to learn, my friend."

Kakashi's advice never did work out but then Obito suspected it never was supposed to.

"You're still here then, good."

Obi-Wan started as he set out of his quarters, dressed in combat gear and ready to head into the hanger, and immediately stopped. He tried and failed to smile at the woman across from him, "Lee, you really should learn to knock."

Lee Eru, Lee Skywalker, had always been such a strange little girl. More mature than her brother, certainly, and despite all her brother's talents more easily able to control her emotions if not her feelings of attachment. She'd been a better asset to the Jedi order than they'd given her credit for.

Unlike Anakin, Qui-Gon had not pleaded her case nor even freed her from slavery. While she likely was Force Sensitive, it wasn't enough to bend the rules for her. Training her would be too dangerous, not worth the risk that Qui-Gon believed Anakin Skywalker was worth.

She'd never been given an exam by the council the way Anakin had, they had never bothered, and when she was eventually tested for midichlorians it confirmed that she was just above the threshold the Jedi set for Force Sensitivity.

And yet, despite all that, she had been nothing if not gifted and a master at an unprecedentedly young age.

Of course, that relatively low midichlorian count meant she was always able to sneak up on him without even trying. One of these days she'd give him a heart attack.

She tried and failed to offer him a smile back.

He sighed, "Is this about Obito? Neither Knight Hatake nor Padawan Nohara have reported back yet. They believe, perhaps, that he's landed on Alderaan to make repairs on his stolen ship. Undoubtedly he's still in the core systems."

It was a little unprecedented, to send nothing more than a newly minted knight and a girl who wans't his own padawan after a fallen Jedi, but the order was stretched thin and Hatake and Nohara were the best they could afford to send. They were the closest to the boy, aside from Lee herself, and perhaps by some miracle could talk him down.

And if not, Kakashi Hatake had always been talented. He'd always been able to beat Obito Uchiha in sparring before now. They'd track him down, bring him back, and if not they'd spare Lee the pain of doing what had to be done.

"That's good to know," Lee said slowly, nodding and storing the information, "But not actually why I'm here."

"Oh?" Obi-Wan asked as he made to move past her and to the hanger.

Grievous, after all, would not wait long as he never did. Intelligence had it that he was regrouping in the outer rim on Utapau. His siege on Coruscant had not been a siege at all, but a last second desperate attempt to end the war by holding the chancellor hostage. This time, Obi-Wan would find him before he could run, and he would remove one of the Separtist's key generals from the battlefield.

With Dooku already dead the Separatist leadership was crumbling before their eyes. The end, after three years, could very well be in sight.

Lee kept pace with him, not dressed for combat herself, but then the order had not yet decided where to send her. There was too much risk, they thought, that she'd take any excuse to go out and run after her mad padawan.

More, Grievous kidnapping of the chancellor showed that they needed someone on Coruscant. And if Lee refused to lead clone troops anyway then that someone might as well be her.

"When do you leave?" Lee asked and he looked at her with raised eyebrows.

"Now, if I can help it," Obi-Wan said, "The sooner the better with Grievous. The man is an octopus, unless you weave the tightest net he slips right through."

She frowned, looking down at the ground, and then asked, "Would you consider delaying a few hours?"

"Why?" he asked.

For a moment she didn't answer, just kept walking with him to the hanger, and then finally said with perfect seriousness, "I have decided to end the war."

He laughed, unable to help himself, and finally stopped walking to look at her with fondness, "Strange, Lee, so have I."

He motioned around them, "I imagine that all of us set out to end this war three years ago when it started."

Lee didn't laugh, there was no levity in her expression, but instead that strange almost alien deathly seriousness that did not belong on a face so long, "But I mean it."

His smile drifted away, he held his hands up and then let them uselessly drop to his side, and finally asked, "What are you talking about?"

"I've decided to kill the Sith master," Lee said.

Kill, she said, not stop or capture, but kill without a hint of hesitation.

Obi-Wan tried to dismiss his sudden feeling of unease.

"Ah," Obi-Wan said, and fell silent for a moment, he then looked her in the eye and searched her expression, "Is this about Obito?"

To her credit, she didn't flinch, but her mouth hardened and she paused before she responded, "And Anakin."

"Anakin?" Obi-Wan asked.

"He's always been very keen on Anakin," Lee agreed darkly, and Obi-Wan could almost see the Force shimmering around her, heated by the intensity of her anger.

"Well, as a member of the council I can say that we all wish we could find the Sith master and put a stop to him," he paused, thinking back to Qui-Gon and his death at the hand of the apprentice, and then said, "But the fact remains we do not know who it—"

"I know who it is," Lee interjected.

