The cave looked the same as always: a glorified rock closet with some Jedi-flavored feng shui sprinkled around. Dim light, dust on everything, a faint aroma of old-man tea and something that might have been sandalwood if it hadn't drowned in sand for ten years.
I ducked inside, stretching out my shoulders. My ribs popped like cheap bubble wrap. Guess sprinting across half the Wastes with a crate of survival food and a handful of trauma survivors had taken more out of me than I thought.
Obi-Wan sat in the center of the cave, cross-legged, hands resting lightly on his knees, posture so perfectly straight he looked carved. Eyes closed. Breathing steady. The Model Jedi in his natural habitat.
He did not look up.
But his voice cut through the quiet like it had been waiting behind his teeth all night.
"So you have returned, padawan," he said, and the word came out with this careful neutrality that meant he was feeling everything but neutral. "After gallivanting across the desert to do whatever it is you believed necessary."
I plopped down in front of him, nowhere near as graceful, my knees cracking like a ship hull under pressure.
"Master Ken, I mean, Master Ben," I said, clasping my hands dramatically. "Your pure-hearted disciple returns to spread joy and blessings upon your most venerable presence."
His eyes opened.
And let me tell you, the expression he gave me could have peeled insulation off a starship.
Obi-Wan blinked once. Slowly. Memorably. As if counting to ten in a language only monks and exhausted parents use.
"Your blessings are noted," he said, in the tone of someone who would prefer dental surgery. "Perhaps you can tell me what disaster you have brought to my doorstep this time."
"Disaster? Me? Master, please." I pressed a hand to my heart. "I am the opposite of disaster. I bring balance. Harmony. Hope."
Obi-Wan stared at me the way one stares at a malfunctioning droid that keeps insisting it is fine while leaking coolant everywhere.
"Get to the point."
I took a breath. Straightened my back. Put on my most serious face. "Master, I bring news of grave importance."
He stilled. A Jedi Master thing. Entire body becoming this focused statue, only the barest tension on the edges.
"Is this about the Inquisitors you mentioned yesterday?" he asked.
"Yes. And no. Mostly no. But also yes."
His exhale was long. Very long. Possibly older than the Republic.
"Right. Let me start with the basics. Master, the Inquisitors are but rabid dogs of the Sith, former Jedi Padawans and Knights that Emperor Palpa—I mean, the Emperor—keeps to hunt others of the same stature."
Obi-Wan winced like each adjective was physically painful.
"Your vocabulary is always so remarkably unpleasant," he said.
"Thank you."
"That was not a compliment."
"Anyway," I forged on, "they are not the problem because of their power. Should you fight them, I don't doubt at all that you would make them eat their own shit and drink their own piss in a fight, no matter if it's one or a dozen"
Obi-Wan's face twisted. "Must you be so crude?"
"You absolutely would. I have faith in you."
"Please stop."
Obi-Wan gave the ceiling a look that clearly said he was reconsidering all his life choices.
"Even your flattery is so bizarre it makes my stomach feel queasy. If they aren't the issue, then what is?
"They aren't the issue in their strength, but in their cunning and black-hearted methods!" I insisted, ignoring his comment about my stomach-churning compliments.
"I haven't seen anyone more black-hearted than you in how you scam the Jawas, but do continue," he shot back, rubbing his temples.
"What black-heartedness? It's just business," I said with a shrug. "Back to the topic. There is this one Inquisitor, one with a face similar to a bantha and a heart similar to a bantha's shit, who plans to kidnap and torture the Alderaanian princess, Leia Organa cum Skywalker."
Then I dropped the actual bomb.
"Master, I have received a Force premonition."
That got him.
His spine straightened. Breath sharpened.
"About what?" he asked, voice incredibly calm in the same way a bottle about to explode was calm.
"About how one of the Inquisitors, Reva, "
Obi-Wan stared.
He stared like he had forgotten how blinking worked.
No one should know of her connection to—" He cut himself off, but I knew where he was going. Anakin.
"I know," I said, nodding with grave seriousness. "I was appalled. Horrified. Spiritually offended. It was a matter of such great significance that I had to go to Mos Eisley myself to verify if the premonitions were true."
His head whipped toward me so fast I heard a vertebra crack.
"You went to Mos Eisley?
Oopsie...
And then ofcourse, he exploded.
