Although Jaguada and Axxila—the homeworld of Mill's former Master—are only about 5000 parsecs away from one another, the trip will be a minimum three days travel; due in part to the troublesome route out of the stygian caldera, and a lack of space lanes between their current position and the upper-central regions of the galaxy. It takes a couple of hours for the pair to calm down after escaping D.G.'s tomb, having almost been buried alive under a sea of sand. The latent after effects of D.G. taking partial control of both their bodies also did its part to wear the duo out.

For Mill, the hardest part of their short stay on Jaguada was his emotionally-exhausting communion with the kyber crystal; despite that, even after having experienced the crystal's pain through the force-vision, he left feeling invigorated. The mutual understanding he now shares with the force shard is enough to revitalize his spirit and renew his faith in the mission. He feels he made a trustworthy companion in the process: the vessel for which he keeps strapped to his belt.

After those first few hours of respite, Menyoo asks Mill for more details about their next stop. Mill elaborates on his earlier explanation, telling Menyoo about his former Master Corovack, his difficult upbringing, and his promise to free his mother and sisters. On Axxila, and many other republic-friendly planets, blood tests are required of newborns to determine whether the child is force sensitive. If a child is force-sensitive, they are taken from their family and raised at a Jedi temple to eventually become part of the order. Corovack tested positive as a baby, but his father died shortly before his birth, so his mother hid him from the Jedi sent to claim him; he was the first boy of three sisters—a valuable asset to a family on Axxila.

The effects of his father's death were economically devastating to Corovack's family. Poor communities on Axxila are not afforded safety nets and learn quickly they must be willing to do anything to get by. For some families this means grueling factory work, for others it means thievery, hustling, and occasionally squatting with other abject civilians.

Corovack's mother resigned herself to sex work to keep her family alive and fed. She worked for an organization called the Allegro front, and her employment became slavery—working indefinitely by threat of death if she ever tries leaving. When his older sisters became of age, they too were forced into the same life alongside their mother. Corovack never learned of what happened to the youngest of his three sisters (he had been discovered and taken to the order at the age of six,) but he held little hope that she managed to escape the same fate. He was his family's only hope for emancipation, but he, and later Mill, were restricted from convening in personal affairs. This is no longer the case.

Menyoo listens intently, while also thinking about the similarities between Corovack and himself. Menyoo was also brought into the order at a later age than normal; and from Mill's personal account, he too was a late arrival. Instances of jedi joining past infancy are rare. For him, Mill, and Mill's master to have all joined late is exceptionally odd. Menyoo wonders to himself if this difference does not account for the opposing perspectives of them and Sbeit.

He considers asking Mill about Sbeit's background, but decides against it; it is not his business if it doesn't relate to the mission. He also should not fixate on him. There is just something about the short time all three of them spent together that stands out to Menyoo. He can't help but compare and contrast. Now that he knows about Corovack, the extra information could be a clue as to how Mill is different from the rest of the order, and where Menyoo stands amongst Jedi like Mill, and Jedi like Sbeit.

Menyoo is lost in his thoughts by the end of Mill's explanation, "any comments or questions Menyoo? I know this doesn't directly relate to you. It doesn't to me either really. His family, or the organization they work for, may not even exist anymore. But it's worth a try. We shouldn't feel too bad cutting through any of these guys if we do find them. They are bad people, and they'll make good targets to try out D.G.'s advice with." Menyoo maintains eye contact the entire time, but is still too distracted to answer Mill properly when he is done. Mill recognizes his preoccupation and concludes by asking, "Is that okay? I don't want to push you to do anything you aren't comfortable doing. I know I'm asking a lot of you."

Mill's concern breaks Menyoo out of his reticent puzzlement, "Oh, no no no. I'm sorry, I'm just thinking about your former Master. He sounds like… a really good guy. I would have liked to meet him."

Mill affixes a warm smile from cheek to cheek and answers affectionately, "He would have liked you."

Menyoo at this point is unsure how or where to take the conversation, feeling out of place with the increasingly personal and sensitive chatter that has emerged since him and Mill have accepted their roles more complacently. Menyoo is used to harsh and discerning Jedi—another distinction that sets Mill apart from others. As he thinks about Mill, he recalls something D.G. had said in the cave, and steers the conversation back to Mill, "Hey, D.G. said you have killed out of anger and hate before. Was he referring to the assassin? Or something that happened before we met? I meant to ask you once we left but then, you know, we got distracted."

Mill's entire mood changes: his eyes sink toward the ground, and his shoulders follow, lowering at the pace of his energy levels. His nervous fidgeting returns as he responds with a trepid quaver, "I, neither. It was while we were on Moltok. When you were meeting with the scientist, I was at the waterfall, as you know, but I was not alone." Mill tells Menyoo about the incident with the Makurth and includes every detail: the horrid feeling of drowning, the cries of the Makurth before he was killed, and the squirming children who ran unprotected into the forest. Mill keeps his eyeline below Menyoo's chin for the entire length of the story. He lifts his gaze up to inspect Menyoo's present state, expecting anger or disgust. He is instead met with an emotional wall; Menyoo looks neither sympathetic nor upset, just pensive.

