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Scarease: Yes, time to save a Mother, or try at least. If it's not too late...

Guest: Thank you for your review and your elaborate discussion, I did enjoy this review a lot!

Don't worry, Kenshin is as distrustful as it gets and he does suspect Dooku to have fallen and be culpable of many things at this point. He talks about it with Obi-Wan who still can't believe that the man who trained his own revered Master Qui-Gon could have turned to evil.

Both Dooku and Kenshin are harsh critics of the Jedi ways and Code. But beyond that, where Dooku claims himself an aristocratic purist, Kenshin is a ruthless pragmatist and has no problem fighting dirty if he sees an advantage in it. He's an exquisite swordsman before anything else, but while Dooku would surely admire his skill, he probably despises his attitude.

We haven't seen a duel between them yet, or have we? The identity of the dark lord, who got nearly killed by Kenshin, is still unknown. As you expertly describe, Dooku is a master of Makashi and its extreme precision, even more dangerous due to him using the dark side. Both Makashi and Vaapad emphasize speed.

Kenshin's style is an altered form of Vaapad - influenced by his childhood training (inspired by Musashi Miyamoto's Niten Ichiryū). It's thus a more precise, stylized variant than Windu's Vaapad but still requires brute physical strength and is very energy expensive. If he lacks endurance to withstand a prolonged fight – and Dooku with his efficience is good at drawing it out - this could be his downfall. Vaapad, however, is also a mindset (see the novel "Shatterpoint"), and one that Kenshin takes to much greater lengths than Windu ever would. We've seen Kenshin reach deliberately into the dark side and use violent dark side powers such as force lightning and brutal mind assault. Because he's a Jedi, supposedly aligned with the light, that will be a problem in more than one way. There's more than one way to fall and he's maybe not as immune to its corruption as he thinks. But it does make him a vicious, supremely dangerous opponent.

- Some battles, you cannot win. But even if you can save only one soul, isn't that still worth fighting for? -

Her life was one of public service. That was, after all, everything she had ever wanted, what she had sworn her life to. And then this young man, whom she had remembered as a mere boy, had burst into her life. He was no boy anymore. By feeling what he did, and admitting it to her, he was probably breaking even more rules than she would, would she give in to it. And feel the same, oh how she did! Anakin had stirred something in her that she didn't remember to possess. With him, she wasn't a Queen or a senator, having to always carefully judge what those around her said, worrying about an entire star system. With him, she could be just Padmé, free and careless. With him by her side, her world turned bright and sunny and for a moment, she wasn't bearing the weight of the important roles she usually had to fill. The safety and fate of Naboo and the galaxy entire, always at the forefront of her mind, retreated into the background as the young man teased her and made her laugh and giggle. She couldn't grasp how there could be so much innocence and so much intensity in his eyes all at the same time. She felt things he hadn't known they existed. Was this...what she was feeling, was it what she thought it was? Was this love?

A scream! It startled her out of her thoughts and she jumped up from her bed, but then heard nothing. She grabbed a light coat to cover herself up over the nightgown she wore, becoming suddenly conscious of how revealing it was. Then she stepped outside.

Anakin had his feet firmly planted on the ground, his shoulders squared and focused on the cool breeze gently blowing over the terrace by the quiet, still misty lake, desperately trying to calm his mind. He noticed Padmé's presence behind him, he must have screamed and woken her up, since she had followed soon after he had walked outside to glance over the deep blue water. Her presence was soothing, but even she couldn't chase away the hurt and terrors haunting him even now that he was awake. He didn't know what to do. He knew what he wanted to do, but he couldn't possibly abandon his duties. Not now. Or could he?

A shadow apruptly darkened the slowly rising sun and Anakin couldn't believe what he saw when the silhouette of a modified ARC170 fighter appeared against the sky as the stealth shields were deactivated and the Kiko, Kenshin's ship, became visible. Kenshin leapt off the open boarding ramp onto the terrace and landed smoothly. With a worried expression he glanced first at Padmé, then his apprentice.

"Master...how...what are you doing here? What is the meaning of this?" Not that he wasn't glad to see him, he just had absolutely no idea why his Master had appeared so unexpectedly, how he even had found out where him and Padmé had retreated to. Maybe this place wasn't as safe and secluded as they had thought. Or maybe Kenshin was really that good of a tracker.

"You tell me." his Master said. "I sensed you were in pain. Terrible pain. I thought you were in danger!"

The Padawan shied away from his mentor's glance. Padmé remained silent.

"Anakin, please! Tell me what's going on! Let me help you!" Kenshin pleaded.

"There's nothing wrong. Just a bad dream, nothing of importance!"

"A bad dream so intense even I can sense it half across the galaxy?"

He crossed his muscled arms over his chest and waited. Padmé figured it was better to leave them alone. She imagined Anakin would not want to appear weak and admit to anything in front of her, so she retreated to her chamber.

"I'll wait all day if I have to, Anakin. And I'll know if you lie. Tell me! Don't fight this battle alone!"

The teenager began to tremble, fighting a war within himself. Jedi don't have nightmares. Dreams pass in time. He couldn't even remember where he had heard those words. I have to be brave, and powerful. He felt Kenshin's eyes on him, dark and intense and piercing, but filled with understanding and compassion. The plea to let him help. Finally, Anakin talked.