"Do you ever think for a single moment before you act!?? I know you treat most things as a game, but this is not one! You are not ready. Even Padawans or Knights, before they fell, were dangerous. They are trained. They are ruthless. And you are not ready! You are just a child!"
"A Jedi doesn't act....."
It was perhaps an hour before he stopped or more like gave me a moment to interject between his speech to calm himself otherwise I feared and my ears falling off my head.
"-Yes, yes, calm down, Master," I said with a soft voice "I know. That's why I kept myself hidden. Mostly."
The corner of his eye twitched. A tiny, furious muscle spasm.
He could smell the bullshit. He could taste it. He looked at me with the expression of a man who knew, with absolute certainty, that his apprentice had done something monumentally stupid, but who also realized he didn't have the emotional energy to unpack it right now.
But the worry was there, creeping in at the edges. Because if what I said was true… if the Empire knew about Leia…
Then maybe they knew about Luke.
He didn't say it, but the sudden tension in his shoulders, the way his presence in the Force drew inward, screamed it.
Time to cut that thought off before he locked himself in a week-long meditation of despair.
"Master," I interjected, holding up a professorial finger. "I don't think they know the actual identities. My visions were fragmented, but I'm fairly sure Reva isn't targeting Leia because of her… biological parentage. She's targeting her because of Bail Organa's connection to you."
I leaned back, smug.
"See? It always comes back to you. Even the Sith can't get enough of the legendary Ben Kenobi."
Obi-Wan closed his eyes. He inhaled slowly, deeply, and exhaled for even longer.
"…I should never have agreed to train you."
I beamed at him. "Anyway! Being the loyal, filial, and incredibly considerate disciple that I am…"
His eyes opened, narrowed to slits. He saw the tidal wave of nonsense coming.
"…I decided to lighten my dear master's burden." I puffed out my chest. "I took initiative. I acted decisively. I struck a blow for justice, freedom, and your long-term blood pressure."
"Ezra." His voice was a low warning.
"And thus," I announced, "out of pure, selfless devotion, I relieved the Inquisitors of their ship."
Silence.
"It's a very nice ship. Great engines. The cockpit was a bit messy, though."
More silence. The air grew heavy.
"And I may have left all three of them stranded in the middle of Mos Eisley with no ride home."
The silence that followed was absolute, and profoundly loud.
[Obi-Wan POV]
There were moments in Obi-Wan's life where he doubted the Force had any sort of plan at all. He had experienced war, loss, the collapse of an order spanning millennia, and the corruption of a boy he had cherished like a brother.Yet somehow, none of those had prepared him for Ezra Bridger.
Obi-Wan opened his mouth. He closed it.
He felt a familiar, throbbing ache begin its journey behind his left temple. He had prepared lectures on the dangers of attachment, the subtleties of Form III, the philosophical weight of the Living Force. He had not prepared a lecture on why one should not, under any circumstances, steal a military-grade, heavily armed vessel from a trio of Jedi-hunting murderers.
There were simply no words which could describe the sheer confusion that his mind was currently suffering was.
The boy, naturally, mistook this stunned, horrified silence for an invitation to continue.
"And before you start!" Ezra shot forward, hands raised in a 'stop right there' gesture. "I was super careful. I mean, super careful. No Force-y stuff. No lightsabers. I didn't get into a single fight(with them),I promise."
He started ticking points off on his fingers, speaking at a pace that threatened to break the sound barrier.
"I kept my Force sensitivity totally locked down as you taught me so thoroughly. I checked the ship for trackers—double, triple, quadruple checked. I spent an hour ripping out their entire tracking grid. It's clean."
"It's parked dozens of klicks away from here, completely hidden. I covered my tracks all the way back, cross-referenced my path, made sure nobody was following me. It's safe. We're safe."
Obi-Wan finally found his voice, a strained, thin thing. "Ezra... why?"
"Because I had to!" Ezra's casual, breezy attitude fractured for a second. "That... that bantha-faced one, the Inquisitor Reva? She was going to order Leia's kidnapping. The moment they left Tatooine. I saw it. The visions... I couldn't..."
The boy looked down at his own hands. "I couldn't just let that happen. Not to a girl her age. I couldn't let her go through that kind of... pain."
Ezra looked back up, his expression hardening. "I'll admit that I might have panicked and acted... but I will stand by my decision. And you wouldn't believe what I found out shortly after..."
