Hello again, everyone! Not much to say before this chapter, so let's just jump right in. HundredSunsets/starlightonthemoon was the beta, as usual.


Ahsoka was exhausted. She ached in a hundred different places, it felt like a tank had run over her wrist, and she had a pounding headache from where Maul had thrown her against the wall twice. She was probably concussed. And yet, none of that was making her feel truly awful. More than anything, her spirit hurt. The Force no longer felt comforting, like something she could wrap around her to calm down. Instead, it felt skittish, almost fearful around her. Like she'd done something wrong and it was afraid to approach her. She wished she could know what she'd done. What could possibly be wrong about killing a Sith Lord?

Dimly, she wondered if perhaps she shouldn't move. She was lying in a crumpled heap in a dark alleyway with a dead body just a few feet away. And on Coruscant's surface level, who knew what unsavory characters could rise up from the underworld at any given time? But despite all that, she just couldn't find the energy to do it. It felt like she'd lost her last bit of strength somewhere around the six hundredth floor.

The sound of boots smacking against the ground echoed from far down the alley. From the feel of it, it was a group of them, running in synchrony. On Coruscant, that could only be one thing.

Her guess was proven right when she heard the familiar voices of clones barking out orders.

"Two bodies sighted in the alley, sir!"

"Check them! Stay on your toes, we still don't know what we're dealing with yet."

Two sets of boots slowly approached her, stopping right beside, and still Ahsoka couldn't find the strength to lift her head.

"One's a Zabrak, sir!"

"Check his description. What's his status?"

"…Dead, sir. No pulse, no signs of breathing. Body's cold."

"Damn. What about the other one?"

Suddenly, a set of hands seized Ahsoka and turned her over. A harsh light shined in her eyes. Blinking against the sudden brilliance, she made out a red-armored clone examining her.

"It's a Togruta, sir! In Senate Guard armor! And she seems to be conscious!"

"Oh, hell… that's Tano! Then the other one's our suspect! Contact the commander, we've found him!"

"Can you hear me, sir?" the clone above her asked.

It took Ahsoka a few seconds to realize he was talking to her, and she struggled to find her voice. "…Yeah," she said finally, barely managing to get the sound past her lips.

"Are you hurt?" he asked.

Ahsoka couldn't respond, because the light on his helmet was too bright—it was blurring her vision, and she was finding it too hard to form words now. Then everything was a confusing blur of sounds and lights and feelings until abruptly, it all coalesced into a clear picture again.

Some time had obviously passed, as she was now lying on a stretcher with an oxygen mask over her face. Someone had put her broken wrist in a cast. A helmetless clone and a medical droid hovered over her, watching her carefully. As she focused her eyes on them, the clone breathed a sigh of relief and looked away, putting a hand to his forehead.

"What—" Ahsoka started to say before the droid cut her off.

"Who is the Chancellor of the Republic?" it asked blandly.

"Sheev Palpatine," Ahsoka said automatically. "What—"

"Where are you right now?" the droid asked.

"Outside 500 Republica, I think? I don't know the exact level because I fell out of a building to get out of here—"

"Why would using scare tactics against the armies of the Confederation of Independent Systems be ineffective?"

Ahsoka had pretty much had enough of this droid's questions. No lucidity test from Kix had ever been this long, thank the Force. "Because it's a droid army, and battle droids don't get scared."

"Where—" the droid started to ask, before Ahsoka reached out and grabbed it by the neck.

"Listen, if you don't tell me what's happening real soon, I'm going to reach into your head and yank out your memory banks with my bare hands," she hissed.

"Subject is displaying normal brain function," the droid said quickly, turning away from Ahsoka. "Please refer to my human colleague with any further questions."

"Yes, I'll take it from here." The clone stepped forward. "Ahsoka Tano, right?"

Finally able to talk to a non-droid sentient being, Ahsoka forced herself to calm down. "Yup."

