How to Take an Empire

Chapter Twenty-Five: Duplicity

By many accounts, standards, and tests in various areas, Vader was nothing short of a genius. However, the duplicity of Ahsoka Tano continued to confound him. Loyal yet willing to stand between him and his goals. His ally where it counted in the grand scheme of events yet willing to be his adversary when it suited her. A trait, he grudgingly admitted, that she'd always had and hadn't lost even after renouncing the Jedi and raising his children. If anything, her renouncement and the forging of her own path made that duplicity all the more apparent. Today, she chose to stand against him as an enemy, if ever a reluctant one, in her foolish pursuit of saving the Jedi who remained from his wrath.

If it were any other Jedi, Vader might not be so infuriated.

When she shrugged in answer to his question, he growled, "Then if you will not assist me, stay out of my way."

"Yeah," Ahsoka said, standing her ground as her stance shifted just slightly. Not to fight him, but as not to be surprised if he decided to Force her out his path, Vader surmised. "Not going to be able to do that one, my lord."

Vader bristled at her ability to turn a title of honor and respect into a mocking insult adding fuel to the burning fire of the rage he already had towards her.

"Ahsoka," he warned.

"We've had this conversation before. I won't stand by and let you kill the Jedi."

"And you must have forgotten the part where I said you would try, but I would not allow you to get in my way. I thought we would both at least agree on Barriss Offee's destruction."

He'd hit a nerve with that one, the fact given away by her inability to contain the conflict she had over the other former padawan's survival and the history the two had together. While he didn't allow himself to ruminate or think about things from his destroyed former life, Ahsoka was the one exception he allowed himself regarding that rule. A necessity created from their partnership. So he drew on that knowledge; the knowledge of the conflict she experienced after escaping punishment and officially being exonerated for the crime but still guilty in the eyes of many; the knowledge that her increasing recklessness, infamy, and fame during the last year of the war were her way of trying to reprove herself; the knowledge of the anger he'd sensed from her as though it were his own after finding out how carefully the Senate, the military, and the Jedi Council decided Barriss' case. He let those memories stoke his rage and inspire him to do what his former self had been too weak and shackled by Jedi principles to do.

"I won't let you destroy her," she said.

"You would choose to stand against me to protect her?" he spat.

"This isn't about Barriss," Ahsoka said calmly. She continued quickly, "This is about you and me."

"How so?"

"You were right. We are the same," she admitted. "I have the same hate and rage that you do. I've had it for a long time. And it blinded me at one point. I may not have been at the temple cutting the Jedi down, but I was right there on Coruscant and didn't feel all those deaths. I didn't even feel that you had turned to the dark side. I won't let that happen again. We may be the same, but it's because I know we are that I'm not going to let my hate and rage control me. The Jedi might have been wrong, but what you're doing is just as wrong. It's no better than what you're hunting down Barriss for."

"I am nothing like that traitor."

"Aren't you?"

"That's enough talking from you," Vader declared as he lit his lightsaber. He would have to sort out whatever it was that Ahsoka had gotten into her head later. Right now, he had a Jedi to catch. "Get out of my way, Ahsoka, or I will make you."