A/N: Sorry for the delay!
I would recommend listening to the songs "Coldest Heart" by The Classic Crime and "World So Cold" by 12 Stones for this chapter.
***
Impenetrable darkness clung to his skin. Shards of hate and rage, fear and inadequacy, guilt and shame pierced his mind from all sides, effectively draining him of any remaining shreds of power or thoughts of continued rebellion.
His only comfort was that Rey's consciousness came to him as a pinprick of dull light from a vast distance away.
She had made it out. She was safe.
Ben could not fathom how Rey had been able to disconnect from his consciousness, but he was grateful that she was - as much as possible with their bond - gone from his mind. It physically pained him every time she saw him so broken, so weak, in such utter need of some form of salvation.
But redemption - at least in the sense of turning back to the Light, admitting his 'mistakes,' and forging a new path as his family wanted - was out of the question: He had never desired to be saved, never thought he required it, and Rey's stubborn grip to the Light, though fascinating and powerful in her, had little persuasive power over him.
He was fully submerged in the darkness: From it, he desired no escape. The darkness had always been a key factor to understanding who he was - to give it up would be akin to tearing apart what little remained of his soul.
It seemed all too fitting, then, that he would perish in a deep void of his mind, surrounded by the darkness he both craved and despised.
Craved because it sustained him, gave him power and control over most everything in his life. Or, it had at least pretended to at one point.
Despised for the way it had tainted him and had driven divides between him and and everyone who should have stood beside him, no matter the cost.
For what good were power and control if the entire galaxy was too blinded by their foolish morality to see that order and life were birthed from the necessary destruction of all that had come before?
There is no peace without a passion to create.
Ben flinched in surprise as a familiar pensive and charismatic tone drifted into his consciousness from beyond the grave. He had not anticipated this; he had expected Snoke to appear and continue his relentless deluge of humiliation.
The previously undiluted blackness that formed the walls of his mental cell was suddenly contaminated with steady splotches of pure silver starlight.
Even before the figure bathed in the soft, grey glow had fully solidified, Ben had averted his eyes. At this point, he almost preferred Snoke's presence.
"You better not be sitting in here moping." Krillien commented - the level of concern in his tone easily rivaling Rey's during the moments she was most worried. "I didn't die so you could waste your life feeling sorry for yourself."
Ben didn't respond.
The number of people returning from the dead intent on bothering me is becoming ridiculous.
Krillien stepped forward through the black haze of smoke shrouding Ben. "Please tell me," he implored, lowering himself until he was crouched down directly in front of Ben, "that you aren't still blaming yourself for my death."
Ben swallowed thickly, refusing to glance up from the overly-fascinating patch of blackness beneath his folded knees that was exactly the same as every other black speck in his consciousness.
"It was my choice," Krillien professed. "I know you don't understand it," Ben tried his best not to squirm under his friend's scrutinizing gaze, "but I need you to realize that my death was not your fault - it was my inevitable fate to die protecting you."
"'Inevitable fa-'" Ben sputtered, his eyes snapping up to glare at Krillien's impassively concerned face. "You weren't supposed to die!"
"And you were?"
"I'm not dead!" Ben protested.
"But you wish you were." Krillien stated, his voice holding no sliver of doubt for Ben to grab hold of and defend his actions. "And that's worse than being dead. Trust me, I know."
"What are you even doing here?" Ben deflected feebly. Too many people of late had suddenly become interested in his self-destructive tendencies. "How are you a Force Ghost? Why show up now?"
"Would you have listened to anything I had to say before now?" Krillien questioned, clearly just going along with the change of topic in an attempt to placate.
This banter is not helping. Leave me alone, Krillien. Can't you see that everything is so close to being over? Just let it end - let me end.
"I'm not listening to you now!" he exclaimed. They had been down this road too many times before for either one of them to be surprised that the topic had come up one final time.
"I know." Krillien sighed heavily, his impassiveness fading to clear distraughtness. "That's the problem: You see yourself as nothing more than a conduit for power - a tool to be used and then discarded. The reality is that you are capable of so much more. You are the strongest, most stubborn person I ever had the honor of knowing."
"I'm weak," Ben whispered in response, "a failure. Destruction and death follow me and nothing good springs up from the blood-soaked earth I leave behind."
