There are seven standard forms of lightsaber combat, and while none of them are really going to be perfect for someone with a double-bladed lightsaber, multi-barreled blaster, and Gungan energy shield, Windu can at least expose her to the basics, and give her something to build on.

Form I, Shii-Cho, is the basic technique taught to every Jedi, focusing on defensive moves and developing simple instincts for how to move the blade. Form II, Makashi, is a more elegant form, requiring very precise wrist movements rather than brute strength. Form III, Soresu, is used primarily to block projectiles such as blaster bolts. Form IV, Ataru, involves acrobatics that only a Jedi can perform, and constant leaps across the battlefield to overwhelm the opponent. Form V, Shien, involves heavy attacking strikes, particular in a variant form called Djem So, which uses a backhanded grip. Form VI, Niman, uses the lightsaber for defense while gaining an advantage through Force pushes. Finally, Form VII, Vaapad, is Windu's personal favorite, and is typically one of the most effective lightsaber techniques, but its very aggressive nature is often considered a risk that might push its user to the dark side.

Any of those standing out to Kina as something she'll particularly want to incorporate into her skill set?

Kina thinks she wants to focus on Soresu and Makashi, precision and defense, but also pick up a few tricks from the master of Vaapad while she can.  It won't be her primary form, because the Order's not wrong that training in aggressive first responses can be very bad, but knowing an unorthodox strike or three will give any Sith that're after her a surprise.

Also, Force-assisted acrobatics sounds useful, but not necessarily as a primary mode of combat.  That's just asking to get exhausted.

...They do sound fun, though.

Still...This lightsaber isn't hers.

So she needs to fix that.

Or figure something else out, but...Jedi need lightsabers.

She just needs to get a lightsaber that's her lightsaber.  That's something made to protect others from harm, rather than remind her of the pain that combat brings to everyone.

Wasn't there something about Ilum?

Yes, Ilum is usually where Jedi get their lightsaber crystals, if the four she has already seem too... stained, because of Maul.

It's...The crystals aren't stained.  But they serve a different purpose.  And they only fit in this casing, to consider them in a weapon.  That casing is stained, in a sense; it's not a healthy weapon to draw.  It's a last resort, when all else fails.  She needs that reminder, present and visceral, of the costs of drawing, becoming, a weapon, instead of a shield...but she needs a lightsaber, too.  So...she'd like to go to Ilum, she thinks.

Field trip time, then.

In a few days, they arrive on Ilum. It's a small planet, with thick layers of snow covering deeper, colder caves.

"The Kyber crystals are scattered throughout the cave," says Windu, as they reach the entrance. "I won't be able to come with you - it's a standard test for Jedi, and you can only locate the crystals after passing a test of character. Usually it's something about patience, or friendship, or something in that vein."

"Hopefully it's a test I can pass.  Thank you, Master, for your guidance."

Kina's bundled up for winter, and after experiencing snow for the first time in her life, thought she may be in love with a planet's weather conditions.  (...platonically.)  ...Snow's really nice, but it can't hold her attention for all that long.

She opens herself to the Force, and reverently sets foot inside the crystal caverns of Ilum.

There's a tall ice sheet which she has to climb, then a variety of twisting mazes, patches of slippery ground, and other small obstacles. They probably won't pose too much trouble.

After a while, she can find a small crystal, glowing blue despite the cave having no clear light source, and calling out to her.

When she comes near it, it will disappear, and it will no longer be clear how she came into this area of the caves, because there is no visible exit. The walls around her are shaped like many facets of a diamond, with each one holding a mirror up to her, showing her reflection. But none of the people she sees are quite her, even though they follow as she moves. All of them have a bit of a resemblance - there's a cluster of six that look just like her, but making slightly different facial expressions - but most of them have different characteristics entirely. A lot of them are male, often older than her, and many have faint inscriptions in the ice - calling-my-name, duel-fate, stay-awake, and other seemingly meaningless phrases.

And then there are the ones with the helmets. The ones with the awful dark armor, which seems not to be designed for keeping them safe, but for some other purpose, something that requires various buttons and switches and cloaks and so much that seems just uncomfortable, constricting, why would anyone want to put that thing on.

All at once, the blue lights of the cave turn to red, and each of the people in the mirrors blink out, except for one, whose inscription is visible in the eerie light as star-wars. And then he steps out of the mirror, and into the room next to her.

This is Darth Vader, and he is not Kina Skywalker, only what might have been in her place, had a great many things gone differently.

