Ogiga99

I don't think he knows about Phenomenon Intervention specifically. Azrael just retains his true memories since he came from outside the Embryo and therefore knows that everyone else lost their memories when they don't remember him or knows that they are illusions created by the Embryo when they act completely different. He's similar to Rachel except he voices his opinion on the subject more and doesn't seem to know the exact cause of the situation. The way I see it there are three ways in which Ragna could be "the origin." One is that he becomes the original Black Beast (the Black Beast appeared in 2099, the day before the beginning of the time loop so the Black Beast in the Dark War is always the same one made from a Ragna/Nu fusion). Two is Ragna's role in the Time for Decision. By going back in time to Phase 0 of the Dark War, Ragna established the events of the Dark War as fact. Regardless of whether or not he saved humanity, his actions solidified that version of the Dark War as the one and only possibility and prevented any other outcome. Three is that the person who became known as Ragna the Bloodedge requires Celica's death to even exist. If Terumi didn't attack the church, kill the older Celica who raised Ragna and cut off his arm, then Ragna would never become the SS Class Criminal who possessed the Azure Grimoire. Basically Celica's death is like how Bruce Wayne's parents have to die for him to become Batman. This explanation in turn covers the other two, since he couldn't do either of those if he never gets the Azure Grimoire and attacks Kagutsuchi. I don't think it changes anything since she calls Ragna's wish (living with Jin, Saya and Celica in the church peacefully) a stupid dream. In fact, she says that because that wish can never be granted, "that girl" (Celica) was dragged into it. This would point to the third theory, that Celica needs to die for the Ragna we know to exist, making his wish a paradox (much like Makoto can't have a world with Noel since Noel prevents her from wishing for a new world). I don't think it's so much that Amaterasu doesn't care about certain people getting a happy ending so much as it's that she can't undo everything to make a happy world. In the Story of the World the beginning of the story is set in stone so The Girl tries to change the ending. The Time for Decision means that even Amaterasu is powerless to change anything before the Dark War, since those events are fact (and in turn the events that led to Ragna going back in in time in the first place, i.e. Celica's death, cannot be changed). Even Amaterasu and her ultimate Phenomenon Intervention can only create causality that is possible based on the actions someone is likely to take. She cannot just erase Terumi and Relius because that is not possible and she can't stop them from doing their evil plans because they will always want to do that and their is no event she can Intervene on that will change their goals. In CT she made Noel the Successor of the Azure to Observe the True Ending as fact so that the time loop could end because the True Ending was good enough to let the world continue (it's the only time Kagutsuchi isn't nuked by Take-Mikazuchi and everyone dies). Do we know for sure that the way Celica and Tenjo would activate the Lynchpin are exactly the same? Tenjo has the additional factor of Phoenix: Rettenjo. Nine made the Rettenjo as an alternative to plugging in Celica so at the very least I would like to believe she made it so it could prevent the whole "being conscious while your soul is slowly drained away" part. Even if Trinity could use Muchourin theoretically, that was impossible given the progression of the plot. By the time they were ready to use Kushinada's Lynchpin (and learned that Tenjo's soul was inside the Rettenjo in the first place) all the Cauldrons were flooding the world with seithr and absorbing the souls of everyone on the planet and Take-Mikazuchi was poised to destroy the Master Unit. Trinity didn't even know about Tenjo since she was part of "Operation Kill Terumi" at the time. At the moment everyone is gunning for Playable Noel, not Amaterasu (Jin and Izanami explicitly confirm this in Noel's Act II Arcade). Whether or not Amaterasu is responsible for keeping Ragna around or not is unknown (his existence is solidified and his survival may or may not have been a condition The Girl felt was needed for a good ending to CT) she definitely seems to be pinning her hopes on him. Of course the problem is The Girl in the story is pinning her hope on the Hero and Rachel pretty clearly told the Story of the World for Ragna's sake (and he compares himself to the Hero in that he can only destroy, not save) so having Ragna not be the Hero seems odd.

Terumi cannot be Unomaru. For one thing they have completely different motivations and goals (Terumi believes the world is nothing but despair and should either by dead or filled with only the despair he believes in while Unomaru wants to save the world but believes the only way to do that is to remove free will by using Phenomenon Intervention to prevent anyone from doing anything violent or evil). Also how would Unomaru have previously been in the Susanoo Unit (which Clavis would therefore have only acquired less then 50 years before the Dark War) or gained all of the knowledge on Magic, Alchemy, the Boundary and everything else in such a short time (especially the Boundary since the second Unomaru opened it he was killed by Sechs)? I find it hard to believe someone could give Naoto the Hunter's Eye since the eye itself chooses the leader of the Terumi Clan. It's not just a genetic trait, their is only one (at least at a single time). Also, one of the rules of both kinds of Chronophantasma is that they are immune to Phenomenon Intervention. We've seen Ragna get intervened on many times. Naoto was also subject to Phenomenon Intervention in BE and I think CF but I'm not positive on the second one. Phase Shift Ragna seems very different since his traveling there is the Time for Decision. He essentially sets the history of the Dark War in stone by going back meaning he makes it so he does belong there, in fact his presence becomes irrefutable fact. In general Boundary time travel isn't seen as weird or out of place in any case except Naoto (Nine, Terumi, Hakumen, Platinum/Trinity, Jin etc.).

