Stars in my hands like grains of sand

Disclaimer: I do not own, or profit from Naruto or Star Wars and all associated media.

A/N

"Now this looks like a nice community…"

- Darklighter

"Thoughts"

"Speech"

"Abnormal sentient thoughts"

"Abnormal sentient speech"

Prologue:

Star-ship id: The Libertine-ISV165

Location: Galactic West of the Known Galaxy

Nearest planet status and navigational data: Unknown; N/A

Year: 745 ABY

Captain's logs: Entry 6546

"I am Deimus, and I am the dark's only Master. My birth coincided with the death of my parent at the hands of Imperial Executors, however do not think that I ever met, or loved my parent. I only know of that renowned Jedi Master because of the various accounts of his actions and accomplishments I have unwillingly consumed over the years.

"In those days, the now defunct New Republic was flexing its muscles after the battle at Yavin, and the Imperials had responded against force sensitives and normal sentients with a fury born of desperation and imminent defeat.

"I suppose that if I had been raised among my people I would be considered to be only marginally an adult. But I believe my long years in tune with the force and cosmos have wizened me beyond my years. I belong to an ancient, rare, and proud race - the Neti. The bark like appearance of my skin, my need to photosynthesize for nurture, and my innate shape shifting abilities were all evolved amongst the trees of the planet Myrkr, the home of my ancestors.

"Although we are a long lived race we reproduce rarely, and in my particular case most likely never as I haven't ever laid eyes on another Neti. For this reason my people tended to remain close to the worlds they called their own, as their numbers had always been few. I was seeded from the ancient Ood Bnar seven hundred and thirty-five galactic years ago, and for a century I was more or less alone on Ossus. I laugh at the thought of his dead roots shriveling further at the realization that his only offspring is a Sith.

"For all I know one of only four Sith still living, although given the infinite reaches of the galaxy I traverse that is unlikely. To understand me - and why a being of hate, as your mythologies would have it, should share with you like such I should tell you the story of how I became a Sith. Yet I would rather tell you how I lost and found purpose.

"I lost my purpose when I came to realize, after centuries of conflict, that in the end the Sith order had prevailed. We had warred against the Jedi for millennia, and fractious squabbles between Galactic Republic and Sith, between the Empire and the New Republic, between the galaxy itself and the invasive Yuuzhan Vong was simply a by-product of the eternal feud between the light and dark sides of the force, between the weak and the strong.

"The cumulative attrition of all this death led to the end of civilization in my time.

"It was not the end we Sith had initially envisioned, not the transition to open and perfect rule by the strong over the weak that we had dreamed about, but the erosion of order itself. I have never been one to keep faith in lost dreams, and for two centuries I gained much pleasure from observing the steady decline of technology, and the spread of chaos. Increasingly the galaxy was segmented into small pockets as cultures lost the means to fund long distance travel on a consistent basis, and I have no doubt that this aspect of the dissolution of order was a result of the extinction of many of the galaxy's premier ship building races such as the Fondorians and Calamari.

"Yet this enjoyment was not purpose but simply bloated and torpid satisfaction, and I soon tired of it and eventually took on three disciples. Darth Osvaldus, a Zabrak with pale skin and purple face markings. He is my first student, chosen for his ambition - and under my guidance he has become well versed in Sith sorcery, which he has often used to masterfully wreak torment on my occasional enemies. Already I can sense in him the stirring calls of my eventual betrayal, which I eagerly await.

"Darth Xanthé, the Twi'leck who even now stalks the space before my meditation chamber, her supple and delicate lekku lashing wildly from within the bright yellow bindings she has fixed over them so tightly as to cause her constant pain. She does not truly comprehend the ancient ways of the Sith and is used by her passions because she does not rule them.

"Finally there is also Mara Venton. She comes from a race that is as plentiful in the galaxy as the rodents they resemble - humans - but she, she is a budding young apprentice of the dark side. Although she is not yet worthy to be named Darth, I will eventually bestow on her the honored name of one of our past's greatest mistresses. Traya.

