Y/n's blade cast sharp shadows across the corridor, the blue-white light catching the angles of her Jedi robes. Count Dooku was on the other side. Palpatine was waiting. The fate of the Republic balanced on a fulcrum, and she was the only weight holding it steady.

She took one step forward.

A howl of violet static screamed through the corridor, the Force lurching sideways in Y/n's senses like a skipped heartbeat. A swirl of light—crackling, wrong, unseen—opened three feet behind her, spitting out bodies like a ship ejecting debris.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Three of them. Tangled, groaning, cloaked in dark fabric, clutching slender wooden sticks.

Y/n spun, lightsaber held high, the glow illuminating the scene in stark, pulsing light.

The three boys finally looked up. At the glowing blade. At the woman holding it.