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The cell was cold and ominous. Obsidian walls that swallowed light. A single black slab.
Slats above the door shed thin ribbons of red neon from the hall. An inhospitable place, rife with the sting of evil.
Ahsoka had not felt such a dark presence since she came in front of the Son, and it was even stronger than on Malachor.
Pungent. Desperate. New.
She waited in the dark, legs crossed, and sunk deeper into the feeling. She could see the light around the edges, illuminating the shape of the man she once knew.
Vader.
…
Anakin.
It was difficult to conflate the two.
To even suggest that they were somehow similar.
Yet she had seen him. His bright yellow eye staring from within the mask.
She had heard him. His voice, mangled by his broken breathing apparatus, familiar and foreign all at once.
He spoke differently now.
Moved differently.
Ahsoka wanted to believe he fought differently, but that remained.
The aggression, the precision, the confidence. Every grip and form that she had learned from so eagerly as a padawan, poised against her beneath that sparking sith holocron.
Her brow furrowed as she searched further. She could feel her wrists shaking, her fists tightening. She felt more. She felt him.
The cell door hissed.
Ahsoka did not startle, but her eyes shot open.
Two troopers stood in the doorframe, blasters cocked and ready. They were silent guardsmen, heralds of some other threat to come.
Ahsoka swallowed her fear.
“What do you want?” she asked. “Come to pry me for the rebel base again?”
A dark figure moved into view, backlit by the red lights of the hall, hands tucked behind his back.
“There are others who will discuss that subject more readily,” the Moff said. “You, Miss Tano, have more pressing uses.”
“Tarkin,” she snarled, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”
“It seems it is time to assess your progress,” he replied sternly, staring down his nose at Ahsoka in her wounded form. “Lord Vader requests your presence.”
“And he sent you? What, are you the errand boy now?”
Tarkin glared, his gaunt features hardening. “I’m the ensurer,” he said. “I believe we both know how valuable you are to the Empire. It would be a shame if anyone…misplaced you.”
He turned swiftly to his entourage. “Take her,” he instructed. “See to it that she has nothing.”
The troopers descended into her cell, searching and cuffing her. They shoved her up the shallow steps to the hall, and Ahsoka felt all of her weakness.
She leered at Tarkin as she approached him, but held her tongue.
He looked more satisfied than anything.
Any words said to him are wasted, she reminded herself.
The Death Star, even in its incomplete state, was a labyrinthine monstrosity.
Its existence alienated life. The thought of being trapped within the impossible confines of a world created only to beget death, it was haunting.
It was all Ahsoka felt as they marched her endlessly through its shadowy depths.
She often wondered, when she had the displeasure of seeing its corridors, if she could have prevented its creation.
If only she knew.
It had been so long. She wondered if the other arms of Fulcrum were still searching, or if her presumed death was simply a long time coming.
The elevator they were in came to a halt. The Moff put his cold hand on her shoulder, pushing her forward.
She bit the inside of her cheek to dispel the discomfort.
“Leave us,” Tarkin ordered the troopers as they exited the lift.
The corridor in front of them was unlike any before it. Eerie and narrow, with ceilings that disappeared into the darkness. Scarcely lit, exuding a gloom of sorrow.
He was so close now.
She could almost hear his breath, a death rattle for most.
“Walk,” Tarkin said in a low voice.
Ahsoka obliged.
Her hands rubbed against the cool metal of her handcuffs. She could see the locking mechanism in her mind, but that was a futile attempt for more foolish times.
“He should know that this is a waste of time,” she said, not looking back at Tarkin when she spoke. “It’s been nearly two years. What does he think will change?”
“Lord Vader may not permit me to harm you, but he never said I should allow you to speak,” he snarled, shoving her forward.
“I didn’t know you were so fond of me,” Ahsoka replied coyly.
“You do not know who you are trifling with.”
“All I know is that you serve Vader, and that Vader hasn’t wished me dead…yet.”
