Chapter threeeeeeee, and the last chapter. Which I'm happy about. I've really enjoyed this story, but I wanted it to be done, and for a second there I thought it would be four chapters. But no! I managed to fit into three.

Anakin rode his pod racer.

It seemed fitting, and it was fast. He pressed the engines harder than he ever had. He wore no helmet. The wind pushed against his face until he could barely breath. The buildings and streams of traffic on Coruscant blurred they were little more than smudges. He became as a leaf in the wind. He hit nothing.

He was so deep in the force it was a few minutes before he realized he was not going towards his master, but towards his master's palace.

He dove below the surface of the city, twisting down, down into the levels upon levels of Coruscant, to where his master kept his true home, in the darkness. The chambers where he preformed his experiments. Where he trained his accolades and his spies. Where he had trained Anakin.

Anakin wasn't sure how long he had stayed in those halls. He knew he had been allowed solo missions outside them for a year before his entrance as Darth Vader, but he wasn't sure of the time before that. It couldn't have been more than three. He'd known he'd spent two years with Maul.

He supposed if he knew how old he was, he could track how long he had spent training under Sidious that way, but he didn't. According to Tatooine law a child could be taken from their mother once they turned five. As such, mother's never told their children their age.

He had asked his mother once, because Watto had started asking Anakin about it in an offhand way.

"I will tell you." She had said simply. "When you are free."

However long he had spent in those halls, those endless days and nights of pain and training and preparation until his master saw fit to consume his enemies, he had known that he never wanted to return.

But the force would have him return, it seemed.

To his surprise, and he should not have been surprised, he found Kenobi and another Jedi at one of the more hidden entrances. The second Jedi was short. Extremely short. And green, and old enough to house enough wrinkles to suit a hutt.

"Master Yoda." Anakin said in surprise. "My master has been very frustrated at my failures to find you."

Both of them drew their lightsabers before he even finished speaking. Carefully he raised his hands in what he hoped was a placating gesture.

"Master Kenobi." Anakin said, inclining his head just enough to show respect, but not enough to indicate the man had any authority over him. No man did. Not with the Kryat hissing inside Vader, stamping its feet and shaking its head in preparation for a fight. "How are you, old man?"

Kenobi's eyes widened, he lowered his blade several centimeters. "Darth Vader?" He questioned. "It can't be…"

"I assume you have come here to kill my master?" Anakin said bluntly.

"Destroy your master, we must." Master Yoda said, staring up at him with a thoughtful expression. "Understand this, you do?"

"My master must perish." Anakin said nodding. "But he is not here."

Kenobi's eyes narrowed skeptically, but his lightsaber lowered further. "How do you know?"

"Our bond." Anakin pointed towards the setting sun, where the black hand that squeezed his heart stretched from. "He is there. In the abandoned factories of Coruscant, it is there his ship to escape this planet and its attack."

Kenobi cursed, finally hooking his lightsaber on his belt. "Can you take us there? Our ride's moved on."

"Yes." Anakin jerked a thumb behind him. "I have a speeder. The fastest ever."

Anakin laughed.

He couldn't help it. He was fire and power and justice. The wind tousled his hair and his engines screamed so loudly he knew they would never run again. His love and his apprentice were safe on their way to the unknown regions, and he was going to kill his master at last.

Besides, Kenobi was being very amusing.

The little one, Master Yoda, was curled in the bottom of the speeder by Anakin's feet. He gripped the rungs in the wall and radiated the earthy taste of grim determination. Poor Kenobi clung to the back of the speeder with nothing but his hands and the force.

Anakin couldn't hear him. But he could vividly taste the metallic flavor of Kenobi's desperation and fear, as if he had ripped off his glove and stuffed his durasteel hand into his mouth. If he turned he could see Kenobi's mouth open in a scream ripped from his mouth before it ever reached Anakin's ears.

He passed the two false ships that his master had set up, the three ports that would send ships to establish the new Empire, and sped towards the true target. A small dock with a ship barely befitting a trader, let alone an emperor.

Anakin hit the brakes and had to manually reinforce them with the force to prevent them from exploding. He turned the controls, throwing the ship and Kenobi sideways as they flew into the end.