"That is the farthest thing from the truth," Krillien replied, leaning forward with the conviction of his words. "But I know you won't believe me, no matter how many times I say the words - you aren't programmed to receive encouragement and genuine concern."
"However," Krillien gently placed his hands on Ben's temples, "I can show you."
***
There is no emotion, there is peace.
Swarms of irritated insects nipped at Krillien's skin as he pushed his way through the leafy undergrowth growing in throngs upon the surface of Yavin 4. Even with the thick shade afforded by the towering trees, blisteringly hot rays of sunlight shot through gaps in the trees, turning his skin an unhealthy shade of angry red.
If anyone else had stormed off after their daily lesson, Krillien would simply have continued to go about his routine and would have given little thought to his enraged classmate. Ben, however, was a special case.
Following Ben's path through the forest proved relatively easy as Krillien only had to look for the wholly abnormal burn wounds on multiple trees: only a lightsaber could cause that sort of damage.
Krillien halted briefly at the edge of a small clearing. Likely, Ben had sensed him coming, but it was never a wise idea to try and sneak up on him, even if the act was unintentional - that was a fast way to get cleaved in two.
It was a troubling sight that greeted his eyes, but one that had become all too common over the past couple of years. Ben was doubled-over in pain; his left hand curled tightly into a fist - blood dripped slowly from the deep wounds on his palm; his right hand clutched his head: shaking fingers wrapped around tufts of his black hair - he was desperately trying to anchor himself against the onslaught of forbidden emotions. His grandfather's lightsaber lay temporarily forgotten on the forest floor, having slipped from his grasp as the pain escalated.
"Ben?" Cautiously, Krillien approached his distressed friend, noting how erratic his breathing had become. "You hearing voices again?" It was a rhetorical question: Ben was always hearing voices.
"It's no good." Ben whispered, his voice choked with sobs that would never be uttered. "I can't do this." Krillien stood by helplessly as Ben sunk to his knees in agony. "I'll never be a great Jedi, no matter how hard I try to fall in line. It's suffocating. I can't-" Ben shook his head defeatedly, voice trailing off.
Blood pulsating with rage, there was nothing else in that moment that Krillien longed to do more than find whomever it was who continuously drilled egregious lies into his friend's mind and beat them senseless. But, through sheer willpower, he forced himself to remain calm instead and control his murderous urges: Not everything could be solved with violence.
The two of them had had this conversation before, yet it never failed to crack his heart a bit more each time. "Then there is something inherently broken in the system - not in you."
Ben simply shook his head again, waving off the comment with all the unconscious precision of someone who never learned how to accept compliments.
Krillien sighed, knowing better than to repeat himself over and over.
"Well, I'm not going to let you just sit around here." Krillien stretched out his hand, "Come on, let's go explore some of the ancient temple ruins or something."
"You go ahead without me," Ben replied, uncurling his fist as some of the agony ebbed from his tired expression.
"Not a chance," Krillien said, confidently taking hold of Ben's bloody hand, "we're a package deal: Where one of us leads, the other follows."
Perhaps he couldn't convince Ben to realize his own strength - for not many would still be standing if they were constantly fending off mental attacks - but he could continue to steer his friend in the right direction.
***
There is no passion without peace to guide.
Back in the confines of his mind, Ben pulled away from Krillien's spectral grasp. "What the kriff was that?"
"I told you," Krillien explained patiently, a bit of amusement slipping into his voice, "you won't listen to what I have to say, so I'm showing you why you're wrong to despise yourself."
"No," Ben muttered, "I don't want to be reminded of anything."
"But you need to be," Krillien countered without skipping a beat, "because Snoke stole your memories and fabricated new ones."
There was nothing Ben could say in rebuttal: Snoke had twisted his memories - had turned his entire mind into a battlefield littered with faulty mines ready to explode with a single wrong step.
"Let me help you," Krillien implored.
"I do trust you," Ben conceded, allowing Krillien's version of events to once again cover his senses.
***
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
Orange flames as blinding as the sun crackled greedily in their haste to demolish the Jedi Temple on Yavin 4. Even from a distance, the other moons of Yavin's core planet shone their pale, white light across the forest moon's surface, drowning the entire scene of destruction in an ethereal shadow.
