Just a few seconds earlier, in that microscopic window of time when the violet pulse of corruption first struck Ren, before the young man had even begun to fight it back, Sirius had been watching him with worry.
And in that briefest of moments, Sirius finally saw it.
At a thought speed several times faster than a normal person thanks to his tamer's level, before the shockwave of corrupted energy finally reached him.
The memory washed over him with the crisp clarity of an event that, to his own internal clock, had occurred mere hours ago. He saw the stubborn, fiercely arrogant thirteen-year-old boy on his path to the ruins. He remembered that boy being tainted by this exact same corrupted energy, weaponizing it, riding the surge of his own rage in a way Sirius had deemed recklessly dangerous.
Was it the same boy?
