Then, Anakin broke it. He stared straight at Jin-Woo, eyes narrowed with an emotion far too intense for a child. His small fists tightened at his sides.
"Mister," Anakin said, voice trembling. "Why do I feel like I really, want to punch you? And beat you up? Like I have to."
Jin-Woo didn't flinch. Didn't respond. He only thought.
Even a kid. The Force already gave him buffs. Luck. Stacking the odds.
Of course. It would. I've warped too much already—rewrote the natural order.
I turned Tython into Shadow Tython. I performed the Nathema ritual on Zakuul. I stabbed the Muur Talisman into a dark side nexus. I've altered the flow of every sacred site.
No wonder the Force birthed a counterweight. A Chosen One. A brat who feels the need to strike me on instinct.
In fate verse , especially proper human history… when the world is threatened, the Counter Force moves. And now? I'm the one that history itself wants erased.
He finally opened his mouth. His voice was dry. Cold.. "Nothing, brat. It's just…" He locked eyes with Anakin. "We're opposites."
That was all he said. But then—movement.
A subtle ripple through the Force. Something shifted in the back of the junk shop.
From behind a row of cracked vaporators, an entity stepped forward. ( img here )
The Daughter. She emerged silently from hiding, her pale form almost glowing in contrast to the dusty junk shop surroundings. She walked without sound, her long robes gliding across the floor . Her presence soothed the space around her—and yet, her expression was taut. Concerned. Focused.
Anakin's eyes lit up. He pointed, surprised. "Hey! You're that lady I met this morning!"
The Daughter gave him a gentle smile and nodded once. "Yes. I remember, young one."
Then she turned to Jin-Woo.
And the warmth vanished from her face. She didn't speak.
But her eyes narrowed, her body tense—like a barrier just snapped into place. She glared at Jin-Woo, silently assessing him. As an anomaly.
Jin-Woo exhaled once through his nose. He turned briefly to Watto—who was still nervously hovering in the corner—and reached into his coat. He pulled out a pouch and tossed it onto the counter. It hit with a dull clack of coins—over a thousand peggats inside.
"Leave," Jin-Woo said without looking. "I need the room. Private discussion."
Watto's eyes bulged. "W-What? This much? Uh—yeah! Sure! Not a problem!" The Toydarian didn't hesitate. Money talked. His wings buzzed in overdrive as he shot out of the shop with all the grace of a desperate merchant sensing a payday and a potential explosion.
The door clanked shut behind him. Only then did the Daughter speak.
But her words were not spoken aloud. They echoed. Directly into Jin-Woo's mind.
You are truly the only being in this galaxy who can threaten us, she said with certainty. I never imagined the day would come when even the Mother… was beaten by you.
Jin-Woo's grin was faint—but it appeared all the same.
So. She knew. The Mother. Not some abstract title. The Daughter meant Abeloth—the chaos beyond chaos. The corrupted, broken, ancient embodiment of desire, love, and madness.
And Jin-Woo had already touched her world. Already unleashed something worse.
He knew where Abeloth was now—locked in a cocoon of her own making, not to heal, but to survive. Struggling to stalemate the Flood infection Jin-Woo had intentionally released on her domain. A battle not just outside, but within her body. One parasite against another.
Don't tell me… Jin-Woo thought, ...you want me to retract the Flood? You want me to clean up the chaos I set loose on that thing?
His gaze shifted slowly back to the Daughter. His voice was calm.
"Do we really want to talk about this here and now?" he said plainly. "Letting everyone know our little problems?"
He took a single step forward. "Or do you want to be more private?"
Then—Rey stepped forward, patting Anakin gently on the head. "Come on, boy," she said with a casual tone that belied the tension in the air. "Let's give the grown-ups some space."
Anakin blinked, looking confused, but didn't resist. Talon nodded once and followed without a word, her eyes briefly lingering on Jin-Woo before slipping into a more defensive stance beside Rey.
Padmé moved last, hesitating near the door. Her eyes flicked between Jin-Woo and the Daughter, tension still lingering in her chest.
"What about Morgan and… Jedi Qui-Gon, Jin?" she asked, her voice low.
Rey didn't stop walking. She glanced back once, smirking faintly.
"Qui-Gon's a maverick. It's better he sticks around—he can handle weird. And Morgan… well, she was part of Jin-Woo's crazy parade nine years ago." She paused just enough to look Padmé in the eyes. "That parade? It started paying off a few months ago."
Padmé said nothing more. She followed them out—glancing once more over her shoulder before the door shut behind her.
Now the room was quiet again. Only four remained.
Jin-Woo. The Daughter. Morgan. Qui-Gon.
The Daughter's eyes turned toward the Jedi Master.
She spoke aloud now, her voice soft yet undeniable. "Force user," she said, "open your mind—and stay silent. This is between me and the man standing before you."
Qui-Gon's expression didn't shift. But his shoulders did. He stood straighter, eyes narrowing slightly. Then he gave a small, respectful nod.
"Understood," he said quietly.
Jin-Woo stepped forward into it, his tone dry, laced with deliberate provocation.
"So… what's the deal, huh?" he said. "Being one of the Ones? A Mortis god? Standing around in backwater junk shops while the galaxy's gone to hell?"
He gestured lazily to the walls, the sand, the cracked regulators behind them. "You're supposed to be balance. Guardians. All that cosmic poetry. Yet here we are."
The Daughter didn't blink. "Good," she replied, her voice calm, firm. "As you already know what I am… I'll skip the introduction."
She took one measured step closer, eyes glinting. "Though I only knew of Ashborn as legend. The First King of the Dead." Her tone sharpened. "But you… must be the second."
