Thanks for the feedback! And no, this is not a shipping fic. It goes along with my other fic, Death of a Jedi.


Ahsoka followed the twists and turns of the tunnel, wondering how long it would take this time. Back during her group's Gathering she had been the second to find her crystal. She remembered how annoyed she'd been to come in second. I was such an obnoxious little idiot, Ahsoka thought. Maybe I still am. She came to a widening in the tunnel that was almost circular. Out of the corner of her eye Ahsoka noticed a dark shape in an alcove of the wall. As she went over to take a closer look it became clear it wasn't just another rock formation. It was a large pile of orange scrap metal, rusting in places. Ahsoka realized it was one of the chameleon droids from the Separatist attack, the cleanup crew must have missed this one. It had been cut nearly in half by a lightsaber blade. Ahsoka ran her hand along the melted circuitry.
It's a good thing Luminara and Barriss were here, an unbidden thought arose in her mind. Ahsoka cried out in frustration, kicking the long dead droid.

"Do I have any memories that are safe?! Is everything going to hurt me now?!" The cave echoed with the sound of her voice.
"They only hurt if you let them," a voice said from behind her. Ahsoka spun around to see a familiar figure standing at the other side of the cave.
"It would be you, wouldn't it?" Ahsoka scowled. "There's any number of people in my head the Force could've thrown at me, and it just had to pick you."
"You wouldn't see me if you didn't think about me so much." Barriss Offee looked exactly the same as she had in the trial room, down to the hands bound behind her back.
Ahsoka walked over to the apparition, struggling to control her anger. "Don't lecture me, Barriss! You have no right!"
"You left because you saw the same truth I did, Ahsoka." The vision didn't react to Ahsoka's accusation. "The Jedi have fallen already."
This time Ahsoka was too angry to contain it. "Don't you dare compare me to you! You killed dozens of people, and you betrayed me!"
Again, Barriss didn't seem to hear her. "Strange that someone who doesn't want to be a Jedi would come looking for a lightsaber crystal."
"I'd still have my first lightsaber if it wasn't for you! I'd still be a Jedi if it wasn't for you!" And then came the thought that Ahsoka had been trying not to think for months. "I should have killed you on that transport when you asked me to!" She was shaking, and not from the cold.

This time Barriss seemed to hear her, shrinking back from her words. Ice crystals formed on her skin that had suddenly gone pale, just like she had appeared on the transport from Geonosis. Before she could respond another voice echoed from behind Ahsoka.

"You're right, Snips."

Ahsoka looked over her shoulder to see Anakin Skywalker leaning against the cave wall. "I was wrong," he said. "You should have killed her." As Anakin began walking towards them Barriss' eyes went wide with fear.

"Don't trust him Ahsoka," she pleaded. "Whatever you do, please don't trust him!" Ahsoka looked at her incredulously.

"Then who should I trust? You?" She turned her back on her, she couldn't bear to look at Barriss another second. Anakin smiled and held out his hand.

"Ahsoka, you need to come with me. I know the way to your crystal."

"Don't listen to him Ahsoka! You have no idea what he's capable of, what he can do. It's already too late to stop it, please don't let yourself fall too!" Barriss' voice was full of terror.

She shook her head in disgust. "Whatever trick of the Dark Side you are, you should know that Barriss is the worst form you could have chosen."

The apparition looked down in defeat. "Don't say you weren't warned."

Ahsoka took Anakin's hand and he led her farther along the tunnel. I don't care what you say, Barriss. I trust him with my life. Soon he began moving faster than she could keep up, and her hand slipped out of his as he disappeared around a corner.
"Master! Wait up," she said, she rounding the same corner.

What the-

Ahsoka skidded to a stop. Ahead of her was a corridor of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, just as covered in ice and snow as the tunnel behind her. It was in ruins, shattered columns and pieces of the roof strewn about. Snow fell down slowly through the gaps in the roof. Ahsoka's eyes stopped on a particular piece of rubble. She slowly approached it and realized it was a body lying on it's stomach. Carefully she rolled it over and stared into Plo Koon's face. Ahsoka recoiled back in shock and slipped, landing hard on the ground. As she got to her feet she saw there were other bodies. Mace Windu, Kit Fisto, Saesee Tiin, and Agen Kolar lay around her, steam rising from what had to be lightsaber wounds.