The speeder slowed to a stop, the perfect sliver edge just bumping against the aging walkway to the dock.

Vader leapt out and began deflecting bolts the moment the engines died. It took three seconds for Master Yoda to join him, and another fifteen for Kenobi, and even then he looked unsteady on his feet.

"You-" Kenobi shot out in brief opportune moments, "-are the worst pilot I have ever seen."

Anakin laughed again, too filled with joy to be angry. "I'm the best pod racer on Coruscant. Just ask anyone."

"Good fliers aren't suicidal. " Kenobi shot back.

"No. Excellent ones are." Vader replied smoothly, catching one of his master's royal guards and snapping his neck before he could approach them with his spear.

It took two minutes and twelve seconds to defeat the outer guards. Master Yoda and Kenobi rushed forward.

Anakin walked placidly behind them, examining the corpses on the ground. He paused above one imperial soldier, studying the frozen grim expression on his face critically. He knelt and removed the glove of his flesh hand to set on the wound of a reflected blaster bolt.

For a moment, he felt the man's life. His desperation to be something. Brief flashes of his rises among the ranks, his loyalties, until he had been chosen for this mission, most important of all missions. His loyalty. His nigh on worship of the emperor.

But where the Salacc would have made them a part of himself, forcing them to live eternally in misery, his Kryat dragon feasted upon it for strength.

Deep beneath his skin, he drew up all the pasts and futures his salacc had stored away, and he set the kryat dragon upon it.

His master's ship had lifted up and was flying away by the time Anakin caught up with Kenobi and Master Yoda.

Both of them had their hands outstretched, their presences glowing and flaring, and in Kenobi's case fading away into the force.

The ship lurched under their assault, but still moved steadily forward.

Anakin supposed it didn't help that there were still two dozen soldiers firing at them, and they had to deflect the bolts even as they reached for the ship. Still, he expected more from Jedi.

Vader raised a hand and he fisted it around the sensation of the ship. In one swift motion he brought it crashing to the ground. The soldiers fell to their knees. Anakin's teeth rattled. The floor collapsed, and the ship fell down a story until all you could only see the very top.

In another motion he tore the roof of the ship off, revealing the inside. Then he lifted up the two dozen remaining soldiers and snapped all their necks.

Kenobi gaped. Master Yoda stared disapprovingly at him. Perhaps for killing the soldiers in such a way. It was more efficient, however, and Vader really didn't see the moral difference in death by a deflected blaster bolt or by a broken spine.

The black hand that clenched around his heart abruptly retreated and snaked back into the ship, and his heart throbbed in relief and freedom. The unwanted bond was gone at last.

"He seeks to escape." Vader snarled.

Kenobi, casually sent two grenades where they exploded uselessly, turned to him. "And how do we stop that?"

"You take the back of the ship. Master Yoda will take the front. I will take the bottom." Vader leapt downwards in between the shattered layers of durasteel.

As he passed down, he crushed the seals around the entrances to each escape pod, so that if one tried to eject they would find themselves, instead of soaring towards the sky, shooting towards a wall.

This, he found, had been unnecessary, as he found the bottom of the sizable ship opening, and a smaller ship powering on.

Vader reached out and clenched his fist. The ship froze in the air, shuddering in its useless efforts to escape, and began to collapse inward.

Then, a second ship flew out-

The kryat dragon within him roared and hissed. He dropped the first and crushed the second into a half, a third, a quarter of its size.

It collapsed on the ground, denting the floor.

Vader, panting, strode up to the top of the ship, and began methodically cutting chunks away, tossing them behind him where they left molten streaks from the heat of his lightsaber.

His master, unbelievably, was still alive. His skull was cracked nearly in half, blood spilling out over his face. His body was crushed under the frame of the ship.

And he smiled.

"You." He croaked. "You hid your treachery from me."

And deep within Anakin, Vader called up the memories and dreams of Maul. The rough hand rustling his hair, the stories his smooth voice told, and the endless, never ending testing of his shields.

"My master taught me." Anakin told him simply.