"Great. Wow." The clone let out a hard exhale and turned away, rubbing his forehead. "I'm sorry if I seem a little dazed, sir, it's just that I've never seen anything quite like what just happened. You, I don't know how to say this, you were in a comatose state for about…" He checked his chrono and looked down at his clipboard. "Eighteen minutes." He squinted at her. "Unbelievable. You had no response to light or stimuli and you were breathing irregularly. A couple minutes ago, we had you on the stretcher all ready to take you to the medcenter, but then your vitals started coming back up and then you just… woke up."

Well, that was different, Ahsoka thought, sitting up. "The Force works in mysterious ways, I guess?"

The medic shook his head. "Never seen anything like it."

Ahsoka glanced around and saw a battalion's worth of clones swarming around them with a few uniformed investigators mixed in. They seemed to be going over the entire scene, inch by inch. The only thing not being gone over was Maul's body itself, which had a small holographic fence around it and no less than eight clones guarding it.

"We've got everything secured, don't worry. And I'm sorry about this, but we still have to bring you to the medcenter. People just don't go into a coma for no reason."

"It can wait." Ahsoka pulled off the oxygen mask, ignoring the medic's protests, and swung her legs over the stretcher's side.

"It absolutely cannot. You—" He paused as Ahsoka fixed a deadly glare on him. Medcenter be damned. She wasn't going to sleep until she found out who was behind this. She'd fought battles with a concussion before. This would be nothing.

"I mean, you can refuse treatment… I can't make you go." He glanced over his shoulder at Maul's body. "Especially considering that, from what I understand, you've just killed a Sith Lord."

Ahsoka looked at the body again and quickly looked away. She'd seen enough of it to last her a lifetime.

"Just don't be surprised if you start having concussion symptoms tomorrow morning," the medic said. "But, yes. You're… free to go. Which is a bad idea."

Ahsoka had stopped listening to him by that point as she scanned the crowd that had gathered behind the clones guarding the scene. "Where's Riyo?"

The medic gave her a quizzical look. "Who?"

Ahsoka fought down a burst of irritation. "Senator Riyo Chuchi? Pantoran? She's the one I was guarding when Maul showed up?"

"Oh, right. Her." The medic gestured with his clipboard to his left. "She came down here to see you, actually. Just a couple minutes ago. She's right there. Behind the perimeter."

Ahsoka whipped her head around. Sure enough, Riyo was there, flanked by Senate Guards and watching her from behind a line of clones, her face creased with worry. As soon as their gazes met, relief burst over her face.

Ahsoka jumped down from the stretcher and landed unsteadily, nearly losing her balance. She almost braced herself against the stretcher with her bad wrist, but caught herself at the last moment.

"Are you sure you don't want to go to the medcenter?" the medic asked wryly.

"I'm good. Really." Ahsoka found her footing and took two steps forward before breaking into a run.

Riyo pushed between two clones. "Ahsoka!"

"Riyo!"

They met, embracing, and Riyo buried her face in Ahsoka's shoulder.

Ahsoka let her face settle in Riyo's soft hair, which was free of most of its usual adornments and only tied back in a loose bun. She couldn't say anything right now. There was so much to explain that nothing made enough sense to say first. Also, if she opened her mouth for too long right now, she was probably going to start crying.

"You're alive," Riyo said. "You're alive."

"I'm alive," Ahsoka confirmed, gently patting her on the back. Force, that felt good to say. Because when Maul had first come charging out the gates of hell, she'd been sure she was going to die that night. But now, an hour later, she was standing in an alleyway with the Sith Lord's dead body nearby, and she was still alive. And Riyo was safe. She'd done it. She'd survived. Survived without the Jedi at her back. How was any of this real? Really, it didn't feel real at all. She felt like she'd been pulled back from the world and she was just watching it through a window several feet away.

Riyo pulled back suddenly. "He's dead?" she asked. "I saw—Ahsoka, you're crying."

Ahsoka swiped at one of the tears rolling down her cheek. "I know. I'm sorry. It's just… I can't… I…" This didn't just feel unreal, it felt wrong. The Force still felt fearful like a cornered animal, and with Riyo there, Ahsoka had finally realized what she'd done wrong. She'd lost control.

