"Go, take him back, and fulfill your destiny." The daughter smiled at Ahsoka for the last time, stroking her cheekbone. "You are blessed with the force, my child."

The water at her waist started to inundate her, rising at lightning speed. The emerald figure of the daughter expelled as the water in the temple engulfed Ahsoka's body, suffocating her and dragging her into darkness. She struggled to flail her arms to get to the surface of the water, but the liquid just continued to compress her and flood into her throat, until she completely gave up, drifting motionless in the dark.

Losing consciousness, she thought she was drowning to death, or maybe, maybe she was just in a coma, but that didn't make any difference, she was dead in her heart, there was no reason for her to live.

Anakin was dead, his lost padawan too.

Her twilight had come.

A droning abruptly disturbed her montrals. The sound was gradually amplified, getting clearer and clearer. It was no longer a sound, it was a voice, a whisper from the past.

"The force is strong with you, little one." A familiar voice echoed in the darkness.

Ahoska frowned, it was master Polon, in Shili, when she was still a child.

She remembered how he took her hand and brought her to Coruscant, where she began her irreversible destiny. She respected him as her father, but never did she expected that he could one day turn his back on her, only watching as she was shoved off the cliff…

"Appreciate your talent, I really, Miss Tano, ready for padawanhood, you are." A whimsical voice caused quivering of hate in Ahsoka's body. Master Yoda, a total liar. He decided to hand her to the corrupted republic court, he betrayed and spurned her, he took her away from her master, he ruined her live. Her hands turned into fists. The whole Jedi council was nothing but kriffing junk, they destroyed literally everything, she hated all of them except…

"Hey, snip." His gentle and witty voice struck her, his handsome, reassuring face flashed through her mind. Thousands of moment he was with her penetrated her heart.

He was the only one that stood firmly beside her, the only one that sincerely cared and protected her, the only one she was able to love, but now she had lost him, permanently.

The name she had been avoiding to mention or even hear well up her mouth, forcing her to shriek. Anakin, please, come back, please tell me that it is just a dream. I need you, it is all my fault.

But it was too late. The machine-like breathing again trapped her. The Sith Lord's indifferent words pulled her into nightmare.

"Then you will die."

"No, master, no!"

The droning of his lightsaber, the heat, her own screaming. She could still recall the agonizing pain at her chest where he stabbed at her without a second of hesitation, the way he amber eyes glared at her, as if he didn't know her at all, as if the more than two-year times they stayed together was nothing but a handful of ashes.

Let me die, let me burn into ashes too, there is no reason to live, and I may meet him there, in the afterlife.

"No, Ahsoka, no."The daughter's gentle murmur resonated in the gloom.

"You haven't finished the mission for you master. Bring him back, change him, and reach the balance of the force."

All of a sudden, her past, present, and future twirled around her, the cry of a baby, those endless different whispering, the figures she used to admire or hate, surrounded and flashed before her, so confusing that she felt dizzy. A strong beam of light pierced into the darkness and brought away her consciousness.

Her eyes fluttered open, gasping with shock. All of her clothes were soaked, not with water, but with cold sweat. Malachor's freezing breeze almost froze her damp suit. There was still faint pain at her chest, where no trace of fatal injuries except a subtle burn was found, but the rest of her body remained intact and flexible. After all, she was physically functional but mentally shattered, not knowing why or how she was still here, or what she should do next.

Stang, the damned thing in Mortis happened again.

She wiggled her body to check if it was real after all, only to touch two long and slender cylinders at the two different sides of her waist.

Her lightsabers.

There was no way the two weapons could be automatically laid so precisely symmetrical around her, especially when she lost them so separately during her vicious duel with her former master and when the temple just experienced a huge explosion which messed almost everything up. Someone must gather them after the explosion and put them around her ceremonially.

Vader.

She could imagine Vader gently laid her on the ground, carefully settled her two lightsabers besides her, and left without a sound, as if he didn't want to bother her in her sleep.

Hope arose within her. He still cared about her, no, not cared, but felt guilty. Part of Anakin still remained in him. Yes, she would still bring Anakin back, there was still humanity behind the disfigured face underneath the horrible mask.

This thought forced her to face the reality that she was in a difficult dilemma. She may go back to the ghost crew, again become the "fulcrum" of the rebels, and contemplate a better time for revenging on Anakin, but after she recognized the familiar face behind the mask, she had already associated Vader so close with Anakin that she was convinced that they were essentially the same person. 17 years, yes, she had dedicated herself unconditionally to an organization that only brought endless troubles to the man she loved for a whole kriffing 17 years. It was utterly ridiculous that what she once regarded as a revenge for her beloved master, eventually only turned out to be a devastating harm for him.

Shame and guilt filled her heart and blazed up her cheek. She buried her face with her hands as she attempted to fight back the mock in her head. Ahsoka, you are such a damned fool, you are ruining literally everything…

No, she could not kill Vader, nor could she still be part of the rebels, which was only hurting the one she loved. She would not leave and abandon him, like what she did 17 years ago.

But what would she do?

Find him. The passionate voice within her mind said. Leave the rebels, and stay with him instead., before it's too late, you still have chance to compensate him for hurting him so much.

She snapped her rigid fingers and attached her lightsabers back to her waistband. Time to get out of this hellhole. She was determined to pay off the debt she had been in for almost 20 years.

She was still in the debris of the temple, where was cold and pitch-dark. A little strand of light casted into the darkness through the chasm, indicating the entrance to the ground. Climbing up all the rock and fragmental granite was proven to be extremely difficult for her with her limp limbs and semi-conscious mind. As she slowly crawled out for what seemed to be a lifetime, the light got more and more fierce and almost blinded her. She wondered if she could suddenly lost grip on the crack she dug her bleeding fingers in because she repeatedly felt like she is passing out, with pain and dizziness.

You are almost there, just a few inches, just one more second of pain. Move, come on, padawan of the chosen one, make your master proud of you.

When her thumb touched the flat and smooth ground instead of the steep and rugged rock surface, she knew she was there at last, out of the gloom, back into the bright, a temporary escape from death.

With the force, Ahsoka propelled herself up and thrusted her fingers into the earth, scrambling away from the verge at an excruciatingly slow pace. As she finally withdrew her foot from the edge, Ahsoka collapsed on the ground and panted frantically. The warm light that surrounded her, the fresh air that voraciously pumped into her burning lungs, the ecstasy of being still alive, all together sent a strange but familiar feeling of exhilaration all over her trembling body. She clapped her torn and bloody fingers over her face and began to weep.