Obi-Wan stopped, stared at her, and tried to gather his thoughts. He felt like he'd just been hit on the head, "You know who it is. You, Lee, know who the Sith master is and you never told anyone?"

"I did report it," Lee said, not with any real bitterness, but instead as if it was a mere fact and ancient history that had nothing to do with any of them, "No one believed me and the one man who did disappeared. Then it became too dangerous to bother."

She sighed then, raking her hands through her hair, "I kept thinking there'd be a right moment, that someday, somehow there'd be a perfect moment when it all wouldn't collapse like a house of cards if I dared to cross him. I'd find evidence, not just for the order but the republic at large. He'd make a mistake, or maybe he'd just remove himself from the spotlight, maybe it didn't have to be the order at all if only he could just stumble once."

She offered Obi-Wan a wry smile, "Then we found the clones, then the war started, then Mandalore, one of the few independent systems who could dare to oppose the republic or the separatists disarmed itself in the name of pacifism. He has woven such a masterful web."

Obi-Wan opened his mouth, about to defend Satine's honor, but Lee didn't give him the chance.

"And what was I? Just a padawan, then a knight, and then a master so young and green that I was barely listened to at all. The best I could do was keep his hooks out of Anakin, choose a padawan who could fly under his radar and was smart enough to keep it that way, and hope that it really would matter if the republic won."

She walked then towards the other end of the hallway, staring out the window at Coruscant, gleaming in the early morning sunlight.

"That's the trouble though, he's made it so it doesn't matter who wins. There's no republic, no separatists, not really."

She looked back over her shoulder at him and once again seemed to bolster her own resolve, "I can't save the Jedi Order, Obi-Wan, but I believe I can save my brother and maybe even my prodigal padawan."

Obi-Wan opened his mouth, closed it, and felt his throat was uncomfortably dry, "Lee, listen to me—"

"I don't need your help to end this," Lee said, "That I can and will do on my own no matter what you have to say about it."

"Lee," he interjected harshly, he turned them around, grabbed her shoulder, and made to walk her to the council, "Calm down, you're not thinking clearly. Talk to the council, tell them who the Sith master is, and then we can plan—"

"Oh it's much too late for that," Lee said with a small hysterical laugh, "Half the council isn't even here and even if they were I don't think they'd have the nerve to deal with the problem. After all, we are knights of the republic."

She stressed the word republic as if it was the punchline to some terrible joke.

"No, I'm going to end this and then, then I'll go looking for Obito," she said, stopping in her tracks and looking Obi-Wan straight in the eye. She was younger than him, years younger, and yet he couldn't help but quake beneath her gaze.

For all that Anakin was a child of the Force itself his sister had always managed to look so alien.

"Obi-Wan," she said, grabbing his hands, "I need you to take care of the children. If… If I fail, even if I don't, I need to be prepared for the worst. I'll be as careful as I can, as careful as someone can be with this, but I can't make promises. You need to take them out of the temple, now, don't let anyone notice you're leaving and get off planet as soon as possible. Don't go to a known safe haven, find somewhere deserted, somewhere depressing and barely habitable, the last place anyone would think to look."

"Lee, don't—"

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry," Lee said, face crumpling as her hands tightened around his, "But I've lost my padawan, I won't let him take my brother."

Then, before Obi-Wan could say anything, she vaulted backwards away from him and out the window. He dashed to the window, looked down, and just caught sight of her red hair as she fell onto the back of a speeder, using it as a launch pad to jump from one to the next, then the next, then the next.

Even as Obi-Wan tore towards the council room, forgetting Grievous for the moment, he had the sinking feeling it was somehow already too late.

Alderaan's weather had changed. Obito didn't know how long it'd been since they had landed here, but then, what was time when the whole world was a memory of lives nobody had lived? Either way, the gentle spring day he remembered was now early fall.

The snows and winter storms weren't here yet, but they'd be coming soon, and in the meantime, there was a warning bite to the air. Any day now, flakes would start to descend, and as a result most locals were safely nestled in the great cities and scenic villages in the foothills of the mountains.

Obito, being a paranoid shinobi who liked to tempt the weather, was as high into the mountains as he could reasonably go repairing a ship from inside a cave. Trying, all the while, not to dwell on how much he hated caverns in mountains that nobody would be able to find.

Fortunately or unfortunately, working on the ship was more than enough to keep him occupied.

Jinn Qui-Gon, as Obito could have guessed given how he and Lee had initially met the man, was not mechanically inclined. His expertise lay in reading dusty old prophecies, giving cryptic bullshit advice nobody wanted to listen to, and picking up the oddest assortment of hitchhikers you ever did find.

