There is a place at the edge of perception, where pain is everywhere and fear is that air that is breathed. Korriban is a world almost uninhabitable by the living. The Dark Side energy that seethes within its sands is stronger than that of any world in this galaxy, Ziost and Dromund Kaas do not compare. Thousands upon thousands of entities from those long dead fuel the planet's essence. It is a cursed world, the most haunted place in the galaxy. To become isolated within its sands is to die, the power emanating from within its core is enough to ravage the mind. The planet is of an eternally eerie tranquillity. Contrary to the belief of so many whose steps had graced the soft landscape, it is not ugly at all. The sand is soft and light, it is not harsh. The colours are warm, they are not cold. Such ultimate serenity can only be maintained by the sumptuous lack of living sentients who might taint its immaculate savagery. For the cumbersome breathing, unattractive noise and imperfect functioning of the Living cannot exist here.
It was late at night by the time Lord Kadmus had arrived at the Academy, but still overwhelmingly humid. Young Acolytes ran about wearing loose-fitting, lightweight robes while the Sith Lord was sweating under his layers of floating red silk. Near-silence pervaded the halls, tainted only by faint whispers and the tapping of feet. The barely audible plucking of a traditional instrument by an exotic Kissai sounded a few rooms away. Screaming and the clashing of blades on a battlefield was not this unsettling. It was a mysterious place, and mystery was the very thing that had brought the Sith Arcanist from the cities of Anaxes to the sands of Korriban. Two years ago, the acolyte who was to be his apprentice had mysteriously died. Life in the Sith Order is certainly dangerous and the case had since been abandoned, but it had been an impractical loss to Kadmus. What reinstated his interests though, were two much more recent deaths, both of which were connected to the primary witness of the death of Kadmus' own apprentice, a former Jedi Padawan named Miya. Stepping inside and on to the black marble, Kadmus let go of the hem of his robes, allowing them to trail along the floor. As servants and an overseer escorted him through the entrance hall, a profoundly eerie site caught his eye; a tiny girl standing in the dim light at the end of a corridor, with thick black hair that hid her face and fell almost to her thighs. Their eyes met and the padding of bare feet echoed down the hallway as she sprinted into a different room. Kadmus turned to face the overseer.
"That's her."
The room that had been prepared was almost totally dark, save for the dim red lamp shaped like a holocron which sat on the shelf next to the table. It was a very small and intimate room, simply furnished with one wooden table and two meditation mats, on one of which the Sith Lord was already sitting. Covering the one window were long, red drapes and the far wall of the room housed shelves which contained a variety of strange and beautiful Sith artefacts and implements. Kadmus sat on his cushion with his back casually resting against the shelf below the window and his side facing the table. One leg lay bent inwards on its side, while his knee faced the ceiling with the sole of his foot on the floor. His layers of silken robes spread elegantly across the carpet and his sleeve across the table as arm rested on the surface. A hand adorned with opulent rings stroked his beared as he contemplated how to approach the situation. The man was a picture of immaculacy.
Kadmus' attention was caught by the sound of the door sliding open. Two tiny hands carrying a wooden tea tray entered first before the figure they belonged to stepped inside. The door closed automatically behind her.
Her exotic appearance only aided in her mysterious aura, she looked to be of Yu descent with straight, black hair, golden skin, and dark eyes. Her hair was her most distinguishing feature, it was very thick and looked as though it had never been trimmed, obscuring her features almost entirely. She was wearing a loose fitting under-tunic held together by lightweight obi wrapped lazily around her waist and black cotton pants which came to just below her knees. Her feet were bare and unclean, she smelled of the outdoors, of the fresh air and the sand. Cautiously and slowly, the Acolyte approached Kadmus whilst carefully holding the tea tray before gently placing it on the table. Moving back a few steps, she knelt on the floor and delivered a low bow by graciously placing her hands on the floor and dropping her head. Sitting up straight and showing her face, she spoke.
"I am at your service, My Lord. I hope to assist you in any way you require."