Slowly, slowly, Sidious' mouth stretched into a wide smile. "I spoiled you." He said. "Too much freedom."

Anakin plunged his lightsaber into his crushed skull.

Then he crushed the first ship until it was no bigger than a loth cat. He set it as gently as he could manage, but it still sank halfway down into the floor.

It began to leak blood.

He sat on the wreckage of the second ship, listening to the sound of blaster bolts and shouting from above, and waited to die.

He did not die.

After a time, the blaster bolts and shouting faded, and a dark skinned human jumped down with a purple lightsaber. He walked up to Anakin, and examined the crushed head that stuck out by Anakin's side. "This was Darth Sidious?" He asked.

"Yes." Anakin said simply. "Are you a Jedi?"

He drew himself up. "I am. I am Mace Windu."

"Anakin Skywalker." Anakin told him. "How did you get your blade?"

"I did not 'get it'" The man said, narrowing his eyes. "It chose me."

"Ah."

Anakin's first mission had been to find his lightsaber crystal. He had spent four weeks tracking down a Jedi who had separated himself from the order. He had been old. And strong. And Vader had killed him. He pried the lightsaber from his dead hands and filled the crystal with his hate and rage until he had taken the sweet song and broken it into a guttural scream.

He hadn't bothered with any of that for Ahsoka. He'd merely given her a crystal he'd had on hand, and another when she had taken up her second lightsaber. But he supposed the Jedi operated differently.

The man squinted up at him for a time, then said. "And what do you intend to do now?"

Anakin shrugged.

The man released a wave of icy distrust. He raised a comlink and spoke into it. "I have found Sidious, he is dead. All teams return to the senate building and assist the Duchess with the siege."

He looked up to Anakin, his face hard. "You will come with me."

"Alright." Anakin stood and hopped down from the ship.

Mace Windu stared after him, blinking stupidly.

Ventress had died already, Anakin found when they returned to the surface. Her head and chest were near Kenobi. Her legs and stomach lay two or three meters away. Two lakes of bloods from the corpse crawled towards one another, as if desperate to be one again.

Anakin knelt and removed his glove. He trailed his fingers in the blood.

When he removed it again he found Kenobi and Yoda, and a third woman staring at him.

"To remember her by." Anakin explained, wiping his hands on his tunic, tinting the black red and shining. "She helped me, once. We were sent on a mission together, and she could have left me to die, but she did not."

They stared more, and for a moment Anakin thought he could almost feel their horror through their gaze.

"She would have been the apprentice, had she left me." Anakin explained. "She was next in line. But she did not. Perhaps because I used to try to give her some of my food." He added thoughtfully. "She was so thin I thought she was starving. But it was only her species. I needn't have."

Kenobi swallowed. "She… she fought well." He offered.

Anakin shrugged. "It does not matter what happens now, old man."

Kenobi's ears reddened. "I'm not-" he groaned. "Oh, never mind."

Windu, the woman Anakin learned was his padawan Billaba, Kenobi, Master Yoda and Anakin all climbed into a speeder Mace Windu used for travel. It was quite crowded, especially because they brought what remained of the head of Sidious with them, at the request of the leader of Mandalore. Anakin refused to be anywhere near it, for fear of touching the blood accidently.

Mace Windu was a mediocre at best as a pilot, which made Anakin wonder what exactly he was good at, as a Jedi. Perhaps his lightsaber skills were excellent.

The senate building was alive with Mandalorian ships and the mandalorians that zipped about the dome like flies over a corpse waiting for it to rot.

They landed on the outer platform of the senate building, where various armored figures stood guard.

Two figures strode out to meet them, both carrying their helmets under their arms. The Duchess of Mandalore, Anakin realized, and her sister Bo-Katan, the leader of Death Watch, a rebel group against the empire.

The Duchess surprised him. Anakin had personally lead the siege that had brought Mandalore under the heel of the Empire, and he thought that fear of being burned to dust on the face of their own planet would have kept her in line. She'd certainly put up a good face, disowning her sister and training special teams of clones in the Mandaloriam way. Apparently it hadn't worked.

The Duchess looked resplendent, her painted armor shining blue and black, the mandalorian colors for reliability and justice. In her left hand she carried her helmet, and her right she had a shining spear that Anakin suspected was beskar.