"Ahsoka," Anakin's voice startled her, there was a hardness to it that she had never heard before.. She turned around to see him standing in a doorway, his deactivated lightsaber in his hand, a hood pulled up over his head. This isn't right. This isn't Anakin, Ahsoka thought, her heart racing.

"You have to join me, or this will be your fate too." He began walking towards her, and a blast of wind blew his hood back. His eyes were bloodshot and yellow, burning with the power of the Dark Side. This is wrong, I was wrong. She turned to flee, only to run into someone else, who knocked her down and fell on top of her.
"He's right, you know. Only by embracing me can you hope to survive." Ahsoka was hearing her own voice, looking into her own face, but it wasn't right. The other Ahsoka's eyes were yellow and bloodshot like Anakin's, and the veins on her face stood out like a dark web. Her mouth was contorted in an insane grin. "If I don't join him, he will kill me!" A flash of suppressed memory flew up into her mind's eye, another fallen Ahsoka crossing lightsabers with Anakin on what had to be Mortis. Just as quickly as it appeared the memory was gone.

The other Ahsoka seemed amused at the prospect of her death. Ahsoka pushed off the twisted version of herself as it began laughing hysterically and stood up. Anakin was right in front of her now, and he held out his lightsaber to her.

"Now do what you should have done years ago, and you will gain everything you seek." His usual sarcastic smile stood out in stark contrast to the hatred in his eyes. Numbly, she took it. Anakin moved beside her to reveal Barriss chained to the ruined wall, looking half-dead.
"Ahsoka, I'm so sorry. I never wanted to hurt you, everything moved so fast and got out of control." Tears were freezing on Barriss' face as she spoke, her voice a dry whisper. "Please don't make my mistake. I thought I was strong enough to control it, that my own fall was the only way to rescue the Order itself from falling. But I was wrong," Barriss stopped, overcome by a tortured coughing fit. "There's no controlling it," she continued. "Everything I did dragged us further into darkness. Once it gets a hold of you you'll destroy everything you loved, like I did. Please-"

Her voice cut off as the fallen Ahsoka closed her windpipe with the Force. "Do it," Anakin snarled at Ahsoka. "Kill her!"

Her montrals rang with the sound of her own twisted laughter. She could feel her dark counterpart's breath on her neck, her hand gently running down one of Ahsoka's lekku.

"Come on Ahsoka," she whispered. "It'll be easy. She deserves it, she almost got you killed!"

I can't, Ahsoka realized. Not then, not now. Barriss may have betrayed her and the Jedi, she decided. But she wasn't lost, not yet.

She still had a chance.

"Do it now!"

No.

Ahsoka ignited the blue lightsaber.

"Please, Ahsoka," said Barriss. "Don't lose yourself like I did."

"Kill her!" Anakin grabbed her by the arm.

Ahsoka drove the blade through Anakin's chest.

"I don't know what you are or what any of this means, but you are not Anakin and Barriss does not deserve to die! She deserves another chance!"
Anakin's body disappeared into thin air, his empty robes falling to the floor in a pile. Not-Ahsoka's laughter stopped, and she disappeared too. Barriss smiled weakly.
"You are stronger than I was. The Force will be with you, Ahsoka. Always."

Ahsoka opened her mouth to respond, but the entire scene faded out into a bright light.

Ahsoka opened her eyes to find she had passed out on the ground of the cave with the droid. Slowly, she got to her feet, unsure if everything around her was real. After she had reassured herself the disturbing vision was over Ahsoka went to leave. But something stopped her, a strange, high-pitched whistling she had heard only one other time in her life. She looked over the room until she found the source, a faint green light emanating from under the remains of the droid. Ahsoka pushed it out of the way to discover a single green crystal hidden underneath. She picked it up and put it in her utility pouch, then started making her way back to the entrance. I wonder if Asajj had anything as weird as that happen to her...