Yet. Ahsoka shivered with the possibility.
Tarkin said nothing, clearly disinterested with entertaining her further.
For both their sakes, they had arrived at the entrance to Vader’s realm.
It was a vast room, with pillars of metal and wires running up the bare machinery of the Death Star’s carapace.
A large octogonal window helmed the chamber, looking out into the expanse of stars.
Their shine reflected off of the dark sheen of Vader’s suit. A body that seemed to dispel all light that touched it.
“Lord Vader,” Tarkin said bitterly. “Tano, as you requested.”
A few cycles of automatic breathing passed before Vader replied.
“Good,” he said, his voice low and warbled. “you may leave us.”
“I believe we were to discuss my initiative in the Outer Rim,” Tarkin protested.
“What you believe is not always what is, Grand Moff.” Vader turned slightly, the starlight glinting off his helmet. “Leave us.”
“...As you wish, my Lord,” Tarkin said, bowing as much as his dignity would allow him.
He glared at Ahsoka as he went, and for a split second, she felt on trial once more. That feeling never left her, especially not when confronted with her persecutor.
With Tarkin gone, the chamber was starkly silent, save for the mechanical wheezing of Vader’s suit.
Ahsoka’s throat tightened, desperate to say anything.
Anything that wouldn’t feel like speaking to a dead man.
“I know it's you behind that mask,” she began, her voice hollow, “but every time I have to force myself to believe it.”
“As you said on Malachor,” Vader replied. “A promise of vengeance, so unlike my expectations. You continue to defy them. I find it…troublesome.”
“That’s what you find troublesome? That I refuse to play Jedi or Sith for you?”
“It would lift a burden for both of us.” Vader turned to face her. “The Emperor grows weary of your obstinacy.”
Ahsoka laughed sourly.
“You think this is what power looks like? Servitude?”
“Master and Apprentice. That is the path of the Sith, only until the apprentice overtakes his master, and consummates a new power, greater than both were alone,” Vader said.
He approached Ahsoka, his shadow stretching over her face.
“Together, we would be a singular power, unmatched by my master, untouchable by the galaxy. His impatience would be naught for us.”
“It’s too late for that,” Ahsoka said, her eyes downcast.
“Have you lost your faith?” Vader asked. “Upon our last meeting and all times before you were wrought with insistence. It sickened me to hear, but it was not surprising.”
“Do I surprise you?” Ahsoka jeered.
“I know all of you,” said Vader. “I know you wish to join me.”
“You’re wrong,” she insisted. “You do not know me. My master knew me, and you replaced him. You are everything that I despise, and all that I regret.”
Vader towered over her, his rage clouding the Force like ink in clear water.
“I destroyed Anakin Skywalker,” Vader clarified, his voice cold with resentment. “He is no longer. You worship his weaknesses. This will be your undoing, as it was his.”
He waved his fist, and Ahsoka’s cuffs fell to the floor.
“I see that I have wasted too long on your pitifulness. Either join me or meet your master’s fate.”
“I said I would avenge him once,” Ahsoka said, rubbing her wrists, “that hasn’t changed.”
She felt tears welling in her eyes and pinched herself to hold them back.
“At least give me the dignity of a saber.”
“There is no need,” said Vader.
He lifted his fist, clenching the air.
A white heat shot through Ahsoka’s body.
Her feet grazed the ground, and she felt her throat constrict.
Her welling tears streamed silently down her cheeks.
Through all of that rage, she searched desperately for any sign or solace, but the Force was silent.
She gritted her teeth, fighting his dark hold upon her.
It was only the darkness itself that could save her.
All of her misery, her loss, her abuse, it enveloped her.
Her arm strained to lift itself, and her vision was blackening at the edges, but there was power in pain.
Vader’s fist crumpled, and Ahsoka dropped to the floor, grasping her throat as she heaved for breath.
Vader stepped back, his fist still trembling.
Ahsoka pushed herself off of the ground.