How he saw his mother being tortured to death. How it felt, how it hurt, how it tore him apart. How he didn't know what to do about these dreams. It stung Kenshin like acid. He knew how bad it would mess someone up, how toxic it was, when you couldn't tell bad dreams from reality, when you barely knew who you were any more. And it stung because how could he have been so blind, how had he not seen how Anakin was suffering. How had he been so busy with himself and his own demons that he hadn't seen that Anakin needed help.

"Why didn't you talk to anyone?" he asked with a broken voice. "I can understand you wouldn't want to talk to me, we weren't on best terms with each other. But anyone…Quin? Yoda?"

"Yoda?" Anakin growled. "He never wanted me in the Order, neither did that Korun devil Windu. When I was brought before the Council after the battle of Naboo, Ki-Adi Mundi said 'Your thoughts dwell on your mother'. As if that was a bad thing. Master Kenobi didn't think I should be trained either, he only spoke in my favour because it had been Qui-Gon's dying wish. Nobody wanted me, they took me in only to honour the will of a dead man! Every day I was chastised and scolded to let go of my emotions and attachments and how I should not even be at the temple. Jedi don't have nightmares. Jedi can control themselves. So forgive me, Master, but I have a hard time trusting anyone when it comes to „attachments!" He crossed his arms and turned away, pouting like he had when he had been 9 years old and someone had wronged him.

„Your thoughts dwell on your mother..." Kenshin shook his head incredulously. "They take a 9 year old boy away from his home and then blame him for missing his mother? Force, this is fucked up!"

The Jedi Master pondered for a while and finally asked „How far is Tatooine? Two parsecs? Why don't we stop by and you show me around? I heard the weather is great."

"What are you up to, Master?" The Padawan's eyes widened as realization dawned upon him.

Kenshin's response was a stern, determined glance.

"But Padmé...we still have to protect her" Anakin said.

"She is safe enough here. I can have some of my agents stationed here within a few hours, and nobody else will ever learn about it." Kenshin replied. "She will..."

"Go to Tatooine with you" her voice interrupted. "I'm beginning to feel a little cold here, so I'd more than fancy a trip to a warmer climate."

"Senator Amidala! This is not..." Kenshin protested but was interrupted by the senator again.

"You may be a Jedi Master, but you don't get to tell me what to do. If I please travelling to Tatooine, I will, and if you two are to protect me, you'll have to come along!"

She then ignored Kenshin and sent Anakin an intense glare that accepted no talking back. There were things between Anakin and her, things she only began to grasp. Things they had talked about the previous night and while they had said they couldn't go through with it, they both wanted it and they both knew it. More so, Anakin was suffering, and there was no way she would leave him alone. She was coming to Tatooine with him and there was no keeping her from it.

"As lovely as I remember it" Padmé said , looking at the barren brown ball appear when her sleek, silver Nubian starship, followed by Kenshin's smaller star fighter, dropped out of hyperspace. As per the usual proceedings, which meant none, Anakin didn't request landing coordinates and simply brought it in over Mos Espa after they had entered the atmosphere of the desert planet with its twin suns. During the entire trip, Anakin hadn't said much. A sense of doom was hanging over him, he didn't know if his nightmares had been premonitions of something still to happen or replays of terrible events already past. He soon would know, and even though it was inevitable, he was very afraid to know.

In the desert town, nothing had changed. It didn't take Anakin long to find Watto's shop, his former slave master, who informed him that he had sold his mother Shmi to a moisture farmer going by the name of Cliegg Lars. Just as quickly, he had found out where Cliegg Lars lived. The Lars family marvelled as two star ships set down next to their modest homestead, and marvelled even more as they welcomed a galactic senator, two Jedi and two astromech droids into their home.

Not many words were necessary. They found Cliegg a broken man, as broken as his voice when he recounted how they had lost Shmi to a ferocious tribe of Tusken raiders, how all but four members of the search party of 30 men sent after her had gotten killed. Padmé stayed behind with the Lars family, when Anakin bolted out of the house, Kenshin on his heels, and chased through the chilly night. He had to find his mother.

As he did find her, his entire world crumbled.

Sheer horror rolled over Anakin as they came upon the grisly scene of the Tusken camp. There had been battered and dried corpses on the way, pieces of flesh torn off by carrion feeders in the desert. The corpses of farmers, who had gone after Shmi in their attempt to save her. He immediately located the hut they kept her in. A stab of pain assaulted him as he finally saw her. She was still alive, but oh the state she was in!

"Mom" he cried breathlessly. "Mom, you have to hang in there. I'm here now, you're safe! Mom!"

Her body was caked with blood, her face swollen, she could barely get out words when Kenshin and him loosened her restraints. "I love you" she said before her body went limp.

Shock ran through Anakin, everything in his head went blank. He was still holding his mother's lifeless body in his arms. Gently, he lowered her onto the ground as something terrible began to take possession of his mind. There was pure, blind fury.

Under the pale light of Tatooine's moon, he burst out of the hut, his lightsaber ablaze. Rage was rising within him like he had never felt rage before. He saw two Tusken guards sit at a nearby campfire, who just about now noticed the intruders to their camp. Anakin raised his blade and charged and less than a second later, both were slain, slashed in half. He tensed to charge on, but met a harsh stop as something in the Force held him back.

