Setting: Tython Sanctuary | Jedi Briefing Hall | Lotho Minor | Dathomir
Date: 24 BBY
One Month Later – The Sanctuary Awakens
Tython bloomed.
What began as broken stone and scattered ideas was now a sanctuary with growing classrooms, Force gardens, and meditation arcs linked by floating crystal bridges. The Circles had begun to self-regulate. Knights trained apprentices without fear of reprimand. Mandalorian advisors worked with the Guardians to refine protective duties without aggression.
In the central planning dome, Cain addressed Fay, Plo Koon, Shaak Ti, Adi Gallia, Obi-Wan, and others.
An updated galactic projection map shimmered behind him.
"I'm leaving," Cain began calmly, "and I won't be going alone."
A pause.
"Lotho Minor."
The silence in the room shifted—tightened.
Obi-Wan stepped forward. "That's where Maul disappeared. You think he's alive?"
"I know he is." Cain met Obi-Wan's eyes gently. "I saw it. Not just in the Force. In Revan's holocron. In the scars the galaxy hasn't healed."
Anakin stirred beside Cain, visibly tense.
Master Fay asked, "And what would you do if you find him?"
Cain's voice was steady.
"Bring him back. Heal him. Give him a choice."
"I will go with Anakin and Derran to Lotho Minor," Cain continued. "Fay, I need you to go to Dathomir."
He looked at her carefully. "Take Barriss, Serra, and Seris."
Serra raised an eyebrow. "You want us to go to the Nightsisters?"
"I want you to talk to Mother Talzin," Cain said. "She's his mother, if not by blood then by bond. She deserves to know."
Shaak Ti stepped forward. "She is not one to deal in peace."
"She might be," Cain said, "if we offer her honesty."
Obi-Wan stepped forward again. "Maul's a killer. He destroyed lives. Mine included."
Cain didn't flinch. "And yet you showed Anakin mercy. You taught him balance. If anyone deserves a second chance, shouldn't it be the one who never got a first?"
Anakin looked down, then nodded slowly.
"I want to see him."
Cain continued. "He's a weapon, not by choice, but by design. That doesn't mean he has to stay one."
Cain turned to the holotable and brought up another display—a glowing outline of a small, lizard-like creature curled around a branch.
"The ysalamiri of Myrkr. They can push back the Force. Create a bubble where it cannot be used. Kamino's medics have theorized that Force trauma, especially in enhanced minds, results in neuromantic feedback loops—what they called Force dementia."
Bo-Katan stepped forward from the edge of the room. "I've read the reports. The ysalamiri neutralize the Force and, in theory, halt the overload. That's why they're deadly to clones with organic chips—cutting off their connection causes neural collapse in enhanced units."
Cain nodded. "That's exactly why we'll use them. Temporarily. With Maul under sedation, cut off from the Force, we can repair his body without triggering a mental collapse."
Bo-Katan accepted the datapad Cain handed her.
"Take your best people to Myrkr and then Kamino. Deliver these creatures with medical protocols. Tell them it's for the new peacekeeper project—something they already believe we're funding."
Bo smirked. "They'll ask questions."
"Tell them it's for protection," Cain said. "That's not a lie."
In the following hours, the sanctuary became a flurry of motion.
Barriss quietly prepared herbs and mental stabilizers for Fay's journey to Dathomir.Derran gathered stealth field gear and underground mapping tools for Lotho Minor.Anakin meditated, his hands crackling faintly with white sparks of judgment—not rage.
Seris approached Cain as he reviewed ship specs.
"You really believe he can be redeemed?"
Cain looked up slowly. "I believe pain is not the end of someone's story."
She nodded. "Then we'll bring him back."
Cain smiled faintly. "Let's just not die doing it."
Some Jedi say once darkness claims a soul, it never lets go.
But I've walked through ancient memories and voices of those who tried… and failed.
Revan fell. So did Bastila. Ulic Qel-Droma Anikin even Luke fell. But they came back. They chose to come back.
Maul never had a choice.
He was a weapon sharpened in the dark—never told he could be more.
