Death of the Padawan

"Master?"
Darth Vader turned towards the sound of her voice, surprised that he had not felt her presence before that moment. But there she was, the female Togruta, stepping slowly out of the shadows of the huge balcony, hesitation and disbelief mingled on her face. She had grown taller during the two years that had passed since they last met, her lekkus were longer and her montrals had grown as well, her entire body was more developed, though she was not yet fully matured. She was armed, he quickly noticed, a lightsaber and a shoto at her hips. He had clones inside the palace-like building, and around it as well, but he was not surprised to find that she had managed to sneak passed them, she was his former padawan after all.
"Anakin?"
He ignored her attempts to speak to him completely, and he would not respond to his old name. There was pain on her face now as she inched closer still. He simply stood there, watching her. Armed or not, he was a Sith Lord, she a former Padawan, and he could have her overrun by clones before she knew what was happening.
"What are you doing?" She asked, stopping a short distance away from him, pain in her voice as well as on her face.
He looked at her for a short moment before gesturing out towards the lush planet. "Conquering. This planet is now under rule of the Empire. The resistance has been quelled."
She had inched back a little at the sound of his mechanic voice. "But why?"
"Because my Master willed it."
"Your Master? I thought you were a Jedi, not a Sith!"
"I am a Sith now, that's all that matters."
She shook her head. "Anakin, this is insane! I don't understand! What happened? Why are you doing this? What's- what's all this?" She asked and gestured directly at him.
"This-" He said, using the same emphasis she had. "Is what my old master did to me."
"Master Obi-Wan?" She asked in disbelief. "Why would Obi-Wan do that to you? He loved you!"
"My old master tried to destroy me. Cut off my legs, my other arm. But he was too weak to kill me, so he left me for dead. A mistake on his part."
"If Obi-Wan didn't kill you, Anakin, it's because he loved you, because he couldn't bear to end your life. Love doesn't make you weak."
"Love is the greatest weakness of all!"
"How can you say that? Anakin, I-"
"Don't call me that! Anakin Skywalker is no more."
"Oh what, you're Darth Vader now? I know you, Anakin! This goes against everything you stand for! The Emperor is waging war on the entire galaxy, forcing every system to bow down to his rule! We're all slaves under the Empire! You wanted peace, you wanted to end slavery, now you’re helping him enforce it? You're helping him commit murder? You took part in the destruction of your own family- the Jedi are gone! They're all dead!" Her voice was louder now, she was getting upset, he could feel it as well as see it.
"The Jedi were weak. They were corrupt."
"Corrupt?! How were they corrupt? You know that I had trouble with the Order too, you know that, that's why I left, but how could you choose the Sith over the Jedi? And what about Palpatine? He stayed in office for much longer than he should have, he's been working against us the entire time! He's your new master now, just like that? Or what about Padmé? Do you think she would have wanted this, any of this? She's dead now, did you know? Of course you know. Maybe- maybe you helped with that too?"
Vader let out an angry snarl and took a few steps towards her. Ahsoka backed away as he approached, but not out of fear, she was glaring at him the entire time, which only infuriated him further.
"The Jedi were planning to take over, to overthrow the chancellor. I helped the Emperor overthrow them instead, and now I am helping him create order in a galaxy where the Jedi can no longer interfere and poison the minds of those weaker than them."
"Do you even hear yourself? You know that none of that is true! Anakin-"
"DO NOT CALL ME THAT!" His hands were clenched at his sides, and he was terribly angry. "I think it's about time you tell me why you came here."
"I came to see if it was true, if it was really my master in the black suit, if Anakin Skywalker was really the Emperor's right hand, and a Sith Lord. I came to see if you had really fallen so deep, so far. If there's really no good left in you at all."
"And what have you found?"
She sighed and looked defeated. "That it's all true. You betrayed us. You were supposed to save us, but you destroyed us instead. We trusted you. I left, but I always felt good knowing that you were out there, you and Obi-Wan and Master Plo, Master Yoda. But mostly you. I learned so much from you. I trusted you. And you destroyed us. Guess I was wrong about you, Master."
She was glaring at him now. His anger had subsided a little, but he could feel it flaring up inside of her.
"That's better. Anger. Use it. You don't know the power of the Dark Side."
"Never."
"You showed such promise when you were my Padawan. There is so much more I could teach you now."
"And become the Emperor's little pet? Like I said: never."
"The two of us together could destroy the Emperor. You and I would be ruling the galaxy."
She let out a breath of incredulity. "What makes you think I want to rule? When have I ever showed even the slightest sign of wanting to do that? But let me rephrase then: and join the Sith? Never."
"And yet your anger hasn't subsided at all. In fact, it's only growing stronger."
She shook her head at him, only looking at him. He stared right back at her, wanting her to make the next move.
She began pacing back and forth, keeping her eyes on him.