Anakin realized Kenshin was the origin of this.

"What are you doing! They're like animals! I HATE THEM. I'LL KILL THEM ALL" he yelled, furiously turning to his companion. Rage had consumed all of him and he was beyond the point where he could have controlled it.

"Anakin, no! Stopp! Think!" Kenshin begged. "There is still some life left in her, we must get her out of here!"

Kenshin let go of his Padawan, who slowly came back to his senses, and rushed back into the hut and held a hand on Shmi's bruised neck. Her pulse was shallow and weak but still there.

"Shut your lightsaber off, they will hear us!" he commanded from between clenched teeth, and indeed, someone outside the tent began to ruffle.

Somehow they managed to get Shmi out of the Tusken camp without attracting further attention. The trip back to the Lars home seemed to take forever. When they arrived, Beru hurried and brought water, tissues and everything in terms of medical supplies they had. Kenshin let her tend to Shmi's bruises and cuts, himself he didn't use any of it. Instead he settled down next to the woman, eyes closed.

Anakin watched, as he asked himself what his master was doing. Sweat began to drip off Kenshin's forehead, his face became distorted as if in great pain.

"What are you doing, master?" Anakin asked.

He didn't receive an answer.

The Jedi Master called upon the Force with all of his being, and opened himself up to it completely. Shmi was so dreadfully close to the edge. He had used the Force to heal before, but never had to save someone this far gone. Force healing was exceedingly dangerous to do if one wasn't trained in it. Kenshin did have a certain natural gift for it, yet in this case, he realized it would take everything he had to save her. It would kill him, he knew it and he was willing to go past the point of no return. He took a deep breath and then pleaded the Force to flow through him and through Shmi, and as he felt himself getting weaker, he pressed on. It wasn't the first time he felt himself close to death. He begged the Force to take his life and give it to the woman he was trying to save.

And then, slowly, he sensed Shmi was coming back. The Force was answering his call! More and more he neared the point where for one, it would all be over and the other would live. Kenshin was at peace. For the first time since his own Master had died, he felt true serenity again. He couldn't alter the will and the ways of the Force, but now the Force gave him a chance to do something right. He was nearly there. Shmi's heart was beating more strongly again, as he gave himself into the flow of the galactic energy that surrounded all life. He didn't open his eyes as he silently said goodbye. To serve life, to serve the Force was the duty of a Jedi and for the first time, after all the failures and everything he had done wrong, he would truly, finally be a Jedi.

The world was drowned out, there was only the Force and him a mere vessel, a tool through which the Force could save a mother to be reunited with her son. Kenshin let go.

Then, it stopped dead. There was a presence. Unfathomable and impalpable, but something dark and sinister. It was pure evil. The energies Kenshin had guided to flow and mend were apruptly distorted. A dark maelstrom ripped control off Kenshin's hands, it felt like falling into nothing and being torn apart. He had never encountered such darkness before, he couldn't comprehend it and neither did he have any success in fighting it. Something in him shattered and cancelled everything else out. No sound, no sensations, as if existence itself stopped.

With a pained cry, he collapsed and laid still. Owen, Cliegg's son, rushed to his side and held two fingers to his neck, feeling a shallow heartbeat. "He's still alive" he stated. Anakin didn't do or say anything. He was paralysed, he had felt the tremor in the Force, and everything inside him was screaming, but there was nothing he could do. He helplessly stared at Padmé, who had held herself close to him, and clasped his hands into her dress.

***** Coruscant, unknown location

It had been with a shock that he received an encrypted message from Tatooine. A spy in Mos Espa informed him that Anakin Skywalker, in company of his Jedi Master and Senator Amidala, had appeared in Mos Espa.

He had not expected this, and wondered why the Jedi learner had come back to his homeworld. He had claimed himself to hate the place. Had the young Jedi sensed or foreseen the doom to come about? But this was not the time to dwell.

He performed a series of complex rituals to prepare the most intricate act of Sith sorcery he had ever attempted. Doubt stung him for a short moment until he reigned himself in, reminded himself that he was Darth Sidious, Lord of the Sith, and there was no such thing as doubt for him. Plagueis had put tremendous effort into gathering knowledge about how to manipulate life, ultimately with the objective to control his midichlorians and alter the flow of the Force through his own body and prolong his life indefinitely. Sidious let out a short cruel laugh at the memory of his master's demise. The amulet he had commissioned to be left with and attached to Shmi Skywalker was in reality an artefact. One that allowed him to intervene should his order not be carried out to his satisfaction. He had fashioned it with ultimate care and precision. He had never thought it to be necessary but now applauded himself for his wise act of precaution. And of his deep knowledge of the dark side. He would not only monitor through the Force what happened around the target, The act of altering and disturbing the Force over a distance, through an artefact, was a difficult, challenging dark side skill that had never been widely practised, not even during the height of past Sith empires. The Tusken mercenaries, tasked by his apprentice Tyrannus with kidnapping Shmi Skywalker, had proven true to their word. When they had taken Shmi and not immediately killed but instead tortured her, he hadn't thought much of it and decided to let them have their fun. His objective, her death, would ultimately be met. Or so he thought.