"I should never have forgotten that as a rule, contentment is anathema to the Sith, and even now as I recline in my meditation chamber with my roots dug firmly into the soil beneath, the seething anger I feel at my failure to detect the subtle whisper in the force that surely preceded my current predicament threatens to destroy my ship and put an end to this dictation for all eternity.

"The improbable malfunction of my vessel's navigational computer could have thrown us into the heart of a sun. Instead I find myself surveying statistical data on a world positively latent with force sensitives who have somehow, impossibly, created a language of hand symbols that manipulate sentient brain waves to control the force."

End Captain's Log.

SHGS - Chapter One: The Tenth of October

Terra

Year: 747 ABY

Xanthé snarled, her Lekku writhing in time to the jumble of emotions that coursed through her veins. A grimace of unfettered hate etched itself in the lines of tension that adorned her face.

She swung her crimson Lightsaber up and outwards in a diagonal swipe that she intended to slice her opponent into halves. However the man displayed the same prescient agility that she herself was blessed with, and her attack merely singed the trailing end of his long black coat - which was stylized with red clouds.

He did not stand to engage after he had evaded her blow, but leaped up into the higher boughs of the tree they battled upon. His passage stirred the fat rain drops that had settled on the bark and sent them tumbling in a cascading shower.

There were two of them in the black coats, and her mind raced with clarity of thought that belied her force enhanced rage as she weighed the heavy odds. She had not been hopelessly outmatched so far, but the vessel of one of the nine vast force presences her Master sought had since made good its escape as both parties seeking its capture attempted to destroy each other.

A klaxon thrill of alarm sounded in her head, and guided by the force she threw herself off of the branch she had balanced on for a second too long. The other warrior, the one with blue skin and a maw full of distinctive razor sharp teeth, had drifted from her awareness as she had engaged his black haired companion.

He was below her; she had failed to note the rapid sequence of hand symbols he had formed. Annoyance twanged in her breast. Two years on this forsaken backwater and she was still making such errors.

Cupping his lips with his hands the shark-man sent large bullets of water, formed into the likeness of ravenous shark heads, hurtling at her. His bent legs dag tracks into the sodden ground as their rigid muscles countered the force of his exhalations.

He tracked her as she engaged in a series of agile leaps and dodges, and his sharks uttered uncanny roars and crunches as their liquid teeth and forceful snouts broke through the moss covered flesh of the plant's boughs and trunk.

The torrent abated abruptly as he failed to strike her with his attack. Blue-skin began to twist his fingers in a different pattern of symbols; these were twists that Xanthé knew she could ill afford to allow him complete.

Wordlessly she thrust out the hooked fingers of her left hand in his direction, even as she completed one last evasive somersault. Streaming tendrils of sparking electricity powered by her rage and fear arced towards the figure below her on the ground.

As the force lightning met flesh a shudder ran through Xanthé's body. Her unique force talent gave her empathetic access to the being's torment.

She embraced the feeling as her own, recycling and mixing it in with her emotions as she built up a tremendous store of power, preparing to release the dark side of the force in a torrent of energy that would cause her lightning to melt the man's flesh and char his bones.

Just as she could no longer contain the power she directed all the energy into Blue-skin's form.

The tendrils of electricity that connected them became thick whipping cables that cast a harsh glare on her face as they locked his body in place and caused weeping lesions to appear on his blackening skin. His cells quickly atrophied drained of their water.

She barely had time to savour his demise before his black haired comrade blazed into existence within her guard. He stabbed for her throat with a sharp blade that materialized from his coat's sleeve.

She was still pouring lightning into the crisp form of his companion, and before she ended the technique some of the sparking threads from her off hand lashed the man's face; burning him. His sword she sheared at the hilt with an instinctive parry, but he had attacked from such an angle that the metal blade still drew a line down her neck and shoulder as it clattered past her and to the forest floor.

If the ease with which she had destroyed his weapon perturbed the man it did not show on his face, and had she not been a warrior herself she would have been convinced that the death of his comrade had not affected him in the slightest.

