This chapter is shameless admiration on my part for a character that will forever remain at the top of my list of favorites, so I apologize if this is borderline turning Obi-wan into some undefeatable superhuman, because he's not. This is more so an attempt at a character study into why he was able to endure for so long. I also find it interesting that he had a hand in defeating almost every notable Sith of his era (and Grievous), including Sidious, so that's why this chapter is fairly lengthy. Soresu is sort of a "long game" form anyway, so I suppose it should be a long chapter. ;-) Hope you enjoy!
"Not a master. The master."
It might be somewhat audacious and completely ridiculous to state that there is but one master of a form of lightsaber combat among thousands of Jedi who have lived throughout the Order's long and vaunted history. Mace was certainly audacious enough, but he was not ridiculous. He wasn't an idiot.
Sidious never heard the Korun master say the words, but he would have adamantly agreed with him. "Take him to the ship," he commands the droids. The Sith watches, enraged and disgusted, as they peel Vader from Mustafar's black shores and transfer him to the ship.
Kenobi is a light-spawned thorn in his side and if Vader weren't still breathing he would be tearing after the Jedi himself. The fool had bested and thwarted and survived his plans and attacks for long enough. Unfortunately, Sidious admits, he has to set Kenobi aside for the time being. He wagers the coward is running and hiding as it is, too weak and emotionally compromised to face the gravity of his failures.
But he hates the man. Oh does he hate him. The Jedi will eventually have to be hunted down and crushed. Sidious has had more than enough of Kenobi dismantling his apprentices.
***oo***
Maul demolishes Soresu practitioners. He finds them weak, pathetic, and far too reluctant to kill their enemies. It is laughably easy to carve straight through their firm parries and passive stances and into their guts, their hearts, their legs, wherever his blade happens to reach. He's intimidating, he's incredibly strong, and he reeks of the dark. He knows this and so he doesn't even have to try to play head games. Maul only has to glare, growl some insults, unleash his hatred for all things living, attack without restraint and he has them bested within moments.
Kenobi is a different beast than the others. Maul remembers being bisected. That hadn't been a calm, defensive-minded padawan that he'd faced. That had been personal anger and uncontrolled desperation and wide, sweeping blows. When he meets Kenobi again, nothing seems to have changed (though he's heard rumors that the fire-headed Jedi is as dangerous a Soresu practitioner as they come).
Maul almost owns the man. He gets so close.
When he meets Kenobi a third time, he wonders at the sanity behind these rumors. Nothing has changed. The Jedi is still aggressive, still delivering wide, sweeping blows, and wielding two weapons with a dexterity Maul has seen in very few outside of himself. Whatever Kenobi uses, Maul wouldn't call it Soresu (though he has to admit that he hadn't come close to touching the man).
When he meets a much older Kenobi, he finally understands.
The Tatooine suns are sleeping, the stars are bright and absolutely brilliant, and Maul lies dying in Kenobi's arms, gutted by the lightsaber held in one of the Jedi's hands. He's baffled by the gentle embrace of his enemy, the sorrow in the man's eyes, the total lack of satisfaction.
"Look what I have risen above."
Maul takes a final, hitching breath and then relaxes. It's enough of a last moment for him to realize that the only darkness near to them is that which he brought himself and that the man sharing this moment with him remains untouched and drenched in the Force's light in spite of him and everything else.
***oo***
Grievous is trained to kill Jedi. He's a terror during the Clone Wars. The embodiment of what children know to fear at night: a creature large, clunky, impossibly swift, and glaring with yellow-rimmed eyes. The stuff of nightmares.
He kills many Jedi during the course of the war. The trophies hanging in his cloak are proof of that and his skill only grows because of it. The Sith Lord, Tyranus, trains him well, but it is the battles that perfect his skill. It seems the Jedi Order doesn't understand that for every warrior they throw at him, they only waste another life while he grows more knowledgeable in their arts.
But there is one that eludes him. They meet time and time again, but neither is able to get the upper hand and this frustrates Grievous like nothing else.
"Kenobi," he growls, glaring.
"General," the fool responds, smirking.
It should be easy. At least that's what he thinks, but he returns to Tyranus time and again with the same accusation: "Do not lie to me!" Of course he always gets severely punished for that, but it never stops him from venting. The Sith continues to insist the Jedi uses Soresu and even though Grievous does his best to convince the man otherwise, it's to no avail. The Count always says the same thing: "It may look different than the rest, but Soresu is his form."
His. His. As if Kenobi owns it. HA!