All the more he had been surprised to sense the initially slight, then increasing commotion in the Force when something began to steer the flows of energy around the woman, and her dwindling life energy was supported and intermingled with an immense amount of power. Few beings had strength in the Force to a point they could use the Force to heal, and transfer their own life force into another to save them. The Chosen One certainly had this potential but he was by far not aware enough of his power yet, nor skilled enough to use it. Thus, it only could be Anakin's damned Master!

Clearly, he had underestimated the Jedi, nevertheless he couldn't allow Shmi Skywalker to live! Just like Plagueis, he himself had not yet learned how to manipulate the Force to sustain eternal life, but he knew how to take life.

Applying violent effort, he focused on the amulet, halfway across the galaxy, and countered the Jedi Master's power. He met desperate intense resistance, it took the concentration of everything evil he had in him to succeed and bring the ritual to its end. In the Force, opposites collided and the explosive disturbance it created caused his knees to buckle and give out underneath him. At the end Sidious' breath was laboured as he recomposed himself, but he noticed that the resistance was now gone. The Jedi was not dead, he could sense him still, but he would in every sense of the word not know what had hit him. The dark lord felt safe assuming his Jedi opponent wasn't in any condition to stop Skywalker's mother from dying now.

****Tatooine, two days later

When Kenshin regained consciousness, the twin suns were setting again, for the second time since Shmi had been brought home. He felt a cool, wet cloth on his head. Beru was there, gently wiping sweat off his forehead and offering a cup of water for him to drink.

"Shmi?" he asked. Beru sadly shook her head. She reported that Anakin's mother had lived one more day after Kenshin had tried to bring her back, but in the end she had not made it. She had drawn her last breath, half a day before he had woken up.

"I'm glad you're still with us. We were afraid you would die, too." Padmé said. She sat down next to Beru, along with Owen and Cliegg.

"What happened?" Kenshin asked, his voice weak and coarse. Why has the Force taken her, and not me he thought with overwhelming bitterness.

"I'm afraid none of us understands. When you tried to save my wife, suddenly you collapsed, and you were unconscious for two days. And Shmi... "

Cliegg's words got stuck and he sobbed as another wave of gried nearly toppled him. Long moments passed in which none of them said a word. The entire family was aching with grief. Shmi was now gone, once and for all. Cliegg straightened his back and cleared his throat, taking back some of his composure. He was hurting, they all were. He also saw that the dark-haired Jedi was suffering just as much by giving himself the blame. Lars had no idea what the Force was, but he understood that this man had done everything within his powers to try and safe his wife with no regard for himself. Shmi's passing was not his fault, nor was it Anakin's fault and he wished that Anakin and his Master could see that.

"Master Jedi" Cliegg began. "She has lived another day thanks to your powers. We could say goodbye to each other, and she could see her son, Anakin, once more, she could see and understand what a great young man her child had become." he tried to console him. "It is a precious gift, and we wouldn't have had that chance without you."

Kenshin heard the words but didn't listen. He didn't even try to hold back the tears. And Anakin? There was nothing and everything, a devastating fire in his soul eating him alive.

The young man was sitting on the floor of the homestead's workshop. He had begun to work on a broken machine, but now just sat there, thoughtlessly turning a screw in his fingers and staring into empty space. There was a hurtful numbness, nothing else. Padmé had tried her damnest to talk to him and make him understand her words. He was grateful he could hug his mother one last time before she had passed. He was grateful he had been able to talk to her one last time, to see her smile and hear how happy and proud of him she had been. And still, now there was nothing but suffering in him, infernal, allmighty and he didn't think it would ever end. To Padmé, he had confided that he had touched darkness, and only Kenshin's intervention had kept him from surrendering to it and getting lost in it and slaughtering the entire camp. He would have cut down not only the men, but the women and children, too. It scared him how he had not even tried to resist. What would have happened had his Master not stopped him.

"It's not your fault" came a weak voice.

The teenager lifted his gaze. It was Kenshin who stood in the door to the workshop. He supported himself against the door frame, it was difficult for him to stand.

"What would you know!" he gave back. He knew he should ask his Master how he was feeling. From the looks of him it was clear he wasn't feeling particularly well, and Anakin knew he should care, but right now he couldn't. He was too busy hating himself, the Jedi, everything at that moment. "I should have saved her!"

"Not everything is always in our powers"

"BUT IT SHOULD BE! WHY DID SHE HAVE TO DIE! Why could I not save her. You tried, and she still died. Why did I not come here when I first sensed something was wrong! I should have saved her!"

"Hating yourself won't bring her back. And that, I know that very well!" his Master said quietly.

"BACK OFF! SHE WAS MY MOTHER! YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE!"

"Anakin! I know how you feel!"

"You don't understand, Master! How would you know how it feels to loose your mother, you never even met yours. THEY TORTURED HER! THEY KILLED HER, AND I DIDN'T SAVE HER. I HATE THEM! I HATE THE JEDI! I HATE YOU!"

Anakin grabbed the next tool within his reach and mindlessly hurled it at Kenshin, already grabbed the next to throw it, too, at his teacher, but was ultimately stopped and restrained by an invisible, yet firm, adamant hold with the Force. The Padawan looked him in the eyes, and he finally saw the eyes of a broken man, and saw the same tears that were in his. And, finally, he realized that Kenshin knew. Kenshin knew exactly what it was like. Finally, Anakin understood. All the avoidance when he had asked about Kenshin's Master, the outbursts of temper when he had pried too much. At last what Quinlan had revealed made sense.

