Deep beneath the Jedi Temple, within the Shrine of the Depths, silence wrapped the stone like a coffin. The air was thick, heavy, and humming with restrained power. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon stood frozen in the crimson gloom, their bodies locked stiff as statues. The sudden burst of the Force had hit them like a tidal wave—unseen, unstoppable, absolute.
Qui-Gon's mind still churned beneath the paralysis. What is this… some kind of Force stasis? He could feel his heart still beating, his senses alive, yet not a single muscle obeyed him. The power that bound them wasn't darkness in the way he knew it—it was older, colder, structured like a command written into the Force itself.
Then, faintly, he heard a small sound beside him—a breath caught in a throat. Obi-Wan's thoughts, raw and exasperated, flickered across the stillness. Come on… anything. Move something… His focus burned inward until, with a tremor that felt almost pitiful, his right pinky twitched.
He almost laughed. You've got to be kidding me. All I can move is my pinky? Brilliant. The galaxy's youngest Knight, and I'll die here flexing one finger.
The statues that loomed behind them stirred faintly, ancient Sith guardians. Their axes hovered mid-air, edges humming with a red pulse, ready to strike. If either Jedi so much as twitched, the weapons would fall. The guardians simply watched, their presence pressing like mountains of silent malice.
Far deeper in the shrine, where the red veins of the walls drank in light and the air tasted of cold iron, the crystal's voice curled like steam. Naga Sadow's specter hunched within the obsidian heart, his molten eyes fixed on Count Dooku. The ghost's tone was a slow, patient thing — amused, hungry, inexorable.
"Dooku of Serenno—will you accept my friendship?" the crystal intoned. "Stand with me, and you will achieve a feat beyond anything the Jedi ever dreamed. Refuse… and I will take matters into my own hands."
Dooku did not flinch. His face was a mask of pale serenity, but the calm had teeth. He turned the question like a blade in his mind, feeling the cavern's old power crawl along his bones. Around them, carved hooded figures stood as mute witnesses. Sadow watched like an ancient master awaiting a pupil's answer, eyes that could detect a thrice-told lie.
Dooku's voice was level, courteous with the courtesy of a man who had always dealt in knives.
"And what of my old Padawan and his apprentice?" he asked. The words slipped out casual, conversational; a test wrapped in civility. He knew how Sadow listened. He knew how Sadow could tell when flattery masked treachery and when honesty was a blade aimed at the throat.
The crystal's pulsing slowed, then brightened, as if amused by such theatricality. Sadow's smile — ancient and hungry — spread across the dark like a crack of hot light.
"Dispose of them," the spirit said finally, each syllable a shard. "They are not needed for our glory. No witnesses must remain who know this place exists beneath your Temple. The shrine must stay buried. Remove every living record."
Sadow's words hung in the breathless vault. They were an edict issued from two millennia of sith hunger.
Dooku's expression did not change, but something colder passed through him — a calculation. He had always worn his contempt for needless cruelty like armor, but even he felt the scale tip. "So be it," he said quietly. "No public trace, no rumor left to seed revolt. We will take measures that look like accidents, disappearances, and the mercy of history."
Sadow's laughter, soft and volcanic, rippled through the chamber. "Good," the spirit murmured. "Do this, and the disposal of the fulcrum in the Force will be our priority. Help me, and I will grant you greatness beyond anything you have seen."
Dooku bowed his head for a heartbeat. "It will be done. But first—allow me to say my final goodbye."
Sadow's molten eyes narrowed. "Goodbye?" The word rolled from his spectral throat, puzzled and sharp. Then realization dawned, and his smirk returned. "Ah… a farewell to your old comrades. That will be granted. The path of the dark side is built on blood and the strength to evolve. Sentiment dies so that power may live."
The spirit's gaze bored into Dooku, ancient senses tracing the man for any hint of deception. None surfaced. Dooku's calm was absolute, the storm buried deep behind the mask.
Sadow's voice deepened, carrying the weight of old wars. "Do not fail me, Dooku of Serenno. Fail—and this Jedi Temple will drown in what sleeps beneath it. Do you understand?"
"I understand," Dooku replied, his tone steady but hollow. "If I falter, every Sith monstrosity entombed below will rise and tear this Temple apart from the roots."
"Then we are agreed." Sadow's form flickered, the crystal dimming as the specter withdrew. "Prove your resolve, and the dark will remember your name." The voice faded, leaving only the low pulse of the crystal's heartbeat.
Alone again, Dooku stood in the red haze, his hand trembling once before he forced it still. The echo of Sadow's words hung in the silence like chains. He turned his gaze toward the passage where his old Padawan and the young apprentice still waited, frozen between life and death.
His jaw tightened. A single tear broke free, tracing down the side of his face. Is this what truly lies beneath my path? he thought. Was Katri's death not enough? Must I now stain my blade with my own student's blood?
Dooku exhaled slowly, voice almost a whisper to the dark. "Forgive me, Qui-Gon… but the future demands sacrifice."
In the other chamber of the shrine, the air remained thick and unmoving. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon still stood locked in the Force stasis, bodies frozen yet minds burning beneath the stillness. The faint echo of approaching footsteps broke through the oppressive silence—measured, deliberate, heavy with something more than intent.
