“I accept.
So you can get started.” Kurt agreed to the terms.
Killing Tor Vizsla — the man who’d effectively murdered his father, and by extension, the man responsible for rewriting his own fate.
If not for Tor, the soul that had crossed over into this body would eventually have become clan chieftain in the natural order of things.
Tor had upended all of that instead.
Kurt had survived it anyway, and come out stronger for it.
“Then let me out first, Nephew.” Murto rose to his feet as Kurt released the binders, marking him a free man again.
“Leave the negotiations to me.
Your father still has plenty of loyal family within the clan.”
“I hope so.”
“Or did you ever wonder why nobody came for you during all those years scavenging out there?
Why Tor Vizsla never sent anyone to finish the job?”
“Maybe I got lucky.
Or maybe I’m just the protagonist of this particular story.” Kurt gave Murto nothing but his back as he walked away.
“Nephew — you might just be the one to carry Mandalore to a new height.” Murto murmured to himself, watching Kurt go.
Kurt didn’t dwell on it.
He needed to sharpen his swordwork and his command of the Force if he was going to have any chance against Tor Vizsla down the line, which meant it was time to find Qui-Gon again.
Qui-Gon sat meditating in a quiet corner of the compound, seeking glimpses of the future.
Kurt approached without interrupting, settling beside him to practice his own meditation, working on Force control in parallel.
Before long Qui-Gon startled awake, having glimpsed something troubling — a vast darkness gathered on one distant world, and on another, a presence that felt unmistakably like Kurt’s own.
“This galaxy grows more tangled by the day,” Qui-Gon murmured.
“You’re awake, Master.” Kurt noticed him stir.
“Kurt, I need to push your training further.
I’ve seen something dark enough to set the galaxy on fire.” Qui-Gon’s voice carried real weight.
“The Sith, Master?
I’ve glimpsed something like that myself, in a vision of my own!” Kurt remembered his own dark vision from before.
“So this galaxy truly has given rise to three Chosen Ones.
It seems one of them already belongs to the dark side. This story is hosted at g.com.
I never expected them to resurface.” Qui-Gon pressed his fingers to his temple.
“Then train me, Master.
Even if I can never join the Jedi Order, I’ll stand against the Sith’s return when the time comes.” Kurt had no idea who Qui-Gon meant by this — surely not the child who might or might not have even been born yet by now.
Could it be Maul?
The man who never seems to stay dead?
“Very well.
Let me show you the forms beyond the first — see which suits you best.” Qui-Gon began demonstrating Forms II through VII.
Kurt drew his beskar sword and mirrored each movement as Qui-Gon showed it to him, one form at a time.
By the end, it was Form VII, Juyo — the aggressive, unpredictable form — that felt undeniably right in his hands, a form that channeled raw emotion, even anger, directly into its technique.
“Juyo, then.
You’ve certainly got the raw capability for it.
Your temperament may need more work before it truly settles — but it might suit you, at that.
I haven’t fully mastered it myself, so you’ll need to shape it around your own instincts and habits more than I can teach you directly.”
“Understood, Master.
I’ll give it everything I have.”
“First, understand that Juyo is a form meant to be unpredictable, built around overwhelming aggression.
It draws on your emotions directly — but you must hold onto yourself even as you use it.” Qui-Gon settled into patient, thorough instruction, and Kurt listened without a word.
Time passed quickly as the lessons continued.
Kurt’s grasp of Juyo sharpened remarkably fast — he had the basic form down after a single pass, and by the second, he was already adapting it to his own style.
Qui-Gon himself had been something of a swordsman prodigy in his youth, even a tournament champion once — but even he fell noticeably short of what Kurt was doing now.
“You’re simply extraordinary, Kurt.
I will see you join the Jedi Order, one way or another,” Qui-Gon said.
Meanwhile, on a different world entirely, Obi-Wan and Satine weren’t having nearly as comfortable a time of it.
Obi-Wan had felt eyes on them both for a while now — the sensation grew sharper whenever Satine stepped outside, and he’d taken to shadowing her closely whenever she did.
The planet, perpetually rain-soaked and covered more than ninety percent by ocean, was home to a mix of aquatic species — Quarren, Mon Calamari, and Kel Dor among them.
But the Duros who’d turned up in that bar days earlier stood out as a serious concern — every inch a bounty hunter, and lodging suspiciously close to their own inn, always turning up at the same bar.
Obi-Wan decided it was time to move first.
The two of them worked out a plan: Satine would head alone toward the port district where their ship waited, while Obi-Wan stayed behind at the bar to watch the Duros and see what he was really after, planning to catch up before she left the planet.
He scanned the room for anyone worth recruiting for the job — and then noticed Obi-Wan walk in alone, without Satine at his side.
Obi-Wan ordered his usual hot milk — he was sixteen, still short of legal drinking age — while watching Cad Bane from the corner of his eye.
He saw the man drift to a corner table, and when the crowd blocked his view, he moved to the bar for a better angle, ordering a second cup of hot milk to cover the shift.
In the corner, Cad Bane took an incoming call from his droid.
“Master, the Duchess is heading for the port district now.
She may be trying to leave Ruunjie.
Should I move on her now?” Todo reported Satine’s real-time position, tailing her discreetly through the buildings.
“Stay on her.
She’s not going anywhere.” Bane dropped a few credits on the table and ended the call, rising and walking out of the bar.
Obi-Wan caught every word of it — clear enough now that this was the bounty hunter come for Satine.
Best to deal with him first.
He paid and followed.
By the time he made it outside, Bane had already vanished.
Still, Obi-Wan knew where Satine was headed, and he’d surely cross paths with the hunter on the way there.
He leapt up onto the rooftops and moved across them, and it wasn’t long before he spotted Bane’s droid companion, Todo 360.
That’s the droid — but where’s Bane himself?
The thought had barely formed when a sound rang out behind him — the whine of rocket boots.
Obi-Wan’s lightsaber was already in hand.
Vmmm!
His blue blade snapped to life in the same instant.
Pew!
Bane fired the moment Obi-Wan’s back was turned, and Obi-Wan, already reacting, deflected the shot clean.
“Looking for me, Jedi?” Bane said, landing lightly on the rooftop.
“You’re the Duros.
I knew it.” Obi-Wan held his saber ready, wary.
“Cad Bane.
That’s my name.” Both pistols opened up, red bolts streaking toward him, each one turned aside by Obi-Wan’s practiced Form III Soresu defense.
Seeing the standoff going nowhere fast, Bane sent Todo ahead to grab Satine on his own, settling in to deal with the Jedi personally first.