Obi-Wan had a thousand questions. A thousand rebukes. He wanted to ask about the logistics, the sheer, mind-numbing stupidity of the risk. He wanted to ask how Ezra had possibly disabled a tracking system that would have been state-of-the-art. He wanted, quite frankly, to lie down in the sand and not get up for a week.
But as Ezra said that last line, his entire demeanor shifted.
The manic energy, the smart-aleck theatrics... they all just evaporated.
Obi-Wan watched the boy's face turn completely, unnervingly serious. For a moment, he might have believed it was just more play-acting.
But he could feel it in the Force. The boy had, perhaps unknowingly, let his shields drop. It was something that many Jedi, even experienced ones did unconsciously under pressure. The roiling tide of anxiety, confusion, and genuine, unfiltered fear that washed off him was stark. It was nothing like the theatrical performance from moments before.
Obi-Wan let out a long, slow breath, releasing a lifetime of frustration with it. The lecture on grand theft auto could wait.
"Ezra," he said, his voice heavy with exhaustion. "There is... so much... that I need to ask you."
He gestured to the boy's face. "But looking at you now, it seems that what you found... what you found after... is truly important."
He leaned forward, the ache in his temple now a dull roar. "So. Proceed."
The boy didn't immediately launch into his next story. Instead, he sat there, absorbing the silence. This, more than the frantic explanations, put Obi-Wan on edge. Ezra was never quiet.
"Before I tell you," Ezra said finally, his voice oddly flat, "I have a few questions for you."
Obi-Wan resisted the urge to sigh. Of course, he did. "Very well."
"Do you know the name... Sharad Hett?"
Obi-Wan blinked. Of all the things he had expected—questions about Inquisitors, about Vader, about the stolen ship—a name from the old Republic's dusty archives was not one of them.
"Sharad Hett," Obi-Wan repeated, the name tasting strange on his tongue. "Yes. That is a name I have not heard in a very long time."
He let his mind drift back, past the war, past the fall. "He was a legend, even when I was an Initiate at the Temple. The 'Hound of Worlds,' they called him. A true champion of the Order, known for his prowess."
Obi-Wan stroked his beard, recalling the vague images of a fierce, imposing man in the Temple halls. "I only saw him a few times, and always from a distance. He... carried an intensity with him that was palpable. I was still a Padawan when the news arrived that he had stepped away from the Order. Exiled himself, of all places, right here. To Tatooine."
He met Ezra's gaze. "It wasn't until many years later, just before the war, that I heard what became of him. Master Ki-Adi-Mundi told me. Sharad Hett was killed here. Assassinated during a brutal war between the Hutts and a Tusken tribe he had joined."
Obi-Wan let the story hang in the air. "A tragic end for such a renowned Jedi. Why do you ask about him?"
Ezra didn't answer immediately. He stared at the cave floor, his expression unreadable. The silence stretched, long and heavy.
"Did he have a son?" Ezra asked, his voice quiet.
The connecting thread snapped into place in Obi-Wan's mind. "Yes," he said, nodding slowly as the memories returned, clearer now. "Yes, he did. A'Sharad Hett."
He recalled Ki-Adi's own stories, told late at night during long hyperspace journeys. "Master Mundi was there when Sharad fell. He honored the man's final wish and brought his son, A'Sharad, back to Coruscant. He took the boy as his own Padawan."
The memory of A'Sharad himself was much clearer than that of his father. This was a contemporary. A colleague.
"He grew to be a fine Jedi," Obi-Wan continued, a flicker of warmth in his voice. "A Master, in time. He served as a General during the Clone Wars."
A sad, faint smile touched Obi-Wan's lips. "A'Sharad was a charismatic leader. Always led his troops from the front. He and... Anakin... they served together on several campaigns. Boz Pity, the Siege of Saleucami..."
He remembered their dynamic well. "I always thought A'Sharad was good for Anakin. He had a unique perspective, having grown up among the Tuskens. He helped Anakin... come to terms with some of the destruction the war brought. To find a center in the chaos."
The memory faded, leaving only the cold dust of the cave. Obi-Wan looked at the boy, whose face was still a mask of grim contemplation. The fear was still there, a low thrum beneath the surface.
"Ezra. What does any of this have to do with today?" Obi-Wan asked, his voice gentle but firm. "A'Sharad Hett... he is gone. He died, as all the others did, during the Purge."