She strode past Master Yoda and Mace Windu, who had stood in front to greet her, and straight to Kenobi. She handed the spear to Bo-Katan and twisted her fingers in the back of Kenobi's hair and pulled him down for a kiss. Kenobi responded eagerly.

Anakin stared. He'd been almost certain that his master had claimed once that the Jedi did not take romantic attachments. Then again, none of the other Jedi looked particularly pleased at this interaction.

The Duchess broke away, and picked up the head of Sidious. She hefted it until she had it by its base and gazed at it critically.

Anakin had spent hours staring into the face of his master, knew every wrinkle and every expression it could take, and even he would not have recognized it, half crushed and burnt as it was.

Apparently the Duchess had noticed this as well. "You couldn't have done any better?" She said, turning to face the rest of the them with a critical gaze.

"Better dead than recognizable." Anakin said simply.

"True." She agreed, then handed Kenobi her helmet. She gestured to Bo-Katan. She held out the spear with both hands, and the Duchess plunged the head of Sidious through the tip. "That should shut up the senate." She noted dryly, wiping most of the blood off her hands. "They've been holding out hope that their precious Emperor would save them."

Bo-Katan smirked. Anakin would be lying if he said he didn't feel like smirking either.

"Rule with fear, we should not." Master Yoda told her darkly.

"I'm not going to behead them. " The Duchess said defensively.

"They deserve it." Bo-Katan growled.

The Duchess glared at her, then turned back to Master Yoda. "You don't understand how far the senate has fallen. They practically worship the ground he's on. They'll have to see he's dead before they do anything. It's not a threat, it simply the truth."

Master Yoda bowed his head, though he still seemed uneasy to Anakin.

Windu crossed his arms. "There must be some willing to do their duty." He said. "Sidious can't have cowed all of them."

"Perhaps." The Duchess took her helmet from Kenobi and the spear from the red head. She hefted the spear up and bellowed- "Oya! Oya'cye!"

"Oya!" Every single Mandalorian in the area shouted, and more joined in for the second chant, filling the air with a thick pride that tasted of sweat and blood. "Oya'cye!"

The blonde woman pounded her spear against the floor and strode back inside the building.

Kenobi, grinning like a wild Tooka, ran after her.

Master Yoda prodded Anakin's foot. "Darth Vader? Well, you are?"

Anakin frowned, and he realized tears were streaming from his eyes. "They taste of Shurra fruit."

Master Yoda raised an eyebrow.

"Hope." Anakin corrected. "They… they feel like hope."

Anakin sat at his speeder, the one he had won at the race so long ago, adjusting and readjusting the alignment of the tubes. It was simple work.

His helmet lay on a chair in front of him, the black shining a deep brown in the yellow lights of his shop.

It was a strange design. Anakin supposed. Almost silly. But he had made it a feared one. A terrible one.

The door down the hall slid open. Anakin nudged the combustion nozzle a tad to the left, and listened to the soft steps down the hallway to the work room.

"Lord Vader." Thrawn said.

Anakin turned his head slightly. "Thrawn." He turned back to his work. "The battle is won?"

"It is." Thrawn walked slow measured steps and picked up the helmet, staring down into the bug like eyes. "It was easier than I anticipated, given that you did not participate."

"I had more important matters." Anakin said bluntly.

Thrawn sat, setting the helmet on the floor beside him. "To kill the emperor?" He frowned. "Had I known that you hated him so, I would have suggested to Amidala that you be included."

"It doesn't matter." Anakin stared at the pliers in his hands. "He's dead either way."

Thrawn knit his hands together and set his chin on top. His pure red eyes seemed to settle on Anakin, though he couldn't be sure. "How old are you?" He asked suddenly.

Anakin tightened his grip on the pliers.

"My study of the human race leads me to believe that you are perhaps twenty three, or twenty four." Thrawn paused. "Am I correct?"

Anakin smirked. "Perhaps."

"Very well." Thrawn's eyes narrowed. "Let us assume you are twenty three. Now, why would the emperor let a sixteen year old child lead a charge against the Jedi temple?"

