In the years leading up to the Battle of Yavin, Ahsoka Tano wielded a pair of white lightsabers as her chosen armament. These lightsabers, distinguished by their white energy blades and curved hilts, superseded the lightsabers she previously possessed. She had relinquished those upon her departure from the Jedi Order during the Clone Wars, a departure orchestrated by Tano to simulate her death and escape the reach of the Galactic Empire following the Siege of Mandalore.
Tano acquired the kyber crystals necessary for these lightsabers in the aftermath of the Clone Wars, specifically one year later. She recovered them from the lightsaber belonging to the Sixth Brother, an Inquisitor whom she had eliminated during the Imperial occupation of Raada. Although the crystals initially projected a red blade, she employed the Force to purify them, resulting in their transformation to white. The lightsaber hilts were initially fashioned from salvaged scrap metal that Tano had gathered in the year following the fall of the Republic, but were later refined for enhanced functionality and aesthetics.
Her inaugural use of these lightsabers in combat occurred on Raada shortly after their construction, where she rescued her comrade Kaeden Larte and facilitated the evacuation of Raada's populace onto awaiting transport vessels. Subsequently, after connecting with the Spectres rebel cell and [Phoenix Cell](/article/phoenix_cell], Tano engaged various Inquisitors in battle with these weapons, culminating in a duel against the former Sith Lord Maul and her former mentor Darth Vader on Malachor. Following the events that transpired on the Sith planet, Ahsoka Tano continued to wield her two lightsabers throughout the duration of the Galactic Civil War and beyond.
The second set of lightsabers used by Ahsoka Tano were characterized by their curved-hilt lightsaber design and rectangular profile. Initially, the hilts were more rudimentary due to their hasty assembly from scrap metal amidst battle. Mirroring her original pair of lightsabers, this set comprised a standard lightsaber and a shoto lightsaber. The white blades were powered by kyber crystals extracted from the double-bladed lightsaber of the Imperial Inquisitor known as the Sixth Brother. She purged them of the dark side influence imparted through bleeding before incorporating them into her lightsabers, initially employing various mechanical components gathered during her travels and specialized parts salvaged from the Sixth Brother's lightsaber. Tano believed that the kyber crystals had originally been plundered from the Jedi Temple following the downfall of the Jedi Order.
Having been raised within the Jedi Order, Ahsoka Tano constructed two lightsabers during her formative years as a youngling and later as a Padawan, both before and during the Clone Wars. However, after being falsely accused of treason by her former acquaintance Barriss Offee, which resulted in her trial and near-execution, Tano lost trust in the Order and departed, leaving her weapons behind. Towards the end of the war, after aligning herself with Mandalorian warrior Bo-Katan Kryze and her Nite Owls, Tano received her lightsabers back from her former master Anakin Skywalker upon temporarily rejoining the Republic military to command forces during the Siege of Mandalore. After securing victory in the Siege and capturing the rogue Sith Lord Maul, Tano and Clone Commander Rex's return journey to Coruscant with their prisoner was disrupted by Darth Sidious' execution of Order 66, which triggered the Great Jedi Purge. After releasing Maul to create a diversion against the attacking clone troopers, Tano ambushed Rex and removed his control chip. However, Maul's subsequent destruction of the hyperdrive on the Tribunal, the Venator-class Star Destroyer they were traveling on, caused the crippled starship to crash on a moon, with only Tano, Rex, and Maul escaping beforehand. Subsequently, Tano abandoned her lightsabers near the graves she and Rex constructed for the clones who perished in the crash to feign her demise, before she and Rex separated to go into hiding.
Tano spent the following year in concealment on the planet Thabeska, employed as a mechanic by the Fardi clan. After fleeing the planet on the inaugural Empire Day, Tano, using the alias "Ashla," found herself on the isolated farming moon Raada. As she developed friendships with various locals, including sisters Kaeden and Miara Larte, Tano began amassing various mechanical components, without a clear purpose in mind. Following the Empire's arrival on Raada, Tano initiated a resistance, but was compelled to flee with her companions into hiding after revealing herself as a Force-user to rescue them from a failed scheme orchestrated by the farmer Hoban without Tano's knowledge. Tano briefly returned to Thabeska, but was eventually contacted by agents of Senator Bail Organa, who had detected a pattern of benevolent actions in the region and suspected the presence of a Jedi (or former Jedi), seeking to recruit her for his burgeoning rebellion. After joining Organa and learning that a Force-sensitive agent of the Empire—an Inquisitor known as the Sixth Brother—had been dispatched to Raada and was holding Kaeden hostage, Tano resolved to construct new lightsabers in earnest, having realized the potential of the components she had been gathering.