He nevertheless is here for her.

"...Well.  Hello there, dark alternate future self.  ...Might I ask what brings you here?  If you're going to try and turn me to the Dark Side, you should know that Sith Lords not living inside torture devices have tried and failed already, and, uh, the torture device is really not selling me any.  If you're here to deliver a warning, just give me a minute, I'm sure I have a flimsiplast somewhere; I want to write that sort of thing down rather than entrust it to fickle fleshly memory.  If you just want to talk, though...We can do that.  Seems like you've been through a lot, in your timeline."

He breathes in and out, ominous hisses and growls accompanying each gasp. "Many warnings, yes. This is not a happy life that I endure. But the dark side is more powerful than you can possibly imagine. You will have the chance to achieve your deepest goals. To save any who you still care for."

Padmé, he thinks, but does not say.

"You lost someone."

Kina's feet pace along the floor, walking in circles around the center pedestal.

"Someone you cared for.  Deeply."

"I'm sorry.  That...sucks.  I don't know what will happen when Mom dies, even though I'm pretty sure it will simply be old age.  If no-one fixes that.  I have to imagine that the Kaminoans probably can, given sufficient incentive, and I've heard rumors that there's been a near-human Master running around in the fringes of the galaxy for centuries more than she should've been, to say nothing of Master Yoda.  ...But I don't think the Dark Side solved your problems.  That power you sought didn't save her.  And it dangled the hope of success in the hands of a man who wanted to conquer death, only to snatch it away at the very moment he was to accomplish his first strike against that most ancient enemy, to hear him tell the tale.  It's a self-defeating prophecy you speak.

"There's a fundamental problem in the Dark Side: It is a blade with no hilt.  You grab it, and it cuts; it cuts all that it touches, including you.  Perhaps you can find the skill within you to grip the flat...but even then, it demands a price to wield.  It demands that someone suffer.  And if that burden will not be yours to bear, the Dark Side brings it down upon another.

"I am fundamentally opposed to suffering.

"This means that I cannot, will not, wield the Dark Side.

"Because it means that I would be making the universe suffer more than I otherwise would have, and that is fundamentally anathema.

"So far, I've seen the stories of three Sith Lords.

"One is a tragedy, well-meant intent to preserve and promote life perverted into experiments unethical at best and, frankly, anti-helpful at worst, chasing power the Dark Side will never give him, for it values his suffering more than his success.

"One was a power-mad fool, but at least he's dead; I shot him myself, even as Dooku bisected the man.  His plots still lurk, however, and anything you know of the secrets of Sheev Palpatine, should he still have tried - succeeded - to manipulate the galaxy as its Chancellor or otherwise...That would be useful information.

"...Honestly, Count Dooku concerns me, but mine, at least, takes the suffering upon himself, rather than inflicting it upon others.  I've at least gotten him to cooperate on the ending slavery front, and he genuinely wants to better the galaxy, but he's using self-harming tools.

"Regarsless...The last Sith, the one I first faced, whose kyber crystals I presently carry, for all that they're now mine, was simply Sheev Palpatine's honed blade, broken and shaped to his will and used at the whims of both that Sith and the other, ever since he was given unto the care of a man who couldn't.

"You remind me of him, most of all, but you are not him.  You are me.  You know how to do other things.  To draw strength from your bonds, your care.

"You can accomplish revenge.  I know you seek it.  I would too, if someone had successfully hurt me like you have been hurt.  All it requires is realizing who is truly the source of your suffering.

"Who told you that this was the path to power?  Who drove a wedge between you and those you cared for?  Were they right?  They were not.  And the Dark Side maximizes suffering.  So who encouraged you to suffer, alternate universe me?  Whose touch ruins the galaxy?  Truthfully, if you know the people I do...I imagine I already know the answer.  But you must conclude yourself.  Don't simply take my word for it.  Check.  Test.  Confirm.  And then act.  You still care.  Your every action says so.  So don't pretend you don't.  And stop the kriffing self-flagellation!  Really!  What is this nonsense!"

Vader is not willing to admit this to himself, but he is now quite pissed off that Kina is ruining his dramatic moment with her at least somewhat casual nature. This isn't anything like what he expected, when he was called by... when he was called by... when he came here, to corrupt a young Jedi. But he'll try to return to what he was saying.

"I do not deny that I have failed time and again. But it was my failure to accept the power of the dark side, that prevented me from reaching my full power; today, for all the torture I face, I have brought order to all of the galaxy, and any who stand against the Empire are crushed beneath my fist, even the last of the Jedi. You fear the darkness, but I can show you that it has brought me victory in every way."