"If he was powerful enough." Anakin replied, he set the pliers down, the metal clinking against the stone floor. "If he was powerful enough, he would."

"And he thought his army would follow a child?" Thrawn questioned.

"That's what the suit was for." Anakin raised his hand and the helmet flew from the ground and hit his palm. "I'd grown tall enough, but I was too thin. The suit hid my stature. The helmet hid my youth." He touched the helmet gently, running a line down the fin. "I have worn it ever since."

Thrawn was silent, his mouth quirking down. "I did not…" he paused, "I did not realize your youth."

"You weren't meant to." Anakin finally hurled the helmet to the wall. It bounced off, clattering against the floor. When that did not satisfy him, he reached out with his hand and snapped it into a dozen pieces with the force. "Why did you think I wore it, if not to hide my face?"

Thrawn's voice sounded unusually amused. "I assumed you needed it to breathe." He admitted.

Anakin burst out laughed, the sound echoing richly around the room. He laughed and laughed, and then he realized he could not stop. He collapsed against the floor, clutching his side. His lungs burned, and the sound became more and more hysterical and panicked. He laughed until he was gasping, and he gasping until his throat was so choked with tears and phlegm he could barely breathe.

Then he just lay there on the floor, sobbing quietly, gasping for breath. "I always knew this day would come." He rasped out, when he was able. "I knew. One day there would be a rebellion I couldn't quash and he would give up on this galaxy. I could not always make it serve him. Now he is dead and I…" he waved a hand around the room. "I wait to die."

Thrawn's face hardened at that. "I will defend you before the senate. You will not be killed."

Anakin wanted to laugh again at that, but he found he didn't have the energy. So, instead he pushed back the tears from his burning eyes. "Thank you." He said. And he was grateful, that Thrawn would have done such a thing for him.

A day and a night and a day had passed, and still they were not dead.

Anakin stumbled up the steps, his heart pattering in an odd way against his chest that made him fear again and again that his master was out there… somewhere… somehow…

No. He was dead. Vader had killed him. Vader had taken the power from Anakin's dragon and he had killed him.

He leaned with one hand against the wall and pressed the button to alert the people inside. The door opened sooner than Anakin expected.

Kenobi stood in the doorway, a plush robe wrapped around his torso. He nearly choked at seeing Anakin. "Darth?"

Anakin gripped his lightsaber. "I wish to spar with you, Kenobi."

"Spar?" He said incredulously. "It's nearly midnight."

"Yes. Spar." Anakin crossed his arms. "I wish to examine your style further. It is intriguing to me."

Kenobi tilted slightly past Anakin to peer over his shoulder. "How did you get past security?"

Anakin scoffed. "Your pathetic excuse for a security system couldn't stop even the most basic of bounty hunters. I didn't kill anyone." He added when Kenobi started looking seriously concerned.

He stroked his beard and looked up at Anakin thoughtfully. "I think I would be enough security. Even for a Chancellor."

Anakin stared stupidly. "What?"

"Satine was elected chancellor yesterday." Kenobi explained. "Which you would have known, had you stayed, as Master Windu wanted you to."

"Oh." Anakin pushed himself up off the wall and onto his feet. "I see. Now. Sparing. Will you spar me?"

"Ah…" Kenobi glanced behind him. "We do have a sparing room…"

"Excellent." Anakin stepped inside, stalking through the entryway. He stopped when he entered the living room. On the table were numerous flimsi books, most looking more made of dust than flimsi. And a datapad, with a stylus for notes. And there were three Jedi holocrons, all open.

Kenobi walked up behind him. "I was studying." He said absently.

"Where did you find those?" Anakin asked quietly. "My… my master raided all the Jedi temples. There were none left."

"He couldn't possibly reach all of them." Kenobi said almost proudly. "We've existed for twenty two thousand years. Even he couldn't erase that. It just took some searching, that's all."

Anakin stared at those ancient tomes for a moment more, then twisted his head around the living room. "And the sparring room is…"

"Sit down." Kenobi said, gesturing to a chair. "I must dress."

Anakin sat at the edge of one of the smooth chairs. "Hurry."