She gave a second bow then rose to her feet, walked to the cushion and sat down with her legs folded beneath her. Her back was perfectly straight and her hands were delicately folded in her lap. Not once did she raise her head or look him in the eye. She was visibly shy, coy and submissive to her superior. Extending her arms, she picked up the steaming hot teapot by its handle, while pressing her fingers down on the lid to keep it secure. She poured the boiling green liquid into both of the black handless cups, then waited for superior to take one before she drank herself. Kadmus picked up one of the hot cups with one hand and took a sip. The Academy had informed him of her identity, her name was Satoryu and she was currently 15 years old.
"Tea is most appropriate, I would have asked for wine but I am unsure of how long we are going to be here."
"They told me you're looking for Miya."
"I stopped looking two years ago when I was informed of her death, but disappearances of both Sith and Imperial personnel have given me reason to revive my search for answers."
"She killed herself."
"Why would she do that?"
"Life in the Sith Order became too much for her, she could wait no longer for the Jedi to rescue her."
"And the deaths of an Acolyte named Lilly and Officer Yumi Naokazu, do you know anything about those?"
Satoryu shook her head while hiding behind her cup as she brought it to her mouth. Kadmus was a kind Sith. Whether for reasons of practicality or compassion, he cared about happened to these people. Sith weren't supposed to care about others, and the concept confused and unsettled her. She wondered how he would have treated Miya had he taken her as his apprentice, would he have changed her perception of the Sith? As she finished her cup, her attention was sparked as Kadmus stood up and walked towards the door. Satoryu's eyes widened and for the first time, her hair fell backwards, revealing her features.
"Perhaps your knowledge is indeed limited, I might take my leave then."
The Sith Lord said. Satoryu spoke up.
"No My Lord, it's too late already! The ghosts will start to come out!"
Kadmus turned around and shot the Acolyte a confused look, she continued to speak.
"Korriban is an inhuman world, spirits and curses are all that dwells here. Live here long enough and you become closer to the dead than the living."
Satoryu walked up to Kadmus and looked up at him with huge pleading eyes whilst gently held on to his arm.
"Please… Stay with me."
The supposed paranormal activity on Korriban was well known, but whether this girl was exaggerating or simply scared by her own imagination was not clear. It occurred to Kadmus that her begging for his company was not due to her fear of ghosts, but rather her sheer, dismal loneliness. She had been hiding in the corner when he had first seen her, rather then hanging around with the other Acolytes. It seemed strange and unfortunate that a girl of 15 years would be without any friends as Satoryu was. She had sensed the Sith Lord's kindess and she now she wanted to savour it. He smiled at Satoryu and tussled her hair with his hand before going to sit back down. Satoryu followed and poured him another cup of tea, whilst attempting to contain her surprise.
"You don't think I'm strange? You don't think I'm a freak?"
"The Dark Side is strange Satoryu, all Sith know this."
"You think all Sith know the Dark Side?"
"Of course, though some more than others obviously."
"I have to disagree, My Lord. Somebody once told me, that you only truly know the Dark Side, when you truly wish you didn't."
There was sadness in her voice and it piqued Kadmus' interest. He stroked his beard contemplatively as a small breath of wind moved the drapes beside them. It was silent, but visible. The window behind the curtains was firmly shut, as was the door. Kadmus shifted his eyes bewilderedly. The little girl noticed.
"Is something wrong, My Lord?"
Kadmus gave a reassuring smile as he watched the girl curiously. Did she really consider her knowledge of the Dark Side superior to most? She was only 15 and knowledge of the Dark Side came with experience, experience not many 15-year-olds had. On the other hand, this fragile, coy girl had incredibly unsettling Force presence. It was undeniably Dark, but it also seemed chained, as though she was desperately attempting to repress it.
"Your Force presence is unlike anything I've ever felt before, I sense a story behind that."
"You are strange one, My Lord, normally others don't want to talk with me."
"Tell me about yourself, Satoryu. Who are you? I am interested to know about where you came from and furthermore, how you knew my potential apprentice."
If it occurred that girl was indeed lying about the three deceased, Kadmus would try and coax the answers out of her through simple conversation, and it seemed like a very long time since she had one of those. Satoryu was very quiet all of sudden, she averted her gaze from Kadmus and began to stare off into the air, as her mind immediately began to gather and organize everything that had happened to her up until this very moment.
