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She had always known her master cared more than a Jedi should. She had always known her master felt more than a Jedi should. But today…today was…so much different .
They’re grounded to the Negotiator which sounds kind of funny except for the fact that Commander Cody actually follows Master Kenobi’s orders, unlike Anakin, which means he has his men keeping a close eye on them to prevent them from slipping out.
Which means her master has been in a very bad mood all day.
“This is stupid ,” Anakin snarled, kicking the wall for the fifth time in ten minutes. “We should be out there helping him!”
“It’s just negotiations, Skyguy,” Ahsoka soothed. “You would have hated it there too.”
“But I felt something dangerous there, Ahsoka,” Anakin told her, turning to scowl down at her. “And I told him and he said he didn’t feel anything! He didn’t believe me!”
Ahsoka pressed her lips together. She’d been there when Master Skywalker had told Master Kenobi about his worries and the older Jedi hadn’t said anything about not feeling anything or not believing his former Padawan.
“Hmm…I haven’t noticed any change,” Master Kenobi had said, stroking his beard in thought. “But I will keep an eye on it. Thank you for telling me, Anakin. I’ll be sure to stay on my guard.”
Lately, Anakin had been angry a lot. And Ahsoka had always noticed that then angrier he got, the more visits he made to the Chancellor while they were on Coruscant.
“Chancellor Palpatine is my friend,” Anakin had explained the one time she’d commented. “ He listens without judgment and doesn’t worry if some things I say might…stray close to or over the line of breaking the Code.”
Ahsoka didn’t trust the Chancellor. He gave her the creeps and she didn’t like the way her master felt wrong in the Force when he came back. Corrupt was the first word that came to mind, when she tried to describe the off balance feeling her master’s Force signature gave her, after a visit, but that…
Politicians could not be trusted but surely they weren’t powerful enough to make a Jedi fall.
Right?
“We have to get down there and help him,” Anakin decided. “Whatever I’m feeling is getting stronger .”
“I agree with you, Master, but how? Commander Cody actually follows orders, unlike us, there’s no way to sneak past him.”
“Oh yeah?” Anakin asked. “Obi-Wan always told me there was no way to get out of the Temple without being caught and yet I snuck out almost every night to podrace.”
“Isn’t podracing illegal? And extremely dangerous.”
“Yep.” He looked way too proud of himself.
“How old were you?”
“I don’t know, five?”
Ahsoka was suddenly understanding why her master didn’t take his own safety seriously.
“Right,” she muttered. “So have you got a plan?”
“We’re going to wing it.”
Of course they were.
………………………….
“By wing it, I didn’t think you meant set fire to the canteen!” Ahsoka hissed as she and Anakin crossed the grounds of the planet, heading towards the large government building where Obi-Wan was sitting through negotiations.
“It worked , didn’t it?” Anakin snapped in a tone more heated than it should have been. “And anyway, I didn’t see you coming up with anything better!”
Ahsoka pulled back in shock, coming to a complete stop as she watched him storm ahead. For a brief moment, she didn’t see her master in front of her but rather someone much taller, dressed in all black with a red saber at his side.
But within a moment he was gone and replaced with the Anakin she knew and so she just shook her head and hurried to fall back into step with him. He sighed when she was at his side again.
“Sorry,” he told her. “I didn’t mean to snap. I’ve just been frustrated lately. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. It’s the war I’m mad at. I guess I’m just tired of it all.”
“I am too,” Ahsoka agreed. “I hope it ends too.”
Anakin was silent for a moment before murmuring, “Sometimes I feel like it never will. Sometimes I feel like this is our new reality. That every single day, we’re going to have to wake up and fight and lose good men and it’s never going to stop.”
“I feel that way too,” Ahsoka said. “But…I also know I shouldn’t think like that. Because that’s just going to make it harder to carry on. So…so I have to believe that it’ll end someday, because if I don’t, I don’t think I could ever get out of bed again.”
“Soon,” Anakin murmured.
