When You Leave

Chapter 10: Revelations

Barriss sped through the underworld.

Her current objective, find Asajj Ventress, bring her in and prove Anakin's innocence, and this would be over.

She could only wonder how worried Anakin could be right now, placing all faith in her, she was not going to fail him, she wouldn't fail a friend.

Eventually, she came across Ventress in an alley.

"Barriss Offee."

Barriss hummed.

"Didn't you fight my master once?"

Ventress turned around and grinned.

"Ah yes, a rather easy victory."

Barriss frowned.

"It won't be this time."

"Oh? Prove it?"

Ventress jumped up onto a walkway, Barriss quickly followed.

Really, she didn't have time for these games.

She did notice Ventress didn't have her lightsabers, odd.

She ended up fighting Ventress for a bit, who grabbed a metal pipe and attacked.

It was futile, Barriss cut through the pipes easily, and then held her lightsaber at Ventress' neck.

"My Ventress, to have beaten a master once, you sure have gotten rusty."

Ventress frowned though didn't speak.

"Start talking now."

Ventress chuckled.

"Fine, when I first came across Skywalker, I thought he would bring a large bounty."

"Bounty?"

"Yes. But then I spoke to him, and I realized he and I are so much alike."

Barriss backed away with a frown.

"How dare you compare yourself to him."

Ventress just glared.

"It's true. My master abandoned me, and that's exactly what you did to him, you and your precious Jedi order."

She was so obviously unaware of the current conflict within the order.

Barriss just deactivated her lightsaber and put it away, then crossed her arms across her chest.

"Get to the point."

Ventress seemed to go into some thought.

"I took your little friend to his destination, the warehouse you found, then left him to his own. When I was leaving, I thought he came up behind me to talk more, but I was wrong."

She shook her head.

"Someone threw the lid of a trashcan at me and knocked me out from behind. Not just anyone can sneak up behind me, it had to be another Jedi."

Barriss nodded, she suspected as much.

"And your proof?"

"Believe it, whoever you're looking for has my lightsabers, that's how you'll know you found the criminal."

Barriss sighed, this could be potentially anyone.

"Well this leads me to a dead end, you're the only other one Anakin talked to."

Ventress' eyes widened in realization.

"That's not true."

"What?"

Ventress nodded.

"When we took a moment to stop, Skywalker contacted someone from the Jedi temple. He spoke to someone named...Flora. that's how we knew to go to the warehouse in the first place, it was this Flora who told us to go there."

Barriss stiffened. No, there was no way...Flora had done all this? She'd bombed the Jedi temple and framed Anakin for all of it? No.

But, it all made more sense, the 'lead' Flora found, her strange attire, the fact she had told Anakin to go to that warehouse.

Her togruta friend had betrayed Anakin, as well as the order as a whole, and was getting away with it, or so she thought.

Barriss knew Flora's master, Nicholas, was not going to take this news good at all, it would destroy him, and she knew he would blame himself, and that made her start to hate Flora.

She frowned at Ventress.

"If you're lying, I'll be back."

Ventress just rolled her eyes, knowing clearly she was telling the full truth.

"Such promises."
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Nahdar paced in his room.

Barriss had yet to contact him, and despite her abilities, he was starting to feel concerned.

Thankfully his comlink beeped and it was her when he answered.

"Barriss, I was starting to worry."

"Well you don't have such little faith in me do you my friend?"

He snorted.

"No it's not that."

"Because of that time where she almost killed my master?"

"Yes, pretty much."

"Oh, I get it."

She sighed though.

"But we have other problems. We have a traitor Nahdar, and it's someone who we both know, or rather, thought we knew well."

Nahdar was curious.

"You have their identity?"

Barriss just sighed again.

"Flora. She contacted Anakin and told him to go to that warehouse we found, she then knocked Ventress unconscious and stole her mask, and proceeded to fight Anakin and get him to think it was Ventress."

Nahdar was...not all that shocked in truth, Flora had been acting a bit strange since the temple bombing, far more distant.

Though only he had noticed, Barriss was not present at the temple at the time of the bombing, having been on a mission to Bespin.

"So she did all of this? Helps explain why she was already in the underworld."

"Yes well, I need you to confront her, it'll take me a while to get back."

Nahdar sighed, he was confident in his dueling skills, but Flora knew Ataru, which was a form Nahdar always had issues with trying to counter.

That meant he'd require some help, because if this was going how he knew it was, then he'd end up fighting Flora.

And after the whole situation on Vassek, Nahdar was usually always accompanied by another knight or a master.

The entire council, plus a few non-council members, would be at Anakin's trial.

That left Swan, Arana, and Galerha.

He didn't want to bring Koffi because he could lose control of his temper in the fight and then end up killing Flora before they got the chance to arrest her and prove Anakin's innocence.

And Bultar was to go on an assignment tomorrow to Tatooine.

So Melik was the best option. Galerha had been praised by the likes of Plo Koon and Mace Windu for his dueling skills. Despite being only a knight, he fought like an experienced Jedi master.

"Ok, I'll go get Melik and then we'll go and confront her."

"Alright my friend, but be careful. If all this says anything, it's that she doesn't intend to be caught."

The transmission ended. Nahdar shook his head, what had this order come to?

Well, in any case he had a treacherous Jedi to apprehend, and another to exonerate.