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Telling everyone that the Mand'alor is the strongest of the Mando'ade, that they can be challenged, that they are simply a leader, no, a warlord… That lie was as ancient as the role of Mand'alor itself.
To be Mando'ad, a follower of the Way, you swear the Resol'nare. But to be Mand'alor was to swear a pact with Kad Ha'rangir themself. It was what bound the Mand'alor in Te Ka'ra rather than letting them march on with the rest of their people. To be Mand'alor was to barter your own soul. Whether the reason to do so was noble or honorable didn't matter as much as the intent and resolve behind the binding.
Jango Fett was sixteen when he traded his soul for revenge. It had seemed like a good deal at the time, if only to see the end of Kyr'tsad.
He still lost everything, in the end.
And then he died the way he vowed to, in battle. In fact, he died the way he should have nearly twenty years before Geonosis, at the hands of a jetii. But if he'd died on Galidraan with the rest of his verde, then he wouldn't have had Boba. Boba, who was all he had left.
Which is why it was so kriffed that Jango couldn't even move on.
It would've been awful, but acceptable, if he'd gone to the Ka'ra, been judged by the other Mand'alore and been found wanting. It would've been better still if his failure as Mand'alor meant that he didn't go to the Ka'ra at all and just marched on with the rest of his clan.
But no.
That shabuir Kad Ha'rangir had appeared, told him that the pact hadn't been fulfilled, and that he would only move on when he could honor it, as he was destined.
Complete osik. How was he supposed to keep any promises when he was already dead?
Apparently that's for him to figure out, and not the old god's problem.
Either way, he sat back up from the sand of the arena on Geonosis, body left behind, and looked around at the fight still raging around him. Kad Ha'rangir hovered nearby, arms crossed and sneering. For a war deity, they didn't look happy to be on a battlefield.
They reached into the crowd of combatants, hand and arm extending unnaturally and easily passing through anything that fell in its path. Just as quickly as it unspooled, it latched onto something—no, someone—and reeled back in to their shoulder with a snap.
Kad Ha'rangir snarled and shook the person they'd caught by the scruff, "Another mortal that tried to outrun their oaths, I see. Perfect. Maybe between the two of you, Arasuum might be sealed again instead of running rampant across the sector."
The being was a jetii, and, unfortunately, one Jango recognized. "Really?" he asked, "Kenobi swore to you?"
Kenobi swung their kad'au in a wide arch, still fighting off droids. "I don't feel as if this is the best moment for a discussion," he hissed as he tried to lunge at another B2 unit, "but I'm afraid I have no idea who you are or what you're talking about, if you'll kindly put me down."
Jango didn't like that he could feel the strange weight added to the end of those words, could sense the way they glanced off Kad Ha'rangir.
"No? I did not expect a warrior to be so dishonorable as to be casual with their words. Very well, let me jog your memory." The being reached up and flicked the jetii on the forehead, then dropped them. It didn't look all that hard, but by the time Kenobi hit the ground next to Jango's body, they were knocked clear out.
From the belt they wore, Kad Ha'rangir pulled a thin glowing chain, more length than should've been possible. Jango recognized it from the ritual where he'd made his own pact, and he flexed his wrist unconsciously, an echo of the burning sensation even after death.
With a snap that sounded like bones cracking, the deity sent the links snaking around Kenobi's torso and wrapping several times around their neck. Still holding that chain in one hand, they dragged out another and turned to Jango, everything in their posture saying, Don't make this harder than it needs to be.
He stepped forward. Honestly, he was already dead. What else could he do?
Another snap, and Jango felt the chain wrap around his own neck, tight enough to almost choke.
Kad Ha'rangir held both chains in their hand and, impossibly, squeezed the two until they were red-hot and welded together. "There," they nodded, "maybe now we'll make some progress."
Jango looked from the god to Kenobi to his own corpse, and tried not to laugh bitterly.
Progress. Right.
Kenobi woke up after Kad Ha'rangir disappeared, in the middle of mop-up.
Jango'd never really wanted to see the clones in action first hand. He'd seen them train plenty. And now he'd watched as hundreds of them had landed to fight on the behalf of the jetiise. Seen a few of them spit on his corpse when they noticed it.
Part of him was glad that he'd been dead before they deployed. The other part was watching Boba.
He didn't want to leave, not Boba, and not his body. But he was tied to Kenobi now, and when the troopers had moved their unconscious body to a medbay, Jango had been dragged along, literally. It made him glad that no one could see him.
