The Council met near the end of the day, the Temple a good deal quieter than it had been of late. Multiple systems had requested Jedi and clone troopers present on these planets and nearly all of the Knights available had been sent to supports them, taking their Padawans as well if they had them. The Masters had been kept on Coruscant for one last meeting before they dealt with the chaos head-on.

They had with them the lightsaber, headdress, and sash of the Inquisitor. They had been cleaned and sanitized, but not before multiple DNA tests had been run. None of them had turned up with a match. Apparently Ahsoka Tano was not the Inquisitor.

"At the very least, I wish we could have thanked the Inquisitor before she left us," Shaak Ti remarked. "If it had not been for her, we would be in a much worse place than we are now, even with these reports of riots and confusion."

"Are you referring to the Jedi Order," teased Luminara, "or yourself, in particular?"

The Jedi chuckled, and Yoda spoke up.

"Unfortunate this is, that killed the Sister, Skywalker has," he mused, "but rest on this, we cannot. Given her life to bring down the Dark Lord, she has, and something that we have never been able to do, that is. Allow her the dignity of her choice, we must."

"It's true," Mace Windu confirmed. "None of us realized that, and we've been taking orders from him for years. The Inquisitor somehow gained enough of his trust to understand what he was doing, and then got close enough to kill him successfully. No one else can say that, not one."

Plo Koon interlaced his fingers under his chin. "It's a shame that she was not a Jedi. We could have used someone with her skills and courage. She must have been extremely brave in order to risk her life like that."

"She did lie in order to do so, though, and she did have to commit crimes in order to earn the trust of the Sith," Kit Fisto pointed out. "If someone did that in the Temple, without orders to, we would have expelled them. Perhaps it is best that she was not among our numbers. We would not be able to reward her properly, because of our code."

"And may I point out that we definitely have Jedi with her skills and courage," Obi-Wan Kenobi pointed out. "Most of the time, however, we tend to label it as recklessness. In years past, we have called people like the Sister a liability, rather than an asset."

"Yes, Skywalker is certainly reckless," Adi Gallia joked. "I do not need any reminders, thank you."

Another round of laugher quietly circulated around the Jedi Masters.

"Let the Inquisitor rest in honor, we will," decided Yoda. "Remember her sacrifice, we will, but more to do, there is. Much healing left to do, there is, in the Order, in the Senate, and in the galaxy. Begun to purify, the Inquisitor has but finished, her work is not."

"Then what should we do first?" Mace asked. "We have already sent out our forces as peacekeepers, that's a start."

"I imagine the first steps lie in the Senate itself," mused Obi-Wan, stroking his beard. "They will need to elect a new Chancellor, and that will take time."

Ki-Adi-Mundi interjected. "There have been many policies and laws passed that have increased the power of the Chancellor. Perhaps those need to be reviewed. I doubt all of them were necessary, or even on the behalf of the people."

Shaak's face fell as she realized something. "Perhaps the first one on that list would be the declaration of war on the Separatists," she said almost to herself. "If Palpatine was the one who waged war on the Separatists, but he was also the one leading them, his intentions cannot have been innocent. Do we know exactly why the war was declared?"

Everyone looked around at one another, silent. Obi-Wan, after a few moments of concentration, answered quietly.

"I was there, on Geonosis, before anyone else was involved," he remembered. "Dooku was there, and he and the Separatist Council ordered for our execution."

"Our?" Asked Luminara. "Remind me who else was there?"

"Well, Anakin, and...Senator Amidala." Obi-Wan realized. "She had been hunted by a bounty hunter, Jango Fett."

Mace sat up. "The man cloned for our troopers, by Palpatine."

Aid Gallia added on to him. "And the Separatists were ordered to kill the Senator, by Sideous."

"Who are the same person," Mace finished her thought. "The First Battle of Geonosis sparked the Clone War, and the Chancellor set up the battle. That day set the course for the war."

"A war that was only supposed to last for a few months," Plo Koon murmured. "Those few months turned into a year, and now four years have passed. Only today have we realized what has been happening."

"Four years." Mace shook his head. "How did we not see this for four years?"

Kit Fisto motioned with his hand. "We have had a Sith Lord clouding our vision for the past decade, at least, if not longer."

"But we should have seen that, too," Obi-Wan objected. "Sheev Palpatine has been a senator long before he was the Chancellor as well. He was the Nabooian Senator before Senator Amidala took his place, after retiring from queenship. We should have realized long before now, decades before this happened. A girl has given her life to bring his evil into the light, and how many more have died because of him? Because we didn't realize soon enough?"

The room fell silent again. All at once, the death of every man, woman, child, clone, and Jedi fell on their shoulders. The guilt of thousands, millions, billions, maybe, was on them. Not because they had killed them, but because they hadn't prevented it from happening. It wasn't just Sideous' fault, not anymore. It was theirs, too.

Yoda finally turned to the side and locked eyes with Luminara. "Perhaps, a point, Barriss Offee had."

Her words echoed in their ears as they sat still, remembering the trial that had taken place before the Senate a year ago.

I did it, because I've come to realize what many people in the Republic have come to realize, that the Jedi are the ones responsible for this War. That we've so lost our way that we have become villains in this conflict, that we are the ones that should be put on trial, all of us! And my attack on the Temple was an attack on what the Jedi have become: an army fighting for the Dark side, fallen from the Light that we once held so dear. This Republic is failing! It's only a matter of time.

She had been right. The whole time, they were sure that she had fallen, and that she had betrayed the Jedi, but she had been right. Unknowingly, they had served the Dark Lord, carrying out his sinister, cruel, selfish will, and they had been veiled from the Light that they thought they were following. Only when the veil was torn away had they realized the Light had been dimmed and had Palpatine succeeded in his mission last night, in his own office, the Republic would have fallen. No one quite knew how, but he had to have had a plan to bring down the Jedi, and most likely the Republic with it. The Jedi had not caused the war, but they had been blind to the one who had, and because of that, they were guilty. They were responsible, however indirectly, for the Clone War.

And it wasn't over. War was still raging around them, and it was unlikely that it would die down just because the ruler of both sides had fallen. If anything, tensions would be even higher and violence would sweep throughout the galaxy. It was too late to prevent the fighting, the battles, but there was always tomorrow. The future was always changing, the Jedi understood this. Their path forward was not set in stone, there was still hope. Perhaps an end to the bloodshed was possible.

"At the moment," Yoda told his fellow Masters, "to find peace in the chaos, our job is. Choose a new Chancellor, the Senate will. When chosen, they are, speak to him as a whole, we will. Perhaps a truce with the Separatists is in order.

"However, to find Barriss Offee, most important it is." The Council looked at him. They hadn't expected this. "Apologize, as we have to Ahsoka Tano, we must."

Luminara held her breath. She hadn't seen Barriss in a long time. Maybe there was still hope that she could come back. All at once, she understood Skywalker's actions over the past year.

Obi-Wan released a small, almost inaudible chuckle. "Perhaps she and the Inquisitor have met. They seemed to understand the same thing."

Mace lowered his voice, and a hint of kindness could be heard when he spoke. "I get the feeling that they would have been good friends if they did meet. They're both reckless, and took some very dangerous actions to do what they thought was right."

Yoda smiled, ever so slightly. "Speak with the Inquisitor, we can no longer, but reconcile with Miss Offee, we still could. If able to be found, she is, then find her we must. Let anyone else sacrifice their life to fight Sideous, we cannot. On our conscious, the death of the Inquisitor is. Allow this any longer, we must not."