****Zeffo, 14 years earlier

He must have screamed aloud, only that he didn't hear his own voice. He felt a stinging pain in his heart and instantly knew something was wrong. He rushed to find her and defend her, only to see the crimson blade thrusted through Aerin Fay's heart and the image got burned forever in his mind. A piece in him broke and it would never heal. It died. The world turned dark and blurry, something feral and powerful in him awoke and the only thing he saw was the dark clad being with his crimson blade. Kenshin launched himself at him, his own weapon ablaze.

A blood red blurr moved in on him, parried by his own pastel yellow lightsaber. Those around him who witnessed what was happening screamed in terror, the Force was heavy with the fear and despair of the villagers, but Kenshin felt none of it. First there was rage, and pain, then he felt nothing. His plasma blade moved with lethal, merciless precision. Kenshin had become the blade. There was darkness, a deep, thick, black current of lethal energy and it was Kenshin who manipulated, who commanded it.

The large Sith warrior who was nearly two feet taller than his opponent didn't stand a chance. For the first time in his life he felt delusion, when he realized that this small Jedi Padawan learner, maybe half his size, had turned into a demonic monstrosity. Delusion then turned into fear, for a short moment, before he fell to Kenshin's blade separating his head from his body. The head had not yet stopped rolling when the boy had rushed to his teacher's side. Aerin was still breathing. He kneeled and cupped her head in his hands, tears now streamed of his face. Master Fay smiled as she recognized her padawan was now at her side and lifted a hand to gently caress the child's cheeks.

"Sensei...stay with me. You have to stay with me. Please!"

"My time has come. You must walk your path without me now" she said weakly.

She struggled to get the words out, life was fleeing so rapidly from her eyes.

"Kenshin – I'm proud of you. You will become a true Jedi, I know it. You will protect the galaxy. Always remember Kenshin, believe in yourself! The Force is with you!"

And that was her last breath. She smiled at her Padawan one last time and passed on into the Force.

After that, Kenshin didn't remember anything for days. He came back to his senses in a dark dorm room in the Jedi temple on Coruscant. He was surrounded by people, other survivors of the mission, but he felt alone. He sneaked out and ran. The pain and guilt were tearing him apart and he didn't see any other way. His hand grabbed his lightsaber, not granting the colourful glittering lights of Coruscant a look. He ignited the blade and prepared to strike, when suddenly a pair of hands stopped him from making a horrible mistake. They were the hands he then held for one last time six years later when again, he had been too late to save the one who had saved him.

**** Tatooine, in the now

Anakin froze and stopped.

"I'm sorry, Master" was all he could say before his sobbing drowned any more words he might have uttered.

"This is the kind of pain no one should ever have to feel. I cannot make it easier for you. Believe me I wish I could. But you have to stay true to yourself, you must not give up on yourself! Your mother would not want you to give in to …..to that. To hating yourself. She would want you to live, and maybe, one day, even become happy." Kenshin said.

"Anakin – you made her happy. Not a day would go by when she wouldn't talk about you. She was so proud of you! You have not failed her! And she sensed that not a day has gone by that you wouldn't think of her, too. She has lived a happy life and you were not here physically, but you were part of it." It was Owen who had come into the room and laid his hands on Anakin's shoulder.

Shmi's body was laid upon a simple gurney as every member of the family came, one by one, to say goodbye. Kenshin mustered all the strength he had to force himself to look at the woman he had not been able to save. It's not Anakin's fault. It's my fault! Shmi's blood is on my hands he thought. Why had he never sensed how important Anankin's mother was to his student. Why had he never asked about Anakin's origins, or done his own research. He could have and should have known, and done something about it. Yet, it had never occurred to him to dig deeper, beyond the sparse words Anakin had spoken about his past. Threepio shuffled uncomfortably next to him, and a ray of light was refracted on his outer plating and deflected, got caught on something. It was a small, bronze coloured amulet, on a string that was wound around Shmi's wrist.

The moment Kenshin saw and focused on it, all sound was gone for a moment, and he thought to hear voices whisper in a tongue that rang of terror and darkness, but muffled, as if from very very far away. Something within him stirred and answered a terrifying call and then, from one instant to the next, it was all gone again and he was back, here, in the real world. The candles set around the funeral bier flickered. He called Owen and asked him about the amulet, but Shmi's stepson said to have never seen the piece before. Maybe she had found it somewhere in the desert. The Jawas or Tuskens roaming the dunes might have dropped it.

When Owen had left again, Kenshin carefully took it off. He felt horrible doing that, like a vulture. But he had to take it, his instincts nearly screamed at him. Later, when he took a closer look at it, he identified the intricate lines engraved in it as runes. Sith runes. A very ancient variant he couldn't read fluidly, but the restricted sections of the archives would provide him with enough help to figure out what they said. He hid the amulet away in his cloak.

After Shmi's funeral, his face puffy and wet from tears, Anakin came to Kenshin's bedside and curled up to his teacher. Right now, he wasn't a nearly 18 year old Jedi Padawan, constantly trying to prove his worth and skill, eager to obtain the rank of Jedi knight and rise to his greatest power. Right now, he was a child, lonely, torn apart by sadness, in desperate need of comfort and missing his mother. His mother was dead. It took all of Anakin's strength to not yell and scream.