"Now I'll be straightforward," she added.
She lifted one hand. And with a flick of her fingers, a corpse hit the floor.
It landed with a wet splat near Jin-Woo's boot. Misshapen. Bloated. Covered in dark pulsating tendrils and partially crystallized lesions. A now-dead Flood Infection Form, twisted beyond recognition.
Jin-Woo stared at it without surprise.
The Daughter's eyes didn't waver.
"Release my mother," she said. "Release Abeloth… from the parasite that now binds her."
Jin-Woo didn't even blink. He stepped around the corpse near his boot, casting it only the briefest glance before speaking flatly.
"No." "Not that. I already have a bad relationship with her," he said, tone bordering on amused. "The only reason I let her live is because I want something. The Font of Power and the Pool of Knowledge. Both are still spiritually tethered to her. Until that bond breaks, I have no interest in finishing the job."
The Daughter tilted her head slightly, but she didn't interrupt.
Jin-Woo continued, folding his arms behind his back like he was explaining something mundane. "You want me to clean it up. But I'm the reason she's not a threat right now. And I know it."
The Daughter spoke, her tone softer—but no less weighted. "I know," she admitted. "When I visited my mother's planet, I saw it for myself. The land was corrupted—teeming with parasitic growths. But what caught my attention…" Her voice hardened. "…was the absence of the Font and the Pool. Both vanished. Taken in the same day she entered her cocoon."
Her gaze sharpened, pure light staring down shadow. "And I know who was involved."
Jin-Woo smirked. "Is that a compliment? Did I just get praise from a Mortis god? Should I expect a reward?"
He leaned slightly forward. "After all… I solved your galaxy's biggest problem, didn't I? Made Abeloth half-dead and infected. A state worse than death. Do you know what that means? She's not coming back. Not for another three thousand years, minimum. And that's not your third-rate Sith sorcery. That's the Flood. You don't cleanse that. You survive it."
The Daughter didn't move. Her voice came sharp, eyes narrowing. "Do you even understand what you've done, Sung Jin-Woo? You almost destroyed this entire galaxy with your stunt."
Jin-Woo blinked once. Then scoffed lightly. "Before we go there, let me get something straight. You three—the Father, the Son, and you—couldn't stand against her. You sealed her on her planet . And then you carved out a bunch of black holes just to hide the threat. The Maw Cluster, right? hundred black holes orbiting an anomaly just so no one gets too close ?"
He gave a slow shrug. "I just did the job. You failed to finish it."
The Daughter's eyes sharpened to daggers. "I wouldn't have minded," she said coldly, "if some Sith had somehow managed to defeat her. That would've been within the laws of this galaxy.. A natural fall."
"But You infected her. With something this galaxy was never supposed to see. Something not born from the Force , not even from the Great Hyperspace War. You brought in the Flood. That… thing… isn't even from this galaxy . It's a parasite from the ruins of the Forerunners, isn't it? Something that was sealed for over a hundred thousand years?"
Jin-Woo's smirk faltered for just a breath. His eyebrows lifted. Then a grin broke across his face. "Shitttt," he said, chuckling. "That's the first time I've heard someone get it."
He shook his head, almost impressed. "You actually understand how small your galaxy really is. Nice."
The Daughter's face twitched—barely. But it was enough.
A rare crack in the eternal calm.
Behind her, light distorted. The faint silhouette of her true form began to emerge—glimmering ethereal wings, a luminous griffin's shape forming like a myth burning back into memory. Celestial feathers shimmered like starbursts. Divine presence began to bleed from her like an invisible firestorm preparing to lash out.
But she calculated—fast.
How do I defeat him?
Divine force energy won't be enough. Even if I strike, his shadows... they'll anticipate. If I try to shift forms mid-assault, he'll counter before it stabilizes. If I raise my barrier—he'll pierce it. Telepathy? No, he's already fortified his mental domain. Too many variables. Too many layers.
She barely had time to finish the thought.
Jin-Woo had already stepped forward, one hand casually slipping behind his back.
His voice came smooth—cold, confident, criminal.
"Don't bother," he said without even looking directly at her. "You won't make it to your griffin form."Your Force barrier? Already shredded before you raise it. Your telepathy? I've seen worse minds."
The moment he finished speaking—he struck. Mentally.
A sudden rush of projective telepathy slammed into the Daughter's consciousness—silent, clean, overwhelming. He didn't speak into her mind. He showed it.
A hundred outcomes. All at once. In each, she saw herself pinned—crushed beneath an endless tide of shadows, her wings broken, her light extinguished beneath monarch chains of pitch-black weight.
In another, she was sealed—encased in a pulsing Fermata Cage, a Time prison modified through Jin-Woo's shadowcraft and tethered through abyssal coordinates, its anchor set directly on the Flood-infected world of Abeloth.
Every outcome. Every reaction. Every defense. Crushed. Outmaneuvered. Unavoidable.
She gasped slightly internally.
Jin-Woo said nothing further.
He stepped calmly toward the nearby workbench and pulled a wooden chair toward the center of the room. The old wood creaked under his grip, but he sat with regal indifference, legs relaxed, cloak settling behind him like a coiled shadow.
Across from him, the Daughter composed herself, restraining the celestial radiance now flickering beneath her skin. Without a word, she pulled another chair from the side, placing it opposite him and slowly sitting down—mirroring his posture, elegant but ready.
But before she could speak, Jin-Woo raised a finger.
"First off," he said, not looking at her yet, "there's someone else here who's been dying to ask the right questions."