The medics fussed about the strange burns around Kenobi's neck. Jango knew the collar would scar in a pattern few could identify as ancient Mando'a. He'd had the same marks around his wrists, in life.
The jet'ika and the senator that Jango had helped capture in the factories showed up, holding hands and worried. They didn't see Jango either.
He wondered what had happened to his own son.
When they groaned and opened their eyes, it was to a flurry of motion, so they didn't really see him until everything had died down for the night cycle. They asked their questions. Jango didn't have many answers. When Jango asked how they ended up with an oath to Kad Ha'rangir, they almost didn't answer.
Then with a long and heavy sigh, they explained. Their apprenticeship, and the year they spent in the Mandalorian sector. Of being hunted by Kyr'tsad after the Kryzes dared to challenge their hold of Mandalore. And of a desperate moment, when they and Kryze had been thrown from a ship into open air, where Kenobi had prayed to the Force or any deity listening to save them, if not for their own sake then for Satine, for the Mandalore they would build as Duchess. The jetii had caught them on a cliffside using the Force. Neither of them had thought anything more about it.
But Jango knew. The blessing of Kad Ha'rangir wouldn't have been obvious, if the god had decided to favor them. It would've been in the cowardice of enemies, in Satine's climb to power. It would've been in resolve and in instinct and in moments of crisis, Kenobi would survive against all odds.
That was what had trapped the first Mand'alore, when they'd made their pacts. They'd thought vowing to a being of war meant that they'd always rise victorious. Of course, Jango knew better. War wasn't all about the glory of victory. Or about honor, or skill, or even power.
There were only three facets of war that mattered: intel, will, and luck. And Kad Ha'rangir only cared about the strength of will. Gorone could preach all they wanted. About the endless war between Arasuum and Kad Ha'rangir and what it meant. What Jango knew was more practical, which is why it wasn't preached. And he knew that it wasn't Arasuum and Kad Ha'rangir that were always at war. It was that War was the natural state of the galaxy. Arasuum and Kad Ha'rangir were just opposing aspects of it. Arasuum, Stagnation, was the rot of complacency that brought worlds crumbling down. Kad Ha'rangir was the resolve to continue the fight.
Hod Ha'ran was the luck and the cunning to win. And in his final battle, it was Jango's luck that had run out.
In bits and pieces and questions, Jango reluctantly taught Kenobi this. The Republic erupted into civil war, and Jango watched, invisible to everyone but Kenobi, as the jetiise truly prepared for war for the first time in a thousand years.
Kenobi mostly pretended that he wasn't there unless they were alone.
They couldn't find Boba, or Jango's ship, in the aftermath. If Jango were not chained, he already would have gone out to find him. There weren't many people he would trust with his ad, but at least if they were with Kenobi then Jango could see them, maybe have the jetii give a message.
Instead, they went to battle. Kenobi refused to abandon their duties to go to Mandalore and figure out how to fulfill their oaths.
Then came capture, Ventress, and torture.
Jango knew he was a callous person. Jaded, ruthless, cold. He'd been called all that and worse in his career. As a ghost, he didn't eat, didn't sleep, and he spent every moment of that near Kenobi. The radius he could stretch was about a hundred meters before the grip around his throat became more painful than it was worth. Jango was and wasn't real, could pass through any and every object—except for the chain and Kenobi.
In those cells, he never moved from where Kenobi could touch him. He pressed into them, their side, their back, their hands, and hoped it was enough for the jetii to keep their mind intact. And it did. They stayed sane. But they also never really recovered, either. Oh, the jetii managed it well, kept moving forward, but Jango was there for every step of it. He was there for the sleepless nights that turned into awkward conversations into comfortable silences. The doubts that flickered in the darkest hours. The way sometimes Kenobi doubted even Jango was real.
By the time they actually met with Satine, Jango knew Obi-Wan Kenobi, maybe better than any living being. Not all the details, the history, not yet, but the shape of the warrior he was chained with was distinct: Kenobi was foolishly, recklessly, powerfully kind.
Jango hated it.
Jango loved them.
In what way didn't matter all that much. He knew Kenobi, and that was more than love enough to know the war was killing them.
Just as planned.
And so, Jango regretted. Not all of it, but this, at least. The pain in Kenobi's eyes after battle and the shake in their hands after every nightmare.
Maybe it was all too late. Jango was already dead. But something about Obi-Wan made him want to try.