Despite her force abilities as a pre-cog she could barely keep pace with his attacks as he varied the striking patterns of his fists and feet, nor dodge the various projectiles he hurled at her in the fractional pauses between his blows. The man's red eyes seemed to bore into her soul as he adapted to the travails of facing a Lightsaber wielding foe at an unreal pace, constantly forcing her to use her blade to take out his metal throwing stars and knives, while having to backpedal away from the non-stop barrage of physical attacks he sent her way.

Abruptly he moved in very close and stabbed at her with one of the knives the people of this world favored, short blades with a broad leaf profile, an attack that should have been unavoidable.

But the force still guided her limbs, and in the fraction of a second before he had begun the motion the muscles in her hand had already flexed her Lightsaber into an effective guard. The energy blade pointed downwards to swipe out and obliterate the metal weapon.

The man's red eyes grew wide as she converted the block into a thrust, a killing blow which punched itself into his sternum. The hiss of the Lightsaber boiling his insides was incongruent with the clean, cauterized, wound that was left when she pulled out the blade. The light went out of the man's eyes as he toppled back slowly to fall off of the branch and towards the ground.

Xanthé smiled as post battle aches began to creep up on her, and she even began a thought process that would have led to her considering the lengths she would have to go to in order to track down the lava wielding 'Roshi,' who now knew that two separate and powerful groups were after his head, before she noticed the man's cadaver burst into a thousand black crows.

The birds spiraled into the air. They filled the battlefield with their incessant cawing. Some of their number settled on the corpse of the blue skinned, shark toothed, warrior. Involuntarily Xanthé's Lekku curled with fear, and the hilt of her Lightsaber became sodden with sweat from her palms.

Blue-skin slowly and deliberately clambered back into an "engage" position. He should have been dead, yet his baleful eyes locked on her. The skin around their sockets was charred and blackened.

The crows which had spiraled into the sky began to circle her, and occasionally several of their number would dive at her with their beak's gaping. The only time she had expended so much of herself in a confrontation was the one time her Master had pitted her against Traya in a supposed fight to the death, and though she had prevailed over the younger apprentice then, now she could barely keep pace with the crows assailing her on the sturdy bough which suddenly seemed as thin and deceitful as a tightrope.

She exhausted precious energy descending to the ground, and the crows winged through the dense foliage, tearing leaves in relentless pursuit. She noticed the impossibly animated, charcoal black figure of the shark-man unlimbering the huge wrapped oblong weapon on his back, and she released a scream of pent up frustration as she realized that survival lay in escape.

Her feet lost purchase on the tree's bark as she sped towards the ground at break neck pace, and one of the crows sunk its beak into the flesh between her thumb and finger. Her Lightsaber fell to the ground alongside her, and although she landed on her haunches with feline grace she was exhausted.

Blue-skin was onto her almost immediately, for although the force still provided Xanthé with precious milliseconds of warning her body was too fatigued to heed its directives. The man smashed the flat side of the bandaged weapon towards her face, and she flung her forearm up in a desperate block. The weight of his blow crushed through the light leather strapping she wore for protection, and broke through the bone. The hit pressed her own arm up against her nose with enough force to crumble the soft cartilage of her nose in an explosion of blood.

She was thrown back some five meters by the attack, and her skidding form tore new spring grass from mother earth. The pain she felt brought with it a desperate clarity, borne out of her desire to survive, and this feeling was fanned by the sight of the black crows coalescing into the standing figure of the Shinobi with a crossed out leaf on his forehead protector.

Every fiber in her body screamed at her to move as both men rushed her, but she closed her eyes, trusting in the power of the Force. She reached deep inside - to a place that did not acknowledge the existence of life or death, and she felt the dark side pulling power from her very life force, shortening her life span to save her in the present. She released the energy with an instinctive grunt that came from the depths of her gut, and the burst shattered the illusion she had not known was cloaking her mind.

Almost everything changed.

The host of the tailed beast was still missing, although she was no longer certain it had escaped, and she gasped as she suddenly remembered what the world should look like. The sky was blue and white, not a turbulent gloss of dark purple and blood black.