Can someone give me more details on all the Tsubaki/Izayoi stuff we've learned? Like what Toxin45 about "special quotes", does that mean pre-battle quotes, which are of questionable canonicity with mirror matches (in CP Hazama looks at himself and wonders "what's gonna happen"), or can they face each other in Arcade Mode? The second one might be confirmation. Also is that Act I or Act II? If it's Act I than one of the 2 could be a fake projection of the character and not the real deal. For Axiomatic, I'm assuming you mean their general attitudes in Arcade Mode are different, but all that proves is that only Izayoi has her CP memories, not that they are physically separate people. Unlike with Noel and Mu or Hazara and Terumi there is no good reason for the split so until I can see a summary of their Act II Arcades and how they deal with her meeting Izanami twice I'm going to stick to the Izayoi Act I -> Tsubaki Act I -> Tsubaki Act II -> Izayoi Act II theory I mentioned a while ago. Minor nitpick but Drives being a manifestation of the soul's power comes from Bloodedge Experience, not XBlaze (the Drives developed by Unions are completely different). Any possible relationship between Ragna Naoto and Touya does not fit into any type of Chrono Phantasma we know of. None of them are a time displaced clone like Celica and they do not exist outside of fate like Rachel and Noel. The fact that Naoto has a clearly established natural birth (the Hunter's Eye is a hereditary trait of the Terumi Clan) makes it hard for Touya to have a role in his existence. A Drive isn't someone's soul, it is the power of a soul manifested physically by accessing the Azure. This is important because it means a soul's form reflects the nature of the Drive. Naoto's soul has a body to manifest Bloodedge and Ragna has to have a soul in his body to live and for the scarring of the soul you mentioned so they can't be a pair like that. Granted it's possible that somehow it is the same soul in different times (considering Ragna recognizes Bloodedge and my personal theory has been that Ragna has Bloodedge as his true "soul" Drive since Soul Eater comes from the Azure Grimoire) and the mystery guy in BE suggests that something like this might be the case but it's a strange case. One thing that confuses me is Touya's Drive. He can manipulate his blood to create weapons like Naoto, however Touya's Drive is never explicitly named Bloodedge. We don't see enough of Touya's Drive to know if it works exactly the same as Naoto's (all he does with it is copy Murakumo) so they might be similar but different Drives like Silpheed and Tempest. Es isn't a Murakumo Unit and isn't the 0th Prime Field Device. The 0th was believed to be built by Relius (way later than XBlaze) and had a very different purpose from Es. The Murakumo Units are Boundary Interface Prime Field Devices which are designed to explore the Boundary. Es is (or was) a Manifest Boundary Contact Prime Field Device, which sounds similar but is completely different, whose purpose was to inherit the Embryo. Kiiro is a third kind knows as a Dimension Boundary Contact Prime Field Device but we don't know what her unique purpose is besides that she has a Murakumo form similar to Nu, Lambda and Mu. Whether Es and Kiiro's kind of Prime Field were prototypes that would eventually lead to the Murakumo Units in BlazBlue is unknown.

I find it a bit difficult to see Celica becoming the new girl in Amaterasu and creating the world she wishes for. Specifically because this isn't the end of BlazBlue, just Ragna's story. If Celica creates the world then I suspect it would be all butterflies and rainbows which would make it hard to continue the plot. Honestly I just think Mori wanted to create the ultimate anime/video game plot, with literally every element that includes. The cast is made up of every kind of character you could think of (vampires, catgirls, cyborgs, slime monsters, ninjas, robot girls, werewolves, magical girls, mad scientists, ghosts, mages, gods etc.) with every trait and trope included and in some cases seem like they were assigned by pulling them out of a hat. It has the most intricate and convoluted plot imaginable with time travel, paradoxes, alternate timelines, time loops, multiple versions of the same people, rewriting reality and people trying to become god among other things. It also seems determined to reference and take ideas from anything and everything it can. It's no surprise that the plot starts to mirror other things and it has similarities with way more series than just MSG. Not that I know of. However there is one that I found back in Act I that I managed to translate with my limited knowledge of Japanese which I think is very interesting. When Hakumen defeats Naoto he says “That arm… that evil power… impossible, is that the Dark One!?” (the line in Japanese is “Sono ude… ,magake chikara… bakana, Kuroki Mono datou!?” so if I'm reading it wrong let me know a more proper translation). What this means is that Hakumen feels the same kind of evil power from Naoto's arm (almost certainly the blood arm and not the artificial one made by Relius) as he does from Ragna, specifically the power of the Azure Grimoire and the Black Beast. Considering the fact that Ragna recognized Bloodedge, activating Bloodedge mirrors Ragna's appearance after he got the Azure Grimoire and that the mysterious guy with an obsidian black arm who gives Naoto the limbs made of black fog (which has always been linked to the Black Beast) in BE2 looks like Ragna, this could be a hint that the Drive Bloodedge has a direct connection with the Black Beast (heck Touya also has the power of the Black Beast and his Drive is the same as Bloodedge, although it's never named). Thoughts?

I don't think Amaterasu can effect the Embryo. Ever since it came to the real world in CP it hasn't take any action suggesting it has a limit to its Intervention. Furthermore the Embryo isn't the world of "Her" memories. The Embryo is essentially its own world, made with the purpose of remaking the world from the beginning. While the Amaterasu Unit might be able to prevent the Embryo world from completely rewriting her world, it cannot do anything about the world within the Embryo itself, which can only be shaped by the Entitled and the Azure. Killing Noel definitely appears to be a necessary step to destroying the Master Unit but the exact reason why is unclear. Again, Amaterasu seemingly can't reset the Embryo so Noel needs to be killed first. The world can exist without Noel since she's died in several timelines, was born late into the time loop and didn't survive Ibukido in some Phases. Izanami wouldn't send everyone after Noel at the moment if they had something like a Life Link since Amaterasu is, as far as we know, still protected by the Tsukuyomi Unit, meaning it cannot be destroyed yet.

