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His own thoughts completely drowning out the thrum of the Death Star's hyperdrive as it moved toward Yavin IV and the end of the Rebel Alliance, Darth Vader sat in his meditation chamber, his stare fixed on the metal cylinder in his hands. In his mind's eye, he again saw himself lurking in the shadows in the hallway to the hangar, waiting for the nervous major to clear the corridor before he slipped silently back to the spot where he believed Obi-Wan Kenobi had fallen.
For a long moment, Vader had stood there, then manipulating the dark energies around him, had called the Knight's lightsaber to his hand. After another long moment, Vader had hooked the saber on his belt, safely out of sight, before returning to the conference room to discuss strategy with Tarkin.
He had not told Tarkin what had happened with Obi-Wan, merely that the Jedi Knight was gone. He had also not mentioned his retrieval of Kenobi's blade. Subterfuge and deception were nothing new to the Lords of the Sith, but keeping information from his superiors was something Darth Vader could not remember ever doing.
Now he was here, eyeing the weapon he had not seen in a lifetime, waiting for the report that never came, that Kenobi had used some Jedi chicanery on him to slink away while giving the illusion that he had been destroyed. When the report finally did come in, it was to inform him that the "all clear" had been given. There was no one on board the space station that should not have been there.
Vader pondered what he would tell his Master, when the Emperor inevitably asked what had become of Kenobi's body. Ignorance was a weakness his Master despised, and Vader had no answers for what had happened less than an hour ago. Seeking perhaps to clear his mind, or perhaps simply needing a distraction from the doors his dark-side knowledge kept failing to unlock, Darth Vader flipped the switch on Obi-Wan Kenobi's lightsaber and watched the blue-white blade gleam to life in front of him. He stared deep into the shimmering blue light for a moment, and found his mind tracing down a path down its beam toward a long-buried memory of the sword and of his first true Master.