The blue skinned man retained his appearance, as did the dark haired Shinobi, although his face was taut with pain, for blood seeped from his tear ducts. They were some hundred meters across from her, and instead of her surroundings been dominated by tall and ancient trees she found herself thigh deep in long prairie grass; stained gold from the constant impressive heat of the region.

Her body lacked injuries, yet she was bone weary. The realization that she had expended all of her power fighting illusions was both chastising and terrifying, and her tired mind groped for anything that would ensure her survival. The force was no longer a close rival and lover in her mind, to be subdued and to merge with, but instead hovered at the edge of her consciousness where reaching for it caused a dull ache to thud between her eyes.

She stood tall however, and tried not to show her enemies that she was excessively weakened. Surprisingly they had not attacked her, but while the man with red eyes cleaned the blood from his face, his companion regarded her with a ravenous stare.

"So you broke free of the Genjutsu eh? No matter... just keep pouring out that chakra, Samehada has never tasted the like," his voice carried itself to her clear and strong, and he hefted the hilt of the bandaged mass which rested across his back. A slight shift in his positioning revealed the tip of the weapon, and she could see the seams of the white bandages stretch and snap to reveal a gleaming maw where the sword's point should have been.

Her Lightsaber was a scant two meters away, and she managed to summon it into her grasp. Instinct almost pushed her to activate the weapon, but a Sith had to always remember there was more than one path to victory. Against gritted teeth she sank to one knee, and offered the hilt of her blade to them in supplication.

Terra, Konoha (Outskirts, east)

Year: 747 ABY

Considering the fact that he was a ten year old Naruto could run fast. At the moment he did not have the time to reminiscence wistfully, but he had a memory somewhere inside of him of his previous and first year in the ninja academy. He had been one of the fastest in the class in an all-out foot race, and he had earned the grudging praise of one of the lenient instructors named Iruka.

He was proud of his skill at running. It was the only thing that allowed him to evade the five twenty-something year old males pursuing him for the moment. Briefly Naruto wished that he could propel himself from rooftop to rooftop as he had seen older Shinobi do.

But he had never managed to grasp just how they climbed up the steep walls of the buildings in the village in the first place. Besides the idea was a stupid one. He was not even within the walls.

Over the past year he had been going further and further afield whenever some crisis or the other meant that there were not as many Shinobi in animal masks blatantly shadowing him, and when he had woken up in the morning and found his route to the academy free of any trailing shadows, he had instead, on a whim, headed to the east gate which only was used by Shinobi leaving on missions.

There had been nobody in sight, as usual, so he left the village walls in search of respite from the glares and whispers that usually followed him in his city. Now that he was being chased for no reason he regretted leaving the safety of the community's open glares.

Although he had never come to harm in Konoha the stares did not let up for even a moment and he had never particularly associated the space within his home's walls with security. Worse still were the watchers who constantly shadowed him. The ninja in animal masks were almost impossible to evade, so only rare events drew their numbers away from him.

Strangely enough it was the farmhand, for that is what Naruto assumed they all were, with a slightly protruding belly, beady and limp eyes, and bandy legs that gained on him steadily.

The others seemed to lack the intensity of his particular hatred for Naruto. It was this hatred which fueled him in place of athletic stamina. The man was letting loose with an almost constant warble of expletives which Naruto could barely make out, what with the sound of six pairs of legs pounding the soft loam and decaying plant life underneath their feet, and the accompanying gurgle of the stream besides which the pursuit was taking place for his ears to contend with.

The small boy with the bright orange jumpsuit stuck out in amongst the green foliage, and dark clumps of shadow and tree bark like a burning bush, so his pursuers had no trouble tracking the ninja-to-be as he ran with a zeal that his body could not hope to match for any inhuman amount of time. A couple of them were even able to pace themselves; the better to thoroughly destroy the damn fox who had taken from them all.

They were ideally located, close enough to Konoha for patrolling Shinobi not to form an intensive and searching barrier, yet far away enough from the village-city for no one to be the wiser as to who had actually "done in," the demon fox.