The girl in the Master Unit. When Rachel says Izanami is "Her" Drive, she is doing so to explain why even Izanami cannot otherthrow "the will of she who nobody is higher than in existence" which is the Amaterasu Girl who created the world. Sourenga subtitled this as "Superior Entitled" but that seems incorrect to me since that term only applies to Noel and when Izanami uses it in Carl's ending she actually uses the word "Entitled" that time (not positive if I'm writing it correctly but "shikaku sha" is the equivalent word used in Carl's but not Rachel's). Also Izanami has existed since before Noel's creation but cannot survive without "Her".

Regarding your disagreement JustaMaskedFreak, Amaterasu wouldn't be the one undoing the deaths in the Embryo, Playable Noel would. As far as we know, Amaterasu has no power inside the Embryo since it is not the world she created from her memories, Noel is the Absolute Entitled who is keeping everything the same by denying the other Entitled of their wishes. Noel is can die because she is the source of the distortion. No distortion means no Embryo resets so people could die. Now that I think about it however, I might be wrong about no one dying. Noel's resets seem to be her running away from responsibility (like how she purged Mu) which is why she rejects any change and just keeps everything the same. This would suggest the inclusion of no one being able to die but I'm starting to think that there are limits to this. The number of characters who are currently either slowly dying or have some sort of time limit is huge (Ragna's existence is being overwritten by Naoto, Rachel is weakening and doomed from interfering, Litchi and Arakune are being corrupted by the Boundary as usual, Platinum is unstable without Trinity and Terumi can only last a week without a vessel) so it's possible that the Embyo resets have limits (namely healing Saya's body). I'm fairly certain that there is a reason why Izanami can't just kill Noel/Mu besides her being lazy. Note that the same applied to Nine who, unlike Izanami, is not the type of person who will sit back and let others do her work for her. If Nine could kill Noel then she would have burned her to a crisp in seconds. My personal guess for why they are sending the Entitled after her is that killing Noel has to be done by an Entitled for some reason. Neither Nine nor Izanami seem to be Entitled so it's possible that they cannot do it. BlazBlue's plot has always revolved around creating as many situations as possible that are impossible to solve by "just shoot [insert person here]." We've had Life Links, time loops, continuum shifts, Phenomenon Intervention and several other reasons why everyone has to take like 10 extra steps before they can accomplish their goal or kill someone so this is probably the same situation. It's been established that while killing Izanami is impossible (since she is "death"/The Girl's Drive), destroying her host body, Saya, is doable. In Hakumen's ending Izanami says that Hakumen is trying to defeat her over and over until her vessel reaches it's limit. However, because Izanami is "that woman's" antonym she cannot be destroyed (since she doesn't seem to know that she is The Girl's Drive I assume she means she cannot die because she is the death that is a natural part of the world created by the Amaterasu Unit). From Kagura's ending we know that she can basically make attacks pass right through her. In Ragna's ending he makes it clear that she let him stab her so it's likely that she can "turn off" her immunity from damage due to being "death" (or at least make it not protect her body). Notably there are certain characters who can flat out hurt her against her will though so it's likely that her immunity is limited. We've seen that Relius can wreck her and she is on the ground looking defeated while Rachel is standing over her in their fight, suggesting Rachel actually won.

All Izayoi says in Act I is that she could remember everything because of the Zero-Type Izayoi, not that she transformed into Izayoi, meaning it could that (for some reason) there is one Tsubaki in Izayoi form and one that only has the Sealed Weapon Izayoi. The annoying thing with this is that Izayoi's story seems to occur first. In Tsubaki's Arcade she refers to Nine as Phantom and Nine wonders if it was memories from Izayoi. Since Izayoi first refers to Nine as Phantom before Nine properly introduced herself and didn't know about Nine before that, the only way to interpret Nine's line about "memories from Izayoi" is that they are memories from being Izayoi, not the Sealed Weapon Izayoi protecting her. This could also fit with Jin's statement in Tsubaki's arcade that even the wielder of Izayoi can't escape the effects of the Embryo, the Zero-Type Izayoi only protected her for a certain amount of time but eventually she reverted to normal and lost her memories. Aside from this or them being separate there is no way to explain how Tsubaki's memories work. Act II is the most confusing part since they both have stories and I don't think she's able to just switch forms at will in the Embryo. Either she started as Izayoi and reverted to normal in Act I then went through Act II as normal before becoming Izayoi again or they would have to be two separate people to make sense of this. Like with Nine there will also be the problem of encountering Izanami twice (unless one of them has a different final boss) and probably not mentioning it. Of course it's also possible that when she becomes Izayoi, Tsubaki's true memories completely overwrite her Embryo ones so she wouldn't remember any encounters she had in her normal form. Knowing the details of Act II seems like the only way to clear this up.

