Chapter Text
Fire and ash everywhere. How fitting a stage for his last meeting with the man who has shared his life for so long. How far they’ve come in such a short amount of time. How it happened exactly, Obi-Wan doesn’t know. He can only guess but the mere thought of having let Anakin down to this extent is too much for him to handle at this moment. He needs to focus, to be able to fight.
Still, his thoughts threaten to overpower his control over them. It is his fault, it must have been… How could he be so blind, how could he let his brother turn?
The hologram was still engraved in his eyelids, burning his eyes each time he blinked. As he had stood next to Yoda in the hall of the burning temple, he had struggled to keep his face void of any emotion at the sight of the mutilated bodies. So many faces he had known all his life, now blank and pale. Some strange forewarning had compelled him to check the recordings. Then nausea. His hands had been shaking. How unfitting for a Jedi he had thought just before his legs collapsed under him, leaving him panting on the floor.
“Destroy the Sith we must”
I can’t do it, don’t ask me to, he’s my brother, he’s all I have left
But still… there he was
The ground stops vibrating. They’ve landed. Obi-Wan follows Padme, hiding.
Seeing Anakin feels like a punch in his gut. Force, he almost wishes his brother had been scarred the same way as Palpatine. He looks too similar to what Obi-Wan remembers, yet his eyes gleam in a way that made his skin crawl and his eyes burn.
It all happens in a whirl of fire and despair. Their lightsabers are drawn, they hit hard.
Obi-Wan loses himself in the familiar movements, block, hit, hit again faster.
His eyes find Anakin’s.
One step back, block, block again, two steps back.
His grasp is loose, his breath shortens.
His lightsaber clatters on the durasteel floor.
His knees follow.