The ruined chamber still trembled from the collapse of the earlier duel, dust drifting like pale smoke across the stone floor. Karn stood alone beneath the flickering lights, the black of his sclera shimmering faintly beneath the mask, amber pupils burning like twin suns through shadow.
Ventress was gone. Savage lay unconscious and broken in the corner.
And now… the Jedi approached.
Their footsteps echoed before their forms appeared in the doorway. Anakin Skywalker stepped in first, tense, jaw locked, eyes immediately snapping to Karn. Obi-Wan Kenobi followed, robe torn from his earlier battles, eyes narrowing at the crimson-skinned figure standing calmly with his hands behind his back.
Karn tilted his head, voice low and smooth as sliding obsidian.
"Well, well… the Chosen One and the Negotiator. What a pleasure."
Obi-Wan frowned.
"Who are you?"
Karn laughed softly, not loud, not mocking, but knowing.
"A Sith, obviously. As you know, doubt suspect."
He gestured lazily at his own form.
"Although where I differ is I'm one in race… and faction."
Obi-Wan took a half-step forward, adjusting his stance, eyes scanning Karn's tattoos, the eerie calm radiating off him.
"If you were Sith, we would know—"
"Oh, Obi-Wan."
Karn's tone softened into something amused, almost pitying. "Your emotions are all over your face. Are you sure you're a Jedi? That you should be a Jedi? So many doubts. Instinct clashing with your faith in the order. Or would you have me believe you thought Maul was the only one? If so, ignore my earlier rambling; you are a true Jedi. Just as blind."
Obi-Wan bristled, just barely, but Karn saw it. He always saw it.
Then Karn's head shifted, his masked gaze settling on Anakin with unsettling stillness.
Anakin froze under the weight of it, it felt like something cold and ancient was peeling him open.
Karn spoke quietly.
"And you…"
Anakin swallowed.
"What about me?"
Karn stepped forward, only a single pace, but the room temperature seemed to drop with it.
"You're lost, aren't you, Skywalker?"
Anakin stiffened.
"What?"
"The burden," Karn murmured, "of deciding the balance of the Force. The expectation placed on your shoulders. Taken and told to forget where you're from, to not feel, to detach...to erase."
Anakin's eyes widened in shock because Karn didn't guess. He knew.
Obi-Wan spoke sharply:
"Anakin, be careful."
The moment shattered.
Both Jedi ignited their sabers.
Blue light burst into the air.
Karn exhaled once… and ignited his own.
A Krayt dragon's roar exploded through the chamber as the crimson blade flared into existence, the crossguard vents spitting twin snarling sparks of red plasma.
Even Anakin faltered at the sound.
Karn's stance was loose, relaxed, almost inviting.
"Come then," he whispered. "Let's dance."
......
Anakin and Obi-Wan moved first, perfectly coordinated, a practiced rhythm born of years fighting side by side. Anakin dashed right with explosive speed, Obi-Wan curved left, their blades cutting inward like shearing scissors meant to crush Karn in a single pincer strike.
Karn watched it unfold with a serenity that shouldn't exist in combat.
Then.....he moved.
His body blurred with Force Speed, pivoting between both Jedi with Form VII's violent fluidity. His crossguard saber swept outward in a rising storm, turning their synchronized strikes into fragments that slid harmlessly off his blade.
His movements were unnatural, not stiff like a warrior, not rigid like a Sith. He flowed like tides in a storm, each strike crashing with weight then withdrawing in seamless transitions.
Obi-Wan blocked a high strike, Anakin barely avoided a low sweep, and Karn spun from one to the other like they were stepping stones. They were being drowned.
Obi-Wan hissed as a cross-parry slid toward his fingers, only barely redirected.
"His form— it's Vaapad!"
"No," Anakin grunted, straining under Karn's next swing,
"that's something worse! The foundation is Vaapad, but he's altered it to fit him, while negating its weaknesses."
Obi-Wan tried to counterattack with a classic defensive Soresu redirection, but Karn's crossguard blade twisted under Obi-Wan's main angle, the quillon vents hooking and throwing Obi-Wan's defense aside.
A brilliant innovation. A weapon no one else in the current era used. A style only Karn could wield. Obi-Wan staggered. Karn didn't miss it.
He turned with calm precision and struck, his saber's crossguard clipping Obi-Wan's shoulder, slicing through fabric and skin.
Obi-Wan gasped in pain.
Karn's free hand extended lazily, almost bored, and a shockwave of Force slammed into the Jedi like the punch of a rancor.
Obi-Wan was hurled through three walls.
Anakin screamed.
"NO!! OBI-WAN!"
Karn turned, crimson blade humming low and hungry.
"Relax," he said lightly.
"The renowned Obi-Wan Kenobi can survive that."
Anakin's hands shook on his lightsaber.
They circled each other, air crackling with heat.
Karn's voice dropped:
"Now it's just you and I left in this dance. Let's enjoy it, shall we. "
Anakin roared and charged.
Karn chuckled, delighted, and met the blow.
The chamber lit with a violent burst of red and blue.
Duality laid bare.