"I was born and raised in the sands of Korriban…"
Satoryu informed her companion of her tale. Her parents were archeologists working for the Empire who lived on a campsite in the Korriban desert with their expeditionary crew. Satoryu was conceived and born on the site where she lived for the first ten years of her life. They studied the tombs and the artefacts buried underneath Korriban's sands and for as long as she could remember, Satoryu helped them with their work. The endless sands, ruins and tombs became the child's vast playground and she would spend hours running about the crevices and statues and deciphering the ancient hieroglyphs. Their Kissai and Massassi forebears enamoured her. Their names and biographies now lost to history, their young ally had been kind enough to provide them with new profiles. Innocence had been restored, no longer were they tainted by the likely abhorrence of their reality. Life was tough, but it was happy. When Satoryu was ten, her father was killed in a tomb accident. Her mother couldn't work as a single parent, so she sent her daughter off to the Sith Academy.
None of the other Acolytes would talk to Satoryu or play with her. Not long after her arrival, a Jedi Knight and his Padawan learner were caught trying to enter Korriban's atmosphere in an attempt to infiltrate the Sith. The Knight was executed, but the Padawan was admitted as a Sith Acolyte. The Padawan's name was Miya and she had a heart of gold, Unaware of her Master's death, she remained constantly positive that he would return for her. She reached out to Satoryu with kindness and the two formed what could almost be described a friendship. People didn't trust Miya because of her Jedi history and they avoided her, Miya and Satoryu were each other's only company. When a valuble holocron belonging to one of the Sith Lords at the Academy was stolen, Miya, the former Jedi, was instantly blamed. The girl was imprisoned and tortured, but no matter how hard they beat her, she could not give an answer. Unable to withstand the pain, she killed herself.
"You've fooled many people with that story I take it? But not a Sith Lord."
Kadmus said after taking a hearty sip of his tea. As her gaze remained averted, Satoryu slowly raised her shoulders and lowered her head in submission. Her eyes shifted as she knew her attempts to lie were fruitless.
"First of all…" Said the Sith Lord. "How would Miya have killed herself? Did her torturers leave her with a weapon? Secondly, Jedi respect all forms of life, including their own, suicide is greatly looked down upon in their philosophy."
Satoryu looked down and bit her lip, she repeated herself in a frustrated tone, as this Sith Lord's wits out sharpened her own.
"She killed herself, she's dead. I found her in the Kissai temple where they left her."
"Miya was my student, and my responsibility and the fate of her assailant is my concern only. You have my word that I will not punish you for only giving me an answer."
Turning to face Kadmus, Satoryu told the story again. It was Satoryu who had stolen the holocron and despite the kindness of Miya who befriended her, Satoryu framed her for the crime. After Miya was tortured, Satoryu killed her. Kadmus had suspected as much. He let out a heavy sigh whilst tapping his nails on the table. It was not uncommon for Acolytes to murder one another for matters of competition and asserting dominance, but in this case he could not put his finger on the reason why. That was when Satoryu, after a moment's silence spoke. Her tone was dark, it was shady and hesitant, as if she was scared to reveal herself any further.
"I can withstand of cruelty, but what I can't take is… kindness."
The last word trailed off her voice in a mixture of contained anger and confusion. Miya's naïve hope and innocence, aswell as the kindness of her fellow Jedi has caused great anger and envy within Satoryu. Maybe the Jedi really were coming to rescue her, maybe she had friends and a family waiting for her back home. Satoryu's words piqued immense curiosity within Kadmus. At that moment, the young Acolyte's face began to twitch erratically, her head shook as let out small whimpers while struggling to contain the subtle convulsions. Kadmus eyes widened and before he could offer assistance, Satoryu's movements abruptly stopped. She clenched her teeth and slammed her eyes shut, and the harsh, loud voice sounded inside her head.
"TELL HIM THE TRUTH."
Relaxing herself and dropping shoulders, she opened her eyes to gaze at Kadmus. All of a sudden she seemed exhausted. Her breathing was heavy, her stare was intense.
"You're leaving something out. Tell me the truth."
"Always I want I want to know why people need to know the truth. Sometimes, it's better not to know, sometimes, the lie is better… Do you really want to know?"
"I do."
