**Chapter 536**
**Scene 1**
**Zule POV**
The throne room still smelled of ozone and scorched metal when the princess moved.
She was small—barely one and a half meters tall—with flawless porcelain skin, striking purple eyes, and long flowing purple hair that shimmered like amethyst under the palace lights. Her figure was impossible to ignore: full K-cup breasts straining against the torn remnants of royal silks. Before anyone could react, she launched herself at Dagon, pinning him against the throne steps with surprising strength and crushing her lips to his in a desperate, hungry kiss.
Zule felt the shock ripple through the Force bond like a live wire. Ahsoka's surprise, Shin's sharp inhale, Kayla and Visenya's instinctive flare of territorial heat, and her own stunned disbelief all crashed together.
Dagon gently but firmly broke the kiss, hands on the girl's shoulders. "Easy, easy. Look, I don't know if this is your culture or something, but this is not normal."
The princess's eyes shimmered with tears and something far deeper. "You really don't know?" Her voice trembled with hope and longing. "Then how about this, Dagon… When I grow up, will you marry me and have beautiful babies with me?"
Dagon's eyes widened. His grip tightened on his lightsaber hilt as recognition slammed into him like a physical blow. "Yuki…? Is that you?"
The princess—Sakura, according to the freed hostages—let out a joyful sob. "Yes, Dagon. Yes. But in this world, it's Sakura."
For the first time any of them had truly witnessed outside their private moments, Dagon Marek—the man who had faced down Yuuzhan Vong, John Connor, and thought bombs without flinching—broke. Tears spilled freely down his scarred face as he pulled the princess into a crushing embrace. Sakura buried her face in his chest, sobbing just as hard, clinging to him like he was the only real thing in the galaxy.
Through the bond, Zule felt the overwhelming wave of protective love, grief, and stunned joy radiating from Dagon. It nearly brought her to her knees.
**Scene 2**
**Dagon POV**
**Grey Wolf Bridge**
Hours later, back aboard the *Grey Wolf*, Dagon stood on the bridge trying to focus on logistics while his mind reeled.
"Blam, organize the supplies. We're only here for the day. Get medical teams down to the capital and secure the remaining droid factories. Coordinate with the king's loyalists."
"Yes, General," the clone commander replied crisply.
Dagon turned to the young woman now sitting in the ready room off the bridge. Sakura. Yuki. The name still hit like a plasma bolt.
"Yuki… no, Sakura," he said, voice shaking as fresh tears threatened. "Please tell me I didn't fail. Tell me you got to live a long and happy life."
Sakura smiled through her own tears. "I did. Over eighty years. I had a husband who loved me, children, and even grandchildren. I made sure to live the peace you fought so hard to give us."
She told him everything. How she had been one of the orphans he rescued from the ruins of what was once Russia. How she had been nine years old with white hair and blue eyes when Dagon—then forty-one—had pulled her from the wreckage. How that childish attachment had grown into something deeper and more obsessive as she aged. She had faked relationships just to stay close to him. When he died during the time displacement, she had been devastated. Eventually, she chose to honor his sacrifice by truly living—marrying, raising a family, and dying peacefully of old age.
Only to be reborn in this galaxy as Princess Sakura of Jaminere.
"This is a lot to handle," Dagon said quietly, rubbing his face. "Sakura… we're different people now. You have your family. You're no longer that scared orphan."
"But now we're the same age," she replied softly, stepping closer. "Well, I'm twenty-two, but still… I see you have a harem. I thought you were waiting for someone special. But even then, I saw your loneliness. I wanted to be the one who took it away."
Dagon's heart clenched. He gently took her shoulders. "Will you excuse us for a second?"
He practically dragged the girls into the adjacent briefing room.
**Scene 3**
**Dagon POV**
The door sealed behind them. Dagon leaned against the table, eyes distant.
"Oh, this is so bad," he muttered. "I never thought her obsession would bring her back to me."
The girls waited, a mix of concern, jealousy, and curiosity swirling through the bond.
"Yuki—Sakura—was one of the orphans I rescued in my old world," he explained. "She lost her parents very young. I thought her attachment was just childhood trauma and hero worship. She was nine when I pulled her out of that hellhole. I was forty-one. As she grew older, especially once she turned eighteen, it became… unhealthy. Fast. She faked having boyfriends just to stay near me. I tried to gently discourage it, but I never had the heart to be cruel. She was one of the brightest lights in that dark time."
He ran a hand through his hair. "The only reason she didn't come with me to confront John in San Francisco was because I told her it would be fine. That I'd handle it and come back. I didn't want her anywhere near that fight."
Shin crossed her arms. "And now she's here. Reborn. Still in love with you."
Dagon nodded grimly. "Apparently. She died peacefully, then woke up as a princess on Jaminere. The Force—or whatever governs rebirth—dropped her right back into my path."
Ahsoka looked thoughtful but uneasy. "Do you still feel responsible for her?"
"Always," Dagon admitted. "But I can't just… add her to this. Not without talking to all of you. This bond we have, this family we're building—it's already complicated enough."
Zule stepped forward, placing a hand on his chest. "We felt how much she means to your past. We're not blind to that. But we also felt how shocked you were."
Sakura's voice came softly through the open comm. "I'm not asking to replace anyone. I just… I finally found you again, Dagon Blood. My hero. My home."
Dagon closed his eyes, the weight of fifty years of war, lost orphans, and second chances pressing down on him.
"This galaxy really does love making my life more complicated," he whispered.