You and Ibiki and Obi-Wan Kenobi: a strange combination for a tea party, but that’s what life is throwing at you, apparently. Two jedi and two shinobi, but only three people around the table.
Seki Hijiri has gone to talk to the other prisoners–only one of them is a Wookie, thankfully, because your Shyriiwook is rusty and still way more than anyone else on this planet has–no doubt she’ll have them talking in seconds. She was in charge of your and Ibiki’s training when you first joined T&I, and as much as you’ve learned from her, she didn’t teach you nearly everything she knew.
Also, she’s part of the Yamanaka clan. Married out of the name, but not out of the family or the abilities, and there’s something about Yamanaka that not even the Force can trick.
“Master Kenobi,” you say, because even in this bizarre tableau of prisoners and interrogation, the man deserves respect.
“It’s been a while since I’ve been called that,” he says, taking on an air of nostalgia that does little to hide the roiling wave of regret, “We’ve met before, haven’t we?”
You smile. “Many years ago, yes. I was much younger then.”
He laughs, a quiet and dry thing, a dusty relic almost forgotten, “We were both much younger then, no doubt.”
Ibiki is silent, listening and observing and never letting on that he doesn’t have all the answers. Or any of them, in this case.
“A strange world you’ve found yourself on, Yoshino,” he says, and even you are surprised by that, “Bant’s only padawan. I told her she was being picky for waiting so long, but when she found you… it was a good match.”
Your smile turns genuine now, though, a little watery and wobbly, too. For a long time, you were the only one left to know her name.
“How did you end up here?” he asks, and at that you blink and steel yourself, pack away the starry-eyed padawan and bring forward the tempered kunoichi.
“I’d like to ask you the same, Master Kenobi. This is not an easy planet to find–I would know.”
You feel a flicker in the Force, or maybe you see it in his eyes–as if he’s considering lying for a second. But hero worship or convoluted family ties or not, you are a shinobi of Konoha now and you will not tolerate it. He gets the message and tells you the truth.
Ibiki is silent through the entire thing, which is good–it’s quite the story.
—
A jedi, a farm boy, two smugglers, and a pair of royal droids off to rescue a rebelling princess from the evil empire.
And true, this is a mission where time is of utmost necessity, but on their way the strangest Force signature explodes from an Outer Rim planet that would otherwise pass beneath notice.
The only lingering trace of that energy matches the stardust crystal your daughter thinks she’s keeping secret.
But you are her mother and you were keeping secrets long before she was born. Perhaps its now time to share some of them.
—
Somewhere, buried below crop fields that have long since gone to seed, inside a shuttle that will never fly again, is a box.
That box contains the physical evidence of your life before this one. Of your world before this one. Of metal and power and light that had nothing to do with blood on your hands.
(But that’s not quite true, is it?)
When you first came to this planet, the Kinokawas were kind. Farmers, civilians, who lived close enough to Konoha to enjoy its protection but far enough not to learn its lessons. They saw a young girl, alone and scared and heartbroken, hurt and in need of a place to stay.
You buried your shuttle beneath their fields–buried your past within their home–and wiped their memories of it.
Everything else was their choice.
They took you in, adopted you, and you became Yoshino Kinokawa–a normal girl from a civilian family trying to make it as a shinobi.
But you know the truth:
You’re not normal. You never were, certainly not after you crash landed onto a Force shrouded planet in a medical shuttle, your master and your life taken away from you forever.
So you buried that shuttle under your new parents’ fields, with a box containing your jedi robes, your lightsaber, and your thin padawan braid that you had to cut off yourself.
A lifetime later, sitting across from Obi-Wan Kenobi, over steaming tea and Force signatures tentatively greeting each other, you remember that his master died, too. That he had to cut off his own padawan braid, too.
And maybe, in these decades gone by, he tried to bury his past, as well, but now he’s dug it back up. Robes and lightsaber and Force flaring bright, metal and power and light.
You were never normal.
Jutsu makes unearthing the shuttle easy. The robes don’t fit and the braid is forever cut, but the hilt of your lightsaber somehow still fits perfectly in your hand.
~
A/N: AAAAAAAAAAAGH PLOOOOOOT? O_O
… help me…
JackSGreyson Says 