Before she could answer, Satoryu was thrown sideways on to the floor. She grasped her head with her hands as twitched and kicked and thrashed violently. Kadmus stood up in alarm. The helpless young girl rolled over and struggled against some invisible force. She held her hands on her ears as if blocking out some terrible sound that only she could hear. Her head thrust upwards, showing her distorted face and wide eyes to the Sith Lord, she opened her mouth and fought to speak.
"I... I… shall… tell you my story..."
Her convulsions settled, and she began.
Satoryu's mother and father were not archaeologists, nor did they serve the Empire, they were exiled who called no place home. Her father had been a Sith Master, but she certainly was not born to the life of one. A recluse by nature, he fled back to Korriban when he was denied the title of Lordship. Accompanied by his wife, his apprentice, a handful of followers and a few hundred archaeological expeditionary workers, he set out for desert. Satoryu's father was a Juyo master, her mother was an alchemist, both were particularly, and dangerously, fascinated by the abnormal power buried within the planet's sands. Shortly within the year of their arrival, Satoryu had been conceived and born. father proclaimed her his apprentice and taught her in combat and Force powers. He was her closest and most trusted friend and she was his pride and joy. The essence of the planet tainted her own, engulfing her in the Dark Side, which fascinated and obsessed her father. He taught her how to read, how to walk and speak and fight.
Compared to Satoryu's childhood, life in the Sith Order was a paradise. As someone so affiliated with the Dark Side, the child's own innocence was only ever partially there. It was not long before Korriban's seething Dark Side energy, curses, and overwhelming heat began to drive the expedition to madness. The expedition workers occasionally butchered one another, but did not touch young Satoryu for fear of her father. His apprentice, was not so cautious and did not hesitate for moment before he dragged the screaming child into an underground antechamber and molested her. Her first true witness of bloodshed occurred when her father tore out her assailant's throat before her eyes. By watching her father, she had learned in that moment just how easy it could be too kill. The man would no longer hurt her, that fact alone distracted her from the sight of the blood. It had been the carnage that had protected her. By the act of killing, her father had set her free.
The madness escalated and her father's tutelage soon came to an end. He had become more preoccupied with brutalizing Satoryu's mother. The woman repeated her husband's actions towards their daughter, in what soon became a chaotic spiral of violence. Her mother had become demented, and she beat the child mercilessly. In disputes regarding the authority over the expedition, husband and wife had come to hate each other. Satoryu's father abused her mother, who abused their daughter and slept with his workers to spite him. Filth, neglect, and maddening loneliness plagued the little girl's existence. Her mother would chase her from one end of the canyon to the other, at night she would return to witness the foul acts of depravity among the company of the work site. She was already irreparably dehumanized and would try as hard as her capacity would allow, to raise herself. The planet had become her sole companion now, her first friend. It was the very thing that had forced her into her solitude to begin with.
Satoryu's mother's hatred of her child had made the madwoman infanticidal. In a last attempt to spite her husband, she dragged her offspring away from the campsite, into the main cavern of the Valley of the Dark Lords. Despite the girl's struggle, her mother's strength outweighed her own and she was sealed inside an antechamber in one of the colossal tombs. She had been disposed of, abandoned and left to die. The room was small and pitch-black, with the exception of one flickering torchlight. Gut-wrenching terror encased Satoryu as her ear piercing screams filled the room, but never passed beyond the stone walls. She scratched and banged furiously at the slab of rock imprisoning her, but her cries for help were silent to the deserted valley. After several hours, her own suffering exhausted her and she curled up on the cold floor and shook herself into unconsciousness.
"You asked for the truth. Yes, I was locked in a tomb, abandoned and left to die."
A day later, Satoryu's father found her still alive and brought her back to the campsite. He beat the woman to death, and then, with no further with which to ignite his passions, he took his daughter, now ten years old, and defiled her. Once she was able to stand, she used an ancient Sith dagger to murder her father while he slept.
The child spent the next few days inside the medical bay where she underwent a series of invasive tests and procedures to tend to her mutilations. She did not speak, and the Academy oversees gained only two pieces of her information, her name and her age, she was currently 10 years old. It would be wasteful to put her to work as a slave, and she was pretty enough to be sold as a concubine, since Sith Lords were always looking for new girls. Her Dark Side affiliation, they had observed however, was remarkably strong for somebody so young which indicated that she had in fact been born and raised on Korriban, and witnessed many of the brutalities that planet had to offer. She was thus admitted into the Academy as a Sith Acolyte.
