Not long after, back in the Phantom again, the Jedi were exiting hyperspace. This time, though, all three of them were there, and they were going to Lothal. Ezra smiled at the sight of his homeworld. It had been a while since he had been here.

Kanan and Ezra had told Anakin that they knew of a Jedi Temple to visit, but they hadn't told him where. When they exited the Phantom and stepped onto the surface, Anakin grinned at the teenager. "Home, sweet home."

"Yeah, it's nice to come back," he admitted, leading the way to a tall stone structure. He kept walking until they came to a circular engraving in the ground. "Here it is. If you and Kanan stand here, you can use the Force to open the temple."

"I can't," Anakin shook his head.

"Why?"

He looked up at the stone, smiling fondly. "I've been to this temple before. If what I remember is correct, it takes a master and an apprentice to open this place. Kanan isn't my Padawan, but you are his."

Stepping back, he held an arm out to the temple, inviting them to open it. Ezra turned to his master. "Alright, then. Kanan?"

He nodded, and the two of them raised their arms. Reaching out, they called to the temple, concentrating and asking for entrance. The temple seemed to recognize them, like a host who had once let them in his home. The stone rose and shook, turning slightly as it ascended out of the ground. Ezra and Kanan kept their concentration, knowing that was what would allow them to enter.

Ezra couldn't help but take a peek once he thought the temple had risen enough, though. To his surprise, the door from last time was passing the entry point. "Hey, where's the door going?" He looked to Kanan for answers, but his master was still concentrating, so he followed suit.

When they pulled back a few moments later, the door that stood before them was unfamiliar. "This is new," Ezra remarked, staring at the designs around the frame.

"Well, new problem, new door," Kanan reasoned before turning back to Chopper, who was still by the ship. "Chop, stay here. Keep an eye out."

The three Jedi walked toward the entrance, and Anakin felt the sense of the Force wash over him. It had been months, maybe even a year, since he had a chance to visit an old temple like this, so it wasn't often that he felt the Force so concentrated or so thick in a single area. He was used to being the strongest source of the Light Side at any given moment, so the sensation was strange yet calming.

This feeling increased the further they ventured into the temple. Anakin wondered if Kanan felt the same nostalgia. The familiar architecture seemed to rise around them, almost as if it was protecting them. Walking to the center of the room, the three of them looked around.

Anakin noticed that Kanan seemed a bit more on edge than he did. He must be focusing on something else, he reasoned, some other feeling. He might have asked about it, but the temple door began to close behind them, leaving with no way out of the room they were in.

He thought for a moment. Kanan and Ezra said they had heard Yoda in this temple before. Anakin wasn't jumping at the opportunity to speak with Yoda again, but it was somewhere to start. "How did you contact Yoda?"

"Well... he kind of contacted us," Kanan confessed, shrugging.

"I thought I was dreaming when I first heard Master Yoda's voice," Ezra remembered.

"And I was meditating."

Nodding, Anakin looked around. "Meditating is better than standing around looking stupid," he pointed out, making the other two laugh as they all kneeled on the ground.

As he closed his eyes, Anakin felt welcomed by the temple. He didn't know what the other Jedi were experiencing, but he felt the same way he had sometimes felt after returning to the Coruscant temple after a long mission. He had made a habit of visiting Jedi temples he had found over the years when he could afford to make a detour, but this one had been out of his reach for quite some time. It always felt the same: steady, strong, secure—the way the Jedi Order used to feel before Anakin got older.

Kanan wanted to focus, but after a while, a light was blinding him through his eyelids. He looked up, past Anakin and Ezra, and saw a room... of sorts.

"I see a doorway," he announced, keeping his eyes trained on it.

Ezra looked around, trying to see what his master saw. "I don't see anything," he said, worried.

Anakin shrugged. "I believe him. Normally, seeing things isn't a good thing, but all bets are off the table in temples like these."

