The Great War begins. The water textures here, however, are not great. Everyone has departed from Mishelam and we're back on the Courageous II. We're getting ready to have the strike teams take down the Salt Pales, and then the Courageous II will charge in once the barrier is down. But first, we have some requests we can take care of while we're on standby in addition to cryptids and Magic Knights appearing.
Then the finale's title pops up: Scattered Petals, Dying Flames. We have no required members for this part, so we'll let the randomizer do its work. It gives us Rean/Laura/Elliot/Musse/Alisa/Ash/Sharon. Not bad. I get notifications that the situation in western Erebonia has changed completely, and I can also explore Stargazer's Tower. Oh, and Millium has a Brave Order available if Jusis is in the party now. Then we get a call from Thomas saying that the final volume of the Black Records has been deciphered. It's basically a summary of Cold Steel IV that tells us that the ending is unclear, so thanks for that!
Let's explore the Courageous II first. We have three new requests, one in Alster from Sandy, one about Alan from Bridget, and a wanted monster request. I come across a conversation between Gaius and Mueller about Kevin, saying how he was involved in both the Liberl and Crossbell incidents. I guess I can count on him showing up in Azure then...! I opened the map and it looks like literally every location in the game is available to me now, although not all of them have new content. Sara, Towa, and Michael bring up Vice Principal Heinrich, and Sara echoes my thoughts in that this is the first time I've even thought of him in forever. Perhaps the biggest shocker here is that Rean actually said something bad about someone (even if he did quickly follow it up with a "benefit of the doubt" statement). Towa's also a little on edge because she realizes the conclusion of this operation will mean the perma-death of Crow, for real this time.
Victor and Roselia have an interesting conversation talking about the original Arseid, named Shion, who witnessed Lianne Sandlot's resurrection. He apparently got to experience these memories because of his time under the control of the Gnomes.
