It has been said that there is one who could reach through to you. To reach beyond the everlasting darkness that you have lost yourself to. Whispers of a fierce Jedi, whose power in the light was able to overcome the thick layers of your corruption. To achieve the impossible and bring back the person you once were.
But I am not that man.
I loved you more than anything, but I didn't hesitate to destroy you the second you became a threat. Even now, my darling, this has not changed.
I will fight you and I won't stop until one of us dies.
- The difference between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker, the only two people who loved Darth Vader.
The Grand inquisitor was in the midst of relaying something so typically insignificant when Vader felt it. A surge of warmth – a feeling so undeniably familiar that had been forgotten, making Vader's eyes grow wide with shock under his mask.
A bond that had undergone such irreparable damage all those years ago, smelting away with his once healthy body as he burned in the flames. A bond that once had the strength of a thousand moons - that intertwined two souls so profoundly that they had almost blurred into one. A bond that had been dead for years, suddenly pulsing with life – like it hadn't been shattered into oblivion when one end betrayed the other.
For the first time in what felt like centuries, Vader felt.
He felt and he felt and he felt.
Bursts of hatred and anger, melded with a much older foundation – warmth and affection and love, all of it swirling together to create an overwhelming eruption of emotions.
It kept building, becoming too much too soon and forcing a gasp out of Vader, who was struggling to handle it all at once. The Grand Inquisitor noticed this immediately, stopping his unbearable monologue to ask if his Lord was alright.
Vader put up his hand, effectively silencing him before turning away sharply, his cape billowing behind him as he marched towards his private quarters, his pace increasing as he sensed the bond becoming stronger the closer he got to his desired destination.
Force, he hadn't felt so much in years. It was overwhelming him.
He all but threw his doors open with the force, fully expecting his old master to be there waiting for him on the other side, his blue lightsaber held in his signature stance.
The same stance he used against Vader fourteen years ago when Kenobi severed his remaining limbs and left him to burn alive. The same stance he used when Vader hunted him down on that barren moon, only for Kenobi to damage his suit and leave him half dead once again. Vader had made a vow to himself that night. Never again. The next time they battled, Kenobi would die.
There was no one there.
Vader didn't need to look around to know that, because the bond flickered momentarily, allowing him to sense that its counterpart was at least a million lightyears away, somewhere far away on the other side of the galaxy.
The suit's breathing mechanism was struggling to maintain his breathing as it became faster, increasing as he attempted to comprehend the strength of this bond, and the fact that he was able to feel it with such strength despite the incomprehensible distance.
He stood there, focusing on keeping his own shields impenetrable as he felt the bond's urgency. It was getting worse, the connection coiling around his mind like a chain, desperately trying to link to him fully.
A warm, undeniably familiar presence had gotten closer to him through the strengthening bond, gently stroking his shields with long, loving caresses.
Let the shields down it was whispering. Let us merge.
. . . Impossible.
That wasn't Obi-Wan.
It couldn't have been Obi-Wan.
His old master had an undeniably strong connection to the force, but his midi-chlorian count was nowhere near as high as his.
He was the son of the force itself— the Chosen One.
However, Obi-Wan Kenobi was one of the few beings in the cosmos who were able to overpower Darth Vader. But that was only because Vader could never handle his emotions properly when faced with that man. Had it been anyone else, Vader would have absolutely no issues striking them down.
But this . . .
Vader had never felt anything like this before in his life. In either life.
He didn't know if it was even possible for a being to harness so much of the force itself.
It couldn't be Kenobi. The old man couldn't dream of possessing this much power.
He started to see things.
Brief glimpses, unclear and blurry. Like he was remembering a dream.
Sky blue eyes, strawberry blonde hair, lush pink lips upturned in a mischievous smile.
Obi-Wan.
Before Vader could do anything to prepare himself, he was assaulted by an assortment of emotions, attacking him with their sheer intensity all at once.
Confusion, shock, disbelief, fear, fear, fear
They weren't Vader's emotions. They were his.
Something was happening. Something was happening right that very moment, light years away.