"And yet they're still dead, and the galaxy's people suffer under your Empire's yoke.  Oh.  Forgive me, no, it's not even your Empire, is it?  It's Sheev Palpatine's blood-drenched abattoir, all corruption and decadence at the top while the people beneath are suffering, if yours is remotely like the schadenfreude-drunk madman mine was - and you're his hatchet man, the trained attack hound who he revels in yanking around by its leash.  If he wasn't personally involved in the death of people you care about, if he didn't promise to help them like he promised to 'help' Padmé and then left her and the Naboo to face the midday suns alone, I'll eat my toolbelt.  And you think your problem is that you failed to embrace the darkness sufficiently?

"Look at yourself!  Look at what he's made of you and tell me that you're not a roiling fount of darkness!  And what have you achieved with that power?  Nothing that you truly want!

"Go on, tell me something you truly desire, that you achieved with the Dark Side, and I will wait a thousand sunrises for your answer because there isn't any such thing!

"It's never too late to turn away.  To decide that you're done self-flagellating, pull back your veil of self-deception and pick yourself up from the floor where you've fallen and tried to dig deeper.

"To strike back at the man who twisted your soul, bent it to its breaking point just to hear it creak under the strain.

"You will never find the power to set that right in the Dark Side of the Force, Lord Vader.

"You will never find the power to protect those who you still care about from a source that wants all things to suffer.

"So rise up again.  Listen to the Force that wants you and all others to flourish.  Despite what Yoda said, that falling was forever...You can rise.

"And you think I'm afraid.  Do I look like I fear you?  Am I cowering away from this vision of a future self I could have been?  No, I'm not afraid.  Not here, not now.  Perhaps someday I will be - but you misunderstand my objection to the Dark Side.

"It's not that it's not powerful.

"It's that none of its vaunted power will actually help when it comes to doing what I want.

"Chancellor Palpatine said something interesting about becoming a Sith, in the letter he left to my mother.  One of his posthumous attempts to sow discord.  He said that to truly become a Sith, you had to sacrifice someone you loved to the Dark Side.

"Of course, he may as well have been spreading blatant lies...but frankly, it suits the man to think that he was telling that truly.  The best lies always have truth to them, after all.

"So who died?  Who paid the price to purchase the power you sought, power that would never save them?

"You can't trade your heart's desire for your heart.  And yet he tried to make you pay that price.  Perhaps he succeeded...but I think your heart still beats.  You can come back, and make things right.  ...You might not have saved others, might have failed time and time again, but you can still save yourself.  You needn't let the puppetmaster hold your heartstrings."

Twenty years ago, a part of Anakin Skywalker might have been convinced by these words, convinced by the eerie way that she seems to hear everything he thinks. But Darth Vader does not stoop to the point of paying attention to this series of insults from himself. There was a time when his mind was filled with only hatred of himself. By now, he has overcome it - or at the very least, gotten used to it. And hearing it from her... that he won't take to heart.

"That is more than enough, child," Vader growls, his hand unconsciously drifting to his lightsaber. "If you will not embrace the power you could hold, then I will leave you a life of weakness and failure. I will return to my own world, and I will finish my work. Soon every planet, every person in my galaxy with even the slightest sympathy for the Rebellion will be torn atom by atom, through a power that you will never again get the chance to have. For all your pitiful objections, you are still weak, and I am now unstoppable."

He'll torture a few Rebels later, that sometimes does cheer him up, knowing that he has complete power over them. Here, let her feel that through her connection to his mind, let her agonize over that.

The shard of glass behind him shifts to depict what looks like a room in a battle station, ready for his return.

"Weakness?  Failure?  Which of us is presently ending slavery throughout the galaxy, again?  Not you."

"And if you think I'm going to just let you go and atomize people...Think again."

Her lightsaber (or rather, the lightsaber she holds) burns yellow, a single blade ignited.

"That is not a wise decision," says Vader, and his own lightsaber is lit as well. "You may not have suffered this body's damages, but your youth also makes you foolish, with no experience in these matters. Now you will join the long list of the insects I have crushed. This will be a test of how one can achieve true power in the Force."

With these words, the hand not holding his lightsaber extends, shoving Kina back into the frigid wall, although to her it will feel as if the ice has in an instant come forward to slam into the back of her head.

