Chapter 55
Kanan Jarrus groaned as he climbed unsteady back to his feet. Looking around, it was hard for him to get his bearings. He was surrounded by swirling dust, trapped in a miniature tornado, and it limited his sight. He wouldn't be able to rely on his eyes to face his enemy. Closing his eyes, Kanan sent out his senses and felt in the Force that something was fast approaching him. He raised his blade instinctively and deflected two swings of a lightsaber before he felt a kick land in his stomach and send him flying out of the swirling vortex of dirt. He rolled on landing and his lightsaber deactivated itself. He looked up and found a blue blade pointed right at his face. "Dead," Obi-Wan Kenobi told him and Kanan groaned in annoyance, slumping down on the ground. "Yeah. For the tenth time today," Kanan replied. Obi-Wan deactivated his own lightsaber and offered his free hand to Kanan, who took it. As Obi-Wan pulled Kanan to his feet, Leia yelled from the sidelines, "Oh, come on, Kanan! You're fighting an old man! Just wear him down until his arthritis kicks in!" Obi-Wan frowned at where Leia was sitting on a fallen log, watching the training session. He knew that she was just teasing, but it still annoyed him to know that she was right. For years now, he had been forced to call on the Force to help him keep up his speed when he fought, and he wasn't oblivious to the fact that he was getting older with every passing day. His hair had even started turning white a while ago, forcing him to resort to hair coloring so that he could convince himself of his continuing youth.
Ezra Bridger, Kanan's own apprentice currently sitting next to Leia, laughed and added, "Besides, Kanan, give yourself some credit! That can't be more than nine times he's laid you out now!" Obi-Wan and Kanan shared a look with one another, each silently conveying their mixed feelings over the antics of their apprentices. Obi-Wan smiled and cleared his throat and said, "Come now, Ezra, your Master has had a tough time lately. Besides, if I'm not much mistaken, his mind is currently distracted by a certain Twi'lek pilot he would rather be spending his time with." Ezra and Leia both cracked up and Kanan blushed before he pulled out his lightsaber and glared at Obi-Wan. "Alright, Kenobi, now that's a breach of privacy. This time, you're going down." Obi-Wan faked an affronted look. "'Breach of privacy?' You're the one who keeps thinking so loudly! If you focused a little more, you'd perform in this fight better as well as keep me from discovering your not-so-secret feelings," Obi-Wan said cheekily as he turned and began to walk away.
Kanan charged at Obi-Wan with a yell, fully expecting him to turn and ignite his own lightsaber to block and begin the fight, but instead Obi-Wan simply spun around as soon as Kanan arrived behind him and stuck out his leg to trip him. Kanan fell forward at full speed and crashed on his face into the ground. He then lifted his head and spit dirt out of his mouth before turning to glare at Leia and Ezra who were once again laughing. Obi-Wan walked forward with a small smirk on his face and kneeled down next to Kanan. "An angry enemy is blind to the danger that awaits them," Obi-Wan told him. "You are a mighty warrior, Kanan Jarrus, but you never completed your Jedi training. One of the things that most separates the Jedi from the Sith is our mindfulness, our patience. In simple terms, your greatest strength as a Jedi will come when you learn to slow down. Do not seek conflict. Merely bring it to an end." Kanan took a deep breath and nodded, saying, "Yes, Master." Obi-Wan stood back up and once again helped Kanan to his feet.
"No one can blame you for your desire to fight. Ahsoka is the same way, a Padawan that joined the Jedi ranks in the middle of the war. All you've ever known was battle, conflict, a constant struggle for power and identity." Kanan nodded, surprised by Obi-Wan's understanding, and responded, "After the Purge… I didn't know what to do. I was scared, alone… The Inquisitor reminded me when I was captured. I left my Master to die. She told me to run, and I did. Our friends were our attackers, and I didn't know what was happening." Ezra sat up a little straighter. Everyone had fallen silent now, listening to Kanan's story. "Right before whatever happened, I went to get help from GAR Special Forces. That was a big mistake when they turned on us, because those same forces tried to hunt me down. I barely managed to escape. I… I can't quite explain what it felt like. We fought alongside them for years. My Master fought with them, she led them, and they gunned her down in a second!" Ezra got off the log and walked over to Kanan, asking, "The Jedi were betrayed? Why?" Kanan shook his head and answered, "No one knows. They say that the Jedi committed treason against the Republic, but I know it definitely wasn't all or even most of us. Some surviving Clones say that there was some sort of chip in their heads…"
At that, Obi-Wan recalled an important piece of information. He stroked his beard and told them, "That explains a lot, actually." They all looked at him, silently asking for more information, and Obi-Wan sighed before continuing. "During the Clone War, there was… an anomaly in one of the troopers, a soldier from General Skywalker's division. We were on a mission, just like any other day, when suddenly one Clone shot a Jedi General, point blank to the head. As you can imagine, he was immediately taken into custody for questioning, but… it didn't seem like he was all there anymore. He just kept repeating, 'Good soldiers follow orders.' He was examined and the Kaminians that had grown him said that there was an isolated issue with his inhibitor chip, a device implanted in the brains of Clone soldiers to ensure that they followed orders without question. Eventually, he escaped custody and was deemed unstable and dangerous, so he was taken out, and the situation was considered dealt with. But now I'm wondering, maybe…" "It's true," came another voice.
All four of them turned to see Ahsoka walking towards them. "When the Purge came, I was escorting the former Sith Lord, Darth Maul, to Coruscant. My Clones turned on me but I managed to separate Clone Captain Rex from the others and gave him a quick surgery to remove his inhibitor chip, and then he was fine. The others… I couldn't save them." Obi-Wan was sorry to hear her sad tale, but he was also confused. "You say you saved Rex…" "They must've found him and undone what I did," Ahsoka said sadly. Kanan went and sat down on a rock and questioned, "What about you, Master Kenobi?" Obi-Wan took a deep breath and looked off into space before answering, "I had just destroyed General Grievous on Utapau, coincidentally the same planet that our angry but charming new prisoner came from. I was lucky. I didn't have to look into the eyes of my friends when they tried to kill me. They shot me off the side of a cliff and sent me falling hundreds of stories into water beneath me. The funny thing is, they could've hit me directly. They never should've missed such a shot. Some part of me hopes that they spared me intentionally, that they just tried to convince their programming that they accomplished their mission. I overheard them saying that no one could've survived the fall I just had, but they had seen me accomplish more impossible feats than that." They all sat together in silence until Leia elbowed Ezra and gestured for them to leave. They both stood up and left the area as quietly as they could, leaving the three war veterans to reminisce about the old days, the good and the bad.