He felt strong arms, so unlike his mother's, wrap around him and gently rock him.

Anakin let it all go and let himself fall into the hold, his tears flowed, until there was only void.

Someone was singing softly. It was foreign melody, it sounded like forest mornings, wind gently sweeping through lush leaves, little creeks and their clear water dancing through mossy riverbeds. Nothing like the melodies of his childhood, but strangely soothing and comforting. A while into the song, he recognized the language. Nantoa. He didn't understand the words, but he found deep comfort in them. Kenshin had a beautiful voice. Not in a million years had Anakin imagined his Master would ever sing to him. Only his mother had, when he was a little boy and had been upset about Watto beating him, or even normal small things small boys would be upset about.

"I'm sorry, Master."

"You have nothing to be sorry for" Kenshin replied.

"I didn't realize that you've gone through...through the same thing. That's why you would never talk about it. Now I understand."

"It's ok. I should have told you"

"You still can" Anakin suggested.

Kenshin sighed but began to talk

"We had been called to aid a relief mission on Zeffo, after the planet had been plagued by a famine. I don't remember what the reason for this crisis had been. We had arrived at a ravaged village and I was trying to help distribute foodstuffs. It was exciting, and challenging, it was my first time off planet, my first time meeting other Jedi, trying to coordinate with villagers who spoke as little basic as I did and to cooperate with beings who were supposed to be the same as me and yet so different. All of a sudden, I felt something terrible had happened. I ran to find my Master and when I found her, all I saw was a dark clad figure and his red lightsaber piercing through her body. I went up against him. I was not myself any longer. I was nothing but a dark, alien rage that filled and consumed my entire being at that moment. I bested and finished him. It was the first time I took a life. But it was too late. He had mortally wounded her. I hadn't sensed him arrive as I should have, I had not realized what was happening until it was too late. I had been too slow. I did not save my Master. I had failed. She died from her injuries while I was holding her, begging her to stay with me but it was too late. The dark lord had come with a dropship full of mercenaries and bandits. Later, they told me I had killed most of them, too. I can't remember anything. When a rescue team arrived, they took me and the other survivors to the temple on Coruscant. The guilt, the pain, it was too much. I didn't know how to live with all that pain. Yoda or the other Jedi? They didn't help me. 'There is no emotion, there is peace'. What a load of bantha shit! I didn't see any way out of this, that's why I ended up on that terrace with the tree and ….Quin told you what I tried to do, didn't he?

When I ignited my lightsaber, someone showed up behind me and stopped my hands from delivering the final blow. His name was Makiri. He was a Padawan a few years older than me and we became best friends. He helped me navigate that strange world and life in the Jedi Order that was so foreign to me. For a while I believed I could make it in this life. Six years later, he died on Gentora. Again, I had not foreseen what would happen and again, I was too late, I failed saving him, too. It felt like losing everything. I know exactly what it feels like to fail. I have failed to listen to my Master's teachings, I failed to follow even my own words I keep preaching to you. The purpose of ridding the galaxy of the evil of the Sith, that I claim to follow, maybe it is nothing but a quest for revenge disguised in heroic, pretty words. My whole life has been nothing but failure! But I will not fail you, too! To give up on yourself is the ultimate failure. I will not allow you to make that mistake!"

"It feels like nothing can ever be alright again"

"I know, Anakin. I know"

Eventually, Anakin fell asleep. Kenshin couldn't. When he noticed Padmé standing in the doorway, he gently covered Anakin with a blanket and eclipsed himself. It had not been lost on him what was going on between the two and if anyone could truly help Anakin now, it would be her. 'The Jedi Code be damned' he grimly muttered under his breath.

He went outside, the moons had risen. There was not much left in him. He managed to hide it, but he was still so depleted of energy he felt sick. His efforts had granted her one last day. He had given away so much of his own life force trying to heal Shmi. He had begged the Force to exchange his life for hers and what had happened then was something he didn't understand in the slightest power had blocked him, something he couldn't overcome, and he couldn't explain what it was. Can one be angry with the Force herself?, Kenshin wondered. Why had he not been able to save Anakin's mother. It would have been a worthy cause to die for. And a welcome end. He knew it was wrong to think like that but he didn't have the strength to change it. That part of him had died, along with his Master, on that terrible day more than ten years ago. Was it the will of the Force for him to suffer?

He made sure to wander off far enough so no one would hear him. Then he screamed, and tears flowed and he smashed his fists against the rocks until the skin was scraped off his knuckles and blood was all over his hands.

He let out another cry and ignited his lightsaber. In the past months, the purple shade of the blade had appeared darker every time he used it, as if it was slowly turning to black. He raised the blade, brought it close to his own throat until he could feel his skin blister from the heat. And yet he still shivered, he felt so cold he was freezing. He trembled, forces within him fighting.

I'm nothing but a failure. The galaxy will be a better place without me.

You are needed Quin's voice said within his head

You're the Master I want Anakin had said. But how could that still be true, now that he had failed to save Anakin's mother? How could he have been so blind! How had he not sensed his own Padawan's torment, how had he not seen what was happening!

Failure. Failure. Failure

He brought the blade even closer, and he screamed, but not from the pain he was feeling from the burn. The final blow. So close!

