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When Yukio corrupted his kyber crystal, he almost dropped it. It had been a cold night on Alderaan, the planet he was raised on, at least for the first few years of his life. Yukio remembers being cold, not because he was not appropriately dressed (in fact, he had taken a warmer coat when leaving the Temple), but because of the crystal. Even though it was all his rage, all that unfairness, all that jealousy and the years of being lied to, that had corrupted the crystal, when he finally held it, it was cold as ice between his fingers.
It was a poisonous kind of cold. It bit through his skin and corrupted something within him as well. It felt right.
In many ways, it was only natural for him to come back to the place everything had started. Where his guardian, his first teacher, the closest thing Yukio ever had to a father figure, introduced him to the ways of the Jedi. This was where he had started.
This was where his journey came to an end.
Putting the crystal back into his lightsaber, Yukio felt a surge of energy rushing through him. When he had built this saber, years ago, he had built it to be a Jedi’s weapon. Breaking this intimate contract with his own weapon felt worse than leaving the Temple behind, worse than all the damage he had caused. It felt… final.
Turning it on was no different from the way he was used to. All of this, disassembling the weapon, putting the crystal back inside, putting it back together, turning it on, were things he could do in his sleep. Except that the blade that was now buzzing in front of him was bright red.
Yukio senses the figure on the horizon more than he sees him. There is something about that silhouette that is so familiar, so distinctive, that the signature in the Force is barely necessary, but it is the first thing his mind picks up on. He has always been a pretty man, and the Force translates this effortlessly into his brain. Yukio’s fingers find the lightsaber without looking, gripping the cold metal until he feels like it is going to break.
He is surprised that they didn’t send Rin. Then again, the last time he saw his brother, he aimed a blaster at his brother’s chest, only narrowly missing any vital organs. This seems to be a safer option, because it is not going to hurt the Temple’s precious Chosen One.
“One step closer and I’ll kill you,” Yukio says.
The figure smiles. It sends a shock wave of energy through the Force, a color Yukio did not feel in a while. Being around this man has always been like this. That mixture of thrilling and anxiety-inducing. Bright, not the overwhelming way his brother feels in the Force. It’s a calm green on the edge of blue. It’s a color Yukio yearned to live in, but the pathway towards it has always felt so impossible.
The man has put on a hat to shield his eyes from the sun but now reaches for it with one of his gloved hands. Yukio keeps his fingers wrapped around his lightsaber, watching his every move.
“Did you hear me?” he asks. “Stay away from me.”
“I heard you,” the figure confirms. He tosses the hat to the side, seemingly carelessly, but Yukio is convinced that he plans to pick it up after the battle. If Yukio keeps him alive, of course.
Yukio doesn’t plan to do that. The anger has grown to be part of him. He has always been so angry, even when he was still loyal to the order. He has been angry and jealous and bitter, but he didn’t know how to properly use those feelings. He knows now. He knows how to look at this pretty, insufferable man, and to guide all that rage into his fingertips. To strike. To kill.
He turns on the lightsaber. After all this time, the red still comes as a shock to him because of how bright it is. Because of how angry it is.
“I did not come to fight,” the figure says. As though to prove it, he reaches for his lightsaber and offers it to Yukio, who pulls it towards himself with a wink of his free hand. He thinks about discarding or destroying it but instead attaches it to his belt. A reminder. A souvenir.
“Don’t lie to me,” Yukio says loudly.
“Ah.” Another small smile. “Always so serious. Perhaps the thing I like most about you.”
The weapon in Yukio’s hand trembles ever so slightly, with rage and something else, something small and halfway forgotten, something that he could push away so easily yet never truly get out of his brain. The remains of a memory.
“I told you to stop lying,” he whispers.
The figure in front of him has come close enough for Yukio to see his expression, but even now it is unreadable. The man reaches for the staff attached to his back, and although he doesn’t seem ready to attack just yet, Yukio can tell that he won’t go out without a fight.
Fine. He didn’t expect anything else.
Yukio charges at him. The man effortlessly dodges him by moving to the side, then raises an eyebrow.
“I always knew you were bolder than everyone wanted to give you credit for.”
“Stop talking.”
But even though he follows that order, Yukio can still sense his thoughts, his amusement (at what? Yukio? The universe?), his personality. It’s almost loud enough to drown out everything around him; the sky, the landscape, his own thoughts. It’s a green static. It’s a night light hidden underneath his bed and only plugged in when he could be certain that nobody was going to notice that he still needed it. This man is a lighthouse, and Yukio has long ago learned to navigate in the dark.
Back in the Temple, Yukio had perfected the Makashi form, known to be the most elegant of the known lightsaber forms. In countless practice duels with Shura he had learned that it was the best form when competing against another lightsaber-user. Not everyone at the Temple had understood or appreciated Yukio’s affinity for the style, not with the Sith long defeated. They didn’t understand that Yukio was afraid of the dark side, more than anything else, because he knew how close it was. Closer than anyone could’ve thought.
It has always been a part of him, Yukio now realizes. Part of him had known that he was going to fight another Jedi sooner or later.
The form is practically useless against his opponent. Staff raised in a defensive stance, the man meets Yukio’s eyes, waiting for another strike. After all those years, Yukio is still met with the urge to get closer to him, to impress him. After all those years, he can still feel the Jedi order’s manipulative grasp on him.
Of course they sent this man. He’s both capable and expendable. He means nothing and everything. He’s one last attempt at luring Yukio back in, and Yukio won’t allow that to happen. Even if he has to kill him for that.