Neither of them called him out on the lie.
………………………
You’d think that negotiations involving a man called The Negotiator would go smoothly. You would think, yet at the same time Obi-Wan also happened to be a magnet for trouble so of course , he was surrounded by droids, taking heavy fire by the time Anakin and Ahsoka made it to the large room of the government building.
“Obi-Wan!” Anakin shouted when a blaster caught his master in the thigh as soon as he and Ahsoka entered the room. Pure terror the likes of whcih Ahsoka has never flet flooded their bond, crippling her as her master lunged forward and into the fray without a thought.
She gasped, clutching her chest and struggling to shove her master’s feelings away and close their bonds, filter out his emotions, before jumping into the fight as well. Every now and again, she could have sworn she saw the red flash of a Sith’s saber out of the corner of her eye but every time she looked over towards it, all she saw was her master.
Every once in a great while, she would see a man in all black, face covered and masked, watching them from the shadows. No, not them. Just ehr master.
Just Anakin.
A voice that sounded like Master Koon’s whispered softly in Ahsoka’s mind.
Fear.
She frowned and checked herself, but she wasn’t afraid. She was focused , that was the difference.
Fear . The voice said again.
But fear of what?
…………………………
“Anakin, leave them,” Obi-Wan pleaded, tugging on Anakin’s arm to try and prevent the Knight from storming towards the planet’s leaders, watching nearby where they had been chained to the wall after the droids had been defeated and they had reluctantly revealed htat they were now in allegiance with the Separatists and had been instructed to lure Jedi here to kill them.
“They hurt you,” Anakin growled, looking over Obi-Wan’s injury on his thigh.
“The droids hurt me,” Obi-Wan corrected gently. “Not them.”
“They lured us here to kill us!”
“They did,” Obi-Wan agreed calmly. “But they failed. Leave them, Anakin.”
“They’re in allegiance with the Separatists.”
“And if we hurt them then we’re not better than the other side.” Obi-Wan’s grip tightened on Anakin’s wrist. “ Leave them , Anakin.”
Anakin narrowed his eyes. “Is that an order?”
“Will you listen to me if it is?”
Ahsoka feels it in her bond with Anakin as Master Koon’s voice murmurs in her mind,
Anger .
Yes, she agrees as Anakin helps Obi-Wan to his feet, the older Jedi waving him off with the insistence that he’s fine. Her master is indeed very angry right now. Angrier, perhaps, then she has ever seen him.
Fear leads to anger.
Ahsoka shifted, subtly shaking her head as Obi-Wan and Anakin bicker. That’s…that can be true, certainly, but…but that’s not true here. Surely it’s not true here. Yes, her master had been fearful for the life of his master and soon after, angry at those who had hurt him, but surely the two were unrelated.
Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate.
Ahoska shuddered as cold dread washed down her spine and her master’s voice echoed through her mind,
“I hate you!”
“You were my brother, Anakin! I loved you!”
Swallowing thickly, Ahsoka watched Anakin storm out of the room, having lost his argument with Obi-Wan, whatever it had been about. But as he walks away, it’s not Anakin Skywalker she sees.
All she sees in a man in all black, a glowing red blade hanging at his side.
Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.
“I thought I knew who you were under that mask. But it’s impossible. My master could never be so vile.”
“Anakin Skywalker was weak. I destroyed him.”
Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.
Ahsoka startled when she felt Obi-Wan’s hand settle on her shoulder. When she looked back towards Anakin, the monster in black was gone.
“I won’t leave you. Not this time.”
“Then you will die.”
But she knew this was not the last she would see of him.
“Master Kenobi?” She asked softly.
“You feel it as well, don’t you?” He asked.
She nodded. “Something’s coming.”
He squeezed her shoulder again. “Whatever it is,” he told her. “We will be ready.”
She nodded again. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.
Even if it took her to her last breath, she would do anything to save her master from his suffering.
Even if that meant sacrificing herself in his stead.