Love

He rarely ever sparred with me. I learned most of my technique from Master Drallig or any other master that was willing to teach me a thing or two. When he did spar with me, though, we always drew a crowd. Especially during the war. The Younglings seemed enamored by us. We were the two most famous Jedi in the Order before the war had barely gone for a couple months. I was considered one of the best swordsmen the Order had ever seen aside from perhaps Mace or Qui-gon. I typically won most spars I engaged in.

But not the ones with him.

It always ended in a draw for reasons I will never know. I tried my hardest, but I could never get to him, even when he was exhausted from previous missions or Council business. Our duels tended to last well over an hour as we fought back and forth, flipping over each other and striking in blurs of blue. I watched one of our spars on the holonet once. Some Youngling had probably posted it.

I watched the whole thing. It was sort of stupid really, because I had participated in it. I remembered every slice and cut I had made, every trick I had used, every flip and every spin I had initiated…

Every time he had blocked me or foiled one of my tricks. It was ridiculous after a while. After the first twenty minutes, I realized why people loved to watch us spar. We just knew each other too well. Even though he hardly ever sparred with me, he understood me in a way no other Jedi could possibly comprehend. He knew which moves I would use in certain situations. He knew how I would respond to his attacks. He knew when I would retreat and when I would become more aggressive.

He also knew how long I could keep up with him.

My master is not an imposing figure. He's an inch under six feet and not as muscular as you would expect a Jedi to be. Jedi are warriors, at least by my understanding. Most of us have defined muscle that's evident to anyone who crosses blades with us. We look like athletes. Except for my master. Yes, he's muscular, but not obviously. He's very lean and not very stocky. He looks like a person who has a daily workout routine and eats the right foods, not like someone who fights battles daily and trains to win them.

There's a reason he looks the way he does. Too much muscle would slow him down. Take me for example. I am used to winning a duel within the first thirty minutes of fighting due to the fact that I rely on strength and aggression. When I strike at another person's blade, I don't just hit it, I blast it. I put my full strength into every swing and attempt to tire my opponent out through sheer, raw power alone. This is why I win most of the time. In most cases, this kind of fighting style prevails, especially when someone like me is using it. I don't mean to brag, but I am the Chosen One, and there simply isn't anyone who can match me in raw power.

My master comes close, but with one look at him, you could see that he doesn't rely on his strength to win battles. He relies on something possibly more deadly than raw power. He relies on stamina. And let me tell you, his stamina is way above that of anyone else.

I can fight for maybe forty-five minutes before I start to break a sweat. I've typically won at that point, but here's the thing. When you're fighting someone like my master, who knows your every move, who knows your style like the back of his hand, that powerful, aggressive style suddenly becomes a huge disadvantage. Especially when, at forty-five minutes, he's still fighting as strong as ever and only smirks at you when he realizes you're starting to get a little winded.

It's painfully annoying. Well, actually it's his style that is rather annoying. He uses Soresu. Normally, that shouldn't be a big deal. Most Jedi have been taught the basics in both Soresu and Ataru, because those are the best suited forms for fighting this sort of war. However, those styles tend to not work out so well when fighting another force-user one on one… unless of course you've mastered the form to a degree that shouldn't be attainable. My master, unfortunately for me, has made it his lifetime goal, it seems, to learn everything he possibly can about Soresu.

For him it's not a form of combat; it's a lifestyle. Master Windu once commented that my master was the master of Soresu. Not a master. The master. That's scary if you think about it. Soresu is annoying because its practitioners are not about attacking. Soresu itself is not about attacking. It's a very passive style that focuses on defense. It was created, in fact, to use against blaster bolts, which, I might add, my former master is exceptionally good at deflecting.

My master never attacked during our spars until I made a mistake. I don't make mistakes very often, but my weakness, as my master knew very well, was my patience. I had very little patience, whereas his patience was way beyond possibility. I'm pretty sure he would fight a guy for hours on end until he capitalized on a mistake. I'm not joking either. He could fight for probably at least three hours before he started getting majorly short of breath. That's why people watched our spars. Because they went on forever.