Which meant it fell to Obito, who while better than Jinn, was hardly Skywalker Anakin.

Parts were hard to steal and scavange, even harder to try and find something that wasn't the right part but should do in a pinch, and worse he felt like every time he looked the other way the whole thing fell apart. Circuits fried themselves right after he fixed them, pipes burst and water flooded into the cockpit, the hyper drive engine petered in and out, and it felt like the ship itself was mocking Obito.

Digging in its heels and declaring this to be Obito's karma for being an unrepentant thief.

Obito was almost at the point of sacrificing to the damn thing to appease it when he remembered who he should be sacrificing to. Anything that could go wrong would go wrong, including something as simple as building a ship, because the universe hated Obito and wanted him to stay right where he was.

Which was how he ended up transporting the ship, piece by piece, into Kamui after all and repairing it inside a dimension the Force couldn't touch. And magically, just like that, the piece of crap wasn't completely falling apart.

Which of course was why refueling, repairing, and repainting the ship was taking much longer than Obito hoped and he was nowhere close to being done despite having been here a few days. Which meant the Jedi were bound to sniff through the core systems, probably come first thing to Alderaan, and find him before he had a chance to get off the ground.

And he he had to use a henge every time he waltzed through a village because the Jedi were running holos with his face every hour advising caution and to immediately alert the authorities. Obito was almost flattered, they hadn't done as much for Dooku, or any of the other fallen padawans through the years but then they hadn't managed to disappear into thin air.

If Obito could run anywhere they were trying to make sure he wouldn't be able to go anywhere.

They were really playing hardball.

No, Haruki was really playing hardball.

A henge was fine, so long as no one with any significant amount of chakra and training was walking through the streets. So far he hadn't seen them but he had a feeling it was only a matter of time.

"Do you still have no plans?"

And Jinn, of course, wasn't helping.

Obito sighed, having ducked out of Kamui for a breath of fresh air and to check on his surroundings. Once again, nothing but picturesque mountains and glittering glaciers, the peaceful towns barely visible in the foothills below, and a blue Jinn Qui-Gon for company.

He preferred not to spend too much time lingering there. For one, he had no idea what it'd do to him, for another it was entirely too easy to lose track of time and reality. It was a world without a sun, without a moon, without any change at all. Obito felt it was all to easy to let hours if not days slip by in that place.

And no Jedi, yet.

"Nope," Obito said, allowing himself to sit against the wall and begin preparing some of the food he'd lifted from a local village, "No plans yet."

It was the same answer he gave Jinn every time the man asked and the same answer he would give even when he left this place if Jinn deigned to come along. Which, Obito thought as he stared across at him, he probably would.

Jinn seemed terribly lost for a man already dead.

Jinn looked dubious but he didn't know Obito well enough to tell if Obito really was that impulsive or not. Obito was suddenly glad that neither Obito nor Lee ever struck any real understanding with the Jedi. A fellow shinobi would be able to tell all too easily what Obito was up to.

"Perhaps you should consider them," Jinn said slowly, "You cannot continue like this forever."

"Who said anything about forever?" Obito asked, "It's only been a few days. No, we'll cross the bridge of what to do next when we come to it."

Obito wondered if Jinn would suggest Obito turn himself into the Order. He hadn't so far, but it looked as if he dearly wanted to, only to remember that either Obito truly had fallen to the dark side like he'd feared or else the universe had gone crazy and everything he believed in was a lie. Who knew, perhaps it was both.

Though he had a point, Obito needed to decide where to go. Suddenly, Obito regretted that his alternate Jedi self had never been particularly studious. The information Obito desperately needed was probably stored in the archives. Obito could hardly go back there though, just as he could hardly quiz Jinn.

No, he'd have to somehow rely on his own knowledge, or perhaps fun facts Haruki had so eagerly blathered on about during that long trip to an unnamed ice planet. They hadn't talked about movement of the Force on planets but maybe his merely mentioning a planet gave it some importance or another.

But there was something else he needed to know and something he could get away with asking a compromised Jinn, "Does the Force know I'm here?"

"Here?" Jinn started.

"On Alderaan," Obito clarified.

Jinn thought about it and nodded easily, "It's very likely."

He motioned to Obito, still using and commanding his translucent body as if it were a solid and real thing, "While you can, and indeed have, cut yourself off from the Force it's in everyone else and everything. The Living Force is not simply in living, sentient, beings but also the rocks, the wind, the grass… No one can truly hide from the universe, Obito."

That was not exactly the answer Obito had been hoping for though it was the one he'd suspected.

Mortals did not challenge gods.