The Embryo happened. Kagura lost all his memories of CP so he doesn't see her as an ally. Hibiki simply arrested her because she opposed him and the NOL. On a different note, do we know if Tsubaki and Izayoi are the same person or if they've split? All the other cases of two characters being the same or sharing a body are now separate people (Noel/Mu, Lambda/Nu and Hazama/Terumi) so I'm wondering if it's the same here. We don't have summaries for either of their Arcade modes so I'm not sure if it's been confirmed or not and Act I seemed pretty vague on it?

One tiny thing. In Nine's fight with Kokonoe you have Nine say she hates her parents (plural) but the kanji for parent used (at least I think I have the right kanji, it's small and blurry) can be singular. Nine only hates her father and, going by Watashi, she loved her mother, who died when Nine was young and was not insolent and egotistic (she acted pretty much exactly like an older Celica). I think she's saying to Kokonoe that they are similar in that they both have hatred towards parents, not that they hate their parents (small difference but important) so the line would be something like "I also hate a parent. He (my father) was insolent and egotistic." Now I could be completely wrong since my knowledge of Japanese is limited so feel free to tell me I'm an idiot if that's the case, but this seems to be a situation where the language's ability to skip specifying whether a noun is singular or plural and not assign he or she to subjects is confusing and context sensitive. Personally ever since we learned there was someone in the Master Unit I've just called her "The Girl." This is because it is the name Rachel gives for her equivalent character in The Story of the World. It is still a very vague term but it sounds more natural then "Her" and I still am confused as to whether we are positive she is named Noel. If we have to call her Noel, since I seem to be in the minority when it comes to questioning this, perhaps we could use something like "Amaterasu Noel" or "Master Unit Noel" to specify we are talking about the girl inside and not the unit itself. Thoughts? I don't mind it in this case since Mu became her own character. Essentially there are now two characters. Mu has accepted Godslayer power but struggles with the fact that she possesses the part of her that hates the world and wants to destroy everything and the Noel who has rejected that destructive impulse. I would argue that while Noel accepted the power of Kusanagi, she only suppressed her hatred of the world. Once that returned to the forefront she rejected only that side of her and the Godslayer powers leaving with it was just a side effect (I'm getting a very Persona 4 Shadow vibe from this). I also think her poor showing is the reason the two were split. Noel didn't do anything with Kusanagi since Mu was just a power-up so they split the two to give them each meaningful roles. Besides, just like Ragna's life is always doomed to suck Noel is doomed to suffer constant identity crises. At the moment it's unclear how direct the connection between playable Noel and the Master Unit is. However, Noel's Act II ending outright confirms that the playable Noel is the one who is denying the other Entitleds' worlds and keeping everything the same. The Azure shows her the future where people will come to kill her for the sake of their desires (although you hear people like Ragna, Makoto, Bang and Kagura who almost certainly won't turn on her so it's unclear if that is the absolute truth). At the moment it is impossible for anyone to actually die in the Embryo. In every recursion after the Master Unit appears in the sky and someone challenges Izanami, the world created by an Entitled gets undone (this is why the Master Unit isn't in the sky in Naoto's ending, it only appears after everything starts shaking and Izanami challenges someone and then disappears after Noel resets things). Izanami lets Ragna stab him in his ending because she knows it will not matter and will be undone. Nobody can actually die until the source of the distortion is destroyed so it would be impossible to kill Noel if the only reason Nine and Izanami wanted to do so was because she was a threat. It is confirmed that Noel is the source of the distortion so she needs to die before the villains can try to kill people for other reasons. On a completely different note, and something of a random tangent, something interesting but confusing stood out to me. Continuing the tradition of Naoto confusing members of the cast for BE characters (Rachel for Raquel, Nu/Lambda for Kiiro, Izanami for Saya Terumi etc.), he mistakes Makoto for Yuki Hayami. This is baffling because (from the description we've gotten of Yuki) the two don't look alike at all. Yuki has orange hair, isn't part squirrel and most importantly is his aunt and therefore much older than Makoto (at the very least in her mid thirties). However, there is one thing that might be important about this. Both Makoto and Yuki Himezuru (from XBlaze) are voiced by Tomomi Isomura. This could be another hint that Yuki Himezuru and Yuki Hayami are the same person. Of course if that's the case then it's likely that Bloodedge Experience takes place earlier than we might have thought. Since Yuki Hayami has a 16 year old daughter, and Himezuru clearly doesn't have a child in XBlaze, BE could take place in 2067 at the very earliest (I'm fairly certain both CE and LM aren't both done before the end of March), which would make Yuki 42-43 years old. Previously a lot of speculation suggested BE took place around 2090 due to how young Relius is during it and that age would make him somewhere around 40-50 in the present (which seems to fit with how he looks factoring in arriving in the main BlazBlue world in 2179). My issue with this theory is that I can't believe Relius managed go from mercenary as one of the Immortal Breakers all the way to a master of Science, Alchemy and even become One, leader of the Ten Sages, in such a short period of time. There is precedence for mages looking much younger than they actually are. Celica still looked very young even when she was the Sister and therefore over 90 years old while Zwei looks to be in her late twenties but almost certainly has to be over 35 to have mentored Drei and Kuon's mother (and probably significantly older to be so much more experience than them) so it is likely that there are advanced magic techniques that slow one's aging. Instead, I believe that BE takes place around 2070 since technology doesn't appear to have evolved much since XBlaze, TOi and the Mitsurugi Agency are still prominent and Mei is still very active. I apologize since this is kinda off topic but I wanted to get my thoughts out about it.

