The silence was heavy, like a thick cloth draped over his body.
Eli Kaen sat up in his sleep cot slowly. His limbs were light — a child's again — but his chest was full of stone. He breathed in the familiar scent of the Jedi Temple dormitory: polished durasteel floors, faint incense from meditation earlier, and the quiet breath of a dozen sleeping younglings.
He ran a hand through his hair and exhaled. No gasp. No confusion. Just the dull ache of memory.
Another loop. Another failure.
The last one had been his most ambitious: secret drills in the undercourts, whispered strategies between bunks, a moment of hope. They'd even disarmed a clone before it all fell apart — before Anakin arrived.
He could still feel the echo of his blue saber striking Anakin's and being flung away like a toy. Still hear Master Shaak Ti's voice shouting his name before silence fell.
He had tried to be brave. Righteous. Jedi.
And he had died.
He slid off the cot, bare feet cold against the floor, and padded to the window alcove overlooking the Temple courtyard. It was still dark — stars blinking over Coruscant's towering skyline. The glow of traffic lanes pulsed in distant rhythm.
He pressed his forehead to the transparisteel.
"It's not enough," he whispered.
The Jedi Code had answers — discipline, serenity, focus. But serenity hadn't stopped blaster fire. Focus hadn't kept his friends from falling. Each loop chipped away at something. His fear. His hope. His trust.
He turned away from the window. Not in despair — but in resolve.
This loop wouldn't be about saving everyone. Not yet. That idea, he was beginning to accept, was fantasy.
This loop would be for learning.
For understanding.
He left the dorm quietly, as he had in many loops before. But his direction this time was different — not toward the Council chambers, not toward the Masters.
Toward the Archives.
Again.
Not because he expected to find something new there — but because he needed to remember.
He moved through the halls like a ghost, familiar now with every twist, every shift in the floor pattern. A Temple Guard at a corridor post nodded at him without suspicion. A youngling reading in an alcove didn't even look up.
Eli stepped into the Archives and let the cool, quiet air settle around him. The columns of data stacks and holocron pedestals towered above, eternal and untouched by war.
He remembered.
Three loops ago, he'd managed to talk his way into the restricted section — by quoting passages from Odan-Urr's Holocron with such precision that even Jocasta Nu had been impressed.
Now, he didn't need to get in again. He already knew what was there.
A recording from a long-forgotten Jedi exile. A voice that spoke of cycles, of return, of trials within trials.
"This is not a gift," the voice had said. "This is a crucible. A path between light and dark. Only balance will break the wheel."
Balance.
The word still echoed like a puzzle in his mind.
He sat down cross-legged in a quiet reading corner and stared ahead, hands on his knees, letting the Force fill him.
He could sense the Temple around him — bright presences of Masters waking, ripples of dreams from the younglings, distant echoes of the city.
And beneath it all… something else.
Low. Cold. Old.
It hadn't spoken. Not yet. But it had noticed him.
He didn't know if it was part of the Force or something outside it — a relic of some deeper truth. But each loop made it clearer: the Jedi didn't see everything. Their ways, their truths… they might not be the whole story.
He clenched a fist.
There was still more he hadn't tried.
He hadn't screamed.
He hadn't hated.
Not truly.
Every death, he had faced with fear, yes — but also restraint. Jedi training was wired into this body's reflexes. His own instincts as a modern man had leaned toward survival, not rage.
But maybe that was what he needed.
He shook his head. Not yet. That wasn't the answer. But it was… something.
"I have to understand both sides," he whispered to himself. "Before I choose mine."
He stood, a slight tremor in his knees. Not fear. Determination.
He would study again this loop. Learn more about Force perception, telepathy, movement. Keep training between classes. Experiment with timing, maybe even approach the clone troopers before the order was given.
Anything to widen his options.
He couldn't carry a weapon between loops. Couldn't pass along warnings. But knowledge? Knowledge stayed.
And next time… maybe that would be enough to save one life.
Or even just his own.
—
Outside, the Temple began to stir. The sun was rising, casting gold across the courtyard tiles. Younglings would be called to morning meditation. Masters would begin their daily councils. The last day would begin again — just like always.
But something inside Eli Kaen was different.
He didn't feel like a scared boy anymore.
He felt like a question no one in the Temple was ready to answer.
Not Jedi. Not Sith. Not yet.
Just a child walking the edge between.
And the edge was getting thinner.