But Kenobi didn't hurry. He stared at Anakin's face, and Anakin nearly fled under his intense gentle steel gaze. "Do you want anything?" He offered. "Tea? A meal?"

Anakin glared up at Kenobi. "The dark side gives me strength." He said simply.

The gentleness disappeared. "Very well. A moment."

He disappeared down a hallway.

When he returned, the Duchess was with him, her hair tied back and wearing a simple robe. "I hope you don't mind if I watch." She asked Anakin.

He shrugged. "It doesn't matter."

Kenobi, now in Jedi robes, gestured down a pair of stairs. "If you would follow me?"

The sparring room was adequate. High enough for most tricks. Large enough so they would not be cramped for space. Some terrain in one corner, and racks of weapons and armor along the walls.

The Duchess sat by one of the rack. Kenobi walked to the center of the room and detatched his lightsaber.

Anakin jogged to a few feet from him and drew his own.

"Pirunir sur'haaise, Be'in." The Duchess called.

Kenobi's mouth quirked up at the corner, and Anakin attacked.

It was just as infuriating as he remembered. Great twin sister suns, would this man ever break? It was no better than pounding against a brick wall with one's bare fists. Anakin switched from style to style, from Maul's unorthodox, wild animal like manner, to his master's elegant deadly ways, to his own blend of pure power and speed. And yet he could not find neither crack nor flaw. He drew from his krayt dragon, burning away the years of dreams and memories he had stored and struck again and again. Still Kenobi continued on with his blasted defense, never breaking, never halting. Always just a strike away from falling, just a step too far away to truly use one's full power against until one realized this was purposeful and he would never make that fall, or never come too close.

Anakin had a sneaking suspicion that the only way he would ever defeat Kenobi was to outlast him. He wasn't sure he could manage that. The man had lasted for a day and a half, and Anakin was not eager to do that again.

He took another few experimental pounds against Kenobi. He deflected them and gracefully danced out of the way.

Anakin jumped backwards and clenched his fist around The Duchess's presence. The woman skittered across the floor into Anakin's arms.

He put his lightsaber centimeters from her neck, but found it deflected away. She elbowed his gut deeply, and while he gasped she twisted out of his arms and held a shining blade in front of her.

Her face was hard, and her eyes were like needles. "I have defeated Sith before." She said coldly. "Do not assume I am the weakness in my husband's defense."

Anakin stared at her, then shut down his lightsaber and attached it to his belt. "What Sith did you defeat?"

"A Zabrak attacked us." Kenobi said quietly, coming up beside his lover. He did not, Anakin noted, turn off his lightsaber. "I was a padawan at the time, and even my master and I together could not defeat him. But he didn't count on Satine."

The Duchess nodded cooly. "Qui-Gon identified him as a Sith. We tracked him, but lost the trail on Tatooine."

Something clenched on Anakin's stomach. "And when… when was this?" He asked.

"During Mandalore's civil war." The Duchess answered. "Obi-Wan and Master Jinn were my protectors."

"He reappeared at the battle of Naboo. He killed my master then." Kenobi said, staring at Anakin. "You… would you know something of this?"

And Anakin remembered, dimly, his master speaking of a civil war somewhere in the earliest days of his training. He remembered the Zabraks concern that he would not be able to kill one Jedi Sidious feared. He had failed once, and been punished with a leg drenched in acid.

Anakin remembered that before Maul left to try to kill that Jedi a second time he had given Anakin the codes to a small ship, so that he could escape if Maul did not return. He hadn't even warned Anakin not to run.

But Anakin hadn't run. And Sidious had returned with Maul's head.

He had always assumed that Maul had failed that mission. One failure too many.

The world twisted one way beneath his feet, the racks of weapon lurching wildly, and then they twisted violently the other way, black streaks lacing rapidly in.

He felt the tingling wrap of the light side of the force catching him as he fell to the ground.

He tasted the metallic taste of fear.

Then he knew no more.

When he was conscious again, he found himself staring at a sterile white ceiling.

"Hi master." A familiar voice said brightly. "Lemme go tell the doctor you're awake."