When Maul had loomed over her, their sabers locked and Ahsoka just seconds away from being killed by having her own blade pushed back on her, she'd felt rage building deep inside her in a way that she'd felt time and time again in the months since she left the Jedi. But every time before, there had been someone there to pull her back from the brink, remind her of everything she stood for, and stop the tidal wave building in her. But this time? This time she was alone, without Riyo there to help ground her, and she could do nothing except unleash the tidal wave. And yet, unleashing it had, in that moment, been good. If she hadn't done that, she would've died. But that was what was wrong. Those things—the rising rage, the tidal wave, the scream and the shockwave—all that was the Dark Side.

The Dark Side had saved her in that one moment, but that was its terrible promise. Be saved by it once. Come to rely on it. Become a slave to it. That was how a Jedi could fall to the Dark Side, and Anakin had always warned her about how easy it was for it to happen.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry."

"What are you sorry for? You saved our lives."

There were a million things Ahsoka wanted to say about the Dark Side and how she couldn't control herself when it mattered most and how wrong it all felt, but all that she could say aloud was, "I'm sorry for scaring you." Which was at least true.

Riyo laughed weakly. "Tell me about it. When you went out the window…" She trailed off, tears brimming at the corners of her eyes. "I thought you'd actually died. How did you survive that?"

"Well…" Ahsoka scratched the back of her head. "It's a long story."

"And you've got plenty of time to tell me everything. I can't go anywhere until I've spoken to the investigators." Suddenly, Riyo let out a weak laugh that trailed off into nothing. "For the gods' sake, if I'd known you could survive a fall from that height, I would've shot him in the head, not the shoulder."

"Don't worry. It's over now."

"It is." Riyo leaned forward again into Ahsoka, nuzzling her face into a gap between Ahsoka's armor plates on her shoulder. "Ahsoka," she said softly. "I thought I lost you."

"Not yet," Ahsoka said. "Not yet."


Ahsoka and Riyo had sat down on the stretcher, leaning against each other, and they were quietly watching the clones do their work around the crime scene. They had scoured the area for evidence, completely avoiding Maul's body for some reason, and were now taking pictures of the crime scene. Ahsoka watched two clones pick up Maul's lightsabers and drop them into a small box. Idly, she wondered what happened to the lightsabers of defeated Sith Lords. Did the Jedi keep them in the Temple somewhere? Or did they just get destroyed?

She would've loved to ponder it further, but she was brought out of her musings when Riyo spoke.

"You were going to tell me about how you came out of that alive," she said, giving Ahsoka an expectant look. "What happened?"

Ahsoka shrugged. "There wasn't much to it. He was faster, stronger, and a better duelist than me. He probably would've killed me immediately if he hadn't underestimated me. And I was way too close to dying right when you shot him in the shoulder, so… thank you for that. You saved my life. And if he hadn't been shot, there's no way I could've pushed him through the window."

Riyo shook her head. "How do you make it sound so unimpressive? I saw my suite—it looks like there was a war fought inside it!"

"Yeah, lightsaber duels are like that. There's always collateral. Sorry."

"No, don't apologize. You were perfect. Beyond perfect. When I was looking for a bodyguard, I didn't have fighting Sith Lords listed as part of the job. Not even when I found you."

"Don't worry about it. I did it anyway!"

"But how?" Riyo said, amazement still filling her voice. "The fall out the window? What were you thinking? How did you not die?"

"Eh…" Ahsoka shrugged. "I was kind of expecting to die."

Riyo gave her a horrified look.

"It was the only way I would've been able to kill him!" Ahsoka added hastily. "I had to keep him falling fast enough to make sure the blunt force trauma killed him, and that meant going down with him."

"So then… how…?"

"It didn't really work out that way. He used the Force to slow us down, but I saw his lightsabers on the ground underneath us, and he was so distracted by landing safely that I had the time to summon them and stab him through the chest with both blades."

"Incredible." Riyo shook her head. "Utterly incredible. You jump off 500 Republica with him, and now he's… he's…" She trailed off, staring at Maul's body. "Who is he, Ahsoka?"

Ahsoka didn't know much more than Riyo. "His name was Darth Maul. He was one of the people behind the Naboo Crisis about ten years ago."

Riyo sucked in a breath. "He was one of the instigators?"