I cannot fail him

Believe in yourself

He shut the blade off and let out a ferocious, frustrated roar. He didn't even have the guts to take the final step, said a part of him. You don't have the right to that said another. And that voice was right. He had a duty.

But he didn't know how to carry the load.

At last, he sunk to his knees.

"I have failed" he said to himself.

"Have you really?" a voice asked out of the void.

Kenshin blinked and turned his head everywhere, but saw nothing. There was nobody out there but himself, and the owner of the voice he had just heard had died a long time ago. Eventually, he began to sense a faint presence.

"Master?"

What cruel trick was the Force playing on him? Why here, why now?

"You did your best, Kenshin. You always did everything in your power to do the right thing, no matter the resistance you had to overcome. Can the Force ask more of a Jedi than to do their best?"

Now he saw it. A faintly glowing cloud of humanoid shape moved in-front of him. It came closer until he could nearly touch it.

"Master!"

"You readily see the good in people, even the apprentice you're now training. Why not see it in yourself? Shouldn't you practice what you preach, my old Padawan?"

"What is this" he asked, his voice breaking. It wasn't possible, not ever had anyone remained in the Force to speak to the living. And yet it was her voice, his master's voice as clear as it had been when she had talked to him in his childhood.

"Where were you, Master? All this time? I didn't save you, I failed you! How am I supposed to follow what you taught me, how am I supposed to live?

"You can always die, Kenshin. It's living that takes real courage. You are many things, but not a coward"

And the cloud, along with her presence, faded back into the dark. He was alone again. Alone with his thoughts and feelings that were too much to handle. He cried, tears falling into the sand and wetting the ground to his feet, until he passed out in the dust.

The rising double suns didn't wake him. A piece of metal did as a droid made a repeated effort of prodding his ribs, and painfully so. It was R2, accompanied by R5 and both astromechs beeped frantically.

"Were in all moons and stars have you been, Master? " Anakin asked as the two droids, Kenshin in tow, came rolling back to the Lars homestead. You look like hell! He added in his thoughts

"I've been, uhm, meditating" he replied and quickly slid his hands underneath his cloak.

"Yeah, meditating...right."

Anakin had very well seen the ripped skin and dried blood on his hands, the dust all over on his clothes and dirt in his face. More so, he saw the blistered skin on his Master's neck and the burnt, smouldered tissue on the collar of his cloak. The Padawan had a thousand uncomfortable questions, but there was an even more urgent matter at hand.

"We've received a message, from Master Kenobi!"

The two Jedi and Padmé silently listened to the message played by R2, and Anakin immediately transferred it to the Jedi Council. They watched, silenced by concern, the bolts raining onto Obi-Wan before the transmission broke off.

"We have to go save him!" Padmé exclaimed

"You, Senator, will do nothing, and this time it is a strict order! You and Anakin will stay here, him for your protection. I will go after Kenobi!" Kenshin stated firmly.

"Are you sure you don't need help?" Anakin asked.

"Do I look like I need help? Someone needs to watch over Senator Amidala, which was actually YOUR job to begin with!"

You absolutely look like you need help Anakin thought but knew better than to say it.

"May the Force be with you, Master"

"And with you. Don't do anything stupid!" Kenshin said while climbing on board of his starfighter. Moments later, the Kiko soared into the Tatooine sky.

If Kenshin knew one thing, it was how to to remain hidden from those eyes he didn't want to be seen by. Upon arrival, he had tasked R5 with taking the ship off the surface to hide elsewhere. Since Kenobi's capture, the place was crawling with enough guards that they wouldn't have to see the ship because sooner than later one of them would simply bump into it. There was a factory complex, scaling up to produce droids, battle droids, at a rapid pace. It was all too clear that that couldn't mean anything good.

He found an entrance, still had had to shoot down a small squad of Geonosian soldiers, thanking the Force for the blaster at his side, and then deployed a hand-grenade a bit further away to draw the guards' attention away from his position and he was in.

He then made his way through the geonosian complex without issues, but it seemed to take hours and hours until he had finally found Kenobi. Alive, which was a good start. Suspended, in shackles and an elderly gentleman just about stepped into the retention chamber. Kenshin swiftly withdrew into hiding and observed Kenobi's host. His attire was regal, well tailored and held in sophisticated brown colors. Unlike his own Force signature, the man's presence in the Force was not hidden so Kenshin recognized him all too well. His opponent from this hideously luxurious space yacht!

Now, if I haven't seen you before! Kenshin thought and drew the Force cloak around him even tighter, concealing his signature to the point of total invisibility.

"Traitor" Obi-Wan greeted the old man.

Dooku's following sermon about Qui-Gon and the corruption in the senate didn't tell Kenshin anything new, until the Serennian said: "What if I told you that the Senate was now under the control of the dark lord of the Sith?"

"No, that's not possible. The Jedi would be aware of it" Kenobi replied. Kenshin shook his head. That's exactly what I mean. Can we be so sure? But even I haven't found answers. Yet …..he thought.

"..called Darth Sidious..." "the viceroy of the Trade Federation was once in league with this Darth Sidious, but he was betrayed, ten years ago, by the dark lord. He came to me for help, and told me everything" ..

