But soon, a whisper of the Living Force called to Sifo-Dyas. Gently, it brought his contemplations away from the darkness in the Unifying Force that was overwhelming Dooku's mind. Slowly, Sifo-Dyas separated himself from the detailed vision of the future that Dooku's charisma helped him weave. Carefully, he guided Dooku back to the present moment, away from the ominous possible future that Sifo-Dyas saw even more clearly than did Dooku. However, when he asked Dooku to join in a simple reharmonizing meditation that he had learned in his time on the Jedi Council, Dooku struck out viciously against him, loosing an unexpected bolt of Force lightning coursing through Sifo-Dyas's body and knocking him to the ground.
Sifo-Dyas staggered back up gingerly but dismissed his friend's discharge of dark Force energies as the price paid by an intrepid explorer of the gathering shadows. He gripped Dooku by the shoulder, which sent a small residual charge through both of them and directed Dooku's attention back to Sifo-Dyas. Sifo-Dyas complimented Dooku on the results of his explorations. He felt the truth of Dooku's assertions that the Chancery was at the epicenter of the dark Force emanations. He also agreed that at least one member of the Chancery must be a Sith, as only a Sith could generate such intense, pervasive, and pure dark side energies.
Nevertheless, Sifo-Dyas questioned the wisdom of continuing to use such a broad search strategy that obviously carried risks of its own, pointing along his body to the lingering wisps of smoke from Dooku's unbidden Force lightning attack. He wondered if the Living Force might have been a better tool to use at that point. Surely, with only a few candidates to choose from, it would be easier to use the Living Force to discern them one at a time than to ride the increasingly dense and impenetrable dark Force currents through the Unifying Force back to their mountingly nebulous source. It seemed to Sifo-Dyas that the effort necessary to squeeze additional insights from the Unifying Force would exact too high a toll on Dooku. Indeed, he believed that it threatened to devour wholly Dooku's tenous balance in the Force, to tip him completely to the dark side of the Force.
Dooku, having recovered quickly from the shock of having nearly unintentionally electrocuted his friend, felt his rage build. He stormed at Sifo-Dyas's intimation that he was not proceeding in the most optimal way possible. His wrath frothed at Sifo-Dyas's questioning of his use of the Force, despite Sifo-Dyas's impassioned protests. His very blood boiled at how Sifo-Dyas's suggested course of action mirrored the foolhardy strategy offered by Qui-Gon what seemed a lifetime ago now.
Dooku's implacable fury caused Sifo-Dyas to back away. In vain, Sifo-Dyas pointed out the dark depths in which Dooku had submerged himself, the ways in which they had limited and perverted his behavior, and his inability to recognize the damage he did – even to his friend, just minutes ago. Regretfully, Sifo-Dyas walked away from Dooku, convinced that Dooku was on a dark path that would lead only to ruin.
As he departed, Dooku's desperate pleas echoing in his ears, he opened his mind one last time to feel the turmoil in Dooku's mind, to try one last time to steady it. He was knocked to his knees by the barbarous red-tinged visions of hooded figures, myriads of white-clad figures, limbs lost, and a burning temple, throughout which a raspy voice rang and cackled mercilessly, a distortion of one that was somehow familiar...
Sifo-Dyas closed his mind abruptly and rose from his knees slowly, shaking his head as his footfalls cascaded through the empty senatorial hallway.
As Dooku relived the simple head shake that conveyed more disappointment than an hour's worth of heated invective ever could, his keen senses detected the otherwise imperceptible shake and shimmy of his ship's exiting hyperspace. Master Sifo-Dyas would soon pay the ultimate price for his desertion that day.