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It was quiet in the corridor she was in. Too quiet.
Ahsoka held her breath as she palmed her lightsabers. Getting in was almost too easy. The Separatist droids were otherwise distracted by her battalion as she snuck into the stronghold. Inside she would find the controls to disable the shield, allowing her forces the forward momentum they sorely needed. But it also held something else. Their leader.
“You’ve grown taller.”
Speak of the Devil and He shall appear.
She swung around, her sabers already crossed in front of her in a defensive position.
“Grandmaster,” she greeted lightly. “It has been awhile.”
Obi-Wan was leaning against one of the columns, for all appearances looking like he was out for a casual stroll. The only indication that he was on alert were his unnatural golden eyes tracking her every move.
“I would invite you in for tea but,” Obi-Wan gestured to her brandished sabers and shook his head. He dropped his cloak (embroidered and colorful, nothing like the robes he used to wear) and reached for his lightsaber. “It looks like that will have to hold for next time.”
Ahsoka snarled and struck first. She killed a Sith once, and she could do it again. No matter that it was her former Grandmaster. No matter that Anakin used to sing his praises at every given moment, placing him on the highest pedestal. He wasn’t here now though, was he?
Her first strike was expertly parried by Obi-Wan, but she expected nothing less from the one who had been the acknowledged master of Soresu at the Order. The one who used to pass down his knowledge to younglings who blossomed under his instructions and praise with a patient smile.
That man was not in front of her now.
Mentally shaking off the memories, she drew back and solidified her stance. She circled around him as she tried to look for any weaknesses she could exploit. Much to her frustration, he had none she could spot. He was looking at her, calm and expressionless, reminding her of predators in the wild that placidly waited for their prey to tire before leaping.
Fine. If he did not have a visible weakness she could find, then she would have to make one. She had no illusions about her own capability, knowing Obi-Wan was always a far better duelist than her with the overwhelming amount of experience he had.
“I think you’ve slowed down a bit compared to before, old man,” she taunted. “Getting tired already? I thought we were just getting started.”
Obi-Wan’s composed face cracked the tiniest bit before smoothing over again at the nickname Anakin had always used for him. Gotcha.
“Smart quips have always been my thing,” he said. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to try better than that.”
He did not move from his defensive position, form sturdy like a wall. Ahsoka engaged again and hissed when his saber burned her shoulder as she dodged. There was something off about this whole altercation, almost as if he was buying time. She had seen what Obi-Wan was like on the offensive, tearing through troops like a hurricane. This was him holding back. But why?
She renewed her attacks, trying to overwhelm him. Obi-Wan defended, soon disarming her left lightsaber with a quick strike.
“Anakin has always told you to watch out for that. It seems you have not learned to protect your left,” Obi-Wan said.
At the mention of Anakin’s name, her blood heated up and boiled over.
“You have no right to speak his name,” Ahsoka said coldly, taking her saber back with the Force. She missed him every day, and there were times where she looked to her side still expecting him to be there, joking and laughing. After Naboo, she refused to take on a padawan, terrified of leaving behind the same gaping hole her Master dying had left her with. To have his former Master speaking of him even while he stood for everything Anakin would have hated drove her over the brink.
Obi-Wan smiled. It was a brief, small, bittersweet thing. In that moment, he looked ages older than he was. “Nevertheless. Your saber work has improved. He would have been proud of you.”
All Ahsoka could feel at the moment was rage; rage and agony twisting up all inside her body. Her plan had backfired. As she prodded for his weakness, so he had found hers in return. At this moment, the two were enemies but the same thread of grief connected them. They both endlessly mourned for the same man.
Just as she readied herself for another attack, the ground rumbled. Obi-Wan looked up and smiled.
“Seems like my reinforcements are here,” he said. “I’m afraid we’ll have to continue this another time.”
Ahsoka drew back, inwardly cursing. She had been hoping Rex and the others would be able to find another way in to disable the shields while she engaged Obi-Wan, but it looked like they’ll have to retreat for today.
As Obi-Wan retracted his lightsaber (red red red), she struck her final blow: “Anakin would not have wanted you to do this.”
She struck true. Obi-Wan’s face suddenly twisted, transforming into someone who terrified her down to the core.
“He would not have wanted me to do this?” Obi-Wan’s voice dropped, and somehow the lower volume was even more menacing than if he had shouted or screamed. “Then tell me: Where was the Council when you and him were on Naboo, trying to fight off a Sith without backup? Where were they when Maul stabbed him through the heart and laughed?”
Ahsoka took a step back, unnerved. His eyes seemed to blaze, seemed to bleed gold for a moment before they shuttered.
“No, Anakin may not have wanted this. But that doesn’t mean the Order, the Republic, didn’t do him wrong.” Obi-Wan turned away, serene once again. Having seen what lay beneath that fabricated calm, Ahsoka’s heart was still rabbiting away. “I’m merely rectifying that.”
It was only after he swept away, leaving his cloak on the ground, that Ahsoka realized every part of her was minutely trembling.
Here was the truth, or as much of the truth as Obi-Wan was willing to admit to himself. Everyday he woke up missing Anakin. To exist without him in the galaxy was agony, each breath drawn and exhaled an added burden.
No Master expected to outlive their padawan.