Jinn grimaced slightly at Obito's darkening expression then, softening his tone as if to soften the blow, he said, "I suggest, Obito, rather than running from the Force you should think of how to reconcile with it."

He motioned with blue hands to the cave, to the world waiting outside, "Like it or not, you live in our galaxy now, and fish should swim with the current of the river rather than fight upstream."

"I take it you've never heard of salmon," Obito shot back but Jinn was unmoved.

"Obito, this is not a fight you can hope to win."

"But it is a fight worth having," Obito spat back, "Or have you forgotten that so quickly?"

By the look on his face, he had. Jinn Qui-Gon had gone from panicked confusion and terror at the rearranging of his world, to relief at Obito's ability to see through it, and now to resignation and the beginnings of acceptance.

He still, despite everything, believed in the Force.

He believed, for whatever reason, that this was for the best. That perhaps the Force was, forgive the pun, forced in that Lee and Obito clearly intended to leave. This was not the best path forward, but it was the path that the universe actively chose to take in a way it never had before.

He thought Obito was noble but near sighted.

Well, perhaps that was true, perhaps man should never fight the universe, but Obito couldn't find he really cared.

He opened his mouth to say as much when the proximity wards started going off, "Shit!"

Someone was coming up the mountain, someone with enough chakra to give Obito a hard time, and Obito scrambled as he pulled the tablet he'd stored out of Kamui and began viewing the footage from the security droids he'd set up miles down from the cave.

And of course, they were all broken and reporting back nothing but static. Why had Obito even bothered?

"You," Obito commanded to Jinn, "Stay here and don't touch anything."

He then realized that he was talking to a man who couldn't touch anything if he wanted to. More, Obito hadn't left anything important out to touch.

"Just stay here," Obito corrected, motioning for Jinn to stay in place, as he began hurtling down the mountain.

Now who did they send?

If it was Lee or Anakin, they'd already be here by now, the alarms and magical shields wouldn't hold that raw power for more than two seconds. Yoda, he might be able to hold for a few more seconds but not much longer than that.

Whoever this was was having trouble with the unfamiliar English seals which meant it wasn't the best of the best, not the council and probably not a master either, and Obito didn't have to retreat immediately.

More, they'd probably unintentionally give him more than enough time to retreat. He could easily give them the run around, popping in and out of Kamui all over Alderaan, and by the time they really caught up with him the ship would be out of orbit.

A small part of him, the lingering Jedi part, did not have the resolve necessary to kill the people who had so recently been comrades and friends. These people were not evil, not even foolish really, they were just slaves to a being they could scarcely begin to comprehend.

Except they would not hesitate destroy him.

As soon as he caught sight of them he ground to a halt. They hadn't spotted him yet, Obito had made his way down quickly and used the mountainous terrain for cover, but they'd sense him soon and that'd be as good as if he was standing out in the open. For now though, they were too focused on the wards, unfamiliar techniques the Jedi had never picked up.

Which was good because Obito felt as if he could do nothing but stare at them and listen to his heart pound.

Of course, of course they sent Rin and Kakashi.

He'd almost forgotten they existed in this world now. He'd conveniently pushed them out of their mind, years of childhood friendship that matched all those years of friendship in Konoha. No, longer, here Obito had been friends with all of them since the very start of the academy. There'd been no meeting Kakashi as Minato-sensei's student.

Intellectually, he knew they weren't really Rin and Kakashi. They were cheap imitations, part of the expansive illusion, a little gift from the Force to one Uchiha Obito in order to keep him unquestioning and content.

Except they looked so real, the expressions, their state of disarray, even the way their chakra flared as they tried to break through the wards by brute force. Rin looked natural with a padawan's braid, just as Kakashi looked lightsaber seemed like it could be any one of the other blades Obito had seen him with in Konoha.

He'd only just seen Rin a few days ago and felt like he was over the moon simply because she'd smiled at him.

The Force, Obito suddenly realized, really had thought he could buy Obito off with Rin.

Unable to help himself, Obito stood from behind his cover and slowly made his way down to the pair of them, feeling like he was caught in a dream. At the sight of him they immediately backed away from the invisible wall of energy stopping them from ascending the mountain.

Rin moved behind Kakashi, never the fighter and shinobi she'd been in Konoha, while he drew out his lightsaber with a look of determination.

Obito stopped just in front of his own wards and waited.

For a moment three was only the howling wind and the hum of Kakashi's lightsaber.

What did they see when they looked at him? What did they feel? They didn't look confused, as if Obito wasn't quite as dark as they expected, but then even before the end of the world Kenobi thought Obito's soul was a terrifying thing. Perhaps the Force didn't need to lie, perhaps it had a point.