But that's not the point here. The point is that our spars always ended in a draw. Most people probably thought that made sense. Since we were the two most famous Jedi, it only seems reasonable that our skills in dueling would be fairly equal.

Obi-wan and I knew better. He and I both knew that I was the better swordsman of the two of us. That I was the one with more raw power and talent. That I was the one with the more dominant style. But I never actually beat him. I don't know why I couldn't defeat him. I always gave it my best shot, always put forth my best efforts, used my best tricks, my best tactics… but it never worked. I couldn't make it past his stupid blade.

It was always there with a light parry to push my attacks aside, his eyes all the while staring straight into my own with something I would almost label as sadness. He knew something I didn't, but he never told me what it was.

He would've beaten me every time had he not called the spars. He always ended them when he could tell I was getting winded and frustrated. I was grateful that he never took the chance to beat me, but at the same time it hurt me to know that he thought he had to end them just so I wouldn't receive an embarrassing blow to my swollen ego.

Preventing a blow to my ego wasn't the real reason why he stopped them, though. I figured that out years later on a molten planet, fire swirling all around me, as I faced down a man who was crying for the first time since I had met him. He stopped me, because he knew I wouldn't be able to stop myself. He knew me too well.

Frustration turned to anger, which quickly boiled into rage. That rage led me straight over the edge into a pit I couldn't climb out of. At least not on my own. He was there when I fell over the edge, and he tried to reach down to me, offer me a way out, pull me out of the darkness that had consumed me. I turned away from him. That was the final mistake. This time it wasn't a draw. This time, tears pouring down his face, blue eyes overrun by regret, forgiveness hidden behind cries of "Why?", he swung at me and didn't stop.

The blade went through my arm first, then my legs. I fell into a heap of broken flesh onto the charred black earth. Within a few minutes, what was left of my body would turn the same color as the fire ate away at me. There wasn't a crowd there to witness my defeat. There were no bystanders to offer up a deafening roar of approval towards the one man who was able to out-duel the Chosen One.

And there was no satisfied look of victory in his eyes. Only a painful expression caused by the agony of a broken heart. He didn't win that battle. He surrendered and let me live.

I killed him.

My last words burned a hole straight through whatever small amount of compassion was left in him. Three words were all it took to defeat the great Obi-wan Kenobi.

I hate you!

I screamed at him with all the strength I had left in my broken body. I saw his face crumble, actually felt our bond tremble before it shattered. I didn't know it at the time, but had I been paying attention, I would have felt the very essence of the Force pulse in agony. The breaking of our bond seemed to split the Force into pieces. I never realized that it had been us two that were holding it together.

He stared at me then. I expected him to get angry, to come down and change the outcome of this battle, seal his victory rather than let me get away with a decisive win.

But instead he offered me three words. I think he said a few more, but I only heard the last three. I love you.

Then he walked away. I didn't see him for close to twenty years, and when I did run into him again, I literally killed him. It didn't matter, though. He was already dead anyway. But those three words were very much alive. I finally realized that he was the epitome of greatness. The perfect Jedi, though he claimed no one could ever truly reach perfection.

I betrayed the Order out of love, but I didn't know what love was. I had never seen its true form or witnessed it in action. Even between Padme and I, it had never really existed. I should've seen it, though.

It should've been obvious in the smirks that came my way from a man who had rarely laughed since the death of his mentor.

It should've been apparent in the way he comforted me after the worst of my nightmares.

It tried to reach me through a father who never rested despite a war that had taken the lives of many of his friends.

It fought for me against a Council partly led by a Korun master that had hated me since he had first laid eyes on me.

And love tried to save me for the final time as my father reached in desperation for the hand of his son who had fallen too far for him to catch.

I should've seen it. I should've listened to that little green troll all those years ago. I should've grabbed on to the hand that was reaching for me. I ignored it. I ignored the greatest Jedi to ever live. I never saw the sunset again. It disappeared, only to be replaced by an inky blackness. There was no tinge of blue or purple. No brilliant red shades swirling with his laughter. No yellows betraying his happiness when his face wouldn't. No orange shining fiercely in carefully controlled anger at those who deserved it. Just black.

The sunset was gone forever.

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"Intense love does not measure. It just gives." ~ Mother Teresa