Leia stood up, anger in her face and tears in her eyes. Obi-Wan knew as well as she did that the truth was a part of her now—there was no turning back for any of them.

"If it is the destiny of the son and the daughter to kill the father," Leia gritted, her chin trembling, "then who am I to forsake my destiny?" She ignited her blue lightsaber and lunged at the silent Vader, who blocked her blow.

"Leia, no!" Obi-Wan pleaded. "Let go of your anger—don't let the Dark Side consume you!"

"I guess you should have thought of that when you and Father decided to hide my ancestry from me!" Leia bit out. Her rage was growing by the moment, swirling into a vicious tornado that sought nothing but destruction.

Obi-Wan tore his gaze from Leia. He could no longer look at her. He couldn't bear to see her rage, to watch her fail to uphold the teachings he had given her...Her failure was his failure. How had he failed again?

He looked instead to Luke, the one that made him feel a glimmer—however slight—of hope. The boy seemed almost taken aback by his sister's entrance into the fight, but Obi-Wan suspected he was relieved to have help. Wielding a lightsaber against the half-machine Vader was liable to make the boy's hand tire quickly.

And yet, Luke seemed strangely withdrawn from the fighting for a reason that didn't seem to be fatigue...Obi-Wan suspected he didn't want to press his advantage, but he wasn't sure whether he should be valuing or cursing the boy's hesitation.

It was a situation Obi-Wan wished he had never been required to face. There was a decision to be made—adhere to the Jedi way or save the galaxy? Was there a way to do both? Or were they, in this instance, mutually exclusive?

He and Yoda needed the children to destroy the father—it was true...Yet the Jedi were to defend, to be at peace—they were not to aim for destruction...Could one kill another being while maintaining serenity?

Obi-Wan tried reaching out to the Light Side, but he was not at peace, and the Force held no answers for him.

****

Palpatine watched as Vader dueled with his two children. There was much anger in the girl, but the boy...the boy was strangely serene.

"Good blow, girl," he said appreciatively as Leia Organa forced Palpatine's dark knight back a few steps. "Use your anger to destroy your father."

At his words, however, the girl switched from offensive to defensive. He could feel her forcing herself to calm down. Her anger was losing force.

The Emperor narrowed his eyes. Insolent girl. She had been showing such promise, too...

"You know that I disbanded the Senate, child," Palpatine said pointedly, giving a twisted smile as he saw a muscle in the girl's cheek twitch. "With one stroke, I completely dissolved democracy. With the Senate gone and my Grand Moffs in place, my Empire is invincible...I am afraid, child, that the Republic is dead...And soon, Alderaan will be no more...With Bail Organa dead, the Rebellion will collapse from within." The Sith Lord saw the young woman's eyes widen. "Yes, I am quite certain that Mothma and Bel Iblis will end up destroying each other; their methods differ too greatly for them to coexist peacefully without Organa."

"Leia," the Jedi Kenobi called out. "Fight against your anger. Find your peace—you are a Jedi apprentice, Leia!"

But the tyrannical ruler could see that Leia had been angered by his words: she was increasing the intensity of her attack.

****

Darth Vader was still dueling, parrying the strong strikes of Leia and the hesitant slashes of Luke, though his mind was not on the battle before him.

Children. Padmé had given birth to two children—and Obi-Wan had hidden them from him and lied to them about his existence.

His fury burned brighter, and he subconsciously increased the strength behind his lightsaber blows. Obi-Wan had turned his Padmé against him, left him to die on Mustafar, and stolen away his two children. The family he could have had—it had been ripped away from him by the Jedi. Instead of the father raising the children alongside his wife, he was trying to kill them and forget about the death of their mother.

He wiped Padmé from his mind, concentrating solely on his children...No, he did not truly want to kill them—that was not what he was trying to do. He was trying to turn them. Leia was showing promise in that area, but he suspected she would rather kill both him and Palpatine than serve under either of them. And Luke...

How had his son been so close to him for so long without either one of them realizing their relationship? He had felt a strange kinship with the boy, certainly, but he had thought it was the Force alone that tied them together.

If only he had known of the boy's true potential, he would have tried to be more patient with him. Then Luke would have never run away, and this battle would have never taken place. His son would have one day ruled at his side.

