A/N: Just an idea that popped into my head; we know that countless jedi were slain across the galaxy thanks in part to Palpatine-asshole!-and his treachery. We've also seen countless fics were some jedi survive. My question is this: have we seen a fic where Barriss survives? Addendum: have we seen a crossover fic where she sur

"By the Force...who is he?!"

~Bariss Offee.

Paragon Lost

Barriss Offee couldn't pin down shen she fist felt the disturbance in the force, only she did. One moment all was well upon Felucia; the next, it wasn't. The Separatists had been routed, their battle droids were being driven back, decimated by the scores. Victory was theirs and thus the one-time padawan and knight of the Republic, led her men on a triumphant charge out of the undergrowth and into a clearing.

That was when she first felt it; dozens, hundreds-no, thousands of deaths in the force. Jedi. They were gone. Not so much as having vanished, nor had they disappeared, either. They'd simply ceased to exist. Because they were dead. Barriss froze, her lightsaber falling from her fingertips and rolling across the earth to be lost in the verdant grasses of Felucia.

She scarcely even noticed it.

Their sudden abscence, was like a physical a wound in the Force, terrible and horrible, aching everywhere. Recently knighted though she was,the Mirilian jedi stumbled in confusion; staggered, battered and bereft by the sudden and unexpected loss of her friends and allies slain on words leages distant, and yet the pain was so powerful it nearly forced her to her knees.

"Execute Order Sixty-Six."

She froze as a voice pulled her from her misery; her head breaking the surface of her sea of doubt just in time to register the miniscule holoprojector in the clone trooper's handl displaying the minute likeness of a cloaked figure. That voice...where had she heard it before? She shook it off seconds after and misery was hers once more.

She never even heard the words:

"It shall be done, milord."

Bariss Offee could not quite say when it was that she died, only that she did. All was well one moment, the next, she felt the white-hot flash of a blaster bolt slam into her back and that was that. She pitched forward, reeling, pain searing across sides and stomach. Another bolt struck her. Then another. And another. She couldn't breathe, couldn't blink, couldn't bring herself to look over her shoulder, and in the eyes of her killer. She toppled forward into the grass and knew no more. In that instant as her lids slid shut, she never began to suspect they might ever open again.

But they did.

They opened to blinding light. It was everywhere. Surrounding her, enveloping her. Was this the Force? Had she become one with it in death as she sometimes had in life? She lay there for a moment and basked in it, the awesome power of life itself a being too massive for her to fathom.

Slowly, the currents swirled and took shape before her, forming a figure Barriss both knew and likewise cherished; the svelte form of Luminara Unduli.

"Master?" Barriss balked at the figure; for it was indeed her master parsecs distant on the forest world of Kashyyk. She knew at once that she'd passed on; her ghostly ethereal appearance was not of this world. So that meant...she, too, must be dead as well. So be it, then. She was sorrowed by her sudden and unexpected end, but she was willing to accept it, so long as she was here with her master-

"Your time is not yet finished, Barriss." her mentor's words came suddenly, to her as if on a breeze, though her mouth never moved. It was like watching the wind, reaching for something you couldn't grasp, yet knowing its existence all the same. She was left in awe by it, but also, confusion.

"Master, I don't understand."

"The Force has a plan for you yet, a plan which does not involve your death." The jedi master strode forward even whilst she spoke through their shared master/student bond. "You must live, Barriss. That is why I am here. You must live and you must learn from the mistakes we've made. Take heed for your visions, but beware the Dark Side."

"But-

Luminara Unduli said nothing more; she simply reached down and laid hands upon Barriss, touching the raw and blistered flesh of her former padawan's stomach. Barriss felt the life-energies of the Force, flowing through her master and into her, welling up inside her. It was as if she was a glass and had only been half-full untill now; only capable of unlocking half her true potential and prowess. Her mouth worked wordlessly, lips forming a ragged oval.

"Master...

Luminara's dark lips quirked in a small, sad, smile.

"May the Force be with you, Barriss."

And then the light was gone. She was falling, falling from the tapestry that was the force, plummeting through the black at a breakneck pace that left her mind befuddled and disoriented, falling falling falling forever...

Blue eyes burst open.

Barriss gasped as life returned to her body, her hands flying to her stomach, the very same place where her master had first touched her; alarmed to find that though the fabric was seared and torn, the skin beneath, was as whole as it'd ever been. A trooper must have noticed her sudden ressurrect; because someone shouted and suddenly, the massive, forward-facing guns of an AT-TE (Short for All-Terrain Tactical Enforcer) swiveled towards her. For a moment, the knight froze, indecision, rooting her in place.

What were the clones doing? Why were they attacking her? She reached for her lightsaber but her hand closed on empty airs and the massive machine's barrels, tracked with the movement. By the force, she realized, they're really going to do it. They are really going to-

"Fire!" ordered one of the troopers.

Bariss braced herself for the fire and the flame...only, there was no fire. Even as the republic AT-TE opened fire, Bariss Offee heard a sickening crunch of metal, followed by a deafeaning explosion. Barriss flung an arm before her face as a wall of wind slammed into her, lifting from her feet and hurtling her across the clearing.

Where the AT-TE had been, there was only a smoldering wreck; black smoke belching from the ruinated metal, mingling with the fire and the flames. Bodies lay scattered about; some unmoving others, just beginning to rise from the wreckage of what must've been a spectacular explosion

"Attacking an unarmed civilian isn't very nice, ya know?!"