The thatched roof of the Temple had burst into flames almost instantaneously; the other wooden huts in the near vicinity had quickly caught the increasing blaze, propelled as the fire was by the raging wind. Students screamed in terror: Some were desperately trying to put out the flames with buckets of water, others simply stood to the side, weeping openly.
But Krillien paid no mind to the chaos happening around him. He ignored the yells of his classmates to come help and the creaking of burnt wood as it snapped asunder. All of his attention was focused on the lone figure bathed in the flickering firelight of the Temple's shade, a lit torch lay abandoned by his feet.
"What have you done, Ben?" he whispered. There had to be a reason for this sudden bout of revenge - some catalyst that had finally driven his friend over the edge on which he had teetered his entire life.
An unnatural beam of condensed cobalt blue burst to life not twenty paces from where Krillien stood - almost an even distance between him and Ben. The lightsaber's wielder was unsteady. Arms shaking due to adrenaline-fueled confusion and fear combined with the young age of the boy - barely thirteen and still largely untrained - made Krillien's choice all too easy. Without a thought, he reached out with Force and flung the saber from the boy's grip.
That one simple action carved an unbridgeable gap through the ranks of trainees.
Within the span of a few heartbeats, sides had been chosen before anyone truly realized what picking a side even implied; before it was understood that this was a life or death situation.
An older trainee by the name of Zi'eth Omni, who had long had a sort of petty feud with Ben, made the fatal mistake of trying to approach the burning temple. It hardly mattered what the boy's intention had been: maybe he had been trying to help put out the fire, or perhaps he truly was going to take the opportunity afforded him by the chaos and try to get even with Ben for whatever issue they had been arguing about that week.
Whatever reason Zi'eth had was made void the moment he stepped much too close to where Ben stood, clearly dazed and battling those voices in his head once again.
Krillien had the perfect location to clearly see the exact moment in which his friend, worn down and defeated, gave in to his natural inclinations and the voices were finally victorious.
Poetically framed by the crackling, red flames, Ben's expression turned chillingly emotionless as the luminescent blue of his grandfather's lightsaber pierced Zi'eth's chest and was pulled quickly upwards, slicing the boy almost fully in two.
After that one act, nothing else mattered: Old alliances and friendships were discarded; morality was overlooked completely. Chaos reigned.
As with all battles, the fight seemed to stretch on for eternity. In reality, however, the slaughter barely lasted fifteen minutes.
And a slaughter it was.
As the Jedi Temple symbolically crumbled to ash in the background, the division showed itself: Those who remained loyal to the Jedi Order - along with those who simply had no clue what was happening - were cut down mercilessly; the few courageous enough to stand apart and question all that they had been told remained standing.
Not one of the three individuals who had - knowingly or not - sided with Ben died that night.
But the two-dozen who had been brave enough to put up a fight against a seemingly unstoppable dark power lay unmoving on the blood-soaked earth.
Staring down at his former classmates, Krillien couldn't find it in himself to care that they had just been wiped from the galaxy. Sometimes, violence was necessary to achieve peace.
***
Knowledge stagnates without the strength to act.
Ben didn't know how to react. The knowledge that he had never regretted being known as the Jedi Killer was nothing new. What was startling to find out was that Krillien apparently had few qualms concerning the slaughter of their classmates.
"I thought you hated the fact that we struck them down so easily."
Krillien cocked his head to the side, thoughtful. "Their deaths were saddening because they were young and full of potential. But their deaths were necessary: They stood in the way of advancement by their desire to cling to a dying religion. And, yes," he said, conviction coating his words, "if I had to do it all over again, I would."
Wait...what?
Between the two of them, Krillien had always been the voice of reason - even if that reason was often shaky and landed them in a moral grey area. Condoning a massacre hardly seemed to fit the image Ben held of his childhood friend. Except…
"What advancement are you talking about? You never supported the First Order or Snoke."
"Ah," a small smile lifted the edges of Krillien's lips, "now you're listening." He shifted slightly, dropping into a sitting position on what constituted as the floor in Ben's consciousness. "You're so close - even now stuck in your own head: I can feel it."
"Close to what? Krillien, you aren't making sense." Stop speaking in riddles and let me die already, you kriffing moron.
"Personal balance," Krillien responded as if it was the most obvious answer in the galaxy.
"Balance?" Ben repeated, a bit dumbstruck. "That's not-"
"Possible?" Krillien supplied with a grin. "Rather the opposite, really. It's just difficult to achieve."
