Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars nor Naruto.

Occasionally, Anakin Skywalker had flashes of insight. No, really, he did. Unfortunately, sometimes such insightful tidbits came after he was knee-deep in trouble. Of course, there were some exceptions when he had foresight a bit before he got into trouble. Like that time with the vintage Corellian whiskey. Most of the time, however, he got that Oops moment right at the very moment he found himself with a blaster in his face...or facing innumerable odds.

This day, scratch that, this battle had been meticulously planned and every source checked out. Nothing should have gone wrong at all. Their forces should have been at a position to win. The tacticians and Obi-Wan had agreed on that much. Somehow, the Seps had seemed to know the plan from the very start and Anakin would have been the first to leap to the conclusion that they had a mole but he was certain it wasn't a person on the Resolute.

The battle had been engaged within the planet's atmosphere of Ruusan and although the planet still whispered of dark things, such murmurs were easy to ignore in the midst of battle. According to intelligence, the Separatists had been planning to establish a spy post in one of the moons orbiting around the planet; Obi-Wan had wanted to gather more ground before engaging the Seps but that had gone bad from the very moment the Resolute slid into position within the planet's orbit.

Separatist and Republic forces clashed and for hours, it seemed to settle into a stalemate.

As a General, his task was to lead and get in as many shots as possible despite the circumstances .His moment came to an end all too soon, in fact, as he briefly brushed against the current of the Force. His innate and deeper connection to it allowed him to feel a brief flash of a warning before the impact of a droid fighter. It jarred his own starfighter and it was so fast, not even he had time to react as a stray shot grazed his ship's wing.

Anyone else would have panicked. Anyone else would have felt their stomach drop and their heart beat erratically as their craft began descending and losing altitude at a maddening rate. Anyone but Anakin Skywalker. As it was, he tried his best to steady the ship with minimal steering power. It would have been a difficult feat had it been in space but the planet's atmosphere allowed him a far greater chance of survival.

Not that it meant much.

Didn't change the fact that he was falling and that no one really noticed in the thick of the battle. Red and blue shorts flew about him, creating a chaotic scene in which none but the focused would survive and in this, he was a distraction. A minor detail. Something to overlook. Despite such, he wasn't giving up easily.

Anakin Skywalker thrived in chaos and he could face Death straight up without blinking.

A gloved hand rose to fiddle with the comm, trying to place it within a frequency that the Resolute could pick up but he soon found he was unable to do much. His comm signal was all over the place and he wasn't receiving at all anyways. Obi-Wan had remained behind on the Resolute to run backup, given that his own starfighter was running repairs. However, even if his former Master had participated in this battle, he doubted anything would have been done to help. There was little to do.

There is no easy way to describe the helplessness that he is feeling. His heart is strangled by a vice, fear and despair, and he can't breathe. He's falling and he's hysterically trying to inhale but for some reason, despite his desire to live, his own mind plays tricks. When the end of the game is just a breadth away, it almost feels like a relief. He wished to say that he didn't feel it when his ship crashed but to do so would by lying. He felt it, just as he felt the very instant he ceased to exist.

It was simply a moment in which even the Force ceased to be.

There was only darkness.

From his spot by the tactical stratagems aboard the Resolute, Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi paused mid-sentence, eyes instantly moving towards the front where he could see out and below. Ruusan's vivid green and white appearance was a second detail to what the Force showed him. The Force coiled and boiled around the planet and before he could wonder why, something in him snapped- his heart- and he collapsed to the floor.

Around him, commanders and troopers alike rushed to his aid, their worry palpable. Their voices, harried and urgent, were as important as the sound of a dewdrop falling onto the ground from a leaf.

Anakin.

Where his former Padawan's presence bright light used to be, there was only a vacuum of darkness; a void that left a glaring absence in the center of the very Force itself. It was death...but then it wasn't really. Obi-Wan knew Death and it was not what had happened. Death severed bonds and depending on how strong such bonds were, it often left a severe backlash behind.

Not dead. Just gone.

Death hurt but this had only unbalanced him so thoroughly, he had forgotten how to breathe. Like being on top of a lifting vehicle without being secured and being toppled over the by sheer speed of the vehicle as well as the air resistance. No, Anakin wasn't dead, but he wasn't here. He wasn't near Obi-Wan, on a cosmological scale, and that was something his addled mind couldn't comprehend.

Not when the Force and the whispers of Ruusan seemed so quiet, the mere sound of the clatter of feet against metal was everything he had to ground him. Wordlessly, Obi-Wan looked up, meeting Admiral Yularen's troubled gaze. With so very little to go on, they seemed to find common ground.

"Officer, contact Skywalker! Report his position- now!"

It wasn't just one officer that moved to take the call. It was dozens, and they all moved with hurried precision. This bridge is the apex of military professionalism but at the moment, everything seems to be rushed...desperate. It wasn't until one moved away from the console and turned back that Obi-Wan had his answer. He wasn't an overly sentimental man but for some reason, that was the very same moment Obi-Wan felt his stomach drop.

"I'm sorry, sir… General Skywalker's starfighter is lost."

Lost was too far a kind word for the truth.