Standing up, Kanan focused on his door, not wanting to lose it on accident. "Last time we spoke to Master Yoda, we were split up. Maybe this is my path alone," he pondered, walking to the light.

"Be careful!" Ezra warned him, but his master wasn't worried.

"Don't worry, I wouldn't do anything you would do," he teased, smirking over his shoulder. After a second of hesitation, he walked through the portal, leaving the other two.

Ezra blinked. "Where did he go? He just disappeared."

Anakin turned back to the center of their broken circle. "Who knows?"

The two sat in silence for some time before Ezra ventured an inquiry. "You knew Master Yoda," he suggested, and Anakin answered him without opening his eyes.

"At one point or another, he taught all of the Younglings in the Temple." He remembered some of his own lessons with the Grandmaster.

"Kanan described him to me," the Padawan went on, and Anakin opened his eyes. "Small, green, and wrinkly with pointy ears..."

Anakin smiled. A pretty accurate description, at least physically.

"...but he didn't know what he was really like."

"Nobody did," Anakin assured him, thinking of how to best explain. "Even the closest people to him didn't really know him as time went on. He changed a lot during the Clone Wars, and when it started to close, I began to lose trust in him. He was good at what he did, but I couldn't bring myself to agree with all of it."

When Anakin opened his eyes, though, Ezra had disappeared. He wasn't surprised. These temples were more thickly woven with the Force than the Coruscant temple had been. Instead of worrying, he closed his eyes and rested on his knees. Ezra would be okay.

He focused on connecting with the temple again. It felt like it was evaluating him, a feeling Anakin had become familiar with on these types of trips. This he could handle, but the lingering aftertaste of judgment and superiority, that was the part he still struggled with. Despite the nostalgia that comforted him, the feeling that he was being looked down upon by people he used to trust reminded him of the rift that had once existed between him and the High Jedi Council.

Like with Yoda, Anakin has found that his beliefs and values had diverged from the classical beliefs and values of the Jedi Order. This temple seemed to sense it too. It respected Anakin as a Jedi, but the Jedi Way of old and Anakin's way were hardly comparable. Though his history was rooted in temples like these, his future was no longer in them.

Anakin found that he was okay with that. With his experiences during the Clone Wars, he felt valid in his reasons for his distrust. Part of it was Sideous' influence on the Council, and part of it was the corruption that came with being tied too closely to a government. Now that neither of those factors was an issue, Anakin had changed, but temples like these preserved the old nature of the Jedi in temples like these. That was part of why they were here. They needed to learn from past accomplishments and mistakes to prepare for the future.

It was still hard knowing that he didn't trust some of the Masters he had learned from as a child. It wasn't a matter of personal taste or preference; Anakin was mature enough to set that aside. In fact, if it weren't for some of his fond memories with them, he wouldn't feel bad at all. He liked (most of) them, and he knew they were experienced and had done their best to lead the Order as they saw fit. He wished he could agree with their actions, but he couldn't when he saw the consequences that came from it. They were all partially responsible for the fall of the Jedi Order, but the Council was most of all. They should have seen it coming. They should have done something to stop it.

The only reassurance he had was that at least in their death, they were able to rest. They didn't have to live with the reality Anakin and Kanan and Ezra were facing. Maybe they had allowed the Order to fall, but in doing so, they had created an opportunity for the Jedi to start over. Like all the other survivors, Anakin was free to pick his own path now, free of the corruption of the past if he so chose. He mourned the death of the Order, but he had hope for the remnants that were left. Most of the Order hadn't lived long enough to face the consequences.

Minutes passed, and Anakin's breath slowed until he was truly at rest. He knew every corner of this place, every crevice in the wall. He found rest in a way that he had not been able to for years, ever since Order 66. The Force that flowed through this place was comforting and brought back memories of safety, years where war had no place in his life. A warm wind flowed past him, and he smiled. It was wonderful.

...why was wind flowing in a room with no open doors and no windows?