"Since when did you become an expert in balance?" Ben questioned, skepticism clear in his wearied tone.
"Remember those visions I used to have of the future?" Ben hesitantly nodded: through the web of tangled memories the concept sounded faintly familiar. "Well, most of them made zero sense, but there was one in particular that kept nagging at me. It was about you, actually," Krillien added softly.
"You had a vision about me?" The thought was almost comical enough to cause Ben to laugh aloud, "You're making this up."
"No," Krillien insisted, "I'm not. The vision was never clear - it was more of an impressed feeling, really. It's hard to describe…"
Ben sighed in resignation; there was no stopping Krillien once he took an idea to heart. "Are you going to show it to me then?"
"I doubt I can show you the actual feelings involved - they probably wouldn't make any sense to you. But I can think of an example that might prove my point." Krillien commented as the world once again shifted.
***
There is no passion, there is serenity.
Krillien stood knee-deep among the bloody carnage and charred remains of the Jedi Temple on Yavin 4. As reverently as possible, he picked his way through the maze of dismembered bodies and scorched corpses of his former classmates. The Temple still burned, forcing him to acknowledge the destruction of life lit as the scene was by the crackling fire.
Off in the distance, the pale, steady search beams of multiple cruisers could just be made out: Apparently whomever Ben was in contact with was coming for the few students who remained.
Anya and Tahl stood off to the side near the edge of the great forest, occasionally casting shocked and confused glances back to the scene of terror. For the most part, they were content to look away - to pretend that the sour stench of death was not permeating every molecule of the air.
A sharp crack sounded below him. Warily looking down, Krillien's eye caught sight of the fractured remains of a deeply-cracked, cobalt kyber crystal - it's light was faded and dull, no longer worth anything. Just like the dozens of murdered children lying where they had fallen in the thick mud, their blood still spilling out onto the thirsty ground.
As always, Ben stood apart from the group. His formerly-white tunic was caked in dirt and ash; in the orange glare of the flames, the dark bloodstains dotting his clothes appeared almost black. As disconcerting as the sight was, Krillien knew he likely didn't look much better. After all, the majority of the students had fallen either by Ben's saber or by his own.
Instinct propelled by a sickly, all-consuming desire for personal survival had spurred them to action: Bloodlust, some would have called it.
The massacre now over, Krillien had anticipated his body to fall into a state of shock at the trauma he had just undergone. Adrenaline was still pumping through his veins, however, pushing him forward and out of the realm of feeling sorrow or shame for his part in the slaughter. Likely, the enormity of what had just transpired - of the dozens of young Jedi that he and Ben had just murdered without a second thought - would crash upon him like a boulder.
But now was not the time to fall apart - now was not the time to grieve for the complete loss of innocence of all involved.
Looking around at the decimated Jedi Temple and training grounds, it was impossible to feel any sense of calm or peace: It was as if the last hope in the galaxy had been suddenly and fully snuffed out.
"So," he whispered, breaking the heavy silence afforded to the dead, "what happens now?"
"Now," Ben answered, staring at the approaching ships with an air of trepidation, "now I have no idea. I guess...we move on."
Glancing at his lifelong friend, an intense feeling of dread washed over Krillien: Whatever was coming next, it wasn't going to be good. Whatever was coming next involved pain on a colossal scale; brief flashes of overwhelming agony and willing servitude clogged his vision: fear and hatred would rule the day, bringing the entire galaxy to its ultimate end of brimstone and death.
The realization dawned on him that this plan to control the galaxy and bring its subjects to heel was terrifyingly brilliant. For in one genius stroke, the Jedi had been demolished and every person who could have stood against the impending wave of annihilation was in no position to stage any sort of galaxy-saving resistance. Sure, the New Republic could try to win with politics and bands of rebels could rise again to fight off the invasion, but if even the children of senators, legends, and war-heroes could be turned, then there remained little hope for the salvation of others.
"Sometimes you have to go through the darkness to find the light." Krillien whispered, the words of one of his mother's favorite sayings seemed apt to their current situation.
"What was that?" Ben asked, the crackling of the flames and his own inner demons having drowned out the wisdom in Krillien's words.
