**Chapter 810: Whispers from the Beast**
**Scene 1: Kuat High Apartments – Morning Light**
Sakura Haruno sat cross-legged on the oversized bed, the morning glow from Kuat's orbital ring filtering through the transparisteel windows. The luxurious apartment felt smaller with all of them gathered—thirteen women bound by love, war, and the unbreakable Force bond to one man. Ahsoka's scream had shattered the peace, pulling everyone awake.
"Tell us exactly what you heard," Sakura said quietly, her voice steady despite the knot twisting in her gut. She hoped it wasn't what she feared. "Because I think I might know."
Ahsoka rubbed her montrals, still shaken, and recounted every detail: the grassy dreamscape turning nightmarish, the corrupted voice asking if she sought power or hated everything, the fragmented memories of Dagon's final stand against the machine, their capture on Geonosis, the resurrection. Then the black fire birthing the dragon-wolf abomination, the shadow's threats, and the final chilling declaration.
Sakura closed her eyes as memories flooded back—Dagon in the later years of that other war, standing before mirrors or training alone, murmuring words like a chant.
"A vigilante is just a man lost in the scramble for his own gratification," she quoted softly. "He can be destroyed or locked up. But if you make yourself more than just a man… if you devote yourself to an ideal… and if they can't stop you… then you become something else entirely."
The room fell silent for a moment. Zule leaned forward, eyes wide. "He said that? Like some kind of mantra?"
"Every time I saw him training in the mirror," Sakura confirmed, voice distant. "I never fully understood it back then. It was like he was reminding himself why he kept fighting. But hearing Ahsoka describe that beast… it fits. He turned himself into an ideal. A weapon. A Dragon."
Miaria's tail flicked anxiously. "So the armor isn't just feeding on his emotions—it's amplifying something already inside him. That thing Ahsoka saw… is it part of him now?"
Aayla crossed her arms, lekku twitching. "If the Force bond pulled Ahsoka into those memories, it means the connection is deepening. We all feel echoes when he fights in that armor. The rage. The power. But this sounds like it's becoming… sentient."
**Scene 2: Breathing Techniques and Ancient Curses**
Sakura continued, her tone measured. "That impossible anger strangling the grief… until the memory of your loved one is just poison in your veins. And one day, you catch yourself wishing the person you loved had never existed… so you'd be spared your pain."
She paused, letting the words sink in. "He used to tell that to the orphans—and to me—after nightmares. It worked. I stopped dreaming about the Skynet processing facilities once he rescued me. It helped us face the pain instead of running from it."
Zule interrupted, voice low and intense, repeating another passage as if it had been burned into her. "Face them. To conquer fear, you must become fear. You must bask in the fear of other men. And men fear most what they cannot see. You have to become a terrible thought. A wraith. You have to become an idea! Feel terror cloud your senses. Feel its power to distort. To control. And know that this power can be yours."
The girls stared at her. Zule shrugged, cheeks faintly flushed. "Those words… when we were learning the breathing techniques. Dagon drilled them into us. Right? Those techniques—what do you know of them?"
Sakura nodded. "Not much. Dagon learned them about nineteen years before he met me, in the mountains on Earth. Some religious sect of monks."
Atroxa, one of the red Lethan Twi'leks, leaned in with sharp interest. "Monks? What kind of techniques did Dagon teach you girls?"
Ahsoka stood, demonstrating with fluid motions. "Thunder Breathing." Her practice blade hummed as she flowed through strikes—fast, crackling with controlled Force energy. "Swordsmanship styles that make use of an esoteric breathing technique known as Total Concentration Breathing. For lightsabers, you need Force lightning and a Force bubble to ground your body, or you'll accidentally cut yourself to pieces."
Stella added, "It enhances everything—speed, power, awareness. Dagon adapted it from whatever those monks taught him."
Atroxa whispered something under her breath. "Dark Curse Burning…"
Kayla tilted her head. "Yeah, we already know that one. Isn't that the basic attack Dagon uses from the shield?"
"No," Atroxa said gravely. "It's not an attack. It's an ancient state of being. Classified. Only shared among Sith Marauders, and even then, only a select few. I doubt Nox ever knew the full details. Whenever I mentioned it to high-ranking Sith, they got scared and told me to shut my mouth."
Aubrie's white hair shifted as she frowned. "What do you mean, 'ancient state of being'?"
Atroxa shook her head. "All I know is it was meant for a prototype warrior division. It turns emotion—hatred, rage, grief—into fuel for something beyond a normal Sith. If Dagon's beast is tied to that…"
**Scene 3: The Beast Within**
Flare summarized, her Pantoran features serious. "So essentially, we have a possible dark side sentient being—self-created by Dagon. Forged by years of combat and bloodshed, the mind prison, and that quote he lives by: 'I burn myself for a sunrise I will never see.'"
Erictia blushed slightly but spoke firmly. "I mean, if Dagon was truly corrupted… would he be able to make such threats? Be such a passionate lover? An amazing boyfriend? The Force bond doesn't lie. We feel him—his love is real."
The group fell into thoughtful silence, broken only by the hum of the orbital ring outside. They talked over possibilities: reinforcing the bond, helping Dagon confront the beast directly, training more with the breathing techniques to share his burden. Suggestions flew—meditation rituals, joint Force exercises, even reaching out to ancient holocrons for more on "Dark Curse Burning."
Ahsoka hugged her knees tighter, the dream-voice echoing in her mind. "Do you hate everything?"
The words slipped out as a whisper, barely audible, but every girl in the room heard them. The question hung heavy, a shadow over their shared future.
Sakura reached out, squeezing Ahsoka's hand. "We won't let it consume him. We're his sunrise—the one he fights to see. All of us. Together."
The harem nodded in unison, determination replacing fear. Dagon carried the galaxy on his shoulders. They would carry him.
Even if it meant facing the beast inside the man they loved.