"Pretty sure. I don't know much about it. That was back when Obi-Wan was still a Padawan. He and his master went to Naboo to fight Maul. Obi-Wan's master didn't make it out, but Obi-Wan managed to kill Maul. Or at least he thought he did, until Maul showed up again a while ago and started causing trouble again. But he won't be causing anymore."

Where was he hiding? Who sent him? she wondered silently. There had to be more to this.

"Oh." Riyo looked away from the body. "He was terrifying."

He was. Ahsoka had never seen anything like him, and she never wanted to come close to that horror again. The feeling of powerlessness she'd had when she was tied up and saw Maul holding that lightsaber to Riyo's neck… Hang on. There was something about the whole scene that still didn't add up.

"How did you escape?" she asked. "You were tied up."

"Oh, that." Riyo gave a short laugh. "You said Maul underestimated you? Well, he underestimated me, too. When he tied me up, he didn't bother checking to see how I'd positioned my body. Muscles tensed, a deep breath in, holding my wrists against my stomach…" She held up her wrists, made a twisting motion, and pulled them away from each other. "It's a shame he didn't go to a military academy. They do a marvelous job of teaching you how to escape from ropes, and I never forgot what I learned. Got out of the ropes, ran out, called security, got a gun, and came back. Not a second too late, either."

"Amazing. I thought maybe you'd just used the Force."

"I'm not quick enough with it. Yet."

At that, Ahsoka's thoughts shifted to Riyo's Force abilities. She was still largely untrained, and maybe that needed to change. After Maul, anything could happen and no assassination scenario was too outlandish anymore. After a Sith Lord came lunging out of the darkness, a lot of things suddenly seemed much more plausible. And who knew what other would-be assassins would want to do… Wait. What the kriff had Maul been up to, anyway?

"Riyo?" she asked carefully, sensing dangerous waters ahead. "What was Maul doing to you?"

Riyo's expression darkened. Revulsion rolled off her Force presence, and with obvious difficulty, she opened her mouth to speak. However, before she could get a word out, the appearance of a uniformed Rodian inspector stopped her.

"Senator Chuchi, I hope I haven't kept you waiting long," the Rodian said, greeting them with a solemn nod. "I am Inspector Gibggite."

"Don't worry about it, Inspector," Riyo said, her face suddenly a smooth mask. "I'm in no hurry right now. I only want to see justice pursued with a level head."

"I am sorry for what you had to endure tonight," Gibggite said. "We will be doing everything in our power to find out who or what is behind this assassination attempt."

"I'm sure you will. Do you have any leads?"

"Nothing at the moment, unfortunately," Gibggite said. "We've swept your suite and the site of the body, and the assassin doesn't seem to have left any trace. We're also reviewing the security footage from the building to ascertain his movements, but that may be a dead end."

Ahsoka sensed a deep suspicion in Riyo. She squinted at Gibggite, trying to see what was causing Riyo's distrust. "What about his body?" she asked.

Gibggite shook his head. "We're not allowed to look at it. On the orders of the Jedi Council."

Ahsoka stared at him in horror. "The… Jedi? Why?"

"The Jedi will be carrying out a parallel investigation alongside us, and they have ordered us to leave the body untouched for them to examine. The only thing I am authorized to do is keep it under guard."

Ahsoka fought down a rising swell of panic. This was very, very bad. The Jedi were the last people she wanted on this case. If they botched the investigation of the Temple bombing, how in the Force could they be trusted to investigate an actual Sith Lord that had been right under their noses? Whoever was behind this, it was almost certain that the Jedi would not find them. They'd be more likely to pin the crime on her again.

"When… when are the Jedi supposed to come?" she asked. "Do you know what they're going to do?"

Gibggite shrugged helplessly. "They're sending someone tomorrow morning. At ten, I think, but I've no idea what they're looking for, really."

Ahsoka checked her chrono, which was cracked but still working. Half past eleven at night. She had a window. A small one, but ten hours of her looking for answers would be better than anything the Jedi could do in ten days.

"You've found absolutely nothing at all?" Riyo asked.