It took a very special kind of person to be fully prepared to kill his best friends.

Obito's soul very well could be nothing more than a hunk of scrap metal. But then, Obito couldn't find he cared.

Finally, Obito broke the silence, "Rin, Kakashi, lovely to see you."

He couldn't help but smile then, a bitter and twisted thing that no doubt confirmed all their worst fears, "And on such short notice, Kakashi, I thought you were stuck on some back water planet with an army of clones."

Kakashi didn't reply, didn't state the council had summoned him back immediately, or that he happened to be in the area. Instead he just tightened his grip on his sword and adjusted his stance, waiting to see what Obito might do next.

"Though, frankly, I'm more surprised at Rin," Obito said, "You can hold your own, had your braid chopped off for a reason, what the hell is the story with Rin?"

Finally, Rin broke, she held her hands up behind Kakashi in a gesture of peace, not yet drawing her own lightsaber, "Obito, please! You're sick, you need to come back with us."

Obito couldn't help but laugh, "Is that the line we're taking?"

Rin glowered but didn't let that stop her, "It's not a line, you know it's true just as much as I do."

"We both know you're not going to stick me in a bacta tank," Obito said, he expected her to flinch but she didn't. It seemed that the Rin of this world was starting to grow the spine of steel that Rin had in the other world.

Obito the Jedi only had memories of her sweetness in this place, her general hatred of violence which had led her to excel as a healer but not as a fighter, and had never questioned how one dimensional she'd seemed in comparison to a Nohara Rin he could no longer remember.

"It's true, you will be placed under arrest at first. We're going to put Force blockers on you and put you in an isolated cell in the temple, that's all true. That doesn't mean that you don't need our help, that doesn't mean you can't get better, but you have to try."

What was the Force getting at?

It didn't want Obito safely out of the way, not really, it wanted him gone. Stuck in the Jedi temple, even imprisoned with Force blockers, he'd be far too easily in Lee's reach. She could visit him daily, break him out if she so chose, and then where would the Force be?

The Force should be chasing Obito to the edge of the galaxy or else chasing him into the after life.

And even if they did bring him back and arrest him, they certainly wouldn't be letting him out even if he was on his best behavior.

Rin continued, edging forward, out from behind Kakashi, "Obito, listen to me! It's not too late, not yet, we can still help you. Whatever happened, whatever made you do this—"

Obito turned away and willed himself to stop listening. He couldn't watch this, couldn't look at her pleading with him to make the easier choice like it was breaking her heart. Even Kakashi, desperately releasing his feelings into the Force, looked as if he was on the edge of breaking.

Oh, the Force was good. It was cleverer than Obito had thought.

It could have sent Skywalker Anakin and they would have fought, probably to the death, and it would have been easy. Rin though, Rin and Kakashi, it hit where it hurt.

They aren't real, Obito thought to himself, nothing about them is real.

"And if I refuse?" Obito asked.

"You don't," Kakashi responded simply, "You're coming back whether you like it or not. You simply get to choose if it's the easy way or the hard way."

"Right," Obito said to himself. He forced himself to smile, offered the pair a cheerful little waive, "Well then, I'm afraid I must be—"

Just as he said that Kakashi struck down his blade, tearing through Obito's wards like a hot knife through butter, and lept through to the other side with Rin drawing her own blade behind him.

"You were waiting for me to show up," Obito appraised as he reached for his own lightsaber, "I can't decide if that was very stupid or very clever."

That was just like Kakashi, always so stupidly clever, pretending to be a fool to buy himself a chance to chat before the duel could start. Anyone else would never have bothered in the first place.

Of course, they weren't going to leave Obito enough time to disappear in thin air again. As Kakashi struck down Obito had to roll out of the way of Rin pushing against him with the Force.

For nothing more than illusions they fought well. Kakashi parried with the blade not with the Hatake style but instead the swordsmanship the Jedi had honed for thousands of years. Even in the middle of battle, the charade didn't drip away, they fought with heart break, as if they really were confronting a fallen friend who had betrayed everything they believed in.

What if they weren't just illusions? What if the Force had made people out of nothing, had put them together the way it had put Skywalker Anakin together, and set them loose in this illusion with false memories of being Rin and Kakashi?

They hadn't existed a few months ago but that meant nothing in this place.

With a growing sense of horror Obito realized that they very well could be real and they certainly believed they were Obito's childhood friends.

They weren't fighting to kill. Kakashi was being clever about it, he took the lead, forced Obito back, but this was sparring at best. Obito imagined if he dropped his guard Kakashi would look down at him with a look of horror and avert his blade at the last second. He was hoping to keep Obito distracted long enough that Rin could subdue him with the Force and jab temporary Force blockers onto his neck.