[Ezra POV]
Obi-Wan's voice was gentle, edged with the exhaustion of a man who had seen too many good people fall. "A'Sharad Hett... he is gone. He died, as all the others did, during the Purge."
I wanted to believe him. God, how I wanted that neat, tragic little end to be the truth. It would have meant this timeline was damaged, maybe, but fundamentally salvageable. It would have meant my meta-knowledge still held weight.
But the Force doesn't care about my fan-wiki entries.
"If what you believed was the truth, Master," I said, my voice low and rough, "then perhaps it would have been a far nobler end for the Jedi Master than the reality he has become."
I took a shaky breath, letting the words sit between us like a corpse.
"A'Sharad Hett is alive."
I watched Obi-Wan's eyes widen just slightly. He didn't gasp, he didn't surge forward, but the air around him grew instantly colder. That star of his Force presence, usually so contained, suddenly pulsed with alarm.
"He is alive, and he revels in the blood and slaughter of everything that is not Tusken. He is the warlord, the leader, the man who turned a scattering of primitive raiders into an organized army of monsters."
I had to explain. I had been stupidly naive, dismissing the horror around me for months.
"Master, you've been here ten years. You know about the raids. I've been here six months, and I've tried to tell myself it's just the nature of the Wastes. That it's Tuskens being Tuskens."
I clenched my fists. "I was lying to myself. The conflict out there isn't natural. It's organized. It's escalating."
I leaned forward, dropping the calm, academic tone. This was the raw truth I'd been suppressing since seeing the bloodstains on Nari's shuttle.
"Just yesterday, I found four people. Survivors of a raid. Dragged from their home a few days ago. The men are injured, the women terrified. And they're lucky, Master. They were lucky to be alive."
My voice broke, not with sadness, but with corrosive disgust. "Because I have learned what his Tuskens do. They don't just kill. They keep them alive, on the verge of death, for months. They torture them with the vilest methods you can imagine. Children. Defenseless women. Elders."
I let the righteous anger I was cultivating boil up, showing Obi-Wan the fury that felt genuine because it was rooted in Vasha's trauma, even if the victim wasn't her.
"This is not a Tusken being barbaric. This is a Jedi—a former Master—flaming this war. He is systematically allowing and commanding the atrocities happening in the Jundland Wastes."
I looked down, feeling the wave of half manufactured , half true -revulsion crest and break.
"And I can't watch it from afar any longer. I might not be strong enough to deal with A'Sharad myself, but I can't sit still knowing what that man, who was once a Jedi, is doing to innocents."
To him, I was a boy driven by pure justice, appalled by a peer's descent into depravity. Whether that was the truth or an half one, who would know? Especially not after I had gained the perfect control over my emotional leakage in the past months.
A'Sharad Hett. Darth Krayt. The man who rules the galaxy in a future I desperately hoped to avoid. I didn't care about his philosophical justification or the Tusken culture. If I waited, this problem would grow from a local warlord into a galactic conqueror. He had to be terminated in the bud.
He wasn't innocent. Not after touching the defenseless women, children, and elderlies. My judgment was sound.
I knew I couldn't fight an armored Jedi Master who had survived the Clone Wars and was clearly drawing on the Dark Side. That would be suicide.
But I didn't need to.
I had the greatest living Jedi Master standing right here, fresh from a six-month training montage, fueled by guilt, and possessing a moral code that would force him to act. I would be a fool to not use my resources, even if it meant being selfish and materialistic in my methods.
Because at the end, it was all for the greater good. Hohoho...
Ahem. Channeled a bit too much Dumbledore there. I am a young man, I am a young beautiful man...
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A/N: A new week, a new beginning. Let the stones arrive to me aplenty as we climb the rankings.
I had posted this on patreon yesterday, and for the next chapter, I plan to do it tomorrow on patreon and day after tomorrow on Webnovel, so if you wish to read it in advance, you can join in on there.
For some days, 1-2 advance chapters are going to be norm on Patreon due to my upcoming End Semester exams and that's why there aren't any restrictions as such on tiers so you can join in on any one of them as per your desire. I aim to do a writing marathon afterwards to accumulate chapters and give faster updates (I have 1 month vacation from 28th Nov!)
Link for those interested: www.patreon.com/AbstractoX