"And so… that is the life that leads to the Dark Side."
Kadmus could not comprehend how somebody so young had endured so much cruelty. Satoryu had been right; minority of Sith truly knew the Dark Side, and if they did, then they would wish that they didn't. The ability to destroy a planet suddenly seemed so tame compared to the things that average human beings did to each other. Satoryu's story was the Dark Side, it was the savage, harsh, wilderness and madness of Korriban, and it wasn't over.
Satoryu's narrative was interrupted when she grabbed onto her head and let out an agonized shriek. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head leaving twin white pools. She fell backwards, kicking the table over and smashing its contents. Convulsing inhumanly on the floor, she wailed and cursed defencelessly.
"Stop it Kesti! Agh! Fucker!"
Satoryu collapsed. She lay on the floor motionless with her hair dishevelled, the sclera of her eyes hidden and a trail of saliva dripping from her mouth. Kadmus was on his feet and quickly approached the girl, who slowly and clumsily, began to sit up. When her hair fell backwards, revealing her face, her eyes were not the dark, mossy green they had been before, instead they shone a bright yellow. Her mouth curved into an unsettlingly large smile, and then, she spoke. It was a voice not belonging to the young girl, thick in the accent of the Pureblood Sith, and unmistakably male.
"Good evening, My Lord."
Lord Kadmus jumped back in shock and exclaimed.
"Satoryu!?"
"Satoryu is asleep. Only her lovely little vessel here remains. The one we have been sharing for ten years."
The Sith Lord regained his composure and finally realized what was going on. This was Satoryu's secret, the girl was possessed by a Sith ghost.
"Everything Sato told you was true, only she left out the most important detail of her story. She's spent her whole life in the sands of Korriban, and what dwells within those sands? She didn't tell you about the ghosts!"
"Who are you and why reveal yourself just now?"
"My story is too old to matter anymore, what matters is Satoryu's story. Nobody will ever know my suffering, Satoryu's case will not be the same. At least one person should know about this girl, that might aswell be you… Argh! No! I don't want to go back!"
The body of Satoryu fell to the floor again, soon the painful, feminine sighs of the young girl could be heard once again. She awoke and sat back up, shaking her head exhaustedly.
"Have I got your attention now, My Lord? Yes… That was Kesti. He has been my constant companion for ten years."
Satoryu proceeded to tell Kadmus the whole truth. No wind could reach inside the tomb her mother had concealed her in, but it was a gentle, cold breeze that blew on to the child's face and awoke her as she lay on the hard ground. She opened one eye that peered up towards the doorway. It wasn't until she recognised the large emblem of a horned helmet that she realized where she was, she was in the tomb of Marka Ragnos. The cool breeze hit her face again, only this time, it was much harder and it did not stop. Her eyes suddenly widened as the air in front of her turned a cloudy white, and then began to shimmer with a sliver glow. It began to shape, then shadows and details began to form. Shoulder-length hair and the sleeves of long robes began to billow and flutter. And then, it spoke.
"You don't look like a Sith Acolyte, you don't look like you've got a pot to piss in!"
Sadow himself was not this charming.
The ghosts in Marka Ragnos' tomb did not look like the others. Their appearances were much more frightening. Great black rings surrounded their sunken eyes, their clothes and hair were unkempt and tattered. Even in death, their Dark Lord still tortured them. This particular fellow looked just like a Kissai priest, he had long hair, a short beard and simple long robes fashioned in style of a sorcerer. His skin hue was a paler red, indicating he must have been a member of the Sith species from one of the colder planets, Ziost or Khar Delba perhaps.
"I'm not an Acolyte!"
"Then what are doing in here!?"
Satoryu had been temporarily ecstatic at the sound of somebody speaking to her, but the sound of the ghost's question, she became all too aware of the reality that she was most likely going to die here. Tears filled her eyes and the child began sniff and sob indignantly. The ghost was apparently unmoved.
"Oh? You were locked in a tomb for seven hours? That must have been AWFUL! Do you know how long I've been stuck here!?"