When Anakin and his padawan were on Naboo, Obi-Wan had been on a mission too far away to be able to get there in time. Nevertheless, he hadn’t felt real alarm upon receiving Anakin’s message claiming he spotted a Sith. He thought, falsely, that the Council would take Anakin’s warnings seriously. There were other Jedi close enough that could render their assistance. And besides, he trusted Anakin's abilities, his glow in the Force more than blinding. Of all of them, he had the best chance at subduing a Sith.
It was only later, after falling to his knees from the gut-wrenching feeling of an old training bond snapping clean away, that he realized how wrong he had been. After, he obsessively replayed the recordings of Anakin trying to hopelessly and helplessly ask for aid from the Council only to be refused outright because the Sith had not appeared for so long that the Council foolishly believed that they no longer existed.
Obi-Wan left the Order shortly after that.
It was too much to have to exist in the Temple that used to bring him peace but now brought only memories that caused him to gasp awake in the night, tears slipping off his cheeks and seeping into his pillow. The Light that used to greet him warmly slid from his grasp as his grief and rage came flooding in, overflowing from the brim and turning into hate.
And now he was just this. Sometimes when he looked in the mirror, he wasn’t sure if there was a monster living under his skin or if he had just become the monster himself. In his makeshift office, he paused from where he had just finished sending an order to his troops: Spare no one. In a moment, he would join them. But before then, his hand lingered on the holorecorder on his desk.
In his mind’s eye, he could still see Ahsoka, standing defiantly in front of him. Anakin’s legacy, as bright and fierce as Anakin had been. He had been telling her the truth when he said Anakin would have been proud of her. Anakin would never have wanted them to trade blows seriously as they just had.
But Obi-Wan had picked this path he walked down — he had no other choice. When he heard that the Council had accepted the army of clones offered to them on a silver platter, he could only laugh. Some part of him had perhaps hoped they might prove him wrong, that they would stick to their principles of protecting life. But of course, they showed their true colors upon choosing to use an army of slaves in order to protect the Republic. Where was the Order that he had grown up revering? The curtains had lifted, showing an illusion, a mere lie.
Oh, Obi-Wan knew what Sidious had planned for them. Sidious was a vile man who Obi-Wan hated working for, but this was just a temporary setup. Soon, Obi-Wan would dispose of his good old Sith Master and take control of his plans. See, Sidious had wanted the Empire for the sake of just having power. Obi-Wan thought that was rather short-sighted of him. Once Obi-Wan had the Empire, he could do anything. He could eradicate slavery, wipe it out so thoroughly until the word no longer existed. He could achieve all the things Anakin had always dreamed of, whispered to him in the dark while in between missions. It didn’t really matter to him anymore how they were achieved, just as long as they were.
As before every battle, he caressed the holorecorder before activating it. Anakin’s dear, dear face fizzled into being in front of him, for a moment so real he could almost pretend he was there.
“Master,” Anakin said, “I think there is a Sith on this planet.”
He paused. Obi-Wan could recite every word of this message, knew how long each pause in between his sentences were, every cadence of his speech. Instead of dwelling on that, he focused on absorbing and rememorizing Anakin’s ever-changing expressions. His ever expressive Anakin, a trait Obi-Wan was fiercely glad he and the Order had never been able to suppress or calm.
Worry was etched into Anakin’s face. He shifted back and forth, looking beyond the recorder for a second before turning his attention back.
“I’ve sent a message to the Council asking for assistance. There’s just Snips and me here in terms of Jedi presence, and I worry for her. She’s still so young…” Anakin trailed off before picking his train of thought back up. “Anyway, I just wanted to let you know, since we had both sometimes sensed Darkness in the galaxy. I think this is definitely the sign that there is more than one Sith out there.”
Obi-Wan smiled bitterly to himself. Where they used to be on the lookout for Sith to hunt, now he was one of them.
Anakin huffed out a breath and brushed his unruly curls from his face, the motion so familiar it was gut-wrenching. Obi-Wan wanted to be there, brushing the curls back for him. His want was so palpable he could feel the phantom sensation of it in his palms. In the holo, Anakin shook his head and smiled. “Anyway, we should be fine. Just take care of yourself, yeah? If I hear of you skipping three nights of sleep in a row again to do some boring research, I’ll personally make sure to sit on you the next time we’re in the Temple just so you’ll take a nap.”
Obi-Wan chuckled, remembering the many times Anakin had actually made true on his promise, and Obi-Wan had to suffer the humiliation of being sat upon, his datapad almost within reach but not quite.
Someone called for Anakin beyond the holo. He quickly acknowledged them before turning back. “I need to go, but we’ll talk later? I’m going to sign off now, Obi-Wan. Hope this doesn’t catch you in the middle of the night. And if it does, you better be asleep.”
With that final quip, Anakin reached forward to turn it off. Obi-Wan was left staring at the empty space where he was.
He didn’t know how many minutes had passed, but his comlink going off brought him back to the present. He took in a composing breath, and then glanced at the message from his troops. Good. They were ready for him to join them.
He took the holorecorder and locked it away in his most secure safe. As he stepped out the door, he touched the hidden lightsaber holstered at his belt. The last time that lightsaber was lit was years ago, where it flickered with pain as its owner was skewered through the chest. Obi-Wan never went anywhere without it, as it used to be Anakin’s. He touched it again to make sure it was still there and closed his eyes.
“This is for you, my dear,” he whispered, and stepped out.