But Obito could never go back.

Obito dropped his blade onto the ground, watched as the light diminished back into the handle, and brought his hands into the familiar seal for mokuton. Suddenly, where Rin and Kakashi had both been standing they now found themselves tangled in the branches of a tree.

Obito summoned their lightsabers into his hands and, turning on the sharingan, made both his hands and the blade translucent and buried them into the ground.

They'd get themselves out. Certainly, they'd get themselves out of the tree as soon as they stopped looking so stunned. The lightsabers would take more time and while Kakashi could be stupid in the face of friendship he wasn't stupid enough to try and take Obito on without one.

And by that time Obito would already be halfway across the planet.

He considered them for a moment, their twin looks of shocked horror, their eyes pleading as they stared down at him. No doubt, they thought he'd ignite his lightsaber and cut off their heads.

He should kill them. They would only try and follow him. The Force would only use them against him to undermine his resolve. When Obito was cold, starving, wounded, and hunted with time against him they'd be there and this offer would start to look tempting.

Everywhere he turned, every planet he landed on, they'd find him and they'd be in this situation all over again. Next time, maybe they'd even succeed and he'd end up back in the Jedi clutches whether he liked it or not.

Then Obito would wind up in a tiny padded cell, sitting there to think about what he'd done, until he couldn't take it anymore and finally said "I give up, you win" to the great spirit in the sky. That, or the Force would decide he wasn't worth the risk and convince one of them to kill him.

The Jedi would send someone else next time, someone with far more experience, but anything would be better than this.

And yet, Obito always had been a sentimental fool.

Obito picked up his lightsaber and placed it back in his jacket, "Go home, you have a war to win."

"Obito!" Kakashi called after him but Obito turned around and started walking back up the mountain as if he had all the time in the world.

With that thought, he turned on the sharingan and allowed himself to slip back into Kamui. He'd work on the ship and in a few hours, he'd pop back into reality further down the mountain range in a different empty cave.

And even though he wasn't telling anyone where he was going, even though he didn't plan on having any sentient contact, he just knew he would see them again all too soon.

Next time, he'd set up wards Kakashi couldn't slice through with an overpowered sword.

The first sign of trouble was when the cameras all went out at once.

Even before the kidnapping, security for the chancellor's office and private quarters had always been high. In his long rule there had been many threats of violence and even assassination attempts that had kept the senate's security detail on their guard.

Of course, only since the kidnapping had they called upon the Jedi Order to provide a full-time and Force Sensitive guard. It wouldn't always be Anakin, he was needed too much during the war, but for a few months he would provide the best protection he could.

With Dooku dead and Grievous on the run though it was hard to focus on any threat. Any credible threat was gone, the war was so close to finishing Anakin could almost taste it. Without any leadership the Separatist cause would begin to crumble into factions and that the Order and republic could deal with.

Of course, that just meant the Separatists were getting desperate and desperate men do dangerous things.

"What happened to our visuals?" Anakin asked into the comm with a frown.

There was no sound of violence on the other end, no sound of panic even, "We don't know, they all just went out, we'll work on it and let you know when they're back online."

That… could happen, Anakin supposed. It wasn't very likely, especially for each camera to fail at exactly the same moment, but it could happen. Except he didn't like it.

Anakin felt the Force thrumming inside his head, not necessarily alarmed, but a little curious and a little wary. Something was coming, something that might be good or could be bad, but it wasn't anything the chancellor was expecting.

Anakin turned to the chancellor and began ushering him out of the room, "We need to go, sir."

The man smiled fondly, "So soon? Aren't you overreacting a little?"

"Call it a gut feeling," Anakin responded with a strained smile, "Besides, Master always says better to be too cautious than throw caution to the wind."

"Yes, well, it will get in the way of my paperwork getting done," the man grumbled but complied easily enough. He allowed Anakin to move him to the door and then make their way to the lift.

Ordinarily, Anakin would take the stairs in this kind of situation, but he was much younger than the chancellor and they were very high up. If they took the stairs there was a chance the chancellor wouldn't be able to make it all the way down them.

He pushed the button and waited, but it didn't light, in fact the lift showed no reaction at all.

Just like the cameras, the lift was broken.

"Looks like we're taking the stairs," Anakin said coldly.

He hadn't drawn his lightsaber yet, instead he reached once again for the comm, "You guys still have no idea what caused this?"

"Looks like the fuse blew," a voice responded leisurely, "All the cameras and the elevators are down, power's out in half the building."