All Rachel says is that "no one can overthrow ["Her"] will" not that that she is the one undoing the worlds. Izanami explicitly tells the playable Noel that she is the source of the current distortion; that she needs to die in order for people to fulfill their wishes and everyone will come to kill her so how can it be the girl in the Master Unit that is resetting the Embryo?

Personally I've also always hated the term "True Noel" (hence why I tend to put quotation marks around it) and only used it because everyone else did and they recognized the term. However this is leading me to question several things. Namely even in Nine's story, the context of her saying Noel Vermilion does not line up with the Master Unit image (which appears in every ending, regardless of context, like how Act I ended with the close up of Nine's face). Nine is talking about the one who is creating and maintaining "this world" meaning the Embryo. The world in the Embryo is explicitly different from the one created by the Master Unit so Noel ruling the Embryo doesn't mean she is the same as the one in the Master Unit in any way except for looking similar (a trait she shares with like 5 other characters). After this information I think it's too soon to say anything for sure about the girl in the Master Unit aside from that she is another Saya clone (design wise).

Thank you so much for your hard work, Sourenga. After seeing these I feel like I understand things a lot better. For one thing, Noel's story confirms that people will be targeting her (the playable version) since she is the higher entitled that is keeping the world the same. So does this mean they never actually mention that the supposed "True Noe" is in the Master Unit? I can't remember if that was just from this or from another arcade as well. If that's no longer confirmed that throws a lot of things we assumed out the window since all we know for sure is that Noel is the one creating and maintaining the current world inside the Embryo, but not what created the original world.

Here. That article is the preview of Act III Zedar translated a few days ago. It had some new Arcade Cg's with it.

But that's not the one that people are targeting. Act I established that playable Noel was the higher Entitled that could override other people's wishes and we've already seen that Jin will try to kill her, so if everyone is going for someone it will be her. Furthermore the Master Unit is still protected by the Tsukuyomi, which none of the characters could possibly break through, so True Noel doesn't need Ragna's protection (at least not yet).

But that would still require Ragna and Noel to both decide to wait in one place for everyone to show up. Noel clearly won't do that since she has always proven to run off in search of whatever goal she has despite people telling her to wait somewhere safe. Therefore, even if Ragna were to follow her around to protect her, the entire cast would have to find the two when they are traveling all over the place, which I have just explained how implausible it is in my previous post (and even then there is no guarantee that Noel won't run off while Ragna is fighting someone). Ragna is supposedly trying to "release the 'possibility' from the world" that is being distorted by the Central Fiction. From what I gather this "possibility" is the same thing Rachel and Amane mention, the possibility that humanity can choose a better path that will not lead to destruction. I have no idea how exactly he will release it, and therefore allow it to come true, but I highly doubt just sitting their guarding Noel is the answer. Noel is at least partially responsible for the situation he is trying to end. However what he is doing is different from the other Entitled who are trying to kill her so that they can make their own desires reality. It sounds like Ragna is supposed to take a third option aside from letting Noel infinitely reset things or kill her and create a new status quo that will eventually end up in the same situation and I simply cannot see how he can accomplish this by only guarding Noel.

I think Ragna being the image is the final nail in the coffin for a single Act III boss. Consider this, if everyone is gunning for Noel then why are they going to all fight Ragna. Everyone wanting Ragna's Azure Grimoire was the plot point of Act I (and barely anyone actually found him to fight for it), so how or why is Ragna going to fight the rest of the cast. The description implies he will be doing his own thing, so I don't see him sitting down to become Noel's guardian. Furthermore, the reason we've ever been able to have unified bosses is because said boss characters waits in one place for everyone to reach them. Nu is born at the Cauldron below the NOL branch that people would go to, Hazama was waiting for everyone at the Monolith atop the NOL branch, Nine was watching everyone from the Phantom Field and was either found by others or brought them herself and Izanami either waits for people to challenge her or brings them to her in a few cases (namely Naoto). All of these characters basically sit and wait for the cast to come get them. Ragna and Noel on the other hand are off trying to do their own things. I find it impossible to believe that with them searching for things, everyone will conveniently be able to run into them as a final boss. This is the same setup as CP, with everyone trying to search for various things and running into different people as a result, so I think we are going to get the same formatting as well. Personally I would prefer that since it is more interesting and doesn't rely on the ending having the exact same dialogue each time and I believe the current CG's support this theory.

