Cheap shot, she thought as the Force pushed her back. She snapped against a pillar, barely with enough time to slow herself down. With the slam of her body against the rock, for a moment she could swear she saw the ghosts of the younglings killed in the hollows of darkness of the Temple.
“You slaughtered them, Kylo!” she yelled, snapping her saber into her hand as she pulled herself to her feet.
“Call yourself what you are–the murderer of children!” Innocent faces with tears in their eyes echoed, memories of screams and vicious flames replaying in her mind. The Temple was waking up with their presence, returning from a dormant rest.
“Mercy? Is that what you call it?” she stuck a hand out, calling the Force to slide the crumbling blocks away as she closed the distance between them. He was the ferocious animal, her the stalking, elegant cat. Maybe her spirit wounded, her soul broken, but she would not turn away from this. Not now.
Her mother’s body was lying on the ground, staring at her, making it impossible to ignore her grief. The years of being alone–of moving after only a few months, fake docs, living on dilapidated bases…the Force would not let her forget.
She’d always hated having it.
The Jedi launched herself into the air, saber over head as she moved to strike. If not her pain, the galaxy’s. If not her rest, maybe for the Padawans.
“And I’ll stop fighting when I’m dead!”
Kylo’s hand was trembling as he clung tighter to the hilt of his saber, and felt the heat of it against his gloved hand. She was recovering from the pathetic blow of his attack all too easily, but he would see to it that he would not hold back next time.
He may have known her once in his old life - no - the life that belonged to the murdered Ben Solo, but she was no less the enemy. If anything, it only validated the purpose of her death. Chyla was an unnecessary causality in war, but Adiri WAS an active enemy of the First Order, and of the Supreme Leader. She had to fall for Kylo to rise ... or so he was told.
" You could not protect them ! ” Kylo bellowed, the sharp cry disjointed and feral.
He could all but see the children surrounding him now, lurking in the shadows, hiding behind pillars, and littered across the floor. He was all too familiar with them. Whenever he closed his eyes, he would see their teary faces, and see their bodies fall like dolls as he tore through them.
It was so mindless ... so savagely done that he did not even feel human in those moments. Their pleas of mercy had fallen upon deaf ears, and were promptly silenced by his blade. But he remembered each of their faces. Their names. Their screams. They were CARVED into his mind.
The Force rumbled all around him, and he steadied himself in place. He was prepared for her attack this time. He would not become the victim of Adiri’s purple saber, nor have the galaxy spread foul word of how KYLO REN had been defeated by a JEDI.
Adiri attacked overhead. In a fast movement, he swung his lightsaber upward to deflect the attack. He stood his ground, as he held firmly to the weapon on hand. The heat of the dueling lightsabers was all but suffocating.
“ You could have been apart of this ! You could have forsaken the old ways ! ” Kylo snarled. “ But you were too weak ! Too broken by your mother’s influence ! ”