Barriss's head whipped back and forth like a puppet severed from its strings. The voice seemed to come from everywhere, at once; above her, beyond her, behind her and the forest at her back. She balked as hail of-where those knives?!-fell from the sky like rain, descending upon the troopers with deadly precision, piercing their durable armour as though it were made of all but tissue paper.

As if that weren't enough, there were the sounds:

There came the sharp staccato of blasterfire; a susuration of whispers rising and falling amist the screams and shrieks of the dead and dying, an eerie crescendo that would likely haunt her nightmares for some time to come.

And above it all rose a sound Barriss had come to know and respect, yet now one she feared. The sound of a lightsaber. Her lightsaber.

She'd dropped it in the confusion and now it blazed bright in the hands of another. A man. Rough locks of deep and vibrant gold shaded a whiskered viasge so fierce that she flinched at the sight of it. His movements were fluid yet clumsy, graceful and awkward those of a trained warrior; albeit one who'd never so much as handled a lightsaber in his lifetime. And...yet... despite of that, or perhaps in spite of it, he held his own.

He spun like a top, deflecting each shot with rapidity, but no control. It would have been laughable, were the situation not so terribly dire. He was just one man, and more and more clones, were bringing their blasters to bear upon him. How could one so unskilled possibly deflect so many bolts?

And suddenly, there were others. Barriss blinked, certain she'd sustained a concussion; because they looked exactly like him; because each held the visage of her saviour, down to the slightest detail.

He stood amongst these countless others, each, a flawless duplicate of himself, right down to his attire; loose, fitting slacks, sleeves and a dull, mud green flak jacket. His blue eyes burned like stars behind her lightsaber, his mouth set in a grim line whilst he took to the fight to the clones, hacking and slashing and stabbing into those very same men who'd been under her command only a few minutes before. They set upon the clones with an almost frantic fervour, strike and cut with those odd knives of theirs, whilst the original-or at least she assumed him to be-fumbled with the blue beam of her lightsaber, spouting curses all the while as he struggled to deflect the occasional bolt that came her way

"The hell do you work this thing?! Screw it!" He roared like a rancour and bounded forward, his speed transforming that blue-white blade into a figure eight as he attacked. Within minutes, they were dead. Men who had fought under her, died for her, served and obeyed without thought or need or hesitation...gone. Just like that. She glanced about, stunned by the death and the blood, shocked to feel...relieved. Her stomach churned. These men were dead and she felt relieved!

Relieved!

She felt like a youngling all over again; she didn't know what to say, what to do, or even what to think! This man, had saved her. Come from out of nowhere to pluck her from the depths of despair, and she had no words for him. She didn't even know who he was!

Her saviour made a gesture with his good hand and his dopleganger army vanished, dissipating into so much smoke. Barriss balked at the sudden display; where had they all gone? He turned towards her with a sigh, his blue eyes like winter skies, all too confused, and far too cold for her liking.

"You alright?" he asked.

Barriss managed a nod.

The man grunted, but made no move to extinguish the ligthsaber. He glared at her. Glanced at the clones. Back to her. Back to the clones again. Back to her. She felt his emotions through the force; fear, anger, confusion, sorrow, overcome by an old and overwhelming sense of loneliness. And there, there just a touch of Force sensitivity. Barriss processed all of these things in an instant and understood them as he strode towards her, lightsaber sizzling through the air like something alive.

"Which brings me to my next question." He made no effort to slow. "Where are we?"

"Felucia." She gave the answer numbly, uncaring.

"Never heard of it." he frowned, shrugging. He'd reached her now, looming over her like some forsaken deity. Blue eyes cold and black blazed out at her.

"Next question.

He thumbed her head up with the blue blade, its tip sizzling just beneath her chin. His eyes were chips of diamond sapphire, glittering in the setting sun. Barriss, could feel the heat of the blade-her blade-searing into her skin, but even so, she found herself nearly guffawed at what came next.

...where the bloody hell is Felucia, and why the devil is your skin green?"

A/N: Whatever might Bariss's destiny be? And Naruto with a lightsaber but with no idea as to how to use it...I just found that amusing. "How the hell do you work this thing?!" How indeed...or more importantly, how did he wind up in the Star Wars universe to begin with? Will other jedi be saved? Or will Barriss be the only one? You'll have to stay tune for the next chapter of...

...Paragon Lost!

The idea struck me after reading The Good Left Undone by Darth Malleus. The man is a brilliant writer and more than once I found myself laughing out loud.

Then I wondered...what might've happened in a different situation, were a different Naruto, to encounter Bariss Offee as opposed to Aayla Secura? Granted, I have no intentioning of copying the format of Darth Malleus, but it inspired me, his idea did, to try one of my own.

Naruto isn't quite a badass in this fic as he is in that one, but hey, he'll have his moments. Just to clarify he still has all of his shinobi war abilities; control of the Kyuubi, Sage Mode, Rasenshuriken, etc, and might, perhaps be a tad force sensitive.

I've a fair idea of where I want to take this, but I just wanted to get this out there between updating Dark Side of the Moon and my other fics.

I suppose this is the result of that finished product, ne?

And so, in the immortal words of Darth Vader...

...REVIEW! It is your destiny!

R&R! =D