Vader was afraid. He couldn't breath. He could think except to know that she was there and she should not be. Should never be.

He leapt out of bed, vaguely realizing he was straining a dozen wires and tubes. Something cold and thin tore out of his arm.

Ahsoka froze, staring up at him.

"What are you doing here?" He roared, pointing his finger at her. "Why are you not in the unknown regions, where you are safe? It could be any minute- any second now- why are you here? "

Ahsoka headed towards him, pushing his stomach. In spite of himself he stumbled back. "Relax master. Did you drink at all since you left for the outer rim? The doctor said you're suffering some serious dehydration. I mean-"

He grabbed her shoulders, or his meant to. His left hand did alright, but his right hand was gone. Leaving only a stump.

"Why are you here." He hissed. "Why did you not follow my instructions?"

She rolled her blue eyes. "Come on master. Like we'd ever leave you behind. Besides, Padme wanted to see if she could find this project Cinder."

"You're fools." Anakin tore a few more wires off his body, and immediately the machines began to beep frantically. "Fools. The both of you. Where is the ship? We might still have time-"

"It not coming, Anakin." A gentle voice whispered, and Anakin closed his eyes to ease his burning eyelids. Even now, her mere presence tasted of Shurra.

"Anakin." A small hand set into his left hand and rubbed it. "Anakin, project Cinder is no more."

"He is the master of all." Anakin whispered quietly, desperately. "The senate. Their planets. The very stars they encircle-"

"The senate is no longer his. Satine is seeing to that." Padme said quietly, still rubbing soothing circles in his hand. "The planets are safe. And not even Sidious could stop a sun from burning out. He is dead. And his power is no more."

"How?" Anakin croaked, squeezing his eyes tighter. Because if he could not see it was easier to pretend they were in a ship together, flying away to a place where they would be safe.

A pause, then she hugged him, circling her arms around his chest. "Her name was Rae Sloane."

"I remember." Anakin said. "My master selected her specifically. She was loyal to the empire. Completely loyal."

"She revolted when she found out what project Cinder was, Anakin." Padme said, pressing her cheek against his chest. "Even Sidious could not create a team so perfect that they would destroy the galaxy willingly."

Anakin blinked his eyes open. Found the orange blur that was Ahsoka, no doubt staring anxiously up at him.

"He failed." Anakin whispered. "He spoiled them."

"I… suppose." Padme said, her voice just hinting at confusion.

He looked around him. At the frantically beeping monitors, and anxious Ahsoka, and that white sterile room. "Where am I?"

"A hospital?" Ahsoka said, cocking her head.

"Oh."

Anakin had never been in a hospital before. Slowly he sat on the bed. Gradually he realized doctors were coming in down, real doctors, not medical droids. They jabbered and began putting back the needles and wires. But Padme was there, and she held his hand, and Ahsoka stood to the side, soothing him with the light side of the force, so he did not protest.

One of the doctors began questioning him. When was the last time you ate? Where were you born? How many times have you been shocked?

He must have answered well enough, because they kept on moving to new questions. Padme sat beside him, and she squeezed his hand every time he faltered, somehow knowing when he needed the comfort.

Then there was that question.

"How old are you?" The doctor laughed a little. "I mean, our machine's say you're about twenty two, give or take a few months, but with the amount of injuries you have- that's absolutely ridiculous."

Anakin blinked. "I'm twenty two." He repeated.

The doctor looked up from the tablet, their large eyes blinking slowly. "Oh." They said. "Alright."

And then they asked him more questions. One after the other. What allergies do you have? How long ago did you loose your arm? Why is there is a chip in your neck?

He answered them. He must have, because they did not repeat any questions. But his heart was so full of that number he knew nothing else.

The kryat dragon roared in triumph, stamping its feet against the ground. It pushed through the sand with it's nose to further gut the salacc beneath it.

Twenty two.

He was twenty two years old.

And he was free.

If Sidious' security seems lackluster, might I remind you that three of the most powerful force users ever were attacking? And also that coming up with extensive security systems is very difficult for authors to come up with, and they kinda just wanted to be done?

Ah well. It's the end of the story! Any and all thoughts are much appreciated!