Naruto heard a small gasp of frustration and surprise behind him, and then he spotted the girl ahead of them. She was about his age with short brown hair and a wiry physique that was clothed in materials he recognized, yet her clothes were cut to a style that he was not familiar with.

She was knee deep in the stream and bent over intently, and his heart almost exploded with a sense of pending salvation. However it soon dawned on Naruto that his pursuers after coming all this way may go so far as to harm the girl, or silence her in a deadly way. He shifted his steps subtly, so his paces took him away from her, and deeper into a jumble of trees.

"I've found him Master," Darth Traya whispered into her com-link. She could feel the pull of the water as it rushed between her bare feet and wet her trousers up to mid-thigh as she pretended to pick up smooth stones from the riverbed.

A crackling sound came to her over her Master's frequency. After two years on Terra their equipment had begun to deteriorate steadily; this was a state of affairs none of them had anticipated. The things that were beginning to malfunction were small; usually components that had been easily replaceable.

"Traya?" His questioning tone briefly managed to overpower the hiss of failing mechanisms that she could hear in her ears.

"Traya, reveal yourself to the boy." When it finally came her Master's voice was as gnarled, curt, and guttural as usual.

"Do not fail me. Much hinges on your success," her master hissed.

She nodded her head in acknowledgment, and quickly began to wade out of the water. She would set off in pursuit of the boy; the peasants she had bewitched when she had spied him leave the safety of the village for the first time in weeks would serve her purposes nicely.

At long last Naruto had to stop. He felt as if someone was gripping his lungs tightly and bringing him pain with each breath. His calves were throbbing as well - almost in sync with his heart which was struggling to break free of its ribbed cage. Now that he had stopped running the buildup of anabolic acid in his blood stream hit him fully, and he found that he could not even stand, but involuntarily sank into a kneeling position. He was like a new Karateka exhausted after his first day.

The men who had been pursuing him walked into the clearing breathing heavily, yet still retaining enough within themselves to achieve their immediate objective. As they stalked closer Naruto could not help but notice how their work stained appearances soiled the pristine glade within which they all found themselves.

"That was quite the chase damned fox," it was not the fat youth, who was still out of breath, who spoke, but one of his companions. This one had dark and lank hair which his own sweat had plastered to the sides of his thin face.

"You took from all of us demon, now it's time to get yours," he said.

Naruto was shivering from a combination of the increasingly low evening temperature, fear, and exhaustion. He could not think of a reply. No one had ever called him a damned demon before, and he could only lamely repeat after the boy, "Get yours?"

"No. Yours!" the voice came from behind him.

While he had been occupied with the man directly facing him another one of the youths had circled around him. Naruto felt a sudden pressure at the base of his neck as the youth gripped tightly; slamming a knee into the small of his back.

He screamed so loudly from the awkward prone position that he could not even hear the boy repeat in a grunting tone.

"This is getting your demon."

"Only that?" the unsatisfied fat boy chuckled mercilessly. "Don't give the demon any ideas about surviving what we're about to do to him."

It is a horrible fact of human behavioral psychology that resentment often trails rules which forbid people from doing that which they wish to do. Perhaps if these farmhands, all of whom had lost someone or something to the Kyuubi incident, did not have to live without speaking openly of their fears concerning the nine-tailed fox's prisoner for over nine years they would have found ways to ease their profound loss, and they would not have done what they did.

Or perhaps it mattered not. To them Naruto was like a poisonous young viper which had yet to grow its fangs, and Traya's hypnotic abilities had only brought out what they truly wished.

When they finally came around to beating Naruto their jungle justice did not contain reason, rhyme, or rhythm. They did not strike out at him using the intricate art of Taijutsu, but they battered him in a mindless fury.

None of them noticed the girl from the river bed swinging her legs casually high up in the boughs of a tree while she watched and waited.

Finally she tired of their sport and let herself fall to the ground; her body disregarded gravity almost entirely. At first her descent was swift, but she slowed as suddenly as her fall began. The blades of grass around her boots stirred minutely with the breeze of her landing.