Vader turned his attention back to the battle with his children. The Dark Side was swirling throughout the room, but it was swirling out of control. He needed to focus Leia's anger, but how could he? How was he going to permanently turn his children to both the Dark Side and his side?—for he must—it was all he could do. He didn't know if he would be able to kill them. There was so much potential there, he told himself. Would he be able to kill them, knowing that?

****

Luke was participating in the saber duel, but he was doing so on auto-pilot. He could not concentrate on the fight, and truly he did not want to.

He had found his true father and discovered he had a sister. His past had finally been unraveled—but to what purpose?

Why had he met with the dark man again? Why did he feel this strange connection to him that made him ponder what-ifs and should-have-beens?

What made the dark man any different from Xyd'rr'u? Both were so willing to kill, so willing to encourage him to kill...

Certainly, he was related to one and not even of the same species as the other. But species—that sort of thing didn't matter.

Why did he feel as if his connection to Vader did matter?

Why did he long to stay with Vader when he had been so desperate to get away from Xyd'rr'u? Could it be that he had felt a glimmer of something in Vader that had not been present in his adopted father?

If he had fled and then fought Xyd'rr'u, the Tusken Raider would not have hesitated to kill him. Tuskens would tolerate insolence in other members of their species only up to a point.

But Vader—why was Vader not killing him? Why had Vader not killed him before when he had disobeyed him? Why had the dark man fought to be patient with him when Luke knew he would do so for no one else?

Could it be—was it possible—that Vader still retained a spark of the light that Luke had been yearning for all his life?

****

Leia fought for the Rebellion, for her adopted father, for Winter, for her cousin, for the murdered artist, for the dead, for the galaxy, and for herself. She needed to see Palpatine dead, but before she could get to him she had to kill her father.

It had been strange enough to discover that she was adopted and had a brother...But discovering that her father was one of the most evil men in the galaxy was almost more than she could handle. It was still surreal—she felt as if someone had concocted up a nightmare and planted it into her mind. Her gut, however, told her this was no nightmare.

While she fought, she wondered why Luke wasn't putting all his effort into the duel. Vader had cut his hand off—surely he could not feel kindly toward the monster!

Obi-Wan's words, once so precious to her, were now to her like fog—pretty enough to be surrounded by, but possessing no substance. This was what the Jedi wanted, wasn't it, for the Sith to die? It was what Leia wanted. The Republic would rise from the ashes of the Sith; she could ensure that.

Distantly, she heard a shout. Backing off from Vader, she spared a brief glance toward the noise.

****

Saber risen protectively, Luke turned from the battle with his father. He watched as Han and Chewbacca came rushing noisily into the room, their blasters held at the ready. He watched as they shot at the amused Palpatine, their bolts being absorbed easily into his hands. He watched as they were thrown back into the wall with the Force, their consciousness being taken over by painless darkness.

What sadness he might have felt was overtaken by his relief that the hit hadn't killed the pair. Soon, however, he found himself facing Vader alone, for Leia cried out and ran to the pair, kneeling beside Han.

His left arm had not been given enough respite to recover for a one-on-one duel with Vader, but fortunately he noticed Obi-Wan calling Leia's lightsaber to his hand. Soon, the Jedi had joined him, and they kept Vader's strength at bay together.

Luke felt as if the battle were pointless, and, tentatively, his Force senses stretched out, he began to speak. "Father."

The Sith Lord began to speak. "Give in to the Dark Side, Son...You can be great if you release your anger..."

"You...would be...greater if you would...cleanse...yourself of your anger," Luke managed.

"You have let the traitor Kenobi brainwash you," growled the dark man. "The Jedi are inconsistent—in the name of morals, they ask you not to feel. They want you to kill, but they don't want you to experience an emotion while you do it..."

"Yet...you kill without...thinking."

"At least I feel."

"The Jedi feel, too, Vader," Obi-Wan insisted, blocking the Sith Lord's slash. "Do you think I felt no sense of loss on Mustafar? You were like my brother."

"And you were like my father...Yet you left me to die."

"The past is gone," Luke inserted as he blocked the blow Vader aimed at him. "Good is...in you still. It burns on."

"No, Luke," Leia called out, her face twisted in anger and sorrow. "That man is not our father—our father was Anakin Skywalker, and he is long dead."

But Luke shook his head. He flung his saber aside, and it fell to the floor with a loud clatter. "We should not...fight...I will not fight...Good is...in you still, Father. It burns on."

