On the way to Tatooine, Anakin barely saw Master Windu mostly because he had kept himself to himself; in the brief time he'd been in the cockpit of the ship Windu had brought with him to Coruscant, the Jedi Master had been doing nothing but staring at Anakin judgementally while Anakin had just been reading a data-book mostly to pass the time in hyperspace until he couldn't take it anymore after about an hour, but whatever Windu was doing right now, Anakin did not know and truly he didn't care.
His emotions were all over the place thanks to the revelations in Organa's apartment; between Organa, Windu, and the Force Ghost of Qui-Gon Jinn, Anakin felt as if his entire life had been one great lie and he was left holding the shattered pieces and wasn't capable of doing anything about it.
A lot of it stemmed from his own mistakes. He had spent the past few hours looking back on his meetings and dealing with Palpatine…and he could now see the lies, while the mental images of Palpatine in his guise as Darth Sidious stood in front of a cauldron and pouring Sith lightning into it, using it to manipulate Anakin's mind, haunting him.
Why had he let Palpatine in so deep?
It was because of his number one weakness; his mother had always chided him for taking people's word, people who were kind to him, warning him again and again of the dangers as the galaxy wasn't a safe place to be in, but while he had listened to her advice when it came to follow it through, he dismissed it with arrogance, in the belief those same people had his best interests at heart.
Yeah, well look how well that was ending for him.
Anakin closed his eyes in agony as he realised where his arrogance had led him this time, but he quickly reopened them as an image of Padme's panicked face on Mustafar materialised in his mind before it changed to see her in that meeting with Organa, Windu and Yoda and making plans about the future of the twins while they made plans to completely exorcise every mention of him from the minds of two children who didn't even know him.
It made him feel so utterly and physically sick that Padme would even go along with it. But what he couldn't grasp was her sudden twist of mind.
Was there some kind of mental trauma that could make someone who loved a person suddenly hate them? Was that why she and Obi-Wan were now together and Padme and Obi-Wan were now happily telling Luke he was a psychotic monster?
Anakin knew his relationship with Padme was far from perfect, and thanks to Qui-Gon giving him those visions of a future twisted version of him Force choking her to death in a paranoid rage, he could now see how he and she….were just not perfect for one another. Wasn't that the point the Son was trying to force down his throat on Mortis when he'd taken the form of Anakin's mother? At the time he had just assumed the Son was doing it to coerce him to stay or fall to the dark side, but now he wondered if there was a lot more to it than that.
Take Rush Clovis. Take all the times Padme had interfered with operations in the Clone Wars. How many times had she forced him to drop everything to save her skin? Okay, now back to Clovis; why was she such a bleeding heart for the corrupt, slimy little man? He had begged her not to take the mission, and it nearly worked until he stupidly let Clovis's name slip out along with the suspicion the bastard was involved with the separatists.
Padme had barely come out of that mess alive, but at the same time she had lived but she could very easily have died. Anakin just wished Padme was less jeopardy friendly and she would not take so many dangerous missions for the senate, but he knew she got as jealous and pissed as he did.
Their marriage was toxic. Their relationship was toxic. Their relationship was over.
Anakin put down the book and rubbed his eyes tiredly. He wondered if this was what the Father wanted in the long term, incentives for him to just….give up on the galaxy and give himself over to the life on Mortis, balancing out the Force.
"There are too many interpretations to the prophecy, sadly, Ani."
Anakin sighed and looked up into the glowing blue face of Qui-Gon Jinn. The Force ghost was staring at him in sorrow and sympathy that nearly made Anakin want to scream. "I hate that prophecy, Master Qui-Gon. It's given me nothing but trouble."
"I know, and believe me I'm sorry I only made it worse for you," Qui-Gon sighed as he took a seat opposite Anakin. "In truth, you becoming a Jedi was something the Force did not want. I only discovered the truth when I died and eventually mastered how to appear before others. You were meant to explore the galaxy, and learn and grow on your own without the dogma of the Jedi in your ears."
Anakin was annoyed one of his greatest champions had manipulated him like that. "Why didn't you appear before me or the council?" He asked at last.
Qui-Gon sighed, "The Force didn't want it, Anakin. Believe it or not, in a sense destroying the Sith and the Jedi will bring the balance it craves."
Anakin couldn't believe it and he couldn't even believe the words that just came out of Qui-Gon's mouth. He knew Qui-Gon had been unorthodox, but was he seriously endorsing what Vader had done in the Temple, what Palpatine had done since day one of showing his true colours?
"W-what did you say?" He asked. "For a moment I thought a Jedi Master actually said the Force wanted the Jedi gone?"
"Anakin, when the Jedi Order was first founded, they performed many great deeds but only for the Will of the Force, balancing out the Dark and Light sides in equal measure. Now the Jedi are steeped in the light. When the Sith was founded, it was in answer to the imbalance caused by the Jedi's shift to the light and the light only. Do you see where I'm going?" Qui-Gon asked.
Anakin needed a moment to get it in his head what Qui-Gon was saying to him. "The Sith are the Force's answer to balance everything out?"
"Yes, but in this case…for thousands of years, the Jedi and the Sith have fought endless wars with each other. And the last 1000 years the Sith have hidden in the shadows. Two Sith, a master and an apprentice, one to crave power and the one who embodies it, and working towards a plan. A plan to change the galaxy through a terrible war would strip down the Republic and rewrite its morals and beliefs while doing the same to the Jedi. That's the true point of the Clone Wars Anakin, the culmination of the Sith's Grand plan. The Separatists were never meant to win, Anakin. In the end, they lost their lives."
Anakin didn't say a word as he remembered the brutal way the Separatist leaders were killed. A part of him knew many of the galaxy would demand their executions as they were too dangerous and the galaxy had changed irreversibly by the time he'd left.
"I still cannot believe you're telling me the Force wanted both the Jedi and the Sith gone for good. I mean you were a Jedi, you still are," Anakin protested.
"The Jedi had lost their way a long time ago, Ani. What makes it worse is each time a war starts, more will follow. There was a Sith Lord a long time ago who grew to hate the Force. She had once been a Jedi Master before she turned to the Dark Side," Qui-Gon said. "She realised as time passed the Force didn't care for anyone and seemingly wanted endless wars and battles. From a certain perspective, she was right."
Anakin had a good idea who this Sith was. "Darth Traya?"
"The same. Good memory," Qui-Gon complimented, but then his face turned serious. "I don't know if it's because the Force no longer finds the Jedi or the Sith interesting or entertaining anymore, but all I know is the Force wants both gone."
"And it wants me to be a pawn in its games?" Anakin didn't even bother to hide or mask his disgust at the notion.
"I don't like it any more than you do, Anakin. But I want you to think about something else."
"What?" Anakin asked, intrigued.
"Have you ever wondered why the Sith have spent the last 1,000 years developing their Grand Plan when historically most Sith Lord act on their own despite their united desire to build a powerful galactic empire?" Qui-Gon asked.