Cere Junda's body lay on the ground, a hole on her tunic where smoke from the cauterised flesh blew out. Anakin, however, had made up his mind. He had decided what to do. He held out his arm at the unsuspecting Sidious and squeezed it tightly. The Sith Lord was clearly caught off guard. Sidious howled in surprised pain. It was not until this last moment that he had realised what Vader was about to do - if Anakin was still Vader anymore. Sidious immediately freed himself from it; he lost any amusement in the surroundings at all.

"It has come to this?"

"It is about time. I was wrong, I always was. Only now do I truly see it, Master."

"I promised you a path to save your wife - if you attack me, and you will fail, you will lose both your life and that path."

"I don't believe you will offer me that path, Lord Sidious. I don't believe so anymore. And this isn't the way that is me anymore. I am no longer Darth Vader."

"How foolish," Sidious snarled. "You think you can ever be welcomed back after you have served me?"

"I don't care about that. I don't care if I am redeemed or not. I doing am the thing Anakin Skywalker would always do. And I have never cared either for the mercy to my enemies, whether the separatists or Sith. On that matter, by the way, I never truly believed you should have been kept alive from Windu because of a Jedi principle. I thought I needed you. And now I know I don't."

"Very well. So you say."

It was now or never. But things, ironically, were different from the typical duel - with separatist droids or even with Dooku, where speed was of the essence - here the play was slow and didn't initiate for a while. Anakin and Sidious simply circled each other; the latter had a horrific scorn on his face. Sidious had always seemed to be a gloater - just a few minutes ago, he was so with Cere Junda. But now, he seemed intensely angry and enraged - fearful too. Was there a blow of betrayal in his mind? His perfect plan, his scheme for the Sith regime for the galaxy encountered an unforeseen and unpredictable hurdle. Darth Vader was not supposed to turn back so soon.

Both the Sith Lords were planning their move. Finally, Anakin sensed when Sidious about to strike - with lightning; Anakin did not even hold out his lightsaber; with his mere hand, he absorbed the energy waves and beams that his master splurged at him and deflected it back with intensity at Sidious, who now finally withdrew his red sabre. Anakin had a strength of mind he had never had before. While a powerful warrior, he was always on the edge, excited, stressed and often angry; and lately, his fear of his wife's death had made him rather pathetic in the mind. Now, he was calm, cool and focused. I may die now, he thought; but he didn't care. Padme…? He trusted the Force to do what was right. At last, he came to accept life and destiny as it was.

Anakin held out his lightsaber precisely where Sidious would and did strike with a force scream. But he was not so swift in the subsequent event; Sidious made a whole of his sword from the top right to the bottom left, which Anakin narrowly dodged.

He had his own shot with Palpatine, right at the stomach, but Sidious pushed both Anakin and his sabre with him back, sparing himself.

Anakin only now noticed how dark the room was; it was only illuminated by blue and red colours which interacted with, touched and bounced off each other rapidly and furiously. Anakin acted only on instinct, his mind empty and quiet.

Anakin held out his hand and choked Sidious with the force. It was only a temporary measure, he knew; such tactics were not so effective with other force users, but it was his signature move, just as lightning was that of Sidious passed down to Dooku. I killed the latter, but may not be able to thwart the former. Sidious seemed vulnerable to this move, however, but quickly released himself and the sabre fight resumed once more. Sidious had now realised it was pointless to use lightning.

Sidious attempted to extract Anakin's lightsaber from his hand; and he succeeded, the latter not expecting this. He held out both arms gripped with the lightsabers behind his back, and waited. Anakin waited for him, instead.

Sidious swiped both the sabres at different latitudes and Anakin - never really a practitioner of Ataru - jumped up to dodge. But his right leg was cut. Only slightly, but the pain was excruciating.

He half-landed and half-collapsed to the ground unevenly. Sidious finally smiled faintly.

"Here it ends, Lord Vader.

"I could not foresee everything

"But I know there will be a death in this room - yours."

Anakin looked up at him, seemingly defeated. But it was a pretense.

"I have clouded your vision, Master. The death is not mine."

Sidious looked at him - he rarely was ever confused or bewildered and this time he was. It would be the last time he would ever be confused. It would be the last time he ever felt or thought anything, for Anakin took advantage of this bewilderment.

He used the force - only through his mind, not even using his arms - to seize control of both the sabres in Sidious' possession. Only one of them did he use, however. His own. Sidious' body was cut in half. Sidious let out a mild cry of pain but it was silenced, as was the life of Emperor Palpatine.

It was over.