The men stopped beating Naruto for a moment. Not because she exhibited any expression of emotion concerning their actions, but because the forest which had been teeming with life was all of a sudden deathly still and there was a miasma of unease in the air.

"Four of you at it and he is still alive? I suppose killing him slowly is one way to make him suffer," although her words were unexpected what really drew their attention was the silver metal cylinder that slipped from a clip on her waist at the crook of her finger, and floated serenely to rest in her left hand.

"Come, I'll teach you how to go at it for real," she said. "You! Weakling! You watch... and you had better learn," she said this last with a meaningful glance at Naruto. Her voice barely punctured his battered consciousness.

The same cannot be said for what happened next. A blade of pure energy, as azure as Naruto's eyes, came into existence with a deep thrum.

The sound and blade together were completely outside the experience of the five Konoha natives in the glade, and four of them would not have much longer to contemplate its existence. She did not so much run towards them as stalk, and did not so much cut their flesh as utterly destroy.

As she killed she briefly channeled the force. Naruto was still a wreck of pain in the sod, and could not see what was happening. The vast and intense chakra he felt periodically completely befuddled him and caused him to hack and puke. Its oppressive essence robbed him of his senses completely.

Her first stride took her within range of the lanky haired youth. The diagonal slice she used to melon and section his head was totally at odds with her previous languid step.

Each subsequent strike - for it only took one touch of the bubbling cauldron of fire she had fashioned into a weapon to utterly destroy the men - was laced with an awesome killing intent that was totally at odds with the teenager's slender physique. She wielded her weapon delicately, so each thrust was a wrist snap containing the power of all her sinews in focus.

After the first three fell to her sword the terrified survivors managed to break out of the gibbering torpor that had come along with the swift deaths of their childhood friends, and they made an ill-fated 'break for it'.

The only one left was he who had expressed in his mannerisms the greatest dislike for Naruto. She did not allow him to escape, but rather jumped to an impossible height tumbling through the air. Her long legs buckling to absorb the weight of her landing before their muscles bunched together and sent her streaking towards the gibbering youth.

The attack she used to dice him into quarters was more efficient and brutal than all her previous actions. The pieces left behind were barely recognizable as human.

Oddly enough she switched off the azure blade and was once again holding a simple silver cylinder. She was not even breathing heavily. Although a single bead of sweat wound its way down her neck.

"This is the first lesson my Master will be expecting you to learn," she said.

He could not smell the burning flesh, for he was covered in his own blood and vomit. The dull thuds of the men's limbs had left contusions on his flesh, and the beating they had administered to him had rent and bloodied his clothes beyond recognition.

He couldn't stop the pain even as he tried to will it away. Distantly he felt the girl's presence hovering in the clear space, and he heard the muffled sounds of dead flesh scraping against the ground as she consolidated the remains of his attackers. He lay on the ground for what seemed like hours, and he lost consciousness more than once. Eventually however his eyes remained open and his bruised body allowed him to crane his neck and bring his savior into view.

"Spread fear."

She stood against the rough bark of a particular Oak which had outgrown its neighbors, as if it owed her allegiance, and she was utterly still; except for the wisps of her hair which shifted with the wind. Unbidden the few images he recalled of her slaughtering his assailants with a blazing-sword-made-of-light came to mind and his terror grew.

He found it almost impossible to reconcile the delicately features and green eyes of his rescuer with her latent ferocity and deadly abilities.

He lay on the ground for a period of time that he could not measure. Eventually he managed to shift his body into a slumped position; gritting his teeth as echoes of pain from the motion washed through him.

"Can you stand?" The girl asked. Her words did not mask her impatience, and that trait showed more of itself when she added, "We need to move now."

"I can stand," he finally replied. The words were ground out with a measure of desperation and anger that Traya was able to pick up on thanks to her empathetic connection to the Force.

As Naruto's toes found purchase against the soles of his sandals his blurred vision came to rest on the neatly stacked cadavers of the young men. The sight stoked the ill feeling within him and he felt something shift inside. It was a sudden release of energy that allowed him to straighten his bruised spine fully in renewal.

