The next chapter begins with everyone pondering the implications of everything they just witnessed. If anything, this has (cold) steeled Rean's resolve to go through all these Rivalries. Although now that I think about it, if Dreichels was known as the Lionhearted Emperor and Osborne is Dreichels reincarnated, wouldn't that make Rean the Lionhearted one since he literally has Osborne's heart inside him? We've learned that the Palatinate Knight (Rutger) is at the Draco Shrine in Sutherland, and the Argent Knight (Arianrhod) is at the Stella Shrine in Crossbell. We decide to face off with Rutger first since he's closer. Turns out Towa wants to tag along for this part, but we don't have any required party members for this part for once. It sounds like we aren't actually fighting Rutger today, which is why Fie isn't mandatory, I'm guessing. Anyway, the randomizer gives us Laura, Emma, Gaius, Kurt, and Tita. Not bad.
Towa's Brave Order will be available to us now that she's traveling with us, and we can use Celine's Brave Order when Emma's in the party, too, so that's helpful. We can visit Ordis again now as well. Now we've got some new sidequests to do, as well as some bonding points to spend. Our options are Sara, Musse, Gaius, Towa, Laura, Kurt, Alfin, and Celine. The natural omission is Celine, but we'll see! The requests are from Kaela, Munk, and an extermination request for Lake Gala's very own Gallie! Wasn't expecting that to show up just as a sidequest. We've also got an optional sidequest from Valerie to help Louise and Tatiana to search for some communications "noise."
Might as well go ahead and do the bonding events I'm sure I want to do, so we'll start with Sara. She wants to try to visit her adoptive father's grave again, hopefully with fewer zombies this time. Governor Regnitz gave us the flag from the naval fortress to lay on his grave. They decide to...burn the flag and it makes all the black Pleroma Grass disappear. All right then. There honestly wasn't much to this scene, but we maxed out the bond, got our second heart, and got a new profile entry, so I guess it all worked out!
Looks like we can do training exercises now. The level 1 fights are pretty easy, as expected. Actually, looking at it, Celine's profile is already maxed out, so I don't have anything to worry about with her. I guess I can just move on to using bond points on everyone else! So next up is Gaius. They decide to pay a visit to Bardias. They have a sparring match that ends in a draw, so they decide to have a joust with horses, which Bardias wins handily. Gaius realizes he had become so focused on becoming a member of the Gralsritter that he'd lost sight of who he was as a citizen of Nord. He challenges Bardias to a rematch and holds his own this time. Pretty good scene, and we get a new profile entry!
Alfin received a letter with the seal of the royal family calling her out to the Heimdallr field exercise camp. My curiosity is piqued by what this could be. My guess is that it's from Cedric, and I was right. He wants Alfin to leave the Courageous II and go into hiding with their mother so she can be safe. He doesn't think she can make any real impact by being on the frontlines because there's nothing she's doing that can't be done by someone just as capable, if not more so. Cedric appeals to Rean's big brother instincts, and he can't exactly refute him. Alfin acknowledges that she's felt powerless lately, but most of all for letting Cedric become what he is now. He cares more about power than he does about his own family. With that, Cedric leaves in frustration and Alfin is emotionally spent. Good scene, and that maxes out Alfin for me as well!
Next up, Kurt has a letter of his own from Mueller. There are some family matters he asked him to take care of, so we head to Parm. Mueller is waiting for us at the family training hall. It turns out he found Roland Vander's other twin sword. Mueller is willing to let him have it if we can beat him in battle. He sees the relationship between Rean and Kurt as similar to the one between Dreichels and Roland Vander, but Mueller isn't going to let his brother die young. Unfortunately, we don't actually get to fight him, but we prevail nonetheless. I do wonder if this scene is different if you don't go with Kurt to find the first sword. Regardless, we can now change the appearance of his swords in the menu, like with Jusis, so that's cool.
Oh hey, I can play Pom Party against Tita now. It takes a couple of tries, but I beat her. Anyway, moving on to Laura, she wants to finish up her trying on Bryonia Island in case the time comes when we have to fight her father. Shortly after arriving, we somehow trigger the arrival of the thing we fought in the Old Schoolhouse. They think the shell of the Sept-Terrion in some way activated it. Since we're in some alternate dimension, we can't summon Valimar or the other Class VII members, so Rean and Laura have to fend it off themselves. Unfortunately, this also mostly done offscreen, although we do get some barebones presentations of their S-Crafts. Afterwards, Laura confesses her love for Rean, and I'm thinking someone on the staff was a big Rean/Laura shipper and I'm glad this person exists.
Huh, I just noticed that even with an extra bond point, I've got three to choose from between Towa, Musse, and Celine! Unless there's a way to get two extra bond points this time around. Then I trigger a sidequest with Maya where she confronts her father. Turns out agreeing to help this time means going straight into it! He challenges her to a contest of marksmanship with a sniper and a spotter. Rean will be Maya's spotter, and naturally, Lechter's just hanging around to be the spotter for her dad. Fortunately, it's just a series of three choices.