Chenglong usually didn’t visit the Jedi Temple on Coruscant or any core planets for that matter. He only reported back to the main Temple when he was asked to. This time, he had returned for a holiday celebrated every seven years. Yukio could only vaguely remember that day from his youth but he was certain that he had been there for the festivities seven years ago. This time it was going to be the first time to celebrate the day without Master Fujimoto, so in a way, his old memories didn’t matter. That’s what the Jedi kept telling him. The past doesn’t matter, neither does the future. There’s only the here and now.
Yukio spent most of his day fighting with Rin, which was why he was completely taken out of it when he made eye contact with Chenglong. The Jedi was berating a couple of young Padawans who weren’t careful enough in their practice session outside in the Temple garden. Right when he started his sentence, “Honestly, isn’t there a single competent person in this temple-”, Yukio interrupted him by throwing his lightsaber and hitting every target in reach, only narrowly avoiding Chenglong’s head. It hadn’t been a conscious decision. It wasn’t very in character for Yukio to do such a thing. In fact, he felt very stupid, no matter how impressive it must’ve looked. Yukio expected to be yelled at, or at least be told in no uncertain terms that this was not the way of the Jedi.
But Chenglong only stared him down. He didn’t even flinch when the lightsaber flew past him.
“You. I like you,” he said, nothing more.
“You never liked me!” Yukio screams at the top of his lungs. His strikes are coming faster now, with no regard for form or elegance, just hatred flowing through him. The lightsaber is an extension of his arm and his brain and his wrath. His strikes have long ago stopped missing.
Chenglong’s staff is shaking under his tight grip. It shouldn’t be possible not to cut through it with something as strong as his lightsaber but he, somehow, blocks every single one of Yukio’s blows. Yukio has heard of weapons like this, weapons to defy even a Jedi. It makes him wonder if, deep down, Chenglong too made sure to be prepared for what so many Jedi shrugged off with no second thought. A duel against a weapon so similar to his own.
“All you ever wanted to see was someone perfect,” Yukio hisses, switches the lightsaber to his other hand and attacks in a stabbing motion. Chenglong jumps back, reaches for the lightsaber that is no longer on his belt, frowns.
“That is not true,” he says calmly.
“Don’t lie to me. You never bothered to look past the person you needed me to be.” Yukio retreats, lifts the red saber and salutes in a way he remembers from the practice fights with Shura. He brings his body into a stance typical for the Makashi form again, one foot in front of the other, body turned sideways, lightsaber in a defensive, resting position.
“They’re all hypocrites. Most of all you. Most of all me,” Yukio hurls at Chenglong. “The code is worth nothing. All they did was lie to us. And now they sent you—”
Chenglong’s staff barely catches his next blow. It sends an echo through the Force, involuntary panic, deathly terror.
Yukio lifts the lightsaber again. The red is blinding him but he knows every part of this man by heart. He knows where to strike. He knew where to hit his brother too.
“Yukio,” Chenglong says. Or perhaps he isn’t speaking at all. It’s the Force talking to him, and Yukio refuses to listen.
“You can’t stop me!” he screams.
Yukio.
The staff cracks.
Chenglong has stopped moving. His grip has loosened. His expression is unreadable; the Force is no longer transcribing his emotions.
“So, please, for the love of the Force…” Yukio says. “Stop - trying - to - save - me!”
Every word accentuates another blow to the staff, another burst of blind rage.
There’s a sickening noise, metal melting and breaking and sizzling away like human flesh. The lightsaber finally cuts through Chenglong’s staff and stops just inches away from his chest. The Jedi stopped fighting. He’s looking at Yukio, thoughtful, calm, accepting.
Jedi are so quick to accept their own death. He’s still the same in the Force, a nightlight, a lighthouse.
The rage in Yukio flickers and then dies. He lowers the saber, turns it off.
“I was seven when I killed another lifeform for the first time.” Chenglong’s attention is not directed at him but instead at the broken staff between their feet. His voice is calm and even, the way he so often speaks when he’s not in battle. That deadly seriousness is half of him, just like inappropriate amusement makes up his other half.
“We were crowded by attackers. There was no way out. We were a group of younglings that had only ever seen war in holovids. One of us had to do it.” He shrugs. “It was according to the code, of course. They had attacked first. They were trying to kill children.”
“You were terrified,” Yukio whispers. It’s easy to pick up; the Jedi’s emotions are so present in the Force that it seems impossible to separate them from Yukio’s own - and yet it’s distinctive, two different people’s fears clinging to the Force like a nasty stain.
“I still am,” Chenglong corrects him. “I am supposed to be. The order teaches us to respect all life. There is no enemy, not in the Force.”
“If there’s no enemy, then why do people do bad things?” Yukio asks.
Chenglong doesn’t reply. He’s looking at the pieces of his staff again, like it is telling him more than Yukio ever could.
“The Temple did not send me,” he says.
Yukio doesn’t dare to ask, mostly because he is certain that he is not going to get an answer anyway. He reaches for Chenglong’s lightsaber still attached to his belt and offers it to the Jedi.
“You could kill me,” he says. “You out of all people should know that I have to be stopped.”
Chenglong shrugs. There’s that light again, and for the first time it doesn’t hurt to look at it. Yukio gets the feeling that he could easily reach out and grab it, and let the man guide him back to the path Yukio was supposed to go down.
He doesn’t reach out. Not yet, anyway.