Tyranus is a blasted idiot as far as Grievous is concerned, but he grudgingly begins to study his nemesis in the following months.
"Kenobi," he growls, glaring (but observing now, too).
"General," the fool responds, glaring back (now that's new).
He begins to see it, this hybrid of forms that Kenobi calls Soresu. It's a mix, certainly, but a lot of Jedi use hybrids. Kenobi's mix of forms is no different, really (though his defensive technique is the equivalent of a kriffing wall). What is different lies outside of the man's chosen style.
Kenobi is a full-fledged chatterbox. The fool is always talking. Without fail. During the entirety of almost every duel. The Jedi is constantly toying with Grievous' loyalties and casting doubts where there shouldn't be any. He always offers surrender as a course of action. Grievous never accepts, but still the Jedi continues to leave the option on the table.
In the end, Grievous glares at Kenobi as always and Kenobi smiles back. The man is penned in and outnumbered by what might as well be a million to one, but Grievous knows those facts won't deter him a bit. "Don't tell me, let me guess: this is the part where you give me the chance to surrender."
"It can be."
Of course. He doesn't understand why the fool continues to try, but he's decided it's just a part of who the man is. A part of Soresu, and Kenobi is Soresu. There is no other Jedi whom he has fought that consistently maintains an openness to peaceful surrender. He used to think it laughable.
"Kill him," he orders.
But of course his massive droid army can't manage to even graze the puny Jedi. Within minutes, his droids have shot each other half to pieces and Kenobi is standing in front of him once more with that bland smile still firmly in place. "My offer is still open."
Yes, he knows. "Do you believe that I would surrender to you now?" Really? After all this time and after all of their many duels?
Kenobi nods. "I am still willing to take you alive. So far no one has been hurt."
The offer is still on the table, but then Kenobi's army shows up and Grievous takes a moment to survey this new situation. When he turns back to the Jedi, his mind is made up. This will be it. He wants to see what Soresu is truly made of, if this man before him is actually willing and able to kill him if given the chance. "To the death, then."
The Jedi sighs. "If you insist."
Suddenly, this offer that has been on the table for months is retracted. Gone. Poof! Just like that. Grievous blinks, thrown. Kenobi is apparently very willing.
But is he able?
If Grievous could smile, he would. He attacks instead and finds that Kenobi's hybrid form is gone. What the man uses now is pure defense. Parries, blocks, angles, a flick here, a shift there. The Jedi stays on a single line and doesn't deviate, ducking and weaving and in constant motion while his blade becomes an energy-infused pest. Grievous throws everything at him. Every one of his four weapons is doing something different and traveling at speeds even a Jedi should have trouble tracking and yet…
He can't hit him. Kenobi remains unscathed, untouched, undeterred, undefeated.
Grievous ups his speed only to find himself suddenly a limb short. The bland, uninterested look remains on Kenobi's face, but there's fire in those eyes now. A few seconds later, Grievous is caught in the hold of an invisible fist and flung away like a ragdoll. He decides that retreat is a wonderful option at this point, but the Jedi nuisance manages to follow him.
In the end, Grievous is killed not by a lightsaber, but by a bolt to the chest.
"So uncivilized," Kenobi mutters, disgusted. He would have preferred the general surrender.
***oo***
Kenobi cannot beat Dooku no matter how hard he tries, but it only takes one engagement for him to realize this. Dooku knows the Jedi is smarter than average, but he never expected the man to resign himself to the role of defensive shield so quickly. Their duel on Geonosis had been pathetically short and really should have ended in the deaths of both Kenobi and Skywalker.
Every subsequent duel sees Kenobi reduced to the role of pesky sidekick to Skywalker's blunt-force offensives. The effectiveness of this strategy (as well as the why resting at its heart) slips beneath his notice until the three of them meet for the final time above Coruscant. It is all too easy to set Skywalker's blood to boiling with a few well-placed barbs aimed at his beloved senator's wellbeing, but Kenobi's signature is a flood of light-drenched calm. This utter stillness is belied by the determined fire in the man's eyes. "Surrender, Dooku. You will be given no further chance."
It's as clear of an ultimatum as he's heard in some time, especially from a Jedi. He doesn't bother to smile. "Unless one of you is carrying Yoda in his pocket, I hardly think I shall need one," he quips. Then the three of them are moving. It becomes a dance that he easily leads, a clumsy outing by the two Jedi and what will soon be a definitive rout by the Count himself.