While we don’t know a lot about Act III, what we’ve seen leads me to believe that people are going to try and kill the Noel Vermillion that’s already playable, not the “True Noel” in the Master Unit (if they even have a singular boss character at all). One of the images shows Kagura protecting Noel from Jin. Jin is one of the few characters who know for a fact that Noel is the cause of the distortions in the world (he saw it from the Azure whereas others just have to take Izanami’s word). Now why would he attack this Noel if “True Noel” is supposed to be his target? If Jin knows to kill Noel and most of the cast are just told “kill Noel Vermillion” (with no mention of “True Noel”) then logically the current Noel is the target everyone will be gunning for. In Mu’s Act II Arcade Hakumen stops attacking her because there are certain steps to take before he can kill her (and the same applies to why Izanami’s death won’t stick). Now what these steps are is unclear but they seem to include killing playable Noel. Us getting a CG of Jin trying to kill Noel means that scene is either after the second-to-last or last fight. If killing Noel is a goal everyone has, then that makes her the most likely candidate for a unifying boss (if there is one). Otherwise most characters will have two of their fights locked by a unifying boss character (having to fight Noel first then “True Noel”) and I can’t see them limiting the story that much. Furthermore just from the CG’s we’ve seen everyone seems to have a lot of distinct fights. Whereas most of the previews for Act II show snippets of the desired worlds, the Act II ones show people fighting (Izayoi vs. Hakumen, Lambda vs. Relius, Amane vs. Valkenhayn and Rachel vs. Naoto) which suggests they all have unique final fights like with CP (also it would fit the previous games’ pattern, two games with united goals ending with a boss character and then a third where everyone starts doing different stuff and fight character’s relevant to their individual stories). Oh they are definitely not done as the main threats, they're just done as a unifying Arcade boss. There presence in the console story will still be present. The previous boss characters (Nu and Hazama) continue to be major villains to this day so Nine and Izanami have not really been beaten at all. The implication I've gotten is she wanted to tempt everyone by having them create their desired world but then have to watch it be "lol nope'd" by Noel so that they will try to kill her. As for what people will do, they seem to fit into five general groups. 1: The "definitely won't kill Noel/will protect Noel" camp which consists of Ragna (doing his own thing), Rachel (wants to preserve the current world), Tao (said she would protect the person trying to keep the world the same), Makoto (will NEVER betray her friend), Kagura (we've already seen him protecting her in the preview), Celica (refuses to kill someone for her desires) and Naoto (promised to find a way to save everyone if I remember correctly). 2: The "probably won't kill Noel" camp which is Bang (I can't see him taking an innocent life but I am a little bit on the fence for him since killing her would save Tenjo and Homura), Tsubaki/Izayoi (at least I think so, she's probably learned her lesson about trying to kill Noel and is too focused on Ragna), Amane (chooses to believe in the possibility like Rachel) and Kokonoe (doesn't want the Azure). 3: The "might want to kill Noel" camp which is Litchi (after CP I wouldn't be surprised by any action she takes to try and save Roy, no matter how drastic), Carl (similarly he will take very drastic measures to save Ada), Mu (she seems to be the part of Noel that wants to destroy everything and deep down wants to kill Noel), Valkenhayn (he might go to such lengths for Rachel's sake, even against her wishes), Platinum (they are pretty unstable and going through an identity crisis that could lead them to try to fulfill their wish no matter the cost), Bullet (she really hates the current false world and sounds angry enough about learning of the higher Entitled that she will probably go through with it) and Hibiki (Zedar described it as his killing intent being at max when he learns Kagura will be executed and as an assassin he would kill her). 4: The "definitely will try to kill Noel" camp which consists of Jin (we've already seen him trying to kill her in the preview), Arakune (wants to become a god/the Black Beast and whispers Noel's name over and over when Izanami tells him to kill her so he will try to do it), Hakumen (same as Jin with wanting to destroy the distortion in the world and he tried to kill Mu in Act II), Nu (goes crazy and screams that she will in Act II since she'll kill absolutely anything that gets in the way of her fusing with Ragna), Relius (wants to destroy the Master Unit and make Ignis a new one to create his ideal world), Nine (obvious, she wants to destroy the Master Unit and make a world for Celica) and Izanami (she's the one telling everyone to do this in the first place). 5: Everyone else who either doesn't fit into one of these categories or I don't know what they will do. This group is Noel (for obvious reasons), Tager (I don't think we've got his Arcade translated yet so I'm not sure), Lambda (no idea since she doesn't know about Noel being the head Entitled but she might do it to protect Ragna), Hazama (he sounds interested in the "True Noel" appearing and he's an enigma at the moment but he probably does want her to die eventually), Azrael (doesn't care about Noel or the Azure and just wants to fight a god) and Terumi (he wants to use the Successor to the Azure for some reason so he can't kill her yet). I could be wrong about some of these but that's where I think everyone stands.