Satoryu attempted to calm herself and wiped her face on her arm. The ghost's Force energy illuminated the room, and Satoryu could see much clearer now. She walked over to the grave at the end wall and read the inscription.
"Buried in a shallow grave near the entrance of a tomb. You must have been a disgrace."
"Shut up!"
His name was simply "Kesti", the Sith word for "Suffer". He had been a personal sorcerer to Marka Ragnos who had cursed him for his incompetence. Kesti's forehead tendrils drooped low and he looked at his feet. Satoryu continued to study the hieroglyphs. The woeful creature had spent the past 6,023 years completely awake, trapped inside a tiny, square room, with little to look at and nobody to talk too. His imagination and compensative hallucinogenic state had been his only escape. Ragnos had tortured him in life, and now not even death could set him free and end his misery. It was the saddest thing Satoryu had ever heard of.
"You know... I could get you out of here."
"Really?"
"A simple, but strong Force pull is all that is needed to wrench that slab from it's place. But of course, in order to manipulate the Force in the physical world, I require a physical body. So tell me Miss...?"
"Satoryu. My name is Satoryu."
Now tell me, Satoryu, would you be willing to assist me in helping you?"
"Yes."
"That's exactly what I needed to hear."
His eyes narrowed and a cruel smile appeared on his mouth. He began to dissolve into thin air, and then before Satoryu could move, his shape morphed into a spear of blinding light which shot forward towards the girl. A surge of immense power sent her stumbling backwards, sweat poured off her countenance as the sensation of hot, burning energy overwhelmed her body. Glaring white light flashed before her eyes and then, everything disappeared.
The first thing that occured to Satoryu the moment she awoke was the sharp pain in her head and the blood dripping down her face. She must have collapsed on the tomb floor. Only, she was no longer inside the tomb, she was standing outside in the sand, in the Valley of the Dark Lords. The sun glared off the roof of the Sith academy over the hills. With the control of her body, Kesti had used the Force to move the stone slab that had concealed them, but he was still there. Her head convulsed, her arms shook, her legs moved without command, a beautiful accent dictating repulsive speech sounded clear and loud inside her head, Satoryu was eternally possessed by the spirit of a dead Sith.
Kesti was mad. Cruel, aggressive, vulgar and utterly merciless, he had no pity whatsoever on any living sentient, due to his belief that everyone and everything hated him. Deeply traumatized, he was the remnant of a life wrought with betrayal, revenge, agony and epic tragedy. Satoryu's body became an object for the spirit to vent his rage, sadness, frustration and pain. Having suffered for so long, he believed that it was only rational that he made someone else suffer. Satoryu was subjected to every form of degradation or humilation that amused him. Her bodily functions became almost totally involuntary. Sleeping and walking were near impossible and his voice raged inside her head constantly. This ghost had bound her in a state of constant physical and psychological misery. If he wanted something, he always got it, no matter what it was. She was bound between the violence of Kesti and that of her parents.
A Night like any other fell over the desert as her father wrenched her mother's hair from her scalp and threw her against the rock. She fell backwards onto the ground, as the man's fist came colliding with her face. After beginning to crawl away, he picked her up and sent her crashing downwards once more before delivering a powerful kick to her head. Clambering to her feet, she attempted to run outside the tent, but he caught her in the doorway. He pushed her down, then grabbed her hair again. This time, he forced her directly onto the hard stone, and the split of her skull echoed through her daughter's ears as the child shook for dear life. He smashed the woman's cranium once more onto the ground, blood spluttered from her nose and mouth as the bone collided with the surface. The dead woman's head rolled casually to the side as blood flowed from the open wound in her skull. The man rested again the wooden entrance, exhausted and sweating from the heat. His breathing was heavy and exasperated as he slowly made his back inside the tent. Slowly, he turned his head to face his daughter. The little girl was huddled up against the side of the wall, her eyes wide and her breathing high paced with sheer terror. She clutched her knees and trembled violently as her parent stumbled towards her.