Kenshin decided to make sense of all of this later, for now he just listened. But this was mindblowing to say the least. At the end, Dooku attempted to sway Obi-Wan to join him and of course, the steadfast Jedi Knight did not concede. Now time to think of a way to free his fellow Jedi and get him out of here. Briefly, he considered doing it the quick and hard way but that might attract more attention than even he was able to deal with.

When Dooku had finally left, Kenshin dropped himself to the ground, infront of a very astonished Obi-Wan.

"Shhhhh" Kenshin gestured and tried to cut the shackles, to no avail. Lightsaber-proof material. He suppressed a hearty curse. He'd have to hijack and bypass the electronic systems to deactivate the energy field holding Obi-Wan in place. It was of a make that was controlled by a central unit, not locally, and would be a lot harder to take out. Better he'd find the control room.

"Looks like you'll have to hang in there a little longer." Kenshin whispered

"Very funny" Obi-Wan gave back.

Kenshin tried to access and override the signal from where he was but met no success. Who ever had designed this complex and its defense systems clearly had had no shortage of resources nor ingenuity. He mouthed a silent "hold on' to Obi-Wan, who nodded in acknowledgement, and was on his way.

******Tatooine, a bit earlier

Once more, R2 rushed to Padmé, frantically beeping and announcing a message.

"It's R5, Kenshin's droid, he's contacting us" she said to Anakin.

The two young people listened as R2 played what he had received but the message was hard to understand.

"What's he saying? I understand binary, but that droid seems to be talking gibberish!"

"It's Kenshin's droid, what do you expect! R2, can you clear that up for us a little?"

R2 did as asked and Anakin didn't like at all what he heard.

"He tried to contact Kenshin, but lost track of him, and he had to take the Kiko back into orbit because there were too many patrols on the planet surface after Master Kenobi had stirred it all up. And before he took the ship out, there was more shooting, and an explosion at Kenshin's last known location" Anakin summed up.

"But that means that Kenshin is in trouble, too!"

"Looks like it. Wouldn't be the first time."

"So why are we sitting idly by? We have to go!"

"Padmé, the Council gave me strict order to protect you! I cannot just fly to Geonosis and waltz in there to get Kenshin and Master Kenobi out of there. Kenshin is more than capable of taking care of himself!"

"Maybe you can't, but I can! "

"Padmé, you should never even have left Naboo to begin with" Anakin protested. "Although I was glad you are here with me" he added gratefully but with sadness.

"Listen, the Jedi on Coruscant will never arrive in time to help either of them. We have to go. And who knows, it's probably for the better, maybe I can find a diplomatic solution to this mess and nobody needs to fight at all!"

"Ugh, why do I even try arguing with you!" Anakin conceded.

…..

The arena was vast, and dusty, the lone Jedi knight chained to a tall column and the audience, a few hundred geonosians, letting out excited cries in anticipation of the promised spectacle. After Kenshin had left the detention chamber to find a different way to get Obi-Wan out of his restraints, the problem had taken care of itself in a way he didn't appreciate at all. While he had been looking for the control room, guards had taken Kenobi to the arena. Kenshin's eyes meticulously scanned the surroundings. On a palatial and lavishly furnished tribune, protected by an abundance of Geonosian guards, there was Dooku. In his company, a human male in Mandalorian gear, possibly the man who had shot Amidala's failed assassin, and two Neimoidians. Kenshin recognized Nute Gunray and felt a short surge of regret not having hunted him down a few years earlier. He had not done so, assuming that would he cut this one off, he soon would have been replaced by the next and also, Jedi didn't seek revenge. Driving the Trade Federation off his home planet of Nanta should have been enough. Maybe he should have followed his lowly but accurate instincts rather than the tenets of the Jedi in Gunray's case. He pondered if he should be correcting this lapse right now. The guards and the Mandalorian didn't represent much of a threat. Dooku was a respectable opponent, but a challenge he'd savour. Especially now that he wasn't being halfway incapacitated by injury and very well in a condition to give the Count a serious headache or worse. If he did that, however, there would be no way of protecting Kenobi in the meantime, and getting his fellow Jedi out of this mess was what he had come for in the first place. He'd have to take care of Dooku and his high society afterwards. Which still left him with the question how to get Obi-Wan out, and while the young Jedi Master constructed a plan, another carriage was pulled into the arena. On the carriage were - Kenshin's eyes widened with utter surprise - Padmé and Anakin.

"Great, that makes things easier!" he muttered, inaudibly in order not to give his hiding spot away. He had no idea why and how his Padawan and the senator had ended up in that predicament and he would make sure Anakin wouldn't know what hit him once he'd get a chance to drown the boy in his wrath. But for now, he got to work. He carefully positioned an explosive – out of experience, he always carried some in his belt since they often came in handy - and brought the remote to life. Upon activation, it would kill a few of the Geonosian spectators, but he'd need the distraction if he wanted to have a realistic chance to save the life of not one, but now two Jedi and Padmé without any of the three getting blasted to dust. Then he moved to place charges in a few more different spots. More distractions. Meanwhile, Padmé, Anakin and Kenobi did an impressive job at keeping the beasts at bay that had been unleashed at them. At least one thing he didn't have to worry about. Until more company in the form of several droidekas rolled into the arena. Neither Obi-wan nor Anakin had their lightsabers on them. Not out of thought but purely upon reflex, Kenshin calculated the distance to the ground of the arena, drew both of his blades and leapt.