He did not notice the slight breathe of shock his sudden health drew out of the girl, but his eyes were drawn to her once she pushed off the tree she leaned against and walked towards him.

"My name is Traya," she said with the faintest hint of awkwardness.

She was older than he had thought, older than he was and a head taller. Naruto could not help but glance at the cylinder strapped to her right thigh. He could not help but wonder how it contained its potent blade.

The girl was muttering to herself. Mutters he could not hear her even though she was well within ear shot. Before he could question her she grabbed him by the arm, so that her nails bit into his flesh.

"Those that you call ANBU are already on their way here. They will want to know what happened to these men, but there is no time to deliver that truth and I, my Master rather, would speak with you," she said.

"Your Master?" He shifted his arm unsuccessfully trying to loosen her grip. "I don't even know who you are," he tried to pull his arm away with greater force. He was no longer aware of his lack of pain, and rapidly healing cuts and bruises.

"And you just killed four people!" he realized in belated horror. "What is that sword anyway? It's hard for me to trust you and just leave. I should stay here till the ANBU arrive."

"Those men would have killed you," she said in a flat tone.

"They were worth less than Hutt slime. You are not a child who deals in trust and not logic or are you? There are things that you do not know about your world, about your village, and about yourself. If your cowardice will not allow you to follow me of your own will I won't hesitate to carry you to my Master in a comatose state… perhaps missing a limb or two. What he requires of you does not necessitate that your body remains whole."

There was sincerity underlying her words and threats that mollified Naruto, and he tried to work past his natural distrust so as to analyze the situation he was in. He didn't know what 'Hutt slime' was but it was true that the girl had saved his life, yet from what he had seen she had no hang-ups over killing other people. There was also her harsh honesty which was more than he had ever received from anyone in the village. That included the Hokage who he knew lied to and misled him habitually.

"I'll come with you," he decided. He felt a worm of excitement beginning to work its way through his gut.

Darth Osvaldus bit the tip of his tongue as he considered the 3D image of his Master's form. His teeth were also clamped around the flesh inside his cheek, and a thin rivulet of blood had since flooded his mouth with a calming acidic taste.

Unwanted memories of the years he had spent in fear before he had fatefully encountered Deimus threatened to well up in his memory, so he crushed them ruthlessly.

Through the blue light of the projector he stared directly into the recess of his Master's inner sanctum aboard The Libertine, the Sith Lord's middle-aged War Yacht, where Deimus was rooted in meditation.

The recess was partially lit by haphazardly placed roaring briers which cast wavering shadows with their flames.

His Master's presence was imposing; despite his current diseased state of existence. His thick seven meter 'resting' height coupled with the gnarled and black bark that covered his flesh made it so. Not to speak of the dull red eyes that glinted with foreboding from under the hooded folds of growth that framed his etched face.

In one corner rested his Master's ancient war-saber. He imagined that the rune etched five meter long shaft which contained its dual blades would be cool and damp with moisture, for Deimus's mere physical presence drained enclosed spaces of warmth and energy. Although the energy blade seemed to be just out of the Sith Lord's thick bough like arms, Osvaldus knew that it could be glowing and within his Master's grasp with not so much as a half formed thought.

They had gathered soon after their arrival that identifying the characteristics of the terrestrials' use of the Force would allow them to comprehend and apply it to what they already knew, and during the years that followed Osvaldus had been able to move with almost complete independence.

Left largely to his own devices by Deimus he had been travelling through the five major nations on the continent, absorbing all the knowledge he could.

It had also just so happened to transpire that the natives of the planet excelled in sorcery, Sith and other, an excellence that had already been proving itself useful in bestowing upon Osvaldus the edge he needed to overcome his Master in a direct confrontation.

Edges like the art of making chakra. This was a concept Osvaldus chose to view as 'constantly storing a reserve of the force within oneself.

It was remarkable in that those with 'chakra' did not burn out from constantly containing the force. This was because they mixed it with their bodies' energies before storing it, and over the years their very bodies grew able to withstand even more power.