In need of new kyber crystals, Tano journeyed to the sacred Unknown Regions planet of Ilum, the traditional source of kyber crystals for the Jedi Order for millennia. However, she discovered that the Empire had commenced strip-mining the planet, forcing her to conceal herself further out in the system to avoid detection. Meditating through the Force to locate potential crystals, Tano discerned a signal directing her back to Raada. Having arranged for Organa to dispatch aid to evacuate the moon's inhabitants, Tano returned there, encountering Miara, who had been in hiding after the Inquisitor had assaulted the caves where she, her sister, and their surviving companions had sought shelter, leaving her as the sole survivor after Kaeden's capture. Miara was tasked with initiating the evacuation, while Tano pursued the signal of her crystals, leading to a confrontation with the Sixth Brother. Despite being unarmed, Tano effortlessly defeated the unprepared Inquisitor, unintentionally killing him when she manipulated the crystals within his double-bladed spinning lightsaber with the Force, causing the weapon to detonate.
Tano retrieved the kyber crystals housed within the deceased Inquisitor's lightsaber, which had been beckoning to her. She observed that the crystals had been rendered red through the process known as bleeding. Recognizing that the crystals were destined for her, she purified them, restoring them to the light side of the Force, a process that transformed the crystals into a pure white hue. Tano then assembled two new lightsabers from the components she had gathered, as well as the specialized crystal mountings from the Inquisitor's lightsaber. She noted that the hilts were somewhat crude, but she lacked the time to refine them further. Aiding in the evacuation of Raada, Tano entered the fray with her new weapons, rescuing Kaeden from her imprisonment and covering the locals' retreat onto the evacuation ships sent by Organa. Subsequently, during a meeting on the Tantive III, Tano displayed her new weapons to the Senator before agreeing to assume the role of Fulcrum to enhance the rebels' communications.
In the ensuing years, Tano reconstructed the lightsabers' hilts to improve their functionality and aesthetics, incorporating new curved hilts and her newly acquired white blades. Fifteen years after the rise of the Empire, Tano encountered the rebel group known as the Spectres, which included Jedi Padawan Kanan Jarrus and his apprentice Ezra Bridger. Tano employed her weapons to provide Bridger with combat instruction. During a mission to rescue a contact, Ahsoka and Sabine Wren navigated a submerged freighter that had crashed on the ocean world Quila. Tano utilized her lightsabers to sever several large pieces of debris, creating a path through the ship for herself and Sabine. Later, during a mission to rescue Force-sensitive infants from the Empire, Tano engaged Inquisitors Fifth Brother and Seventh Sister in Hammertown on Takobo, defeating them with ease but sparing their lives as she covered Jarrus and Bridger's escape with the two children, Alora and Pypey, as well as Pypey's mother Oora.
Some time later, Tano accompanied Bridger and Jarrus to the Lothal Jedi Temple. Inside, Ahsoka experienced a Force vision during meditation. The vision, in the form of Anakin, expressed anger at Ahsoka's departure from the Order, accusing her of selfishness and abandonment. He questioned if Ahsoka knew what he had become, transforming into the form of Darth Vader. Refusing to accept the truth, Ahsoka lashed out with her primary lightsaber, hoping to destroy the vision with tears in her eyes. Tano was subsequently left alone in the dark to grapple with the revelation.
Following the visit to the Lothal Jedi Temple, upon the advice of Jedi Grand Master Yoda, Tano, Jarrus, and Bridger traveled to the forbidden planet of Malachor in search of answers on how to defeat the Sith. There, they encountered an Inquisitor who had been searching for Maul, whom Tano had last seen during her escape from Order 66, and who had been stranded in the ruins of the Malachor Sith Temple for some time. When the Eighth Brother summoned reinforcements, Tano and Jarrus reluctantly allied with Maul to combat the three Inquisitors. However, following Maul's inevitable betrayal of the Jedi party, Tano declined a rematch, instead entrusting the injured Jarrus with dealing with him, as she sensed the approach of a greater threat: Darth Vader.