Nine probably couldn't have copied it because the only Causality Weapons she found were Izayoi and (possibly) Take-Mikazuchi. However now that I think about it is possible that his Ouroboros wasn't true because it was a weapon without it's core. We have seen Nox's can be used without cores and can even be created before they become Nox's in the first place (Nirvana in PS2 is not a Nox and works autonomously and both Okami and Musashi work without cores). It's possible then that Nine took the Ouroboros he used against Tomonori and upgraded it with a core, which would also explain why she gave him the same type of weapon. Perhaps that Ouroboros is from the future and somehow lost its core due to the trip through the Boundary or it is a weapon that Relius made and Kazuma had with him that wasn't a Nox Nyctores yet. On further reflection I actually think your theory might be stronger than I first thought. I'm starting to think it was in 3. Aside from seeing that Hakumen is wielding a sword that looks the same as Okami (which is different from the one he had in Phase 0) there is no mention of any of the Nox aside from Nirvana, which is not a Nox yet, in PS2. Nine also doesn't even start explaining the Nox until PS3 chapter 1, so it's likely that the others hadn't gotten the weapons yet since they hadn't questioned what they were. I do believe I remember either Zedar or VermillionBird showing that quote so it is likely to be a translation from later but I can't find it. Zedar, if you could confirm that for me I would greatly appreciate it. I feel like your mixing together a bunch of things with the infinite discussion. For one thing their is not an infinite amount of Hakumen's since there are a finite number of time loops (at minimum 725). A Hakumen sacrifices himself once per time loop so if a new one does indeed appear each time it has a limit. Second, we are discussing two different infinities. There is the Boundary itself which is infinite space and the infinite possibilities/realities which are more along the line of multiverse theory. The Boundary connects all of time and space together so there is only one of it (not including Litchi's Personal Boundary theory which sounds like something else entirely) but that one Boundary has no limit to its size since time and space do not exist inside it (or at the very least it is so ungodly massive that it is impossible to properly navigate aside from focusing on a specific destination to leave it or find the Master Unit inside it with the Eye of the Azure or its Discover Call). As for the entirely separate matter, Terumi observing all the possibilities of the Continuum Shift, there are two possibilities. One, magic did it (he says magic is awesome when questioned by Takamagahara about it but it might just be a case of it letting him process all that information or find all those possibilities like with Nine looking throughout the Embryo). Whether he is talking Phantom's magic or his own magic (confirmed in Library mode and the version of Mind Eater he used on Nine being the magic one) is unknown. Two, the possibilities are not truly infinite. In truth the Continuum Shift's possibilities are limited in scope, taking place in one city, only happening over a course of a few days and only revolving around the actions of about 20 people. We also don't know what constitutes a different possibility. The reason the multiverse is truly infinite is because of the billions of different choices made every second, so technically there could be two universes where everything is exactly the same except in one Ragna chooses to blink one second later than the other. However, due to the nature of possibilities of the Continuum Shift being tied to Phenomenon Intervention, which selects a possible timeline by making certain people's choices or actions either "exist" or "not exist", it is possible that there is a finite (although still insanely huge) number of realities that can be Observed, Terumi can just see as many as the Master Unit can (which can Intervene on any phenomenon) whereas Takagamahara is limited to only using Phenomenon Intervention on (and thus Observing the changes to) world changing events. Also there doesn't seem to be infinite Terumi's. While what he is exactly is a mystery, the fact that he is a spirit is very important. He needs a vessel, and either an Observer or people to hate him to stay anchored in the world, meaning he is not a proper part of the world (much like Hakumen is a projection of his real body in the Boundary). The fact that he is not tied to any world suggests that he can travel to any world in a linear fashion (notably he is able to remember the different time loops/possibilities while not being an Observer, which means he is immune to Phenomenon Intervention through some other means). When Terumi tries to fuse with Hazama in his Act II Arcade, he says he cannot because of the body Trinity materialized for him. Time Killer didn't do anything to his physical body, it was supposed to destroy all of the "time" the target has left (in other words the inherit limit of how long it is supposed to exist). While Terumi needed a physical body for Hakumen to be able to hit him with the attack, the attack is against Terumi's spirit directly. However Terumi survived by Observing himself, not to give himself a body, but to anchor his existence. Basically Time Killer says "you're not supposed to exist anymore" but he's countering by saying "screw that, I still exist because I can say that i still exist" (basically "I think therefore I am" taken to it's literal conclusion). In the past he Observed himself as a being with a physical body (and when he did he was coughing up blood after a short while because he couldn't maintain making his own body) whereas now he is using it to keep himself alive by acknowledging that his spirit still exists (and he has a full week to do it) so they are very different circumstances and have very different repercussions. Ultimately, all Observing does is acknowledge that whatever is being Observed actually exists. The world is being Observed by Amaterasu which is saying "yes, this think actually happened." Arakune and Hakumen are similar. Rachel and Kokonoe are Observing Hakumen by acknowledging that Hakumen existing in the real world with a physical body is fact and Kokonoe is Observing that a being called Arakune still exists to prevent the goop from fulling returning to the Boundary like it's supposed to. I don't think Rachel is being tsundere. We've seen tsundere Rachel many times and she acts nothing like this (her trying to pretend she's not upset when she's sees Ragna eating with Platinum, her anger about Ragna getting flustered by Noel's Mu outfit in Mu's CP Arcade, despite causing the situation in the first place, and in MANY of the joke endings, which still fit her characterization even if they might not be canon). Rachel looks and sounds like she's legitimately pissed at Naoto and wants him to die since he's threatening her Ragna.