The morning sun seeped through the the cracks in the wood of the makeshift hut. Its bloody orange hue filling the room and staining her uncovered flesh. The tiny being lay on the ground, her legs spread and contorted, as hot sharp pain flowed through her every cell. The light of the sun glistened in the tiny pool of blood that had formed beneath her. Red sand clung onto the coagulated liquid as it stuck to the inside of her thighs. Fluids of crimson and pearl dripped from her ravaged interior. In between her slow belated breaths she would attempt to reach out and touch the source of the slick and cooling sensation. Every so often she would try and move to no avail as the sharp pain encasing her hips and pelvic bone immobilized her. The throbbing sting from the open gash pulsated throughout her entire body, like a tight, contracted flower bud wrenched open before it was old enough to bloom. Moving was impossible, and after three years of nothing but total and utter weakness, she had succumbed to the prospect of lying there until she died. The ghost called Suffer had other ideas.
"Kill him."
Kesti's Force power was enough to help her stand, but it did nothing to stop the pain. She wobbled against the wooden beam holding up the sheet roof, which grasped as the pain encased her body. She stretched out a hand to touch herself, and let out a shrill, agonized whimper as her eyes filled with tears. Just as when Kesti had first possessed her, a refreshing, invigorating surge of energy overcame her being. It had occurred to the ghost that letting his host stay and rot was hardly beneficial to either of them. She spied the antique dagger, her father had recovered one of the tombs. It was resting in a sachel on the ground by her father's bed, where the man slept. Aided by Kesti's strength, she stumbled across the room and pounced on the item. Removing the dagger from it's sheath she slowly moved beside her sleeping parent. She aimed for stomach as Kesti instructed, as the flesh would be softer and easier to pierce. She impaled him several times in a series of hard and fast stabs. He awoke after the first strike and let out an ear piercing scream. After quickly releasing the knife from his gut, the implement had caught on to his innards, she ripped it out at break neck speed, sending his blood and entrails flying. By word of Kesti, she delivered a final series of blows to his chest an neck. His screams subsided as he spluttered blood, rolled off the bed onto the ground and died.
Having heard the man's screams, the workers on the site had began to gather and would come after Satoryu if they found her. She kept the knife and made her way outside and up and out of the canyon, until she was standing over the rocky crevice with the open desert behind her. Imperial personnel and Sith from the academy frequently explored the Korribani wilderness in search for lost archeological expeditions or groups of acolytes who had deserted their Masters. This particular group of maddened exiles was known to the local authorities and when word of the commotion reached the academy, they sent a team to investigate. After fighting past the lunatics, they found Satoryu's father and assumed that he had been killed by his workers. Soon after, they discovered the filthy, blood-covered child and took her with them back to the Sith Academy.
Having grown older and and more powerful in the Force, her control over Kesti had strengthened. Satoryu had painstakingly taught herself the skill of shielding her mind from an invading presence. She now knew how to fight Kesti, by concentrating on her own impulses while blocking out his, and had slowly learned to live with her condition. The two were ultimately forced to cooperate out of sheer loneliness. Kesti was her only friend, until she met Miya.
When a valuable holocron was recovered from the tomb of Marka Ragnos and brought to the academy, Kesti demanded it be returned to the resting place of his former Lord, for fear that Ragnos would somehow punish him if not. As much as Satoryu refused to do so, for fear of severe punishment by the overseers, she was overwhelmed by Kesti, whose desire was too strong for her too control. The academy immediately blamed the former Padawan for stealing the artefact, who was soon imprisoned and tortured. When asked about the missing holocron, Satoryu turned in Miya. The overseers immediately believed the accusation against the former Jedi and Miya was tortured. Unable to withstand the torture, she confessed to the crime. Knowing that Miya was indeed innocent and furthermore, that her Jedi master, nor anyone else, would come to take her home, Satoryu went to the girl's cell and strangled her. It was Kesti who had helped Satoryu escape the tomb, it was Kesti who had killed her father and it had been Kesti who stole the holocron, but it had been Satoryu's decision alone to kill Miya.
"I was the one who decided to kill Miya, all Kesti wanted was the holocron. Either way, we're stuck with each other and we've both been condemned to the Dark Side. Right Kesti?"
Before Kadmus could answer, Satoryu's eyes once again rolled into the back of her head. Blood began to run from her nose and mouth as her head twitched violently. She was thrown backwards onto the floor as the ghost fought for control. Her head and limbs convulsed in every direction and she flopped helplessly and wailed in agony. Kadmus ran over to Satoryu and tried to hold her. Several distorted sounds came from her mouth before she managed to force out two words.