Tano arrived to confront Vader just in time to save Bridger's life, engaging the Sith Lord in a fierce duel. Vader eventually knocked her off the top of the temple before returning to deal with the two Jedi, but Tano recovered and ambushed him from behind, slicing open part of his helmet to reveal his right eye. As the two resumed their fight, Jarrus and Bridger escaped in the Phantom before the Sith Temple exploded. Several years later, Bridger entered a portal to the timeless World Between Worlds from the Lothal Jedi Temple and discovered a portal through which he saw Tano's continued fight with Vader. Tano was being forced back, beginning to lose her ground in the duel, so Bridger pulled her into the timeless Force realm just before the destruction of the temple.
After spending some time in the World Between Worlds, Tano and Bridger were forced to retreat after being confronted by Sith alchemy cast through another portal by the Emperor, Tano using her lightsabers to break it off the fiery energy from pulling Bridger to make him coming through the portal as she and Bridger fled. Separating, they headed back through the portals from which they had come, with Tano promising to find Bridger again someday. Back on Malachor, Tano headed beneath the ruins of the Sith Temple and embarked on a spiritual journey that changed the course of her life before making her way off-world. Years later still, in the aftermath of the Galactic Civil War, Tano continued carrying her blades. While traveling with Professor Huyang, Tano also began training Bridger's friend Sabine Wren as her apprentice, but their relationship ended on bad terms.
In 9 ABY, Tano continued to employ her white lightsabers while searching for Grand Admiral Mitth'raw'nuruodo "Thrawn." Having learned that a former Nightsister witch, Magistrate Morgan Elsbeth, served the Grand Admiral, Tano journeyed to the forested planet Corvus. She became a threat to Elsbeth's rule of the city of Calodan and used her lightsabers to defeat Elsbeth's scout guards. The following day, after mistaking him for an enemy and attacking him with her white sabers, Ahsoka gained the help of Din Djarin, and she was able to infiltrate the magistrate's sanctuary. Armed with a spear of pure beskar, Elsbeth engaged Tano in combat, and even managed to knock one of her lightsabers into a pond. Tano, left with only her shoto, still gained the upper hand and disarmed Elsbeth, and demanded the whereabouts of Grand Admiral Thrawn. In defeating Elsbeth, Ahsoka ended the magistrate's rule of Calodan, and set free its oppressed villagers, but Elsbeth was later freed from New Republic custody by two hired mercenaries, former Jedi Baylan Skoll and his apprentice, Shin Hati.
Tano continued to wield her lightsabers as she reunited with Wren and continued her search for Thrawn with Huyang and her Padawan. In that time, Tano used her lightsabers against Elsbeth's HK-87 assassin droids and scout guards, the former Inquisitor Marrok, and Skoll. In the end, Tano and Wren would discover Thrawn and Bridger on the extragalactic planet Peridea, where Tano engaged in a second duel against Skoll and, together with Bridger and Wren, fought Thrawn's Night Troopers in an effort to prevent his escape from Peridea. In that battle, the Night Troopers were slain but risen from the dead by Thrawn's allies, the Nightsisters known as the Great Mothers, which left the Night Troopers able to rise after lightsaber strikes or deflected blaster bolts. Tano also fought and killed a Blade of Talzin-wielding Elsbeth, whom had been formally welcomed into the Nightsister order by the Mothers, although her shoto lightsaber was sliced in half and destroyed during the duel. While Bridger was able to escape back to the galaxy about Thrawn's Star Destroyer Chimaera, Tano, Wren, and Huyang were left stranded on Peridea.
Ahsoka's white lightsabers first appeared in the TV episode "Fire Across the Galaxy," the season one finale for Star Wars Rebels. According to Dave Filoni, one of the show's creators, the lightsaber blades are white to reflect her non-affiliation with the Jedi or Sith. During production of The Mandalorian television series, property master Josh Roth noticed that Tano's lightsabers kept getting bigger because of the batteries, receivers, and wireless gak they put inside them. Director Filoni said the lightsabers could not look like that, so they ended up being powered by an external battery.