Anakin paused. Power outages did happen, even on a planet whose weather and natural conditions were as controlled as Coruscant. It probably was nothing, he'd be making the chancellor descend hundreds of flights of stairs on a bad feeling that was probably nothing.

"Anakin?" the chancellor asked slowly, eyebrow raising as he watched Anakin waver.

He let out his breath, closing his eyes, and forced himself to say, "I'm sorry, sir, but we're really going to have to take the stairs."

"Are you certain that's wise?" the chancellor asked carefully.

He could stay here, after all, his private office was reinforced against blasters and with Dooku dead that left only one Sith unaccounted for. Anakin could run down the stairs himself, find the threat, and then run back to find the chancellor unharmed.

Except with all the cameras down someone could just as easily land on the roof as go up the stairs.

And wouldn't it be just like everything in Anakin's life for him to trust the safety of the chancellor's office only for the man to be murdered the second Anakin left?

"If I'm wrong you can take it out of my paycheck," Anakin said with a forced smile, opening the door to the stairwell and motioning for the chancellor to move first.

The man laughed, "Ah, I would, but I'm afraid the budget for the Jedi Order has already been set this year."

"Then I can treat you to lunch," Anakin countered as he distractedly peered down the stairwell.

So far, nothing, but then they were a lot of stories up and chances were the threat was going to come from many flights down. They'd wait for Anakin, for the chancellor, to exhaust themselves escaping the building.

"Do you sense something?" Palpatine asked, always interested in how Anakin interacted with the Force.

"No," Anakin finally said.

This wasn't quite true, he sensed something, but it was more like he was sensing the aftereffects of what was really happening and not whatever it was directly. The Force churned slowly, offering Anakin neither a sense of threat or assurance that all was well, just a sense that this wasn't the nothing people downstairs said it was.

"Out of curiosity," the chancellor said, not yet out of breath and holding up very well, "Have you spoken with your sister yet?"

Anakin's frown darkened, "I haven't had a chance."

Being the chancellor's security detail he'd barely had a chance to return to the temple at all. Most of his free time was dedicated to seeing Padmé, checking on her health and the child, and desperately trying to convince himself that vision was only a dream. He hadn't had time to research what the chancellor had told him about preserving life or hunt down his sister and demand her help in saving Padmé.

She'd know then, she'd know everything, but he also knew that she'd let their mother die and done nothing. More, if push came to shove, Anakin knew he was far stronger in the Force than she ever was. Mysterious powers or not, if it came to a fight, he would win.

From now on, she'd work for him.

For now, Padmé still had time, and Lee wasn't going anywhere either.

"I see," the chancellor said, and then, after a pause, he said, "I believe, Anakin, that we should return to my office."

Anakin stopped in his tracks, "That's not a good idea, sir."

"Better to be cornered there than on a stairwell," the chancellor said with a smile.

Shit, that wasn't wrong. Anakin had been assuming he could get the man out of the building before that happened but that had been when Anakin was able to use the lift. Chances were, whoever was coming up to meet them would catch up to them on the way down.

That wasn't like Anakin, to make mistakes like that.

Luckily, they hadn't gotten too far. It didn't take long to turn back up the stairs and reach his office. Anakin barricaded the door but he knew it probably wasn't worth much, if this was a real threat, a Force Sensitive threat, then they'd blow through that just as easily as they would the door itself.

Palpatine moved to sit behind his desk with a sigh, knitting his hands together, and looking far too calm about everything.

At Anakin's expression he said, "When you've been kidnapped and threatened as many times as I have I'm afraid it loses its impact."

Anakin barked out a laugh, "Well, it hasn't lost its impact on me yet."

"Good," Palpatine said with a smile, "I'm counting on you to protect me after all."

Yes, and Anakin would, he just wished he had some idea what was coming up to meet them. He was now certain that someone or something was, that it had clearly and easily infiltrated the building and escaped any kind of detection, but he still had no idea what it could be. It was as if… as if the Force couldn't quite touch whatever it was.

The lift door, the one Anakin was sure was broken, opened and the person Anakin least expected stepped out.

"Lee?!"

Lee strolled casually into the chancellor's office as if she knew exactly where she was and what she was doing. She barely spared Anakin a glance, only lifted her hand and threw him into the wall, "Out of the way, Anakin."

Anakin spluttered, trying to fight off the power holding him to the wall desperately, but something else was happening to him. The edges of his vision were going dark, the clarity of the world fading, and he realized dimly he was being put to sleep.

Not compelled to sleep through the Force, no, Lee was actually slowing down his heart for him and forcing his eyes shut.

