Star Wars One Shots #2

When Ahsoka comes back to life on Mortis, she gets a connection to the Son instead of the Daughter. The Council views her new connection with the Dark Side as dangerous and under their new scrutiny, doing anything is hard. It's only unbalancing her further and she's beginning to wonder if this is how Anakin's always felt from the high standards they've always held him to.

Author's Note: Shaak Ti is Ahsoka's mother in this fic and Shaak Ti herself is going to be a little OOC compared to what she's actually like in canon, just so everyone knows. :) 

~ Tirana Sorki

The one thing Ahsoka hates about Umbara the most is that they're fighting actual people. At least fighting droids doesn't usually mean having to kill. There's Separatist leaders sometimes, yes, but that's different than the population of a planet.

It's the kind of conflict she's certain the Jedi would have once tried to negotiate a peace treaty in but now, they just have to come through and slaughter everyone. And she has no idea if she'll ever get the chance to be a padawan in a world where she doesn't have to do that.

And ever since... Mortis, it's something Ahsoka feels far more deeply than she ever used to. She died apparently, even if she doesn't remember any of it, but she remembers Anakin's shaken and pale face enough to know it was true. Especially with how many times she knows he woke up from nightmares about it or of her apparently trying to kill him, something else she remembers nothing of doing.

All she knows of what happened was that somehow, she was brought back to life again, except with a permanent connection to the Son. It's a lingering darkness she can feel deep within herself, a connection Ahsoka hasn't been able to shake. The Dark Side whispers to her now far more than it is ever has and no amount of meditating and trying to find calm the way she used to seems to be enough to get rid of it.

Maybe it's just that she can feel everything more deeply now and she can't help wondering if this is a fraction of how strongly Anakin feels everything. But it's far, far harder to ignore the death around her, to ignore how it feels like she's doing everything dark already when she's already so close to the darkness, to betraying the very way she was raised in.

Not that the middle of a battlefield is the time to think about it, as Ahsoka runs alongside Anakin and the clones, advancing on the Umbarans.

Killing them.

The battle is fierce and they've been fighting for probably over a day when there's finally a pause in the fighting and reinforcement are supposed to be coming. But only one shuttle comes.

A Besalisk Jedi steps off the gunship, approaching them.

"Knight Skywalker," Krell greets, "You have been ordered back to Coruscant, by order of the Chancellor, effective immediately."

Anakin frowns. "I can't just leave my men here."

"Your padawan will still be here. And I will be taking control in the interim."

Ahsoka stiffens, throwing a sideways glance at her master. Ever since Mortis, she also hasn't wanted to be around any other Jedi except for Anakin.

She feels the stares everywhere she goes.

She's bound to the Dark Side and everyone knows it. They feel it every time they see her. It's everything she swore her life against it. And she doesn't know what to do to get rid of it. But it wasn't her choice to be bound to it. None of this has been her choice and she can't deny the burning gutted hurt inside of her that everyone keeps acting like it is. As though she's already betrayed the Jedi way when she's always done her best to be a good Jedi.