Until Kenobi smirks in his face, backflips out of reach, and leaves his protégé diving straight at Dooku with a driving blade reaching for his heart. He barely escapes and decides it is time to stop messing around. When he has Kenobi alone in front of him again, he attacks the man with the intent of driving him into another acrobatic retreat so that he can cleave him open from sternum to stomach. The man surely can't walk away from that.
But his plan falls flat. Flatter than flat. All of his precision strikes are flicked aside like so many gnats and Kenobi stands unmoving, fiery eyes staring directly at the Count's face. It is then that Dooku realizes that while Kenobi will never be able to defeat him, neither will he himself be able to kill Kenobi. Not anymore. Not with a lightsaber. That opportunity was wasted long ago. Dooku suddenly thinks he's made a terrible mistake.
In the end, he kneels on the ship's cold floor with two lightsabers crossed at his throat wondering why he decided to knock Skywalker's master out of the fight. Idiot, he chastises himself.
He'd been too blind to realize that the man had become more than just Skywalker's defense in a duel and on a battlefield. He'd been the boy's shield against the dark and, whether intentionally or not, Dooku's shield against Skywalker.
Against Sidious.
"Kill him."
Dooku stares up into death's face and goes numb with embarrassment, shame, loathing, grudging admiration… regret. He almost wishes he could have known Kenobi as an acquaintance at the very least.
Surrender. You will be given no further chance.
Had the man lied? Dooku is beginning to think so, because the Skywalker whelp hates him. That much is obvious. Surely if he'd left Kenobi conscious, the man wouldn't have let things go quite this –
***oo***
Ventress and Vader lend credence to Master Windu's bold claim (here is where Kenobi is different).
Soresu is nothing if not patient. Hopeful. Built for the long game. In its purest form, it refuses to kill, but even Kenobi understands there are limits and points of no return. There are moments in which he cannot let servants of the dark escape again. Moments in which the Light must have ultimate victory.
And he serves the Light.
It is in the cold, bleak, black dungeons of Jabiim's hell that the darkness sets its fate in stone, brings Kenobi's most powerful demons to life so that he can face them and overcome them. Ventress had intended to break him, rend his soul to pieces and reshape him into an empty shell that would follow orders. That would do what she wanted him to do. That would stop pestering her. The Sith mask tears at his mind and rips apart his strongest fortresses to get at the nightmares within: his hatred for Maul, his guilt for his master's death, Cerasi's death, Siri's death, Bruck's death, the fear that he'll fail Anakin in the end, whatever that end is…
He is not the same after Jabiim. Everyone notes the changes. Perpetual exhaustion, more given to emotions, prone to intense flashbacks, twice as many bad feelings and so on and so forth, but there are other more striking changes. Tighter, smoother, deadlier, more precise bladework. Laughter that actually carries joy and not just its shallow, flakier twin. A solid stance on the battlefield that's different from mere confidence and tells his enemies to not try it. The smirk that follows and says exactly the opposite: Try me. I dare you.
Ventress never tries again. She notices the changes too and recognizes something that the Dark simply cannot defeat. He'd found something beneath that mask that he shouldn't have been able to find. It is not long before she breaks her allegiance to the Sith and becomes a woman less black, less angry and more gray and cynical. She will never be a Lightsider, but she doesn't have to be.
Kenobi meets Ventress again. She lends him one of her blades so that he can defend himself against the two horned monsters that seek to do what she could not. They fail as well. When they are in the escape pod together, silent and licking their wounds, Kenobi studies the stars and decides to break the silence. "I owe you a thank you."
She blinks. "What?"
The Jedi doesn't look at her, but she catches his reflection in the star-speckled glass. There's a tiny smile on his face. "When you captured me I was forced to deal with some things I hadn't taken the time to deal with yet."
Ventress gives him the same look she'd given Durge the first time she'd met the misshapen mutant. "You're thanking me for that?" She wonders if he's truly lost it.
"The Force willed it." He closes his eyes, leans back and sighs. "I will always bear the scars, Ventress. That mask is… effective. Reveals the darkness for what it is."
She sits transfixed. "Which is?"
"Nasty. Tempting. Strong," here he winces. "Consuming. But the Light is good. Better. I will not fall. I cannot." The grimace turns into another unexpected smile. "You made sure of that, and for that I owe you a thank you."
Then he spins in the seat and drills her with his unswollen eye. There's a spark in it, something ridiculously pure and light and it sets her spine to tingling. For the first time since she'd been a padawan to Ky Narec, since her beloved master had died, she feels the Force's light touch her and stay.