Her vision was still blurry, but she could sense Vader’s unease running like a current between them.
“Please,” she whispered hoarsely, “it doesn’t have to be this way.”
Vader raised his fist to choke her once more, but he faltered, lowering it slowly.
He said nothing.
“I won’t– I can’t believe there is no good in you,” Ahsoka pleaded.
“I saw it. On Malachor. That was you, Anakin, I know it was.”
Her entire body was shaking as she took careful steps towards Vader.
“Two years you’ve kept me here, two years. Time and time again you summon me, always hoping that my mind has changed, that my resolve has broken.”
She clutched her trembling hand to her chest.
“But it never will. Not as long as I’m alive. Because I was sent to save you, Anakin,” she said.
“From our first meeting on Christophis, to this hell you’ve sealed upon yourself. I built a rebellion bent on saving you. At first, I thought you were dead, and it damned me more than you can know.
But your presence was irrefutable. When I felt you for the first time…felt Vader…I tried everything to evade the truth, to convince myself it wasn’t possible.
Now that I know, now that I’ve seen what you have become, I will never forgive you for it.”
She knelt before him.
“But more than that, I will never forgive myself. Not for leaving you, and not for being so blind to your suffering.”
She looked upon him in all his horrific glory.
“That’s why I would never forgive myself…if I were so blind today.”
She wanted so desperately to surrender herself to grief then, to never hear what Vader had to say, but she did not.
She bowed her head and waited for a blade to reap her.
“I knew not of your survival,” Vader said. “I thought you had perished when the Empire rose. The Emperor told me it must be so.”
“Did you feel it too?” Ahsoka asked, “when the Force spoke between us? That terrible feeling that followed, like a thousand fires?”
“I thought it to be a trick of the Force,” answered Vader.
“So did I.” She shook her head. “I thought I was trapped on Mortis again, living some terrible dream. A prophecy made to deceive me.”
“You think skeptically of the powers of the Force. The dark side empowers you. How you do not see the Sith way, it still eludes me.”
“How can you think that way?” Ahsoka exclaimed suddenly, jumping to her feet. “You sound just like the Council!”
“Just like—” Vader’s breathing drew heavily.
“So– so set in your ways!” she yelled, “Thinking there must be a way to do things, that the galaxy must adhere to an ancient dogma.
That somehow, either all attachment is sinful, or in your case now, that all darkness is an adherence to the Sith! Why can I not walk pathless? Have I not always been a stray?”
She lowered her voice, her chest rising and falling rapidly.
“Why could you not live the way you wished…back then?”
A silence between them.
“The way I see it, it’s the same thing. Neither of us made excellent Jedi. But that doesn’t mean we have to become Sith in return. There are…other roads.”
Vader turned away.
Nothing was said for a long time.
Ahsoka wanted to fear her coming death, but she could not convince herself that it was truly approaching.
She knew better.
The stars turned in the black heavens.
The Death Star groaned with the weight of death.
“Leave,” Vader said between automated breaths.
“...What?”
Ahsoka froze.
“I said leave. There is an escape pod behind the generator room.”
This is impossible. He is going to kill me if I move.
“Where– where do you want me to go?” Ahsoka asked, her voice trembling.
“Any road but this one,” Vader answered.
His hands were clenched tightly together behind his back.
He would not look at her.
Ahsoka nodded silently and began to walk away.
Before she opened the generator room door, her gaze slipped.
She watched her old master, or the husk that remained, and it felt like dying.
“I’m going to come back for you, Anakin,” she said quietly. “That will be the last time I save you, it’s more than you deserve.”
But it’s what you want more than anything in the galaxy.
Vader said nothing.
Ahsoka closed the door behind her and walked blindly through the pitch-black room to the small escape pod.
With two years unimaginably fading behind her as she descended into the cosmos below, she vowed her final words as truth.
Return she would, or another; one who could save the savior, and the galaxy in turn.