And I have to believe the Force didn't show me him still breathing in that junkyard just to let him die there.
So we're going to find him.
And we're going to offer something no one has ever offered him before.
A way out.
The stench of rot and rusted memory filled the air.
Cain, Anakin, and Derran stepped carefully through the jagged steel wreckage of Lotho Minor, where derelict ships, discarded droids, and forgotten weapons were slowly being eaten by a world that thrived on decay.
There was no sun here.
Only a dull amber glow seeping from vents far above, casting everything in hues of dying firelight.
"We're close," Cain murmured, narrowing his golden eyes.
The Force whispered, fragments of pain and rage clinging to the rusted air like mold. But through it, Cain could feel the tremor—the fracture in reality that only he could see.
A shatterpoint.
A jagged moment of destiny, waiting to snap or heal.
"This way," he said, pointing toward a collapsed mining rig half-buried in acidic sludge and shattered droid frames.
They descended into a gaping, metallic wound carved into the bedrock. Broken walls glowed faintly with heat and damp filth. The smell was worse here. Something between burnt metal and animal musk.
And then, Cain heard it.
Breathing.
Shallow. Erratic. Almost inhuman.
A flicker of motion. A scraping limb.
There—hunched in the corner like a wounded animal, pieces of scavenged cybernetics still clinging to his twisted body—was Maul.
His horns were jagged. His skin pale from exhaustion and sickness. His eyes burned—but without focus. He muttered to himself in shattered tones:
"…Kenobi… Kenobi… Must… finish…"
Cain crouched behind a broken beam, motioning for silence.
"There he is."
Derran exhaled. "He's barely alive."
Cain nodded. "That's what makes him dangerous."
Anakin stared at the huddled form, his hand twitching near his saber.
The boy who once watched Qui-Gon die… the one who trained every day under Obi-Wan, imagining that moment when he might face the killer that haunted both their steps.
Cain could feel it.
"Let's do this," he said, slowly.
Derran stepped back. "I'll climb to high ground and initiate Battle Meditation. Might calm his senses—or stabilize yours."
Cain and Anakin nodded.
"Be safe," Cain whispered.
"I'm always safe," Derran replied, disappearing up the debris wall like a shadow.
Cain turned to Anakin.
"We're not here to kill him."
Anakin's jaw tightened. "I know."
His voice was cold. Controlled. But his hand ignited his saber anyway—a blade of deep amethyst, laced with faint golden flickers at the edge. A reflection of everything Cain had taught him.
Anakin stared at Maul, who still hadn't noticed them—still mumbling, eyes unfocused, clawing at the floor like a beast searching for a buried heart.
"He scared me," Anakin said softly. "As a kid. I was eight when I watched him murder Qui-Gon. It… broke Obi-Wan. And I pushed myself every day after that, just so I could be strong enough to stand in his shadow."
Cain placed a hand on Anakin's shoulder.
"This isn't that boy's vengeance."
"I know," Anakin said. "But let me try first."
Cain studied him—his breath, his aura, his Force rhythm.
Then he stepped back.
"Strike with purpose. Move with truth."
Anakin nodded. "Of course."
Scene 3: The Charge
Maul stirred suddenly.
His head jerked up.
Eyes wide. Red. Wild.
"KENOBI!"
The scream was raw enough to shake the rust off the walls.
He sprang like a creature of nightmare, metal legs screeching, teeth bared. No lightsaber, just claws and hate.
Anakin didn't flinch.
He stepped forward into the attack—
—lightsaber ignited, a wall of violet light piercing the gloom.
Cain's heart surged.
Not with fear. But with hope.
Because this was the moment that mattered—not the strike, but what came after.
Codex Entry 021 – The Edge
He still screams for Kenobi. Not Sidious. Not vengeance.
But a name. A moment. A wound.
He's more ghost than warrior.
But a ghost can still be forgiven.
Anakin wants justice. But maybe justice isn't the answer.
Maybe it's mercy.
Maybe today, the boy who feared the monster… becomes the man who saves him.