After a couple moments pass in silence, Menyoo responds with judicious apathy, "you should have told me. I felt alone when I killed the man on Xagobah. It would have helped to hear you tell me I wasn't. That you had done something similar, and not long ago. It helps even now, and I've already moved on from it. Or, at least I think I have. But you should have told me."

Mill begins to respond, starting with an apologetic crack in his voice, "I'm s—"

—"I'm not mad Mill. I knew something was weird when we left Moltok. You were tense. I thought it was whatever you experienced in the nexus, but now I know you were in mourning. And I do believe that's the only thing you were keeping from me. It was after all the only time I've sensed something abnormal from you. Well, then and also when D.G. took over your body. Oh, and when the assassin was after you. We've had quite the journey, haven't we?" Menyoo pauses to chuckle, lightening the mood before continuing, "I forgive you. Like you said, we're partners. And now we are going to save people who are in need, and become stronger and wiser in the process. Both of those things I would be left out of if not for you. If you feel bad, just remember that feeling the next time you consider lying to me. If you do that, all is forgiven."

Mill's mouth opened at some point toward the middle of Menyoo's response, and stayed open for a few seconds past. Impressed, Mill nods eagerly and says with enthusiasm, "You really have grown considerably since we have started. I don't think I could have said it better if our roles were reversed. Thank you Menyoo."

The conversation returns to the topic of the mission. Mill commends Menyoo on his force push during their escape from D.G.'s tomb, and assures Menyoo it is a good start to reclaiming his place within the force—a goal Menyoo has begun to care about considerably more since the four of them first set off for Xagobah together. Menyoo asks in turn what Mill thinks is the reason D.G. failed to balance the light and dark side, and further why D.G. thinks Mill has a better chance than he did. Mill's only guess is that it might be easier to implement dark side teachings into a light-side user's belief system, than it is in the reverse. The two of them discuss the topic, providing theories back and forth. After a few turns hypothesizing, Menyoo remembers what D.G. did for them—before attempting to kill them—and suggests eagerly, "Why don't we find out! We can read Sith now remember!?"

Menyoo scampers over to Mill's bag, but Mill tries quelling his enthusiasm by saying to Menyoo as he turns his back away from him, "Don't get your hopes up too high! That may have only worked in the cave."

Menyoo paws through the first book he picks up. Hunched over Mill's bag, Menyoo turns his head at a slight angle toward Mill, causing a couple of his neck tendrils to drape over Mill's book, "I can read every word."

Mill stares steely at Menyoo, then asks with crude astonishment, "Seriously?" He rushes over to Menyoo's side, hurdling over the bag Sbeit left sitting between the bunks. He leans over Menyoo's shoulder and reads over the first few lines of the book: The methods recorded in this manual are not intended for, nor recommended to, any young practitioners of the dark side of the force. An instructor should be well-versed in these arts, and use this manual only as a referential guide, or if fate so insists, as a historical relic of the past containing secrets of tremendous import. Mill looks to Menyoo, whose expression reads a level of excitement matching his own. Mill pats Menyoo's back and says, "We had best get started."

Mill pulls out the other two previously indecipherable books and begins reading through the first title: Sith Ruminations. Menyoo continues reading through the book in his hands: Sith Techniques: From Master to Apprentice—the same book that contained the instructions for bleeding a lightsaber. For the first hour of them reading separate, Mill only makes it three pages into his book on account of Menyoo constantly calling him over to read through the details of one atrocious method or another. Menyoo closes his book after their fourth hour of reading; he is convinced the book contains no relevant information, only gruesome advice and appalling methods for any form of torture, brutality, or sadism the imagination could conjure, "No wonder the author put an advisory note on the first page. Nobody should ever read this, much less do anything it says. This is terrible. No wonder why the Jedi hate the Sith so much. Anything good in yours?"

"So far, I have yet to understand a single thing the author has written."

Menyoo tilts his head with confusion, "but you can read the words, right?

Mill answers through a few steady turns of his head to convey his frustration, "Yes, I can read the words, but I still don't have access to his vocabulary. Or, how he uses it more like. And the material is so dense. I need other writings from the author, and a lot of time. I have read through some dull Jedi writings before, but nothing so… ugh, I don't know Menyoo. If you want a shot at it, by all means. Otherwise, I think this is a project for another day. Another month probably."

Menyoo snickers, "too much ruminating huh? Well I'll pass. Besides, I think the important one is the one neither of us have yet to look at." They both turn to face the copy of From the Light Births the Dark. "I would bet that book has the answers we are looking for."

