My mask.

All this accursed mask does is conceal my failure.

My failure to my friend. Obi-Wan, my alleged best friend, the only person in the entire corrupted order that had believed in me to the last. But also selflessness, something I never possessed. He was willing to kill me to ensure that the Sith decay would end with Sidious.

Had he only knew that the corruption was all around him. In the Senate, the Republic, the Jedi, all with fouled roots showing. Had he only realized that I knew what to do, that I knew what was best. Had he only knew that I had only been trying to save him.

My failure to…her. To my wife. Padme. The first and LAST person in this universe that will ever have any love for Anakin Skywalker. Not only did Sidious kill her, but our child, as well. I was only trying to save her as much as Obi-Wan! All I saw was her death, her screaming in pain as her last breath was taken from her. All I had ever done was for her, to keep her with me, and away from that tragic fate I had forseen.

I see now.

The mask does not conceal my failure so much as become it. Failure conceal my face.

The face of a man who is dead.