"I felt it, you know. The Jedi dying. All of them, scattered all over the galaxy, and yet you and Palpatine made sure that they all died at once. Not everyone probably, but most of them. There was this terrible pain, and then there was silence. But I don't need to tell you about that, do I? You must have felt it too considering how powerful you are. But maybe you shielded yourself against it, huh? Knowing it would happen and all. I couldn't do that. I had to suffer through it. And I didn't know what was happening. It didn't take long to find out. I haven't been that scared many times in my life. You know what else I felt? Your pain, some time afterwards. It was somehow just as strong as all of them dying. You know how scared I was then? My master, in pain, has he found the dead Jedi? Have they tried to kill him? What could have happened? I began to look for you then. It took me almost a year to find you. And here I am, and now I'm thinking, was that pain because Obi-Wan cut off your limbs? Was it because of some other accident? I suppose that breathing device is the only thing keeping you alive, so obviously something else than what Obi-Wan did to you happened, maybe that was the pain? Because talking to you now, I find it difficult to believe that it would be because you found out that they were all dead? The Jedi, Obi-Wan, Padmé maybe? Because you were right about one thing. You're not Anakin Skywalker any longer. My master would never do this."
Vader's deformed lips were curled into a cruel sneer that Ahsoka could not see, but he was more than certain that she felt his emotions, and he wanted her to, he wanted to fuel her anger and make her use it in the duel that was inevitable now.
"What are you going to do?"
She stood still, facing him. She bowed her head for a short moment before looking back up.
"You would never let me leave. But it doesn't matter anyway, I'm going to do what Obi-Wan couldn't, because I know you're not Anakin. Maybe if I could see your face this would be more difficult, maybe then I wouldn't want to kill you either. But you must be stopped, and I'm the only one who can do it."
She lowered herself into the stance of her Form V, and ignited her weapons, using the reverse grip that he had so long tried to make her stop using. But what did it matter? Anakin Skywalker was dead, and Darth Vader was a Sith Lord. Ahsoka Tano had never been anything but a Padawan. He might have lost a lot of his power after the incident on Mustafar, but she was no match for her. She'd left the Jedi one year before their destruction, and she had never gone through the trials to become a Jedi Knight. She had no chance.
He removed his own lightsaber from his belt and ignited it as well.
"I was your master, I know your moves. You stand no chance."
"Wrong. Anakin was my master. And I'd like to see you take down any Jedi in your current state. You're not as powerful as you once were, I can feel it."
"But you're not a Jedi, are you? You never completed the trials, you left when you were still a Padawan. You may doubt my abilities, if you wish. It will be your last mistake. Padawan."
"Enough talking. You"re not gonna make me use my anger against you. So save those artificial breaths of yours."
And with that she ran towards him, the distance between them was too short for her to dart from side to side as she usually did when attacking someone, and Vader had no gun to fire at her with so there was no use in her trying to avoid him.
He blocked her blows easily. She had been right, of course, he was not as powerful as he once had been, but she would not be able to defeat him in lightsaber combat. She attacked and he blocked her blows.
The clones inside finally noticed Ahsoka's presence, but as they moved towards the balcony, Vader simply shut and locked the doors using the Force, he did not want them interfering.
Ahsoka used the Force to jump and land on the other side of him, but he continued to block her blows. She soon began to use her speed against him, though, twirling, jumping from side to side, aiming high and then low. He blocked her still, though it took more effort to keep up with her. Before Mustafar it would have been easy, but moving with the prosthetics and the weight of the suit was difficult enough as it was, flying through the air doing complex jumps and volts was not an option. What it did was fuel his anger. He hated being so limited. He could not move as he once had been able to, could not see as he once had been able to, could not even breathe as he once had been able to. Keeping up with his former Padawan was impossible, he could still block her blows, but it grew more difficult by the second.
However, Ahsoka was tiring out quickly too, he soon noticed. She might have the weapons of a Jedi, and some of their training, but she had left two years ago, which meant two years without training. She might have practiced on her own, but he could tell that she was not in the same shape as before, not as quick and she did not possess the same stamina. That still didn't change the fact that he had lost a lot of his power and was restricted in ways he would never have guessed.
Their lightsabers hummed and clashed, and Vader grew more and more furious because of Ahsoka's ability to move.
"Enough!" He called out and reached out a hand and grabbed her with the Force and flung her against the wall.
She hit the wall, hard, and slumped down on the balcony floor. She powered down her lightsabers and reached a hand to the back of her head, wincing, and locating him with her eyes. He put his own lightsaber back on his belt and approached her.
"Enough of this. I have more important things to do than fight former Padawans who think they can singlehandedly save the galaxy."
He reached out his right hand and raised her up so that she was hanging in midair, and began to choke her. The lightsaber and shoto fell from her hands and she instead clutched at the invisible hand at her throat, gasping for air. Her eyes never left his, but they were filled only with pain, different kinds of pain, but he did not want to even begin to discern the differences between them. His own eyes, red eyes, hidden behind the mask, were filled and had been filled with the same thing since he joined his master: hatred. And they burned as he watched her struggle for the air that would never again fill her lungs.
"You should have taken my offer when you had the chance." He told her before he clenched his fist even more. Her mouth opened wider but her head fell slowly backwards and she closed her eyes tightly. Then, suddenly, her head fell back completely and her hands left her throat to dangle at her sides. He opened his fist and Ahsoka Tano fell to the floor in a heap, dead.
Vader opened the doors to the balcony and the clones burst out, their guns pointed at the dead Padawan, but Vader walked inside.
"She's dead. Leave her, let's go."
He did not wait for their reply, he simply kept walking. But walking was a struggle, and had not been such a struggle since he was first placed in his suit. And it was not a struggle because he was weary from the duel, or because of his anger. No, the struggle came from inside, where what was left of Anakin Skywalker was screaming out in agony.