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The building fractures around them, walls shaking and splitting as the temple breaks, and the screech of stone on stone reverberates in Ahsoka's montrals, chunks crumbling from the ceiling in a hail of rock.
Ahsoka is barely aware of the extra hazards, mind running at triple speed as she narrowly avoids strike after strike from Vader's blade, calling on the living force to revitalize her exhausted muscles. It is more sluggish than she expects, strangely still and shimmering; and there is a calm silence to it instead of the prickling warnings and whispers she's used to relying on in battle. She's forced to rely on her own reflexes instead as it guides her into Vader's path instead of away from it, the red glow of his blade a source of gravity in the force.
A part of her wants to curse it for deserting her like this, in the moment she needs it most, but the rest of her knows that this isn't abandonment. The force is here, as always, but there are no more warnings to give. She's not making it out of here alive, not this time.
The last hope of that had winked out when Ezra had run, when she'd thrust her sabers into the floor and called upon the full might of the force to bring the temple down on both of them.
Neither of them are making it out of here alive.
But Ahsoks refuses to fall by Anakin's hand, to let that of all crimes stain his conscience, and so she pushes back when the force pushes her forward, leaning into a lifetime's worth of training. Her vision narrows to nothing but his blade and hers, kyber pulsing in her palms as she twists under another strike. Hot plasma passes so close it sears her skin, and she grits her teeth, raising her blades to catch his next blow.
She's not quite fast enough.
A line of red sweeps downward, throwing the painfully familiar planes of his face into harsh shadow, and his Sith-yellow eye glints with cold reflected light.
Death, the force whispers, the crackling overlap of Dark voices hissing in her ear.
A tipping point. Ahsoka sees herself balanced on a knife's edge. Sees herself fighting, pushing back. Sees a blade cleaving through her, shoulder to hip, slicing through heart and ribs and severing lekku to stumps.
Death, the dark whispers.
There is no death, she responds, there is the force.
When Vader's saber falls a millisecond later, it finds nothing but air.
***
Vader's death lingers.
She can feel the pain of it; not through the force, as she had when she was alive, but through herself, vibrating in her montrals and her skull. Pain where tons of rock pin down the working remnants of his limbs. Pain in his scarred throat as he struggles for oxygen; in the constant sting and ache of unhealed burns and misanchored prosthetics.
Unlike her, he doesn't give in easily. He fights for every scrap of life as it trickles away, clawing at the force like it's drowning him.
Ahsoka kneels beside him, and doesn't leave as the force tears at him, ripping away what he won't give and taking it back by force.
The twisted energy of the temple snaps hungrily at the pieces, and Ahsoka weaves a bubble around them both, holding the scattered strands of his presence close.
"Just let go, Master," she says, wrapping her fingers around his. She pokes at the space in her mind where their broken bond had once been, and it’s as easy as breathing to form a new one, a tether tying him to her. "Hold my hand. I'll show you the way."
She hadn't known he could see or hear her--or maybe he hadn't been able to, up until that moment--but he turns and glares at her, his exposed eye still burning that same furious gold.
"You're--dead." His voice is a hissing, half broken whisper, only audible through the force. "I killed you."
"There is no death, Master," she says, corner of her mouth ticking slightly as she kneels beside him and rests her hand on his chest.
"Padmé… Padmé's dead."
Ahsoka shakes her head. "Padmé is the force. Come with me. We can find her. Her and Obi-Wan and Master Plo and..."
Her voice breaks.
"Not Obi-Wan." Vader's eyes close. "Couldn't… couldn't kill him."
"You let him escape?"
A sharp spike of rage flares through their bond, along with brief flashes of a fiery planet; a blue saber blade, the smell of burning flesh.
"No," he snarls.
It's a short answer, but it tells her enough. Ahsoka can still feel the pain of Vader's burns through the force, old but still raw. The missing limbs. She'd wondered what could have possibly done that to a dark lord of the Sith, and now she knows. Obi-Wan.
Obi-Wan had fought Anakin, had probably tried to kill him, and ended up leaving him to die.
It's somehow more horrific to imagine it that way than the other way around. Anakin had been more than just a brotherly figure to Obi-Wan--he'd been almost a child, and the thought of Obi-Wan ever hurting him was almost too wrong to even accept.
Ahsoka wants to ask why, but doesn't have to. Because it's obvious. Because she already knows.
"Why'd you do it, Master?" she asks, squeezing her eyes shut--because that--that--is something she can't understand. How Anakin could fall.
"The powers of the dark side…"
She shakes her head, biting her lip. "You never wanted power."
"Dying." Anakin coughs. "Padmé. Needed her to… not. Could have saved her."
"We'll find her," Ahsoka promises. She can't squeeze his hand any harder without her fingers falling through it, so instead, she intensifies the waves of fierce love sent down their bond. "You just have to trust the force and let go."
"Don't…" his voice fades out. "Don't trust the force."
"Trust me," Ahsoka says.
Another heaving gasp of air, and Vader lets go.