Dooku emerged from the red-lit corridor, his face drawn and solemn. His eyes, once sharp with command, now carried the dull shimmer of grief.
Even in paralysis, Obi-Wan's awareness caught the tremor in his aura. Master Qui-Gon's old teacher… he looks as though he's aged a lifetime since stepping down there.
Qui-Gon's thoughts, however, were quieter—deeper. He's struggling, he realized. Fighting himself more than the dark around him. He could sense it—the hesitation, the pain behind the mask of composure.
For a moment, Qui-Gon closed his eyes, letting his calm acceptance settle over the suffocating tension. At least I get to see your face one last time, my Master. It's a regret I cannot escape… I had hoped to train Anakin myself—to guide him, to show him balance. But it seems that task will fall instead to others—the Daughter of Mortis… and my reckless friend, Jin-Woo.
A faint hum filled the air as the shrine's torches pulsed once, their crimson glow washing across Dooku's expression. He stood there in silence, the weight of choice pressing on his chest like the galaxy itself. His hand hovered near his saber, fingers trembling before tightening into stillness.
He stepped forward, each footfall echoing through the tomb like the heartbeat of a dying world. When he reached Qui-Gon, he did not ignite his blade. Instead, he moved close and, with a slow and almost paternal motion, placed a hand on his former Padawan's shoulder before drawing him into a brief, quiet embrace.
His voice came out low, almost breaking. "I wish we'd had more time… to grow closer, my student. To speak as we once did—without walls between us."
Qui-Gon said nothing. He stood motionless, eyes half-lidded, waiting for whatever end Dooku chose to give him.
But then, Dooku's breath brushed his ear, a whisper wrapped in regret. "If it were Windu, or any of those dogmatic cultists above us… I would have done it."
For a moment, there was only the sound of his pulse and the hum of ancient power. Then Dooku's eyes hardened, the conflict vanishing into resolve. "Run."
The single word carried a storm behind it. The Force around them cracked open, and the invisible chains binding the two Jedi shattered like glass. Qui-Gon gasped as his body came back to life, muscles spasming; Obi-Wan stumbled forward, air flooding his lungs as the stasis melted away.
A heartbeat later, Dooku slammed his palm into the stone floor. The Force erupted outward like a quake. The ground split open, and a shockwave roared through the shrine, hurling the Sith statues and spawn into the walls. Ancient stone shattered, the air filled with the shriek of broken relics and grinding metal.
Still in motion, Dooku raised both hands and poured everything he had left into shaping the chaos. Massive fragments of the shrine's walls tore free and spiraled upward, locking together into a jagged staircase of floating stone—ascending toward the faint glow of the temple above, three hundred, maybe four hundred meters overhead.
"Go!" Dooku barked, voice raw with power and strain. "Before it collapses!"
Qui-Gon grabbed Obi-Wan's arm, pulling him toward the rising path. Debris and smoke swirled like a hurricane behind them.
Obi-Wan coughed once, adrenaline forcing humor through the fear. "For a second back there, I thought you were going to turn Sith on us, Master."
Dooku managed a tired smirk as the crimson light flickered around them. "For a second, so did I," he murmured. Then he turned back toward the collapsing chamber, ready to hold the monsters off until his students were gone.
Qui-Gon was already twenty meters up the jagged stairway when realization struck him. He turned sharply, his voice echoing through the smoke and debris. "Master—come with us! We can still survive this!"
Below, Dooku stood amid the ruin, cloak whipping in the rising wind of power. His saber ignited once more, casting a blue gleam through the blood-red haze. "I'm afraid it's too late, Qui-Gon," he called, his voice steady, calm in defiance of the chaos. "The enemy is no ordinary foe. It's an ancient Sith Lord. I can hold them off—warn the others, tell them to evacuate the Temple. Get away from Coruscant while you still can."
He raised one hand and swept it in a wide arc. The Force surged outward like a hammer, shattering the base of the stairway. The massive stones broke apart, collapsing into the depths below.
"Master, what are you doing?!" Qui-Gon shouted, stumbling back as the path crumbled beneath him. "This… this isn't the Jedi way! Are you sacrificing yourself for us? I don't accept that!"
Obi-Wan caught him by the arm, pulling him away from the edge as the last of the staircase gave way. "Master, stop! You'll fall too!"
But Dooku only smiled faintly, the glow of his saber reflecting in his eyes. "Do you remember that tree we saw in the Temple gardens?" he asked. His tone was almost wistful amid the thunder of the collapsing shrine. "It was dying. But dying isn't always bad. Death feeds life. The roots decay so the next generation can grow stronger."
The chamber trembled again. From the far end, the technobeasts began to march once more, hundreds of them reforming from the rubble, claws and blades scraping against the stone. Behind them, the sithspawn shrieked, their bodies of shadow and bone twisting together into monstrous forms.
Dooku turned to face them, his saber raised high, its hum cutting through the roar like a promise. "Go, Qui-Gon!" he shouted. "Train the Chosen One you spoke of—and if fate allows… tell Jin-Woo to release Tython from his grasp."
His eyes hardened, his voice calm again, resolute. "Now go. Let the future rise."
The last thing Qui-Gon saw before the dust swallowed the chamber was his old Master standing alone—light against the dark—facing an army of nightmares as the shrine of the depths came crashing down around him.