He tried to move forward, but he was still glued to the wall, and the last thing he could make out was Lee reaching for her lightsaber as she approached the chancellor.

Then…

Then it was as if Anakin was floating away from his body and everything that came with it. He could still see the room and everything in it, just as if he was sitting there watching, but it was as if it was at such a far distance he knew nothing he could do would intervene with it.

Lee's blade didn't immediately strike down the chancellor as Anakin had expected. Instead, the chancellor deftly moved out of the way, smiling at Lee's presence. Lightning shot out of his fingertips, Lee ducking out of the way only just in time while he cackled.

"I don't understand," Anakin said slowly and then became aware that there was someone watching with him.

He wore the form of a man not so different from Anakin. A little shorter, slighter, hair a brighter yellow and eyes a paler blue but they would look similar from a distance. Somehow, instinctively, Anakin knew that the man only chose to look like this, in truth he had no body at all.

"Sheev Palpatine is a Sith," the man explained easily, "And it seems Lee Eru has come to exterminate him despite what it will mean for the Republic and the Jedi Order."

Anakin turned away from the action to look at him again, "What do you mean?"

"She knows that even should she defeat him he likely prepared for that eventuality. After all, he's known of her existence, the extent of her own knowledge, for years. She has decided that no longer matters. I didn't think she would."

The man motioned to the pair of them, "I thought she would take her padawan and run as far as she could. Perhaps, she'd try to take you, but you most likely would have turned her down. I never imagined she'd resort to this. She knows it will change nothing."

Anakin knew, if he'd been awake and in his own body, he would not be sitting here calmly either watching this happen or listening to what this man said. This wasn't the real world though, not truly, and because of that Anakin could not play by the real world's rules.

So, he just watched as Lee, finally, disarmed Palpatine and stowed her lightsaber, replaced it with a blaster aimed at the chancellor's head.

"She doesn't want to give away that she's a Jedi," Anakin said slowly, "That's why she blew out the cameras too."

"It will make no difference," the man next to Anakin said, "But then, it seems she's chosen that apprentice of hers over the Jedi Order, the republic, and the galaxy itself."

"The entire galaxy will look for her now, for any Jedi," the man continued, eyes narrowing as he watched Palpatine offer some final, desperate, warning to Lee, "Obito will be one among many and already on the run. After having eliminated the greatest possible source of corruption now all she has left to do is find him."

Then Lee shot Palpatine in the head.

For a moment, Anakin couldn't understand what he was seeing, couldn't believe it even for a second. This… This wasn't supposed to happen. Anakin had foreseen so much in his life but he'd never seen this.

Even now, staring at the man's body, it was as if it wasn't real.

And then a holo appeared, not just in this room but across the entire planet if not the galaxy. Lee did not even flinch as the chancellor's face, his whole untouched face, appeared.

"What's happening?" Anakin asked in growing terror.

"Chancellor Palpatine's pre-recorded message is being broadcast to the republic at large," the man said, standing and glaring across at Lee, "One in which he accuses the Jedi Order, rightfully so, of plotting against him and assassinating him. They are now enemies of the state."

"But we didn't—" Anakin couldn't finish the thought, because what if they had? What if the council had sent Lee? What if the Jedi really had been plotting against the chancellor? Obi-Wan had often been edgy about the man, never truly trusting him as the war had continued, and Obi-Wan was the council.

"Simultaneously, an executive order is being broadcast to the clone troops, one instructing the clones to turn on their commanding Jedi officers and eliminate them. Soon, the clones will raid and seize the Jedi temple, killing even the children."

The man's eyes slid to Palpatine, dead on the floor, "As for him, it's too early for him to leave yet..."

Anakin struggled to his feet, feeling as if he was fighting against a current, reaching out to the man and trying to understand what had happened.

The man didn't look at Anakin then, instead he stared across at Lee, as if he was only just beginning to see her, "She'll never stop until she finds him."

Then, just like that, he turned to walk away, disintegrating back into the universe at large, but even as he left he said a few final words to Anakin, "I will find you later, I will have work for you then."

"Wait!" Anakin cried out but the word was already lost in the ether.

The moment the man was out of sight Anakin was sputtering back into life, coughing and breathing heavily, and forced himself to look in horror at the chancellor's lifeless body and the otherwise empty office.

Lee, predictably, was already gone.

Author's Note: This almost was a 7k chapter instead of 9k but I decided, no, we will kill Palpatine in the same chapter. Too bad he makes sure that everyone goes down with him. Also, too bad no one accounted for Lee throwing her hat in the ring and saying "I'm tired of these snakes on this plane!"

Thanks for reading and reviewing, reviews are much appreciated.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, Naruto, or Star Wars