"As for the rest of that miserable experience," he murmurs, lips now twitching in the beginnings of a full-fledged grin, "I forgive you."
Most mistake Soresu as non-aggressive and, thus, the ultimate expression of what a Jedi is meant to be. And it is true, in as much as it becomes the popular opinion of the masses: Kenobi is the ultimate Jedi. He negotiates before he fights. He prefers defense to offense, kindness to scathing rebukes. He seeks to fix rather than destroy. He is a shield where others, namely his supposedly fearless protégé, are a double-edged sword.
And yet…
The form's namesake is a leech with wings. They call it a Mynock, this creature that leeches power from frigates, destroyers, shuttles, and any other ship it can attach itself to. There is not much to be done about Mynocks. They survive where most cannot, in space's vacuum where it's mostly cold, mostly void, and very quiet. A quiet broken only by explosions and heat traveling fast enough to twang off molecules resting much too far apart. Many a ship has been handicapped and left powerless and adrift by a single Mynock left undiscovered until too late.
Soresu, if its namesake is to be represented well, is aggressive as all get out. It absorbs, it resists, it deflects, it evades, it appears non-aggressive.
Most only notice in hindsight, when it's too late, how effectively Kenobi has crippled them. Those that have been defeated in the way that he intends, in the way that the Force desires, do not consider themselves crippled at all.
Soresu is patient. It is hopeful. It endures longer than most.
But its greatest weapon is compassion: to suck out the slimy blackness, absorb it, and give something entirely different and much more powerful back. There is an exchange that happens when a Soresu practitioner becomes a true master.
Ventress and Vader are proof of this exchange. Ventress' dismissal of the Dark brings him joy in life.
Anakin Skywalker, Darth Vader, only ever brings him sorrow during his living years.
It is on the heated, sulfur-thick, blackened plains of Mustafar's hell that one of the Dark's most powerful servants is left in pieces, but alive. There are no witnesses to this duel between brothers, this clash between Dark (nasty, tempting, strong, consuming) and Light. If there had been an audience and a betting pool, not many would have bet on the Jedi.
But Light is good, and it is better. Kenobi leaves with a tear-stained face, two ash-smudged sabers, and a child that becomes the better half of Soresu's exchange. He becomes a hermit. Just a tiny man in a sprawling dune sea on a planet located in a dastardly part of space. There is not much to be done but think, eat, sleep, brood, and waste away.
But still he hopes, waiting for the opportunity to present itself. It eventually does and it warms his old and weary heart to see Anakin's boy again, grown and uncorrupted by politics, wars, or a restricting Code. It is not long after that he meets Vader again. Unlike with Ventress, Vader (Anakin) is the monster. The Sith Lord is a black storm in the Force, rife with deep wells of power, shot through with hatred, and somehow able to unleash all of it with frightening precision.
Kenobi loses a step, trembles briefly, and then resets. Again, there are no witnesses, at least not until the very end. There is no one to proclaim that visibly it looks very different. Kenobi is old, frail, and not what he used to be. He appears to lose more than a single step, every clash of their blades sets his entire body vibrating, and there doesn't seem to be an opportunity for him to reset.
But in the end, when there are, in fact, witnesses, Kenobi glances at Luke and smiles at Anakin. He straightens his blade, closes his eyes, and gives Anakin what he knows will be enough to drive that wretched, consuming darkness out. Forever.
Here is your son, my friend.
***oo***
Mace knows Kenobi is too humble and too blasted clueless to believe his words, but the younger master is gracious enough to accept them without too much of an argument. He watches Kenobi leave with a slight smile and a shake of his head. He wholeheartedly believes every word that he's ever spoken and these ones are no exception.
There is no time for anyone to dispute him. The Republic falls, far too many Jedi are killed, and Mace meets his end after a long, painful drop from Palpatine's office. If things had gone differently, though, he would have met any argument with a hearty laugh. Vaapad is as much of an opposite to Soresu as any form of combat can get, but he recognizes an obvious similarity that those who aren't masters of either form tend to miss: Vaapad's deadliest weapon lies in an exchange as well.
Mace has absorbed his fair share of darkness, but he prefers to give it back in its original form with an additional dose of his own shady form of Light. It's a blow akin to a hammer striking a nail. Sheer destruction at its finest.
Obi-wan Kenobi is similar, but different. He trades pure, uncorrupted Light for Dark, and Mace finds this to be the more powerful of the two. This is annihilation.
Subtle, sweet, and forever defiant.