"Nothing. Just-" Krillien paused, his attention caught by a fuzzy, grey outline at the edges of his vision. The answer seemed suddenly so simple, but dare he risk the consequences that inevitably followed hope?
In that moment, he understood precisely what was coming: All of the morbid acts that would be committed, all of the lives stolen much too early, all of the mind-numbing grief and suffering. And yet, in the midst of all the pain and submission, the fire served only to shape and forge a stronger, unyielding creation.
Though the images vanished as quickly as vapor, the emotions remained: His convictions were solid, his path clear. "You do what you need to do to find yourself, Ben: The rest will work itself out."
Millions might perish in an instant, but hope would rise again from the ashes.
***
Power blinds without the serenity to see.
"I don't understand," Ben muttered, the darkness feeling as oppressive as the light he had once scorned. "If you saw everything that would come to pass, then why did you stay with me?"
"Because," Krillien said easily, a sly grin gracing his lips, "I believe that no choices are fixed - there is always an escape, there is always time to change."
Ah, great. "Is that what this is? You think I need to be redeemed and so you came to show me the error of my ways." Bitterness coated his words and a calming rage settled deep within his soul.
"Redeemed? No, I don't think that's necessary."
The anger that had been flaring froze in an instant. "It isn't?" Ben asked, confused as to what the point of this conversation had been if it had not been intended as a bid to turn him toward the light.
"Redemption," Krillien explained patiently, "at least in the sense that most people use it, implies an inherent need to be saved. But you don't need to be saved - you don't need to recapture the light: What you need is to find a middle-ground between the dark and the light because both are necessary to your own survival."
"The dark side has served me well," Ben protested.
Krillien squinted in disbelief, a unimpressed frown pulled down the edges of his lips. "Maybe in some respects, but it won't be enough to get rid of Snoke."
The reminder of his former master reignited a bit of the fear that had been so prevalent in Ben just moments before in the memory he had unwillingly shared with Rey. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, Snoke was lying in wait for the perfect moment to pounce once more and demolish whatever meager resistance Ben put up - if he fought at all.
"I don't have much time left here," Krillien said, dragging Ben's thoughts back to the strange conversation he was having with his long-dead friend. "There's one more memory I have to show you." Krillien stretched out his left hand towards Ben's head, "I apologize in advance: This last one is going to hurt."
***
There is no chaos, there is harmony.
There is no death, there is the Force.
The brilliant clash of vibrant yellow and incandescent red temporarily blinded Krillien's vision. Fortunately, he didn't need to see perfectly in order to know that Ben's blade would next sweep to the right to get out from under Krillien's saber. Undoubtedly, Ben would immediately follow up this parry with a barrage of overhanded strikes meant to shatter his opponent's defenses.
As such, Krillien reacted without thinking, fully realizing that his fighting techniques were just as predictable to Ben as Ben's were to Krillien: they had fought and trained together far too often over the years to catch one another off guard with an uncalculated maneuver.
Krillien spun his double-bladed lightsaber in a tight loop close to his body, forming a protective shield from the relentless onslaught of Ben's much stronger offensive attacks.
Against any other opponent, Krillien would have put more effort into combining his Force attacks with his lightsaber skills, as Niman style was generally best utilized when fighting just as much with the Force as with an actual lightsaber. But protective instinct held him back.
In training, it was usually a toss-up on which of them would win as their skill levels in their respective combat forms were shockingly equal. Half the time, Krillien was able to stay on the defensive and keep just out of reach long enough to wear Ben down, only to come in at the last second with a flurry of Force-enhanced strikes intended to force Ben to unnaturally fall back into defensive positions. The other half of the time, the battle was over within a few short moments due to Krillien's inability to maintain his defenses as Ben hammered through his protective shield with relative ease.
This time, however, Krillien knew exactly how their fight would end.
He grunted softly in aggravation as Ben's crimson blade slid a hairsbreadth below his left arm where it should have struck a minor blow: when Krillien had warned his friend that they actually were fighting for their lives, he hadn't meant to insinuate that Ben should start missing his mark on purpose. Though to an outsider the subtle miss would have been hardly noticeable, to Krillien - and he worried, to Snoke - the error was glaringly obvious.
It had only been a few, precious moments since Kylo Ren's master had rightly surmised that disloyalty was prevalent in his ranks of soldiers and Krillien knew that both he and Ben were already tiring.