You don't sound disrespectful at all. By all means question me to your hearts content. Regarding Ouroboros in CP, I don't think we ever see them explicitly use Ouroboros at the same time. Hazama doesn't fight when they are split so as far as we know only Terumi has it (while he does stab Platinum, that was most likely with his butterfly knives since he has to charge into shanking range). It is entirely possible that the Edge is filled with Hakumen's and only one is active. However when it comes to Terumi acquiring one, you are forgetting two things. One, the Edge and the Boundary are different. Terumi can travel through the Boundary easily but he got trapped in the Edge until Takamagahara busted him out, so he can't come and go as he pleases (and even if he could, since the Boundary and Edge are infinite, there is no way he could actually reasonably search for one much like how Kazuma is lost). Two, Terumi seems to no longer have access to his spirit form in CF. Trinity's body is his spirit materialized, which is why he can't fuse with Hazama, so he lost access to his method of travel (and even if he could he has to risk not being able to get back into the Embryo, if he can even leave at all, and has to worry about the strain of Observing himself). Ragna seems to be a unique case. When we see him return, he only seems to have experienced one loop so the Time for Decision that happens in Phase 0 seems to transcend all the Phases and become fact. CP Ragna comes to the Dark War from outside the time loop so he only goes back once, whereas Rachel and Terumi were inside the time loop so they appeared over and over in each Phase. It's still possible however that the same rules as Ragna applies to Terumi and Rachel or even with all Boundary interaction and only one of each thing actually exists but who knows. Side note: we have never gotten confirmation on Ragna returning with Blood Scythe. The "he takes the sword and jacket from the CT Ragna inside the Black Beast" theory is the best we got. We do see Ragna wearing the jacket in Phase Shift 3 and 4 illustrations which supports this. Maybe once it's translated we'll know if he was wearing it as soon as he popped out of the Black Beast. Not sure what you mean by displacing because this is different from the Embryo. There is no current Terumi to replace because the Terumi that goes back in time (physically or mentally) is the only Terumi. It's the same with Ragna. We also do know that travel through time via the Boundary can bring physical objects since we see it with Ragna and Jin. I don't think the Tsukuyomi was necessary for the trip since the Wheel of Fortune Jin, Makoto, and Relius have made the trip just fine on their own (all that's needed to survive a trip through the Boundary is a strong soul, while Sankishin or being a Prime Field just seem to be a bonus). Terumi's ghost form seems to be a really good method of travel so he could easily do better than Ragna (who still suffers memory loss). I feel like I might have missed a couple of your points on time travel (as I don't have experience with the references you provided) but in general that has always been confusing so I apologize. I'm afraid I have to disagree with you about and older type of Ouroboros. If as you say about Terumi not bringing anything with him is true, then how could he acquire this other Legacy Weapon/Causality Weapon version in the first place? Terumi returns as a spirit, meaning he has no physical body until the moment he fuses with Kazuma, at which point he already has Ouroboros so there is no way for him to physically get it. Additionally, the Legacy Weapons in XBlaze are one of those things that share names and have vague similarities but ultimately have no direct correlation to each other (look at Lux Sanctics Murakumo being an armor as opposed to Vow Crystal Seal Blade Murakumo just being a sword), so the odds of one called Ouroboros, if it exists, looking and acting the same is slim. Similarly, having two spells with the same name does not make having two of the same weapon any more likely. As for Causality Weapons, I don't think it's confirmed there is an original Take-Mikazuchi. Nine's explanation is very vague and she never directly mentions Take-Mikazuchi once she gets into the details. All she says is that she revived Causality Weapons after discovering Izayoi so whether or not she revived a previous Take-Mikazuchi or created and abandoned it is unknown. Basically, there are a lot of things that share names but have very little actually in common so I'm skeptical about two completely different versions of it being made. I've searched through everything that's currently been translated from Phase Shift and can't find the scene where Terumi receives Ouroboros to confirm what he says about it being different (I believe what you're saying is true since I've heard other people say the same thing but until I can read exactly what it says I'll withhold judgment about it).

Ouroboros in general has always been weird. Terumi had it as soon as he fused with Kazuma but Nine gives it to him after putting him in Mind Eater. In theory Terumi should have hundreds of Ouroboros's, since he would logically get a new one in each time loop, so who knows. One interesting thing is that Terumi uses his Ouroboros very differently and it always has that green energy around it. That might mean he's copying the power of Ouroboros like how he replicates his power as the Black Susano'o in his Astral. It's also possible that a copy was created when Trinity made a new body for Terumi with Muchorin or it might just be another case of "the Embryo did it" like with Noel being separate from Mu or Lambda having her own Murakumo.

Actually that is different. Hazama still has his hat on in the victory animation. In CS and CP it's Terumi with the spiky hair after the attack finishes. Kudos to the development team. Also thanks for the find Calamitus.

Spiky hair and everything? Damn. I'll understand and excuse it if Hazama and Terumi do find a way to successfully fuse in Act III or the console version since there would be no reason to put in the effort for new animations that won't be needed permanently but I'm still a bit disappointed.

Not sure if this is explicitly story related but has anyone seen CF footage of Hazama using The Serpent's Unholy Wrath (the Distortion Drive introduced in CP) or Hungry Darkness of 1000 Souls (his Astral)? Both of those moves have him go into Terumi Mode but Hazama and Terumi are now separate people. I know gameplay and story don't really mix well but I'm curious if they took the time to update the moves accordingly or not (they did take the time to change things like him getting the SIx Heroes theme so they do seem to care about that to some extent).

I’m not sure where you get there not being a focal point from, since there is a very clear one. The focus point is that everyone wants to create a world that grants their individual desires and are searching for the Azure to create the world they wish for (and later have to kill Noel because she keeps pulling rank on them and screwing them over). Act I introduced the worlds that people want to create and sets the characters off on their journey to make them a reality, Act II is the search for the Azure and killing Izanami as the supposed next step, while Act III will supposedly be the Noel witch hunt. The fact that it was split in 3 means it was allowed to breath more and let Nine set up the quest for the Azure and to defeat Izanami since, unlike with searching for the Azure Grimoire, no one would have any idea what they were supposed to do otherwise. Also I’m not sure what makes you think CP had a uniting factor in Acarde Mode, since that was WAY more segmented than anything in CF. You bring up Celica and Kushinada’s Lynchpin as the focal point but both of those rarely factored in Arcade Mode (heck Celica only appeared once in Hazama’s ending). Everyone was looking for something else (Ragna for Noel, Jin Noel and Makoto for Tsubaki, Bang for Tenjo’s legacy, Carl for Relius, Bullet for Kokonoe, Amane for Carl etc.) and they didn’t even have a proper boss character that most people fought. Besides, it is basically impossible to judge any form of story pacing for Arcade Mode since it always has been completely disjointed due to time loops continuum shifts and retcon wars without a way to determine what elements will actually stick.