The war had carved Anakin Skywalker into something sharper than any blade the Jedi Temple had ever forged.
When the Council chamber doors opened and he was summoned within, he walked not as a hopeful apprentice nor as the reckless hero of holofeeds, but as a man carrying invisible weight across his shoulders. The sunlight pouring through the tall windows painted the floor in gold and white, yet the light never seemed to reach his eyes.
Mace Windu spoke first, voice firm, official.
"You are on this Council, but we do not grant you the rank of Master."
The words struck like a quiet slap.
Anakin's jaw tightened. He inclined his head out of discipline rather than agreement, but inside him resentment stirred hot, immediate, familiar. To be offered a seat without the title felt less like honor and more like manipulation. He bowed, turned, and left the chamber with measured steps that masked the storm rising within.
Outside, the Temple corridors felt narrower than before.
They don't trust me, he thought. They never did.
That night, the truth came to him not through meditation, but revelation.
In the Chancellor's private office, the city spread out beyond the glass like an ocean of light. Palpatine's voice was calm, almost tender, as he spoke of the dark side of powers the Jedi refused to understand. The conversation unfolded like a confession wrapped in philosophy, until the final veil lifted.
"I am the Sith Lord you seek," Palpatine said.
The room fell silent.
Anakin's heartbeat thundered in his ears. The truth felt both impossible and inevitable, as if he had always known and had only just allowed himself to see it. He left without another word, his thoughts racing faster than any starfighter engine.
He went straight to the Temple.
Master Windu listened, face carved from stone. When Anakin finished, Windu's gaze hardened with resolve.
"You have done well. Remain here. We will handle the Chancellor."
Remain.
The word echoed like a cage door closing.
Anakin obeyed at first.
He paced the halls, every minute stretching into agony. Visions flickered behind his eyes: Padmé in pain, futures collapsing into darkness, promises whispered in secret chambers. Fear became urgency. Urgency became decision.
He left.
The confrontation in the Chancellor's office unfolded in flashes of light and shadow. Windu's purple blade cut through the air with absolute certainty, the clash shaking the walls as lightning and saber met in a storm of energy. The city outside remained indifferent, unaware that its fate balanced on the edge of a single decision.
Anakin entered at the moment of culmination.
Windu stood poised to strike. Palpatine writhed beneath his own feigned weakness, eyes pleading, voice breaking.
"He must stand trial," Anakin said, though his voice trembled with uncertainty.
"He controls the Senate and the courts," Windu replied. "He's too dangerous to be left alive."
The words collided with Anakin's fear of loss, of prophecy, of the future he could not save without power he did not yet possess. The moment stretched until it snapped.
He moved.
The outcome was irreversible.
When silence returned, the room felt colder, emptier. Palpatine rose, no longer frail, no longer pleading. His eyes burned with triumphant fire.
"Kneel," he said softly.
Anakin did.
"From this day forward," Palpatine intoned, "you are Darth Vader."
The name settled over him like armor heavy, suffocating, undeniable.
The Temple stood serene against the skyline, unaware of the storm already inside its walls.
Vader did not enter as an executioner.
He walked its corridors with measured calm, the echo of his boots reverberating through halls that had once felt like home. The younglings gathered in quiet confusion, sensing the darkness in him yet trusting the familiarity of his presence.
"We must leave," he told them gently. "It isn't safe here."
They followed without question.
Within the hidden reaches of the city, transports waited unmarked, shielded, unseen. The children were moved quietly, efficiently, not into exile, but into concealment. They were not to be destroyed. They were to be shaped.
In the depths of his designs, Palpus had foreseen it: power wasted was power lost. The future required disciples, not ashes
Across the galaxy, another battle reached its end.
On Utapau, Obi-Wan Kenobi fired the final shot that tore through General Grievous's armored chest. The cyborg collapsed amid smoke and falling debris, the war machine silenced at last. Obi-Wan exhaled, believing just for a moment that the war might finally be closing.
Then the message came.
A coded transmission carried through clone channels.
Order 66.
Blaster fire erupted behind him. Troopers who had marched beside him for years turned their rifles without hesitation. Obi-Wan dove for cover, shock giving way to instinct as he fled through the chaos, commandeering Grievous's starfighter and escaping into hyperspace with the echoes of betrayal ringing in his ears.
Master Yoda survived his own ambush through speed and the Force's warning whisper. The two met in the quiet shadows of a deserted hangar, their relief tempered by grief.
Together, they returned to Coruscant.
The Temple was not what it had been.
Smoke curled from broken windows. The air carried the scent of scorched stone and silence. They moved through the halls like ghosts, resetting the beacon to warn any surviving Jedi away. No reinforcements. No return. Only absence.
Obi-Wan searched.
Room after room. Corridor after corridor.
No sign of Anakin.
Only emptiness and a growing certainty that something fundamental had shifted beyond repair.
Elsewhere, far from the Temple's ruins, Anakin stood beside Padmé beneath a sky untouched by war. She looked at him with hope he could not meet, unaware of the path already chosen, the name already given.
He held her hands, feeling the pull of two futures one he could still imagine, and one already unfolding without mercy.
Between them lay silence.
Between the stars, destiny moved.
And the galaxy, believing itself on the brink of peace, did not yet realize it had already fallen.