Osvaldus had been able to duplicate the effect using Sith sorcery, but although the natives stored a plentiful amount of the force it was diluted compared to what a Jedi or Sith would draw upon when needed. Despite the absence of burn-out he was still hesitant to use chakra over the undiluted Force.

They had been on Terra for over two years. Osvaldus had constantly worked towards his own aggrandizement from day one. The sorcerous practices of Terra's Shinobi held the power to speed his eventual assumption of his rightful mantle as Dark Lord of the Sith. His Master knew that fact as well as he himself did.

Osvaldus had grown proud and more reckless in his challenges to Deimus's will by the month; even though his rebellions were small and not brewed to cause an all-out confrontation. He had thought his Master to be foolish, and he had watched him grow weaker by the cycle. Especially when he proved willing to remain on a planet with an atmosphere whose composition was causing oozing lesions to break out on the bark of his skin long. It had only been a matter of time - until now.

"I plan to leave this planet in ten days apprentice. You have been away from my side for too long. No doubt you are planning some sort of rebellion. I trained you properly after all. But enough now I have need of you and it is time you knelt before your Master once again," Deimus's voice was gravelly and ancient. His sudden words caught Osvaldus off guard; his Master had been silent for well over twenty minutes. Osvaldus had assumed Deimus had not even been paying attention as he had spun various lies to conceal the true nature of his activities and whereabouts.

"We are leaving when!" Osvaldus demanded. His own voice erupting like a hacking cough, but it lost none of its characteristic squeal which he detested.

His query was met with silence. After a long and tense pause he said through gritted teeth.

"I meant what is your demand Master?"

"I expect to see you in the Land of Fire by week's end," Deimus repeated darkly, before severing the connection.

To Osvaldus the commanding tone was totally at odds with the scarred and seeping appearance of his Master, but there remained that niggling doubt in his mind which insisted that the diseased husk previously captured in the blue light of his projector node was so steeped in dark side energy that its flesh had begun to wither away.

Osvaldus suppressed a shudder as he glanced about himself, the lingering tendrils of his Master's essence still pulling on his attention.

The room he was in was spare and less than adequate; Osvaldus was not one of those Sith who coveted material power and wealth, but no being in his dark gray garbed presence could mistake his love for simplicity as a lack of ambition.

He sat down. Not on the floor, for there was no chair in the room, but rather in the very air. He simply pulled his legs up into lotus; anchoring his mass with the force. The air around him began to steam and hiss in response to his casual use of dark side energy as he meditated.

As he reflected, he came to realize that his Master must have had a purpose in remaining on the planet. Furthermore he had allowed Osvaldus to leave his side while keeping his other apprentices under his close eye. The air exploded in purple flames which pushed outwards in a shock wave of force that left scorch marks on the concrete wall as Osvaldus grasped for understanding.

"He's been hiding something from me! All this time he has manipulated me away from his side so as to harvest the true treasures of this world without my knowing."

His Master must have found something that warranted his sudden haste to be off Terra. Osvaldus refused to believe that they had spent two years languishing on the planet for nothing. But what could that something be?

He thought of the legendary items of power the Shinobi he met often told tales about, but immediately dismissed them as trinkets at best considering his Master's tastes. His Master loved raw unbridled power, and he would not have the patience necessary to learn how to use such an item correctly.

Perhaps his Master had struck a deal that would grant him control of the world and its dangerous inhabitants? No, Osvaldus decided, or there would be no point in leaving the planet. Besides Osvaldus was still convinced that something about the world itself was poisoning his Master.

The silence that had absorbed his prior outpouring of rage returned as he sunk into even deeper contemplation, but eventually even this meditation was shattered by a vehement explosion of dark side energy when he realized that the only way to find out what his Master was planning would be to travel to the Land of Fire. Acting on impulse, and a dozen half conceived plans, he floated a small but powerful transmitter into his palm.

"He who can't bear to lose his cards will never win at Sabacc," he thought to himself as he activated its beacon.

A/N

Thanks for reading.

Darklighter