At that, Vader began to pursue Luke, easily blocking the attacks Obi-Wan sent at him. "If you do not fight," snarled the Sith Lord, "then you shall die."

"It...does not matter," the former Ghorfa responded, trying to duck into the shadows. But light almost seemed to follow him, and Vader could still see him.

"If you do not fight, there are others who will die, Son," the Dark Lord warned him. "Your two friends will die, this Jedi fool will die, and your sister will die..." There was a flicker in Luke's Force sense, and the dark man continued. "I will slaughter them, just like your Tusken tribe was slaughtered...But this time, you will be here to hear them scream."

"No!" Luke cried out, calling Obi-Wan's saber to him and striking at the Sith Lord with such ferocity that he forced him backwards.

Obi-Wan fell back a few steps, stunned at the amount of anger he felt from Luke through the Force. "Do not give in to your anger, Luke," he pleaded, but his words fell on deaf ears.

****

Vader could only watch as his son made one final clever blow, slicing off Vader's right hand and sending Vader's saber flying. He had overexerted himself on the duel, and he fell to his knees, his respirator making a wheezing sound.

Luke, his son, his only son, stared at him as if searching his soul, but Vader was unable to read his soul in return. Vader's own thoughts were chaotic, but one thought came out clearly: how had it come to this?

His life, his entire life, seemed to boil down to death and destruction...Because of him, his wife was dead and the Jedi were all but extinct...It had all been his fault, truly—he had always known that. He had simply tried to lie to himself, to convince himself that the blame was the Jedi's and not his, that Obi-Wan had failed him as a friend and teacher. And yet, he was the one that had failed Obi-Wan—it had not been the other way around. He had crafted his own misery.

And now, he was about to be killed by his son. He had forced it to happen. They were separated from each other by his decisions...He had made his children hate him.

The next words Palpatine uttered—though not unexpected—sent a chill down his spine: "Now, boy, kill him."

Vader remained kneeling, waiting for the blade to fall. Here was his destiny—death at the hands of his son. Perhaps it was his son that was truly meant to be the Chosen One...Vader would never know. And perhaps it didn't even matter.

Distantly, Vader heard Obi-Wan speaking. "Palpatine, you truly have been twisted by the Dark Side..."

Vader watched as Luke extinguished his lightsaber and threw it to the ground with finality. Because of his confusion, it took a few seconds for Vader to register the boy's next words: "You have failed...I will not fight...I will not kill...I had thought that...that Vader was the dark man...But the dark man—he was inside me...I know that now."

"You are a young fool," the Emperor sneered, seething with annoyance. "Your anger gave you such power that you were able to bring your father to his knees...You speak of darkness, boy, but if darkness lurks inside us all, why should we fight it? Instead of fighting it, all should embrace it."

"No," the youth insisted firmly, his chin set stubbornly. Though he didn't quite know why, Vader felt a sense of pride.

Vader should have expected what happened next, but he was enveloped in so many conflicting emotions that he was unable to think clearly. When Palpatine began to hit Luke, then Obi-Wan, and then Leia with Force lightning, Vader could only watch, suddenly numb.

The tyrant struck them with enough lightning to cause them all to writhe in agony, but then, with a cold look toward Vader, he began to concentrate the electricity on Luke, who cried out and writhed.

Everyone living he cared about was dying. The thought came to Vader with startling clarity. His children and his mentor—they were all to be killed by his master. The Dark Side and his master—they were one and the same. They were killing those he did not want dead.

He heard Leia whisper Obi-Wan's name as she crawled toward the Jedi, but it was his son's desperate words that cut straight to his heart: "Father...Please help us."

Somehow, Vader found the strength within himself to stand; he didn't even need to use the Force. He grabbed his saber and staggered over to his master, swinging the red blade at the tyrant's throat. But the tyrant one-handedly blocked the saber with one of his own and then shot Force lightning out at his assailant.

It was going to be over soon. Vader couldn't match Palpatine's dueling skills with only one hand, and he was unable to block the Force lightning.

Palpatine glared at his former apprentice with unparalleled hatred. All of his anger and attention was focused solely on Vader, on the act of death he was about to perform, and as he whispered furiously, "Traitor," two loud noises rang out in the room.

Vader stared as his master fell backwards, a smoking hole in his chest.

"I knew there was a reason I preferred blasters to those ancient hokey weapons," the strange man on the floor said with a smirk.

All the occupants of the room then stared quietly at the dead despot.