It was wrong.
Everything was wrong.
Instead of the answer promised, the world itself began to unravel. Like pieces of a sundered puzzle, the fabric of a fragile reality creaked beneath the ubiquitous cold. Every second that passed plunged him deeper into the abyss.
The cold, uncaring darkness gave way to a sinister realization that was only the foundation of Taku's suffering. These emotions were exactly the same as all of those he knew. Sorrow at the loss of loved ones, and rage at the things that took them away. Only in this harrowing perverse reality, they were magnified. There was so much power in the pillar in front of him, a promise that it would only hurt until the moment he gave himself over.
With eyes wide and mouth agape, Taku stared at his sins. They were laid bare before him, given life and a voice. Ziost could hear all of his secrets now. He was exposed. Takui couldn't save anyone.
Not even himself.
He managed to clamber dumbly to his knees. His hands scraped against the floor, bloodied. All the pain in him burned like a wildfire. Where the light was cool, kind, and warm, this fire was hot. It hurt. It magnified everything and spewed it backward into him. The corruption tainted his thoughts as his natural proclivities flooded him with more information than he had ever processed before.
His eyes froze in an expression if raw terror. His cheeks were stained with hot, salty tears. Taku coughed and sputtered, and vomit projected from his lips unbidden. He reached up to stifle it, but blood erupted from between his lips.
"Wha... what have I... done?" he asked, paralyzed.
The man spoke, unhindered by the power they released. It spoke volumes to Takui that he did not so much as balk at the evil that wove itself into the very atmosphere of Ziost, its source mere steps away. His enemy had to power to put an end to the madness, and he didn't use it.
Hatred gripped his heart, and like a cold steel hand, it began to squeeze. Taku felt it in his chest like war drums, rattling out a rhythm that his mind could not hope to follow. He felt Lark's love for his siblings, and his singular hatred for the Jedi. His reasons only served to compound Takui's baseless, senseless contention.
He felt the bloodlust of
Maynard Treicolt
enliven his spirit, a raw and primal instinct that he had never learned on his own. He drew it inward unwittingly, and the darkness made it his own. The urge to kill Sith, the great enemy, the vile darkness that threatened all things.
The overwhelmed
Mrurh'en'lase | Hel
, another Jedi who joined with Strike Team Windu. All of the horrors that assailed her exacerbated his rage. All of this, all his fault. He hated himself, more than anything. The flames in his soul burned him, sending adrenaline through his limbs, coating his muscles and filling his lungs with the oxygen to continue running this madman's marathon.
"You want to show me something?" he asked, his voice wavering, cracking.
The dark side of the Force had already shown Taku everything he needed to know. The Sith were a dogmatic perversion of the Jedi who eschewed peace. They called it a lie. They pursued power, and they did it following the lure of this horrific insanity that had laid claim to his mind and body.
But Taku didn't want to be free.
It wasn't going to let him. It was going to use him, and he
wanted to be used. He wanted whatever power that it would give him simply to
destroy everything in his way.
The pain didn't matter anymore. His suffering was nothing compared to that of his comrades. If they could not withstand it, he was better served giving himself over. The darkness could remake him into everything he had never been on his own.
Taku drank in the despair of a brother pitted against his own flesh. He tasted the woes of
Dagon Kaze
. The Padawan lifted his hand absently, aware of all the world. He could feel the Force like he never had before. He sensed the way that it wove between objects, and he threaded them together in his mind. A task that he believed beyond him once was nothing more than instinct enveloped within the darkness.
The lightsaber that flew from his hand moments before flung itself through air and returned to him. The silver blade sprang to life, hissing like a coiled serpent. He could hear the crystal that reverberated at its heart.
It hungered for flesh.
When
Loske Treicolt
severed her connection to Maynard, he felt the loneliness seep through the cracks in his psyche. He felt the inevitable sense of betrayal, of abandonment, even though it was not his own. He could feel his tear ducts drying out, hollowed from too much loss. Something that ultimately had nothing to do with him, that he never had felt for himself until that instant, broke his heart into pieces.
He was an exposed nerve in the Force, and every sensation struck him like a hammer.
Alliance Defense soldiers were dying in droves. He could feel panic and hopelessness, men succumbing to prevailing temptations toward self-harm and turning on their brothers. It was carnage.
His eyes burned red, impossibly redder than they had ever been. He could feel his mother screaming faintly, somewhere far away; and his father was laughing, hysterically laughing.
I always knew you would fail, Takui.
Somewhere deep in his heart, Takui had known the same thing.
"Then show me how this ends, Sith."