"Help… us…"
"I will help you, Satoryu."
After taking the unconscious girl to the medical bay, Lord Kadmus made immediate preparation for an essence transference ritual. He explained that unless Kesti was removed from Satoryu's body, his sheer Force energy would eventually overwhelm and kill her, but that it was indeed possible to keep his spirit alive by suffixing it to a holocron. For the sake of her own life, Satoryu tearfully agreed to part with Kesti. Satoryu and Kesti battled for control over Satoryu's body, as the host slipped in and out of consciousness. She was restrained and bedridden in the medical bay, as the two consciences continuously switched dominance.
The night before the ritual, the ghost declared his love for the young girl. Over the six thousand years that he had been imprisoned, Kesti had lost all memory of his past life. Only memories of his afterlife remained, and not a moment of it had gone by when he had not been in pain. Satoryu had been a happy dream in an existence which had been nothing but a hellish nightmare. The past ten years he had spent with her had been the only happy years he had ever known.
Satoryu's father had betrayed her in the most abhorrent way possible a parent could betray their child. Was that the sole reason her father had kept her alive? In one act, the trust, the friendship and the love they had supposedly shared was discarded. In that moment, Satoryu truly wished that that she had died inside that tomb. Just when she thought that she had nobody, Kesti saved her life. Even when her father had been lost to his madness, she still considered him, out of sheer desperation to be her friend, while Kesti had tortured her, now the tables had been turned. Her tormenter had become her saviour. Kesti had saved her from her childhood, and it had been the company of the ghosts of Korriban that had kept her sane throughout it. Her ability to trust and her ability to forgive had been restored.
In a room below the Korriban Academy, the body of Satoryu was bound in anti-Force restraints to a chair bolted to the stone floor. Despite the prospect of unintentionally killing Satoryu, Kesti could not bear to leave the body of his beloved. The procedure lasted for four hours, during which time Satoryu was completely unconscious, leaving Kesti in control. Kadmus recited Sith spells from an ancient text while he tore Kesti's spirit out of Satoryu's body towards the empty holocron suffixed to a stone alter. The ghost let out distorted shrieks as he was forced inside the object. As the ritual reached it's climax, the dead Kissai let out one final wailing speech in his native language.
"I hope my end is beautiful! I hope never to return!"
Force power shook the room and visibly illuminated tendrils of energy speed from the body of the girl to the holocron, which began to glow a blinding red. Ear-piercing, distorted sounds sounded throughout the room as energy surged from one vessel to the next. The final body of power attached itself to the holocron, letting the body of Satoryu fall almost lifelessly to the side. All of a sudden, silence pervaded the room and all was still. The holocron was gleaming bright as it contained the Force ghost. The Sith Lord put down his text and cautiously approached the object, then gently reached out a finger to touch it. The finger was quickly brought back as stinging heat hit Kadmus' skin. It began to audibly sizzle and shirek, before Kadmus had to shield his eyes as the object exploded into thousands of tiny shards. With his last ounce of power, Kesti had created a Force repulse to destroy the holocron, leaving his conscience with nothing to suffix itself to and thus destroyed aswell. He had killed himself.
The ritual had exhausted Satoryu of much of her energy, leaving her unconscious for the next few days. When she awoke in the medical bay, the Sith Lord who had saved her life was there to greet her. The Academy, and Satoryu's own Sith Master had been informed of what had happened. Indescribable emptiness was the first thing that struck her when she awoke. She felt cold, and physically lighter, and knew immediately that something drastic had happened. She could no longer hear Kesti making sounds inside her head and when she called out to him telekinetically, there was no answer. When Kadmus informed her of what had happened, she shed tears like she never had before. She had never before lost a friend such as this, for she had never had one to lose. Her grief subsided when she knew that Kesti's misery had now come to an end and that keeping him inside a holocron would be no different than imprisoning him in a tomb. Now that Kesti was gone, the planet of Korriban was the last thing connecting her to her childhood, the ghosts of her past were now almost defeated. Satoryu and Kesti had both achieved victory, and through their victory, their chains were broken.