"No, sadly." Gibggite looked back and forth between Ahsoka and Riyo, sympathy covering his face. "Would you like me to take you both back to your suite? We've searched it several times over, and it's cleared for you to return. You must want to get away from this horrific scene."

No. Ahsoka wanted to stay here and find a way to get around the numerous guards and search Maul's body. She could feel something in the Force pulling her towards it. The key to solving this mystery had to be right there.

But then Riyo replied to Gibggite. "Yes, please," she said, surprising Ahsoka. "I need to get away from here."

Ahsoka shot Riyo a look of surprise. Riyo replied with a sharp look that held unexpected terror. Her eyes conveyed a desperate need to go back up, and Ahsoka couldn't go against that.


Riyo's suite looked just as it'd been during the fight, with scorch marks in the ground where lightsabers had swung too low and stray shards of glass from Ahsoka's loss of control. But the group of camera-toting workers in lab suits that were just leaving as Ahsoka, Riyo, and Gibggite arrived told a different story.

A cadre of Senate Guards had joined them on the way up, and seeing them had reminded Ahsoka about Jorys and Edose. Force, if they'd been here tonight… She didn't want to think about it.

"We tried to leave the place as undisturbed as possible," Gibggite said, moving towards the entrance to Riyo's office. "We covered the blown-out window, but I don't think—"

Riyo had stopped paying attention to Gibggite and was bending over one of the couches. As Ahsoka watched, she picked up something that had been sitting on the table next to it. Throwing a surreptitious glance at Gibggite, who was oblivious, she edged over to Ahsoka and thrust something into her hands.

Ahsoka looked down. In Riyo's hands was the holorecorder that Maul had been holding before Ahsoka attacked him. She took it, giving Riyo a questioning look. Riyo's only reply was to place a finger on her lips and nod at the inspector. Understanding immediately, Ahsoka palmed the holorecorder.

"Inspector," Riyo said casually. "I really do think this night has been a strain on me. I'm going to retire to my room."

"Please, go ahead," Gibggite said, waving his hand. "I can't stay here much longer anyway. But there will be a full-time patrol of guards outside your door, and nobody's getting in or out without their approval. They will stay with you both wherever you go to ensure your continued safety."

"Thank you," Riyo said faintly. "I hope you'll make some breakthrough in the case." Without waiting for a reply, she made a beeline for her room. Ahsoka followed.

Once inside, Riyo turned and locked the door. She placed an ear against the door and listened, frowning. "Can you use your montrals?" she whispered. "Tell me if he's left yet?"

"Absolutely." Ahsoka focused on the next room over, and sure enough, a shadowy figure representing Gibggite was exiting. "He's gone," she said.

"Good." Riyo straightened. "Ahsoka. I need to see the holorecorder."

"Here," Ahsoka said, holding it out. "Why didn't you give it to Gibggite? I mean—I would've stolen it, too, but I didn't think you would do that."

"I don't trust the investigators on Coruscant," Riyo said simply, turning the small device over in her hands. "Not after how they mishandled the kidnapping of Chairman Papanoida's daughters. Bumbling fools," she spat. "The whole lot of them, it seems. How could he miss this? I think he thought this belonged to me. What idiocy."

Well, that was unexpected, but… Ahsoka and Riyo were in the same boat, then. Ahsoka didn't trust the Jedi. Riyo didn't trust CorSec. Which meant… she was the only person who could get to the bottom of this.

There were so many questions. "Why did Maul have that, anyway?" she asked. "Was he… filming you?"

Suddenly, Riyo went colorless. "It was," she said before pausing for a trembling breath, "Humiliation."

That one word was enough to drive a cold rod of fear through Ahsoka's chest. "What did he do?"

"He wanted to… humiliate me. By making me say certain things. Which I did. I had to. I had no choice."

She placed the holorecorder back in Ahsoka's hands and turned away. "You can watch it. But I can't. Not again. I had to live through it."

"…I understand," Ahsoka murmured, staring at it.

"Ahsoka, if this gets out—" Riyo seized Ahsoka's arm, her eyes boring into Ahsoka's with a frightened intensity. "—it can't get out. I can't face Pantora if they see what's on there—if they see what I had to say."