His suspicion was confirmed a few seconds later when another one of Ben's normally-precise strikes fell short of its intended destination: he was growing sloppy in his attempts to not land a major blow.
To try and cover for Ben's purposeful mistakes in form, Krillien pushed his body to its limits. Falling back into the chiefly defensive tactics of Form III, he kept his saber spinning in a wide arch at a speed he would not be able to keep steady for long. He could only hope that his sudden increase in frenzied activity would discourage the Supreme Leader from paying too close of attention to the ever-increasing breaks in form.
If the errors were noticed, the consequences would be severe.
There was only one thing left to do, then.
Flipping his lightsaber suddenly forward, Krillien caught the tip of Ben's saber and redirected the blade slightly to the right with a flick of his wrist. "I'm sorry," he squeezed the words from his overused lungs by sheer willpower, "but I will not lead you into death."
As focused as he was on dragging the fight out for as long as possible, Krillien doubted that Ben actually heard him speak.
Oddly, the current situation did not fill him with dread or any sort of fear - merely regret and more than a bit of guilt. He wouldn't be around to see what happened next; he would no longer be able to protect those he loved.
He could now only hope that his vision of a unified galaxy could somehow come to pass one day.
As Krillien calmly watched Ben's blade circle back around to where he had predicted it would land, he did not see the entirety of his life flash before his eyes; he did not see the faces of those he loved; he did not long for an escape from his final trial.
All he saw was the sudden glint of realization in Ben's eyes as Krillien lowered his own lightsaber a fraction of an inch and stepped directly into the blade's trajectory that was now impossible to change.
His last thought as the raging beam of energy sliced through his ribcage without resistance was that he wished he had the chance to explain his actions.
***
There is freedom in life.
There is purpose in death.
Krillien's final memory reaffirmed what Ben had already known: Getting sliced apart by a lightsaber was excruciating.
"Why-" he gasped, trying to regain the feeling of his own mind as the memory faded out of sight, "why did you show me that?"
"Because actions viewed through our own eyes are largely inaccurate depictions of events as they are filtered through the lens of our own inadequacies."
"By that reasoning," Ben answered, feeling both strangely disconnected from events and overcome with unexplainable emotions at the same time, "your view of me is not to be trusted."
Krillien's tone softened in response to Ben's obvious frustration, "I see you now as I have always seen you: My stubborn friend who had the cards unfairly stacked against him, yet who refused to fall under the weight of overwhelming odds without putting up one hell of a fight."
Krillien's unwavering loyalty even in death was wholly unnerving.
"You were winning." Deep down, some part of Ben had always known that his and Krillien's final fight should have ended much differently: the fight had gone on for too long and he hadn't been at his best, distracted as he was by Krillien's insistence that one of them had to die. "You should have killed me, not sacrificed yourself."
"Kill you?" Krillien frowned again, appearing disturbed, "Killing you was never even an option that crossed my mind."
"Why not?" Ben questioned, ignoring the incessant hum of the thick darkness encroaching upon his consciousness.
"Joining the First Order was never about personal survival for me," Krillien explained. "It was about, well...doing whatever was necessary to protect the people I cared about."
The sentiment sounded all too familiar.
"Hm, you and Rey would get along well," Ben mused.
"I've met her, actually," Krillien replied, a sly glint of amusement settling in his eyes. "I like her: she seems strong, determined, not the type of woman you want to cross. Don't you think so?"
"...Sure." Ben answered, feeling suddenly like he had unknowingly been backed into a corner.
"Well," Krillien stood easily, "you have a lot to contemplate so I'll leave you to it. Just remember that the entire galaxy is directly affected by whatever choice you end up making - so no pressure there." Ben had never been great at picking up sarcasm, but Krillien knew this and, thus, tended to overemphasize to get his point across.
Krillien paused mid-turn as his Force ghost form began to blur, "Oh, and just a tip, Ben: Women don't generally cross galaxies and help overthrow corrupt regimes for guys they don't care about. So quit being so kriffing oblivious and acknowledge the rather obvious fact that the two of you are rather perfect for each other."
A/N: I forgot to add this originally: Feel free to follow me on Twitter (scarletdestiny9) so we can converse about SW and this fic, if you want.
You are all amazing and I appreciate all of the support that has been shown this fic; thank you!