And Kina's deft hand in the Force aims and squeezes the trigger of her multi-blaster, still at her hip, as she goes flying.  The Force push wasn't exactly what she was expecting...but she was prepared for something to happen, and had the shot lined up for when it did, right at his instrument panel.

Fortunately enough for him, Vader's first reaction to shots isn't to deflect them with the lightsaber, but rather with his hand, which smoothly slides into the way of the bolts. However, his standard reflex of using the Force to deflect the blow didn't take into account the sheer number of shots, and his hand burns, the metal twisting and several of the circuits in his mechanical fingers losing connection. One bolt hits his wrist, and he can't move it at all. And the pain... it was a deliberate decision, that the pain receptors are turned on in his cyborg body, but it's been long enough since anyone was able to lay a hit on him that it's a strong shock to him.

He only needs his other hand, though, and he approaches Kina with the lightsaber, trying to move out of the way of any other oncoming attacks with the aid of the Force. The room isn't very large, meaning that he doesn't have much room to maneuver, but it also means he can reach her in only a second, and slam his blade down towards her blaster.

Kina only needs a second to pull the trigger again, landing in a crouch as Vader's distracted from pinning her, blade hovering mid-chest on the man as she ignites its other edge and swipes it across his legs while parrying!

He can dodge most of the shots, stepping to the side and slashing down towards her at a bit of an angle, although he won't be able to reach the blaster before Kina's saber meets him and then moves to strike. He draws back his saber just in time to block the oncoming attack towards his heart, wondering how she can be so clumsy.

Then the other strike lands.

He lets out an involuntary scream, low and cut off in a fraction of a second, but still audible. Not again!

But as he topples to the ground, with one of his legs not even barely hanging any more, his one thought is not defense, but revenge.

With a roar of fury, calling on all the power of the dark side, the remnant of Vader reaches through the Force for Kina's presence, and just tries to crush.

He probably won't be able to actually kill her; she has enough strength to resist, even if she's not quite as powerful as him. He can still try to mutilate at least a few of her bones, paralyze her, let her feel at least a fraction of what he has felt.

And Kina can flare her Force presence to intercept most of the crushing grasp...Specifically the 'most of it' that isn't about to launch her lightsaber-first at Vader like a squeezed soap bar, even if that is going to hurt when she hits the wall.

Vader manages to crack several scattered bones, including a rib, and one of her arms is probably not going to be movable at the moment. But he can't do much damage, and he's far more injured than she is, with only a single working limb, various burns that she's inflicting now with her lightsaber, and his breathing issues returning worse than ever as his suit begins to fail him. Vader rolls away from under Kina, but it's less of a combative tactic and more of a futile struggle to survive. He scrambles with his one arm and knee towards the opening in the mirror, trying to pull what's left of his body away.

"If I let you go," she chokes out, because PAIN - which really kriffing sucks, but doesn't stop her from telekinetically tying him up with the cable spooled at her side - "will you promise to not atomize people unless they start it and refuse to stop it?  Will you actually -" a strangled gasp interrupts her - "think about the things I said today?  I realize," wince, "that this is absurdly naïve of, me, but I have to at least!  Try!  Because I don't want you dead, but if you're, gah, going to commit more atrocities, I really can't let you do that!"

...She can't kill him, now that he's disarmed, dislegged, without his lightsaber - hers, now, by right of conquest - and mostly-helpless.  She can leave him distracted from attempts to hurt and kill by the pain, but she cannot kill him.

Killing him out of hand would fail herself.  And failing herself is perhaps the worst possible thing.

So if she can't kill him - and honestly letting him go would probably kill him too, just by evil-universe Palpatine's hands...she'll have to save him.

Kriff.

Fine, sense of ethics, she'll fix his - what bantha poodoo is this?!  "Who built this - absurdity - I could, gah!, build a better pressurizer in my sleep - I am taking these travesties agaaahhn, against engineering apart for parts and you are not complaining -"

She's not letting her guard down; her 'mostly-useless' limb hovers by his head, hand on her saber's power buttons, ready to activate if he tries to strike her, but she's not letting him die on her, not after all this.

Vader lets out one last pair of grim breaths, and then his body then begins to crumble beneath her, disappearing in her hands, and then even the dust itself is gone.

All the damage she took disappears as well, and all the pain goes with it. In fact, she should feel healthier than ever before.

...also, she is not, at least to all appearances, in the cave any more. She's on what appears to be a large grey field of ash and transparent, flickering blue trees, with a more peaceful, natural view off in the distance.