Assassin (A Star Wars Fan-Fiction) Book 4

Chapter Ten

"Anakin!"

Denali couldn't stop herself anymore, she burst into tears and ran to the man in the doorway, where he embraced her tightly in his arms, never wanting to let go. Anakin couldn't believe it, he honestly wouldn't have doubted if all this was a dream and he'd never woken up that morning. Here she was, in the flesh, alive and breathing. It was impossible. Absolutely impossible. He himself had witnessed her death, he'd watched as the cannons fired and brought her fatal blow that agonizingly horrible day. She was dead. No pulse. No breath. Truly, undoubtedly dead.

How was this happening?

As he held her close, noting the heart beat against his own and the heave of her lungs with every deep breath of relief she took, he recalled that the bodies at the funeral on Alderaan had never been recovered, regardless of his efforts and searching. No matter how many hours he spent tracking ships, researching the guests that had been invited to the ordeal, he'd never been able to figure out what happening to the remains or where they ended up. Maybe this explains it. Maybe he hadn't been able to sense her corpse with the power of the Force after the incident at the funeral, because there was no corpse in the first place. 

Anakin took a step back and held the woman at arm's length, his hands resting on her shoulders as he fully examined the individual who'd supposedly defeated death.

For the most part, she looked horrible. Absolutely dreadful. Dark bags hung beneath her wide eyes, indicating that she'd gone a long time without sleep, and her lips were chapped and cracked. Her long blonde hair, usually brushed or pulled back in a braid, was tangled in multiple large knots that hung in clumps around her shoulders. Her hand was a mess of broken bones, bleeding from cuts along the wrist and down the inner area of her thumb where it appeared she'd yanked her arm free from some sort of tight restraint. 

Yeah, she was a complete mess.

But the gleam in her eye was recognizable, undeniable. The smile that fell to her lips was the exact same one that haunted his dreams ever since that battle all those months ago. Her voice, although exhausted from whatever nightmares she'd had to endure since their separation, was still as melodious as he recalled and he could feel through the Force her complete joy at the sight of himself. It was her, there was no mistaking it. But if the woman standing before him was Denali, then that meant...

Anakin glared past her at the other man in the room, cuffed, but still a threat none the less.

"Stay behind me." He instructed her and stepped between his old friend and the sith bastard he thought he'd taken care of months ago. Danik backed up anxiously, his eyes glancing around the room for some sort of defense he could use to his advantage against his enemy.

"You wouldn't attack an unarmed man, would you?" He chuckled nervously with each unsure step of retreat. Anakin didn't appear to be listening as he continued to stalk forward. "Especially a unarmed man who's restrained? How is this alright with your Jedi Code? I know for a fact that killing an innocent-" Anakin's laugh cut Danik's sentence off short.

"There's a lot of words I could use to describe you, sith." He snarled and ignited his lightsaber. It hummed to life and filled the dimly lit room with a malevolent blue glow. "'Innocent' would not be one of them."

"Denali, come on." Her brother tried frantically to get her on his side. "You can't let him do this. We were on a truce, remember? Just until we get out of here? I could've killed you plenty of times before, but I let you live because I honor my word. It would be quite a shame if you decided not to honor your own."

Denali didn't have time to reply as Anakin lifted his saber and swung the weapon through the air. Her mouth had hardly opened to speak as Anakin destroyed the sith, this time taking every precaution to make sure Danik wouldn't be coming back a second time. By now, she'd learned to block out the sound of her brother's voice, his constant taunts and jokes he'd crack during their time the last few months in their holding cells.

It was a little harder to shield her mind from the sound of his screams.

"Come on-" Anakin spoke in a low, dark tone once the deed had been done, disignited it, and began to return his lightsaber to his hip. But a hand stopped him. With her fingers wrapped around his wrist, Denali gently took his lightsaber from him and brought the humming blue blade back to life. "Denali, what are you doing?"

He trusted her, she wasn't a threat to him. At least, he assumed she wasn't. He didn't think she'd turn on him like Obi-Wan did. Although, he never thought Obi-Wan had the heart to go bad and threaten younglings.

She walked past him, expressionless, towards the other side of the room where two cylindrical-looking devices rested beside each other, things he hadn't noticed in the room til now. He had no idea what these devices were or what was contained inside. All he knew was the Denali didn't like them, and she was going to do something about it.

With a strength he didn't think the tiny, weak-looking individual contained, she raised the blade over her head and brought it down with a mighty blow, cutting the first casket-looking piece of metal straight down the middle. Puffs of thick fog cascading from the gaping slit in the center of the cylinder fell to the floor and pooled around Denali's feet. She did the same thing to the second device, although it seemed to require much more effort emotionally on her part to bring the weapon down and destroy whatever was inside. 

Breathing heavily, she turned the blade off and handed it back to him. Anakin didn't ask questions. Instead, he picked the worn-out woman up bridal-style with a single sweep of motion and stepped out of the room.

"Come on, let's get you some place safe."

**********

Obi-Wan wasn't sure what he was seeing at first. He could've sworn the killer had been in that room, he could've bet his life on it. The Force had never steered him wrong in cases such as this. But instead, he was greeted by three developing babies floating in bacta tanks. He didn't know why, but they seemed... Obi-Wan didn't know how to explain his emotions. They couldn't have been familiar, because he'd never seen them before in his life. But there was something about them...

He stepped up to the first tank and gazed inside at the child, almost fully developed, and cautiously pressed his hand against the glass. It would've been a sweet moment, to see something so pure and innocent for the first time in a long while. It would've been refreshing to know that there was still good in the universe.

But that moment was interrupted when he saw his own reflection in the glass. His shell of a face that used to be handsome was now tired, exhausted from nights without sleep and grief running rampant through his heart. And his eyes...

Obi-Wan looked away in a fit of anger over what he'd become, over what he'd let himself turn into. This evil being destroyed by loss. This wasn't who he was, nor would it ever be. He turned to the door and quickly exited the chamber, closing the door behind him, and pressing his back to the piece of metal.

What had he done?

What had he become?

Though he wished to sink deeply into a moment of self-loathing, he was stopped by the sound of a voice calling his name down the hallway of the cloning facility. A woman's voice.