For the next sixteen hours, save an hour long nap a couple hours in, the Jedi read through the final Sith book of their collection. The book does exactly what Menyoo had predicted, and Mill was hoping for: answer many of the questions still looming regarding the relationship between the light and dark side. After a sluggish introduction, and several chapters discussing ideological differences between the light and dark (a subject they read about at length in D.G.'s second manuscript,) the center of the book, about a hundred pages in, confirms for Mill a theory he had discussed with Rancisis before leaving Coruscant the last time, regarding how the Sith convert Jedi to the dark side:

The conversion of a Jedi is not an act of dark beguilement, and no Sith should treat it as such. The turning of a Jedi is an act of nature, and as we belong to nature, so must our decisions. The Jedi act unnaturally by denying their own nature—that of sensuous connection with the predicate of cause and effect, the gears moved by the laws of nature itself. They undo their own teaching by withholding from this connection, and act against the very nature that is their own. Their self-inflected asceticism heightens their susceptibility to the dominant sensations of nature. The role of the Sith is not to force nature's will, but present it to a Jedi; then one may cultivate this will, nurture its growth, and direct the resulting excess locked away by their ignorant teachings. They found their own undoing by forcing an unnatural spirit on their own kind, and from this spirit, the rot imbedded within their organization will consume the Jedi from the inside out. To enable the escape of nature's will, free it from their self-oppressing grip: this is the method for turning a Jedi.

Mill rereads the passage aloud, having acknowledged it as a key section in the text. Menyoo mutters a few of the words under his breath, before saying with varying confidence, "So, it is about emotion. We were, well, you were right. It's the fact that we never learn to control our emotions that pushes us to the dark side. Or, it makes us susceptible to it. And if the Sith are in hiding, this may have been happening for the last thousand years and we wouldn't know. That's scary to think about."

Mill huffs and says with a bewildered grin, "This does resonate closely with what I have said in the past, but this is still quite new and distinct. I mean read it. It instructs the Sith to do nothing to turn the Jedi. Let our own teachings lead us astray. They just have to make us emotional, and we fall into their hands just as easily."

Menyoo chimes in, "Yeah, then we do the horrible things that I was reading about earlier. What a big change."

Mill stares down at the book for a few moments before continuing off of his earlier statement, "This is still from a Sith writer. We cannot completely trust it, but it does make sense. A lot of it does. Why D.G. went insane included. Why we are more capable of balancing the force. It's because he is trying to control emotions that he has let run rampant his entire life. He fed off them for power. It grew to fit his needs, but he became dependent on it, like an addiction. The Sith aren't any better, but they are right, this could destroy the Jedi order from the inside out, just as it says, if it hasn't already. And maybe has before."

Mill's earlier confusion is passed onto Menyoo, who asks with his eyes half-closed, "Uhh, Mill what do you mean by that last part? You think it has happened before? The Sith destroying the Jedi?"

Mill replies with clipped assertions, "Nothing, I'm not sure yet myself. We have been up far too long. I need to sleep on this. If you don't mind, we can finish reading this tomorrow."

Menyoo artfully makes a sound to express a kind of satisfied exhaustion before slipping a page holder into the book and retiring to his bunk. Mill had already retreated to his after suggesting they rest, and within minutes the pair are fast asleep. They nearly sleep through the entirety of the next day. Menyoo wakes up first. When he comes to, TC, who is stuck into the wall on the opposite end of the ship, notices, "Good day sleepy!" TC drops to the floor of the ship and waddles over to the front of Menyoo's bunk, "We will be at Axxila in about six to eight hours! The time however is circumstantial. If I can find the entrance to the lower lane leading into the D'Astan sector—"

—"Thank you droid, you had best look for that lane then. Carry on." Mill says with unintentional attitude while groaning from his bunk. TC-26 does a little curtsy-squat, then climbs up into the cockpit to continue navigation. Mill lowers his head back into his pillow.

Menyoo turns his head sideways to face Mill's bunk, "That was kind of rude. I know he's a droid, but he was letting us know our arrival time. Which if you did not hear, will be about six to eight hours. He got us there in record time."

Mill lifts his head back up out of the head-shaped socket he formed in his pillow overnight, and says to Menyoo with more clarity than before, "six to eight hours? Oh, that is no good at all. We must have been out for some time. We still have quite a bit of that book to go."

The jedi get up and prepare for another long day. Starting with their hygiene, then some food, they chat as they get ready for their day of studies. As they talk, Mill and Menyoo get lost in conversation, slowing down on their routine chores to focus on the subject at hand. Their work ethic continues to dwindle until an hour later they find themselves sitting cross-legged on the ground facing one another. Mill finds a beat up set of cards in Sbeit's bag—a set Sbeit uses for missions that require impromptu gambling—and lays out the cards in the space between the two of them, "So how about it, a couple rounds of Go Fish?"

"Go what?"

"You're making a joke, right?" Menyoo's face crinkles further with confusion. Mill exclaims, "You've never heard of Go Fish!? Wow, the Jedi did mess us up. I used to play this with my dad all the time when I was a kid. But this game is universal. Intergalactic. I'm telling you, everybody has played this before, no matter where they're from. It's really simple…" The rest of the day continues on in a similar tone. The two Jedi play games and share stories from their past; Mill tells Menyoo about some old adventures from his Jedi Knight days, and Menyoo shares some fresh stories from being a Padawan. The duo waste away the next seven hours, until they hear an all too familiar call, "We are here!"