Wait, what? This was making less sense every minute. Was this all for blackmail? Why send a Sith assassin just for that?

"Nobody's touching this. I promise. Actually—" Ahsoka flipped the holorecorder over and found a small door on the other side. "Keep this thing in case the inspector comes back for it. I'm taking the datachip with me." She pulled a latch and ejected the datachip, only to do a double-take as she noticed something… off about it. All the datachips she'd seen in her life were either red or gray, but this one was a deep blue with an ornate golden pattern stamped around the borders.

"Riyo, do you know what this is?"

"Hm?" Riyo squinted down at the chip. "Odd… I've seen this before. But I can't remember for the life of me what it actually was.

"Oh, well." Ahsoka tossed the now-empty holorecorder to Riyo. "Call me if you figure out what it is. I'm getting out of here."

"Where are you going?"

"Back to Maul's body. I need to search it before the Jedi get here."

"How will you get past the guards? Everything's locked down right now."

"They won't know I'm leaving." Ahsoka pocketed the datachip and walked over to the window. "You should stand back," she warned, pressing the palm of her hand against the window. She concentrated, feeling the brittle structure of the glass, and imagined a thousand cracks radiating out from her hand. And then she pushed.

The window shattered with barely a sound, the shards falling away to the sky below, and what was left was a hole easily large enough for her to climb through. Hey, if some property destruction was needed to get some answers, that was fine by Ahsoka. And she was ready to break a lot more than just a window.

"Don't let anybody know I'm gone," she said to Riyo. "I'll be back sometime this morning." It was almost quarter to midnight. The Jedi would be here in about ten hours. She had every intention of finding who sent Maul before they would even know what had happened.

"Be safe," Riyo said.

"Don't worry about me," Ahsoka said. "Worry about whoever's behind this. Because I'm coming for them."

With that, she jumped out the window and went plummeting towards the ground below. For the second time that night.

At least it was less terrifying this time. Now that she wasn't actively trying to hit terminal velocity, it was exhilarating to watch Coruscant's lights flash by her in the dark night. The cool night air whipped around her face as she approached freefall, the planet blurring around her. Only as she got closer to the ground did she reach into the Force to slow herself down.

Turning her attention to the ground, she saw the alley with Maul's body down below, and adjusted her trajectory for a nearby rooftop several stories above it.

She landed neatly at the edge and dropped into a crouch. Below was the dark outline of Maul's body still surrounded by a holographic fence and heavily armed clones. She counted ten Coruscant security troopers—shinies, judging by how their armor's red highlights gleamed in a way that no amount of polishing could replicate—surrounding it. One end of the alley, a dead-end at a twenty-foot wall, was unguarded. The other end, abutting a crowded speeder lane, was guarded by five more clones. Those ones had more battered armor, signaling greater experience.

Ahsoka studied the scene carefully. This wouldn't be easy. She couldn't leave any trace. If the Jedi caught wind of any tampering with the body, then it would only be a matter of time before they caught wind of her investigation. But staying undetected with fifteen clones standing in her way was easier said than done.

She cast a glance at the unguarded dead-end. Maybe she could set a distraction and then climb down from that way…? No, she decided. A distraction big enough to draw them away from the body would require her to be in two places at once. Besides, if these clones had any tactical smarts, they'd still leave some men behind to watch the body no matter how big the distraction.

And then, as she racked her brains for an idea, the unmistakable sound of a blaster pistol cocking came from directly behind her.

Ahsoka froze. She could feel someone behind her, a shadowy figure pointing a pistol at her head from just inches away. How had she not sensed this person? It was just as if they had appeared there a moment ago from the shadows. And who in the Force would—

"Fancy meeting you here, Tano," a grating voice drawled.

Oh. Ahsoka knew that voice. Knew it too well. But she knew she could turn around now, because if this person had meant any harm, they would've pulled the trigger already. She turned, not bothering to raise her hands, and found a familiar face behind her.

"Hello, Ventress," she said calmly.


First Maul, now Ventress. It's turning into a TCW reunion here. Get ready for some hijinks next chapter.

Thanks for reading. I hope you'll leave a comment!