Everything suddenly turned white, piercing his with a familiar pain - like looking at the sun for too long.
Twin suns, setting beautifully in the horizon, casting a fiery glow over the never-ending dunes of sand . . .
Vader was completely blinded, defenceless to the pangs of pain, distress and fear the bond was forcing him to feel.
What the kriff was Obi-Wan doing?
Vader couldn't take it anymore. The pain had forced him down on his knees and on the verge of passing out.
Then it all stopped.
The bond went quiet, as if it had never been there in the first place.
The pain, the fear, the shock . . .
It was all gone.
Vader stood up abruptly.
No. That couldn't mean . . .
He had been dreaming of millions of different torture methods to inflict on Kenobi once he finally captured him again.
After their last encounter, nothing else would bring him satisfaction. Nothing but the thought of cutting up that traitor and prolonging his death in the most agonizing ways imaginable.
Obi-Wan's demise was the only remaining goal that gave him purpose – a reason to endure the agony of the suit and the endless tasks Sidious would set for him. It was the only reason he still had a will to live, with everything he had ever held dear being ripped away from him so long ago.
This was the only thing left, to kill the bane of his existence, the only remaining tie he needed to sever in order to rid himself of Anakin Skywalker forever. Then he would finally be free . . .
But he had never even considered the possibility of someone else getting to Kenobi before he did.
Embers of wrath stirred within him, rising up from some depth buried deep inside him. Someone dares to trifle with his former master, the once famous Negotiator, the perfect idealization of a Jedi, the man whose attention he'd once craved more than anything—He had long accepted this feeling when it first arose years ago. His is a possessive hatred.
Obi-Wan Kenobi is, and always will be, his and his alone to destroy.
Everyone knew that. Vader had made it exceptionally clear to his inquisitors of the fate that awaited them if they so much as touched a hair on Kenobi's head without Vader's permission.
Some poor, misguided soul clearly hadn't gotten the message, because Vader couldn't feel Obi-Wan anymore, meaning . . .
No.
Without properly thinking it through, Vader dropped his shields, allowing his mind to impulsively venture out through the silent bond.
It was still there—completely silent, but still there. Kenobi couldn't be dead.
Obi-Wan wasn't dead.
The bond suddenly flared up, and with Vader's shields down, his mind was left completely unprotected, allowing the other half of the bond to probe him slowly, almost as if it wasn't expecting another consciousness to be there.
Before Vader could process the fact that Obi-Wan was right there, the presence immediately pulled away with a burst of alarm, as if recognizing the danger of the situation. It was the last thing he felt before the bond went completely silent again.
Desperately, Vader tried to track down the precise location of the bond's other end. Kenobi's hiding places proved to be impossible to find unless he himself chose to leave them, something he had only done once during the last fourteen years Vader had been fruitlessly searching for him – their last battle.
He may not have this chance again.
With all the mind power he could muster in his weakened state, he tried to rip the shields down, like he had done countless times to his many other victims over the years. It was a task he had become exceptionally good at, even to the point where he would leave the victims in a permanent catatonic shock – their mental states completely destroyed from his violent probing. It was something he had even done to Kenobi before, forcefully tearing his shields down to momentarily link them together, and relish in his former master's anguish and fear the last time they fought.
But not this time. Every attempt he made was in vain. The bond was still intact, but it had been completely shut off to him, and nothing he did could pry even a sliver of it open.
He'd know those strong, impeccable shields anywhere.
But there was something different. . .
His former master had always had a hidden strength within him – as demonstrated when he near destroyed Vader again four years ago, leaving him incarcerated and half suffocated in his damaged prison of a suit.
But this . . . this was different. It was almost as if that strength had suddenly been magnified by a thousand, because none of Vader's attempts could even touch his shields, let alone impetrate them.
Something had happened.
Vader stared out of one of the many gargantuan windows in the room, looking past the boiling lava and hellish landscapes of Mustafar and at the red-tainted sky above.
Somewhere out there, the last remaining piece of Anakin Skywalker lived.
The thought made Vader feel nauseous.