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When Cere turns around, the Archive still burning all around her, there's an Inquisitor standing in the vault door.
Her lightsaber immediately jumps to her hand and ignites in a flash of familiar blue. She falls into a ready stance, practiced but long-untested instincts and muscle memory guiding her, and braces herself for a hard fight.
Except the Inquisitor doesn't move. He barely even reacts beyond the slightest shift of his helmet, as if tracking her saber's movement. He's not attacking. He's just… watching her. His lightsaber isn't even in hand, although she can hear the cries of his corrupted kyber crystal, an agonized song of loneliness and betrayal and fury, hidden somewhere on him.
Cere's grip tightens on her saber. She's not sure what sort of trick this man is trying to pull, but she's not about to fall for it. She studies him carefully, but every inch of him is covered in Imperial black, and his body language gives nothing away.
"Cere Junda," the Inquisitor finally says. His voice is modulated beyond recognition, low and mechanized. "So this is what you've been building these past few years."
Despite the calm veneer the Inquisitor is currently wearing, Cere can feel the turbulent waves his rage is sending into the Force. The strength of it almost knocks her off her feet, even with her experience in fending off the Dark. She slams iron walls down around her mind, but she can still feel those waves pounding furiously against them.
"It seems you have me at a disadvantage," Cere says, calm despite the chaos around her. "Which one are you, then?"
The blank, red visor of his helmet regards her silently for a moment. The Dark Side of the Force screams into the emptiness. "The Second Brother."
"Ah, the Empire's bloodhound." She's only heard whispers about him: the Inquisitor who's recently gained a reputation for tracking down the most elusive of targets. Viciously skilled in combat too, if the rumors are correct. She's never met him before, but that's hardly a surprise; she's laid low for years now, and it seems every time she turns around there's another new Inquisitor popping out of the woodworks.
She internally shudders a little at the implications of that thought. At least Cal had had the mercy of dying free from the Inquisitors, three years back. It'd been a bitter consolation at the time, when word had reached her of Cal falling to the blades and blasters of an Inquisitorius task force half a galaxy away, but she knows better than most that death was a kindness compared to the alternative.
"Some have called me that," the Second Brother says, drawing Cere's attention back to the present. If he takes any offense at or pride in the label, it's impossible to tell.
"I suppose there's no point in asking how you found this place?"
"It was easy. Follow the right leads, listen on the right whispers, crack the right people" — Cere takes a brief moment to mourn whatever poor souls fell into his hands — "and your so-called Hidden Path isn't so hidden anymore."
The Second Brother finally moves from the vault door and deeper into the room, but he still doesn't attack. Instead he steps toward a section of the walls that aren't yet aflame. The shelves attached are almost entirely empty, with only a few relics remaining. Cere'd been in the process of gathering them before the Inquisitor had interrupted.
"You left everything and everyone behind for these," he muses. Even with the modulator, the words would almost sound thoughtful, if not for the bitter undertone being hissed out into the Force. "Artifacts. Relics. Remnants of a dead religion."
He reaches out his left hand and brushes it against one of the artifacts. The glove on that hand is fingerless, and the gentle light the artifact constantly exudes seems to twist unnaturally when it comes into contact with his bare skin.
The Second Brother's hand only lingers for a moment before he pulls away, his contempt — curiously mixed with a bitter hurt, Cere notes — leaking into the Force. He scoffs, shaking his head. "Useless trinkets."
Cere narrows her eyes and calls the artifact to the relative safety of her hand. "On the contrary. My people's history is priceless. I know most Inquisitors were once Jedi, and I'm guessing you were too. If any part of that man still exists, you would understand just how important preserving it is."
"Important," he repeats quietly, turning back toward her. "More important than those people you're supposed to be protecting?"
She hides a frown, unsure where he's trying to go with that question. Of course she wouldn't prioritize the artifacts over the Anchorites if it came down to it, but they planned for emergencies like this one a long time ago. They know their jobs, and she knows hers.
"If you're trying to throw me off balance, don't bother," Cere says after a moment of trying to puzzle it out. "It won't work. I'm exactly where I need to be."
"So you're leaving them out to dry, then?" His voice is still being filtered into a cold flatness, but there's no mistaking the mocking edge to it. That red visor that sits in place of his eyes seems to glow brighter. "Somehow I'm not surprised. Leaving people behind is what you seem to be best at."
Cere can't help the way the words make her stiffen. "What are you talking about?" she demands, even though she already knows exactly what he's referring to.
"Trilla Suduri. Cal Kestis." The helmet tips to the side slightly. "You left them behind, didn't you? Abandoned them to be swallowed up by the Empire. You betrayed them. You could've saved them, but you didn't. Or have you forgotten?"
Cere presses her lips tightly together and forces herself not to reply this time. She's had enough. She's not going to rise to his bait again.
Abruptly, the Second Brother laughs. It's a broken, ugly sound, made even harsher by the modulator. It sits in the air like a raw, gaping wound made manifest, and Cere's chest twists uncomfortably.
"No. I know you haven't. You're a coward who never did anything for them, never saved anyone, but you've never forgotten, not once. Well, guess what, Cere?"
The Second Brother takes a step toward her. A lightsaber finally leaps to his hand, hissing as it ignites into a sickly red blade.
"Neither have I."
He levels the blade's tip at her, but as she readies herself, Cere finds her gaze catching on the hilt. At the amalgamation of designs it's composed of. At the double emitters, the latching mechanism that lets it separate into dual blades, the unique designs stylizing the whole length.
Her blood runs cold. Because this saber… it's not just any old lightsaber. No, she knows this saber. She hasn't seen it in years, but there will never be a day where she doesn't immediately recognize a lightsaber she had once wielded herself.
The bleeding kyber crystal, much louder now that it's lit, wails a distorted but still horribly familiar song. It sounds like helplessness and despair. It sounds like screams in the Inquisitorius's electrical chair.
A million little pieces click together.
And, her heart dropping in a sudden realization, Cere knows.
No, she wants to howl. It can't be. It's impossible. It's impossible. He's supposed to be dead. It should be impossible. Except —
She looks back up at the Inquisitor's expressionless helmet as he falls into a ready stance that perfectly mimics hers — as if he'd studied it. As if he'd learned from it. Learned from her. His saber casts a terrible crimson light over the curves of his armor, highlighting the Imperial cogs on his pauldrons. For a split-second, she sees Trilla instead, angry and hurting and lashing out at the world around her in a desperate attempt to make everyone else hurt just as much.
But it's not Trilla standing there now. Not anymore.
"Come on, then, Cere," Cal Kestis — the Second Brother — says, and his voice is quiet and sharp, but his rage in the Force is burning, burning, burning just like the Archives all around them, burning until there's nothing left in her world but ash. "Let's see if you can save me this time."