.expiatus.
atoned for, purified, purged by sacrifice
You are drawn back to yourself by the gleeful cackle of a demon.
You look around wildly, stunned, trying to see through the red haze that seems to have obscured your vision. You were so angry about… something. But now you can't even remember.
And then you see him. He lies still and broken at your feet, his breath an unregulated wheeze, his head bent. His posture speaks of a lifetime of despair, and you realize, with horrified fascination, that he is waiting for you to kill him.
Somewhere in the back of your mind, you remember that you came here to save him, and you wonder where it all went so disastrously wrong.
His hand is missing. It is the right hand, black as night, and the stump that remains is only so many wires. You wonder how long it has been missing.
And then your gaze shifts, and you realize that his hand is missing because it is now yours.
You look back at him, and consider your options. The demon is speaking in your ear.
Leia would want him dead, you think. Yoda told you to kill him. Ben told you to kill him.
The demon tells you to kill him. Kill him, and take his place.
You look back at your hand—the black one. He is still lying there at your feet. He is beaten, and you know that you have defeated him more surely than Ben ever did.
You wonder, suddenly, if it is really him that you hate, or if it is yourself.
Ben told you to kill him. Yoda told you to kill him. They were wise, and they were your teachers. But they were wrong.
If you kill him, you will become him.
The sword glows in your hand, and you know what you must do. You came here to save him, and you know now that there is only one way to do that. And, maybe, you will save yourself in the process.
You look one last time at your saber, and then you straighten and speak the words that you have waited your whole life to speak.
"I am a Jedi, like my father before me."
Out of the corner of your eye, you see his mask turn sharply towards you, startled. And you smile, because you know he is not dead. You have not killed him.
And then you throw away your sword. You know now that you have never really needed it.